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For those of you that are not familiar with Vancouver, BC, we have a great community garden project that runs along the old railroad tracks in Kitsilano. The City Farmer project (the website has a great wealth of information about urban farming) has been in existence since 1978. It is one of my favorite places to walk in the spring and summer in the city. On weekend days the small land plots are spotted with community members bent over their crops or chatting with each other over the short wire fences that divide the plots, their hands dark with dirt.

My roommate, Maureen, and I are lucky enough to live two short blocks away from this urban agricultural haven. This year they have opened up a couple more plots further down the tracks and we were quick to claim one for ourselves.

Yesterday evening, after I got home from work, I slipped on my gum boots, grabbed my spade and other tools and headed down to my new bit of earth. It felt great to be digging in the ground again. It reminded me of my childhood garden: I could almost smell the sharpness of zucchini leaves and hear the crunch of baby carrots, fresh from the ground.

As I was digging, I was shocked to discover how much garbage was buried in my little plot. Over the next hour of turning the soil, I pulled out at least four bottles worth of glass, a couple plastics tubes (probably pieces from a car engine), several pieces of rusty wire, numerable bit of plastics and - this was the most unsettling of all – a half decomposed baby shoe! No baby though, thank goodness, although I did check.

The soil was otherwise quite healthy. There were several red ants’ nests, lots of worms, centipedes and other bugs and more spiders than I liked. But it got me thinking about the challenge of growing food in our urban centers. Imagine how much garbage is buried under all of our parkland, our concrete sidewalks and our boulevards. When we are faced with the prospects of growing our food locally – literally in our backyards – how much garbage are we going to dig up in the process?

Dinosaur bones of a broken society.

Sarah Smith is a Relocalization Network Coordinator.

Posting URL:
http://www.postcarbon.org/node/3066