A New Boulevard Garden with Vegetables

These avid gardeners have had plantings on the boulevard for many years, but in March 2010 they began a bold expansion to establish a garden on the entire boulevard across 1.5 lots in cooperation with their experienced neighbors. Two huge piles of soil are ready to be dispersed:


After much labor, the boulevard was leveled but not quite a blank slate due to the pre-existing plants (including a native salmon berry bush). However, an appreciably increased space for growing sun-loving plants has been created.

A few days later, cheerful flowers appeared, edging the beds.

With these hilled-up rows, it appears that vegetables will be planted.
Work over the weekend resulted in the transplanting of zucchini and carefully labeled rows of onions and other vegetables.

This new boulevard garden is definitely both a neat and attractive addition to the landscaping of this block.

Front Yard Garden Story in Courier

City drops hammer on front yard garden

This is the title of an article in the April 30, 2010 issue of the Vancouver Courier about a front yard vegetable garden that was not tidy enough for some neighbors.

Converting Lawn to a Vegetable Garden--A Problem

All is not roses in the new boulevard garden. The little lettuce transplants in the edible section have come onto hard times. (Of course, the kale volunteers are all thriving.) Note the crumpled appearance of the lettuce plant at the bottom centre:

A second plant succumbed in a similar manner a day later, with its main root cut. Digging down I discovered the perpetrators, wireworms! The only good thing about these creatures is that they are such a bright orange color that they're easy to spot. With their hard bodies, they are difficult to smash, so to avoid a time-consuming mass murder, I took a bunch of them over to a new home in the forest. Although quite small they can do a lot of damage, and unfortunately, they live for several years.


I found out later that two of the favorite foods of wireworms are lettuce and grass roots. Perhaps instead of turning over the sod and retaining it for extra humus, I should have removed it entirely. However, the wireworms may have been lurking lower in the soil in the colder months when I was digging up the grass. It's something to consider if you are turning your lawn into an edible space. There is helpful information from British Columbia's Robin Wheeler here: Wiley Wireworms.