The city of Swift Current opened up the Janie and Helen Rempel Community Gardens on May 24, 2020.

One constant during the current COVID-19 pandemic has been the sudden uptake of a number of hobbies that in a pre-COVID world many simply didn't have the time to participate in.

Gardening has been one of those hobbies. As more people find themselves working from home, spending more time with their families and finding experiences to share together, many activities that are typically performed at home have seen increases in popularity.

For those who don't own a home, or who don't have access to good growing soil, the Janie and Helen Rempel Community Gardens were opened in 2017 thanks to a donation of 12 city lots by Bob Sonntag, the owner of S3 Enterprises, which also constructed the location.

Jim Jones is Swift Current's general manager of community services. He says that the garden plots have been especially popular this year since opening.

"I can't say for sure but I don't think we've ever had all 140 plots in the community garden sold. So that's a huge positive for us because it's such a beautiful space too."

Having only been in the city for roughly a year, he says that in his experience there aren't a lot of communities that have access to gardens like this.

"Not being from the community other than for about a year now, there's not a lot of other communities that have nice community gardens as we do, so it's kind of nice to show it off and the people that are actually using it love it and just think it's fantastic and so do I."

Originally opened with a limit of ten people per side, that number increased to fifteen on Monday, in line with the new Phase 3 reopening restrictions of thirty people in an outdoor gathering.

Jones added that while some were disappointed that they did not open earlier, he was impressed with the positivity and the reaction of the people who are using the facility, calling it a great success story for the city.