The Harvest

This blog is coming to an abrupt end. And there are definitely some loose ends to which will remain untied. For one, my research is leading me to conclude that community and gardening are not mutually exclusive to defining the extent to which social capital is enforced nor are community gardens spaces (places? both?) that are beyond importance to the city. Spending some time in local gardens has given me a newfound appreciation of what is going on the city, and to some extent, what is at stake when they are undermined. I had no idea how much it is a passion for many people, and secretly, I've become increasingly fascinated by their presence in the city.

The most significant thing I've taken away from this whole process is how to discover. To use a completely obvious metaphor, sewing a crop takes investment that may or may not have a guaranteed return. So it is with this research, that I took a chance in really trying to harvest little of the vast "crop" that is out there. Symbolically, I bought into a little plot and risked being unmet in my desires and requests to discover. I sent out twenty or so e-mails, and more than half responded, some provided a lot of information, some less. But I learned that answers aren't so difficult to attain. I found that people are genuinely desire to answer my questions in whatever capacity they can.

In my first post, I wrote that community gardens may be part of the story the city tells, and as I reflect on my almost metaphysical hypothesis, I would have to wholeheartedly agree. Community gardens are part of the city's autobiography, and in Assignment 3, I will try to make at least parts of the story intelligble.

For now, I encourage everyone to discover the part of the city where the grass is certainly, literally and figuratively, much greener than you originally may notice or expect.

Reaping the Harvest.

Today I went to one of Vancouver's oldest community garden, and spoke to the man who is "in charge" of it. For two hours, I sat and discussed at length the history of the garden, how it is functioning in the present, and what is ahead in the future. I'm saving a lot of the responses for my final editorial piece, but the most salient thing I discovered, was that as I was sitting on the soil ledge overlooking the garden, I was figuring out that everything I have read thus far, researched, and predicted, pales in experience to the real thing. I was "knowledgeable" enough, eloquent enough, perhaps even a little proud of what I had known prior to my encounter with a real garden. And what I learned, was I knew nothing at all, and that to sit and talk with a man that had seen such garden grow from nothing into what was before my eyes was like learning a new word: I had to spell it out, put it in context, learn meanings. I don't know why I was surprised as people came and went into the garden, checking up on their plot, but I was. It was like watching a mystery unfold, putting the pieces together, trying to understand, to reconcile all that I thought I knew, to what I was learning, which was infinitely more enriching. Upon exiting the garden, I felt like this city had just told me a wonderful secret, and felt the conviction that I need to let all who I can, in my limited capacity, in on this secret if only for the reason that it's just too good to keep to myself.

I'll be meeting with more community garden leaders in the weeks to come, which I look forward to so much. I feel sort of hard pressed for time, as this course is coming to a close, the final exam is coming up, and other obligations such as work (and play with the weather choosing to be gorgeous again), but it's nice to end this course on very positive experiences that extend beyond this computer screen, my printed PDF research papers, and a textbook.

Hmm.

This is just a random thought, but the more I think about community gardening, the more I wonder about place and space - both extremely important discussions within geography, specifically within cities. Are gardens spaces made into places vis a vis community interactions? Or are they originally places, distinct and unique, overlooked at as mere "spaces" within a city, occupying a vacant lot, filling a void. How does community, when added into the dynamic, create and transform the interpretation of a garden into space and place? Is the dichotomy just as unique as private and/or public? And more honestly, is that dichotomy justified: does place take precedent over space, or vice versa? Is a community garden a place? Or a space? Or both?

Olympic Gardens?

Before I head to bed, I quickly wanted to share this link I used in my paper. It's concerning Vancouver's Social Planning initiative to create 2010 shared garden plots by 2010. You can read it here:

http://www.city.vancouver.bc.ca/commsvcs/socialplanning/initiatives/foodpolicy/projects/2010gardens.htm

In my paper, I discussed how this may create a new tension as new plots would essentially be planted for the purpose of generating an Olympic legacy. This would be a new chapter to the Community Garden in Vancouver because it would demonstrate new and existing gardens as public sites that are not entirely de-commodified (because of their attachment to the Olympics).

I'm wondering how garden leaders feel about this initiative, perhaps positive, perhaps negative or more than likely a little from columns A and B.

Growth Spurt

So two blogs below, I hypothetically wondered what the difference between a community garden and a cultivated one was. Yes, there is something aesthetically different, that is perhaps most obvious. But it must also have something to do with how it comes to look that way. One could say, people make it different. Yes, but people could also make something completely different from a community garden, a whole industry is devoted to landscapers. What sorts of people community garden, what makes it different from a farm, or your backyard? Perhaps it's more about community that it is about gardening?

