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Happy Sunday! This week, after the unseasonably warm long weekend we had, has felt noticeably more like fall - the leaves are changing colours on the trees and starting to become crunchy under my shoes, the air is cooler, and the sun is going down earlier! It definitely is also feeling like midterm-season. The stress is palpable around campus, and I’ve been especially grateful for the escape of the garden whenever I can get it. The blog is out a bit later this week because I have a midterm paper due tonight that I've been working on. Thanks to many cafe and library hours it is almost done! Reading break is around the corner, and I think everyone is looking forward to it! This past week at the garden was pretty focused on a couple bigger tasks: working on plot renewals, accessible bed planning, and harvesting!  We also ran a garlic planting workshop on Wednesday, where our Coordinator, Lyndsay, showed us her tips and tricks for planting garlic and readying it for the winter months. We were lucky with the weather - it was a sunny afternoon before the rain started about an hour after we’d finished the workshop! We had a great time meeting new folks and seeing some familiar faces :) We ran our usual Friday volunteer work party in the rain this week! We focused on salvaging wood from old pallets to be used in upcoming projects, like the accessible bed and new composters, and got a lot done! Thanks to everyone who came out to lend a hand - we appreciate our dedicated community so much!!
Next week, we’ve got a board meeting on Tuesday, October 22nd at 3:30 in SUB B025. If you’ve ever thought about getting more involved with the CCG, come chat with us! We’d love to tell you more about the board and what being a member means :) Also coming up is our Candle Making workshop (+ trick or treating!) on October 31st!! Keep an eye on our Instagram for details! I hope everyone had a great weekend! Happy gardening, Jessi
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Happy Friday, and happy long weekend! The weather is supposed to be pretty nice this weekend, and I’m really looking forward to being able to spend some more time outside! This week was a bit more relaxed at the ccg, with midterms going on and some staff away right now. My week was mostly spent working to get ready for building our new accessible bed! We’ve been meeting to go over plans, taking inventory of what materials we already have and what we still need, and working on finishing up the removal of the old bed as well as salvaging wood from old pallets! We’re almost ready to start building, and I’m getting very excited to finish up this project. There are a few things that need to happen first though, mostly involving materials that we don’t already have in the garden. One of those is that we are on the hunt for 16 cinderblocks! If anyone knows of anywhere we might be able to find some cinderblocks for free, please reach out! We’re also looking to source some fabric, which will go on top of wooden slats and chicken wire to provide a base for the soil in the tabletop-style garden bed. We’ve reached out to some cafes about using some of those big burlap-y coffee bean bags, but are open to other possibilities! If anyone has any ideas, let me know!  On Tuesday we had our biweekly board meeting, and even added a few new members to our board! We discussed what we’ve been working on, voted on some upcoming projects, and reviewed our budget for this year with our new board members! If you’re interested in getting more involved with the garden, becoming a board member is an awesome way - feel free to come out to board meetings even if you aren’t sure about being a member, they’re open to everyone and are a great way to get to know the behind-the-scenes of our work at the ccg :) On Thursday we had the first of our biweekly collab events with the Society for Students with a Disability (SSD)! This week we focused on seed saving, and in two weeks (Oct 24th) we’ll be doing a tea making workshop! Join us between 1-3pm for a chill afternoon of chatting, learning, and hanging out!  This afternoon we had another weekly volunteer work party! This week’s focus was on transplanting potted plants into their forever homes in the garden! If you’re interested in lending a hand in the garden, come out to one of our Friday work parties! They’re drop-in style, usually held between 2-4pm, and are the best way to get familiar with the space, meet others who are interested in gardening, and learn new skills - there’s no experience necessary, and everyone is learning together so the vibe is very relaxed! If you have any questions about volunteering, reach out to us! Coming up this week, we’ve got a garlic planting workshop on Wednesday! For this one we’ll be in the garden planting some of the garlic we’ve saved from our harvests this season. We’ll share our tips and tricks, answer any questions you might have, and have a lovely time together in the dirt! No sign-ups are needed, just show up for 2pm ready to learn!  That’s all I’ve got for this week :) I hope everyone has a wonderful long weekend!!
