Ladner Community Garden

When the idea of starting a community garden came up last year, I had no idea how it would end up.I tried to visualize the end result but I am overwhelmed as it has exceeded my expectations. Not only has it enabled first time gardeners to grow food but it has created a new community within the wonderful one we live in. If you think you are going to just drop by and water your garden, guess again. It rarely happens as conversations flow from one gardener to another, and ideas are shared.Hours later you go home wondering what you did in the garden but that's okay. New friends were made, lessons learned and that's what community gardening is all about. Its hard to believe this part of the allotment garden looked like this at the beginning of July. We had a late planting season and things were just beginning to grow. These are the same gardens as of August 30! I love the lushness of all that food growing. The food bank garden was part of our design. We wanted

Here it is almost the end of August and the community garden is looking great. Yesterday one of our volunteers picked four bags of beans, some lettuce and peas and donated it to the local food bank. The food bank staff were excited to receive fresh vegetables. Not only are people growing vegetables at the community garden, there are also flowers. These Sweet Peas are beautiful! For those of you who live around here, our cool wet spring has not been the easiest for these flowers. I had just one Sweet Pea plant germinate. The soil was just too cold back in April. If you drive by the Ladner Community Garden, you can't help but spot the masses of sunflowers growing. Aren't they just the most cheerful plant to grow? They also bring pollinating insects to the garden. In the photo above is a late planting of beets. I was sent some Detroit beet seeds from another gardener in Ontario. We are participating in a country wide planting of beets. We all planted around

I haven't posted in awhile but received these photos courtesy of one of our directors at the garden, Lynn Dick. Wow, how well every one's gardens are doing now that we actually have some warm weather! This garden bed above belongs to West Coast Seeds. Isn't it amazing? I was told today that they harvested over thirty pounds of squash already. I love the Sunflowers that are planted throughout the garden. They are attracting the bees to the garden and that helps pollinate our crops. The benefits of a raised bed are many and as you can see here they are easy to maintain.Hmmm... love those colorful buckets for weeds. This gardener has a tiny wall around her bed to protect it from prevailing winds. The community garden is very open to south westerly winds which can mean cooler temperatures that our warmth loving vegetables do not like. Don't the gardens all look great? Our little community garden has the best new gardeners around.