Four are all that remain of 60-some-odd taps that once watered the growing grounds in a popular Saanich park.
When the beds are blooming, and growing, the area fills with gardeners, visitors and students from the nearby art, photography or nature classes, Agnes Street Gardeners' Association president Cathy Wetton told the Saanich News.
With water turned off and growing dormant, that section of Glanford Park is predictably quiet over the winter. The only visitors this time of year are a society volunteer showing around a potential new gardener, or the occasional dog and accompanying human.
With eight plots up for grabs this year, it was one of those walks – showing around someone from the 140-person wait-list – they noticed something amiss.
“Suddenly we noticed, as we’re walking around, all the taps are gone. We believe it was on the weekend,” Wetton said.
With 190 gardeners working more than 100 plots, the brass taps were dispersed on standpipes – screwed on in pairs – throughout the site to access each of the 500 and 1,000 square-foot plots.
“About 56 or 60 taps went missing,” Wetton said. “Some of them, when they were unscrewing it snapped off the pipe.”
The community garden site, now leased from the District of Saanich, has been around for 45 years in continuous operation. It started with 25 plots, now up to 120.
“Some of those taps may actually be from 1978,” Wetton said.
She’s had a steep learning curve since that Tuesday afternoon when she started calling around the local metal recyclers. They told her the payout on brass is something in the range of $2.80 a pound right now. Wetton is also keeping an eye on online sales forums to watch for 60 taps coming up for sale. They also opened a file with the Saanich Police Department, which asks anyone with information to call the non-emergency number, 250-475-4321, and cite file number 25-481.
The garden plots neighbour the Victoria Horseshoe Club and Prospect Lake Soccer Club in busy Glanford Park, which includes a soccer field, play court and playground.
“People just walk through our garden all the time. It’s a big dog walking area, it’s a dogs off-leash park which means the dogs run everywhere. It also means the dogs chase the deer, so almost no deer appear now at the gardens because they train the babies that it’s not safe,” she said, highlighting the positive. “Unfortunately it’s also a homeless overnight sheltering park, which means we get quite a number of tent encampments.”
The non-profit society runs on a shoestring budget, charging $50 a year for the 500-square-foot plots and $100 a year for the 1,000. There’s budget for a toilet, insurance and water. The bulk of improvements and maintenance is done by volunteers.
“Really we had about $250 in our water repair budget, we estimate this is going to cost between $900 and $1,200 to replace,” Wetton said. “Now of course we don’t really want to replace them – screw in new taps – because they could get unscrewed also and be gone before we need to start gardening in the spring.
“Members will have to come up with the money to replace the taps.”
Learn more about the group at agnesstreetgardens.ca.
