Welcome to Oswald Park Community Garden

DONATE!  (select “Oswald Park Community Garden” under Fund)—your financial donation will help us achieve our ambitious plans which include public art, educational signage and other projects.

Join our regular monthly work parties, rally your workplace or organization for a ‘green team day’, or volunteer on your own schedule to help maintain our public garden areas.

Contribute your unique talents—if you have specific skills you’d like to share please reach out to us about them!

Pass on old treasures—we maintain a wish-list of items we need for the garden.

Donate plants - please reach out to see if we are in need of the plants you can offer.

  Our current working plan for the garden can be seen on this map.

 Public commons (communal areas) are areas of the garden that are intended for the public to enjoy and harvest lightly from. About half of the Oswald Park Community Garden is commons. We have plans for a children’s area with berries and kid-friendly veggies; a food forest with fruit trees underplanted with apothecary herbs, veggies and fruit; a culinary herb garden; a raspberry patch; fruiting arbors (kiwi and grapes); a native plant area; a cut-flower garden; and many flowering avenues. In future we hope to install educational signage in these areas. Member plots can be told apart from commons by their grey plastic lumber raised beds. 

Commons are maintained by garden members and community volunteers. We are always looking for volunteers to help us maintain these beautiful and educational spaces for the public to enjoy. If you are interested in helping us plan and plant these areas you can join our Commons Committee. If you’re looking to get your hands in the dirt while you are on the waiting list for a plot, the communal areas are a great place to start. 

 All sorts of things!

If you want to be social and enjoy physical work, you can join our monthly work parties which usually involve big group tasks like shoveling woodchips or soil amendments, sorting compost materials, and weeding.

If your workplace or other organization is looking for a volunteer opportunity, we would love to be the target of your efforts! We can organize tasks suitable for a group work party.

If you want to contribute on your own schedule, we have many tasks and responsibilities you might consider:

• Weeding wherever needed
• Wheelbarrowing and spreading woodchip and compost deliveries
• Taking responsibility for watering a specific public garden area
• Taking responsibility for planting and weeding a specific public garden area
• Joining our Commons Committee in planning and planting common areas
• Joining the Compost Committee to help convert our waste into black gold
• Helping our Construction Committee with building and maintaining things
• Making or procuring public art 
• Fundraising
• Offering educational workshops
• Other specific talents you think we might value–tell us what those are!

 We put a lot of time into planting and maintaining our garden and don’t want it eaten by the local deer.  However the fences are meant to keep out deer and not people! Our gates are always unlocked and it is our hope and desire that everyone will feel welcome to meander through or relax and enjoy our public seating areas.

Dogs are also welcome in the garden when on a leash.

 Oswald Park Community Garden is a public space in a public park and like most community gardens, sometimes experiences garden theft. We aim to educate visitors about what areas are private plots and should not be harvested but we cannot guarantee adherence. If this is a significant concern for you may prefer membership in a community garden with locked gates. If food security is a concern for you we encourage you to check out the Oaklands Community Association’s food security programming such as the food box program. 

To learn more about the fire, read the Times Colonist article here.

Contact the Community Development & Services Manager at:

Phone: 250-370-9101 ext. 5

Email: community@oaklandsca.com 

Or the City of Victoria Parks Department: parks@victoria.ca