Farewell
Our journey of the herb garden enhancement program with Gordon Neighbourhood House (GNH) is officially coming to a close.
Throughout this term, there has been many changes to the scope of our project. We had to adapt original ideas to fit the needs of our restricted time available with GNH. Some of our original ideas included painting individual boxes in hopes to create visibility. Unfortunately due to weather conditions and time restrictions, we were not able to proceed with this plan. Using the “What, So What, Now What” framework (Rolfe, Freshwater, & Jasper, 2001), we have continued to reflect on the moments of significance of our project.
A Moment of Significance
What?
Since our last blog post, we have designed a new sign to be placed on the herb boxes in the future. We included more information about the proper way to interact with the herbs in the boxes, such as “please do not rearrange plants” and “take only what you need”. We also added simple step-by-step pictures showcasing instructions on how to trim and harvest the herbs from the boxes. We hoped the pictographs would encourage individuals who are not familiar with herb gardening to begin engaging with the herb gardens. This process was quite challenging for us because we not only have to limit the number of words to fit into a small sign, but we also have to be able to convey the major messages to the broad demographic of the West Vancouver community.
In addition to making a new sign, we also compiled the data we collected from our community interaction and completed a detailed summary for Joey. Joey found the summary really helpful since it allows her to make some changes to the Herb Garden Program and hopefully raise people’s awareness on the gardens in the future.
At the same time, we have only received feedback from two of the herb garden volunteers through an online survey. According to their responses, improper usage of the herb gardens are not uncommon in the West End community. For instance, plants and signs from the herb boxes have gone missing in the past. The volunteers also suggested that a permanently installed signage on the box with more details about the herb garden project would be helpful to improve people’s awareness and interaction with the gardens. We found obtaining data through online surveys convenient yet difficult at the same time. This is because surveys can be done by volunteers at any time, but the number of response we receive may be lower than expected.
So What?
Earlier in the project, we took upon Ernesto Siroli’s (2012) message on how we are supposed to listen to people in the community to help us identify problems and strategize the best approach in solving it. We began by talking to Joey who is one of the community representatives to gain some general information about the West End community and herb garden. We then continued by interacting with the actual members of the community by having our engagement.
The engagement we had was definitely a new experience that most of us never had before. Getting people to talk to us was not easy as everyone was so busy and had little interest on engaging with us. However, we were so grateful for the people who actually spent the time to talk to us and answered our questions.
Based on our engagement with the community and the answers we got from the surveys, we were able to clarify some of the uncertainties that we had as well as getting to know some of the new issues that we did not think about before. We found that a major misconception about the herb gardens was that a lot of people mistook it as privately owned. As a result, although they have always thought that having the urban gardens as an interesting idea, they are not aware that they also have access to the gardens
Regarding issues with the herb garden, we found that some people and the volunteer mentioned about vandalism and improper use of the gardens. In the beginning, Joey communicated this problem to us. However, due to the scope and duration of our project, we found it hard to address the issue, and therefore was not able to approach the problem specifically. Another problem that was brought to our attention was the issue regarding locations of the herb boxes. One of the people interacting with us told us about how some of the herbs located near the road often get polluted by the cars. This was something that we were not aware of before, but definitely can be communicated to GNH for further improvements of the herb gardens in the future.
We find that the engagement was an effective approach to gain more information about the herb garden. However, we expect that with higher number of responses, more input and information can be obtained. This could be improved by having longer time of engagement as well as dispersion of group members to several herb box locations. We also thought that a meeting with the volunteers would be a good idea to exchange ideas and gain more understanding about the herb gardens. Although the survey answers were really helpful, there was only limited responses and we wish to hear from more voices. At the same time, we understand that the volunteers might also be busy and therefore, we really appreciate the time that they have taken to answer the surveys.
To maximize the potential of the herb garden, we believe that evaluations on the current strategies and continuous improvements should be done. This is because through self-evaluation and self-monitoring, work productivity and performance can be improved (Grossi & Heward, 1998), and this is an important aspect that contributes to the quality of any project.
Throughout the term, we have been continuously evaluating our own project and changes were constantly made. As a group, we definitely see the potential of the herb garden to grow and become an asset of the community that can be positively utilized. Evaluations on benefits of community gardens have shown positive results on health outcomes as well as community empowerment (Draper & Freedman, 2010). For example, community gardens were found to promote positive dietary habits in the community and they also allows members of the community to interact and participate in the production of social capital (Draper & Freedman, 2010).
Now What?
Now that we have come the end of our involvement in the Herb Garden Enhancement Program we hope to see this project grow in the next few years. We strongly believe there is more that can be done to enhance these gardens and we look forward to seeing what lies ahead for this program. Although we did not get to do what we originally planned, painting the garden boxes to bring more attention to them, we hope that our suggestions and new signage will be a good first step in enhancing this project. We hope that this project will have the opportunity to be expanded next semester and in the coming years as we feel like there could be more done to better this program than we we could do do in our time restraint.
To showcase the findings as well as the accomplishments that we have made over the course of our project, we will be having a presentation in one of UBC’s public space By our interactions with the audience during our presentation, we are hoping to gain more insights and meaningful ideas that could be implemented in the future herb garden enhancement program.
Reference
Draper, C., & Freedman, D. (2010). Review and analysis of the benefits, purposes, and motivations associated with community gardening in the united states. Journal of Community Practice, 18(4), 458-492. doi:10.1080/10705422.2010.519682
Grossi, T. A., & Heward, W. L. (1998). Using Self-evaluation to Improve the Work Productivity of Trainees in a Community-based Restaurant Training Program. Education and Training in Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, 33(3), 248-263.
Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., & Jasper, M. (2001). Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Retrieved from https://my.cumbria.ac.uk/media/MyCumbria/Documents/ReflectiveModelRolfe.pdf
Siroli, E. (2012, November 26). Want to help someone? Shut up and listen! [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chXsLtHqfdM