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Welcome to Fort Calgary’s Community Garden 2009

The Community Garden at Fort Calgary
– Sponsored by Suncor Energy Foundation Since 2001

This year the award* winning vegetable garden at Fort Calgary will be in its 9th season! The community garden showcases what types of food plants can be grown in Calgary, demonstrates ecological gardening techniques, and symbolizes the historic N.W.M.P. garden that existed here at the Fort Calgary site. Produce from the garden is donated to marginalized communities in Calgary and the garden provides volunteer and employment opportunities for community members.

From 1885 to 1914 the North West Mounted Police grew a large vegetable garden at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow Rivers. The troop garden at Fort Calgary provided much needed produce after long winters and for many months of the year it produced all sorts of vegetables.

Today, our modern garden represents the garden that would have been grown here many years ago. We continue to use only hand tools to cultivate, have on display a functioning historic windmill, grow produce that is greatly needed, grow many types of heirloom vegetables, and practice growing crops in straight rows!

In 2009 we grew all types of fruits and vegetables with a renewed focus on producing varieties that would have been grown in Calgary’s market gardens circa 1910. For example, we grew “Hollow Crown” parsnips, “Danvers Half Long” and “Oxheart” carrots, “Crosby Egyptian” beets, “Canada Crookneck” and vegetable marrow squashes, “Ailsa Craig” onions, “Broad Windsor” broad beans, and “Black Alberta” barley, just to name a few.

Although not certified, we are exercising as many rules of organic gardening as possible. Our gardening techniques include; composting all garden refuse (this year we are using vegetable refuse from kitchens at Fort Calgary and The Deane House to make compost), mulching with locally and biodynamically grown wheat straw, feeding the soil with slow release fertilizers like kelp, rock dust, and alfalfa meal, and growing plants that attract beneficial insects and deter problematic pests. We are utilizing companion planting methods, experimenting with seed collecting, row covers and plastic cloches, and practicing annual crop rotation. We do not use synthetics fertilizers or any herbicides, pesticides or fungicides on site.

In 2009, our weekly donations of good quality produce to charitable organizations in downtown Calgary continued to be very important. This year we provided fresh produce to The Alexandra Community Health Centre’s Spinz Around Program, which in turn donated it, through a bag program, to people in need who live in the neighborhood. Our produce was also taken to the Salvation Army – Centre of Hope weekly for use in their kitchen, and we donated food to Awo Taan Healing Lodge – a family shelter in the South East of the city. Over the years, Fort Calgary’s community garden has donated thousands of pounds (in 2009 we grew and donated over 3000 pounds!) of nutritious food to communities in the immediate area – we believe this is regional food production and distribution at its best!

This past year Fort Calgary continued to provide weekly garden work experience to people with barriers to employment or for those who were trying to reintegrate themselves back into the workforce.

For more information about volunteering in the garden, please check our volunteer opportunities.

The site is also open to the general public during hours of operation, daytime, Monday to Friday, with the season running from Mid April to Mid October. Please come for a visit and see how the garden is growing!

For any additional information about the community garden at Fort Calgary please contact our Community Garden Coordinator at 403-290-1875 ext. 235.

* Best Community Garden 2004, 2005, and 2006 as well as Best Vegetable Garden in 2007 at Calgary Horticultural Society’s annual garden competition.

