Local garden robbed

By Chris Jones/The Oshawa Express

A local teaching garden in Oshawa was robbed recently of a number of expensive property, including a John Deere tractor.

Robert Bell, a volunteer with the Foundation for Building Sustainable Communities (FBSC) Victory Garden, told The Oshawa Express the farm is located just west of Simcoe Street on Winchester Rd. W.

It is a not-for-profit foundation for building sustainable communities, explains Bell.

The garden is a number of acres, but Bell says they don’t use all of the land.

“We’ve been growing food up there for years. We’ve got a 17.5 x 72 ft. greenhouse,” says Bell.

He notes the organization rarely asks for money, but has had some donations over the years which aren’t significant in the great scheme of things.

“I bring up shovels, somebody else brings up whatever, and we just go and do it. In truth, it’s sort of a cross between a farm and a garden,” he says. “There’s no bonus points for pretty. The idea is to grow food, and the big thing with it is educational.”

They will use the Victory Garden model to teach how to grow a lot of food in a small area.

“The idea is we’re trying to encourage people to grow in their own backyard. I grow in my own backyard,” he says.

The hope is to get the idea out there, and Bell notes they aren’t a community garden, but it’s a teaching garden.
“Science and technology is also an angle. We built ourselves an off-the grid power system,” he says. “We have no water up there, and we have no electricity. So we’ve built an off-the-grid power system – solar and batteries.”

Bell says the organization has mentored students from Ontario Tech University, who helped build the off-the-grid system, which uses very expensive batteries.

The batteries were stolen, which Bell notes is interesting because the batteries aren’t like the average car battery, but are special, deep cycle batteries.

“So, they’re extremely heavy and extremely expensive – I think they’re thousands of dollars,” he says.

A John Deere riding lawn mower is also gone, and Bell notes it was in a shed and the door was destroyed. A bike and some tools were also stolen.

“We’ve got a trailer… they tried to get in, but they never did,” he says.

He also notes somebody donated an old rototiller which was “seized up,” and had the motor blown last year before a new motor was put in. It was stolen as well.

“That thing, I’ve helped put it on the back of a truck. It takes three very strong people to lift it,” he says. “It’s not your ordinary residential one.”

He says it’s obvious it wasn’t “scrappers” as there was an aluminum ladder sitting there, which is a material often taken by scrappers.

As a volunteer at the Victory Garden, Bell says he feels “really disappointed in people” after this.

“We run it on basically zero budget, and we donate food – personally I don’t take food home from it,” he says. “I go up there, work, and I’m glad to see it donated. In my opinion they’re stealing from people who need it.”

However, Bell remains hopeful for the year to come, and for the future of the organization.

“We’re planning on continuing this year, and running the garden,” he says, noting he and the organization believe this is the year for everyone to grow a garden of their own.

“I think you’re going to see food prices, especially for fresh vegetables, really skyrocket due to foreign workers not being allowed in, and just the general disruption,” he says. “And with a lot of people being at home, I know with myself, I went out in my backyard and I’ve doubled the size of my vegetable garden.”

He notes it’s a sad story, but he doesn’t want people to focus on that, as he believes people should focus on how “this is the year to do some gardening.”

He believes this shows they can proceed with “basically nothing,” and that’s the whole idea behind the garden.

“There are things that people can do to make a positive contribution, and we’ve been doing the food with no fuss, no muss. Just go out and do it,” he says.