Community gardens are parcels of land divided into small plots for local residents to grow their own flowers, fruit and vegetables. Community gardens owe their existence to the energy of residents. Vancouver residents may remember the debate in the late 1980′s over a section of community garden on Prior Street in Strathcona. When City Council finally decided to build housing on the section, gardeners and their friends moved an acre of topsoil to the remaining portion of the garden. Today the Strathcona Community Garden’s three acres of reclaimed land is a thriving collection of individual flower and vegetable plots.
Community gardens often sprout on empty lots owned by the city. The Victory Gardens of World War II were created on the empty strips of land next to railway tracks.
Finding a site for the garden can be a long search, but once the garden is in place, there is always a waiting list of people who want to join. The plots are often100 to 120 square feet. A whole plot typically rents for $10.00 a year, a half plot for $5.00. Gardeners share common space, fertilizer, tools, a tool shed, and sometimes the cost of buying plants. Grants usually help to cover other expenses such as the cost of metered water and public liability insurance. Gardeners meet several times over the growing season, once for a formal start-up, then a few times over the summer for informal pot luck dinners and an annual open house.
Filed Under: Green Government
Backyard composting is an attractive, simple method of managing organic wastes at home. It has the advantage of being readily adaptable to fit individual lifestyles, income, yard size, and overall ambition. Backyard composting can be performed by a variety of methods. Typically, these include placing materials in open piles, burying materials in pits or trenches and enclosing materials in drums or bins (e.g., holding bins, turning bins, and worm bins. In order to heat up properly, compost piles should be at least one cubic yard in size. This provides the minimal insulation required to sustain the high temperatures in the center of the pile. Composting units or bins can either be commercial units, or can be simply constructed from inexpensive materials with little carpentry or masonry skills.
