The Inception of the Project Garden at 2 Phin

Welcome! I am person who dwells in social housing who had a dream of a garden. I grew up on a farm in Ontario and our family always gardened to provide food for ourselves, and to sell at Farmers Markets. It made no sense to me that city people did not garden food. In 2017 I broke ground for the garden one night and created three garden plots. No one had given me permission! I decided to go around to the people in my building and chat with them about the idea of gardens at the back. For many years there had been nothing but open lawn. In our building we have had a long-term problem with “guests” who visit to buy and sell drugs. These “guests” have decimated the cedars which used to run along the base of the building, by ripping off the branches to throw up at the windows, demanding to be let in. Inside and outside, they had many loud yelling matches over drugs. Living here is not easy. As a result, most neighbourly chats were about how the latest drug-related drama affected our wellbeing. Now, with the possibility of a garden, we all had a new neutral thing to talk about, and it created a wellspring of hope. The book, https://environmentalbookreview.blogspot.com/2022/06/public-gardens-and-livable-cities.html  describes in the first chapter, "Promoting neighbourhood safety and well-being,” 

which describes how urban greening projects improve livability and mitigate crime. It was true! Already the garden was diverting the conversations to a more optimistic note!