Growing Corn on Davie Street
August 14, 2009
Imagine, even a decade or so ago, if someone had predicted flower and vegetable gardens at Burrard and Davie Streets, where gas stations occupied attractive real-estate opportunities .
Or that we would be harvesting corn at one of the major intersections in one of the highest-density parts of one of the country’s biggest cities.
I’ll confess: I was skeptical that this community garden would work, that it would attract enough gardeners, that it would be respected.
Just shows how tough it can be to predict the future if you’re not sufficiently accepting of the improbable.
One of my favorite things about this garden is the colorful fence cozy which someone has knitted to decorate it. What else to call it? A scarf for the fence, perhaps?
2 thoughts:
1) How come it takes years of industrial clean-up to build on an old gas station site, but you can grow food lickity split?
2) What developer is getting a nice tax break for creating a “park” on the site?
As soon as the housing market recovers I’m betting bye-bye flower beds.
I’m one of the gardeners at the Davie Village Community Garden. In response to matt’s questions:
1) We gardeners had sign contracts accepting all liability for any harm that might come from ingesting food grown on this industrial site. (I’ve chosen to grow primary flowers rather food because I’m concerned that the soil isn’t entirely safe).
2) The landowner’s is Prima Properties Ltd.
And yes, this is a temporary garden and we gardeners also had to agree that we will relinquish our garden plots to the developer whenever Prima Properties decides it is time to build.
uh yeah. I wouldn’t be scarfing down those veggies in a hurry either.
flowers it would be for me too!
When I saw this community garden it was a pleasant surprise. What a great use of space!