This summer many of the gardeners are taking part in the UNIBUG project. This is a citizen Science project. We are currently running this project in all three gardens in New Westminster.

Citizen Science in Action is being launched this spring by the institute of Urban Ecology (IUE) at Douglas College. UNIBUG, or the User Network for Insect Biology in the Urban Gardens is a research initiative that has two main purposes;

 1) to engage community members in ecological monitoring, and 2) to determine the types of plants that best attract beneficial insects to the gardens. In this case, we are hoping to attract ‘biological controls’, or ‘natural enemies’ of garden pests to help manage these pests and so to reduce the need for pesticide use.

Currently there are up to 100 volunteers from community gardens in Metro Vancouver involved in this project.  Volunteers work as part of a team to develop sustainable gardening practices based on using biological controls, rather than pesticides, to manage garden pests.

After planting a specific type of plant in a small area of their plots we are now in the monitoring stage for the next three weeks, for a total of five weeks this summer.

We are also hoping to have gatherings where the citizen scientists from all of the gardens can come together to meet one another, celebrate their efforts, and learn about the research results. Please feel free to contact Veronica or us at the NWCGS with any comments, questions, or concerns.