The Knowing & Growing Garden will be easy to spot when you visit the Western Fair District this summer. It will encompass both sides of the Florence Street Tunnel and incorporate repurposed material such plastic culverts.

Thanks to our sponsor Libro Credit Union for making the garden possible and our friends at Fisher's Landscape Depot and FUAL for supplying much of the material that will be used. We look forward to watching the transformation and seeing the end results later this year!

A big thanks also goes out to Friends of Urban Agriculture London, who are assisting WFD’s grounds team with care and maintenance of the garden.

Are you excited about The Knowing and Growing Garden? Volunteer to be apart of the growth!

Click here to download our volunteer form

As part of this initiative and partnership with Fanshawe College, Fanshawe students will be growing:

  • Beefsteak Tomatoes 

  • Black Beauty Eggplants 

  • Dwarf Curled Scotch Kale 

  • Dwarf Grey Sugar Snow Peas 

  • Large Musselberg Leeks 

  • Straight Edge Slicing Cucumbers 

  • Sweet Cubanelle Peppers (Red and Green) 

  • Sweetie Cherry Tomatoes 

  • Yellow Golden Wax Beans 

  • Sunflowers 

  • Radishes 

  • Beets 

  • Green Beans 

To see some photos of the garden as it is progressing, please click below.

How We’ve Grown:
An update on the Knowing & Growing Garden 2021

We started a community garden in 2016, to teach the importance of urban agriculture to people attending the Western Fair District’s annual fair. The Knowing and Growing Garden evolved this year with the intention of teaching and interacting with the local community.

The Knowing & Growing Garden has entertained several groups this year, from kids to grandparents, teaching a love of the outdoors while donating amazing fresh produce to many community partners such as Growing Chefs, The London Food Bank and the St. Joseph’s Hospitality Centre. We hope to not only grow the garden next year with new community groups involved, but our offerings through existing partners will be expanding as well.

This year we hosted an Indigenous planting event in the garden following the guidance from indigenous community members to build our Three Sisters Garden. Youth from the Yotuni Social Enterprise joined us to plant squash, maize and beans in a healing planting ceremony. We will continue to work with our Indigenous community leaders to continue to grow this aspect of the Knowing & Growing Garden well into the future.

As we wrap up the Knowing and Growing Garden this fall 2021, we take pride knowing that this season was a resounding success, and we couldn’t have done any of it without the amazing support and creative thinking of our community partners. Libro, Growing Chefs, FUAL, Fanshawe College and Western Sustainability, have been the best supports a garden could ask for.

Thank you Western Sustainability for your help to clean up the garden and harvest the last of the fall crops before the start of the winter season.

We look forward to growing with the community once again in the new year.