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Growing More Than Food: Reimagining Our Communities One Garden at a Time

Part 1: The Garden That Could Have Been

By Tina Winterlik (Zipolita)

I often think about my grandparents' house on 51st and Ross in Vancouver.

It sat on a large corner lot. There was room to grow food, room for children to play, room for family gatherings, and room for possibility.

But life became complicated.

My grandfather passed away. My father died. My grandmother broke her hip and could no longer safely live alone. My mother was raising three teenagers and working hard to keep our family afloat. There were bills to pay, responsibilities to manage, and difficult decisions to make.

Looking back, I sometimes wonder what might have happened if our family had moved into that house together.

Could we have created a multi-generational home?

Could my grandmother have stayed in familiar surroundings?

Could we have grown food in the yard and shared responsibilities?

Could that corner lot have become a place where three generations supported one another?

I was too young to understand all the challenges my mother faced. Today, I recognize how much pressure she was under and how impossible some of those choices must have felt.

The house was eventually sold.

The new owners demolished it.

A much larger house was built in its place.

The productive yard became mostly ornamental.

Whenever I pass large lawns and carefully landscaped gardens that produce little food, I think about that lost opportunity.

Not because I blame anyone.

Not because I think the past was perfect.

But because I wonder what kind of future we could build if we used more of our urban land to nourish people rather than simply decorate our neighbourhoods.

Imagine if every yard contained a fruit tree.

Imagine if apartment balconies overflowed with herbs and vegetables.

Imagine if schoolchildren learned how food grows before learning how to calculate corporate profits.

Imagine if community gardens became gathering places where neighbours shared knowledge, seeds, and stories.

Imagine if rooftop gardens supplied local food and reduced urban heat.

Imagine if green walls transformed concrete into living ecosystems.

Imagine if growing food became as normal as mowing a lawn.

This series will explore those possibilities.

From Victory Gardens to rooftop farms.

From edible schoolyards to balcony gardens.

From community gardens to food forests.

Because perhaps the future we need is not hidden in some new technology.

Perhaps it is growing quietly in the soil beneath our feet.