Sad Conclusion & New Beginning for Carleton University Permaculture Garden

by Christopher Kelly-Bisson

Students at Carleton University concluded the 2013 growing season satisfied with their first successful harvest and excitement to get started again in the spring of 2014. Excitement was cut short, however when the gardeners learned that a new residence complex is to be built in 2014 at the current site of the garden. With dedicated resistance and public outrage, gardeners managed to secure a move to a larger, new site. The new site, however will pose significant design challenges for the operation of the garden.

The Kitigànesag [Algonquin: “little gardens”] GSA Carleton Community Garden began designing the garden in the spring of 2012. After extensive negotiations with administration for several years, graduate students managed to secure a contract allowing them to create a community garden on campus. The Graduate Students Association (GSA) decided to hire me to design and implement and permaculture community garden that would address food insecurity on campus, and secure student space on campus free from encroaching corporatization.

Students began construction of the garden design in the fall of 2012 and completed the garden by the beginning of the 2013 growing season. The garden boasted 20 raised garden bed garden plots–2 of which were wheelchair accessible; 6 in-the-ground perennial allotment garden plots terraced using discarded wood pallets; a garden for aboriginal students on campus; a single-guild, demonstration food forest; a sizeable compost; rain-collecting shed; and a 50 foot long hugelkulture bed. The garden was named by two local Algonquin elders at a ceremony opening the garden in October 2013, recognizing that it is located on unceded and unsurrendered Algonquin land. The garden was both a demonstration of small-scale urban permaculture, and a sacred decolonized space working towards reconciliation through education.

Not even a month later, in November 2013, gardeners learned that the Carleton University administration had planned all-along to destroy the garden in order to construct a new residence for students. The GSA and student garden community was never informed of these plans despite investing significant student resources and volunteer labour. When the community was notified about the plans it was immediately decided to pressure the administration to fully compensate any relocation.

In early December 2013 the GSA received word one morning that contractors had arrived at the garden, cut the locks, and began dismantling the fence. A swarm of students gathered at the garden and asked the contractors to stop. Students then proceeded to reattach the fence panels and attach new locks to the gates. That same day the Member of Provincial Parliament, Mayor and other dignitaries were on campus for the opening of the newly renovated library. Students saw this as a point of opportunity with a silent protest to express their concern of this brazen disregard for student space. Upon entering the library the students were barred from entering the event, and when they began handing out information pamphlets two students were forcibly arrested, and released without charge. The community also mobilized an e-mail campaign to express their outrage at the decision to destroy the garden. The Administration was reportedly flooded with hundreds of e-mails.

The GSA is currently in negotiations with Carleton University about the garden contract for the future site of the garden. Concerns have arisen however that the site is dark, and not publicly visible causing security concerns for gardeners. The site is also threatened by the invasive Dog-Strangling Vine (Cynanchum Rossicum), and sits within the yearly flood path of the Rideau River. While these site problems pose significant challenges to the new garden design, there will no doubt be a creative permaculture solution to report on at the end of the 2014 growing season.