STORY about EnvironmentFood posted on June 22, 2010 by Maya Motoi

Industrial Community Garden? Is it Guerrilla?

by Maya Motoi

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“I had this dream that this whole area was some kind of post apocalyptic farm land and there was no streets and maybe no buildings and we all lived here and um, we were growing our own food,” said Kevin Matheson, as he sprinkled seeds onto the soil. “The irrigation was terrible, everything was drowning.”
While Kevin’s dream may be one vision of the future, right now the land looks great. This formerly unused patch of lawn in the middle of the industrial area in East Vancouver has been taken over by a group of people from the Purple Thistle, a youth arts and activism centre. The vacant land has been transformed into a garden.
“I wanna learn how to grow things, and I wanna help other people to learn to grow things locally for local food security and sustainability,” said Meghan Corsie a key person in heading up the garden project. “I think that growing things in an industrial area where there’s just a patch of unused ground is a much better use of the space then having it just a patch of unused grass. I want to see this happening all over the city.”
But is it a guerrilla garden? Well, not really. The gardeners did get permission from the city to be gardening there as a ‘Green Streets’ garden. But what ‘Green Streets’ normally means though, is the planting of flowers in roundabouts. Actual food production happening by the road is a radical departure from the intent of the program.
“So we’re like an industrial community garden,” said Meghan. “I feel like getting permission to some degree is cool just so that we don’t get everything knocked down and taken apart but even if that does happen it’s O.K.”
The gardeners say they're learning lots in the process. Isaac Rosen-Purcell said he's gained “a knowledge about how to sustain, how much food it takes, how much work it takes to grow your own food and how to do that.” He went on to point out the oats in a bed, saying how it will probably only produce one cup of cereal.
“So its going to be interesting to see the bounty of the crops and stuff like that, and just over time learn what will be most efficient the best way to grow things,” he said.
The garden, in the limited amount of space they have, already has a herb spiral, berry bushes, grains, greens, fruit trees and multiple other vegetables growing in it. And though motivated by the highly practical purpose food production, the garden seems to be a lot about the learning process rather then direct results in the form of a large harvest.
They even have bees on the top of the roof in the back.
“People are opening up about talking about gardening. Lots of people coming by... [This area] used to be a corner where only the dog hung out,” said Braden Hammen, one of the other artists working in one of the studios in the same building as the Purple Thistle, in a studio right beside the bee hive.
“We do notice a lot of bees but they are very friendly and keep to themselves,” said Braden.
The garden and bees are proving to be forming community on all different levels, whether it’s the local conversation topic or people working the earth together.
“Gardening and plants; it’s like a whole kingdom,” said Meghan. “It really brings people together. “We just went in full force – we didn’t just ask right away and give the city all our plans and stop with a no,” she said. “We just did it all and boom! It’s this whole establishment and they’re not going to stop it, they’re making room for it so its really great.”

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Maya Motoi is an active member on the Purple Thistle collective.
This article was produced in collaboration with the PT & the VMC.