Update from New Life Community Garden in Burnaby, BC, by Katherine Ritchie

A member of our church took the community garden workshop offered by A Rocha, “The Plot Thickens,” last year and was inspired to write a proposal to the church about starting a garden at the back of our parking lot! It was accepted and some money was put forward to get the project rolling. They also applied for a government grant in order to hire a summer intern to help coordinate the garden – and this is the exciting job that was set before me!

We are moving as quickly as we can so that people can start gardening by the end of June (which can be late for gardening, but can’t be helped this year). People have really come together to help with this project! Even the people who work in construction next to the church offered to level the ground where we wanted to put the garden.

Since the end of May we have had three work parties to build garden boxes, dig a ditch, spread bark mulch across the site, and fill the boxes with soil. Now that we have boxes that are ready for gardening, we have been raising publicity in the neighborhood, and it has been very neat to hear from neighbors who can’t wait to have a space to garden in!

It is wonderful to know that the garden is meeting a need for many people: a place to grow your own organic vegetables! We hope that people will be able to truly benefit as well from the sense of community that inevitably will come from gardening together. And we as a church can’t wait to get to know our neighbors better through this experience!

You can follow what they’re doing on their open Facebook group: New Life Community Garden.