GardenS
Garden Programs
Growing Food, Supporting Farmers, and Building Gardens
Our gardens help to supply fresh, high quality seasonal produce to our Pantry and Food Skills Programs. Led by experienced green thumb volunteers, these welcoming sites offer hands-on opportunities to reconnect with the land and the food we eat. Through our Garden Programs we host a variety of workshops, tours, farm gleaning opportunities, and educational resources to our members to promote food growing at home. Everyone is welcome!
cedar hill garden
Designed by TOPSOIL Innovative Urban Agriculture, our Cedar Hill Garden site is made up of 250 geo-textile growing containers. This adaptive gardening approach is high production, but low-impact and provides gorgeous seasonal produce within an urban setting. This garden site is located just across the street from the Kitchen, and is made possible thanks to our friends at St. Luke Anglican Church who have kindly donated the use of their land. Along with production to support programs, the Cedar Hill Garden is a site for community events and educational workshops focused on learning skills that can be applied to home gardens. We would like to give a heartfelt thank you to our funders who make this project possible: Rotary Club Victoria-Harbourside, Provincial Employees Community Services Fund, and VanCity Mount Tolmie Branch.
omnivore acres Farm Season collaboration
Since 2019, a beautiful partnership has formed with owners, Jim and Catherine Gowans, of Omnivore Acres Farm. What initially started as bountiful donations of farm fresh eggs and gleaning opportunities transformed into The Kitchen’s first ever Farm Season Collaboration in 2021. When the Gowans learned that we would be losing our backyard garden as part of the move to our new facility, they saw a mutually beneficial opportunity and invited our team to start growing on 1,500sq feet of prime farm land. With Garden Lead, Bruce Saunders, at the helm and a dedicate team of volunteers, our bountiful 2021 growing season far exceeded our wildest dreams with a 8,010 lbs yield in their first season! Our partnership with Omnivore Acres not only provides us with the opportunity to support our local food systems, it brings us together to build a stronger, more resilient community. Not to mention, our participants love the farm fresh eggs and the variety of fresh veggies provided in their pantry orders! We are so grateful for Jim and Catherine’s generosity and continued support. Thank You Omnivore Acres
home grown gardens
A focus of our Garden Program is to promote food growing at home and getting creative with whatever resources and space people have available. By offering workshops, educational resources and gardening supplies, we work to empower our members to cultivate gardens of their own. The act of gardening not only increases access to fresh food, it a therapeutic activity that promotes overall health and wellness.
Through our exciting new partnership with the Get Growing, Victoria! project, we have been able to expand programs and supply hundreds of members with seedlings twice a year – as well as containers and soil! We regularly share gardening resources with our members, including the new and exciting project Growing Together, a collaboration of people and organizations to help people grow their own food. On their website, you can find gardening tips, videos, webinars & courses, a hotline, and so much more. A great support for all of our new gardeners.