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?”