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Thank you to everyone who came out for this very important date! There was a delicious potluck lunch, teas to sample from plants found in the garden with a tour and plant walk, and Mad Hatter hat making.
Thank you Anya for organizing the event and Selina for proving the garden tour.
SPEC is hosting a Climate Action Fair in Riley Park on Saturday, August 31st! Bring everyone for a family friendly day full of activities, demonstrations and exhibits, all centred around food, waste, energy, transportation, and sustainability. Lets discuss some of the most impactful actions you can take to help stop the climate crisis. For more details, visit: https://spec.bc.ca/event-3394597.
Visit the garden on Climate Action Day for more events! Visit for a Butterflyway Project talk with a Ranger from the David Suzuki Foundation, a Drip Irrigation Demonstration in the Kids Learning Garden, and a Living Indigenous Talk. Make sure to Ask Us About: Composting, Soil, the Learning Shed and preview Dan Jason's book: Changing the Climate with the Seeds we Sow!
Thank you to everyone who contributed dishes for the Corn Potluck on Saturday! A special thank you also goes to the Tonari Gumi Garden Group for providing the Daikon & Japanese Culture Workshop! We learned the importance of the vegetable in Japanese cooking, sampled daikon dishes, and together we planted daikon in our garden. We learned so much. Thank you!
Thank you Amanda for the great write up and lovely photos of the Heritage Vancouver Society's Garden Tour! https://www.thegardenwebsite.com/amandas-garden-websiteblog/heritage-vancouver-societys-7th-garden-tour#
The tour took place June 22 & 23rd, and featured 15 gardens from across the city. We are so happy Riley Park Community Garden was a part of this tour!
We have some events coming up! Scroll through posters for more info. See you there!
Thursday, August 1 (In RPCG)
6-9pm - Vancouver’s Community Gardens Meeting. Community Garden members and organizers in Vancouver are invited for a meet-up, conversation and potluck. Join us and share how our gardens address vandalism and theft.
Saturday, August 10th (In RPCG)
12:30-1:30 - Corn Potluck. Bring a corn-themed dish to share! We encourage using ingredients from the garden. Sample daikon dishes too!
1:30-3:30 - Daikon & Japanese Culture Workshop. Lead by Tonari Gumi Garden Club volunteers. Join us to plant seeds/seedlings, share your experience with daikon and go home with daikon seed packets!
Sunday, August 11th (In Fieldhouse)
1-4 - Paint Party! Join Artist Teresa Waclawik for an engaging afternoon of creativity! This event is for all ages and all skill levels. Of course, being next to the garden, the theme will be vegetables! Materials & snacks supplied.
This Saturday buzzzz down to the garden for a day of eventzzzz. Scroll through the posters for more details!
Over 50 people came out to the garden on Wednesday for Latino Night! There was great food, plus dancing from the Root Peruvian Folk Dancers (that we may have joined in on!). It was a lovely night in the garden, and we were so lucky the rain held off for us.
Thank you Marta, everyone who helped with the meal and Small Neighbourhood Grants!
What did we harvest at our Work Party? A LOT! Raspberries, blueberries, tayberries, black raspberries, snap peas, cauliflower, cabbage leaves, garlic, potatoes, and dill! Everyone got to take home some of the harvest.
The Syrian Lunch that was hosted in the garden this past Saturday was a huge success! About 50 people came out to share a delicious meal, learn about the prepared dishes, and eat together as a community. Thank you Silva, everyone who contributed to the meal, and Small Neighbourhood Grants.
After the lunch, the Native Plant Walk & Nature Exploration was also hosted at the garden. Lori Snyder, Metis Forager, lead the Native Plant Walk, and Emma Lei, PLANE Coordinator, lead the Nature Exploration. It was a very interesting workshop, and we learned lots about the different native plants in our very own garden, including which ones are non commonly known edible plants, medicinal properties, and stories. Thank you, Lori and Emma!
Vancouver Neighbourhood Food Networks launch first-ever impact report, spotlights 109,900 meals shared in community
Inaugural impact report highlights city-wide food security efforts in 2018
Vancouver NeighbourhoodFood Networks provided affordable meals, food skills programs, and social connections to over 30,000 people in 2018, as indicated in their inaugural impact report.