Social Gardening, Community Capital

Sorry it's been almost a month since I last blogged. I just finished two other summer courses, so I've neglected this for a while. But, I'm back and focused to explore more this community gardening issue. For the paper, I wrote on how there is a lack of emphasis on the link between Community Gardening and Social Capital, even though there has been extensive research done. Most of what I found was writing about gardening sites as contested space or as gardens being the site or racial (mostly for Black, White, and Hispanic populations) integration.

I found lots of research done by Troy Glover, a professor in Leisure Studies (I didn't know there was such a discipline, but in reflection I shouldn't be surprised). Social Capital has proven to be a determining factor in a Garden's success, because it allows its leaders and members to gain the tools, garden related or othewise, to contribute to it. This includes tangible resources, such as water, tools, and other supplies, but extends further, as members connect on a social level where gardening becomes peripheral to other activities such as grant-seeking, fundraising efforts, community cook-outs etc. Members become active in one anothers lives seeking mutual support for needs beyond that of the gardening, and offer more help to simply baby-sit, or offer other services.

Social Capital, in essence is relational currency, where investment manifests itself through the relationships formed between members. The garden unites people, and the bonds formed allows it to flourish. Glover refers to such as "leisurely episodes" where networks of knowledge are gained and formed. Social capital, according to Glover, "is a collective asset that grands members social "credits" that can be used as capital to facilitate purposive actions".

While writing my paper, I made a mistake of writing "social capital" and "community gardening" as "social gardening" and "community capital", of course I corrected my mistake. But in reflection, it almost seems fitting that they can be used in an altered fragment, and still make sense, almost logical. In blogs to come, I would like to explore these "leisurely episodes", how they initially begin, and what sustains the social capital to make community gardening so attractive.

Define Garden.

So why is this not a community garden?
And if the answer is so obvious, why is that significant?

Reaping What You Sow?

"Many things grow in the garden that were never sown there."
--Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia, 1732

+++

I guess you could say I am fond of making quotations my pretext. This quotation, also taken from aforementioned random quote bank, made me think of the holistic purpose and consequences of community gardens and community gardening. That being said, I think there is an important primary distinction to make between the garden, and the gardener; and secondarily,between a private and community garden. The definition is contested, and in order to set aside my highly ignorant mental schema of a hippie vegan with dreadlocks harvesting or planting their tomatoes, exploring what it means to garden, generally, and then in a communal context will help to illuminate its urban presence.

Doing a quick Google Scholar search (you've used it, once or many times, admit it), I noticed so much research has been done. First response? Where do I start? I guess I start in realizing that this task is two-fold, if not more. First, to address community gardening as a social and spatial phenomena unique (or maybe not?) to the Urban context. Second, to take this context and apply it to Vancouver. On one hand, this undertaking is very much concerned with gardens, their presence and effect on city landscapes, but also it is an analysis, like all other things urban, on what is unseen, the ideologies and principles that create and sustain these gardens and the intangible legacy of community-efficacy it grows.

In essence, this undertaking is to discover all that is (metaphorically speaking) reaped, from the initial act of when a community begins to sow.

First Step: Make a hole.

Gardens are a form of autobiography.
--Sydney Eddison, Horticulture magazine, August/September 1993

+++

So, this is a digital literacy experiment that is meant to understand something, anything, about our urban world. I chose community gardens not exactly knowing anything about them, what they are defined as, but simply for the reason that anything with the word "community" and "sustainable living" will inevitably catch on as a buzzword. Simply, It's hip to be sustainable and community gardening is a way that sustainability is practiced.

I know that this will take a form of its own, but I know I want to see the ways community gardens are a strong facilitator as well as indicator of social capital. The Urban Way of Life, as suggested by Louis Wirth, is completely segregated from the rural, and at the surface, it seems that community gardening is a step into the past, romanticized days of agrarian communities.

In the quotation above (which I wholeheartedly admit was taken from some random quote bank about an author and magazine I know nothing about), it suggest that there is something inherent about Gardens, that in a way, it is a reflection of ourselves. I'm sure we can say that about anything we create, hypothetically. But even at this primary stage of collecting my thoughts, it's becoming obvious that there is something uniquely organic (pun somewhat intended) about Gardens that become rooted manifestations of our lives. If Eddison was correct in what he suggests, if gardens indeed are personal autobiographies, community gardens are then, at least to some extent, the city's autobiography, the story we tell ourselves of ourselves.