-
Boulevard Gardens
Read Full Post: Boulevard Gardens
Vic West is a neighbourhood of the city of Victoria, one of the 13 municipalities that make up the Capital Regional District (CRD), collectively known as Victoria. It’s a working-class residential neighbourhood with a lot of single family homes, with a good selection of boulevard gardens.The sign posted next to many of them offers a QR code that links to instructions on how to build a bed suitable for growing fruit, vegetables, flowers or hers between the sidewalk and the street. I went on a tour to see what some of the approaches have been.
This is what the sign’s instructions suggest – open wood base and PVC hoops that can be covered with mesh to keep out deer or other garden browsers. This one also has added wooden trellises in adjoining beds, and filled the spaces between beds with pots.
Down an alleyway we found a boulevard orchard. Neighbours water and maintain the trees and signs are posted to tell people if the fruit is ready to harvest or not (and to remember it’s a community resource).This creative garden was the work of someone who rents her home; the landlord did not want a garden on the property, so the entire glorious creation runs along the side of the property, fully on the boulevard.
Even a cosy seat 
Using vertical space 
Lush & pollinator-friendly 
Creative use of old bleach (?) bottles
And this is the approach in nearby district of Saanich. Composted soil deposited in late summer, just in time for a mast year for Garry Oaks who clearly want to create a forest. What Saanich wants is yet to be revealed, but is likely grass.
-
Serenity on the Farm
Read Full Post: Serenity on the Farm
Serenity Farm had an open garden yesterday, and I’d wanted to see what went on there for a while.A therapeutic farm, it’s a small (half acre) site that grows flowers, vegetables and herbs, and boasts a small orchard with pears, apples, plums and figs.
The farm was established to provide a working space for people with mental illness, as well as others working off community orders. And it’s attracted a team of volunteers who come a couple of times a week to help out (more always wanted!)
The project has been going for around 10 years and sits in a sunny field on the grounds of 
the Seven Oaks Tertiary Care Facility, in the Blenkinsop Valley. It’s always cheering to see how much food can be produced in a small space with volunteer effort, and the beans and tomatoes were abundant, as were the flowers and fruit – the plum tree was laden and the small apple tree boasted enormous apples. A crow presided from a nearby branch, presumably keen to judge the scarecrow competition that was underway.
-
Readings in my Garden
Read Full Post: Readings in my Garden
Murphy awaits an audience It’s not every day you get to host a reading in your back yard, but yesterday was that day for me.
Judy LeBlanc and I cooked up this idea some months ago, to give her a proper launch and reading for her new novel, The Broken Heart of Winter.
We invited as many people as I could imagine squeezing into my living room (not
knowing what the weather would be like) and when the forecast was for sun (and then HOT sun!) we reconfigured the plan to hold the reading outside. All it took were a few borrowed chairs (thanks be to neighbours), a garden canopy and rented sound system (thanks be to Brian and Judy) and masses of lovely food (thanks be to the baking goddesses, friends and summer produce).
The event came off pretty seamlessly. We ended up with just under 30 people perched in shady chairs or lounging on the lawn beneath the over-laden apple tree. Murphy the dog was delirious with pleasure at having so many bare legs to greet, and nobody reported direct hits from falling apples or Garry oak acorns.
I enjoyed reading a few poems from Larder that had been set or inspired by my garden, and Judy gave a good sampling from the three sections of her novel, covering the recent and more distant history of Acadians as lived and told by a cast of women characters. After which our guests relaxed into party mode for a couple of hours.By late afternoon, the temperature had reached a rather symmetrical 30c or so and a few of us repaired to the beach down the road, dodging the extensive litter of Canada geese guano (mercifully dried out by then, so less intriguing to Murphy) to take a cooling dip in the Gorge.
Latest Posts
- Sublime and Twisted Readings coming up!
- Sublime
- Good weather for reading
- The world, the world
- Sublime launch!
- Planet Earth Poetry – Readings by Volunteers, Victoria 2026
Aldeburgh Poetry Festival Barny Haughton BBC BC poets Berkswell blackberries Black Stilt Bologna book launch Borough Market Carlo Petrini Catalonia Cyrus Todiwala dairy Daunt's Books Dijon Edinburgh Fanny Bay Feast of Fields Food and Morality food history food journalism Jenna Butler lardo Malahat Review Michael Pollan Okanagan olive oil tasting olive trees Omnivore's Dilemma Our Food Our Future Oxford Parmigiano-Reggiano Planet Earth Poetry poetry poetry readings Poetry videos prosciutto salumi Sean O'Brien Suffolk ticks Wendy Morton Wired Writing Yvonne Blomer
In her latest collection, Rhona McAdam navigates the dark places of human movement through the earth and the exquisite intricacies lingering in backyard gardens and farmlands populated by insects and pollinators, all the while returning to the body, to the tune of staccato beats and the newly discovered symmetries within the human heart.
“…A beautiful, filling collection, Larder is a set of poems to read at the change of the seasons, to appreciate alongside a good meal, and to remind yourself of the beauty in everything, even the things you may not appreciate before opening McAdam’s collection….”
Rhona McAdam is a writer, poet, editor, and Registered Holistic Nutritionist with a Master’s in Food Culture from Italy and a deep-rooted passion for ecology and urban agriculture. Her work spans corporate and technical writing to poetry and creative nonfiction, often exploring the vital links between what we eat and how we live. Based in Victoria, BC, and available via Zoom, Rhona is always open to new writing commissions, readings, or workshops on nutrition and the culinary arts.