Happy gardening, Jessi The first week of October is already almost over! The temperature has noticeably dropped, the trees are starting to change colours, and there’s a certain spooky-ness in the air. Fall is a great time in the garden, because there is sooo much harvesting to do! There are lots of people around the garden, and lots of people encouraging others to take some of their abundant harvests! We love to see everyone using and enjoying the garden space, and as is probably obvious, seeing folks sharing food warms our little hearts<3 Speaking of sharing food, my first update is that our annual Harvest Party is this afternoon! It’s rainy this morning, but the forecast for the afternoon is dry and we are hoping to maybe even see a bit of sunshine (but even if we don’t, we have tents that will be set up to keep everyone dry and comfy). I picked up a bunch of pumpkins this morning (shoutout to Country Grocer in Esquimalt for giving me a discount on these!!), we’re picking up the zucchini racetrack this afternoon, and we’re meeting volunteers in the garden at 2pm to get everything set up! Starting at 3pm, we’ll have a potluck, pumpkin carving, zucchini racing, seed saving, crafting, games, and more going on in the garden. Join us anytime from 3 ‘till sundown!!  This week was a little different for us - with some staff away and some special projects going on we had to shift our focus a bit. One of the main things going on in our office this week was our hiring committee hard at work conducting interviews for our two open work-study positions. We had some really amazing applicants and the decisions have been tough, but we are so excited to welcome some new members to our team! If you interviewed with us, you should hear back either today or early next week (just because of approvals needed before we can send out our emails). On Tuesday afternoon we were supposed to have our beekeeping workshop with Barry, but because of a miscommunication with the scheduling the beekeeping workshop pivoted into an edible fower workshop and garden tour! We’re so grateful to our community for their understanding and their adaptability, and we ended up having such a fun afternoon meeting new folks, trying new things, making bouquets of flowers, and learning more about the garden! The beekeeping workshop will be rescheduled for another time this year (probably in the Spring!), so keep an eye out for that if you are interested! Things settle down a bit event-wise over the next week, which is great because it gives us a bit more time to focus on all of the other things we have going on! The new accessible bed is going to be built this month, the third issue of Sundew comes out November 1st, we’ll have two new staff members joining us, we have SO much harvesting to do, and we’ll be working to get the garden ready for winter very soon! Of course, we do have some more events coming up this month - we’ll be doing a garlic planting workshop in the garden on October 16th, and on the 31st we have a candle-making workshop and trick-or-treating! Keep an eye on our Instagram for details about those :)
That’s it for me today - I hope to see some of your this afternoon at the Harvest Party! But even if I don’t see you this afternoon, I hope you have a wonderful weekend<3 Happy gardening, Jessi Happy Friday everyone!! The end of the month is around the corner, and I can’t believe how quickly it’s gone! Fall is a busy harvesting time for us, and it’s such a great time to be in the garden. This week we harvested 28lbs 8.8oz of fresh produce to donate to the Food Bank! We also donated some veggies to our friends over at Multifaith, for the first Belonging Dinner of the school year! We had a board meeting on Tuesday and voted in a new board member! If you’re looking for a way to get more involved in the work that the garden does, becoming a member of our board is awesome! We have meetings every second Tuesday afternoon where we chat about what’s going on with the garden and make decisions together. Board members also work on special projects, work with staff on various events and garden tasks, and help to make the ccg the best it can be! If you’re interested, you’re welcome to pop by a board meeting anytime!   On Wednesday we were tabling at the UVSS Night Market, which was super fun!! There were so many awesome vendors (we had to stop walking around because there was too much cool stuff to buy!), the live music was great, and we loved chatting with folks in a more casual environment! We shared some of the events that are coming up, and reminded everyone of the Sundew submission deadline at the end of the month! Speaking of Sundew, that deadline is coming up soon! If you’re interested in submitting any work to the 3rd issue, which will come out in November, send ‘em our way by Monday! You can check the submission info here. Thursday was a busy day, with lots of meetings and progress being made on some projects! Our hiring panel met to chat about the applications we received for our two work study positions, and we’ve got interviews coming up next week! We also chatted with our pal Sona, who’s writing a piece about the ccg for HerCampus UVic - keep an eye on our socials for that in the coming month or so! Finally, we got together with our Accessible Bed team to discuss details for our upcoming build - we’ve just about finalized the materials and the last considerations (drainage, height, etc.) and we are SO excited to get started on the last part of this project that’s been in the works since the Spring! If you’re interested in helping out with building the bed, shoot me an email at [email protected] to be kept in the loop :)  We also represented our journal, Sundew, at This Side of West’s open mic on Thursday night! We had so much fun, and the event was so sweet! Our Assistant Coordinator, Juls, snapped some pictures that I’ll share here because they capture the ~vibes~ (you know, a picture is worth a thousand words :p). Today we held our weekly Friday volunteer work party, and had a great time soaking up the sun with everyone! Volunteers helped out with weeding, fertilizing, and sewing seeds, and picked veggies to harvest at the end. It was such a gorgeous day to hang out in the garden! Coming up next week, we’ve got our beekeeping workshop with Barry the Beekeeper on Wednesday, October 2nd at 2pm! Join us in the garden to learn about bees, what it’s like to be a beekeeper, and even try some yummy honey! Barry will have jars available for purchase as well, if anyone is interested :)  And finally, the one we’ve all been waiting for: our annual Harvest Party is happening next Friday, October 4th! From 3pm - sundown folks are invited to join us in the garden to celebrate the new season! We’ll have pumpkin carving, seed saving, painting, games, and even zucchini racing! This is a potluck-style event, so we’re asking everyone to bring something to share (but if you can’t or can only bring a little bit, that’s okay!). We’d also recommend bringing containers/plates/bowls and utensils so that you can partake! Maybe a cup/mug as well, as there’s often drinks to share and we’ll have tea available. If you have any questions or are interested in getting involved, feel free to reach out to us via email or on Instagram.  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and I hope to see some of you next week at one of our events!!
