Sooke is a wonderful place to visit on the west coast of Vancouver Island. One of the things that really impressed me was the community gardens.
These community gardens are at the beginning of the Sunriver estate and include a community orchard, a root cellar, a healing garden, a cobb oven, native garden, herb garden, and community plots. For a fee per year ($20 to $60) gardenrs rent a space to grow veggies and flowers.
There are also plots where you can grow a row to donate to the food banks.
The plots were all different sizes and there was a variety of things growing there from beetroot, to beans, to peas, to garlic, to squash, to strawberries to whatever the gardeners wanted to grow.
We loved seeing all the different structures that had been created … greenhouses, climbing structures, fenced in areas growing berries, raised gardens and more. We came away with so many ideas. The raised beds weren’t always rectangular but were shaped to fit the space.
The signs were creative and functional. I loved the garlic sign.
While the parents tended the garden plot there was a fun play area for the kids. I loved the ladybug table made from an old cable reel and that old canoe made into a sandbox.
There were several volunteers who watered the plots, tended to the grow a row area and managed the orchard. I know we don’t have anything like this where I live but I do think they are trying to establish some community plots. I know in England there are lots of allotments.
This was our second visit to the community gardens, first in 2011 and now in 2015. It is a wonderful place to visit and we hope to return again on our next visit to British Columbia.
Does your community have garden spaces to rent like this?
