Monday April 1, 2024 | LANGFORD, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends
A survey of local Sooke and west shore gardeners shows eager and active gardening activities in at-home gardens.
That includes attention to soil quality, composting, growing from seed, and harvesting. About 86% enhance the soil in their garden each year, while about 68% create their own compost (about 14% buy compost).
Almost all home gardeners (89%) grow their edible plants from seeds. Seeds are produced from people’s own home gardens (50% of respondents), or purchased from a local seed supplier (71%), or at a local retail store (61%).
Almost all the respondents grow edible plants both in-ground and in containers; a few use raised beds or have a greenhouse.
Respondents itemized a wide range of vegetables and fruits that they grow at home including tomatoes, lettuce, beans and peas, potatoes, beets, kale, spinach and broccoli. Some grow carrots and corn, cabbage and rhubarb. Many grow a variety of culinary herbs and garlic. Fruit endeavors include raspberries, strawberries and plums.
Food-growing in community:
Almost all the at-home gardeners (96%) who filled out the survey at the UFRIS booth are currently not involved in a community garden. But 25% of respondents said they might like to be.
Sooke has one community garden (Sunriver Orchard and Allotment Gardens on Phillips Road) as does Colwood (Colwood Community Garden next to Colwood municipal hall). Both municipalities have organizations pressing for a second community garden in each of Sooke and Colwood.
Langford is putting together their first community garden for active use this summer.
Almost all respondents (93%) said they think more buildings (residential, commercial, schools, etc) should include food-growing infrastructure like balconies with garden boxes, irrigation to yards and balconies, indoor green-growing rooms, and designated garden plots. “That would be very good and healthy for the entire Island,” said one respondent and another said “This is very important”.
Learning more:
There was interest in learning more through classes or workshops, with 71% of respondents saying they would be interested in attending one or more workshops on topics like soil quality, planting from seed and composting.
About 25% said they would be interested in learning how to lead or join a neighbourhood food growing pod.
Harvesting:
Of the folks who go to the trouble of growing food through the growing season about 86% attempt to harvest all of it. Most of that is for use at home (89%) mostly consumed fresh (79%), frozen for use over winter (68%), or to share with neighbours (50%).
About 7% of grow-food-at-home gardeners take some of their harvest to their local food bank. Goldstream Food Bank is in Langford and the Sooke Food Bank is in Sooke.
Royal Roads University has a community garden called The Farm from which all the produce is contributed to local food distribution networks.
About the survey:
The survey completed by people who garden at home was made available at an information booth of the Urban Food Resilience Initiatives Society (UFRIS) during the annual Sooke Seedy Saturday event (held on March 30, 2024). The sample size was 28 respondents.
===== RELATED:
- Robust turnout for Sooke Seedy Saturday 2024 (March 31, 2024)
- Urban Food Resilience info booth on Easter Weekend (March 29, 2024)
- April 6: Soil quality workshop for local backyard gardeners (March 25, 2024)
- Little trees in big number at Sooke Seedy Saturday (March 22, 2024)
- Urban Food Resilience group pitches new approaches for Langford (February 27, 2024)
- West shore community leaders take on urban food resilience (February 10, 2024)
- Soil quality workshop for local backyard gardeners (December 30, 2023)
- Urban food resilience requires municipal leadership (October 29, 2023)
- Big turnout for 2023 Sooke Apple Festival (September 24, 2023)
- What people are saying about food sustainability (March 29, 2023)
- Sooke community shows up for food sustainability (March 28, 2023)
- Big yield for inaugural Royal Roads community garden (October 3, 2022)
- Support for BC farmers’ markets to grow, operate in emergencies (January 9, 2022)
- 10th Annual Sooke Seedy Saturday draws a crowd (February 23, 2019)
- NEWS SECTION: Food Security (archive 2019 to present)