10/13/17

Discovering the Rooftop Garden

When was the last time you got your hands dirty doing some farming and gardening?

If you’ve never done it, or if you can’t remember when the last time was, we highly recommend you get your hands dirty soon! It is exceptionally rewarding and it allows you to not only get in touch with nature, but also to understand how hard your food struggles to grow.

How do we know that? Because over the past two weeks, we have been going to Gordon Neighbourhood House (GNH) to help out with their urban farm’s harvesting, transplanting, and winterizing. Collectively we can say that it has been a very blissful experience and has allowed us to forget about the busy school assignments and midterms currently in our minds!

We were  working on our Project Proposal report which can be accessed here: GNH Urban Farming Proposal Report

Here is our weekly objectives and achievements up until October 12th:

Weekly Objectives:

  • To get together for another shift at GNH in order to discover the rooftop garden and to get our hands dirty again doing some winter planting!
  • To take pictures for future usage in our final report, blog, and presentation, and for the future use of GNH.
  • To go over survey questions with our community partner Joey, in order to create a Google survey that would allows us to reach as many volunteers as possible and collect qualitative data for our project.
  • To discuss and finalize blog post # 2

  Achievements:

  • On Oct. 3rd, three of our group members visited GNH to volunteer at two urban sites. We helped with watering, harvesting tomatoes, and planting garlic. Three other community volunteers came, so we also had a chance to talk with them getting a brief understanding of their attitudes towards urban farming program. The community partner introduced their planting plan, crop arrangement and some gardening tips, including companion planting and compost usage.  
  • We completed the proposal report and final editing as a group before submitting on Oct. 8th.
  • On Oct. 11th, we enjoyed an entire afternoon of gardening at the Freesia rooftop garden site weeding and transplanting kale, and we can guarantee, we got our hands dirty!
  • We were able to collect  several pictures, including before and after pictures that demonstrate our “gardening skills”.
  • We have been able to establish a list a suitable questions with Joey that we will turn into an online survey for GNH volunteers to take. We emailed the survey to Joey and she distributed it to the volunteers she currently has working for GNH.
  • We have also finished analysing the data on farming up until  the end of September.

Moment of Significance

We think our collective moment of significance was to realize, or to remember, just how rewarding putting our hands in the earth, getting them dirty, and helping plants to grow was.  We realized that our contribution will one day be of someone’s sustenance.  Not only that, but it felt so primal to just be connected with the earth on such a basic level.

What

On October 11th, our group utilised the flexible learning session to go to GNH together and engage in the maintenance of one of the four urban farms, the Freesia rooftop. We were quite surprised and excited at the sight of the rooftop farm. The farm is on the seventh floor of an apartment.  Surrounding the farm are the high-rises of Vancouver; the term “urban farm” fits this rooftop farm perfectly.

Rooftop farming made us feel as if we had stepped back into a more simple time.  We were disconnected from our collective devices and were ‘one’ with the earth.  It was so rewarding and nurturing on such a basic level as to pull up weeds, prepare the soil, and plant new life that will give nutrients and energy to others.

As well as the primal basics, being engaged with a community project that is tailored to one specific community, the West End of Vancouver, gave us a sense of belonging, even though all but one of us don’t even belong to that community.

When we were there, Joey, the Head Farmer of GNH gave us a tour of the rooftop garden, pointing out successful and not as successful crops. Afterwards, she gave instructions to  prune off some of the plants, and to weed out some of the plots that were taken over by invasive species. Throughout the time, we were all devoted in our tasks, and the time passed very quickly. When we were done, we transplanted kale plants from an overcrowded plot to the newly cleared plots. It was a very soothing and peaceful moment, and the act of transplanting felt very nurturing and blissful. This process lead to us to think about potential benefits of volunteering and of being involved in urban farming.

So What

Benefits of Farming to Volunteers

We have noticed a change in our moods before and after helping out in the farming and we felt refreshed and calm after the session. Does getting our hands mentally benefit individuals? – the answer to us is, YES, it most certainly does.

There have been programs in called ‘therapeutic horticulture’, ‘green care’ or ‘ecotherapy’ in many parts of the world, where interaction with nature are utilised to improve the mental health and well-being of individuals (Sempik & Aldridge 2012, Haubenhofer et al.2010).  In recent studies, Harris (2017) has found that these benefits are not dependent on the individual’s’ interests in nature or gardening and that it is the feeling of empowerment after engaging that allowed for improved well being. These findings are significant in our project as we see therapeutic benefit as a positive impact brought to the volunteers by the Urban Farm program.

Community-based experiential learning

Often times, it is difficult to engage and understand the material we learn in school as we can feel distant from the material itself. Some common thoughts that come across our minds are: How is learning this helpful? Will this information be relevant in the future? Due to this,  learning can feel like a task to be completed and forgotten later rather than a meaningful and long-lasting addition to our awareness of the world. The GNH urban farming session gave us a rare opportunity to bridge the gap between the concepts we learned in an academia setting and the application of this knowledge in a real-life situation. By directly engaging with the community, we are able to gain insight on different perspectives that we would otherwise miss. This problem is addressed in the paper by Bang et al., where they state that diversity in perspectives can bolster our understanding of what we study, ultimately enabling us to obtain more accurate results (2014). During our farming session we realized the difficulty and unpredictability of managing and maintaining an urban farm. For instance, due to the relatively large distance from the GNH building, the Head Farmer can only visit the rooftop garden once a week. Crops like tomatoes, which require more frequent care, did not thrive on the rooftop garden. From previous research, we learned about the potential benefits of urban farming, such as improving community food security and social benefits. However, by participating hands-on, we realize the amount of work that urban farms entail and the many difficulties that may arise. As a result, we were able to grasp the reality of urban farming, not just the theoretical aspects involved.

Now What

Taking into account our own perceived mood change during our farming session, we can ask new questions assessing the potential therapeutic benefits of volunteering at GNH. In addition, since our understanding of the potential complications involved in urban farming as improved, we will now be more aware of our own biases and privilege when we enter new spaces.

Upcoming Objectives and Future Strategies:

  • To make a list of questions for other stakeholders and for end-users.  We will address the end-user survey with pen and paper instead of an online survey to make room for the fact that some end-users do not have a constant, reliable internet connection.
  • To collect responses from volunteers and stakeholders in order to create an initial framework for our final report data analysis.
  • To keep collecting harvest information (quantitative data) and add to log summary tables.
  • Frequently and actively communicate with community partner and within group via emails and social media to acquire updated information.
  • To obtain more hands on experience and assist with fall and winter farm management.

References:

Bang, D. M., Carol D., & Lee, M. (2014). Point of View Affects How Science Is Done. Scientific American. From http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/point-of-view-affects-how-science-is-done/

Harris, H. (2017). The social dimensions of therapeutic horticulture. Health & Social Care in the Community, 25(4), 1328-1336. doi:10.1111/hsc.12433

Haubenhofer, D. K., Elings, M., Hassink, J., & Hine, R. E. (2010). The development of green care in western european countries. Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing, 6(2), 106-111. doi:10.1016/j.explore.2009.12.002

Aldridge, J., & Sempik, J. (2002). Social and therapeutic horticulture: evidence and messages from research.