Urban Gardens Vancouver

description

My area of interest for this project is urban agriculture. This year, I found an interest in gardening and started my own. I got a real satisfaction watching my produces grow. I noticed that community gardens are becoming more and more popular due to the high density of the city and the high cost of living. In my research, I found out that in 2006, the Vancouver City Council issued a challenge to establish more food producing gardens. At that time, the challenge was to have 2010 garden plots by 2010 Olympic. Not only was this challenge met, but also at the beginning of 2010, the expectation was exceeded. Vancouver next challenge is to build 5000 plots by 2020 as part of its strategy to become the world’s greenest city. I am intrigued by the positive change that is centered on agriculture as a communal exercise. Gardening has become an activity that not only improves a person’s health and happiness but can also have a great impact on the health and unity of an urban community.

However, venturing into the world of urban agriculture as a beginner can be a daunting task. There are many books and websites out there that have great sources of information on this subject. However, the problem is that the information is scattered everywhere and it takes time to dig through it to find what you are looking for. Not only that, most of this information are not local-based. Community gardens are becoming more and more popular, so much that it may be difficult to find available plots due to the high demand and often long wait list. As part of my research, I found out that the City’s staffs do not oversee these gardens but local community groups coordinate them. These waitlists can extend for years and those who are not in contact with someone who is a devoted gardener can be at a loss of where to begin.

Urban Gardens Vancouver is a local community hub that centralizes all community gardens in Vancouver and making them more easily accessible. To help guide those lacking agricultural knowledge and to cater to those who have great knowledge in this subject. This site will provide useful resources for those who wants to know how to get started or those who just want to quickly access the multitude of gardening information.

This site is only a start to help introduce gardening in local Vancouver. I hope it will expand to other cities and using this hub as a model. In the future, I also hope for this site to compile other kinds of gardens, not just community gardens.