Children's Garden in Fernwood

How lovely. Word comes from Fernwood of a new children's garden. Here's a message from Leah:

My name is Leah and I am writing with the hope that I can recruit some of you to come and join us this week in the very exciting creation of the Little Acorn Children's Garden. Over the past six months, I have been collaborating with a number of community groups to build a garden at the daycare where I work.  The available site for the garden is an old driveway which has meant a lot of creative thinking about how to transform that space into a vibrant oasis. This has been an amazing process which is finally coming to fruition as we now have gorgeous beds in place that are ready to be filled with soil and planted!!  Over the next week, we will definitely need some people power to move gravel and soil into the beds, and to get them planted!!  I would love some of your help to make this all come together.  If you can make it out, we will be in the garden on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday from 3:45-6pm.

Come and join us for a bed building and planting extravaganza!

Here is a loose schedule of what will be happening:

Tuesday - Lining beds with poly and filling beds with gravel and soil

Wednesday - Possibly more hauling of soil, Transplanting, Sowing

Thursday - Planting and Transplanting

Friday - Site Clean-up and Celebration!

What a wonderful idea. The address is 2629 Victor St. Email Leah if you can make it at Leah Seltzer leah.seltzer@gmail.com. I'll definitely be going to help out.

-Fiona Gilsenan

Save the Boulevards

I received an e-mail this morning from Rainey Hopewell, forwarding the following from Zoë Mager. I want to share it with all urban foodists in Victoria.

My name is Zoë Mager and alongside my housemate Chris Fretwell and other inhabitants of 1702 Belmont, we have put a huge amount of effort, resources and seeds into a boulevard garden on the green space at the intersecting corner of Belmont, Begbie and Grant streets. One of the many of our neighbours who enjoys and supports our gardening initiative there named this space Kale Corner. We have made every effort to keep the space clean, safe, aesthetically pleasing, away from sidewalks as not to obstruct any walking paths. Truly a labour of love, the gardens have been admired by many a neighbour walking their dog or biking with their children. This morning a city worker came  by and without any notice began deconstructing the raised bed that we created there. They took away the driftwood that contained our beds and warned that they would come back to re-seed the 3 truckloads of earth that had been brought.  After speaking with him and being told that our food garden was a liability, he directed us to Gord Smith, Parks Operations Manager.

We are asking for the support of city council to halt the dismantling of the garden and permit the use of the green space for this community garden initiative. As well, we are asking our gardening allies and those with a passion for taking back the commons and growing food in public space to stand up next to us. There will be a petition at Simple Remedies on Cook St. and hopefully at the Cornerstone Café starting this weekend. Also feel free to come check out the space. This weekend we will be erecting a large poster and petition on the fence at Kale Corner. There will be a City Council meeting going on tomorrow night as well. You can try and sign up to be on the speakers list  http://www.victoria.ca/cityhall/council-address-form.aspx  The sign up is supposed to happen by 11 am on the Wednesday before but since the deconstruction began this morning, that was not possible.

Attached is the Urban Agriculture Resolution act passed in 1997

Thanks for your solidarity folks and feel free to contact us if you have any ideas or words of wisdom on the matter.

Zoë Mager:   zoemager@hotmail.com
Philipe Lucas:  plucas@victoria.ca  250-361-0217 @ City Hall or 250-216-5433 (cell)

Community Gardens: How Many is Enough?

The City of Victoria Food System Discussion Paper is worth a read. You can find it on the City's Official Community Plan website.

The section on Case Studies is interesting. Here are some stats on Community Gardens in other West Coast cities with favorable climates:

San Francisco (pop 815,000). "The Recreation & Parks Department supports and manages 40 community gardens on City-owned property, operated in partnership with community volunteers...the Mayor's Directive on Healthy and Sustainable Food (2009) [is] a groundbreaking, comprehensive food policy that holistically considers all stages of the food system."

Seattle (pop 608,000) "Over 1,900 garden plots serve more than 3,800 gardenders on 23 acres of land. The gardens are an integral part of neighbourhood development...Seattle's Comprehensive Plan (1995) states the goal of 1 garden for every 2000 households in every "urban village"."

Vancouver (pop 578,041) "Vancouver has 52 community gardens on Parks Board, School District, City and transit authority-owned land that provide 1,600 community (allotment) garden plots. 900 additional community-shared (commons) gardens are integrated into new developments around the City."

Portland (pop 582,000) "Has 32 gardens on Parks, public and private lands...Administered by Community Gardens Office."

So, how does Victoria compare? We're doing a survey right now to find out exactly how many garden plots there are in Victoria and the CRD. But wouldn't it be wonderful to have a Community Gardens Office here?


-Fiona Gilsenan

Springridge Commons Work Party

Photo of Spring Ridge Commons Work Party by Tony Sprackett (http://www.flickr.com/photos/sprackett/)

Do you have tools and gloves and a bit of time to spare on Sunday, March 13th? If so, think about joining a work party at Spring Ridge Commons, Victoria’s oldest and largest public permaculture garden. Fernwood NRG and Transition Victoria Food Group are taking leadership in supporting the Commons and monthly work parties are being organized.

This work party will be co-led byTamara Schwartzentruber, a certified Permaculture Designer /Teacher and Gardener, and local gardener Dan Miller.

Work Party Activities and Tasks:  (More will be added....

