A STUDY OF FOUR PRINCE GEORGE COMMUNITY GARDENS: GOALS, BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE COMMUNITY GARDENS by Adrienne Lennox Houlberg B.Sc., University ofBritish Columbia, 2010 PROJECT SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF NATURAL RESOURCE AND ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES UNIVERSITY OF NOTHERN BRITISH COLUMBIA April2014 © Adrienne L. Houlberg, 2014 Abstract Community gardens have become increasingly popular in recent years, and the Canadian city of Prince George, BC is no exemption. Prince George hosts seven community gardens, four of which were the subject of research. Eighteen qualitative interviews were conducted to determine the structures, goals, benefits and challenges facing each of the four community gardens. The structures were quite varied, though the public and private nature of the gardens were the main divisive factor between the gardens. The two public gardens were run by organizations that offered the produce grown in the gardens to passersby, while the two private gardens offered plots to local residents to grow food for themselves. The five goals of the gardens were quite similar, and included social, a place to grow food, address food insecurity, health, and education. Benefits included social, food (food security and sovereignty), personal enjoyment, and education of the participants, especially children. The challenges the gardens faced varied considerably between the public and private gardens. They included theft and destruction, maintenance and labor capacity, awareness, and the overall structure of the garden. A disconnect was often found between the goals and the benefits of the gardens, and the challenges were especially serious in the public gardens. Public gardens should especially be managed carefully as their misdirected goals seem to be inhibiting the work necessary to run the garden. To ensure the sustainability of these important gardens in Prince George, consideration should be made to the structures of the gardens and changes made to the gardens. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 11 Table of Contents 111 Acknowledgement v Location Vl Chapter 1: Introduction 1 1 1.1 Background 1.2 Rationale for Study 1.3 Research Objectives 1.4 Structure ofResearch Report 2 2 3 4 Chapter 2: Literature Review 4 9 11 2.1 Food Security & Sovereignty 2.2 Urban Agriculture 2.3 Community Gardens Chapter 3: Study Context 16 3.1 Northern British Columbia Agriculture 3.2 Prince George Demographics 3.3 Prince George Community Gardens 19 19 Chapter 4: Article: Growing in Prince George, BC: Research into Four Community Gardens 16 24 4.1 Abstract 4.2 Introduction 4.3 Methodology & Methods 4.3.1 Site Description 4.3 .2 Garden Structures 4.3 .3 Methods & Methodology 24 4.4 Results 4.4.1 Goals 4.4.2 Benefits 4.4.3 Challenges 32 32 35 46 4.5 Discussion 4.5.1 Structures 4.5.2 Goals 53 53 53 24 26 26 28 29 3 54 57 63 4.5.3 Benefits 4.5.4 Challenges 4.6 Conclusions & Recommendations Chapter 5: Inclusion and Exclusion in Prince George' Community Gardens 67 73 73 73 5.1 Milburn 5.2 AiMHi 5.3 Downtown 5.4 PGPIRG 5.5 Conclusion 74 74 Chapter 6: Conclusions and Recommendations 75 References 79 Appendix A: Gardener Manager Research Consent Letter 85 Appendix B: Gardener Information/Consent Letter 87 Appendix C: Garden Manager Interview Guide 89 Appendix D: Gardener Interview Guide 90 4 Acknowledgement I would like to thank my committee members Dr. Scott Green and Dr. Tracy Summerville, for all of their hard work editing and directing the research, and especially my supervisor, Dr. Annie Booth. I would also like to thank my friends and family for their relentless encouragement during my research including Derek de Candole, Serena Black, Alexis McEwan, Jesse Blewett, Theo, Richard de Candole, and the Houlbergs (Peggy, Andy and Stephanie). Last of all, I would like to thank the all of the community gardeners in Prince George. Without you, there would be a huge hole in the life of the community! The work that you do, food you grow, and mouths you feed is so important. 5 Location It is important to first locate oneself on the socio-economic continuum before embarking on research, as researchers conducting a study will approach the research question with a different lens based on their background (personal and academic) and previous experiences (Absolon and Willett, 2005). I am a white, 25 year old woman, from a financially secure Canadian family. I have been fortunate enough in my life to have never gone hungry and have always been able to buy nutritious food. Growing a food garden during my childhood was a leisurely activity my family and I participated in for several years, and while it played a role in supplementing our meals, it did so only to a very small extent. Recently, I realized that ecology (the focus of my Bachelor's degree) could play a key role in my other passion, food. Ecology addresses the interconnectedness of the world and is an effective tool for examining food systems; looking at how activities at the community-level can have repercussions on a national, even international, scale. With this in mind, I began my adventures in learning about food security from an organic farmer who gave me the idea to combine, and pursue my two passions. I participated in the Milburn community garden the year of my research, and really enjoyed the experience. As a novice gardener, I learned a lot more participating in the community garden than just growing plants and vegetables at home. I feel privileged to have conducted this research in Prince George and from it, met many wonderful people who care a lot about the city and the people (and their stomachs) that live in it. 6 1.0 CHAPTER 1: Introduction 1.1 Background Agriculture has been practiced by humans for thousands of years, but the past several decades have witnessed a movement away from family farms and the consumption oflocallygrown produce. Within industrial agriculture and its heavy reliance on fossil fuels to sustain our agricultural systems, large scale practices are the norm (McMichael, 2009). People are also losing their knowledge of how to grow, cook and preserve food as supermarkets ensure that they no longer need to. However, interest is increasing in growing one' s own food and supporting local farmers, thereby being connected with more localized food systems. Further, for the first time in history, more people live in cities than rural areas (WHO, 2013). In both developed and developing countries, more people are moving to cities looking for work; often this means moving away from farms that either grew the food they ate, or may have worked on. There is little connection between where farms are and where people live. Food travels an average of 1,500 miles from the farm to the table (Halweil, 2005). One solution to food sovereignty is growing food closer to where the majority of people live and, when this means in cities, through urban agriculture. It makes sense then to grow food where people live, one venue for which is community gardens. Allowing access to land, resources, and other gardeners is a great way for people to garden who are experienced or new to gardening. The purpose of this research was to investigate how four of the Prince George community gardens were organized, how they were functioning, and create suggestions on how they could move forward in a sustainable fashion. 7 1.2 Rationale for the Study A niche was recognized in the community garden research in Prince George, as only one project has been done before in the city gardens (Transken, et al., 2011). While there are a number of gardens in the city and there have been for several years, they were largely not investigated. Each community garden in Prince George was established by different people, at different times, and for different reasons. Since there is limited communication between the gardens, there was no comprehensive understanding of the community gardens. A focused approach to understand the structures, goals, benefits, and challenges facing the gardens was considered to be important to the future successes of the gardens. There is also a niche in research looking at public community gardens, examining the unique challenges they face. There is limited research on public community gardens in BC (none could be found in 2013), let alone North America, and with two examples of them in Prince George, they were a clear choice of research focus. 1.3 Research Objectives The research goals of this project were to identify the four gardens' structures, goals, benefits and challenges. From this information, the key obstacles were identified and were used to recommend specific actions to ensure a model for long-term survival and flourishing of the gardens, both public and private. The community gardens were self-identified as such, combining both the people and physical structures (i.e. garden beds) involved. 8 1.4 Structure of Project Report Chapter 2 offers the literature review providing the basic framework for the project, including food security and sovereignty, urban agriculture, and community gardens. Chapter 3 presents the study context, looking at BC agriculture and the Prince George community gardens. Chapter 4 presents the research findings in the form of an independent and potentially publishable article entitled, "Growing in Prince George, BC : Research into Four Community Gardens". Chapter 5 is a broader approach to the four gardens and examines how they can also be divided into differences of access and food, presenting another, albeit broad, way to consider the structure of the gardens. Chapter 6 presents my conclusions. 9 2.0 CHAPTER 2: Literature Review 2.1 Food Security & Sovereignty Food security is an increasingly important issue in the world today. We are faced with environmental issues that make global climate and weather less predictable, resulting in food yields becoming less dependable while the global population increases. With much of the population growth occurring in developing countries, food security is already a concern; almost 870 million people in the world were estimated to be chronically undernourished in 2010-2012 (FAO, 2012). The widely accepted definition of food security according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (1996) is: Food security means that food is available at all times; that all persons have means of access to it; that it is nutritionally adequate in terms of quantity, quality and variety; and that it is acceptable within the given culture. Only when all of these conditions are in place can a population be considered food secure. The key features in this definition are availability, accessibility, acceptability and adequacy. To bring together these features and achieve self-reliance at national and community levels, government initiatives should consider economic feasibility, equity, broad participation, and the sustainable use of natural resources (Koc, et al., 1999). Food security is a growing concern on an international scale, due to factors such as energy, climate change, the economy, and an increasing global population, among others (Koc, et al., 1999). Food sovereignty is another idea related to growing food, as it refers to the control that people can exert over the food that they eat and grow, and their right to do so. As it relates to community gardens, food sovereignty is defined by the Peoples Food Sovereignty Network (2002) as: 10 Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture; to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade in order to achieve sustainable development objectives; to determine the extent to which they want to be self reliant. ..it promotes the formulation of trade policies and practices that serve the rights of peoples to safe, healthy and ecologically sustainable production. Food security has been the focus of much research, though there has been less interest in food sovereignty. Growing food for yourselfhas obvious connections to ideas of food sovereignty. Each of these ideas is a lens that can be used to examine research of food and gardens, as different parts of the food production line are emphasized. For instance, food security focuses more on the end product, the food item, and asks how it gets to the people, and is that the 'right' food for them to be eating, from a nutritional and cultural perspective. Food sovereignty on the other hand goes further than that, and looks at how the food is grown, who is growing it, and connects the person eating it back to the entire production of it. Community gardening has clear ties to food sovereignty, as it allows a person to grow their own food from seed to harvest. One major factor that has had an effect on food security and sovereignty internationally is the globalization of the food system and the effects on local economies, small farms, poverty, the food itself, and ultimately, the general public. Globalization has played a key role in transforming our food system over the past 30 years, encouraging countries to rely on each other more than ever before, translating into increased rates of imports and exports on a global scale (Mougeot, 1999). Countries often export food even if the country is full of hungry and malnourished people, and then import food (often at a higher price) to feed their citizens. Northern (more developed) countries often export less nutritious food, and import more nutritious food that people in the country who grew the crops cannot afford themselves (Mougeot, 1999). By doing so, the cost oflabor for the Global North is decreased, while food purchases represent a smaller proportion of people's spending. In the North, people with low- 11 incomes have more support services that people in the South may be lacking, such as NGOs, food banks, and public assistance (Mougeot, 1999). If countries were more self-reliant, they would not have to rely on other countries for food. In the South, self-reliance could mean growing food that will stay in the country, and not using large amounts of agricultural resources on food grown to be exported. These actions may also encourage the creation of a market framework (if one does not already exist) thereby decreasing transaction costs, factors that discourage rural farmers from selling to urban markets (Jones, 1996). People could be encouraged to grow more of their own food to increase this self-resilience, while addressing other issues such as waste and employment opportunities (Mougeot, 1999). As corporations grow, smaller farms feel the implications of decreasing sales as the general public will be more likely to purchase cheaper produce when it is available (Atkins and Bowler, 2001 ). In the 1980s, agribusinesses were involved in mergers and takeovers that led to a concentration of productive capacity in relatively few farms, putting many small farms out of business in the process (Atkins and Bowler, 2001). Large supermarkets can buy food in bulk, thereby externalizing many social and environmental costs (Kneen, 1997). This is true in B.C. as well, with the political and economic focus on larger, monoculture farms characterized by a general lack of support for smaller, polyculture farms. These smaller farms can be what people rely on for a local food supply as people often prefer local over organic food (Winter, 2003). Local farms are also very important in strengthening the local economy, as they keep money in the local area (La Trobe, 2008). These local farms also help build a sense of community by allowing people to meet the farmers who grow their food. Recently, there has been increased strength in the movement to create alternative food networks, shifting the focus back to the local scale; this movement involves a range of programs including farmers' markets, community- 12 supported agriculture, sustainable agriculture, and community gardens, among others (Buttel, 1996). Canada plays a major role in the international agri-food trade ranking as the fifth-largest exporter (3.3% on an international scale) and sixth-largest importer (2.6%) in 2011 (AAFC, 2012). The three largest grossing export products were grains, oilseeds, and "live animals, red meats and other animal products"; its top three import sales are fresh and processed fruits and vegetables, other (i.e. confectionery, spices, sauces), and beverages. Out-of-season produce is imported from the tropics to supplement the country's food supply in the winter, and even temperate regions that compete with local producers in the summer, and (Wallace and Brklacich, 2010). In Canada, unpredictable climatic conditions and economic factors have led to a high degree of uncertainty in farming (Wallace and Brklacich, 2010). Adaptation will be important in ensuring how successful Canadian agriculture will be; this adaptation will need to be present in government policies as well as specific actions of farmers (Bryant, et al., 2000). Food security is also a concern in urban centers, although it looks different than it might in rural areas. There are four major factors that affect urban populations as set out by Koc, et al. (1999). First, urban centers have undergone expansion, with people moving to larger centers for work, putting more pressure on already overburdened centers, adding to pollution, and soil and water contamination. The increasing population necessitates new housing development which often sprawls over prime agricultural land. Second, there are often issues of food inaccessibility, as food stores can be unevenly distributed and inaccessible to people without cars, creating food deserts. Food deserts are defined as areas with relatively poor access to adequate food provision (Wrigley, 2002). This could include putting big box stores in the middle of higher income suburbs that are not in an accessible location for lower income citizens. Often, these low-income 13 citizens will buy most of their groceries from gas stations and convenience stores, as they are not able to drive out to grocery stores. In Britain, for example, the National Food Survey (1999) found that daily fruit and fruit product consumption is twice as high in high-income households as compared with low-income households. Even in cities food inaccessibility is present, as about 25% of the poorest people were living in urban centers in 1988 (World Bank, 1990). Third, there is a movement to incorporate the diverse social and cultural features of an urban center's population. There is a multitude of ethnic cultures in many cities today, so a single local food store is often not enough to provide culturally appropriate and accessible food for everyone. There is a market for cultural food stores, and this should be supported by local communities to allow everyone to buy culturally acceptable food. The fourth factor is the increasing commodification and globalization of the food system. Shifting towards thinking and eating in more localized food systems addresses many of the problems that many populations are experiencing. Looking at a key piece of Canadian food policy is a document entitled, 'Resetting the Table: A People's Food Policy for Canada' (2011) published by Food Secure Canada. The policy put forward is the first Canadian policy to be rooted in food sovereignty. Its seven pillars of food sovereignty include: 1. Focuses on Food for People 2. Values Food Providers 3. Localizes Food Systems 4. Puts Control Locally 5. Builds Knowledge and Skills 6. Works with Nature 7. Recognizes that Food is Sacred An understanding and practice of food sovereignty in policy will reshape how communities tackle the overwhelming issue of food through a focus on local; food that is grown and eaten on an ecologically-relevant scale. One way to address this idea is to grow food where 14 people live; since most people live in cities, agriculture in urban areas makes sense. Policies need to allow this. The food security continuum (Interior Health, 2004) has three levels. The first one is immediate need (i.e. food banks), second is education (i.e. community gardens and kitchens) and the third is policy reform. Each need needs to be addressed before moving onto the next one, to build commitment, trust, and momentum in the local community. Before addressing policy change (the most important step as it affects each of the other levels), the immediate hunger and education needs to be addressed. Urban agriculture and community gardens play into the second level, of teaching those to feed themselves. While second level of education is important, it is imperative to keep in mind the bigger picture of food sovereignty in policy, where changes can happen at a broader scale and impact more people's lives. 