IN the heart of Lower Lonsdale's concrete jungle, one local business owner is in the process of creating his own organic jungle.
Neil Callaghan, 35, is the owner of Second Wave, a surf, snow and skate store at 135 Lonsdale Avenue in North Vancouver. In conjunction with the Edible Garden Project, Callaghan has created a blossoming vegetable garden behind his store.
"The space was always there, but when my (former) partner and I first took over the store it was super trashy back there," said Callaghan.
Callaghan said he has had problems with people leaving their unwanted items and furniture beside his garbage bins.
"Nothing upsets you more than when you come into work and you have to take care of someone else's dirty mattress, and it's the middle of winter and pouring rain," he said.
One day when the back door of his shop was open, the smell of lavender wafted into Callaghan's store.
It inspired him to install a garden in his back lot but he didn't just want a herb garden, he realized that he wanted to make a vegetable garden.
"I'm originally from Ontario and I used to always (help) my parents with their lawn and I hadn't done that in so long because I live in a condo," he said. "I just yearned to get outside and do stuff. I wanted to get my hands dirty a little bit and be able to live off the land."
While in the midst of transforming his back lot into a garden, Callaghan was put into contact with the Edible Garden Project, an organization located on the North Shore that transforms unused spaces into gardens that can be used to harvest fruits and vegetables. Edible Garden donates the produce from these gardens to the Harvest Project to support people in need.
"Thankfully we got into contact because I had no idea what it was going to take to do all these vegetables. I can dig around, and do things like that, but I had never really done a vegetable garden so I didn't really realize the maintenance it would involve," he said.
The Edible Garden project has supplied him with two volunteers and Callaghan said the garden is really taking off.
Tomatoes, peas, lettuce, spinach, corn and potatoes are among the numerous vegetables currently growing in the garden.
One concern with transforming a commercial space into an outdoor garden is the risk of contamination. Oil from machinery or cars can get into the dirt and contaminate growing vegetables. Emily Jubenvill, Edible Garden's project co-ordinator, explained the preventive measures their organization takes to neutralize contamination risks.
Before starting a project Edible Garden determines what the sites history was. If there was potential of oil having leaked on the ground Edible Garden will decline to build there. Secondly, they take an extra preventive measure and ensure that the original ground is layered with cardboard. From there they add 18-inches of soil.
"By adding 18-inches of additional material you are pretty much reducing any real risk of contamination because the plants roots are in the fresh material that you brought in," Jubenvill said.
Callaghan's site passed all of Edible Garden's safety steps and he said that so far all of the responses he has received about his garden have been great.
"This is the best project we have taken on in years," he said. Callaghan hopes that the support his garden is providing the Harvest Project with will be returned in a cyclical fashion.
"Hopefully people see that as a local business we are trying to support our own local community and so hopefully people will support a local store that is doing something like that," he said.
Second Wave offers a social hour every Friday night from 5 p.m. to 7p.m. Come by for a free hotdog, refreshment and a tour of Callaghan's garden.
