The Bear's Front-Yard Edible Garden

This black bear's front yard edible garden is Thornton Creek, near Ucluelet on the west coast of Vancouver Island. The creek is near a fish hatchery. He is a lucky bear!

Twin Raised Beds

Two neighbours on West 16th Avenue coordinated their efforts in constructing identical raised beds in their front yards, but what they are growing differs. One has constructed a trellis for runner beans and there are leeks or onions, perhaps more.

The other has kale, tomatoes, chard, beans, and perhaps a blueberry bush.

These are the first raised beds that I've seen made from 4x4's. For those of you who are builders, here is a detail of the corner. These sturdy beds should last a long time.

Avoiding Tomato Blight

In these photos, it is September 19, and the days are damp and rainy, but these gardeners are prepared. The tomatoes (and one bean plant) in their front yard are covered in plastic and the gardeners are ready to roll down the plastic with the next shower. Blight be gone...



Going around to the lane, I saw pole beans growing on the lane side of their back fence and much of their back garden wrapped in plastic, almost a shrink-wrapped garden!

Backyard Bounty Market

Very little prevents me from shopping at the UBC Farm Market on Saturday mornings, but instead on Saturday, September 25, I took part in a local market in the vacant lot at the corner of Dunbar Street and 18th Avenue. This first-ever event in our neighbourhood featured vegetables and fruits grown in the Dunbar area and was sponsored by the Dunbar Village Harvest Festival. The proceeds of several hundred dollars will go to flood relief in Pakistan.

Volunteers getting set up:

Grown at a volunteer's home behind St. George's Senior School (two kinds of apples, oregano, potatoes, and sorrel):

More produce:

The sprouting broccoli seedlings blur with the strong winds on that sunny day.
These heritage Wolf River apples were grown at a Dunbar resident's second home on Salt Spring Island.

Dunbar Transition (part of the Village Vancouver Transition Initiative) had tables with books, non-disposable lunch pails, and a sign-up sheet for email.


And chickens of course!
Are we ready for the 10-block diet yet?