Community gardens along cycling routes

Earlier today, went to public breakfast panel session on community gardens and urban agriculture initiatives in our area.

Coincidentally, many current community gardens are located quite near existiing bike routes... The city didn't plan it that way initially..
http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/socialp...dencurrent.htm (Will be a better map WITH bike routes posted probably later this month. )

Municipal gardening workshops for the public all over Metro Vancouver, are becoming overbooked now ..great contrast to just a few years ago.

And a goal to have 2,010 community gardens by Jan. 2010, as part of the post-Olympic legacy. More of a catchy branding strategy for public action, but it's working 'cause the city is already surpassing 1,700 community gardens at this time.

http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/socialp...010gardens.htm

Great news. I love community gardens. When I lived in DC, I had a plot until I bought a house with a yard. I've helped with several school gardens that included community gardens during the summer months.

A certain amount of that grown food from those gardens is given to the local food banks and home shelters. Interestingly, the community gardens realized they should consult the food bank coordinators and home shelter program coordinators on the type of grown food that people wanted.

People didn't want.. free white carrots, aramath leaves..and kale, Swiss chard is a hard sell even if offered free..unless the community garden program coordinator organized a workshop which included a chef, demonstrating how to cook these "exotic" veggies. :o

The next difficult stage to surmount..is getting local produce that the children helped grow in the community gardens..get it into their school cafeterias. Not just donate to the food bank. That's actually difficult right now because the local school board is a separate jursidiction from the city's food production program. Also the school board has pre-set contracts with outside suppliers of food.

Talk about bureaucracy..:( It would take agitation by parents, school trustees, etc. a whole persistent movement, to change this scene.

All of the towns around here have community gardens. They are heavily used! There is also a wonderful organic farming program about 5 miles from here; they hire an equal number of kids from the city and the suburbs to work there. One day a week they sell stuff at a farmer's market in Boston (in a depressed area) and they provide a lot of food to shelters. They also sell stuff at the farm (where I buy it). The kids that come from the city are given free passes for public transportation to get to the farm. Whenever any of the kids are on the train, they are not allowed to wear headphones or talk on their phone, when they are wearing their t shirts and hats that represent the project.
My kids had several friends who worked at this farm for their entire high school career; it was wonderful.

Latest map of bike routes and nearby community gardens.

http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/socialp...ardenwalks.htm