For several years, Grandview Calvary Baptist Church in East Vancouver owned a small rental house adjacent to the church parking lot. The house had fallen into disrepair and was eventually demolished to make way for new social housing. Because the social housing project would take several years to develop, the church asked church member and gardener Ute Warkentin in the summer of 2006 to turn the lot into an interim garden. Along with a group of interns from a local ministry, Ute transformed the abandoned lot into a delightful garden. Soil was donated from the city and from a construction contractor. Railroad ties were scavenged from the renovation of a neighborhood park to make beds and terraces. A gardening non-profit donated a cedar tool shed. A rusty bed frame and abandoned door were turned into a picnic table. The initial vision was to grow food in this lot for Out of the Cold, the church’s Thursday night meal for homeless neighbors.

As the group of ministry interns ended their term, Ute invited other gardeners from the church to take over the care of the garden. The neighbors living nearest to the garden were the first to tend the plots, with interest rippling out beyond the immediate locale. Interested neighbors (both within and without the church community) were given a plot to grow food for their own households. The organization of the community garden evolved slowly and relationally: the only business meeting being an early spring seed-swap and workdays were voluntarily well attended. During the seed-swap in the spring of 2009, someone suggested a weekly garden picnic as a good form of involving more folks in the garden and of building community. Through the summer, we met in the garden on Wednesday evenings to share meals, often prepared with produce from our plots. Robert would bring a salad. Carina and Jess would often bake bread. Carsten would bring a few bottles of his home-brewed beer. Several of our homeless friends would occasionally stop by to join us for the meal.

While the community garden is more directed towards small-scale produce for home consumption, we haven’t lost the initial vision to share the gifts of the land with others. Robert Lockridge spent many hours transforming garden areas surrounding the church parking lot into vegetable beds. As part of our Good Friday Stations of the Cross walk, the church community participated in a litany concerning our care for creation which culminated in our planting of potatoes in Robert’s vegetable patches. These potatoes were later harvested by children and adults, washed, roasted, and served for one of the Out of the Cold meals. Robert was also able to grow enough lettuce to provide the salad for the 150 meals served on Thursday nights, for 5 weeks in a row.

The garden has provided the groundwork for good relationships to be built with our neighbors. An older Italian couple who live next to the garden have participated in tending the land, contributing invaluable horticulture advice along with the occasional pan of lasagna. Of the 21 people who have plots in the garden, over 1/3 are not part of the church community and the gardeners range in age from 3 to 70 years old. Many pedestrians stop by to ask about the garden or just to admire the beauty of the transformed lot.

A Few Critical Reflections:

Structure: Our informal organizational structure is an asset in many ways, allowing for more enjoyment of the garden than business meetings. However, this relation-based organization often makes it difficult for new-comers to find out about the garden or how to get involved.

Money: It hasn’t cost us much money to run the community garden. Most of the initial start-up costs were negligible because of the high number of donations Ute was able to procur. We have received a small grants from the Frog Hollow Neighborhood House two years in a row ($500/yr.) which has allowed us to buy a new hose, build an entry trellis, and provide new tools. Our neighbors have donated access to water. Through sharing and searching for freebies, most gardeners can tend their plots for less than $20/yr.

Neighbors: It is important to maintain good relationships with the immediate neighbors of a community garden. Community gardens can attract extra traffic, pests, and debris which can be irritating for neighbors. Our garden has provide for some conflict, but also much goodness in our ongoing attempts to build relationships with our neighbors.

Faith: The Good Friday liturgy and potato planting was very meaningful. Many individuals also make use of the garden for quiet reflection and prayer. Gardening is part of our Christian faith for many reasons: stewardship of Creation, food security for the least, joining in Creation’s praise, living in a rhythm that is prophetically counter to the efficiency-driven pace of society, hospitality to neighbors, providing points of inter-generational connection, etc. I’ve been thinking lately about how growing a garden in the city might be evangelistic. We don’t have any Gospel tracts or church advertisements posted at the garden. I’ve noticed, nonetheless, that people walking by our garden are impressed by a sense of good news. I think they find good news in the fact that people are caring for and making beautiful the plot of land given them (be it ever so small a plot, and so small an effort). And, I think our neighbors find good news in watching a group of people work for the sheer joy of it.

I, at least, sure feel joy as I sit in the garden and sip a cup of coffee after an early morning of planting peas and carrots.