By Bob Groeneveld/Langley Advance Times
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Langley’s community gardens just keep growing.
“Just as fast as they are being built, they are being filled,” said Nichole Marples, executive director of Langley Environmental Partners (LEPS), which oversees many of the local gardens.
The demand for more gardens “is absolutely there,” Marples said.
With denser populations in many of Langley’s neighbourhoods, there is less yard space available for many people, said Marples, “but they still want to grow their own food.”
“Some people say they can save money,” she said, “but mostly, it’s for health: fresh food, fresh air, getting your hands in the soil, and also that ‘I grew it myself’ pride.”
Consequently, she reiterated, “Community gardens are booming.”
“There’s a fair number now,” she said, adding that all of them have wait lists for people hoping to get their hands dirty in a bit of soil they can call their own.
Some of the wait lists are growing as fast as the whole community garden phenomenon itself.
As an example, Marples noted that one of the older gardens, in Walnut Grove, has more people waiting for a space than there are plots in the garden.
Although more and more community gardens are being created – a Michaud garden was added in Langley City last year – Marples suggests that anyone interested in getting a garden plot should get their name on a wait list right away.
For LEPS gardens, all who already have plots get dibs for following year.
But some people move, Marples said, or they give up their plots for a number of other reasons. Those are reassigned to top of the wait list for each garden.
There are guidelines – “expectations for appropriate use and care of plots,” Marples explained – that gardeners are required to follow.
Most of the gardens are quite public, she said, so they have to look presentable.
Weeds from an unkempt plot can contaminate neighbours’ vegetable beds, and the gardeners have to maintain peaceful co-existence.
If fellow gardeners complain, Marples said, the result can range from a warning to removal from the next year’s plot assignments.
Not all of the 15 community gardens listed at LEPS.bc.ca/community-gardens, each with about 25-40 plots, are managed by LEPS, Marples explained. “Quite a few are managed individually or by garden associations.”
Marples and her colleagues try to keep the list updated with all the gardens they’re aware of.
Langley’s first community garden was started in Murrayville by people who came to the LEPS Demonstration Garden with a request.
“We started with ‘grow-a-row’ where just one row of the garden could be tended by someone,” said Marples, who has been with LEPS for 21 years, “and eventually that grew into negotiating with the Township to create community gardens.”
Now the Township has a mechanism in which people can request a community garden, said Marples. “And they have to be the sort of champion for the area. The Township will put in the infrastructure and build it, but you have to have an association of volunteers to manage it.”
Langley City is now also on board with the project.
The Langley Demonstration Garden, whose educational goal is to demonstrate sustainable gardening techniques, was one of the very first project that LEPS and the Township of Langley went together on, in 1992, said Marples.
It actually pre-dated LEPS by a year.
Located in Murrayville for its first 20 years, it recently moved to the Doubleday Arboretum.
“That space is really growing,” said Marples, “so we’re getting a lot more people than when it was a little garden tucked into a treed area in Murrayville. Now it’s in a public park that has a lot more activity around it. We get a lot of visitors.”
Workshops and seminars inform both veteran gardeners and those less experienced about environmentally sound practices.
There are now community gardens in practically every corner of Langley, and particularly in neighbourhoods where people are living closer to each other.
Gardens currently listed at LEPS include:
Aldergrove Community Garden at Aldergrove Athletic Park;
Derek Doubleday Arboretum, at Fraser Hwy. between 216th & the 208th Bypass;
Fort Langley Community Garden at Fort Langley Community Park;
Linwood Community Garden at 201st St. and 55A Ave.;
Michaud Community Garden at Michaud Cres. east of 201st St.;
Murrayville Community Garden at the corner of 224th St. and Old Yale Rd.;
Northeast Gordon Community Garden at 6690 - 210th St.;
Nicomekl Community Garden at 20050 - 53rd Ave.;
Routley Community Garden at 19833 - 70th Ave.;
Topham Park Community Garden at 21555 - 91st Ave.;
Trinity Western University Community Garden at 7600 Glover Rd.;
U Grow Organic Community Garden at 8181 - 252nd St.;
Walnut Grove Community Garden at Walnut Grove Park;
Willoughby Community Garden at 20525 - 72nd Ave.; and
Yorkson Community Garden at 20542 - 84th Ave.
Visit LEPS online at www.leps.bc.ca.