“This report has been a long time coming,” says community food programmer Ian Marcuse from Grandview Woodland Food Connection at Britannia Community Centre. “We have seen a significant spike in use of our food services in recent years. With the rising cost of rent and food, families are forced to cut costs wherever possible. This impact report from the Vancouver Neighbourhood Food Networks provides crucial data on food access and services city-wide.”
Combining the need for affordable meals with the need for more social spaces in Vancouver, Vancouver Food Networks served more than 109,000 community meals in 2018, according to the report. On average, these meals cost between $3.00 to $7.00 and offered an affordable menu of seasonal and cultural home-style dishes.
Beyond serving meals, the report indicates Vancouver Neighbourhood Food Networks coordinated over 1,100 skill-building workshops, which generate lasting effects on community members’ well being: “I have grown because I cook better…when you cook and it’s really good and healthy, you feel proud and you get the courage to try new things,” shares a workshop participant from Mount Pleasant Food Network.
Read the full impact report for more details on Vancouver Neighbourhood Food Network’s city-wide initiatives in 2018, including fresh food distribution, seasonal celebrations, community and school gardens, and more.
More events coming at you this weekend! Come on down to the garden and see. We have our weekly Saturday Work Party from 10-12, then a Syrian Lunch hosted by our Syrian families from the Garden and the Neighbourhood House at 12:30. Then we have a Native Plant Walk & Exploration Workshop from 1:30-3.
ALSO! On Wednesday July 10th from 6-8pm, the garden is hosting Latino Night! Watch the Root Peruvian Folk Dancers perform, enjoy traditional Latin Spanish dishes (please bring a dish of your choice to share, AND your own plates - help make this event waste free!), groove to great music and enjoy good company.
Did you know there will be line dancing in the Plaza at Riley Park (next to the Community Garden), hosted by the Little Mountain Neighbourhood House Chinese Line Dancers every Tuesday & Friday in July and August from 9-11AM? All skill levels welcome.
So much is going on, how could you miss it?! Scroll through the posters below for more details.
At our Saturday Work Party last week, 300 bulbs of garlic were harvested! Everyone went home with fresh garlic, and the rest will be cured (dried), and distributed at RPCG events. Stay tuned and watch here for our garlic planting and garlic festival this fall! Thank you to all the volunteers who helped!
A big, big, BIG thank you to the Little Mountain Neighbourhood House Chinese Line Dancers for hosting an amazing lunch in the garden this past weekend. The food was delicious and much appreciated after our Saturday Work Party! The Line Dancers also dance regularly in the park throughout the summer.. more info on this coming soon! Watch here.
On Friday, June 20, Little Mountain Neighbourhood House and Riley Park Community Garden generously sponsored this wonderful event: A Ukulele Sing-A-Long which was held in the centre of the lovely, verdant Riley Park Community Garden.
Most of the uke players were from 411 Senior centre. The other uke players were from Little Mountain and Cedar Cottage Neighbourhood Houses along with a few invited guests. Overall, it was even better than we had hoped for... over 35 folks playing, singing, and sharing snacks together.
Our sincere appreciation and thanks go to Joanne McKinnon, Annie Wu and the staff at Riley Park Community Garden and Little Mountain Neighbourhood House for helping make this a wonderful way to end our term.
-Jane Belanger
Do you play ukulele? We hope to host more of these jam sessions throughout the summer, so stay tuned (pun intended).
The Butterflyway Project Event was a great hit in the garden this past Saturday. Many came out to learn about the different pollinators in the garden and our native butterflies, while learning how to help them thrive! Scroll through the photos to see how much fun we had in the garden and check out here for more info on the Butterflyway Project and how Riley Park Community Garden is involved.
Pollinator Week was last week, but this doesn’t mean you still can’t help out! The BIMBY (Butterflies In My Backyard) Project is a citizen scientist component of the Butterflyway Project, hosted by the David Suzuki Foundation. Volunteer Butterflyway Rangers in Vancouver, Richmond and the District of North Vancouver, will take photos of local butterflies in 2019 to help document sightings. Our goal is to help identify B.C. butterflies and enrich our knowledge of how to help butterflies find food and shelter. Click here for more details on this project.
