Community gardens.

Vancouver and the Lower Mainland are seeing a pretty impressive proliferation of what are known as community gardens. Vancouver itself has many such gardens, and they are a way for people without the space for a proper garden, or simply without as much space as they would like, to bring their desires to fruition. Some of the gardens have waiting lists, so if you are interested, I suggest contacting the person in charge of the gardens you are interested in ASAP, as planting season in the Lower Mainland began about two weeks ago already.

Last year, the District of North Vancouver (where I live) launched its first community garden.  Although I would love to get involved (as would Tim), there is a wait list.  If you find yourself in a similar situation, you can go to the City Farmer website, which matches people with excess garden space with people looking to rent or use some.  We have contacted a couple people that live near us but unfortunately have received no response, so it looks like another year of balcony gardening for us.