Vegetable and Fruit Varieties Planted at Fort Calgary 2009

Common Name Variety, Dating, and Other Info

Amaranth	Burgundy
Barley	Black Alberta
Basil	Genovese
Beans - bush	Black Valentine - 1897, very delicious, green or dry Early Mohawk -1865, dwarf, early, green or dry, originally grown by Iroquois, hardy Venture - early green bean Pencil Pod Black Wax - 1900 Stringless Green Pod - 1894 (Burpee’s), early, productive, popular for years Dragon Tongue - Dutch heritage, productive wax Pisarecka Zlutoluske - Hungarian wax, productive Refugee - 1900’s, canned commercially in Ontario, productive and early Royal Burgundy - open pollinating variety
Beans - pole	Cherokee Trail of Tears - pre-1838, green or dry Goldmarie Romano Scarlet Runner Blue Lake Purple Peacock Brown - delicious bean , early Mennonite Purple Stripe - origin Waterloo, Ontario productive, dry or green, early White Caseknife - 1700’s, very historic, Thomas Jefferson grew them at Monticello, v. popular in early American gardens, harvest young for green beans
Beets	Detroit - 1892, standard variety Bull’s blood - 1840, red leaves and dark red roots Golden - golden, yellow roots Crosby Egyptain** - old variety loved by market gardeners due to flat root shape Cylindra - long tapered roots, good for pickling Chioggia/ Bassano - pre-1840, Italian variety, early, white and pink stripes inside Lutz Green Leaf - green tops, huge roots that store well Early Blood Turnip - pre-1774, historic heirloom, tolerant of many climates, parent of Detroit beet
Borage
Broad Beans	Broad Windsor - 1700’s, Green Windsor - 1800’s Cambridge Scarlet - 1778
Broccoli
Brussel Sprouts	United
Buckwheat
Cabbage	Winningstadt - 1864, historic variety, heads pointed and very large, used for making sauerkraut, good for salad Premium Late Flat Dutch - pre 1840, late cabbage with flat heads, storage Early Jersey Wakefield - 1840’s, small pointed heads Red variety
Calendula	yellow and orange single
Carrots	Purple Dragon - purple carrot with orange flesh inside, more recent development Nantes Oxheart - 1884 Danvers Half Long - 1871, deep orange roots Red Core Chantenay
Celery	Red Stalk - 1700’s
Centaurea	Cornflower “Blue Boy”
Cilantro
Collards	Champion
Corn	Tom Thumb Popcorn and Orchard Baby sweet corn
Cosmos	Sensation
Cucumber	Lemon - a lemon shaped yellow cucumber, Australian origin, 1894 Beit Alpha Armenian (Cucumis melo) - old heirloom from Armenia, long fruit should be eaten young
Dill	self seeded
Flax	blue
Garlic	Softneck variety
Helichrysum	Strawflower Dwarf Double
Kale	Black/Lacinato Red Russian Lacinato Rainbow Kale Dwarf Curled Scotch Kale
Lavatera	Loveliness and Pink
Lemon Balm	standard
Lettuce	Deer Tongue - 1740’s, looseleaf, arrow shaped leaves Prizehead - 1873, looseleaf, green with red Simpson - bright green looseleaf ,1850 Mascara - red oakleaf, looseleaf Cimmaron - red romaine, 18^th century Gallego De Invierno - Spanish romaine Spotted Allepo - pre- 1731, ancient variety, introduced to Europe from Syria in 1700’s, spotted romaine Merveille des Quatre Saisons - pre-1885, French heirloom, butterhead, reddish green Mescher - 1700’s, butterhead Speckled - 1799, very old historic heirloom, butterhead Tom Thumb** - 1850,dwarf green lettuce, crisphead
Millet	Proso
Nasturtium	Jewel Mix
Onion	Ailsa Craig - 1887, large, non storage Australian Brown - 1887, yellow, storage Yellow Globe Danvers Red- Brunswick - red, non storage Evergreen Bunching Tropeana Lunga - Italian Heirloom
Parsley	Italian Flat Leaved and Curly
Parsnip	Short Thick
Peas (snow peas)	Oregon Giant Sugar Pea Chinese Giant Snow Pea Dwarf Grey Sugar
Peppers	Thai , Black Hungarian
Phacelia	green manure, attracts bees
Potatoes	Green Mountain - 1880’s Vermont, yellow fleshed heirloom Norland - red skin and white flesh French Fingerling - red oblong tuber with yellow flesh Red Gold - red with pink flesh Russet Burbank (Netted Gem) - white flesh, storage, heirloom
Pumpkin	RougeVif d’Etampes
Quinoa	Temuco
Radish	Cherry Belle French Breakfast**
Rosemary	Standard
Sage	Standard
Savory	summer
Spinach	Bloomsdale Longstanding** - 1826
Thyme	Standard and lemon
Tomatoes	Black Prince - Russian heirloom, dark red fruit with green shoulders, indeterminate Striped German - large yellow with red at base slicing tomato, indeterminate Sun Sugar - orange skinned cherry tomato, indeterminate Yellow Pear - 1800’s, yellow cherry, pear shaped, indeterminate
Turnip	Purple Top White Globe (Summer) – non storage
Squash	Gold Nugget - hybrid bush winter squash Autumn Cup - hybrid bush winter squash Vegetable Spaghetti - old fashioned variety Canada Crookneck (C. moschata) Vegetable Marrow (C. pepo)**
Summer Squash	Black Beauty Costata Romanesco - Italian heirloom, great flavour
Sunflowers	Russian Mammoth Fort Calgary branching variety
Sweet Peas	Grandiflora mix - fragrant heirloom mix Old spice blend
Swiss Chard	Rhubarb Red Flamingo Pink Fordhook Giant Canary Yellow Five Colour Silverbeet
Wheat	Red Fife Utrecht Blue

** indicates use in Calgary circa 1910