The garden this weekend is jam-packed with events! Have a browse at the event posters for more details, and also check out the Events Calendar here. So many events, how to choose? That’s easy.. come to all!
Summer is here! We are pleased to announce that the 3rd Annual Riley Park Community Garden Summer Solstice will be held this Friday from 7:30-9:30pm in the garden. It will be an evening of yummy snacks, music, and celebrating. Everyone is welcome!
Wondering what else is going on in the garden this weekend? Check out the Events Calendar here
On May 29, we welcomed Mayan Elder and UBC Sociologist, Lix Lopez to the garden, as he led us in planting corn and beans in the Three Sisters Bed at the Riley Park Community Garden.
Lopez first shared the story of how corn was discovered by the Mayans (Click link for more details on this story), which was followed by a blessing of the seeds. The seeds were planted around the giant celery from last year that is currently flowering. The celery stock will be used as a natural pole for the climbing beans, and its roots for stabilization and nutrients.
We are excited to introduce a new variety of corn to the garden and look forward to seeing the progress of this bed throughout the summer. Thank you Lix for an evening in the garden, and thank you for everyone who attended this event!
We will keep you informed of upcoming planting sessions with Lix and also SAVE THE DATE for our Mayan Day in the Garden – September 21 for our Mayan Three Sisters Lunch and Mayan Workshop. This is a partnership with the UBC Mayan Garden in Exile project and a great opportunity to learn more about the Mayan Culture and Traditions.
By Dr. Art Bomke, Professor Emeritus, UBC
On Saturday May 18 th , Riley Park Community Gardeners, guests and representatives from the BC Mycological Society launched an interesting demonstration/education project focused on fungi, bacteria and their effects on higher plants. Additionally, a small log was inoculated with spores of a saprophytic fungus that produces edible fruiting bodies, otherwise known as mushrooms. This latter project will take some time to develop and will be available to observe, likely nestled within the “Food Forest” area of the garden.
Plant – Microbe interactions: All plants exist in a range of relationships with soil microorganisms and good management strives to create healthy soils with a biodiverse array of beneficial microbes. The SPEC (Society Promoting Environmental Conservation) Bean bed is the site of a comparison of two methods of inoculating plant seeds with microorganisms to improve plant vigour, nutrient uptake and fixation of atmospheric nitrogen. The efficacy of inoculating plant seeds is partially dependent on the fertility of the soil and can either show a marked improvement or no effect. What will we observe in our garden?
The Bean plot was divided into four segments with the treatments being a 1) control with no inoculation, 2) addition of a mycorrhizae mix (containing a range of fungi and bacteria), 3) nitrogen-fixing bacteria and a combination of treatments 2 and 3.
Gardeners and visitors will be able to observe over the June and July to see if the treatments have had any visual effects. We will also measure vegetative growth, bean yields and root effects.
Funded by Canada Summer Jobs, the people don’t have to be students but do need to be 15-30 and other criteria.
Hiring a Garden/Education Coordinator and a Communications/ Outreach Coordinator.
For more information email Joanne: joanne_mackinnon@lmnhs.bc.ca
The SACY (Supporting and Connecting Youth) group had lots of fun painting the garden signs last Thursday and digging up the two areas where the ground cover was planted (where the blue berries will be going plus part of one of the veg beds). They completed painting the new veggie signs for the common areas we are planting. Lots of fun was had drawing veggie faces. Thank you to Anya, varouj and Susan for making this happen.
50 East 30th Avenue,
Vancouver BC, CANADA V5V 2T9
The Riley Park Community Garden is a project of the Little Mountain Neighbourhood House Society located at 3981 Main Street, Vancouver BC, Canada V5V 3P3
We acknowledge that the land on which we garden and gather is the unceded traditional
territory of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations
Funded in part by the Government of Canada's New Horizon for Seniors Program
Charity Registration Number: 107629925RR0001
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