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Even the smallest urban gardens benefit placemakin Even the smallest urban gardens benefit placemaking and enable people to leave their bubbles temporarily to experience a nurturing connection with the natural world that ultimately has the power to change the world ;) To paraphrase this inspiring quote by Buckminster Fuller, “Reform the environment and not the person; being absolutely confident that if you give people the right environment, they will behave favorably”, small changes can have huge ripple effects in the bigger picture. We’ve got a bunch of little urban gardens growing under the wing and unity of the queen of our gardens, the middle-of-the-street roundabout garden which we have been stewarding for 5 years now. She hosts the Wall St. Seed Library and many Indigenous plants that native pollinators love as well as a variety of perennial herbs, self seeding kale and collards…too many plants to name really! Rewilding and Re-Indigenizing the cityscape, regenerating health and sprinkling seeds of cultural change in our community is what these gardens cultivate above, beneath and beyond the concrete. A few meters up the street is our newest garden, our three sisters guerilla garden. The sign says it all so scroll through the pics to see how well this homage to Haudenoshonee companion planting garden is growing right now. The corn is getting taller by the day, some baby pumpkins are starting to form and we just planted the beans so there will be more updates to come! Then we have our other guerilla garden which is two years old and still learning how to grow food. Sometimes if a piece of land has only grown non-native grass for a long time, it needs a few years to harness the right microorganisms to be able to grow food properly. Thanks to our mentor, teacher and partner Brandon Bauer for sharing this important garden wisdom with us. And finally we have our community burlap sack gardens down the street which we’ve already featured so check them out in previous posts, they are amazing! We hope this will inspire you to take action today. Every little garden, sharing library or wildflower seed thrown in a sidewalk crack has the capacity to create big waves of systemic change.
“Education is the most powerful weapon you can u “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela We use opportunities like our placemaking burlap sack garden demonstration in Vancouver’s East Village to plant a little seed of learning. We accompanied the sack gardens with some signs in reusable plastic sleeves to display our Burlap Sack Garden Step-by-Step Guide developed with @abundant.earth.foundation You can find out about all this and more in our monthly email newsletter which just went out. Check it out via the link in our bio or at refarmers.org/news/and be sure to sign up for this once-a-month update on all things Refarmers! . . . . . #seedoflearning #plantaseed #monthlynewsletter #junenews #eastvancouver #vancouvereastvillage #gardennews #sackgarden #burlapsack #growagarden #placemaking #placemakinggarden #urbangarden #tinygarden #tinygardenmovement #growchange #growcommunity #educationisaweapon
“Placemaking is a multi-faceted approach to the “Placemaking is a multi-faceted approach to the planning, design and management of public spaces. Placemaking capitalizes on a local community's assets, inspiration, and potential, with the intention of creating public spaces that promote people's health, happiness, and well-being." @wikipedia/Placemaking Yesterday we spent the evening embelishing the new pop-up plaza at Hastings & Kamloops in Vancouver’s East Village with our signature burlap sack gardens. An abundance of flowers like marigolds and dianthus, veggies like swiss chard, purple cauliflower and brocolli and herbs like parsely, sage and thyme adorn three vertical burlap sacks provided by our local coffee spot @palletcoffee The plants were donated by @urbanrootsgardenmarket and @hastingscomcentre . Two little sacks sit between the tall ones filled with beautiful blue and white lobelia. Lunchers, elders, neighbours, visitors, ice cream eaters and dog walkers alike now enjoy the colourful sacks as they sit at the pastel picnic tables. Simple as they are, the sacks have addded such positive flow to the area and paint the space with freshness, healing energy and food for people and pollinators to enjoy! Thank you to @eastvillagevan for allowing @vancouverurbanfoodforest placemakers to sprinkle a little of our magic into the space! And thanks to all our partners for supporting us in doing what we do best! . . . . #placemaking #placemakinggarden #sackgarden #burlapsack #burlapsackgardening #popupplaza #vancouvereastvillage #eastvan #hastingssunrise #coffeesack #coffeesackgarden #growchange #growcommunity #communitygrowing #urbangardening #urbangarden #urbanpollinators #gardenmagic
Small actions with big ripple effects were exempli Small actions with big ripple effects were exemplified at the burlap sack garden workshop at our neighbourhood community garden on June 5th. It downpoured a coastal torrent that day and was quite chilly for a “Junuary” afternoon but that didn’t stop 7 neighbours from creating 4 sack gardens plus 1 potato sack garden and even planted lettuce in a couple wooden posts! We filled our vertical sack gardens with various types of lettuce, marigolds, bok choi, colourful swiss chard, 3 types of kale, english cucumbers, black beauty zuchnini, basil, oregano, mint, nasturtiums, purple pole beans and garlic chives. Marie-Pierre (MP) returned later when it was a little less rainy and posted a sign that directs people to find out how to make their own sack. Our new collaborative project called tiny-gardens.org has various resources and videos on how to make your own burlap sack garden. We have just launched the website and still have to add more but this will get you well on your way to making your own sack garden. Thanks to @neighbourhoodsmallgrants MP was able to purchase supplies and support this important work. Many community members will benefit from the sack garden demonstration in front of Wall St. Communiyt Garden which is on a very busy street near Cambridge Park, a popular dog and hangout park. Refarmers and @vancouverurbanfoodforest helped get the word out about the workshop in the neighbourhood and facilitated MP’s trusty assistant and videographer Erin to come help out and document (video is in the making and will post soon). The food in the sacks will continue to grow well into next spring and is free for anybody to come harvest from. Once spring arrives, the bottom of the biodegradable sacks will have dinisntegrated and most veggies will be at the end of their life cycle so we will empty the sacks, use what’s left of it as mulch or compost it, recycle the soil into new sacks, add more compost and vermicompost (worm) juice, get some fresh sacks and start all over again! Hope you will join us next time!
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We operate on the unceded, traditional and ancestral territory of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) and səl̓ilwətaɁɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations.

REFARMERS is a Canadian Registered Non-Profit Incorporation Number S0072619