Happy gardening, Jessi Happy Saturday! It’s hard to believe the third week of school is over, but here we are. It’s definitely noticeable that we’re at the end of the summer, but this week did give us some sunny and warm afternoons! The first thing I want to share is some exciting news! If you follow our Instagram, you may have seen recently that our farm stand was unfortunately vandalized, with one of the wheels being stolen and the other destroyed. This was a pretty unfortunate event, especially because we’d just finished fixing the wheels a couple of days before. We posted about it on our Instagram, to let people know that the farm stand would have to be retired for the rest of the season and to see if anyone might be able to help us find some new wheels. The wonderful Campus BikeHub reached out to let us know they could help us get some, so we’ll be able to fix the stand very soon! A huge thank you to them for their kindness!!  On Tuesday afternoon we got together with our Board to spend some time in our shared garden plot. We did some weeding and some repairing of borders, shared stories, and enjoyed our time together in the sun :-) On Thursday we had our first-ever Friends of the Garden get-together! This meet-and-greet style event was a chance for board members, plot renters, staff, volunteers, and other garden supporters to get to know one another, share food, and spend some time together in the garden! We had such a fun afternoon, the weather was super cooperative, the food everyone brought to share was delicious, and we got to meet so many new folks. Thank you to everyone who came out, and if you missed this one, we’re definitely thinking about doing more of these casual hang-out type of events for our community to come together and connect! Keep an eye out for future get-togethers, and in the meantime, don’t forget about the Harvest Party coming up on October 4th! Speaking of the Harvest Party, it’s only a few weeks away! On Friday, October 4th we’ll be back in the garden for this annual autumn celebration, where we’ll share food, carve pumpkins, race zuccinis, do some crafting, and just enjoy the end of the season in the garden! This is a staple CCG event, and definitely not one to miss. Everyone is invited to the party, so grab your friends and your families and come welcome the new season with us!  Coming up this week, we’ll be at the UVSS Night Market on Wednesday from 5-9pm! We’ll also be representing the CCG’s quarterly journal, SUNDEW, at This Side of West’s open mic on Thursday night at Cadboro Bay Beach! And as always, on Friday afternoon from 2-4pm we’ll have our weekly work party!   Last but not least, I have a few housekeeping updates for you. The first is just a heads up/reminder that it is now powdery mildew season. Second, we’re dealing with a pretty big wasp nest near the entrance gate right now, which we’ve reached out to a professional about. They should be gone by the end of the week, but keep an eye on our social media to hear what day they’ll be removed. Finally, another reminder that it’s time to top tomatoes if you haven’t yet, and pinch buds to encourage ripening of crops!
