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Press Article: The Secret World of Community Gardens What comes into your mind when someone says the word 'garden'? Do you imagine a beautiful and restful place where you can relax and escape from the pressures of everyday life? Or is your head filled with images of rows of carefully tended fruits and vegetables destined for your table? Maybe you are one of those people for whom the word conjures up thoughts of grass that needs constant cutting and weeds that never stop growing. Everyone has different ideas about gardens. However, it's not just a question of personal preference; factors such as environment and culture also play a part. Ask a French person and a Japanese person to describe their dream garden and you will almost certainly get two very different replies. Think of French gardens and the first one that comes to mind is Versailles. For its designers, the garden's architecture and symmetry were important as was enhancing the building they surrounded. To the Japanese, landscape gardening is an art form. The designs of raked gravel and sand and shaped stones in a garden are often symbolic and the gardens themselves are for meditation and contemplation. Culture not only influences design, it can also affect what is grown in gardens and you can see this in Vancouver if you look at community gardens. Community gardens are one of the city's best kept secrets. The gardens are often tucked away, like the newest one in the lane at Mole Hill. "Each one is unique and has a unique way of operating," says Mike Levenston, Executive Director of City Farmer - a not-for-profit urban agriculture group based here in Vancouver. The idea behind community gardens is that people can rent small plots of land to grow fruit, vegetables and flowers. Rates are very reasonable starting at as little as $10 to $15 a year. Despite the ready availability of produce from all round the world in shops and supermarkets and increased pressure from developers for land in the city, the number of community gardens is growing. Mike puts this down in part to the increasing population of apartment-dwellers and their desire to be able to grow things. According to Mike, community gardens appeal to all ethnic groups. Margaret Haga, treasurer of the Maple Community Garden and of Norwegian origin herself, confirms this. Amongst the plot-holders in the Maple garden there are French, Russians and Romanians, she says, adding that the French grow more vegetables than some of the other ethnic groups who have plots there. "People of British descent tend to grow flowers as well as vegetables," says Margaret. Over at the Strathcona Community Allotment Garden, the picture is similar. Bell Mayer - a goldmine of information on the garden - says that people from many different cultural backgrounds have plots there. Due to its relative proximity to Chinatown there are a number of Chinese plotholders. "The Chinese grow mainly vegetables," says Bell. She adds that they grow their own kinds of vegetables - not the ones that people from other cultures grow. When asked what different nationalities grew in their gardens, Mike Levenston remarked that many older men of Mediterranean origin grow a lot of vegetables. He believes they are growing them specifically for the kitchen. Could it be that those cultures for whom cuisine is very important such as the French, Chinese and Italians, are also the people that are most likely to give their plots or back yards over to growing their own vegetables? Of course, you don't have to be from France, China or Italy to enjoy gardening. People like Margaret Haga do it because, as she says, nothing tastes better than vegetables that you have grown yourself. In fact, she produces vegetables all year round from her plot. Her views are echoed by another gardener who adds that he grows herbs as well as vegetables because the flavour is much better than the produce you buy from the supermarket. It appears that when it comes to produce, freshness and flavour have international appeal. At the Strathcona garden, someone has done their bit to bring cultures together by assembling a collection of 'espalier' fruit trees. 'Espalier' refers to the way the trees are trained along wires. There are in fact about 200 trees comprising a huge number of different varieties. Wandering up and down the rows you will find Johnagolds from the USA, trees from Germany, the UK and even a Drap d'Or apple tree - a French variety that can be traced back to 1628. Gardening is also a good way of breaking down cultural barriers and encouraging community spirit. Walk through a community garden and you can usually see what everyone is growing, plus you are in much closer contact with fellow gardeners than you are working in your yard. One Guatemalan community gardener growing the 'three sisters' (corn, beans and squash) got to know his plot neighbour and progressed from exchanging nods and smiles to trading some of his crop for root vegetables such as carrots. Community gardens often have work parties too, where people get together and work to improve the gardens as a whole and these are an excellent opportunity to get to know people. So, if you want to improve the quality of the fruit and vegetables you eat and meet new people from other cultural backgrounds at the same time, put your name on the list for a plot in a community garden. Two things are certain - you'll get plenty of exercise and no shop-bought produce can ever taste as good as something freshly picked from your own garden plot. Information
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