Two hundred new community garden plots will be available at the Garden City Lands next spring for Richmond gardeners.
Allowing people in City Centre – many of whom live in high rises – to get outside and grow food and flowers will have many benefits, said Ian Lai, executive director of Urban Bounty, a non-profit that manages community gardens in Richmond
There are currently 683 people in Richmond waiting to secure a community garden plot so these new plots will increase opportunities “quite dramatically,” Lai said.
The Agricultural Land Commission recently approved the community garden plan – the Garden City Lands are located in the Agricultural Land Reserve - along with 20 parking spots ion the west side of the property.
The city will move forward this winter to bring in moveable garden plots, so they’ll be ready for planting in the spring.
Community gardens have multiple benefits, Lai said, for example, they bring people – whether they’re novices or seasoned gardeners - out of social isolation and into outdoor spaces.
“There are so many benefits of being outside, and the by-product is the flowers or the food or vegetables that you put your sweat and tears into,” Lai said.
It also gets people engaged in the food system, he added.
“We need to be empowered to make decisions that affect where our food comes from, who our food comes from, what we eat and how we eat,” Lai said.
Furthermore, the city plans to plant a wide variety of native trees and shrubs around the perimeter pathway of the 55-hectare (135-acre) greenspace, located to the east of Garden City Road and north of Westminster Highway.
Five hundred trees and 20,000 shrubs will be planted along the trail, and 12 benches will be installed as well.
Fruit trees are also planned for the western side of the property.
The city received $175,000 from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities to do soil remediation at the Garden City Lands.
The soil has some contamination from gunshot shells – it used to be a popular shooting range in the early part of the 20th century.
