27 results found

1. A Call to Town Hall - Plant Veggies, not Flowers

   A Call to Town Hall - Plant Veggies, not Flowers
   Poverty Reduction, Environment Protection and Community Building

   Goal
   Reduce poverty, involve community, promote healthy lifestyles, reduce personal and city spending, create a well connected and safer community, add natural nutrients back to top soil, and educate about healthy living and healthy food.

   Most cities and towns have multiple flower gardens that are taken care of by city workers. Call your local city hall, ask them to plant hardy vegetables in garden spots instead of the usual flowers. Vegetable plants produce very beautiful flowers that turn into edible veggies like Squash, beans, sun-chokes, tomatoes, cucumber, and zucchini, just to name a few of the basics.
   You can still enjoy the beauty of all the flowers the vegetable plants produce and even add a few seasonal flowers in the mix.

   A few times a year, the community can get together for a harvest. The harvest can then be sold at farmers markets, donated to needy families, or whatever idea someone else may have.

   Poverty Reduction
   Many types of Vegetables can be stored for quite a long time. we can help reduce poverty if the harvested food is donated to those who need it.

   Community Involvement
   Involving community members by allowing everyone to participate in weeding, watering, and harvesting.

   Promote a Healthy Lifestyle
   There are currently hundreds of millions of dollars spent on Marketing campaigns each year. These vegetable gardens will help to promote healthy eating with people walking by a bunch of veggie gardens all day.

   Save Money
   Reduce city spend by having community volunteers do some work such as weeding, and general garden maintenance.

   Education
   Demonstrations, informational tours, and meetings can be held at garden spots for educational events related to growing your own garden in the city.

   Harvesting
   Harvesting the crops can be a community event bringing individuals and families together a few times a year to sell and/or give away the crops. Harvesting your own seeds will eliminate purchasing expensive annual flowers that die and wither each year.

   Rebuilding for future Generations
   Over time each garden spot will rebuild itself to a more natural state and balance itself to support the types of vegetables being grown. Adding natural nutrients such as it's own compost to top soil each year will build a healthy garden for future generations.

   Safer Community
   Creating a well connected and safer community is always on the top of the list for most families and singles these days. Getting to know more people in your community will create a safer atmosphere by having more people watch out for each other more.

   The infrastructure for maintaining these gardens already exists in most cities and towns across North America. Some gardens even have automatic sprinkler systems. Very little needs to be done to make this idea possible. Help make 2010 a year of community and health. Plant Veggies!

   A Call to Town Hall - Plant Veggies, not Flowers
   Poverty Reduction, Environment Protection and Community Building

   Goal
   Reduce poverty, involve community, promote healthy lifestyles, reduce personal and city spending, create a well connected and safer community, add natural nutrients back to top soil, and educate about healthy living and healthy food.

   Most cities and towns have multiple flower gardens that are taken care of by city workers. Call your local city hall, ask them to plant hardy vegetables in garden spots instead of the usual flowers. Vegetable plants produce very beautiful flowers that turn into edible veggies like Squash,… more

   41 votes

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   3 comments  ·  Encourage local food  ·  Delete…  ·  Admin →
   started  ·  AdminGreenest City Planning Team (Admin, CG2020) responded

   This idea is included in the draft Greenest City Action Plan. Action to date on this issue include community gardens and green streets on City-owned property. The City has also developed an edible landscaping policy http://vancouver.ca/commsvcs/socialplanning/initiatives/foodpolicy/tools/links.htm#Edible

2. street end community gardens

   The short streets on the end of a typical block are 66 feet wide just like the streets along the front of most residential properties.
   What if we made them 33 feet wide which is wide enough for a laneway a sidewalk and some trees. The remaining 33 feet could be used for community gardens, pocket parks or leased for a standard residential lot. The lot would provide additional housing without changing the character of a neighbourhood.

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   0 comments  ·  Encourage local food  ·  Delete…  ·  Admin →
   under review  ·  AdminGreenest City Planning Team (Admin, CG2020) responded

   Various options for creating new green spaces are being considered. Converting street ends into mini-parks is an idea considered in the Draft Greenest City Action Plan.

3. Develop a city-supported urban farming program

   Community gardens and farmers markets are on the rise in Vancouver, but there remains a need for more productive farms (market gardens) to produce significant amounts of local food.

   There are more and more people interested in getting into farming as a livelihood, but barriers such as high land values and low profit margins in traditional farming make entry difficult.

   The City could develop a municipally-supported urban farming program where city-owned land would be affodably leased to prospective farmers for a season to gain experience, earn an income, and produce food for local residents. This could be coupled with a mentorship program with experienced producers, and educational programs at the highschool and/or post-secondary level.

   If we want to get serious about local food, we need to get serious about growing a new generation of farmers. We all benefit!

   Community gardens and farmers markets are on the rise in Vancouver, but there remains a need for more productive farms (market gardens) to produce significant amounts of local food.

   There are more and more people interested in getting into farming as a livelihood, but barriers such as high land values and low profit margins in traditional farming make entry difficult.

   The City could develop a municipally-supported urban farming program where city-owned land would be affodably leased to prospective farmers for a season to gain experience, earn an income, and produce food for local residents. This could be coupled with a… more

   240 votes

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   10 comments  ·  Encourage local food  ·  Delete…  ·  Admin →
   started  ·  AdminGreenest City Planning Team (Admin, CG2020) responded

   City has supported SOLE food project (in the DTES) and is investigating other urban farming opportunities as part of the draft Greenest City Action Plan.

4. Develop a local food hub and expand the availability of local food at a neighbourhood level

   A local food hub would support the distribution, processing and storage of local food, a current gap in the local food system. This hub would then be connected to avenues to access locally produced food distributed throughout the neighbourhoods, making more available food produced locally by farmers outside Vancouver as well as urban farmers.

   506 votes

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   12 comments  ·  Encourage local food  ·  Delete…  ·  Admin →
   under review  ·  AdminGreenest City Planning Team (Admin, CG2020) responded

   The draft Greenest City Action Plan includes a variety of actions to support the availability of local food at the local level.

5. Encourage urban food production

   Urban vegetable gardens and container planting can go a long way towards reducing our food miles and our dependence on imports.

   Successful projects in Mexico and Cuba show us that we can produce a lot of food in the city proper, so why don't we?

   669 votes

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   23 comments  ·  Encourage local food  ·  Delete…  ·  Admin →
   started  ·  AdminGreenest City Planning Team (Admin, CG2020) responded

   The draft Greenest City Action Plan will discuss this in a variety of ways.

6. Develop a Vancouver Food Action Plan

   An Action Plan would provide an overall strategy to guide the City’s response to urban agriculture and food system issues.

   177 votes

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   6 comments  ·  Encourage local food  ·  Delete…  ·  Admin →
   under review  ·  AdminGreenest City Planning Team (Admin, CG2020) responded

   This is one of the key actions in the draft Greenest City Action Plan

7. Create more community gardens

   Provide more opportunities for the creation of community gardens. Existing community gardens should be preserved and enhanced. Encourage community gardens on school grounds for educational and aesthetic purposes.

   227 votes

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   8 comments  ·  Encourage local food  ·  Delete…  ·  Admin →
   started  ·  AdminGreenest City Planning Team (Admin, CG2020) responded

   City has already moved beyond the 2,010 (garden plots) by 2010 challenge. Three new gardens were created in the summer of 2010 and others are currently in the planning stage. This is an idea included in the Draft Greenest City Action Plan.