Jubilee Garden

Word on the concept seemed to get around fairly quickly. We had neighbourhood folks drop in to our office to discuss the idea, as well as a number of meetings with a variety of individuals and agencies interested in community food issues, or food security. (see Food Futures Cowichan), who later we referred to as 'The Food Groups'.

We identified a few potential sites for a garden, but set our first priority on the north end of Centennial Park, a few blocks from Duncan's City Hall. Since our office was located on Jubilee Street and the park is in the Jubilee Street neighbourhood, we began to refer to the project as the Jubilee Community Garden.

(click on image for larger format) We developed a lovely poster that sold as a fundraiser and helped describe the project to the community and potential funders. Around this time we became a committee of the Cowichan Community Land Trust Society (CCLT) and continue to work on the project under their organizational umbrella.

We then approached the City of Duncan and presented to its Parks & Rec Committee, who were supportive of the project from day one. Since this garden was being proposed for city property, the City's administrator requested that we develop a lease for use of the garden site. Lifecycles (Victoria), Seeds of Progress (Langford), Victoria Compost Ed Centre, municipality of Saanich all kindly provided example leases from gardens on community property. Through this process we developed two example leases for the Centennial Park site (available on request) from which the city could choose, which they did and it is in use today. The garden area was also surveyed by Richard Mortimer, BC Land Surveyor, who kindly volunteered his professional services to do this.

All along we received support from the Cowichan Valley Bottle Depot (thanks folks!!) without which we could not have taken the garden concept thus far, let alone operate CGC. We attracted donations of materials from the immediate community, but needed to acquire funding to make the project happen and create an infrastructure so the garden could continue to operate on its own. In March of 2003 we successfully applied to the Vancouver Foundation for funding for the Jubilee Community Garden

(click on image for larger format).In the summer of 2003, with support from a joint Job Creation Partnership from Service Canada that we developed with the CCLT, we began door-to-door canvassing of the Jubilee Street neighbourhood seeking input and feedback on the project. We also organized two town hall meetings (townhall) to introduce the project partners and get the community more directly involved. Through this process, we organized volunteers from which a committee evolved that ultimately took over responsibility for the garden and some of who continue to manage the garden today.

Centennial Park, especially the garden area, is traditionally is quite wet during the winter months. When we were ready to move ahead with construction in spring of 2004, it took some time for the site to dry out enough to begin work. In addition, the City of Duncan was planning to install paths around the entire park perimeter, but they had to find the existing park watering lines before they could begin. So all in all, we started quite a bit little later than we would have liked, but patience paid off. Not only were water lines installed for the garden, but we worked with the City to incorporate the pathways into the garden, making it even more of a community space!

To top the whole thing off, we asked the City that if we found the monies to repair the existing park washrooms, which had been closed for some time, would they allow them to be used for the garden. The City agreed and the Duncan Daybreak Rotary came to the rescue.

On March 9th, 2004, after more than two years and hundreds of volunteer hours, Mayor Mike Coleman performed the ceremonial sod turning...

...and the first series of beds were built using rolled up lengths of sod that had been lifted for the paths (lumber was primarily used for the remaining beds). To our surprise and to finish it off, a load of compost was delivered (sorry, we don't have the name of the donor - just their picture - thanks gentlemen!).

On March 4, 2004, CGC was registered as its own society under the BC Society.s Act and continues to work on food security, including the development of other gardens. In 2005, a group of participants at the Jubilee Community Garden formed their own society and manages the garden site. The Jubilee Community Garden Club meets every 1st and 3rd Tuesday, 6:30pm at the Slice of Life Pizza and every 2nd and 4th Saturday at 10:00am at Centennial Park, Duncan.