Sunday May 11, 2025 | LANGFORD, BC
by Island Social Trends
The inaugural growing season at Porcher Park Community Garden in Langford starts May 15.
A meet-and-greet yesterday at the garden was an opportunity for last-minute sign-ups for households to get a growing plot.
The May 10 event was hosted by the Urban Food Resilience Initiatives Society (UFRIS) which operates the food-growing facility.
High demand:
Plot requisitions have been rolling in for nearly a year, ever since the City of Langford announced the garden and then developed a community garden policy.
The interest is not just about the activity of gardening but also to support household economic resilience and benefit by having a source of fresh nutritious produce.
A garden layout was designed by UFRIS to accommodate household resilience and community support.
Balancing out lack of yard space:
This first community garden in the fast-growing municipality is for people who may not have a yard or food-growing capacity because they live in condos, apartments or other circumstance without land or indoor green-growing.
The Porcher Park Community Garden aims to support individual households in this way, as well as donating food to the broader community where needed.
Even if people don’t need a garden space they are welcome to come help maintain the overall garden space and become part of the Porcher Park Community Garden community including teaching others to grow food.
UFRIS will guide the garden to many great things including food production, developing food-growing expertise, and building community.
Introducing the garden:
The community first heard about Porcher Park Community Garden in March 2024 along with a park cleanup focussing on removing debris and invasive species from the forested area and walking path.
Then on Earth Day April 22 this year, the community heard about the new playground and food-growing garden, during an event held at the park.
On May 10, the food-growing area was open to the public for food-growers to get a first look. Under the direction of UFRIS Executive Lead Mary Brooke (B.Sc. in Foods and Nutrition and many years of community leadership and business experience), a team of professional construction contractors and many volunteers made the opening possible with the support of donors and suppliers.
The on-site contractor is Jay’s Construction Group — Jay and Kelsey together with Les built the 34 garden boxes in record time. Significant donations of materials were provided by RONA (lumber and hardware) and IslandEarth Landscape Services Ltd (soil).
GardenWorks Colwood donated tomato and cucumber starters as well as marigolds as pollinators.
Signage support was provided by MapleLine Business Centre.
Other suppliers included Home Depot, Slegg Building Materials, Tarp and Tool, Princess Auto, and Sunshine Shell Creations.
Volunteers:
Volunteers in the past week to help get the garden ready have been many — including Lee, Victoria, Shirl, Pat, Krista, Wade, Krys, Ashton, Kara, Liz, Karen, Gary, Sébastien, and others. Also joining the volunteer team on May 10 were Nancy and Emily.
Several neighbours around the Porcher Park site were very helpful to the success of the development phase this past week including Karen, Gary, Chris and Michael.
May 10 event:
On Saturday May 10 Langford residents visited the community garden for about two hours to meet fellow gardeners, tour the facility, and sign up for a growing-plot (if they have not already done so).
Mary Brooke’s remarks to the group included the importance of urban residents having a space to grow fresh natural food. She explained how the growing boxes are of various sizes and heights to accommodate family sizes and physical needs.
Brooke noted the support of Langford city council in launching a community garden but noted that UFRIS also continues to develop its broader vision to see that all urban development includes food-growing capacity (in residential, commercial and institutional structures).
Two Langford city councillors — Mary Wagner and Kimberley Guiry — attended the May 10 event to help celebrate the progress at Porcher Park Community Garden. They pointed out that community gardens throughout the city are part of the original Official Community Plan (OCP) and are carried forward in the new (draft) OCP.
About the household growing boxes:
The Porcher Park summer gardening season officially starts on Thursday May 15, 2025.
There are 34 growing boxes on site. Of those, 31 are for households to support their own food resilience. Plots can be shared.
Growing box assignments will be announced to the applicants this coming week.
CATEGORIES/PLOT FEES: (per-season fee – summer & winter)
A. Langford resident with a small family or senior – $40/plot
B. Langford resident with a large family – $60/plot
C. Langford resident growing to provide for community food donation – $60/plot
D. Langford resident with accessibility needs – $30/plot
E. Langford resident self-identifying as Indigenous – $50/plot
Box fees paid by households are paid to UFRIS but forwarded on to the City of Langford to cover some of their costs.
About the community-donation growing boxes:
Two boxes are for growing food for donation to the broader community. One box will be near some picnic tables outside the gated area, to grow vegetables that members of the community can pick as treats.
Volunteer gardeners are welcome to grow food in the community donation boxes.
Donations:
Grant funding and donations are the revenue sources for UFRIS.
Businesses and individuals in the community who wish to financially support the work of UFRIS including operations of the Porcher Park Community Garden are welcome to send in donations by etransfer to info@urbanfoodresilience.ca or inquire for more information.
===== RELATED:
NEWS SECTIONS: LANGFORD | URBAN FOOD RESILIENCE