Our First Sakaw Garden Newsletter
- Myrna Peters
- Apr 6
- 4 min read
A Message from the Community Garden Director
Welcome to Sakaw Gardens first edition of our newsletter, Sakaw Gardens News-Nurturing Community. I hope you enjoy this and every newsletter. Click Here to See April's Newsletter Edition!
2025 will be our 5th year of gardening, if you can believe that! It has been my great pleasure to have organized this Millhurst Community League garden project.
So as we grow into our 5th year, the newsletter contributors and I are excited to share gardening events, workshops, and news with you. Also, we want to get to know our fellow gardeners, share recipes, and highlight a veggie (or 2) each month.
Thank you to the contributors, (Cindy, Mattea, Jayce, Prabnoor, and myself), and Sangeetha, the Editor and our Publicity Director, for her time to prepare and send out this newsletter, and for igniting the idea of this newsletter.
This newsletter is intended to invite all into one circle of gardening, “Nurturing” our garden community.
I hope you enjoy reading along and that our newsletter reaches the garden community, within Millhurst and beyond.
We would love to hear from you, please send any comments or questions to myself at communitygarden@millhurst.ca or our Editor at publicity@millhurst.ca.
If you haven't had the opportunity to visit the garden, let me know, I would love to give you a tour!
In 2020, I put out a request for those garden minded residents in the community to join a garden committee. Although the committee has evolved a bit, I am very proud that we number around 14! That is incredible! Karen, Jill, Cindy and Jodi, thank you for your dedication since day 1.
Special thanks to Karen for being my right hand woman-she completed all the documentation and attended all City of Edmonton meetings with me, and submitted the federal grant which we were approved for, as well as many other duties. Jill, thank you for helping me price out all the items required for the garden build, and for all the time you put into all the grant applications you submitted, and I will add we were very successful with receiving grant funds. Cindy, thank you for your dedication as the Education Director. You have put so many hours into planning the workshops and presenters. Jodi, thank you for taking 2 volunteer positions-Garden Membership Director and Volunteer Director. And for reminding us that we need snacks at every event! I am so very happy with all the garden/volunteer minded folks that joined the committee since 2020.
In 2021, after receiving approval from the city in late May, we broke ground (shout out to Aspen Landscaping for the in kind donation). We worked the ground with a few rototillers and then a community resident offered a tractor to help work the land, which saved us days of rototilling. We then started installing the in-ground and raised garden plots. The volunteers worked hard to ensure the plots were ready for the 1st week of June. I was very proud we accomplished that, and that we had most of the gardeners in that week working on their plots. Almost 1000 volunteer hours went into that 1st year.
In 2022 (2nd year gardening), we hired a contractor to install a 4 foot high fence. Mostly to keep out the rabbits and dogs. We hired another contractor to install the pathways, and the area under the rain roof, and also dug out the dry creek bed. Another contractor built the rain roof and communication board. The volunteers and I moved alot of rocks to fill in the dry creek, we planted the trees in the orchard and outside the orchard, among many other jobs.
Our Historian at the time, Caley, created a video and posted it on YouTube under Millhurst Community League. Here is the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sH51yBSmIOU
We started planning our monthly/annual events like: monthly garden workshops, Seedy Saturday, Earth Day, and Stone Soup.
In 2023 we hired a contractor to build the outdoor shelter. We installed the picnic tables under the roof. We hired another company to install motion lights and cameras on each lamp post in the garden.
The community garden received an award from the “2022 Community Garden Award” from the City of Edmonton.
Other events we started: Christmas craft sale, Hoops & Hotdogs-every Thursday at 6pm.
In 2024 we took a break! Mostly because I needed a break! And we all enjoyed our gardens.
We did start discussing Sakaw Hall reno specs. We started our bokashi bucket & vermicomposting project supervised by Mattea, our Master Composter.
For 2025, we have a few smaller projects to complete. If you are interested in volunteering, let me know and I will add you to the volunteer list. I send out emails for work bees that you may be interested in and able to attend. I am excited to meet more community members this summer, and to see what 2025 bring us!
Sakaw Gardens has 35 plots (11 raised beds and 24 in-ground beds), 6 wheelchair plots, 1 school plot, 1 food bank plot, and 2 community plots). We have an orchard, a native plant area, a meeting area (inside the garden), with a rain roof, and dry creek bed to hold extra runoff from this rain roof. We extended the sidewalk from the playground into the garden to allow access for wheelchairs, as well as a huge outdoor shelter with 6 picnic tables.
~ Myrna Peters
Sakaw Gardens Community Director
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