Indigenous foods garden in Cambridge sees growth

An Indigenous foods garden in Cambridge, Ont. isbroadeningits field and yield by joining the Cambridge Self Help Food Bank's community food garden.

Andrew Judge, co-ordinator of Indigenous studies at Conestoga College, has been building the garden at the Rare Charitable Research Reserve since the summer, in an area close to the food bank's community orchard.

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Judge's Indigenous garden now incorporates the orchard, which includes over 70 fruit trees.

"I wanted to plant Indigenous foods,I started that and [the food bank] had seen the promise in that and now we're all working together," Judge toldThe Morning Edition.

SiobhanBonisteel, thefood procurement and food development manager with the Cambridge Self Help Food Bank, worked with Judge to expand the Indigenous foods garden.

She says it was a good opportunity for the food bank to increase the amount of fresh food it gathers and simultaneously help support Indigenous communities in Waterloo region.

"The food bank and Rare is committed to doing some really meaningful work around truth and reconciliation," she told CBCNews.

"Indigenous food is a really wonderful underutilized, undervalued resource that the community should support.

Growing traditional foods

Judge hopes to grow a number of different fruits and vegetables that are traditional to the Hodinoshoni, such as corn beans, squash and sunflowers.

"Those will be accentedby some of our traditional medicine," Judge said.

He also hopes to grow wild plums, Saskatoon berries, artichokes, strawberries andraspberries.

The food grown at the Indigenous garden will be collected by the Cambridge Self Help Food Bank and go toward their meal programs.Adding more fresh productsto the food bank's meal ingredients will help improve nutrition, Judge believes.

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Local Indigenous groups White Owl and Healing of the Seven Generationshave also teamed up with Judge andthe Cambridge Self Help Food Bankfor the development of new programs.

"We want to create space for Indigenous communitymembers, who may not otherwise have the opportunity, to work on the land, to plant seeds, expand the space to provide not just for themselves but for the next generation," Judge said.