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‘I want to introduce the space to more people so that when it comes up in conversation where funding is concern, or whether or not to keep it going, then people will have had an experience here …” — garden manager Mike Fair-Haley
Published Jul 05, 2026 • 3 minute read
Mike Vair-Haley, the manager of the Fresh Roots Food Forest & Garden, says the future of the garden is uncertain. He spoke Sunday, July 5, 2026 at an open house event there. Photo by SCOTT DUNN /THE SUN TIMES/POSTMEDIA NETWORKArticle content
The Fresh Roots Food Forest & Garden could close after this summer unless an organization steps forward to save it, garden manager Mike Fair-Haley said at an open house there Sunday.
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He arranged the event at the wooden planter box garden, on the old tennis courts in St. George’s Park below the 10th Street East hill, to raise the profile of the garden.
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“I want to introduce the space to more people so that when it comes up in conversation where funding is concern, or whether or not to keep it going, then people will have had an experience here and realize that it’s important to have,” Vair-Haley said in an interview.
Tours were conducted by Fresh Roots gardeners Dayna and Gabe Donald of the 40 planter boxes within the fenced asphalt courts. Wood-fired pizza and lemonade were offered to visitors to raise some money too, Vair-Haley said.
It costs $15,000 to $20,000 a year to keep up the garden, which began in 2016 as a social enterprise of Canadian Mental Health Association Grey Bruce, which still employs some clients to work there.
The Canadian Mental Health Association’s free lease with the city for the garden and adjacent labyrinth property ends in October, Vair-Haley said. But CMHA will not be renewing the lease, he said.
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“The city is keen on keeping this going,” he said. “We’ve had preliminary talks already but we need to find another organization to take over. Either to act as a flow-through or to help fund it, or we need to start our own not-for-profit.”
He said the city wants “an established organization that they can trust to manage it properly. If I started our own organization, I think there would be enough trust in there because I’ve managed it myself for so many years.”
Vair-Haley said for his first three years CMHA contracted with him to manage the gardens using grants and donations. Two years ago despite less grant money Vair-Haley and his wife agreed to keep the gardens going if they could continue to be run through CMHA, while the couple tried to find funding, he said.
“We wanted to make sure this place was still available for CMHA clients and for everybody in the community,” he said.
Vair-Haley said the garden donates produce to the CMHA’s Fresh Roots Cafe and just this year began selling some produce to the cafe for meals prepared for Brightshores Wellness and Recovery Centre, the addiction and mental health treatment centre in Owen Sound.
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About another 40 planter boxes are rented to the community, $30 each per season. A fenced, partly covered area beside old tennis courts is rented for community use. Last week a social event took place there.
Vair-Haley said now he will begin to explore if any organizations might be interested in taking over. Otherwise, he’ll look into starting an organization himself.
The budget for the garden is equivalent to less than the cost of one part-time, minimum wage worker, he said, which provides professionally managed gardens and space open to hundreds of community members.
At the suggestion that he could charge more for the rental garden boxes, Vair-Haley said he’d like to keep it cheap.
“A lot of people they don’t have gardens and they live in an apartment. And it’s just a box, right? Same thing; the money we get from that is kind of a drop in the bucket. It’s more important to have them all full, have it all used.”
Frank Thompson lives in the city’s old General and Marine Hospital apartment conversion and rents two planter boxes. He was planting radish and lettuce in one box during the open house. Dill grows wild in the box and it was fragrant.
He’s a retired microbiologist who moved back to Owen Sound from Cornwall after his wife died. He gardens as a hobby but also to help stretch his pension income, he said. He also grows carrots, garlic and beets and spends a couple of hours a week there.
The gardens tended by the Donalds for Fresh Roots Cafe grow head lettuce and other varieties of lettuce, eggplant, peppers, cabbage, winter squash, tomatoes, zucchini, turnip and more.
Courses are coming up at the garden on growing mushrooms in logs and about preserving a garden harvest.
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