Body:
Food Security with the Urban Food Garden by Diane Falvey
The Green Cycle Urban Agriculture motto says it all, “grow what you eat”. A hardy group of urban gardeners have learned that first hand this spring, with a practical boot camp approach to food security in a large Vancouver garden on Ontario Street donated by a generous permaculture enthusiast.
As the soft late spring rain of May falls, I stand in the urban food garden and am surrounded by lush, full vegetable beds, amazed at the richness of diversity and blaze of colours in the raised beds; the leafy red and green salad plants, Mizuna, chards, lettuces, Red Giant Mustard, the brilliance of the variegated Magenta Spreen, the deep maroon of the Purple Orache. The peas are mighty and waist high, the carrots’ frothy green tops are coming on, between the spires of onions. I wonder at the power of the broad beans, so tall in the double dug bed with the lazy bees in their white and black mottled blossoms.
The arugula, radishes and mâche (corn salad) spinach, bok choy, curly cress and Shungiku (edible chrysanthemum) and other cold season crops have all been harvested, and sent home in numerous bulging carry bags. The space left open in the garden has been quickly filled with the warm season crops, including tomato, cucumber and pepper transplants.
Four rows of corn in the alley on the south side of the house are 10 cm high, and the various varieties of beans, squash, potatoes and sunflowers are thriving in the sheet mulch garden right at the back of the lot. The cold frame is still groaning with transplants that will fill the gaps when the next harvest of early crops occurs on the final day of the course.
The series of eight courses of the Urban Food Garden is coming to a close, but production is high and the second crop is planted! Preparing the garden has been going full swing, every second Sunday since the penetrating cold of February when the first raised bed was prepared, planted with cold season varieties and protected with a plastic tunnel to keep out the frost.
Lead by Green Cycle Urban Agriculturalists, Ryan Nassichuck Certified Horticulturalist, and Max Thaysen, Activist, gardener, along with Permaculturalist, Diane Falvey, The fledgling urban gardeners have mulched, double dug, soil amended, made gravel or wood chip pathways, planted seeds in beds and pots, transplanted, built compost bins, cold frames for seedlings, trellises, and season extender cloches and tunnels, weeded, harvested, and eaten like crazy.
The gardeners have learned the skills required and have gained the confidence they need to make it happen again next year and hopefully many years after that. They have the knowledge to differentiate between cool and warm weather plants, by having been out in the elements with them, both chilled to the bone and sweating in the heat. For them, the theory of succession planting, companion planting and temporal and spatial biodiversity is real because they have lived the practice. I would say, from the bulging garden beds and the gardeners’ tummies, the Urban Food Garden is a resounding success.
Diane Falvey, BSc Agroecology, permaculture designer and certified permaculture instructor, has taught and assisted at permie workshops in Vancouver since 1994, and was involved with FF/CF at Colony Farm in Coquitlam. In her spare time she is a fine art conservator and has been preserving cultural heritage for 35 years. Contact: falvey@telus.net . For more info: Green Cycle Urban Agriculture www.greencycle.ca
Written: May24, 2006
Teaser:
The Green Cycle Urban Agriculture motto says it all, “grow what you eat”. A hardy group of urban gardeners have learned that first hand this spring, with a practical boot camp approach to food security in a large Vancouver garden on Ontario Street donated by a generous permaculture enthusiast.
Body:
Food Security with the Urban Food Garden by Diane Falvey
The Green Cycle Urban Agriculture motto says it all, “grow what you eat”. A hardy group of urban gardeners have learned that first hand this spring, with a practical boot camp approach to food security in a large Vancouver garden on Ontario Street donated by a generous permaculture enthusiast.
As the soft late spring rain of May falls, I stand in the urban food garden and am surrounded by lush, full vegetable beds, amazed at the richness of diversity and blaze of colours in the raised beds; the leafy red and green salad plants, Mizuna, chards, lettuces, Red Giant Mustard, the brilliance of the variegated Magenta Spreen, the deep maroon of the Purple Orache. The peas are mighty and waist high, the carrots’ frothy green tops are coming on, between the spires of onions. I wonder at the power of the broad beans, so tall in the double dug bed with the lazy bees in their white and black mottled blossoms.
The arugula, radishes and mâche (corn salad) spinach, bok choy, curly cress and Shungiku (edible chrysanthemum) and other cold season crops have all been harvested, and sent home in numerous bulging carry bags. The space left open in the garden has been quickly filled with the warm season crops, including tomato, cucumber and pepper transplants.
Four rows of corn in the alley on the south side of the house are 10 cm high, and the various varieties of beans, squash, potatoes and sunflowers are thriving in the sheet mulch garden right at the back of the lot. The cold frame is still groaning with transplants that will fill the gaps when the next harvest of early crops occurs on the final day of the course.
The series of eight courses of the Urban Food Garden is coming to a close, but production is high and the second crop is planted! Preparing the garden has been going full swing, every second Sunday since the penetrating cold of February when the first raised bed was prepared, planted with cold season varieties and protected with a plastic tunnel to keep out the frost.
Lead by Green Cycle Urban Agriculturalists, Ryan Nassichuck Certified Horticulturalist, and Max Thaysen, Activist, gardener, along with Permaculturalist, Diane Falvey, The fledgling urban gardeners have mulched, double dug, soil amended, made gravel or wood chip pathways, planted seeds in beds and pots, transplanted, built compost bins, cold frames for seedlings, trellises, and season extender cloches and tunnels, weeded, harvested, and eaten like crazy.
The gardeners have learned the skills required and have gained the confidence they need to make it happen again next year and hopefully many years after that. They have the knowledge to differentiate between cool and warm weather plants, by having been out in the elements with them, both chilled to the bone and sweating in the heat. For them, the theory of succession planting, companion planting and temporal and spatial biodiversity is real because they have lived the practice. I would say, from the bulging garden beds and the gardeners’ tummies, the Urban Food Garden is a resounding success.
Diane Falvey, BSc Agroecology, permaculture designer and certified permaculture instructor, has taught and assisted at permie workshops in Vancouver since 1994, and was involved with FF/CF at Colony Farm in Coquitlam. In her spare time she is a fine art conservator and has been preserving cultural heritage for 35 years. Contact: falvey@telus.net . For more info: Green Cycle Urban Agriculture www.greencycle.ca
Written: May24, 2006