*  Impromptu site tours of Spring Ridge Commons
*  Mulch some trees with wood chips, and inoculate them with the mycelium of wine cap mushrooms
*   Some plantings
*  Weeding morning glories and tackling blackberry bush
*  Cutting down tall grass with kamas
*  Place rocks (the size of two fists or bigger) to make the paths more defined? -  Volunteers to collect /donate rocks beforehand would be much appreciated. Call Linda at (250) 380-6383.

For more information, go to the Springridge Commons site.
-Fiona Gilsenan

Learning Opportunity in Hillside-Quadra

 Merlot and Salad Bowl lettuce photo by Fiona Gilsenan.

Our neighbours in nearby Hillside-Quadra and North Park have a wonderful opportunity on offer from the Blanshard Community Centre. The Centre has applied for funding for an exciting program offering garden mentor support. Here's what they have to say,

If we receive funding, up to 15 households will receive free expert advice and information, workshops on gardening topics and seeds, seedlings, soil amendments, and tools.

Sounds like a good deal, so if you are interested, contact Marion and 250.388.7696 or e-mail admin@blanshardcc.com to have your household included on the list of possible participants.

-Fiona Gilsenan

Can you Grow a Row?

There's more than one row in this picture.

The Fairfield Community Garden gang (aka Jessica, Fiona, and Paula) had a great time at Seedy Saturday. We chatted with all kinds of people from the gardening and green community in Victoria. Everyone is very excited and supportive of our efforts to make a community garden happen in Fairfield. Hooray!

We heard about a few local events that Fairfield gardeners might want to check out. One of them is happening tonight (snow and ice willing) at the Fairfield Community Centre. It's the launch of the Grow a Row program, sponsored by the Compost Education Centre. Tonight at 6 pm in the Out of School Care Room there will be a meet-and-greet, then the official launch, followed by a workshop. You can read more about the program here. If the workshop tonight is full, they will offer another one next week. That's accommodating.

On Saturday, Feb. 26th, there will be a seed swap at the Compost Education Centre. Please call (250) 386-9676 or email office@compost.bc.ca if you are interested in attending or volunteering at any of these events.

-Fiona Gilsenan

The Gift of Community Gardening

Nan Steman writes in her blog of a question she received from two adult children about a thoughtful gift for their mother, and her even more thoughtful response.

His mother, it seems, had suffered some financial setbacks and no longer had access to the fresh fruits and vegetables she’d once had. He and his sister had discussed it and decided that for Christmas, they’d like to get her a community garden plot. They’d also thought about giving her a subscription to community supported agriculture (CSA), but a community garden would get her out and socializing as well.

In an era where we often feel pressured to buy a gift - any gift - here were two adult children thinking about what their mother could use the most: fresh food, physical activity, social interaction. Even if none of it comes to pass, it is a lovely, lovely thought.

You can read the entire post here.

-Fiona Gilsenan

Community Garden Policy

Michigan Street Gardens, James Bay


Did you know that the City of Victoria has had a Community Gardens policy in place for over 5 years? It was released in Sept, 2005 and has the following policy goals:

• To recognize the need for community gardens
• To establish community gardens throughout the City on public or private lands, where feasible.
• To recognize the value of community gardens, as a public amenity, in land use redevelopment.
• To encourage backyard, rooftop and workplace gardening to complement community gardens, as ways to promote more greening of the City.
• To maintain existing community gardens and protect local food production.

Somebody wrote up a bit of background information for the policy. Here's what they have to say about Victoria, worth reading in full.

Population projections of Victoria suggest growth and interest particularly in the older age groups (baby boomers) who like to garden. Gardening is the top leisure activity for 80% of households according to Statistics Canada. More households will be living in multiple family housing which generates great demand for community gardens. In addition, the CRD's Regional Growth Strategy promotes increased densification of the core municipalities and de-emphasizes single detached housing. There in the future there will be more demand for gardens and less land available, as fewer residents will not have their own backyards in which to garden.

Although this may not be comfortable reading for everyone (baby boomers are now in the older age group?), it's just a fact that the future of urban life means more density--and that's not a bad thing. Single-family homeowners are by far the minority in Fairfield-Gonzales. Can we say that the neighbourhood public spaces are a good reflection of that? What do you think?

Waterview Community Garden

Photo from City Farmer (www.cityfarmer.info).

Gardening is good for everybody. Here's an article from last summer's Times Colonist about just that subject. Why link to this now? Because there's an update on one of the gardening projects mentioned in the article—the Waterview Garden.

The City of Victoria recently gave Pacifica a $9,500 special-project grant to create a demonstration and training garden at the Waterview Housing Complex in Victoria, where they have just finished construction of a raised-bed veggie garden.

A report has just been released on the first phase of the garden. You can find the full report at the City Farmer website. But here's a sample of what it has to say.

However, some of its most important accomplishments occurred in the areas of local food production together with limiting our collective and individual environmental footprint..Each participant had their own 4' x 8' raised bed garden when they learned to grow their own food using organic methods. Not only were the participants able to learn how to garden and eat the fruits of their labours, but other tenants were able to watch and learn as well. And with the addition of a 8' x 30' mural—depicting a countryside scene—on the wall overlooking the garden, the garden has become a beautiful demonstration garden. Ten of the twelve original gardeners plan on returning to garden in 2011, together with 7 more Waterview residents. With the publicity it received, the garden also challenged members of the public to ask themselves, “If they can build this and do these things, why can‟t I?”