2.2 Urban Agriculture Urban agriculture is defined as the growing of food in spaces within city limits, which could include backyard gardens, rooftop gardens, community gardens, school gardens, and entrepreneurial gardens (Brown and Jameton, 2000). They allow people to grow food nearby to where they live and offset the need to purchase food that may have been flown in from across the world. While these urban agriculture practices may not currently have the capacity to feed an entire city, keeping farms in urban areas is tied to these values. In 1991, 33% of the 2 million farms in the United States were located in metropolitan areas (Brown and Jameton, 2000). Another aspect of urban agriculture is the fact that it produces food that is eaten locally. Local food environments are affected by the way food is grown, produced and accessed, thereby affecting the health of the local population (Hale, et al., 2011). Local food is often superior to imported food in terms of food safety (Ling and Newman, 2011 ), environmental effects (as food 15 that is not transported as far uses less fossil fuel) (Wallgren, 2006), is often more fresh and healthy (as it is picked when ripe and not harvested unripe to be shipped), tastes better when varieties can be chosen for flavor and not for their ability to be transported (Stagl, 2002), contributes to the preservation of biodiversity (Shiva, 2000), and supports regional development (Nichol, 2003). The act of gardening also promotes healthy lifestyles, contributing to people' s physical exercise (Mattson, 1992), reduces stress levels (Relf, 1991) and can even be beneficial and educational to passersby (Brogan and James, 1980; Nordahl, 2009). It was found that people who garden in community gardens (though this could be extended to other forms of urban agriculture) eat fruits and vegetables 1.4 more times per day than those who do not, and were 3.5 times more likely to eat fruits and vegetables at least 5 times daily (Alaimo, et al., 2008). Sommers and Smit (1994) found that even in below-average growing conditions, a lOrn by lOrn plot can provide a household's annual vegetable needs, and much of its requirements for vitamins A, C, B complex and iron. One extreme example ofurban agriculture is in Seattle, Washington where they are building a food forest. Mellinger (2012) explains, "visitors ... will be greeted by a literal forestan entire acre will feature large chestnuts and walnuts in the over story, full-sized fruit trees like big apples and mulberries in the understory, and berry shrubs, climbing vines, herbaceous plants, and vegetables closer to the ground". They are presently preparing to build this forest of food, and have worked hard to gain the support of the local community. This is seen as a test-run by the city to see how the local community will manage a common space utilized for the benefit of everyone. This first ' food forest ' will provide valuable information allowing informed decisionmaking regarding the establishment of other ' food forests ' (Mellinger, 2012). 16 Nugent (1999) conducted a cost-benefit analysis of urban agriculture and found that there are four main benefits including agricultural production, indirect economic benefits, social and psychological benefits as well as ecological benefits. The costs include required inputs of natural resources, labor, capital and raw materials, and outputs of pollution and waste. When cities plan their urban agriculture infrastructure, they can work to increase the efficiency of the gardens by creating a closed loop system such as through creating compost from the organic waste to fertilize the soil. Another example is rerouting household grey water to water the gardens and thus avoiding the use of filtered water from the hose. Transportation and packaging can also be minimized when vegetables are driven short distances to the market or consumer, and shipped in large boxes and not individually packaged. While there are many advantages of urban agriculture, there are some barriers present today. One of those barriers is climate, as each city is limited by the climatic conditions of their location. Other barriers include resource availability (i.e. how much land, water, or farming supplies are available in the community), density, cultural factors, and policy conditions (Nugent, 1999). There are also many issues in planning policies when it comes to urban agriculture in cities where it is a more recent phenomenon. Relevant policies are not always in place and outdated zoning bylaws prevent many urban agriculture activities from taking place. In Seattle which, for example, has a strong urban agriculture culture, residential zoning prohibits agricultural and horticultural practices (Erickson, et al., 2009). 2.3 Community Gardens Community gardens are increasing in popularity in countries like the UK, the USA, Australia and Canada. This is due to increasing numbers of people moving to cities, as well as 17 political and economic changes that encourage the disconnect that people feel between their communities, the environment, and their food (Brown and Jameton, 2000). While community gardens are just one example of urban agriculture, they are an important place for communities to come together to deal with food security in a collective manner. Community gardens have a number ofbenefits that cover a range of physical and emotional factors that affect both the individual and the community. Community gardens can vary; they can be defined as a public garden in terms of ownership, access, and degree of democratic control (Ferris, et al. , 2001). People can grow vegetables, fruits, ornamental flowers, or the garden may simply be a lawn and benches. In this paper only community gardens that provide space to grow food will be discussed. There are many types of food-growing community gardens including leisure gardens, school gardens, entrepreneurial gardens, crime diversion gardens, healing and therapy gardens, neighborhood pocket parks, parks and demonstration gardens (Ferris, et al. , 2001). Kaplan and Kaplan (2005) argue that the 'place focus' of community gardens is central to their far-reaching benefits, as it provides a space for people to come together in the community. Community gardens address a number of issues that affect many international communities as described by Wakefield, et al. (2007) and Teig, et al. (2009); these include improved access to food and better nutrition (Dickinson, eta!. , 2003 ; Irvine et a!. , 1999; Patel, 1991); increased physical activity {Armstrong, 2000; Dickinson, eta!., 2003); bringing 'nature' to urban areas (Schmelzkopf, 1995); bridging ethnically and age diverse communities {Armstrong, 2000; Hynes, 1996); improved mental health (Armstrong, 2000); opportunities for community development through education/job skills training (Fusco, 2001 ; Holland, 2004; Schmelzkopf, 2002); increased social capital through the development of social ties and an 18 increased appreciation of social diversity (Doyle and Krasny, 2003; Hancock, 2001); and improved local ecology and sustainability (Hancock, 2001 ; Schmelzkopf, 2002), which in tum leads to improved long-term health. Not only are community gardens important for addressing local food security, they improve the appearance ofurban streetscapes (Landman, 1993), create community focal points and initiate neighborhood improvement (Linn, 1999), and they can also encourage a sense of pride in their participants (Pottharst, 1995). These community influences can transform a neighborhood by encouraging the residents to work together in the garden, and instilling a sense of pride. Gathering the community to work together in a common project can change the whole character of an area. Community gardens have even been found to increase levels of security in an area (Ferris, et al., 2001; Schmelzkopf, 1995). Much of the community garden research was conducted in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia where growing seasons were longer and more favorable than Prince George, as were the Canadian examples conducted in Toronto and Vancouver. Few studies have been conducted in northern climates where populations are smaller and there are fewer community gardens, as the shorter growing season is a disadvantage. These previous studies have focused on private community gardens, and no comparisons of public and private community gardens have been done before. Public community gardens differ from 'public produce' sites, on which food is grown for the public on public (i.e. municipal) land (Nordahl, 2009). These public produce gardens are not the same as public community gardens. The idea of Public Produce was made popular by the book Public Produce: The New Urban Agriculture written by Nordahl (2009). These sites are located on publicly-owned land, what Nordahl terms as "municipal agriculture". There are a 19 couple of examples of public produce sites in BC, including those in Kamloops 1 and Cranbrook2 (both are funded by grants). The Prince George public community gardens are not considered public produce sites, since the land on which the gardens are built is private. Community gardens differ all over the world, as each caters to their local environment (Ferris, et al., 2001); the impacts of a community garden are dependent on local factors. There are commonalities in the motivations and benefits of the gardens, and were widespread topics in community garden research. A motivation is defined as the desire for achieving something, while a benefit is actually achieving it (Guitart, et al., 2012). Guitart, et al., (2012) conducted an extensive review of community gardens, investigating the characteristics and findings of all English-language research on community gardens. Of their findings, the motivations, benefits, and challenges were examined as was done in this research. The top ten motivations included (from most to least common) social development/cohesion, to consume fresh foods, improving health, saving and/or making money, education, enhancing cultural practices, to enjoy nature, increasing land accessibility, environmental sustainability and enhancing spiritual practice. Both demonstrated and discussed benefits included social, access to fresh foods, economic, health, reduced crime/increased safety, education, environmental sustainability, cultural heritage, life satisfaction, environmental equity, and increased biodiversity. Challenges included (from most to least common) future land access, funding, soil contamination (tied for #3), lack of water (tied for #3), safety issues (tied for #3), neighborhood complaints, cultural difference issues (tied for #5), and waiting list (tied for #5). Holland (2004) makes an interesting observation that perhaps the differences between the gardens account for the differences in the needs of the gardeners in that location. Communities 1 More information can be found at http://kamloopsfoodpolicycouncil.com/programs/kamloops-public-produceprogram/ 2 More information can be found at http://www.cranbrookfoodaction.com/ 20 differ from each other after all, and these differences are evident in their community gardens (Khan, 1999). Variety in community gardens seems to be important to people, as there are different elements that draw them in. 21 3.0 CHAPTER 3: Study Context 3.1 Northern British Columbia Agriculture This research project took place in the Canadian city of Prince George, British Columbia. Prince George has a population of71 ,974 people in 2011 (Statistics Canada, 2012). The land area of the city is 318.26 square kilometers with a population density of226.1 persons per square kilometer in 2011 (Statistics Canada, 2012). Prince George has about 77% of the population of the Regional District of Fraser Fort George (OBAC, 2009). The growing season in Prince George is estimated to be between 91 (Old Farmers' Almanac, 2012) and 107 days long (OBAC, 2009). The city has a mean annual temperature of 4.2°C, receives 293mm of precipitation on average during the summer, and about 181mm of snow in the winter (OBAC, 2009). To encourage farming and protect land with agricultural potential, the provincial government set aside 5% ofland in B.C. as the Agricultural Land Reserve (ALR) in 1973 (Provincial Agricultural Land Commission, 2013). Some of this ALR exists in the Fraser-Fort George Regional District (FFGRD), which extends from Valemount to Mackenzie. The ALR in the District represents about 7% ofthe total land area (see Figure 1) (OBAC, 2009). Only about a quarter of the land designated for agriculture utilizing crops is presently being used in the FFGRD (Tingle, 2003). 22 'lblal AU! In Fraser.fort George 38t,047.58 HA Figure 1. Land in the Agricultural Land Reserve, Fraser-Fort George Regional District (OBAC, 2009). The climate and soil play important roles in the agricultural productivity of the area. Both factors can be classified, aiding in the prediction of which crops may be more successful than others. The land classes in Prince George are shown in Figure 2, the descriptions of which are as follows: class 1 land has minimal limitations in the most amenable climates, class 2 to 5 reflect increases in limitations, class 6 may sustain native and/perennial uncultivated agriculture, and class 7 lands preclude all arable and natural grazing agricultural systems (OBAC, 2009). The area around Prince George contains a range ofland classes 2 to 5. 23 Agricultural Capability jn Highway 16 Corridor : ~~·*'fMIW'-I'itt· Ow:w• -· ~ """""" """'"'- ,..-.<------- ·~:.,' ---!~ Figure 2. Land classes in the ALR, Highway 16 Corridor (OBAC, 2009). The FFGRD can grow a variety of crops, including field crops (wheat, oats, barley, mixed grain, rye, alfalfa, canola, potatoes and forage for seed), fruits, berries and nuts, vegetables and other crops (i.e. tree seedlings for forestry practices). Food crops such as potatoes, carrots, beets, broccoli, rutabagas, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, peas, beans, raspberries, strawberries, and crab apples are grown annually in the FFGRD (Tingle, 2003). In the past 25 years, there has been a gradual decline in the total hectares of farm land in the FFGRD, from 110,176 hectares in 1986, to 107,980 hectares in 2006. Within the city limits of Prince George, there were 58 farms covering 7,318 hectares of land in 2006, an increase of 24 47% from 1996. The average age of farm operators in the District in 2006 was 54 years old (OBAC, 2009). Aging farmers and increased farm sizes could become a problem when these farmers reach retirement and there is no one to replace them. Perhaps with increased support of urban agriculture, people will be more interested in growing food and supporting their local farmers, or even become interested in farming themselves. The above information regarding agriculture in the District provides context to the potential urban agricultural niche in Prince George where younger generations can learn how to grow their own food. 3.2 Prince George Demographics In terms of the city of Prince George, the population is 83,225 in 2006 including the surrounding areas (BC Stats, 2006). The median age in the city was 37.3, with 50.5% of people between the ages of 30-64. The city hosts 32,810 occupied private dwellings. The median income in 2005 was $28,046, and families earning an average of$74,321. The unemployment rate was 7.6% in 2006. In terms of community involvement, there are many non-profit organizations and volunteer opportunities in the city. Supporting the local food economy can be done in the city at any one of three farmers' markets, health food stores, or locally owned businesses. 3.3 Prince George Community Gardens A key aspect of the long term planning strategy for Prince George is a plan called myPG (City of Prince George, 201la). One of the goals of this plan is called 'Green City, Green Practices;' this goal seeks to address some of the pressing environmental issues the city is facing. Urban agriculture is indirectly mentioned once in myPG's 'Green City, Green Practices', and that is a statement in the Actions to Address Gaps: "Encourage a culture oflocal, healthy food". 