MILTON – A group in Queens County has pooled their resources and dove into creating a neighbourhood community garden.
The Milton Community Association has started the Milton Community Garden, a place where anybody can sign up for a plot and grow their own vegetables, flowers or whatever else they want.
“We just realized that there was a need to create a space for the public to come and grow because not everybody has the land to grow a food source,” says Jessie Hatt, one of the group’s directors.
“I just wanted to create a safe space where if you’re living in an apartment and you don’t have land to do so, you can come over here, you can plant your garden, you can walk your dog in the dog park, and just create this whole community setting, and kind of make it flourish, like it used to when it was a pool.”
The idea for the project sprouted about a year ago, after the community group acquired the former Milton Centennial Pool when the Region of Queens closed it in 2024.
“Losing the pool was negative to the community, and this puts a positive spin back around on that,” says association vice-president Alex Gallagher.
They’ve had lots of support from businesses in Queens County. Mersey Seafoods donated 20 large plastic, insulated fish ice boxes to be used for each garden plot. Freeman Lumber donated two loads of wood chips to be used as bedding in each box, Philip Ingram trucked in a load of topsoil and Dave Hatt’s Auto Sales donated tools to be shared by the gardeners.
“That happened really fast and so it was the generosity of the community that brought it all together,” Hatt says.
They’re using the old pool house on site for storage for gardeners. And it also has power and water, so participants can hook up hoses.
And the group recently was awarded a $10,000 grant from Nova Scotia Power’s Grassroots Grants program.
The garden is open to anybody in Queens County for an annual fee of $20. Gardeners get their own plot with secure access to the fenced garden area.
So far, Gallagher says, up to 15 of the boxes are reserved. And they hope to get as many as 40.
Volunteers have spent time on the weekend getting the boxes ready for people to start planting.
Gallagher says that while each gardener is responsible for his or her own plot, he expects people will also help each other out.
“That’s kind of the value of this, because there can be camaraderie, work together. ‘Weed mine this week. I’m going on vacation. You know, the next week, I’ll look after you’ type of thing,” he says.
“Or if you see somebody that needs a little water, you could water theirs. It really has already brought people together, even just getting these totes in here at this early stage. People have come out and got to know each other and it has grown the community even at these early stages.”
Besides the community garden, Gallagher and Hatt say they’d like to do more work to freshen up the rest of the site, rejuvenate the basketball courts and possibly even add picnic tables.
As Gallagher says, “there’s room to grow.”
If you’re interested in joining the Milton Community Garden, you can join their Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/miltoncommunitygarden or email them at miltonhall168@gmail.com.
Hatt and Gallagher say that people can also get involved in other ways if they don’t want to grow their own vegetables. And they say they plan to have an open house in the next few weeks.
By Rick Conrad, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Original Published on May 07, 2026 at 08:03
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