June 2025 - What's been growing?

It’s hard to believe how quickly the last two months have gone by, but here we are at the end of June already! Summer is officially here, and while the weather in Victoria hasn’t quite gotten the memo yet, the plants in the garden certainly have!

I was away for the month of May, and coming back to the garden at the start of June was such a treat! Everything has been growing lots, there are so many more colours and smells around, and the community is thriving. It’s been so special to be able to spend more time in the garden, caring for the space, meeting more plot renters and members of the community, and seeing the fruits of our collective labour blossoming! ​

June has been busy of course, but in a way that feels nourishing - busy with fun events, new projects, time outdoors, and getting our hands in the dirt! The summer really is the best time to be in the garden (obviously), and it feels so good to be around for it this year :)

The first thing I want to talk about is actually something that happened at the end of May, but since I wasn’t here it feels okay to extend this blog a bit further back! Our Assistant Coordinator, Juls, has been working on an exciting project called Paper and Pigment: Locating book arts in the physical environment. This project was dreamed up a few months ago by our friend Heather Dean from Special Collections, and it explores the art and science of paper and pigments. As part of the project, we’re growing flax in the garden which will be harvested and turned into paper! The flax was planted in May, and has been growing super well! We’ve been able to do this project thanks to a grant from the Seed Fund, which you can learn more about, as well as about our project, here.

Another exciting thing that’s been going on this summer is that a knitting circle started in the garden! Our friends at kinglet qmunity knitting have been hosting a bi-weekly knitting circle on Monday evenings from 6:30-7:30pm, and it’s been so lovely!! We share snacks, chat, share knitting/crochet tips and tricks, and overall just enjoy each others’ company while spending time in the garden! If you’d like to join, the next one will be on Monday, July 7th!

We’ve also been hosting weekly open mics in the garden on Thursdays! These have been a mix of bigger events and smaller sing-alongs, and they have all been wonderful! We had a special one to celebrate the completion of the Tiny House build supporting Gitxsan resistance against the PRGT pipeline at the end of May, a Community Cabbage serve at the beginning of June, and a bunch of fun special guests! Because we have some other big events going on over the next couple weeks, the next open mic night will be on Thursday, July 10th!! Come out to perform, or just to hang out and catch our featured bands Savy and Filthy Blonde! Everyone is welcome!!

This month we also opened submissions to the summer editions of both the CCG Mixtape and Sundew! Sundew is the garden journal, a collection of writing, recipes, drawings, collages, photos, and anything really! Submissions close on July 31st, so there’s lots of time to work on things/pick out a finished piece that you might want to share. When the submissions are in, we have a collaging party to collage the issue together, and then have it printed! You can find more information about Sundew on our website here. 

The CCG Mixtape is a collaborative sound project that we started in the winter, and have decided to do a summer version! We’re looking for everything, from music, to spoken-word poetry, to stories, conversations, jokes, or just random noises! When the submissions are in, we’ll make a cover, burn physical CDs, and have a special presentation of the mixtape on CFUV! They’ll be available to purchase by donation, with 50% of proceeds going to the DULF Legal Fund. Submissions close on August 15th, and you can learn more on our website here!

Another exciting thing that happened this month is that we collaborated with a Sustainability in Marketing class. A few months ago the professor reached out to us about having his students do a project focused on the campus community garden, and we were excited to explore a new kind of student collaboration for us! At the beginning of June, we hosted a tour for the students so they could familiarize themselves with the garden and ask us questions. Then they worked in groups to come up with suggestions to address some of the marketing-related issues we face at the garden. This week, a couple members of the staff went into the class to listen to the students present their ideas! This was a great experience for us, the students had lots of great ideas and we were able to connect with a bunch of new folks who hadn’t been to the garden before! We’re always open to collaborations or tours with classes, so if you know of any classes that might fit with the work of the garden please reach out to us :)

We’ve done a bunch already this summer, but we’ve still got lots and lots of fun things coming up too! Tonight (June 27th) is one of our favourite events of the summer, Gay in the Garden! This is an annual collaboration between the garden, the Pride Collective, and the Gender Empowerment Centre that is always a blast! Come to the garden between 6-9pm for music, food, games, an open mic, and more! Entry is by cash donation to Rainbow Railroad.

Next Friday, July 4th, is another of our favourite events - the Farm Crawl!! This is an old collaboration that returned last summer between the CCG, the UVic Sustainability Project, and the Community Action Bus! This all-day event begins at the CCG, where we’ll board the blue bus to head to Haliburton Farm for a tour and some hands-on farmwork, then back on the bus to Sea Cider Farm & Ciderhouse for a tour and lunch. We’ll then return to the CCG for our last tour of the day and a closing circle! I’m really looking forward to this one, which I was very sad to miss last year! The weather is supposed to be pretty nice (crossing my fingers!), and it will be so nice to explore some new places.

Volunteer work days will continue to be every week on Wednesdays from 5-7pm and Fridays from 2-4pm for now, but we may end up pushing Fridays back an hour to 3pm if it starts getting hot in the afternoons! As always, keep an eye on our Instagram for updates about volunteering, events, and everything going on in the garden :)

Thanks for reading this little blog! If you have any questions about the CCG or any of the things we’ve been up to, feel free to send me an email at [email protected]! I’m also starting to think about workshops and events for the fall, so if you have any ideas of things you’d like us to explore please, please let me know!!

Happy gardening,
Jessi