P.E.I. community gardeners gear up for spring at one of Canada's largest urban gardens

The eight-and-a-half acre Legacy Garden in Charlottetown is one of the biggest urban gardens in Canada.

The first eager gardeners are already out, and those numbers are just going to grow as the temperature rises.

Legacy Garden manager Leah Collett said there’s no such thing as a typical user.

"It’s everybody. It's young families, it’s, like I said, newcomers to Canada. It's seniors. I have seen babies out here.”

Jeananne MacLean and Lester Dodsworth have been coming to the garden for nearly a decade each.

They packed up seeds to give away to other gardeners -- they say they’re paying it forward.

“The people were so friendly,” said Lester Dodsworth. “When you come in, if you needed help, they were right there to help you, and that meant a lot to me.”

Other visitors at the garden are planting for food or a pollinator garden, like MacLean, but it’s more than that.

“It’s spiritual, you know?” said MacLean. “It’s so calm, and so, just good. Just good.”

Dodsworth says the best piece of advice to new visitors to the garden is to ask others how they grow things.

“The secret is to go around and ask people,” said Dodsworth. “You know, you see something growing, ‘how’d, you do this,’ ‘how’d you get this to grow so good,’ and they tell you.”

“Don’t be afraid, don’t be afraid,” said MacLean. “We’ve all been through it.”

There are 211 plots at the community garden. They’re so popular there is a waitlist.

With more and more people looking to save on the price of groceries, places like the garden are becoming more popular.

The community garden has a number of advantages, particularly on the community side, where you can meet other likeminded people who can teach you to make plots grow.

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