A new Climate Resilient Demonstration Garden is opening at the Canadian Centre for Climate Change and Adaptation in St. Peter’s Bay to teach Islanders how to grow food in hotter, drier conditions and show practical ways to adapt to a changing climate.

The Climate Resilient Demonstration Garden  will provide hands-on learning, showing small-scale, sustainable techniques for growing food, preserving it, and building self-reliance. The garden is funded through P.E.I.’s Island Community Food Security Program and will be open to the public once construction is complete.

Program manager Krystal Pyke says the goal is to teach Islanders about food security and how to adapt to climate change. The garden will grow crops from regions with hotter, drier climates, such as the Prairies or the Middle East, to prepare for future conditions. It will also showcase different planting methods, including square-foot gardening, no-till gardening, and “chaos gardening,” where many plants are mixed together to see what grows best.

The garden is currently planting late-season crops like carrots, radishes, beets, kale, and garlic. It will soon host workshops on food preservation, teaching skills such as canning, drying, and seed saving that are being lost over time. Food grown in the garden will be used in workshops, shared with participants, and distributed to the wider St. Peter’s community. School programs will also begin next year to teach students about gardening. With the nearest grocery store 10 minutes away in Morell, the garden will give residents easier access to fresh produce and strengthen local food security.

Source: Thinh Nguyen, CBC