Community Gardens in Vancouver
byIn recent years more park spaces and vacant lots in Vancouver have been turned into community gardens – sometimes where you would least expect them.
In the summer heat, sunflowers stretch toward the sky in a plot of land where gasoline and diesel were once poured into tanks. A Shell gas station once stood at Davie and Burrard where the thriving David Village Community Garden now lies. Vegetables and flowers blossom within the yarn-bombed fences of this oasis.
A few years ago I saw a story on the local news where a lot in the Downtown Eastside had been turned into a community garden. After some research I realized it is the old location of the Smiling Buddha Cabaret. The other day when I was writing a post about parks I stumbled upon so many listings for community gardens and didn’t realize we had so many scattered throughout the city.
Vancouver is filled with diverse neighbourhoods and robust communities from the Downtown core, all the way out to Boundary, and down to the Fraser. Our City has always had a legacy of creating public green spaces for all to enjoy and in recent years these have included community gardens.
I made a map below to indicate all community gardens however you’ll wan to visit the City of Vancouver’s Community Garden Listing for full details and contact information.
View Vancouver Community Gardens in a larger map
If you would like to explore several of these community gardens, the City of Vancouver has setup walking tours that will guide you from one neighbourhood to the next.
With assistance from groups such as the Vancouver Public Spaces Network, these are sprouting up all over the place. The VPSN (among other services) helps neighbourhoods get community garden projects underway by providing support when it comes to capacity-building and planning out these spaces. They have handled the administration of the Davie Village Garden (Davie & Burrard), the Yaletown Garden (formerly known as the Onni Garden at Pacific and Seymour), and 15 Oaks Garden (Oak & 15th). You can learn more about all of their public spaces projects on the VPSN website.
There’s also the SOLEfood Inner City Farm campaign that recently raise a community farm near the Astoria on Hastings.
It’s nice to explore and take part in something truly fruitful such as a community garden project. It not only beautifies the neighbourhood, but it brings people together and produces the ultimate local produce. If you have a green thumb yourself it may be a great way to volunteer your time. If not, the next time you’re out looking for a park to stroll through or a flower to photograph, consider checking out your nearest community garden.
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Thanks for the great information about walking tours and the community garden maps. I’d like to mention your article and link back in an upcoming post of mine.
I heard rumours that the one on Davie and Burrard will be closing, or was it I read a sign near their plot? Guess I’ll have to walk by again to find out.
The one on Comox west of Thurlow (near the dog park) has always looked great and full of veggies/flowers
Yeah on the City’s website it lists that one as “temporary” so I’m not sure what will happen.
[…] Tags: Community Garden, Miss604, SOLEfood Rebecca Bollwitt AKA Miss604 has just written a piece on all the community gardens that have sprouted up in Vancouver. She of course mentions SOLEfood which differentiates itself as being an actual neighbourhood farm, […]
The two large community gardens in the Downtown Core – Davie Village (Davie and Burrard) and Yaletown (Pacific and Seymour) are both listed as temporary because they are on privately owned development sites. The gardens are an interim use prior to the creation of new residential towers.
The Vancouver Public Space Network is currently working with community members to try and locate new garden sites. If any readers are interested in the search, or want to help advocate for additional garden spaces, please drop us a line: gardens [at] vancouverpublicspace.ca.
Let’s not confuse any of the real community gardens in Vancouver compared to the temporary gardens that are housed on the real estate developer’s lands. What those are is tax shelters. The developers are saving tens of thousands of dollars in taxes each month by donating those to the city temporarily.
When the real estate market picks up, those gardens will grow all right. They’ll grow as tall as 30 or so storeys.
An important point, Jerry, except the savings to land speculators actually add up to millions.
http://www.citycaucus.com/2009/12/tax-break-goes-to-sahotas-for-urban-farm
Meanwhile the city shuts down important facilities and services for “lack of funds!”