Originally posted as part of the Ontario Barn Preservation newsletter, March 2025.

Here in Barrie, the masses of snow piles are starting to melt away. I miss the white snow. The in between seasons dirty snow is not pretty. I guess that's why I started thinking about gardens and gardening. (Also, my Mother is 80+ and still spends most of the Spring, Summer and Fall in her gardens which surround her little yellow house).

Thinking about gardens led me to a group planting trees and I discovered the grants they have available for people planting edible trees (fruits and nuts) in particular. That led me to community gardens, finding more grant money available and then, of course, I wanted to know who can start a community garden, how it works, and would it be practical for an old barn...? Read more about it below.

Laura

What About a Community Garden?

A community garden is garden space for local people to plant flowers, vegetables, fruit, maintain their garden space while paying a fee for the space and resources (water especially). The host for the community garden makes the rules for how it works, but that is the basic plan. 

What does that have to do with your old barn? 

If you have enough available land around the barn, a community garden with a barn to store: tools, seeds, plants and soil could be a great thing. If you are a gardener yourself you could offer seeds, starters for tomatoes and so on. 

A barn which is not near your home would work better for giving public access to the garden space. Of course, there would be a schedule for people, times and dates for access. I have seen local community gardens which are on properties with old farm houses, being planted on either side of the driveway to the house. So, it has been done. 

A community garden gets grant money. I found a few sources for you to take a look at. I think the edible trees were the most interesting prospect. I've looked at ideas like this before, for my brother. 

Tree Canada - Edible tree grants

Garden Ontario - Community Gardening

Garden Ontario - Grants

Sustain Ontario - Community Garden Network

A community garden isn't a project to suit everyone, or every barn. But, maybe this will give someone an idea that will work for them, or a starting place for something else. 

Posted by Laura

I have seen red trilliums growing wild and I've had some growing in the garden. They need shade and they need mulch over winter - as if they were growing on the floor of a forest, which is where they grow naturally. I never noticed a smell from them, not nice or stinky.

Cottage Life - Five Canadian Plants that Stink

1. Eastern skunk cabbage (Symplocarpus foetidus); Western skunk cabbage (Lysichiton americanum)
2. Red trillium (Trillium erectrum)
3. Kamchatka lily (Fritillaria camschatcensis)
4. Pawpaw (Asimina tribola)
5. Dutchman’s pipe (Aristolochia macrophylla)

When your Mother is a gardener there seems no point in wearing clean clothes.

Something I wrote as a note in my date book last year. It seems every time I put on something nice, and clean, I go outside (or get called outside) and there is something to dig, dirt and plants to lift, something that leaves me wearing dirt.

Geomancy interests me because I especially like rocks, stones, and even pebbles (rocks you can hold in your hand or put in your pocket). Stone is like a hard, cold fact with a very long history, by our human standards. You can find rocks, or stones, in a lot of good places: the beach, the forest, the side of the road. You know, you've seen them. I don't pick up rocks/stones which belong somewhere, like someone's yard. Is it silly to feel they have a home there and shouldn't be taken? Maybe, but that's how I feel.

I haven't tried geomancy in an official way, not to read the future. I just enjoy stones. I keep them around, in my bedroom (give them a little clean up if you bring them indoors), outside in the yard and the garden we have a lot of rocks. They make great pets, if you feel the need for dependable companionship with few needs, like grooming or feeding. You can make a little house for them, if you like. I like just having a few good rocks around.

At most, I use a stone to point me in a new direction. Just warm it up in your hand for a bit and see where it falls as you turn around (slowly, give the stone a little time and don't make yourself dizzy).

You could find other ways to use stones as a do-it-yourself divination. I think you need to have some connection to the stones, at least liking them for their history, their shape, colour, usefulness, connection to the Earth... something. Otherwise you may as well be completely random. I think divination works due to at least some belief in fate. Some idea that outside things can influence you, the world in general.

Geomancy is divination using stones. I find most divination has a lot of rules but essentially the whole thing is about how you feel looking at the cards, entrails (not for me) rocks, etc. At least that's what it used to be. People do have a way of taking something simple and making it a huge complicated knot they can make some money out of.

A system of divination that employs the scattering of pebbles, grains of sand, or seeds on the earth and then the interpretation of their shape and position.

I especially like this description, from The Mystica site. The site has been taken over and just posts click bait now. No sign of the original post I read this from.

Geomancers are spiritual ecologists. (Found on a group no longer online).

It's not feng shui, and it doesn't have anything to do with ley lines or dowsing. It's been called earth astrology, a Western equivalent of the I Ching, and the forgotten oracle of the Western world. It was one of the most popular systems of divination in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and stands at the center of traditions of magic, philosophy, and initiation deeply relevant to today. What is it? Geomancy.

Geomancy is a traditional art of divination that uses the sixteen geomantic figures – patterns of single and double dots – to explore the mysteries of past, present and future. As a branch of the Hermetic tradition, an ancient Western system of spiritual transformation and magical philosophy and practice, it relies on the fundamental Hermetic law, the unity of the macrocosm (the universe around us) and the microcosm (the universe within us) to open up hidden potentials for knowledge, wisdom, and power and, in the words of the legendary Hermes Trismegistus, “perform the miracles of the One Thing.”

Quote Source - Collegium Geomanticum

• The Geomancy Group - An association of practicing geomancers and other like-minded folk over the UK.
• Land and Spirit - History of Geomancy – A Long Time Ago

Geomancy, a compound of Greek roots denoting "earth divination", was originally used to mean methods of divination that interpret geographic features, markings on the ground, or the patterns formed by soil, rocks, or sand. Its definition has expanded over time (along with the recognized definition of the suffix -mancy), to include any spiritual, metaphysical, or pseudoscientific practice that is related to the Earth. In recent times the term has been applied to a wide range of other occult and fringe activities, including Earth mysteries and the introduction of ley lines and Bau-Biologie [de].

Geomancy was a common, and cross cultural, forms of divination in premodern times. In regards to Africa and Europe, it was considered a forbidden practice by various Christians and Muslims across the medieval era. In other regions and cultures, geomancy practices include Sikidy and Ifá (found in Africa), I Ching and Feng shui (found in China), Kumalak (found in parts of Central Asia), Vastu shastra (in India), Kahuna kuhikuhipu'uone (in Ancient Hawai'i).

Quoted from Wikipedia.

All of that should give you a starting point, if you want to learn more about the 'rules' for geomancy as a method of divination. Or, you can just enjoy having more rocks around.