25 The only community garden mentioned of the seven in the city is the downtown community garden. The plan does not mention anything specific about the garden or plans to support it, only that it is one of the ' Community Complimentary Strategies' in place. In Prince George, extensive urban agriculture is not permitted in residentially zoned areas, though ones that are zoned for agricultural activities permit the keeping of poultry and livestock. These zones include the agricultural and forestry (AF), rural residential (ARl and AR2), and greenbelt (AG) zones (City ofPrince George, 20llb). Community gardens have been researched a variety of ways, using qualitative methods (Baker, 2004; Milligan, et al. , 2004; Teig, et al. , 2009), quantitative (Alaimo, et al., 2008; van den Berg, 2010; Wakefield, et al. , 2007) or a combination ofboth (Holland, 2004; Orvis, 2005) research approaches in larger, international cities. Much of the research was conducted in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia where growing seasons were longer and more favorable than Prince George, as are the Canadian examples conducted in Toronto and Vancouver. Few studies have been conducted in northern climates where populations are smaller and there are fewer community gardens. These previous studies have focused on private community gardens, and no comparisons of public and private community gardens have been done before. Based on the overall objectives of the four investigated gardens, I divided them into two categories, private and public, based on the intended recipients of the produce (i.e. if people are welcome to walk through the garden and help themselves or not). In this research project, a private community garden is considered to be one where the gardeners grow food for themselves. They are responsible for the plot(s) that they signed up for, and can choose what to do with the produce they grow; whether they keep, share or donate the produce is up to them. A 26 public community garden is managed by a community group, and the food grown is not solely for the gardeners, but is available to the public for taking. While the gardeners may end up taking produce home, it is available for anyone to take. There may be limitations to this public/private division, but it is not one that has been considered in other research. Since community gardens are centered around growing food, asking the questions about who is growing, and for whom the food is being grown, are essential to assessing differences between gardens. Four community gardens in Prince George, BC were selected from seven active gardens as subjects of this research. Two examples from each of the public and private garden structures are represented, and the sites also vary in terms of management (i.e. paid vs. volunteer, one person vs. committee), organizational bodies (i.e. non-profit or individuals), goals, target gardeners, location, opening year, physical structure, and size. They are located throughout the city (see Figure 6 for a map); the Downtown garden is in the middle of downtown, Milburn is in a low-income area on the outskirts of downtown, AiMHi is in the suburbs and the PGPIRG garden is located at the University ofNorthern British Columbia, on the periphery of the city. -+ AiMiii ~ " ( \ ~..,..,.'I ~ ~ ~ I ! I' ~ ~~~~ . )I \ Figure 3. Map of Prince George, B.C. and the relative location of the four research gardens: Prince George Public Interest Research Group (PGPIRG), Prince George Association for Community Living (AiMHi), Downtown and Milburn. 27 The first public garden studied is located on the property of AiMHi (Prince George Association for Community Living), was constructed in 2010, and is run by a volunteer group out of AiMHi. Free plots are available for local organizations to grow produce, although all of the produce is available to the public. The second public garden studied is run by an organization called PGPIRG (Prince George Public Interest Research Group). PGPIRG hires two students (funded mostly by an annual federal government grant) to work in the garden for the summer. The garden was founded in 1998 on the campus of the University ofNorthem British Columbia. All of the produce grown is available to university students for free, as well as to community members. The fence-less, private Milburn garden is located in a low income neighborhood on city property, and was established in 1997. It has been run by one champion volunteer since its foundation; individuals grow food for their own personal consumption. The private Downtown garden is located on private property surrounded by a chain-link fence, and was built in 2009. The gardeners involved are local organizations and businesses who grow food to donate to soup kitchens, as well as individuals who grow food for themselves. It is run by a group of individuals who volunteer their time to manage the garden. Some changes may occur from year-to-year in the gardens and their management; for this research paper, only the gardening season of2012 was considered. More information on the gardens is described below in Table 1. 28 Table 1. Summary ofkey characteristics of the public (PGPIRG and AiMHi) and private community gardens (Milburn and Downtown) in Prince George, British Columbia in 2012. PUBLIC Managing Body PGPIRG Prince George Public Interest Research Group, Non-profit Opening Year Land Ownership Number of Plots A vg. Plot (ft) Plot Rentals 1998 Private, UNBC owned 15 3x5 PGPIRG maintains all Gardeners Fence Labor Garden Management 2 None Paid, grants Executive director and 2 gardeners AiMHi Prince George Association for Community Living, Non-profit 2010 Private, AiMHi owned 14 3x20 Organizations borrow for free, AiMHi maintains the rest 5 2' high, open Volunteer Caucus 29 PRIVATE Downtown Milburn Individual Group of Individuals 1997 Public, city of Prince George 45 5x20 Rent to individuals, $10/season 40 None Volunteer 1 head volunteer 2009 Private, Integris Credit Union 384 3x3 Rent to individuals and organizations, free 64 8' high, locked Volunteer Board, 5 members 4.0 CHAPTER 4: Article: Growing in Prince George, BC: Research into Four Community Gardens 4.1 Abstract With more people living in cities than ever before, the need to provide space for and growing food in city community gardens is significant. Community gardens have many benefits, including food security and sovereignty as well as allowing opportunities for social and educational interactions. Several community gardens have been built in recent years in the northern Canadian city of Prince George, British Columbia (BC). To ensure their sustainability, the structures, goals, benefits and challenges oftwo private and two public community gardens were investigated using semi-structured, qualitative interviews. Results indicate that the challenges facing private and public community gardens vary greatly, although all gardens were fairly similar in terms of goals and benefits. Ensuring that the community gardens fulfill the needs of the gardeners increase the relevancy, enjoyment, and participation in the gardens, and ideally leads to continued community support and long-term, self-sustaining existence. 4.2 Introduction With over half of the world's population living in cities for the first time in history (UNFP A, 2007), growing food closer to where people live is becoming all the more important. One fundamental question that arises is how will we feed those people in the city? When the majority of our food is grown in rural areas far from urban centers, this is a valid concern. With the rising cost of fossil fuels (affecting fertilizer and transportation costs), importing food long distances from other countries or even from beyond the city limits is getting more expensive. The industrial food system fails to address concerns of food insecurity, food sovereignty, and the prevalent disconnect that people feel between their communities, the environment, and their food (Brown and Jameton, 2000). Some of these concerns can be addressed by urban 30 agriculture, which is defined as growing food in urban areas such as towns and cities. Examples include backyard gardens, Public Produce sites, guerilla gardens, and community gardens. One obvious reason to participate in a community garden is for the food the garden provides, which can address issues of personal food insecurity and food sovereignty. Food insecurity is commonly identified as a reason for people to participate in community gardens or other forms ofurban agriculture (Allen, et al. , 2008; Brown and Jameton, 2000; Corrigan, 2011). Food security is formally defined by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (1996) as: 'Food security' means that food is available at all times; that all persons have means of access to it; that it is nutritionally adequate in terms of quantity, quality and variety; and that it is acceptable within the given culture. Only when all of these conditions are in place can a population be considered 'food secure'. Food sovereignty is another lens through which research can be used, as it refers to the control that people can exert over the food they eat, starting from growing the food to eating it. Food sovereignty is defined by the Peoples Food Sovereignty Network (2002) as : Food sovereignty is the right of peoples to define their own food and agriculture; to protect and regulate domestic agricultural production and trade in order to achieve sustainable development objectives; to determine the extent to which they want to be selfreliant...it promotes the formulation of trade policies and practices that serve the rights of peoples to safe, healthy and ecologically sustainable production. Food security has been the focus of much research, although there has been less concentration on food sovereignty. Growing food for oneself has obvious connections to food sovereignty. Each of these ideas is a lens that can be used to examine research of food and gardens, as different parts of the food production line are emphasized. For instance, food security focuses more on the end product, the food item, and asks how it gets to the people, and is that the 'right' food for them to be eating, from a nutritional and cultural perspective. Food sovereignty on 31 the other hand goes further than that, and looks at how the food is grown, who is growing it, and connects the person eating it back to the entire production of it. Community gardening has clear ties to food sovereignty, as it allows a person to grow their own food from seed to harvest. One type of garden that is experiencing a surge in popularity is the community garden, broadly defined as a space on public or privately owned land where people come together and grow food. Based on the overall objective of the garden, there are two types of community gardens in this study, private and public. A private community garden is one where the gardeners either grow the food for themselves, or donate it, but deciding where the produce goes is up to them. A public community garden is one where the food grown is not solely for the gardeners, but is available to the public for taking. While the gardeners may take food home, it is available for anyone to take. The research goals of this project were to identify the gardens' structures, goals, benefits and key obstacles to long-term viability for community gardens (both private and public), and to recommend specific actions to ensure a sustainable model for success. By assessing where these four gardens are now, the future state of the gardens can be compared to determine potential selfidentified successes and failures, and those changes that led to them. The purpose of this research was to investigate how four of the Prince George community gardens were organized, how they were functioning, and create suggestions on how they could move forward in a sustainable fashion. With a present research niche in Northern gardens, studying gardens in Prince George may present unique issues that are not experienced in more southern cities in Canada. While this research represents a case study of a snapshot in time (the summer of2012), its implications reach beyond the city limits and may surface issues that could influence the impact of these and other, gardens. 32 4.3 Methods & Methodology 4.3.1 Site Description Prince George was chosen as a site for study because it is a city that had an existing urban agriculture system prior to the research, and could be used to exemplify or model what other smaller cities either in BC or nationally could do with regard to urban agricultural development. Prince George is the eighth largest metropolitan area in BC (BC Stats, 2012), and as of2012 has a population of71,974 in 2011 (Statistics Canada, 2012) and is the largest city in northern BC (BC Stats, 2012). With its northern climate, the city has an average growing season between 91 (Old Farmers' Almanac, 2012) and 107 days long (OBAC, 2009). This is compared to the growing seasons of Edmonton (that has a very similar latitude to Prince George; 138 days), Vancouver (221 days), and Toronto (149 days), all cities where much other community garden research has taken place (Old Farmers' Almanac, 2012). Prince George also was selected as a research location because very little previous qualitative research on community gardens had been done prior to this research project; there has only been one other research project that examined a Prince George community garden (Transken, et al. , 2011). It is also a unique city in that it has both public and private community gardens. Several new community gardens were built in a few short years in the city (not by the city), with little regard for the need of the gardeners. To ensure the sustainability and longevity of the gardens, uncovering how the structure of the garden affected the goals, benefits and relative success was deemed to be important by myself and the garden managers. If the gardens did not cater to the needs of the participants, then it would be unlikely that the gardens would last very long. 33 4.3.2 Garden Structures Four community gardens in Prince George, BC were selected from seven active gardens as subjects of this research. The gardens vary in terms of management (i .e. paid vs. volunteer, one person vs. committee), organizational bodies (i.e. non-profit or individuals), food accessibility (public vs. private), goals, target gardeners, opening year, physical structure, size, and location. They are located across the city; the Downtown garden is in the middle of downtown, Milburn is in a low-income area on the outskirts of downtown, AiMHi is in the suburbs and the PGPIRG garden is located at the University ofNorthern British Columbia, on the periphery of the city. The first public garden studied is located on the property of AiMHi (Prince George Association for Community Living), was constructed in 2010, and is run by a volunteer group out of AiMHi. Free plots are available for local organizations to grow produce, though all of the produce is available to the public. The second public garden studied is run by an organization called PGPIRG (Prince George Public Interest Research Group). PGPIRG hires two students (funded mostly by an annual, federal grant) to work in the garden for the summer. The garden was founded in 1998 on the campus of the University ofNorthern British Columbia. All of the produce grown is available to university students for free, as well as to community members. The gardens' focus , activities, and overall aims vary from year to year, depending on who is involved with the organization. In this research project, only the 2012 growing year was considered. The fence-less, private Milburn garden is located in a low income neighborhood on city property, and was established in 1997. It has been run by one champion volunteer since its foundation; individuals grow food for their own personal consumption. The private Downtown garden is located on private property surrounded by a chain-link fence, and was built in 2009. 34 The gardeners involved are local organizations and businesses who grow food to donate to soup kitchens, as well as individuals who grow food for themselves. It is run by a group of individuals who volunteer their time to manage the garden. 4.3.3 Methods & Methodology A qualitative, grounded theory research approach was selected as the best strategy to investigate this research question, as it "attempts to capture aspects of the social world ... for which it is difficult to develop precise measures expressed as numbers" (Neuman, 1997, p. 329). Qualitative research is generally inductive in nature, and the flexibility provided by induction allows a researcher to gather data before making empirical observations to inform a theory or pattern (Babbie, 201 0). This was important for this research as there was little previous work done in Prince George on community gardens. Eighteen participants from the four community gardens voluntarily participated in semistructured interviews conducted between June 2012 and January 2013. Sixteen of these interviews were conducted between June-September 2012, and two were in January 2013 . The semi-structured nature of the interviews allowed me to ask for clarification or further elaboration if necessary. To ensure that the most accurate information was collected, every effort was made to question as many of the participants as possible over a period of one summer when they were likely to be gardening (May-September), when the community garden was a part of their day-today lives. This way, their answers to the interview questions would reflect their present lives, as the gardeners may not remember all of the garden issues they encountered if questioned in the winter season. For example, gardeners may only remember certain details of their gardening experience, or may inadvertently exaggerate other issues. Conducting interviews outside of the 35 growing season may not provide the most genuine data, as people may remember only certain elements of their gardening experience. By conducting most of the interviews during the growing season, the gardeners were all consistently and actively gardening. All of the respondents were asked to sign a consent letter, the garden managers (Appendix A) and the gardeners (Appendix B) were given different one. The first stage of research was a preliminary semi-structured interview (Appendix C) with the manager of each community garden to gain a better understanding of how each garden functioned. The interview involved questions about the nature of their activities, identified those who participated in and/or benefited from the garden, funding sources, initial objectives, organizational structure and basic information about the garden. The second stage of the research used a combination of convenience and snowball sampling to identify key subjects from each garden. Participants were recruited by emailing all of the gardeners and asking for their participation (Convenience Sampling), as well as asking interviewees for suggestions of other potentially interested gardeners (Snowball Sampling) (Auerbach and Silverstein, 2003). Research participants included both community groups and • individuals, and represented a range of interests and uses of the garden. The interview guide (Appendix D) included questions about what they thought the objectives of the garden were, if it was fulfilling those objectives, their reasons and motivations for participation, their relationships to other gardeners, and where they saw the garden moving in the future. The interviews either took place in the garden or in the gardener's place of employment. Interviews lasted between 2090 minutes, averaging 40 minutes. The participant numbers for each garden were as follows: Downtown (6), Milburn (5), AiMHi (3) and PGPIRG (4), achieving a minimum participation rate of 10% from each garden. 