The efforts to cultivate a Jasper community garden are close to bearing fruit.

Senior organizers with the community garden have picked a location, set up a community garden board and mapped out a path to becoming a successful group.

“The primary thing right now is looking to build a board. That will allow us to go to the province and other bodies for funding in the future,” said Janeen Keelan, a senior organizer behind the garden who has helped to organize a series of information meetings about the garden over the last month. The most recent meeting (perhaps the most important) was held on Tuesday (March 23).

While senior organizers behind the Jasper community garden say they now have a site picked out for the garden, there are several hurdles they must pass through before the location can be formally approved. First, they must get approval from the site owners to build and they also have to get formal approval from the Town of Jasper.

Multiple planners behind the garden said they believe both hurdles should be passed with relative ease.

They have also asked the Fitzhugh not to reveal the location of the garden so that they have time to plan and formally ask about the site.

“It’s an absolutely ideal location. It has everything that we need,” said Ursula Winkler, who spoke at the March 23 meeting about how to set up a community garden.

She said that she did not expect the garden to be completed for this spring and summer. Instead, she expected that some test plots and tilling for next year’s growing season would be the major developments this year.

Still, she said in her experience setting up and participating in community gardens in towns and cities in Germany, Canmore, Banff, Vancouver and Kimberley, the hardest part was always getting access to the appropriate land. If the Jasper community garden can gain and hold access to land in town, the project has accomplished a major goal, she believes.

Winkler has high hopes for the garden. She speaks of setting up film festivals in the garden about sustainable food issues. She wants to have children from the schools in town set up their own plots in the garden and work them with seniors. The fruits (and vegetables) of their labour can go towards home economics classes in school, soup kitchen style fundraisers or charity events in the community and a host of other things. Winkler said that she has even seen children with development issues go into gardening projects and really blossom, so to speak.

“There are so many possibilities here,” said Winkler. “I have seen these kinds of gardens really bring communities together.”

Overall, Winkler said she believed that eating organic food was important to the way we fuel and live our lives.

“The average piece of fruit travels over 1,600 miles to get to here,” said Winkler. “The chemicals on your average piece of fruit which are necessary to keep it alive during the trip... you can taste the difference with organic fruit. There is no longer this scaly thing on your tongue. It’s no longer waxed.”