City Farmer

For 30 years, City Farmer Society has taught people how to grow food in the city, compost their waste, and take care of their home landscape in an environmentally responsible way.

Join our staff at City Farmer’s Urban Agriculture Centre and visit the Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden, 2150 Maple Street, and see how we take care of our urban landscape. City Farmer’s urban agriculture centre welcomes visitors from around the world all year long. We also operate Vancouver’s Compost Hotline (604-736-2250) from our garden office.

These are some of the “green technologies” we are demonstrating.

Urban Agriculture: Our food garden includes vegetables, herbs and fruit grown using organic methods. Some of our produce is donated to a local hospice. Our staff hold workshops on a variety of gardening subjects (pest control, soils, etc.) throughout the year.

Backyard Composters: Since 1990 we have promoted rodent-resistant composting and have a display of metal, wood and wire mesh and plastic bins. The City of Vancouver has subsidized bins available.

Worm Bins: These food waste composters are designed for apartment dwellers. City Farmer’s garden is the site of the largest subsidized worm bin program in the world.

Water-wise Native Plant Garden: Our front boulevard garden demonstrates plantings that can survive dry summers and wet winters in the Lower Mainland and includes an alpine garden. It contains native plants and other drought-resistant varieties. We also demonstrate water conserving irrigation systems in our garden.

Natural Lawn Care: Mulch mowing, minimum watering and alternatives to pesticides are the tenets of this citywide program named “Grow Natural”.

Rain Barrels: The City distributes a unique half-barrel rain barrel. One of ours is attached to a sump, which allows rainwater to seep into the ground.

Compost Toilet: Our compost toilet is housed in a shed made from recycled wooden telephone poles. No water is used for flushing this toilet.

Country Lane: Our back lane is made from permeable materials, i.e. pavers, reused concrete sidewalk and strong plastic grids (Golpla) also known as structural grass. The City has installed this sustainable lane to help reduce water flow into the City’s sewer system.

Cob Shed and Green Roof: Our cob building is made from local clay, sand and straw. It has a green roof planted with native species. The building’s architecture and artistic beauty have attracted many visitors.

Garden Gates: Our unique garden gates are made from recycled, metal gardening tools.

Wes Barrett Youth Garden: Our newest garden, still under construction, is used to teach Vancouver children about the environment and sustainability issues. Bugshops are taught here.

Dog Waste Composter: Our hole-in-the-ground disposal unit has attracted international attention.

Shiitake Mushrooms: We are growing these in Stanley Park logs.

The Vancouver Compost Demonstration Garden - maintained by City Farmer Society and the City of Vancouver

Location:  2150 Maple Street in Kitsilano Phone at Garden:  604.736.2250
Web sites:  cityfarmer.info and cityfarmer.org