36 The interviews were not completely anonymous, as the interviews needed to be distinguished by the associated garden and the person's role within it (i.e. gardener or manager) to provide context for their responses. No names were included, and people were free to withdraw from the research at any time, thereby removing any information they had provided. Since total anonymity was impossible with such a small sample size, this was clearly explained before beginning the interview. Each interview was audio-recorded with the permission of the participant. To ensure each participant's comfort with the lack of guaranteed anonymity, the participants were emailed a copy of the transcribed interview and they were able to remove or edit anything that they had said. The data was stored for six months after the data analysis, and was then destroyed. Data analysis was done using a grounded theory framework. This methodology was employed to develop theories from the data (interview transcripts), while interpreting what was heard with no preconceived theories before commencing the data collection (Strauss and Corbin, 1994). I had no preconceived theories because no previous research has been done in these gardens, nor on community gardens in Prince George or surrounding areas. Using the technique of open coding to organize the data (Glaser, 1978), I read through the data and compared it line by line. I then organized it into relevant text, repeating ideas, themes, theoretical constructs, and theoretical narrative, in that order (Auerbach and Silverstein, 2003). Analysis was done by hand, as is recommended to many first time qualitative researchers as a way to understand how themes emerge (Auerbach and Silverstein, 2003). To address issues of qualitative reliability, I checked transcripts for errors, and efforts were made to avoid drift in code meanings, which were constantly compared (Gibbs, 2007). Qualitative validity was addressed using strategies such as triangulating different data sources to 37 justify themes, use of thick, rich descriptions of the findings, stating research bias, and presenting negative information that is counter to identified themes (Creswell, 2009). 4.4 Results 4.4.1 Goals As identified by the gardeners, the five goals of the four gardens were to provide a social space, to grow food, address food security, increase health, and provide education to gardeners and/or the public. Goals were defined as the intentions of the garden, whether people interpreted them to be the original goals of the garden or of the garden in 2012. Some interviewees also answered questions about the goals as the gardens by listing their benefits (what the gardens were actually doing), so these responses were included in the benefits. Social The social goal of the gardens was to simply provide a space for social interactions to occur. The garden was said to be "providing that space for people to grow their own food as well as to congregate." As one gardener explained, "We can encourage people to use the garden ... and share what they know about growing food." Another said that the garden "had a focus of building community", which includes social interactions. It was an often passive goal of the gardens to allow people to meet each other. A Place to Grow Food The second goal of offering a "healthy place to grow food" was present regardless of whether it was a public or private garden. No matter who was going to be eating the food, the community gardens provided a place in the city to grow food in a more visible way than growing in one's backyard. The private gardens allowed apartment dwellers and renters to have access to land that they did not otherwise have for their own use. The public gardens also provided a food- 38 growing space, though the food was not designated to be eaten by the gardeners alone. The gardeners within the public gardens had to make sure that they planted some popular foods, as one gardener explained, "If you plant something they don't [like], well they're not going to eat it, right?" As a public garden, the food had to appeal to the general public. Address Food Insecurity The third goal addressing food insecurity was identified as an issue, to help feed the many low-income people living in Prince George, as in many larger cities. For one of the gardeners, "That's my favorite part of the garden, the food security issue and supporting organizations." Food insecurity was an important issue for two of the gardens (one public and one private), as both donated food to food banks or those living on a low income. AiMHi was one of those gardens, and when it was harvesting time and there was food still in the garden, it would be given to food insecure individuals involved in the organization. The Downtown garden was also addressing food insecurity with the local organizations that had plots in the garden, as all of the food in organizations' plots would be donated to food banks. As one of the managers explained, "We wanted people to come in and garden and also "grow a row" to give back to the community, so that's where a lot ofbusinesses came in and were growing with their staff in order to provide food to the soup kitchens in town." Health Health was another reason that garden managers wanted to start a garden, whether that health addressed physical, mental or environmental issues. Physical health involved "getting people outside", exercising and getting healthy. Mental health was addressed in the Downtown garden that offered plots to be rented out to organizations that would conduct therapy in the garden, as it provided a neutral space for it to occur. One gardener explained, "They find it's very 39 therapeutic one-on-one and they're able to relate to their clients a lot better. ..it just seems to be a much more relaxed, open, safe area for them to do their counseling." Tied to mental and environmental health is the goal of providing a green space in the city. The Downtown garden was said to specifically "beautify downtown in one part, because that empty lot would be sitting there empty otherwise". Education Education for both gardeners and passersby was an element to all of the gardens. Allowing people to grow their own food is fundamentally educational, as gardening is a constant learning curve. For people whose diets were supplemented by the garden, gardening encouraged "people's awareness of eating properly, healthy food, what food you can plant that you didn't know you could plant." For passersby, just seeing the garden growing is an opportunity for education. As a gardener said about a public garden, "If you don't grow up gardening, sometimes you'll never get exposed to that, so I think this gives [people] an opportunity to learn about it." Teaching passersby about gardening was an explicit goal of the public gardens, as they were open and allowed the public to wander through the gardens while asking the gardeners questions if they were there. Again, the five goals of the garden were to provide an opportunity for social interactions, a place to grow food, address food insecurity in Prince George, for health (mental, physical and environmental) reasons and to education gardeners and passersby. 4.4.2 Benefits There were four main benefits of the Prince George community gardens in general. These benefits were not quantitatively demonstrated (as suggested by Guitart, et al., 2012), but the gardeners were taken at their word for the positive effects that the garden had had on their lives. 40 Benefits were what the garden was actually doing well, in contrast to the goals which just demonstrated the gardens' intentions. Social The first benefit was a social one; most people mentioned this as being a key aspect of their community gardening experience. As one individual explained, "[The garden] offers a social opportunity...for some people that's equal to the food that they get. It's both nourishment for the soul and the stomach." Some of the social components included passing conversations, but there was an additional element of cultivating those relationships and eventually friendships. In the private gardens, social interactions were regular occurrences, providing the opportunity for friendships for those who put the effort in. Many people mentioned that they had met new people working in the garden, as one participant said, "The majority [of gardeners] have become friends since we grow together." One gardener explained that in the Milburn garden, "Especially that first year or two [after moving to Prince George] , that was a good part of our social involvement in town." On the other hand, because there were more people involved in the garden, some people did not make friends with other gardeners. While most fellow gardeners were reported to be friendly enough, when asked if the participant had met new people, they replied, "A few, but to say their name, no. But to speak to them, yup." Another participant said, "We're kind ofloners, we don't get too involved with the people there," but they did "like being involved in the community activity of the garden." This is in comparison with the public gardens, where the core group of gardeners would work very closely together. After all, for the volunteer group who ran the AiMHi garden, "It wasn't like anybody didn't want to be there, if they didn't want to be in there, they didn't have to be, nobody was forced." The two summer staff members from the PGPIRG garden worked 41 closely together as well. Interactions with the public were less regular than interactions with other gardeners, especially at the PGPIRG garden which catered to university students. When "there aren't a lot of students hanging around [during the summer]", it was difficult to get very many people to the garden. It was estimated that the PGPIRG garden had "on average ...four or five new visitors [a week] , and then we just have like, a couple of people come up a day". The gardeners were more absent in the AiMHi garden that would only once a week "pick a day that we would weed ...and we would do an hour, an hour and a halfto two hours." The PGPIRG staff worked in the garden for five hours a day from Monday to Friday. Generally, those involved with the gardeners enjoyed the company of other gardeners, no matter who they were. Whether it was the other gardeners who had plots or were simply members of the public who stopped in the garden, gardeners had an easy way of meeting as they tended to "have something to talk about" right away. Participants mentioned that this made conversation more comfortable, and it was much easier to make connections with other people as they had a natural topic of conversation. After all, as a gardener said, "You immediately have something in common with someone, and you're like, "Oh yeah, we can talk about tomatoes all day" and I know that you want to, because you're a gardener." Those commonalities allow opportunity for repeated interactions, whether they were in public or private gardens. The social opportunity was not limited to the gardeners themselves, as two of the gardens (Milburn and PGPIRG) also provided open, public space for people to "hang out" and enjoy the space, although not necessarily to eat the produce. Allowing the public to come through the community gardens by not fencing it added another social element, creating opportunity for conversation, or perhaps education. The Milburn garden although located in low income area of Prince George, was described as "a really safe, nurturing space for families in the middle of the 42 'hood' ." Another participant explained, "All day long you'll see people corning to sit on the benches and hang out and a lot of them or most of them aren't even part of the garden ...they appreciate that space." The PGPIRG garden was also open to the public; "We have a little table with the yellow umbrella, and lots of people come up [and have their lunch] ...! think it's a fun place to hang out." This public access was not encouraged in every garden. Visitors were discouraged either actively through the presence of a fence (Downtown) or passively through the lack ofbenches and signage (AiMHi). Though the Downtown garden was surrounded by a fence for insurance reasons, it was often opened during the day so that "visitors, pedestrians, can walk in and use the space to have their lunch. And just to have a space to sit in and enjoy," though it was up to one individual to open and close the gate, and it was not always regularly opened and closed. AiMHi was planning to purchase seating at the time of the interview to encourage people to spend time in the garden. They needed to buy cement picnic tables since "you have to have something that's not going to get stolen." This open to the public model is not necessarily a positive aspect for the gardeners themselves however, as the Milburn garden experienced a high rate oftheft, and evenings felt unsafe for some gardeners who felt a "dynamic of disease" . Social relationships were not limited to those involved with the gardens, as many of the gardens' resources were donated by local businesses. AiMHi for instance, received donations from at least thirteen local businesses when it was first built. The Downtown garden, built on private land owned by one of the local credit unions, receives resources such as volunteers from the credit union, as well as from the city, and a local, non-profit environmental group. These collaborative efforts add to the social richness of the gardens, and the more people that support the garden, the more sustainable it becomes. 43 Food: Food Security and Sovereignty The second benefit people enjoyed from participating in community gardens was the food. The food grown in the community gardens was repeatedly referred to as "good food"; as one person said, "The thing I love the most of course is the food, it's so good the stuff we get out of the garden" and another gardener was able to grow enough lettuce for the summer and revealed, "I didn't buy lettuce out of the store. Who can say that?" For many people, it was the fact that the food they grew in the garden was healthy and fresh, and for others it addressed the issues of food security and sovereignty. Most of the gardeners that I interviewed did not grow food because they were food insecure, although they often donated some to those who were. Food security was a mandate for the Downtown garden where both organizations and individuals participated in donating food. Any organization that had plots in that garden donated all of the food produced to a local soup kitchen, and individuals were encouraged to "grow a row" of produce in each of their plots to donate. Food insecurity was also addressed in the AiMHi garden, where produce from the garden was donated to those "people who never had anything like [fresh produce] in between their [welfare] cheques." While produce was often donated to those who were food insecure, typically gardeners gave food they grew away to other gardeners, friends and family, and expressed a joy at being able to do so. Sharing frequently occurred between gardeners themselves, as one person explained, "When they have excess, I'm there gardening, conveniently." Sharing also involved giving produce to friends and family as one person said, "I gave a lot away, I couldn't help myself." From a cultural perspective, one participant explained, "In First Nations culture, if you have food, you share it. So it's a way of connecting community and a way of not being 'the 44 person who needs help', but the person who has something to offer and can give back, that is really, really important." For another, it was a way to repay debt to a friend; "So now when I come over, I bring her herbs .. .It's given me a way to provide food back, even though it's small quantities." Another gardener donated some pumpkins to a neighbor, and when the gardener gave the neighbor the pumpkin, "I said, "This isn't canned, it's made in Canada in AiMHi's community garden" and she cried." Sharing food is a natural way to bring people together of all socioeconomic backgrounds, and many expressed feeling joy as both the giver and receiver. While no one explicitly used the term "food sovereignty", gardeners from every garden expressed support for the idea in terms of the joy of growing their own food, and being in control of what they grew and eventually ate and shared. One gardener said, "Having grown your own fresh food just gives you more satisfaction." Another gardener said, "I think that's pretty sweet if you can take a bag of potatoes that you grew home to your family, and the family's eating food that you grew." Several of the gardeners took this control to the next level by making their own compost. One of these gardeners explained why they choose not use the organic waste from local restaurants to make the garden's compost; "If I'm going to grow some food, I want it to be as good as it can be .. .. But I do know that I don't want to be having any chemicals from tropical fruits and stuff in my lettuce." Ensuring they had good compost meant better produce for these gardeners, and they took it upon themselves to grow the best food possible. Exerting control over the food that they grew and ate is all related to the idea of food sovereignty, taking that control back from corporations and industrial food producers. Growing and eating the produce you grow has both physical and physiological benefits. Having a community garden plot available for the gardeners meant "having more fruits and 45 vegetables in their own household, and being able to get those fruits and vegetables without a big impact on the environment." Not only was having more fresh produce beneficial, but the food production in the private gardens was said to generally be quite high, as one gardener described food production as "pretty spectacular". For the public gardens, those in charge were not typically experienced gardeners. For the PGPIRG garden, people fairly new to gardening are usually hired and "when people are leaming... they're going to make mistakes and it's pretty hard to produce anything on a consistent basis when you're going to be making those mistakes." When the gardeners have less experience and there is no specific destination for the produce, the goal is not implicitly high food production, as there is no demand for it. While food production was a benefit of the public gardens, it was not necessarily to produce a lot of food. For AiMHi, the goal was basically to stay ahead of the weeds. Personal Enjoyment The process of growing, harvesting, preparing and eating the food grown are all part of the community garden experience. Many participants from across each of the four gardens specifically mentioned enjoying at least one of these processes. One gardener was involved with a group of day care children that had a plot in one of the nearby gardens. Not only did they start all of their plants from seed, but they tended and weeded the plot daily, harvested, prepared and ate it together; "We're doing that all together as a group, discovering it, looking up recipes .. .I like that process." Harvesting was considered to be especially rewarding: "The harvesting part is so great to go down there and pick something that you planted and you grew it." Another explained: 46 "Having grown your own fresh food just gives you more satisfaction." Sharing that harvested food was also very gratifying, as was mentioned in the Food section above. One participant said, "I feel like my quality of life is improved by taking part." Other participants expressed happiness about the bigger picture of growing food, such as one who said, "It's sort oflike a breath of fresh air.. .it's like the consciousness is arriving." Being around likeminded people who also cared about the food they were eating (and often other related issues) was refreshing for many participants, and added to their enjoyment of the garden experience. The gardens themselves were also described as pleasant places to be in, or even, "A bit of an oasis where there's some green space". As one participant explained, "Maybe it's the energy people put into it.. .this place offers that