With the publication of every City of Nanaimo Activity Guide, the Nanaimo Community Gardens Society offers a number of gardening workshops designed to help you increase your horticultural skills. This year we offer a number of new workshops. Check them out below and sign up on the city’s website Activity Guide (nanaimo.ca) in the [Continue]
GLEANING ORIENTATION DATES 2025 Gleaning Program 2025 Since 1993, the Gleaning Program has been harvesting fruit and produce from gardens, farms and back yards in the Nanaimo region. This is among the longest running gleaning programs in the province and is very successful in terms of reducing food waste in the region. New Gleaners: [Continue]
We welcome returns and donations of: 4″ Square pots (sometimes called 3.5″) Our waterproof plant labels. Gallon pots are nice but we don’t use them as much. These items can be dropped off at the Beban Learning Gardens entrance in front of the gate. Volunteers check daily for reusable pots. We don’t use other plant [Continue]
In cooperation with the city of Nanaimo, our society offers horticultural workshops year round. Check out the city’s spring/summer 2024 Activity Guide for registering for the following workshops (find listed at Adult – special interest workshops – gardening and horticulture), Youth are also welcome. Garden Planning Basics Learn about how to choose from different [Continue]
In late fall, we received a donation of Sea Soil and it will be used in the transplant mix used to start seedlings. Volunteers in the greenhouse have been working all winter, saving and ordering seeds, sorting and counting pots, making and cleaning labels and creating lists and timelines for what to seed and when. [Continue]
Thank you to all tree owners and volunteers who made the 2023 Gleaning Program so successful. Great weather during spring pollination and clear summer skies with occasional rain allowed trees to ripen most of their fruit and the yield was above average. In the Program’s 21st year of operation, 12,045 lbs were picked from June [Continue]
This year, Cinnabar Valley Farms gave Nanaimo Community Gardens Society a large donation of starter mix, soil, fish compost and composted steer manure. This will be blended into a mix used to start seedlings at the Beban Learning Gardens. Volunteers were on hand to help unload and move bags of soil and giant totes [Continue]
Each year many pruning workshops are held at the Community Garden sites. These workshops focus on fruit tree pruning to demonstrate practices to restore old trees and increase flower and fruit production. While these classes have been popular for over a decade, NCGS has recently been holding these classes at the Beaufort Park Food Forest [Continue]
Nanaimo Community Gardens has received support from the Coastal Community Credit Union Relief and Resiliency Fund. This money is for our organization to re-engage the community in our programs. The pandemic was difficult for many organizations and it forced us to reduce our operations and keep our work parties closed to visitors. Now that safe, [Continue]
Beban Learning Gardens thanks Nanaimo Community Gardens, the Province of British Columbia, Home Depot, and the City of Nanaimo Parks and Trades Departments for their help in making our Covered Work Space a reality. Almost exactly four years after officially opening, one of the last items from the original design plan has been built. Volunteers [Continue]