Weekly recap!

Hi everyone, my name is Jessi and I’m the CCG’s new Outreach Coordinator. Before joining as a staff member, I was involved with the garden through the board of directors, and I’m really excited to keep growing with you all :)

This was a busy week at the CCG, spring is in the air and we’re hard at work getting ready for a bountiful growing season! Almost all of our plots are rented out, and we expect to have a full garden over the summer. Our new seeds arrived this week, and they’ve started going into the staff-run plots. We also wanted to give a reminder that staff are available to help new plot renters with scaffolding and getting set up in the garden - send us a message or chat with us in person if you’re looking for gardening support! ​

Another exciting thing that happened this week was the UVic Gender Empowerment Centre’s SEXPO 2024! This four-day event featured panels, workshops, art, vendors, community resources, and entertainment centered around informed and empowered sexual wellness and expression. The CCG had a table at SEXPO on Wednesday and Thursday, and we brought a button-maker with us! We had so much fun chatting with everyone, and making saucy button collages out of old gardening magazines we discovered in the office! Check out these photos of some silly buttons made by pals of the garden :)

The CCG also partnered with the Victoria Compost Education Centre to put on the first of two workshops today! For this first workshop, Kayla from Compost Ed came to the SUB to teach us about yard-free composting, and will be returning for part two, which focuses on container gardening, on March 16th! The Victoria Compost Education Centre is a wonderful organization and we’re so excited to learn from them and incorporate their teachings into our practices, both in the garden and at our own homes. If you want to learn more, you can check out the Victoria Compost Eduation Centre’s website here! 

Looking forward, we have some really exciting projects in the works! During reading week (which is next week! wow time flies!) UVic Libraries’ Special Collections is putting on a Garden Tour, showcasing historic garden-related items kept in the library archives! This special tour will take place on Friday, February 23rd at noon, meeting in the Special Collections reading room (bottom floor of McPherson Library, at the back). The CCG has changed a lot over the years, and we’re really looking forward to taking a look through the history with all of you!
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We’re also excited to be launching a new project, our brand-new campus community garden journal, SUNDEW! The journal is named after Sundew, a funky carnivorous plant of which there are a couple species native to BC and living on Vancouver Island. These little guys thrive in wetlands like marshes and bogs, and are easily overlooked as part of the landscape. Sundew the journal aims to shed the light on something small making a big impact, finding inspiration in the garden’s humble beginnings as a community garden started in 1996 by a group of hard-working volunteers. Submissions are open now, and we’re accepting a whole lot of everything! This is a journal for everyone, so please feel free to submit whatever speaks to you - we’re really looking forward to putting it together! For details on submitting and some loose guidelines, click here. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to us on instagram or email [email protected]. 

That’s all the news I have for today! Check back next week for another weekly recap, and follow us on Instagram to stay in the loop about all things CCG.

Happy gardening!
Jessi :)