breathing room." Having green spaces in the city was a benefit of the gardens, especially in the downtown of Prince George which has little green space in its core; as one person said, "I like that it's not a building, I just like driving past there and seeing green." As for the act of gardening, it was considered by one to be, "Just a bliss." Many people mentioned enjoying being able to "work with my hands" and that, "It gets me outside and I really like that because my other job is mostly inside." One person said, "It feels good to garden, it feels good to be growing local food that's really good tasting." Even watching people garden, makes people happy; "[I enjoy seeing] people's faces when things are growing and they're so excited." Many people mentioned that the act of gardening is very therapeutic. A new gardener explained, "Gardening's pretty therapeutic, you know, it's awesome just to plant something from seed, you see it evolve and see it grow." Another gardener explained that to "look at the plants growing .. .it just relaxes my mind, and is very, very therapeutic, and it just makes me really 47 happy to have a garden." Some groups even participated in the Downtown garden as a component of their formal therapy. Gardening was either a part of their treatment or provided a "much more relaxed, open, safe area for them to do their counseling." For those who experienced a disability, clients were reported to "realize that they can do more than just deal with their disability, and it expanded their experiences and they got excited." Not only is gardening good for the mind, it is also good for the body. Human health was a topic that came up repeatedly, and gardening was mentioned to be a good form of exercise. One individual reported, "I've lost 40lb and that's been just doing a little bit of exercise, eating salad every day, and going for a walk." The garden was able to provide a venue to do that exercise and grow that salad in. Another said, "You're not just planting, you're also working with every part of your body, there's something in your body that's moving and then the next day you find it [when it is sore]." Education: Personal and Children Not only can community gardening lead to meeting new people, the results of conversations can also involve sharing advice, "information and jokes". This face-to-face sharing can be very valuable; as one participant said of the Milburn garden, "I've learned so much from talking to people at the garden .. .it's an agricultural community in a way." Education was a huge benefit of both types of community gardens, in terms of individual gardeners and passersby having the opportunity to learn more about gardening, as well as teaching adults and children alike about food and gardening. This education was evident in workshops, talks, tours, and informative signs in the gardens, or just casual conversation explaining to passersby about the food growing, happenings of the garden, and gardening techniques. 48 A community garden can be a platform for education even a private garden like Milburn. The garden holds monthly workshops on various topics, and also had informative signs often developing from gardeners' experiences; as one participant explained, "I just started growing that clover there, it's a green manure. The garden manager asked me, "What are you growing there?" and then I told her and the sign [explaining the role of clover] shows up." Allowing opportunities for passive learning by the public is possible in these open, unfenced gardens. A gardener from a public garden explained how rewarding teaching people was; "That is actually one of the things I like the most, when people come up here for say, fresh carrots. And then I get to tell them how they can grow them themselves instead of having to go ... buy them." Teaching children and getting them into the gardens was also an important benefit of three of the four gardens. Some gardens allowed children's groups to have a plot at the garden, and others provided tours to children's summer camp and day care groups. One participant explained, "Last year we had 30 after-school-care children, and only one had a garden at home. It's sad." This is likely not a unique case in Prince George. One person said that, "They were amazed that we were going to be eating our food, I don't know what they thought we were going to do with it. So in the fall when we were eating our beets, and we were eating our carrots, they were shocked." Another said that when they first started at the garden with elementary school children, "they wanted to grow steak and chicken ... We bought seed packets and said, "These are the kinds of things you can grow." That was huge." The group was able to get compost buckets set up in many of the classrooms in the school, creating a wonderful opportunity for education; "[compost] creates an opening, an opportunity to talk about how there is a natural cycle to life, and how there isn't waste in nature, like all of these different things can come out of it when there's a bucket sitting in the classroom." 49 When children do not see their food growing, they may think that the food simply comes from the food store, not from plants; "Some children don't know where carrots come from, or potatoes." Many adults involved with the garden recognized this knowledge gap and decided to do something to change that with the children around them. By signing up for a plot in the community garden when they did not otherwise have access to gardening space, they were able to teach children where their food came from, a fundamental idea. Another advantage of having a garden plot is the season-long access to it, providing the opportunity for teaching children about "the process between planting and tending and harvesting and eating, that's big for children." Not only were community gardens found to be beneficial for groups of children, but some parents joined the garden to teach their own children about growing food, without having access to a garden space at home to so do. As one gardener explained, "We want our kids to learn about gardening, and it's lovely to do that within community." One learning outcome of the community garden project was demonstrated visually by one group of students; "When they did artwork in the garden or back at the school.. .drawings of flowers and stuff [were] growing with their roots. So that whole conception of what's happening underneath the ground became much more important, it became a big part of their understanding of things that are growing." The education of the gardeners themselves was ongoing in all of the gardens, as one person confessed, "I think the people who have been mainly educated are the gardeners themselves." This education included learning about new vegetables ("kale was something different and new"), edible weeds, ways of gardening, pests and pest management, among many others. One new gardener explained, "I just learned a ton about basic gardening ...just walking down the street, [your] awareness changes." Edible weeds were a revelation for one gardener 50 who said, "I learned a lot. I learned about Orach, which I didn't know was edible before, I used to think they were weeds." When a new gardener would work with people who got overwhelmed by the garden, he would tell them, "We can't fail. This is dirt. We just do what we think we know, and ifwe don't know it then we just ask. Or Google it!" Gardening in northern BC was a learning curve for many people who had moved to Prince George. One of the community garden's mandates was actually, "Getting people understanding we can grow our own food in the North, and getting people growing their own food." There are many misconceptions about growing food in the North, often that you can grow very little food, or that you can grow everything. For one new gardener from the southern part of the province, "It was kind of hard at first, because I was like, "Ok when do I plant things? Is it going to snow as soon as I put this in the ground?" And it did! Like we put the cabbage transplants in the ground, and bam the next week it was snowing." For others, even though they tell new gardeners that certain plants do not grow without greenhouses, "People don't believe you, until they plant it and then August comes around and they go, "Well I guess you can't grow tomatoes" and you're like, "Well I told you that in June." After first-hand experience of growing that first year, people reported learning what plants would and would not grow well. The frequent opportunity to share that knowledge is one unique to community gardens, either from conversation or looking at what other people are growing in their plots. As one gardener from the prairies said, "Learning what grows well and how to grow things the best, we've learned a lot of that, sharing that advice. And we've been able to share as well, over time we've learned stuff that we can share with others." 51 4. 4. 3 Challenges Each garden experienced different challenges, though there were many commonalities between each type of garden. The private gardens dealt with theft and maintenance issues, while the public gardens experienced a wider range of challenges. These included issues with maintenance, labor capacity, awareness and the garden structure itself. While there are other more minor areas of opportunity to improve the gardens' public profiles, these were the main challenges the gardens were addressing. Theft & Destruction The private gardens both experienced theft, although more so in the unfenced Milburn garden than at the fenced Downtown garden. There were methods to mitigate theft, as indicated by the advice one new gardener received; "Don't make your plot pretty, don't grow anything like big tomatoes or melons or carrots or anything big and singular, they'll just walk off with it." Many gardeners expressed frustration and disappointment at the theft of their produce, though as one gardener admitted, "That's part of being part of this community garden is you have to give back, you might not like it." Theft was not technically a component of the public gardens as the produce was available to anyone, though some produce was taken before it was ready for harvest, or undue quantities were taken. Some of the AiMHi garden's property was also vandalized. Maintenance & Labor Capacity Maintenance and labor capacity differed between each garden, though there was a great divide between the capacity of the public and private garden managers, especially in terms of motivation. The amount of work to be done in the public gardens by the garden manages was 52 extensive, as it involved the maintenance of all of the plots, while the garden managers of the was less so, as the private gardens needed to maintain common areas and organize gardeners. There was the potential for issues to arise over the maintenance of the private gardens since they were both run by volunteers who might lose motivation, but the champion volunteers did not seem to be discouraged and were planning to continue running the garden. Even though the Milburn's head gardener was working "usually a full day, every day," he/she had the capacity and was willing to put the work in to have a functional garden. These private gardens would look very different without these champion volunteers, as they are instrumental in the operation of the gardens. It is hard to predict what will happen to the gardens when the champion volunteers running both of the private gardens are no longer able to do so. The maintenance and labor capacity challenges that arose in the private gardens mostly had to do with unattended plots that required extra labor to prevent them from becoming weedinfested; "[I'm] just trying to get them all weeded this year, get them under control. Quackgrass ... " There was also decreased support from the volunteers in one of the gardens; "It's been different this year .. .I haven't experienced just the low participation at work parties before." The gardener involvement seemed to fluctuate for some reason from year to year, and in 2012 when the research was conducted it was thought to be lower than usual. At the Downtown garden, a member of the volunteer board explained, "We all really respect and appreciate any work that anyone does for the garden ... as long as that's running well, that's great, we're all happy, ifthere's a problem that's when we'll sit down and discuss it." Maintenance and labor capacity were not so much of an issue, as there were several people to spread the workload between. The maintenance and labor challenges experienced by the public gardens on the other hand, were much more extensive, as the maintenance of the entire garden was the responsibility 53 ofthe community group. The AiMHi garden was run by a "group of managers at AiMHi, who have plenty of other work to do, and were just doing it off the side of their desk." It was a problem as "these people who were working were not the same who were getting the produce," which was very demoralizing for the committee. After the first couple of years of the garden's existence, one participant explained, "The garden committee is burned out, and they just don't have any energy for it anymore." Even recruiting volunteers was difficult; "First year was big, we had a lot of [volunteers] out, second year not as much, last year was four people. And this year it's me." The volunteer support that may have relieved the burden of the garden committee was not there. Even regular garden maintenance like watering was hard for the AiMHi garden; "... that was a real challenge to get people to water, because watering works best in the morning and late at night and nobody's here." Watering at the private gardens was the responsibility of the plot owners, so that was not an issue that the garden managers had to worry about on a daily basis. Keeping up with the weeding was a big job as well in the public gardens, as it was a constant push to stay ahead of the weeds. The volunteer board of AiMHi would weed once a week and said, "We would pick one of the plots that looks like the worst, you know, Charlie Brown's Christmas tree, try to fix it up as best you can." As for the members of the public who ate the garden's food, they were encouraged to weed; "We basically said, "If you take something, please weed." They can eat and weed at the same time, I don't care. Have a carrot, eat and weed!" This was different for the PGPIRG garden as it had two paid staff who would do all of the work in the garden, and the public was not asked to help out with garden labor. The labor capacity is affected however when people quit; "That has been very destabilizing over the years; 54 we've hired people and then they've quit when they've got higher-paying jobs." The staff is paid for with grants, and then the pay is topped up by the organization's budget. Rewards are important in any job, as is a sense of satisfaction with a job well done. If volunteers at AiMHi were not being rewarded for garden maintenance with money or food, it was disheartening for them to work. Even in the PGPIRG garden that paid its gardeners, they experienced dissatisfaction due to a lack of public awareness, that all of their work was in vain and did not make a difference in the lives of the students as was proposed at the outset. Awareness Even when the public was welcome to come and collect produce from a community garden, they were often not aware that they could. Both of the public and private gardens were referred to as "community gardens", and no distinction was made between the public and private nature. There was also no signage present in either of the public gardens welcoming people to harvest produce. Without this signage or distinct name, passersby would not know that they were welcome to harvest produce unless a gardener was there to tell them so. The two public gardens (AiMHi and PGPIRG) suffered from a lack of awareness of both the existence of the garden, and the public availability of the produce grown there. One participant said that, "Few people know about [the PGPIRG garden]", and an AiMHi gardener said that, "I think a lot of people in the community still don't know it's for them." The lack of awareness may in part stem from the lack of signage, both in the garden and signs directing people to the garden, which was identified as being especially necessary for the PGPIRG garden. Once people arrived at the garden, they were often not aware of the public nature of the produce. If there were no volunteers or staff in the garden to tell them, there would be no way for newcomers to know they could help themselves to produce. Due to the lack of general awareness 55 ofboth of these gardens, social opportunities were limited with the public, and often concerned only those directly involved in the garden. In the PGPIRG garden, neither students and faculty nor many community members know about the garden; "A lot of people don't know about this garden being up here, so a lot of community members don't use it, which is unfortunate." One research participant felt strongly that the garden "... plays a really, really, tiny, little role and few people know about it or participate in it." For the AiMHi garden, one participant said that, "I think a lot of people in the community still don't know it's for them ... They seem to think it's AiMHi's or it's ours. They don't seem to be aware they can come have some strawberries." Few members ofthe surrounding community know that the garden is growing food that is available to them. For the few that are interested, they often try to rent out a plot, but AiMHi's plots are only available to community groups; "People want to buy plots for twenty bucks and we don't do that. That might kind of be seen as a conflict in the community." Neither of the gardeners from the private gardens mentioned a lack of awareness of them. Structure Many of the aforementioned challenges highlight problems with the fundamental structure of the gardens. Challenges differ between the private and public gardens, with the former suffering from theft and destruction, and the latter with issues of maintenance and labor capacity, as well as awareness. Theft was the biggest challenge for the private gardens. To address theft in the Milburn garden, fences would need to be installed, but that would change the open, inviting nature of the garden; as one gardener said, "It's kind of a community space." For the time being, there are no 56 plans to build a fence, as the openness is a unique factor of the Milburn garden. Even though it is private, people still chose to garden there, knowing the risk of theft. The public gardens suffer from similar issues, although the nature of the issues vary a bit between the two gardens. AiMHi's garden is run by volunteers (though they are AiMHi staff, they are not paid to work in the garden directly) who need to be motivated to keep working. Even the ownership of the garden is a misconception, the garden is not technically defined as AiMHi's garden; "So it's just...here. But it's not our garden. It's on our property." The sign behind the garden reads "Community garden at AiMHi", though they effectively run the garden anyway. The vision of the garden is "evolving", as its management has been passed from several AiMHi managers to a caucus. For the volunteer gardeners of the AiMHi garden, it was difficult to maintain the high levels of motivation needed to run the garden when the food was not being eaten by the gardeners; "I think when you come out and you weed in the garden and you don't see the results or you don't get anything from it...why would you do that?" This ties into the maintenance issues of the garden as well. One gardener explained the project's good intentions; "...organic, healthy food, in the city, you know it seemed like a good idea, we had this empty space, it was a good idea. But we didn't all realize quite how much work it was going to be." With few rewards and no monetary gain, it is more challenging to motivate the gardeners into working in the garden. PGPIRG on the other hand, has two hired staff which have the financial motivation to work in the garden. The garden suffers from lack of awareness and therefore food often goes to waste from not being harvested. The gardeners are rewarded financially and with food, though the intention is to get more food to the target audience, university students. The objectives of the garden were said to be "fairly vague" and were "lacking an overall vision." While the objectives 57 are vague, they do offer the garden "a flexibility to change it to what is necessary at the moment" which can be helpful. One big problem was that "there wasn't a lot of continuity from year-toyear.. .I would tell them, "This is what we did last year, this is what I started and hopefully you continue it." Rarely would people ever do that." This lack of continuity led to a lot of repeated mistakes, and "it's pretty hard to produce anything on a consistent basis when you're going to be making those mistakes." As a public garden, there is an inherent problem with leaving the garden available to the public. People can harvest an entire crop and leave none for anyone else, as happened in the AiMHi garden; "The potatoes went away before they were supposed to. They didn't even use a shovel, they just pulled them out. We saw actually saw a couple of people who were in there helping themselves, but we couldn't say "Get out of our garden" because it's not our garden, it's the community garden. So potatoes are gone." The public may also not know when to harvest vegetables, as no signs are set out indicating which vegetables are ready for harvest. Carrots were particularly frustrating as gardener explained, "If you are gardening, it is kind of annoying if people are just helping themselves willy-nilly ... [like] carrots, people always pull carrots that are tiny, and then leave them." As one gardener explained, there is really only a small fraction of people that will harvest at the right time; "It would be great if people could come help themselves, but there's that 50% of people are going to assume they're not allowed to take it, and then 25% don't know when you're supposed to take it so they'll just help themselves. It's a difficult thing." 58 4. 5 Discussion 4. 5.1 Structures Each community garden in Prince George is unique, as each was set up by different groups for different reasons. The four gardens that were the subjects of research are no exceptions; they differ in goals, managing body, labor, land ownership, year of construction, number of gardeners, etc. The fundamental divisive factor was the public or private nature of the gardens. While there were other factors that could have been used to categorize these gardens, the public/private nature of the gardens was a factor that affected many other components of the garden, such as labor, management body, number of gardeners, and bed size. 4.5.2 Goals The goals were quite similar among the four gardens, regardless of whether they were public or private. The five goals of the Prince George gardens are fairly common across North American community gardens. Other gardens' goals (often labeled "motivations") included saving/making money, increasing land accessibility, enhancing spiritual practice, or environmental sustainability (Guitart, et al. , 2012). These goals reflect the nature of the garden, whether they are healing, school, work and training, entrepreneurial, demonstration, ecological restoration, or recreational gardens (Ferris, et al. , 2001). The Prince George private gardens fall under the recreational category, in that most people have limited access to favorable garden space, and who grow food for themselves because they enjoy it, not because they are food insecure. The public gardens do not fall neatly under any of the above categories as described by Ferris, et al. (2001), though they may be considered a bit of a demonstration garden in that people walking through can see food growing, an important educational factor described by Nordahl. The term "community" after all is one that 59 can encompass many interests, and "community gardens" reflect this diversity (Ferris, et al., 2001). 4. 5.3 Benefits The motivations and benefits of community gardens are often similar, and were common topics in community garden research. A motivation is defined as the desire for achieving something, while a benefit is actually achieving it (Guitart, et al., 2012). The experiences of the Prince George community gardeners fall under the heading of garden benefits, as it is what the garden is actually doing, not just wanting to. A review paper by Guitart, et al. (2012) suggests that benefits should be demonstrated, although only half of the 87 papers reviewed did so. The benefits were not tested in this research. The most common benefits of community gardens included social development or cohesion, enhanced health, access to fresh foods, saving or making money, and education. While the names of the benefits vary slightly from this research, there are strong commonalities with the benefits found by Guitart, et al. (2012). In the case of Prince George, social, food, personal enjoyment, and education were the main benefits of the community gardens. Social In terms of the social component of community gardens, these findings are consistent with other studies which found that social interactions were a huge motivating factor for people to participate in community gardens. Many studies have discussed the importance of social interactions in community gardens (Beilin and Hunter, 2011; Flachs, 2010; Glover, 2004; Hale, et al., 2011; Ohmer, et al., 2009). Sharing food was reported to be rewarding and important for community gardeners (Kortwright and Wakefield, 2009) as well as meeting new people and making friends (D'Abundo and Carden, 2008; Landman, 1993). Simply spending time in the 60 garden both for gardeners and members of the public is also important to people (Holland, 2004). Community gardens can act as a safe space in a neighborhood, in Prince George as well as in other cities (Armstrong, 2000; Glover, 2004). Food Food security was found to be a major component for initiating urban agriculture and especially community garden projects, as community gardens addressed some of the community food security needs (Ferris, et al., 2001; Kortright and Wakefield, 2011; Pelletier, et al., 1999; Stocker and Barnett, 1998). Not only do gardeners enjoy the produce themselves, but they are also proud to share the food they grow with friends and family (D'Abundo and Carden, 2008; Hale, et al., 2011). Eating and sharing local, healthy, fresh food was also found to be a big motivator for community gardeners (Armstrong, 2000; Beilin and Hunter, 2011; Brown and Jameton, 2000; Holland, 2004; Wakefield, 2007). Holland (2004) emphasized that for at least those community gardens in the UK that were the topic of her research, "It would appear that what is grown is secondary to what else is achieved" (p.303), even if the growing of food was a primary mandate for the garden. The motivations were often interconnected, and certain ideas would appear together. For instance, motivations of education, health, food provision and leisure were connected (ideas which echo in the findings of the Prince George gardeners), and area protection, community development and leisure were also linked (ideas that did not show in this research). Essentially, Holland (2004) found that while food provision did appear as a motivation, it was never the sole purpose of anyone's experience in community gardens, as people would often be working on other objectives as well. This is consistent with the experiences in the Prince George gardens, as social or education objectives were also very important for gardeners on top 61 of growing food. Even though food production was not often very high for gardeners, they chose to continue participating in the garden year after year. Many people also had gardens at home, in addition to their community garden plots, as there was something more than the food that was drawing them to the community gardens. Personal Enjoyment The simple act of gardening was found to be enjoyable for many gardeners worldwide (Hale, et al., 2011; Ohmer, et al., 2009) as well as being out in the natural setting of the garden and the green spaces they provided (Armstrong, 2000; Ohmer, et al., 2009). Many community gardens have been developed as healing or therapeutic gardens, for people working through mental or physical health issues (Ferris, et al., 2001; Hale, et al., 2011; Malakoff, 1995). While an entire community garden in Prince George was not devoted to improving mental or physical health, there were elements of it in several of the gardens. Physical health, like exercise, was mentioned extensively in the Prince George gardens as well as in other gardens around the world (Alaimo, et al., 2008; Armstrong, 2000; D'Abundo and Carden, 2008; Holland, 2004; Mattson, 1992; van den Berg, et al., 2010). An example of physical health was increased access to fresh produce which many Prince George gardeners mentioned as a key benefit. Alaimo, et al. (2008) found that if an adult had someone in their house who participated in a community garden, they were 1.4 times more likely to consume fruits and vegetables than if no one participated in a garden, and 3.5 times more likely to consume produce at least 5 times a day. No causal relationship was determined however, so it could just be that those people who garden are more likely to eat produce regardless. 62 Educational Education was a key component in many community gardens, teaching gardeners (D'Abundo and Carden, 2008; Ohmer, et al. , 2009) and the public alike (Ferris, eta/., 2001; Holland, 2004). Many gardeners reported even learning specifically how ecosystems work (Hale, eta/., 2011) which they had not been previously exposed to before gardening. Children are not often mentioned in community garden research, older youth are more often targeted for development and skills training (Allen, et al. , 2008; Holland, 2004). Where children are mentioned is in reference to school gardens (Blair, 2009; Ferris, et al. , 2001; Langhout, 2002; Ozer, 2007). Prince George had one school garden in 2012, and was in the process ofbuilding another at a different school. There is little overlap between the school year and the gardening season in Prince George, and this was challenging for the community gardens when they invited schools to have plots. Several of the researched gardens did invite schools to participate, although most interactions ended poorly when students did not come back during the summer to maintain the plots and the organization had to care for them. 4.5.4 Challenges The challenges that affected the community gardens in Prince George may be unique to the circumstances of growing in this particular city. Some factors that may influence gardens in Prince George include local interest, the relatively short growing season, and the lack of vacant, arable land. Guitart, eta/. (2012) for example, reviewed challenges of community gardens which were very different from those of the Prince George gardens. The most common challenges experienced by international community gardens in developed countries included more physical elements such as securing future land access, soil and water issues, as well as issues like safety, 63 funding, cultural differences and neighborhood complaints. This Prince George research had safety issues in common with other research, however none of the papers in the review by Guitart, et al. (2012) included problems like lack of awareness, labor and maintenance, and garden structure, a unique finding in this research. In a study in Waterloo, Ontario (Dow, 2006), the top nine challenges only had three of them in common with the Prince George gardens (vandalism, education/lack of awareness, and coordinating the garden); other challenges not found in the Prince George study include insurance issues, pests, funding, NIMBY (Not In My Backyard), and infrastructure. Challenges are unique to each garden however the issues experienced by the Prince George gardens seemed to be fairly unique from other international gardens. This may perhaps be due to unique factors in Prince George, social factors like local awareness and interest, or parts of the garden structures that led to distinctive challenges. Further studies would be necessary to say distinctively what would lead to these circumstances in Prince George and not elsewhere. Theft & Destruction Theft and destruction occurred in both of the private gardens, although more so in the unfenced, Milburn garden. Minor vandalism occurred in the public AiMHi garden, though the public gardens did not experience theft as their produce was available to anyone. Theft and vandalism are common problems in community gardens in general, as the nature of a private community garden is to exclude some people, and to include others. These issues are experienced all over the world, including Waterloo (Dow, 2006), Toronto (Wakefield, et al., 2007), New York (Schmelzkopf, 1995), among many other cities. 64 Maintenance & Labor Capacity Labor is especially important when dealing with volunteers, as high motivation needs to be maintained to keep people working for free. The PGPIRG garden was the only one that applied for federal grants to pay two summer students to work in the garden; the other three gardens were volunteer-run. Day-to-day maintenance in the private gardens was done by the gardeners who had signed up for plots, and work bees would be organized for larger projects. This shared responsibility lessened the impact of any single gardeners not doing enough work. The two private gardens were run by a single champion volunteer (Milburn) or a group of them (Downtown). These management "teams" were the original founders of the gardens, and were likely motivated to work hard to be a part of the gardens' success, they receive positive feedback from gardeners and the community, and often ate food out of the garden. The AiMHi and the PGPIRG gardens differed a bit in how labor was done, so they will be discussed separately. The PGPIRG staff were in charge of the entire garden operation from the beginning of the season to the end. There was little continuity from year to year, and the learning curve was steep. The workers were often frustrated, even though they were able to take food home. This may be because the garden suffered from a chronic lack of awareness, and the efforts of the staff went largely unnoticed by the wider university crowd. The AiMHi garden struggled with day-to-day maintenance of the garden, as the volunteers were responsible for all ofthe work in the plots not used by other community groups. Since their time in the garden was limited (as they were all involved with AiMHi in some capacity), weeding was a constant struggle. 65 These AiMHi gardeners did not eat very much from the garden. Most of the food grown in the garden disappeared before they were able to take much of the produce home. Since the produce was destined for members of the public, it seems that the garden was set up for failure if the produce is going to its intended destination and that discourages the people putting all of the work into the garden. While the AiMHi garden does request those who take food to weed a bit, it is unlikely that many people do, since most of the produce is taken and there is still a lot of weeding to be done. Ohmer, et al. (2009) found that the more volunteers there were participating in community gardens, the higher their motivation and work ethic. The same was true in the Prince George public gardens; the fewer the volunteers, the less motivated and less connected the gardeners were. The volunteer numbers dropped every year at AiMHi until there were none, and PGPIRG did not have many volunteers participating at work bees. Declining volunteer support was also experienced by other community gardens (Guitart, et al., 2012). Awareness Both of the public gardens suffer from a lack of awareness of their existence. In the general, the community even in the immediate vicinity of the gardens, do not seem to know about the gardens. There are no signs present in either of the public gardens explaining that the produce is free to take, though it is not known whether this is from a lack of funding or will. Perhaps the lack of a sign avoids a 'tragedy of the commons' situation where all of the produce would be taken. It would only be from speaking to the gardeners that one could learn that people are free to take produce. 