Trent Vegetable Gardens

This community-based research project evaluates the Trent Vegetable Gardens (TVG) and the effectiveness of their community outreach and educational programming. The current project is Part 2 of a three-part project, of which Part 1 was completed in 2016. The purpose of this project is to conduct an impact assessment of current educational programming at the TVG, which will identify strengths and weaknesses of the garden and ways to improve its experiential learning and outreach strategies. The methodology used for this research project consists of email surveys, which were distributed to past and present garden participants. Four groups of TVG participants including, community gardeners, regular/drop-in volunteers, workshop participants, and service placement students were surveyed and sent group-specific surveys. The purpose of the survey was to indicate by what degree TVG participants are satisfied with their experience and what they are looking to gain out of garden programming and participation. Overall, we found that participants were pleased with their involvement with the TVG and were enthusiastic about sharing their suggestions, which demonstrates the positive community dynamic within the TVG and the success of current programming. After evaluating participant feedback from workshops and other experiential learning opportunities at the TVG, we offer recommendations on how the Trent Vegetable Gardens (TVG) can improve educational programming within the context of their mandate. Our recommendations include new events and programming at the gardens, better advertising, and new partnerships. Part 3 of this three-part research project can apply our findings and conduct further research on key concepts.

This project was completed for Trent Vegetable Gardens [sic] by Chris Chang-yen Phillips and Corey Ferguson of Trent University (Trent) in cooperation with the Trent Centre for Community-Based Education (TCCBE), as required for The Canadian Food System: A Community Development Approach (ERST 3140) course. Under the supervision of professor Paula Anderson, [sic] Trent, this project's objective was to build on past soil fertility research of the rooftop vegetable garden located above A-wing on the Environmental Science Building of Trent University, [sic] Peterborough, Ontario.

"For our project, we were responsible for creating a website for the Trent's vegetable gardens. This is the outline for working on the website which is the only written part we were supposed to do aside from the website." [Pg. 1].

Aimee Blyth, the coordinator of Trent Vegetable gardens and student volunteers, are currently collecting rainwater in barrels to irrigate a small 1 acre garden at Trent University. Using this method, they do not collect enough water to irrigate the garden during periods without rain.