If you’ve driven down Beverly Street lately, you’ll have noticed a new wooden and plastic structure that’s been quickly popping up. This fabulous building is the new Warmland House Community Greenhouse. This project is being led by the Cowichan Green Community (CGC) and is part of a landscaping plan for the edible gardens. These gardens will include a solar greenhouse, raised vegetable beds, medicinal gardens, fruit trees, various types of edible berry bushes and, of course, large compost bins that will be utilized to help all these plants thrive. The purpose of these gardens will not only provide food for the Warmland House, but it will also be a local community garden where all green thumbs are welcome. Jason Greenwood, Community Garden Planner for the CGC says, “This is a very promising and important project since this facility will be a model for other organizations aiming to become more self sufficient.

Connecting to the earth through gardening will increase our food production here in the Valley, while also making positive connections in our community.” However, CGC and the Warmland House will need the community’s support to make this project a reality. “We still need volunteers, donations of soil, seeds, fruit trees, berry bushes, manure, hay, compostable items, garden tools, and anything else that will help create an edible landscape,” explains Jason. “In previous years, we have had generous donations from local businesses and an amazing amount of volunteer support. We hope this trend will continue.” Within a month, CGC with a very passionate group of hard-working volunteers have nearly finished creating the greenhouse. Because the weather is starting to warm up, the next step is to begin the raised beds and compost piles to jump start the food production process. Overall, this project is well on its way to fruition, but CGC and the Warmland house are asking for the community’s support to help finish creating this amazingly efficient and edible project. So far, CGC has received generous funding from the Vancouver Foundation, and the Investment Agriculture Foundation of B.C., as well as top soil from Robarts Contracting and wood from O.U.R. ECOVILLAGE. CGC would like to thank all of their volunteers, with a special thanks to Roger Foucher and the District of North Cowichan, whom have all made this project so fantastic.

If you are interested in being a part of this community garden project, please contact Jason atjason [at] cowichangreencommunity [dot] org, or call Cowichan Green Community at 250.748.8506. Please check out our new website at www.cowichangreencommunity.org for more information.