Building Capacity in UBC Campus Community Gardens
Creators: name: Zeng, Amy
name: Peer-Groves, Emily
name: Sanqui, Janela
name: Ling, Linda
Publisher: name: The University of British Columbia
Year: 2019

description: Although interest and involvement in current UBC campus garden initiatives is growing, communication between these groups is fragmented. As a result, turnover in volunteers is high, and there exist gaps in information and equipment sharing between gardens, and overall student and faculty awareness is stifled. This report provides an analysis and evaluation of the current and prospective scope of collaboration between UBC campus community gardens to identify opportunities for future engagement of and support from the UBC Botanical Garden. Our project aims to promote and enhance sustainable campus food production, social and educational connections between growers, and biodiversity conservation. Our Main Project Objectives were to (1) build connections between the gardeners in and around the UBC campus community, (2) facilitate knowledge sharing and establish a network of information where gardeners can share their experiences with other gardeners, and (3) enhance environmental, social and economic sustainability of currently established community gardens. Specifically, over the course of this semester we (1) hosted a workshop for the gardners informing them on how to increase the biodiversity in the community gardens so that biological integrity in and around the community gardens can be maintained; (2) designed a data collection tool and created a database to record produce yield from each garden for future management plan. Through employing a Community-Based Action Research (CBAR) methodology, we delivered two surveys and one semi-structured interview before, during and after the workshop. Through the pre-workshop survey we found participants’ interest in increasing food plant productivity, pollinator plants and soil health. From the interview results, we understand the gardens’ perceptions to their gardens’ strength, weakness, opportunities and threats in the perspectives of plant, people and place.We analyzed the responses obtained from the post-workshop survey and found that the harvest tool was poorly received and required further revisions to improve its accessibility to different users. The gardeners appreciated the opportunity to communicate and collaborate with other community members. Our Recommendations are divided into a three-tiered action plan. Immediate action includes revising the ‘Harvest Diary Tool’ and create a sample garden governance template. Intermediate action includes facilitating educational workshops at different gardens on UBC campus and creating and distributing a community newsletter. Lastly, long-term action items involve hosting regular garden celebrations to showcase and launching a volunteer platform for individuals to sign up and help garden where it’s needed most. Disclaimer: “UBC SEEDS provides students with the opportunity to share the findings of their studies, as well as their opinions, conclusions and recommendations with the UBC community. The reader should bear in mind that this is a student project/report and is not an official document of UBC. Furthermore readers should bear in mind that these reports may not reflect the current status of activities at UBC. We urge you to contact the research persons mentioned in a report or the SEEDS Coordinator about the current status of the subject matter of a project/report.”