Start a Community Garden In Your Neighborhood Park!

Here's a blurb from the folks at Vancouver-Clark parks & Recreation:


Food Gardens in Neighborhood Parks

Are you interested in working with your neighborhood association to create a community food garden in your neighborhood park? We may be able to help. Go to our policy for starting a food garden in your neighborhood park. Food gardens in your neighborhood create active spaces in the park, promote conversations with your neighbors, promote healthy lifestyles and build community.


Call 487-7100 or e-mail us  for more information.

Urban Abundance - Planning Abundance Forum

And here's another great opportunity to get involved with our local food system via Urban Abundance:

Planning Abundance Forum
Tue, November 16, 6:30pm – 8:30pm
The Portal 2007 E. 12th St, Vancouver, WA‎ (map)

Lets grow more food in Vancouver! Hear local Historian tell the story of the Hudson Bay Company Food System in Vancouver. Share your story of Kitchen gardens in Vancouver and any tid bits of Vancouver's historical food system you'd like to share. Learn about Vancouver's ordinance that allows new community gardens in public parks and about Land Trust's that will work with private landowners to ensure their land is held in trust as agricultural and the benefits that can offer land owners. We will have a map of the four neighborhoods meeting at Grand Blvd and Mill Plain to help us see urban agricultural opportunities and where our neighbor's gardens are. Help us locate a spot for a new Neighborhood Garden! Thanks to Walmart, funding is available for one more garden site in one of the 7 neighborhoods along 4th Plain Boulevard (Rose Village, Central Park, 4th Plain Village, Harney, Bagley Downs, Ogden, & Meadow Homes). At the Planning Urban Abundance Forum you will have an opportunity to suggest a possible site. Please be prepared to include in your suggestion –

1) why you think this would be a good site
2) property location/address
3) owner name and contact info
4) brief description of the current site condition
5) what part you would like to play in the creation of the new site
6) whether or not you have discussed such possibility with the owner

Contact Warren Neth to RSVP or get involved: 260-771-1296 warren@myurbanabundance.org

Still Looking For A Community Garden Plot?

So as usual, the Parks & Rec Community Garden Plots are all spoken for but the garden season is really just beginning. If you weren't one of the lucky folks who scored a plot, I may have an alternative garden plot source for you. The Rose Village Neighborhood Garden has a few plot left for this season. Preference will go to residents of Rose Village, but consideration will be given to all. For more info, please contact Toree Hiebert at (360)907-5814 or toreehiebert at gmail dot com.

Community Garden Space @ 78th Street

County to open up 30 or so community garden plots at 78th Street site. Call (360) 576-6030, extension 12 before noon Monday, May 11 to get in on the lottery to get a space because they're going to go FAST!

Here's the official memo:

May 1, 2009

Contact: Mark McCauley, General Services, (360) 397-2323 ext. 4960 or mark.mccauley@clark.wa.gov

Community garden to open at county property in Hazel dell

Vancouver, WA – Beginning in May, Clark County will open a community garden area at the former Washington State University (WSU) Agricultural Research Station site at 1919 NE 78^th Street in Hazel Dell. The site will include up to 30 individual, 20’x 20’ plots. Gardening space will be allocated in a random drawing of entrants to be conducted May 12.

To enter the drawing for a plot in the community garden, applicants must call

(360) 576-6030, extension 12 before noon Monday, May 11. This is a voice mail only number. Please follow the recorded instructions provided to callers. People may also register online at www.clark.wa.gov/78WSU. Successful entrants will be notified no later than May 15.

Participants must pay a $25 plot fee before the garden space can be assigned. This fee will help cover the costs of creating the garden space, such as initial tilling, preliminary soil building, and providing water throughout the growing season. Gardening tools must be supplied by each gardener. Participants must use only organic gardening practices. No pesticides or herbicides will be allowed.

People accepted for spaces will be invited to attend an orientation and begin work on their garden on Saturday, May 23.

This community garden program is among several interim uses occurring at the property this summer. A broader community effort is underway to determine long-term future uses for the site. A county-sponsored public workshop April 9 attracted more than 160 people who shared their ideas about future use of the property serving agricultural, historical and community needs.

For more information about potential future uses at the site, go to the project web page at www.clark.wa.gov/78WSU. This web site also offers an online survey to gather additional public feedback about preferred uses to be integrated into a draft concept site plan later this year. A master planning process will follow the concept plan, and provide a more detailed look at opportunities for future uses of the property, according to the county.