That’s it for this week, I hope everyone has a great weekend! Happy gardening, Jessi The first full week of school is over! Somehow this week felt very long but also went by very quickly. We’ve been meeting lots of new students, doing lots of harvesting, and continuing to plan for the fall:) This was a busy week of tabling for us at the ccg! We were at CCU days on Wednesday and Thursday, and spent Friday at the SSD’s Mental Health Resource Fair. Tabling is so much fun because we’re able to give away free food and flowers while introducing ourselves to so many students and telling them about our programs! We’ve got lots of fun workshops and events coming up this fall, so we’ve been sharing some sneak peaks with students to give them an idea of our work. It’s always great to see the smiles on peoples’ faces when you give them a sunflower or a bunch of kale!  We also held our Welcome Work Party yesterday! All of our work parties are always open to everyone, and no experience is ever required, but today was a special work party tailored to introducing new volunteers to the space and to our work. It was so awesome to see so many new faces out in the garden!! Our work parties are continuing to take place on Friday afternoons between 2-4pm, so even if you missed the one today, we’d love to see you on another Friday! Coming up, we have a special board meeting on Tuesday afternoon! This is our board meet & greet, where staff and board members will spend some time together doing work in our shared garden plot and getting to know the space and each other a bit better :) We’ve also got a very exciting event on Thursday afternoon/evening, the Friends of the Garden get-together! This event is a casual drop-in potluck for all friends of the garden (plot renters, board members, staff, volunteers, community members), a chance to connect with other gardeners, ask questions and learn, share food, and spend some time in the space! This is the first event in our fall events lineup, where this year we’re striving to provide more opportunities to connect as a community. More information can be found here on our Instagram, and we would love to see you there! That’s all I’ve got for this week! I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend :)
Happy gardening, Jessi Happy Sunday, and a big congratulations to everyone who finished their first week back at school :) I took a little break from the blog last week, because I was busy driving back to Victoria from Ontario! So, this week will be a special ‘end-of-summer’ edition of the ccg blog! The last week of August was another busy one here. We held our last Wednesday work party of the summer, as we’re going back to once-a-week work parties on Fridays during the school year! Volunteers helped with getting plots ready for new renters, because it’s plot renewal season and we have some new renters coming into the space. So if you see anyone around the garden who looks new, say hi! Another exciting thing that happened this week was the Farm Crawl! On Friday, August 30th, we teamed up with the UVic Sustainability Project and the Community Action Bus to put on this awesome event! We traveled around on the big blue bus, stopping at Haliburton Farm, Sea Cider Farm & Ciderhouse, and the CCG, to learn about farming and food systems in our community. We had an absolute blast with everyone, and we are excited to continue this event in the coming years! This past week was also jam packed for us, as the start of the school year always is! We kicked off the week on Monday tabling at the Residence Move-In Fair, where we gave out flowers from the garden and introduced ourselves to a whole bunch of new students! On Thursday evening we held our last Poetry Picnic of the season, featuring Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi. We had a packed audience for the last one, and filled our open mic lineup too! It’s been so wonderful to see the Poetry Picnics grow over the summer, and this season finale ended the summer on such a sweet note! Thank you to everyone who’s come out, whether to participate or just listen. We love to use the garden space for non-garden events and activities, and it’s always so great to see how vibrant and creative our community is!  On Friday we spent the day tabling at Thunderfest, and we met SO many people!! Some of our staff did some harvesting in the morning, so we had lots of food and flowers to share with folks, as well as a sneak-peak at some upcoming Fall events! We’ve also had our second-edition of Sundew available for purchase at our tabling events for sliding-scale $2-10, and the sales have been going super well!  Speaking of which, I wanted to remind everyone that submissions for our third-edition of Sundew (coming out in November) are open now! They’ll be open all month, so if you have any pieces of writing, or art, or anything really, send em our way! Our website has more information about submitting, so check it out here if you’re interested! We also held our first work party of the school year on Friday afternoon, and had some new faces come out to volunteer. Our official “Welcome Work Party” is next Friday, September 13th, from 2-4pm and we expect to see lots of new people there! If you’ve been thinking about coming to a work party, this will be a great intro one - grab your friends and come spend an afternoon learning some new skills, meeting new people, and getting your hands dirty!  Coming up, we’ve got tons more tabling this week! We’ll be at CCU Days on Wednesday and Thursday, and at the Mental Health Resource Fair on Friday! If you have any questions, want to learn more about the ccg, or just want to say hey, stop by. We can’t wait to meet you!
