I am visiting Vancouver for a week and this city is proving to me that they can be green, lush and full of the possibility of community, especially when it comes to gardening. I was told about an article on the cover of today's Vancouver Sun discussing the work of a block's worth of gardeners who have banded their back yards together in Vancouver east side to create a kind of co-operative mini farm including bees, group compost, chickens and lots and lots of food. Read it here. They have also created a 2 page manual for others who wish to start gardening in their back yards, or with their neighbours. It is linked to in the article.
There is also an article about the Dunbar Harvest festival!
All this really reminds me of something that I started learning about while working with SPEC, that is, the idea of the Transition Town Innitiative, as promoted by Village Vancouver and known more broadly though the transition network. To learn more check out this Ted talk with Rob Hopkins
What can I say, I'm hometown proud. But I'm still going back up North.
