Monday April 21, 2025 | LANGFORD, BC
by Mary P Brooke | Island Social Trends | CLICK HERE FOR NEWS COVERAGE OF THE APRIL 22 PORCHER PARK OPENING
On Earth Day April 22, City of Langford council will be hosting a celebration of the official opening of Porcher Park.
The Tuesday morning event right after the Easter long weekend will be held from 11 am to 12 noon.
Langford council has been supportive of community-based spaces in the city core.
Langford Mayor Scott Goodmanson will deliver remarks.
Councillors are Kimberley Guiry, Colby Harder, Mark Morley, Lillian Szpak, Mary Wagner and Keith Yacucha.
Outdoor event, bring your coffee cup:
Langford residents are invited to attend, to connect with neighbours, enjoy the outdoors, learn about the new community garden plots, and explore this new green space in the core of Langford.
At the April 22 event, people can celebrate the launch of this new community space with free seed packages, watch a ceremonial tree planting, and enjoy some light refreshments. Make sure to bring your coffee cup!
The park includes a children’s playground, walking paths, mature forest stands, open seating areas and a food-growing community garden.
The weather forecast for Tuesday is a high of 14°C with little chance of rain.
City-driven development:
Porcher Park at 822 Wren Place has taken about one year of development, from last summer through winter into this spring.
Community food-growing at Porcher Park:
City council has strongly supported the availability of food-growing capacity in the inner core area of the city.
The growing plots in the community garden are still under development toward a mid-May completion. The garden Operator is the Urban Food Resilience Initiatives Society (UFRIS).
The community garden is intended to be an area for residents who live in high-density areas (without yard or garden space) to grow food for their households. Many people are downsizing from homes with yards into condos and apartments that presently don’t have growing spaces.
Natural-grown food will be helpful to household budgets and a good source of healthy food and nutrition.
Plot sizes are being designed to serve small families and aging-in-place seniors, as well as larger families.
The City of Langford community garden policy requires 10% of the plots to be available to people with Accessibility needs, and also 10% to those self-identifying as Indigenous.
Food will also be grown at Porcher Park for donation to the community. People will gardening skills will be welcome to participate.
There is still time for people to add their name to the list for getting a growing space, by emailing to info@urbanfoodresilience.ca .
===== RELATED:
- Trees planted & food-garden celebrated by Langford on Earth Day (April 22, 2025)
- Urban food resilience needed now more than ever (February 17, 2025)
- Langford develops their community garden policy (October 30, 2024)
- Urban food-growing as part of emergency preparedness (August 9, 2024)
- Public engagement about Porcher Park development in central Langford (April 8, 2024)
- Preparation for Langford’s first community garden gets rolling (April 1, 2024)
- Urban food resilience directions in Langford (June 9, 2023)
- Growing your own food in inflationary times (July 3, 2022)
- NEWS SECTIONS: LANGFORD | URBAN FOOD RESILIENCE