66 The only other example of another study that expressed unawareness was one done in Toronto. It reported that gardeners felt that the city was not particularly aware of the garden's presence (Wakefield, et al., 2007). Structure Looking at the goals of the gardens, they are not aligned with the benefits the gardeners are expressing. First of all, food security was not mentioned as a benefit of any the gardens, at least not for the gardeners themselves. While food produced in the garden was often donated to food banks and soup kitchens, the people gardening were not self-identified as food insecure. Perhaps due to the snowball and convenience method to recruit participants, those people that did grow food out of necessity did not come forward or were not reached for an interview. Although the issue of food insecurity was often not directly related to gardeners' reasons for gardening, it was addressed in several of the gardens' mandates. Second, education was touted as important to many of the gardens, but little was done to encourage learning by those outside ofthe garden. Only one garden (Milburn) held gardening workshops, posted informative signs or organized events like Seedy Saturday3 to let new people know about the community gardens in the city. Some tours for children were held in the two public gardens, but these tours did not often include the same group of children, making it difficult to teach them all the steps from seed to plate. Third, the public nature of the public gardens' produce seemed to be causing dissatisfaction with the gardens. The people putting in the work were likely not being rewarded with sufficient produce, financial motivation, or appreciation to encourage further commitment. A problem presents itself when the public is eating produce as intended, but the volunteer/staff 3 Seedy Saturday: "The day's events celebrate seeds that sustain us, seeds we can grow, share, trade and save seeds that are a part of our past and will be an important part of our future." {Tourism PG (2012). Seedy Saturday. Retrieved from http://tourismpg.com/events/seedy-saturday. October 19, 2013) 67 member is frustrated. Many people walking through the gardens would harvest unripe produce, or it would go to waste. No records were kept at either of the public gardens regarding how much food was grown and how much was donated to document the gardens actual contributions. Holland (2004) makes an interesting observation that perhaps the differences between community gardens mirror the differences in the needs of the gardeners in that location. Communities differ from each other after all, and these differences are evident in their community gardens (Khan, 1999). Variety in community gardens seems to be important to people, as there are different elements that draw them in. A range of goals and benefits of the Prince George community gardens contributes to the mosaic of the city, addressing different needs and attracting different people. Once the gardens recognize that and embrace their role in the greater society, they will be able to flourish and accept their strengths and weaknesses, and work to improve their influence. The results of this research represent the situation of the four gardens as they existed in the summer of2012. They are simply a snapshot in time; community gardens can change from year to year. For instance in the AiMHi garden, a caucus was taking over the management of the garden at the end of the summer in 2012, so the structure and goals (therefore benefits and challenges) may change. The PGPIRG garden is quite fluid in its structure, and experiences high year-to-year variability. Based on the responses of the participants, there seems to be fluctuation of interest and activities in the gardens, due to factors like changing gardeners, weather, or community interest. The commonalities between all of the gardens in 2012 were the goals and benefits, while the structures and challenges varied between the public and private community gardens. The gardens were essentially all setting out to accomplish similar goals, but they were doing so in a 68 variety of ways, and therefore experienced different issues. By comparing the structures, goals, benefits and challenges, the community garden managers can take the information and use it to improve the gardens. 4. 6 Conclusions and Recommendations Overall, ensuring that community gardens are fulfilling the needs of the gardeners is important in ensuring their sustainability. This is especially true when growing food in Prince George as it is limited by its relatively short growing season. The opportunity to have gardening space in the urban center of the city is not one that should be disregarded. These gardens are vital assets to the city, and enrich the lives of those involved. To fully appreciate the community gardens, consideration should be given to the structure, goals, benefits and challenges of those gardens already constructed. Strategic planning would be useful in these four gardens to reassess the goals and make any changes needed to reach them. Perhaps the garden has moved in another direction, and although the garden may be working well, new goals can be drawn up to reflect the reality. The findings of this research point out the gap between the ideals and the reality of organizing a community garden. The structure, goals, and benefits of a garden should align to create a positive space. While these growing spaces are unique and should be flexible to some degree, the garden should cater to its target audience. When there is a discrepancy between what garden management hopes for and what is actually happening in the garden, disappointment and frustration can lead to discontent, loss of support and eventually closure. 69 Before constructing a community garden, there are some key questions that may be considered to help the developers think about the need for the garden, and what niche it might address for the local community. 1. Audience: Test for community need and support for the garden. Do the neighbors of the garden site have gardens/yards of their own? Who will be using the garden? 2. Maintenance: How will the garden be maintained? How much work is involved? 3. Labor: Who will be working in the garden? How will they be motivated? 4. Purpose: What are the goals of the garden? How will they be achieved? 5. Food: Who will get to eat the food? Where will the food go? How will it be ensured it gets there? 6. Awareness: How will the local community learn about the garden? How will it be advertised? Based upon this research, I suggest some changes in how the public community gardens are run to address the fact that the research participants felt that the public community gardens are not living up to their potential. The underlying problem is that the community groups that are trying to do it all: organize the garden, grow food, teach people about growing food, and be responsible for regular maintenance like weeding. This leads to volunteers in the public gardens doing too many things, and not doing anything particularly well. My recommendation would be for each public garden to initially choose one goal, and concentrate on it. Only after that one, unifying goal is realized, then the garden can broaden its focus and deal with other issues, but by concentrating the gardeners' efforts they can work to achieve tangible results and see the fruit of their labor. To address food security for instance, the goal of the garden would essentially be to grow a lot of food, then hand deliver it to food banks and soup kitchens. This would ensure that the food gets to the target audience. With this focus, the gardens' caretakers would not need to conduct many educational tours, have educational signs, install fences for protection against theft, and could grow food that appeals to a target audience. 70 Another goal might be to concentrate on education. In this case, the goal would not concentrate on high food production, but would focus upon inviting groups of people on a regular basis to see the food growing at various stages, as well as hosting events in the garden. These gardens could perhaps lend plots out to daycare or summer camp groups to teach children about growing food. My research suggests that there are some problems in the structures of the public gardens in Prince George. The barriers facing these gardens are preventing them from flourishing. Reconsidering the goals of community gardens might allow them to thrive into the future. Examining the disconnect between the goals and benefits of the private community gardens would be beneficial as well. While both of the private gardens are currently functioning well, a comparison of what gardeners think the garden is doing (goals) to what it is actually doing (benefits) is important for future goal identification and to measure success. This dialogue may encourage the creation or adaptation of goals, increase communication between gardeners, and may invite gardeners to take more ownership of the gardens, lessening pressure on the garden organizers. Volunteer burnout would be detrimental to the private gardens, as they are run by highly motivated individuals. Overall, examining the structure, goals, benefits and challenges of four community gardens in Prince George has highlighted the differences between the public and private gardens. The goals and the benefits of the public and private gardens are fairly similar, involving issues of food, education, social opportunities and enjoyment. When it comes to the challenges, the public and private gardens experience very different critical challenges that should be addressed to move the gardens in a more positive direction. Community gardens were generally said to play 71 an important role in many of the gardeners' lives, and the findings of this study will hopefully open the dialogue for constructive conversations about the future of the gardens. Limitations ofthis research include only examining four of the seven gardens in Prince George; more information could have been collected from the three other gardens, especially considering the limited nature of a case study. Another limitation was that the benefits of the gardens were not quantitatively tested, though this could be researched in another study. Future research could involve measuring the impact of the food produced in the Prince George community gardens on the diets of gardeners and other people receiving the produce. That could lead to a better understanding of the need and importance of the gardens for certain populations, and could expand to feeding more vulnerable populations to address the goal of food security. An analysis of the presence of potential food deserts in Prince George may encourage new community gardens to be created. Outside of Prince George, more research is needed to determine the structures, goals, benefits, and challenges that public community gardens projects face, as they are unique gardens that can address issues like food security, and public education. Community gardens are as a whole, amazing places to learn, eat and grow good food. They impact the lives of those gardening in them, as well as passersby and those who ultimately eat the food grown there. Many community issues can be addressed within a community garden, like food insecurity, food sovereignty, nutritional concerns, neighborhood beautification, crime rates, and just teaching people what food looks like and how to cook it can open up their mind. If you hand a person some kale, they eat for a day, but teach them to grow it and you feed a community! 72 5.0 CHAPTER 5: Inclusion/Exclusion in Prince George's Community Gardens Working through the research process, I found another way to compare the gardens (other than by a public vs. private divide), and found it to be an interesting way to consider community gardens. Though this chapter presents findings that were not the focus of my research, it proved to be a useful exercise to step out of the frame of reference I had established for each garden. Stepping outside that framework is important to consider the larger picture of how the gardens all fit together in a city like Prince George. This chapter includes broader-focus reflections of another way to compare the four community gardens. Some of the factors that may be found to influence the involvement of community gardeners include where the grown produce is going (i.e. for them or donation), distance they live from the garden, workshops hosted by the garden, level of comradery in the garden, longevity of their involvement, strengths of relationships with other gardeners, etc. Each of the researched gardens is very different; they were started by different people for various reasons, and serve diverse roles in the city. On a cautionary note, my research only focused on four of the seven community gardens in Prince George based on capacity limitations, and different conclusions may have been reached if more gardens had been included. Upon examining what factors influence the level of involvement of community gardeners, two important distinctions were made. While the differences between the community gardens were mainly attributed to the public vs. private nature of the garden (as seen in Chapter 3), another way of examining them was through the lens of access. I found that the four gardens differed in two basic ways (Figure 1): one was the reason the food was grown (personal use/private or communal/public) and the other was access to the garden (usually this policy was physically demonstrated with the presence of a fence) . These factors divided the gardens based 73 on their fundamental principles; why is the garden there? Who can use the garden? Where does the food go? Using a graphic can be a very helpful exercise in thinking about the gardens in a new way, rather than just in terms of their specific features. Several axes were examined, though I found this one to be the most helpful in terms of identifying fundamental differences. Some of the policies and physical features of the garden stem from these foundations, so it is important to emphasize them from the start. The graph was drawn with the following ideas in mind about each of the gardens. Milburn has all but one plot for personal food growing, and is open to any passersby who wants to enjoy the space (though not the food except from the one public plot). AiMHi has most of its food grown for the gardeners, although those in need are encouraged to take some food from the AiMHi plots. PGPIRG is completely open to anyone who wants to eat the food and use the space. The Downtown garden was divided into two sections; some of the 62 gardeners are residents that grow food for personal use (though are encouraged to "grow a row" to donate) and some are community organizations that donate most of the food grown to food banks (though they keep some for personal use). 74 FOOD Personal Milburn Downtownresidents AiMHi ACCESS Gardeners - - - - - - - 1 - - - - - - Passersby/ Non-gardeners Downtownorganizations Communal PGPlRG Figure 4. An idea of how the four researched gardens (Milburn, AiMHi, PGPIRG, and Downtown residents/organizations) may be located along two axes, food and access. These ideas of food and access affect many components of the garden, which invariably become evident in the workings of the gardens. One of these influences on the gardens' policies is an important concept, that of inclusion and exclusion. These concepts were found to play important roles in the gardens, both in terms of physical and social features: Who is included/excluded? How? Why? Before getting into the specifics of inclusion/exclusion in the Prince George gardens, first the ideas will be explored from a variety of perspectives. The ideas of inclusion and exclusion vary by discipline, though most often appeared in the literature from political perspectives which are included here and extrapolated to community gardens. From a political perspective, exclusion is often used in terms of marginalized populations, typically for socio-economic reasons. These groups can be excluded from participating in society economically and politically. This exclusion has been largely in part due to changes in capitalism, globalization, technological innovations, and extensive centralization in 75 corporations and financial institutions (Young, 2000). A shift towards alternative development is necessary, although a strong set of politics/regulations is needed to avoid a tragedy of the commons scenano. This scenario has not occurred to a large extent in these Prince George gardens, though there is always a risk of it happening when people have personal investments in a shared resource. Perhaps this has been avoided as of yet as most people have their own plots in a shared space, except of course for the PGPIRG garden. The garden is not very well-known on campus so there is a fair amount of food to go around, although I suspect that the few who do know about it exploit the resource. This has not caused a problem yet, as there are few people involved, but may become a problem if the garden becomes more well-known. Socio-economic factors could play a part in community gardens by affecting people's willingness to get involved with others of a different socio-economic status. Some gardeners are privileged members of society who may have a garden space of their own but chose to use the community garden for other reasons. If there are a limited number of plots in the garden, there may be competition between those people and those of lower socio-economic status who do not have access to a garden outside of the community garden. This may be becoming more and more the case with the Milburn garden for instance. The garden is located in a low-income area, with public housing surrounding the garden. The manager estimated that about half of the gardeners live within a kilometer of the garden, although fewer people who live directly next to the garden were involved. While they enjoy the garden space by relaxing in the garden, very few residents have plots there. The residents are not actively excluded, but neither are they actively included. If there is not that welcoming sense of inclusion, "we want you to garden here", then there is little 76 motivation to do so, especially when they may have little in common with the hobby gardeners when they might need the food for subsistence reasons. Silver (20 10) emphasized that social inclusion and exclusion are not technically antonyms, although they might initially appear to be. After all, the motivations, mechanisms, and agents working behind each idea are different. She explains that inclusion is a problem of social membership, while exclusion is a problem of social relations. As well, inclusion often has some sort of cost to the group, while exclusion is likely a benefit to the group. Goodin (1996) argues that social inclusion and exclusion are counterproductive terms, and are "fixated upon margins and boundaries" (p. 347). While most people focus on trying to 'include the excluded', which is just a debate about the location of boundaries, we should really be discussing the presence of boundaries at all. While it may appear that some people are either included or excluded, how close one is to the margins of either of those ideas is very important. Just because someone was included in the group this time, they are still aware that they are borderline and may not be included next time. This idea of boundaries and margins can be used in community gardens. Even if gardeners are participating that year, they might not feel as though they are really part of the group, and may not be motivated to return the following year. If they are given little support from the organizing body of the garden, or from fellow gardeners, this lack of inclusion may still be evident. There is always some turnover of gardeners, and while they do not give formal feedback on their reasons for leaving, this may be a reason for some of them, either at the Downtown or Milburn garden. 77 These were very important insights for me personally, especially that inclusion and exclusion were not opposites; I always thought that if you are not included, then you must be excluded, and vice versa. I had done several figures similar to Figure 1 based on this idea, the axes being social and physical inclusion/exclusion, but then found them not to be accurate as inclusion/exclusion cannot exist on the same scale. I did find that it seemed to be important to separate social and physical features. Most of the readings focused on social inclusion/exclusion, although it is likely that the physical features are often the physical manifestation of the social ideas. The fence around the Downtown garden for instance is a very physical reminder of the exclusion of those non-gardeners, while Milburn and the PGPIRG garden are very open and inviting to non-gardeners. This idea can be incorporated as some of the features contributing to the access axis in Figure 1. The AiMHi garden does not fit well within these ideas, as it has a low fence around it, but people are welcome to walk through the garden along the path alongside it. In the gardens studied, there is not a strong focus on attracting low-income people, or at least making growing more accessible. These are the people who arguably need the food the most. Some seeds and plants are donated and shared amongst gardeners, though these would not be enough to fill a large plot. In the Downtown garden, people are encouraged to "grow a row" to donate to a soup kitchen; this is slightly problematic, as one is keeping up the barriers between "us" and "them" and not sharing the knowledge of growing with those who may have had little exposure to it. By not breaking down these barriers, we are not allowing for the possibility of marginalized people learning to grow food. Without sharing this knowledge, gardening space and food, one is not addressing this dichotomy. 