Victory Gardens Vancouver – Grow Your Own Food

By Noa Glow

If you love the idea of growing your own food as much as we do but aren’t quite sure how to start, Victory Gardens is a team of urban farmers for hire that will help you do just that.

Just as people were encouraged to work together and use the urban space around them for food production during the First World War and Second World War, Victory Gardens encourages us to participate in the movement toward new and sustainable food systems within our community. This local team of three – Lisa Giroday, Sandra Lopuch and Sam Philips – can provide the education and infrastructure to help you gain a successful harvest.

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“We help bring food into various spaces, whether it’s a yard, balcony or a rooftop, through building the infrastructure if it’s not already in place and providing the education and facilitation to empower people with the knowledge to grow,” says Lisa. “We believe that if we are able to demystify the act of growing food, we can help perpetuate and foster sustainable communities, healthy lifestyles and reconnect people to their food sources.”

Services provided by Victory Gardens include: custom planting guides, coaching, mentoring and workshops. Lisa, Sandra and Sam can help you create a food-producing garden in your space based on your location, the amount of room you have and the types of veggies you like to eat. Whether you’re a novice or expert gardener, the girls will be as hands-on as you need/want them to be, offering everything from regular garden maintenance to sending email reminders when it’s time to put certain plants in the ground.

If you’d like to take a class or workshop about growing your own food, Victory Gardens offers gardening basics, container gardening and preservation workshops for beginner and advanced gardeners alike. Among the upcoming events: a workshop on starting an early garden (February 23) and another on the ins and outs of planning and planting an urban space (March 10). You can register online at victorygardensvancouver.ca.

This spring, we encourage you to plant your own Victory Garden, no matter how small, and start growing your own food. By doing so you’ll decrease your impact on the earth, create a healthy environment with organic food and participate in the movement towards new and sustainable food systems within our community.