A new Community Garden sprung up quickly at First United Mennonite Church in East Vancouver. At the time of my initial visit to the their site it was snowing, but they got to work soon after and created a new Community Garden. Read about how they did it, from the perspective of the Garden Coordinator.
January 2015, written by Jennifer Giesbrecht
It’s been less than a year since the First United Mennonite Church (FUMC) Community Garden came to be, but it’s already hard to imagine what was there before! The two sturdy, raised concrete beds remain against the church’s education building, but the 30-year-old tangle of rhododendrons, ferns, vines and roots are now a distant memory (thanks to a some strong volunteers and few dozens weekend-hours of digging)! By the end of March, our five-member gardening team had already filled the beds with a new layer of soil and planted a nice variety of early seeds—many of which were donated by home-gardeners in the congregation.
With full support from the church community, the team only had two concerns about the garden: vegetable theft, which was known to be common in our East Vancouver neighbourhood, and whether anything would actually grow in the north-facing location! After one full growing season, we’re happy to report almost no theft or vandalism at all, a very respectable crop including everything from peas to beets to carrots to zucchini, as well as many new friends from around the block.
We continue to receive lovely comments about the garden from the community and the church board, even now as it sits under a winter cover crop, and we’ve even been encouraged to expand it into the yard.
The gardening team members might just be the most blessed of all, however, as many of us live in apartments or suites without access to garden space. It may be just a small plot, but we truly appreciate the chance to dig around in the earth, and contribute to creation care in our own little way.