78 5.1 Milburn While there is no active exclusion of the low-income residents surrounding the garden, there is no active inclusion either. This atmosphere makes for a sense that they do not "belong" gardening there, though they do use the space for other activities. Every time I worked on my plot in the garden, people came up to me to tell me how much they appreciated the space, and thanked me for working on my plot and making the space more beautiful. 5.2 AiMHi AiMHi actively excludes individuals from borrowing space in the garden, instead focusing on allowing youth groups to grow food there. Since it is located in a suburban area, a majority of the people living around it have homes and gardening space. By actively excluding the surrounding community, people undoubtedly feel little connection and therefore responsibility to the garden. There is a general feeling of 'AiMHi will do all of the work, and anyone walking by can come and help themselves to the food growing here.' This does not create a strong connection to the surrounding families, thereby excluding them from the garden. 5.3 Downtown There were 62 gardeners that participated in the downtown garden during the study year, and all do so for different reasons. Some were individuals who live in the surrounding area and did not have a gardening space of their own. Others were local community groups who used the space for therapy. People seemed to move fairly independently in the garden, and did not go out of their way to befriend others. There is a locked, chain-link fence around the garden, this was the only one of the four studied to have a barrier. While it is there for insurance purposes, it acts as a physical barrier between those who are gardeners and those who are not. Glover (2004) found that a garden that 79 had a large, locked fence around it created a more exclusive community, and those inside the fence were closer to one another. People on the outside of the fence are very excluded and often resentful. Perhaps this was some of the reason for some cohesion in the garden, though it is hard to say what specific role the fence played. 5.4PGPIRG The PGPIRG garden was operated by two summer students, and anyone from either the UNBC or Prince George areas were welcome to help themselves to any of the food grown there. I think a big problem with the garden is that it tried so hard not to exclude anyone, that it did not end up including anyone either. Only the two students working there feel much connection to it, as there are few people who know about the garden. Even those perhaps 10-20 people who collect produce from the garden go at different times and are not very connected to each other, as they often collect food by themselves. 5. 5 Conclusion Overall, the concepts of inclusion and exclusion were an important lens through which to look at the community gardens. There are many factors at play in a community garden, and especially for Prince George, these differences created diverse atmospheres that attracted some individuals more so than others. This is an important quality, as there is no single model of a perfectly balanced inclusive/exclusive community garden that would work everywhere. Each garden plays a slightly different role in the area in which they are located. Even the concepts of inclusion and exclusion are context-specific, as are community gardens in both time and space, one of the many beautiful things about them. 80 6.0 CHAPTER 6: Conclusions and Recommendations In examining four community gardens in Prince George, many concepts have come to light. Investigating the structures, goals, benefits, and challenges of two public and two private community gardens has showed major differences between the public and private gardens. The findings emphasize that while the two types of gardens are grouped under the same umbrella term "community garden", the term does not reflect their unique natures. The goals and benefits are more or less similar in the public and private gardens, but the challenges facing the gardens highlight their differences. To support the community gardens in Prince George, there is no one recommendation that can be made that will work for them all, as they are quite different from each other, especially between the public and private gardens. The public gardens especially are dealing with many challenges that should be addressed to ensure the sustainability of those gardens. This research demonstrated a disconnect between the goals and the realities of the public gardens. The extensive challenges they are faced with suggests that some consideration should be directed to their fundamental structure. Ideally, as this research has highlighted some of the issues experienced by the gardens, it will contribute to the dialogue of those who can create change in the gardens. One simple change may be instead of referring to the public gardens as "community gardens" , identified them as Public Gardens, making it clear to the public (and gardeners) the intention of the garden. This misguided preconception that gardeners in the public gardens are growing food for themselves, creates conflict and dissatisfaction both to passersby and gardeners. People do not realize the food is available to them, and the gardeners can become upset or unmotivated when no one eats the food or one person takes more than their fair share. A general awareness of the public nature of the produce would be a win-win; passersby would be 81 happy to eat from the garden, and gardeners may be more satisfied that the constant maintenance necessary to run the garden is worth the effort, as the garden is making a difference in people's lives. The objectives of the public gardens should also be reflected upon. If the objective of the garden is to feed passersby, then everything should be done to concentrate on that objective. I found that both public gardens are attempting to address too many issues to do any of them very well. My recommendation would be to focus on one objective, i.e. education or food insecurity. Those objectives can only be addressed through opposite actions. Education for instance, involves regular tours, educational signs in the garden, growing many different types of food, perhaps letting groups/individuals grow food in some plots, having workers present to organize tours, and maintenance would involve mostly weeding. Food insecurity on the other hand, would focus on growing large amounts of food, not encouraging people to pass through the garden, and then delivering the food to soup kitchens or food banks. The private gardens in Prince George are doing much better than the public ones, with challenges like gardener engagement (i.e. encouraging them to spend more time in the garden), general awareness of the gardens, and encouraging more socialization between gardeners. Food production is quite high, and generally people were quite happy being involved in the gardens. To fully appreciate the community gardens, consideration should be given to the structure, goals, benefits and challenges of those gardens already constructed. Strategic planning would be useful in these four gardens to reassess the goals and make any changes needed to reach them. Perhaps if a garden has moved in another direction than was originally intended, and although the garden may be working well, new goals can be drawn up to reflect the new reality. 82 Before constructing any new community gardens, there are some key questions that may be considered to help the developers think about the need for the garden, and what niche it might address for the local community. 1. Audience: Test for community need and support for the garden. Do the neighbors of the garden site have gardens/yards of their own? Who will be using the garden? 2. Maintenance: How will the garden be maintained? How much work is involved? 3. Labor: Who will be working in the garden? How will they be motivated? 4. Purpose: What are the goals of the garden? How will they be achieved? 5. Food: Who will get to eat the food? Where will the food go? How will it be ensured it gets there? The findings of this research highlight the relationship between setting up a garden with ideals and the at times, harsh realities of maintaining it. The structure, goals, and benefits of a garden should align to create a positive space. While these growing spaces are unique and should be flexible to some degree, the garden should cater to its target audience. When there is a discrepancy between what garden management hopes for and what is actually happening in the garden, disappointment and frustration can lead to discontent, loss of support and eventually closure. Community gardens are not a one-size-fits-all installation; many factors must be considered before setting one up. They have been experiencing a high level of popularity over the past few years, and it would be unfortunate if the gardens fell into disrepair because the work behind maintaining them became too much. Especially for a city like Prince George, urban agriculture is a very visible example of vegetable production in an area that is surrounded by large scale hay production (Figure 2). Strategic planning is important to the future successes of community gardens anywhere, but especially in a city like Prince George where they play important roles in many people's lives. To ensure the existing gardens are doing the best they can, a reflective conversation is 83 important. When deliberating installing new community gardens, careful consideration should be given to the need and role that it will play in the local area. Community gardens can be beautiful spaces that address a plethora of issues, one of which is food production. To ensure their sustainability, their construction should not be viewed as an automatic achievement, but continual work should be done to support the gardens. 84 References Abolson, K., and Willett, C. (2005). Putting ourselves forward: Location in Aboriginal research. 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Primary Researcher: Adrienne Houlberg, (250) 613-3899, houlberg@unbc.ca Supervisor: Dr. Annie Booth, ESM, (250) 960-6649, annie@unbc.ca UNBC Research Ethics Board: reb@unbc.ca or (250) 960-6735 To Whom It May Concern, I, (your first and last name), consent to the (garden's name) Community research of Adrienne Houlberg in the Garden. I understand that the manager and 5-l 0 gardeners in the garden will be asked to participate in the research, and are free to withdraw at any point in the research. Purpose: The purpose of this research is to investigate how the relationships between people affect the success and effectiveness of a community garden. This will generate information that can be used by other Northern B.C. community gardens when they start up, as well as other Prince George community gardens to identify areas of opportunity in fostering relationships in the garden. Interview Protocol: Respondents were chosen as they were identified by others in the garden as potentially helpful, knowledgeable people to talk to. Respondents will be asked to participate in a 30-60 minute interview with Adrienne Houlberg that will be audio-recorded. Their participation is completely voluntary, and participants are welcome to drop out of the project at any point, as well as their information. Only Adrienne Houlberg and Annie Booth will have access to the respondents' responses. Information will be stored in a locked filing cabinet in a secure location. The transcripts and audio-recorded interviews will be stored for five years; the papers will be destroyed by shredding and digital files securely deleted. Study Benefits: The potential benefits from the study include collecting information to help other gardens' success, increased effectiveness of the research garden, and personal benefits such as an increased awareness of the influence of personal relationships. Confidentiality: Since anonymity cannot be guaranteed with such a small sample size, the participants' names will not be published in any reports, and they will be able to retract anything they have said at any point. Once the interviews have been transcribed, the participants will be 91 able to read their interview and retract any statements, as well as before the results are published, they will have an opportunity to view the finished report and edit any of their statements then. Questions/Concerns: Annie Booth (supervisor) can be reached in case you have any questions, either by email at annie@unbc.ca or (250) 960-6649. You can contact Adrienne at houlberg@unbc.ca for a copy of the research results. Any complaints about the project should be directed to the Office of Research at reb@unbc.ca or (250) 960-6735 . Please keep in mind that anonymity cannot be guaranteed, and you are free to withdraw your interview at any point in time. Name Signature Date Email Address 92 Appendix B - Gardener Information/Consent Letter Participant Information/Consent Letter Natural Resources and Environmental Studies Program University of Northern British Columbia 3333 University Ave, Prince George, B.C. V2N 4Z9 Investigating Community Gardens in Prince George, B. C. Primary Researcher: Adrienne Houlberg, (250) 613-3899, houlberg@unbc.ca Supervisor: Dr. Annie Booth, ESM, (250) 960-6649, annie@unbc.ca UNBC Research Ethics Board: reb@unbc.ca or (250) 960-6735 To Whom It May Concern, Purpose: The purpose of this research is to investigate how the relationships between people affect the success and effectiveness of a community garden. This will generate information that can be used by other Northern B.C. gardens when they start up, as well as other Prince George community gardens to identify areas of opportunity in fostering these relationships. The potential benefits from the study include collecting information to help other gardens' success, increased effectiveness of the research garden, and personal benefits such as an increased awareness of the influence of personal relationships on the local community. Interview Protocol: You were asked to participate in this research because you were identified by others in the garden as a helpful, knowledgeable person to talk to. You will be asked to participate in a 30-60 minute interview with Adrienne Houlberg that will be audio-recorded. Only Adrienne Houlberg and Annie Booth will have access to your responses. Information will be stored in a locked filing cabinet in a secure location. The transcripts and audio-recorded interviews will be stored for five years; the papers will be destroyed by shredding and digital files securely deleted. Withdrawal: Your participation is completely voluntary, and you are able to drop out of the project at any point, thereby removing any information you have provided. You are able to skip questions and end the interview at your will and any information collected will be destroyed. Confidentiality: Since anonymity cannot be guaranteed with such a small sample size, your name will not be published in any reports, and you will be able to retract anything you said at any point. Once the interviews have been transcribed, you will be able to read your interview and retract any statements, as well as before the results are published, you will have an opportunity to view the finished report and edit any of your statements. 93 Questions/Concerns: Annie Booth (supervisor) can be reached in case you have any questions, either by email at annie@unbc.ca or (250) 960-6649. You can contact Adrienne at houlberg@unbc.ca for a copy of the research results. Any complaints about the project should be directed to the UNBC Office ofResearch at reb@unbc.ca or (250) 960-6735. You will be given a copy of this sheet for your own record. Please keep in mind that anonymity cannot be guaranteed, and you are free to withdraw your interview at any point in time. Participant Name Participant Signature Date Email Address 94 Appendix C - Garden Manager Interview Guide Interview Guide for Garden Manager, State date and time of interview 1. Name, spelled out 2. Age range: 3. 4. 5. 6. • • • • • 18-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 Role/position title Garden a. What is the specific location of the garden? (Address, cross street) b. How long has the garden been here? c. How many plots does the garden have? What are the sizes of the plots? d. Who is targeted/encouraged to participate? Who does participate? How are they encouraged? e. What other activities other than gardening (i.e. running a workshop) are run by the garden? f. Where is the garden's funding from? g. Are there other staff? h. Are there volunteers? i. How are decisions made about the garden? Garden objectives a. What the garden's objectives? b. How are they measured? c. How do you feel they've been achieved? Why or why not? d. How is conflict managed? Personal/Job a. What is the nature of your job? What are your day-to-day responsibilities? b. How long have you been involved in this garden? c. How often do you work/visit here? d. Do you have a plot here? e. What kind of relationships do you have with other gardeners? f. What do you enjoy about working at this garden? g. What do you not enjoy about working at this garden? h. What activities is the garden doing to foster relationships between gardeners? To interest passersby? i. Suggestions/improvements for improving relations- how do you communicate? 95 Appendix D - Gardener Interview Guide Interview Guide for Gardeners State date and time of interview 1. Name, spelled out 2. Age range • • • • • • 18-30 31-40 41-50 51-60 61-70 71+ 3. 4. 5. 6. What would you say your role is at the garden? How often do you come here? How close do you live to the garden? How long have you been involved in this garden? Garden objectives: a. What the garden's objectives? b. How are they measured? c. How do you feel they've been achieved? Why or why not? 7. Do you come to any of the workshops provided? 8. Do you help/receive help from other gardeners? 9. What kind of relationships do you have with other gardeners here? 10. What do you enjoy about gardening at this garden? 11. What do you not enjoy about gardening at this garden? 12. How is conflict managed at this garden? 13. Suggestions to improve relationships? 14. Final comments? Future directions ofthe garden? 96