That’s all from me for now, I hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend! Happy gardening, Jessi Another week over! August is flying by and I can see September around the corner! This week we welcomed two new plot renters, which is always exciting! If you’re interested in your own plot (or one to share!), you can learn more about the process here. On Thursday we hosted our second-last poetry picnic of the season! A.R. Kung was our wonderful reader this week, and the turnout was great! Our very last poetry picnic will be held on Thursday, September 5th and will showcase the incredible Fatima-Ayan Malika Hirsi. All of our poetry picnics start with an open mic and are followed by a featured poet, so whether you’re interested in sharing your work or just listening to others, there’s something for you! The open mic is very relaxed and low pressure, so feel free to come out and try reading (I read my first ever piece in front of people at the picnic two weeks ago! And I survived!). If you want to learn more, check out our website here.  Another exciting event that’s coming up is the Farm Crawl! On August 30th, from 9am to 4pm, join us in reviving this historic collaboration! In partnership with the UVic Sustainability Project and the Community Action Bus, the Farm Crawl is a day of traveling around the unceded territories of the Songhees and W̱SÁNEĆ Nations to learn all about sustainable food production, farming, and food systems! Signups are open now!  That’s all from me for this week, I hope you all have a fantastic weekend! Happy gardening, Jessi Hello and welcome back! After a couple months away, I’m so excited to be back to sharing what’s going on at the ccg (and there is SO much going on)! First of all, the garden looks amazing! So full of colour and life, it’s so wonderful to explore and see what everyone’s growing in their plots, and what’s growing around as well (the blackberries along the fence are massive!!). It’s also been wonderful to see the garden community come out in the summertime! We love to see the fruits of everyone’s labour, and it’s so wonderful to run into folks watering, weeding, harvesting, and hanging out around the space. One of our goals for this year is to create more opportunities for engagement and connection among friends of the garden - our plot renters, our volunteers, our wonderful community. We have some really awesome events coming up, and have been busy brainstorming new ways to facilitate communication and connection! One of these is our move to Discord! We’re saying goodbye to Slack this year, and moving our communications over to Discord in the hopes of creating a more accessible and engaged space for learning about volunteer opportunities, sharing news, asking questions, distributing tasks, and overall just chatting about garden-related things. Juls is working to get everything set up, and will add an invite link to the website and our Instagram once it’s ready! In terms of events, we’ve got a lot coming up! On top of our weekly work parties (which are now happening twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays), we’ve also got our 3rd CCG x LMC Garden Music Festival coming up tomorrow evening from 4-7pm! This is an event you don’t want to miss!!  We’ve also got our second last Poetry Picnic coming up on Thursday, August 22nd! Poetry Picnics have been running all summer, showcasing local poets in the form of an open mic followed by a headliner. Next week’s headliner is A.R. Kung, poet and mariner from Victoria! Today we also announced an upcoming collaboration with the UVic Sustainability Project and the Community Action Bus… the Farm Crawl! On Friday, August 30th we’ll be travelling around to learn about sustainable food production, farming, and local food systems! Check out our Instagram to learn more!  Finally, we wanted to call your attention to a recent donation of seedlings we received from Get Growing, Victoria! We received a ton of plants, and have lots left over to share! If you’re interested, check out the free table at the garden:) That’s all I’ve got to share for this week, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Happy gardening, Jessi Happy Friday everyone, I hope this has been a lovely week! This is my last blog post of the school year as I’ll be taking a 3-month leave over the summer to work up North, but I’ll be back in August! This week was an exciting one, lots of things are coming together with different projects we’ve been working on, and we’re all officially done with exams!  On Thursday we hosted our biweekly garden party with the SSD, where we started removing soil from our current (in)accessible bed! One of the projects we’ve been cooking up is replacing the current bed with one that’s actually wheelchair accessible, which starts with removing the soil, then taking down the bed (we’ll be saving as much material as we can to use in the new one), then we’ll work on building the new bed! We’re hoping to have the new bed ready to go for June! If anyone has any interest in helping out with this project please feel free to reach out to us, especially with labour, planning/designing, or acquiring building materials! We’ve also been working on our first issue of the new garden journal, Sundew! It’s been so nice to see all the incredible work that was submitted, and I’m so excited to see the final copy. We’ll be launching Sundew on Wednesday, May 1st with a journal and plant sale at Habit Coffee in Chinatown! 50% of proceeds from the sale will go to us, and 50% will go to QomQem Coastal Connections. Come by from 10am to 1pm to say hi and check out the first ever issue!  Today in the garden we hosted our weekly Friday volunteer party, where we continued working on removing soil from the raised bed! The weather cleared up for us in the afternoon, and we had a really lovely time! We’ll be continuing with this job next week as well, because we didn’t quite finish removing everything. If anyone is in need of any dirt, please feel free to take some, starting with what’s left in the bed! I hope you all have a wonderful summer, and I look forward to hearing about it in August!
Happy gardening, Jessi |
