Community Garden Dalat
“Bee Garden”

Why did we found Dalat Bee Garden?

Here is the story. In early 2019 Bees4life decided to become active also offline.

Offline? What does it even mean?

Well, we understood that it’s good to publish bee-related content. And also useful to involve people in the online world through Facebook & Instagram.

Still, something was missing.

We wondered, what could we do?

We got back to the problem with our insect decline up to 75 % in the last 30 years and its root cause: the way we are producing food today. The way we as a species are more and more disconnected to our food supply.

In our opinion, people need get back to nature and more importantly, get their hands dirty.

It is fundamental to understand what it actually takes to produce one kg of tomatoes, or successfully grow a bean plant from the seed.

What we needed was a community garden. As a result, Dalat Bee Garden was born.

Launching the first community garden in Dalat, Vietnam

We launched Dalat Bee Garden in march 2019 with the commitment to take care of an abondened lot of land for 1 full year.

The (free) lease ended in March 2020. Yet, we would like to tell you our story of one year community gardening.

The welcome sign at Community Garden Dalat “Bee Garden”

Dalat Bee Garden was the result of a lucky land situation, motivated organizers and beautiful gardener souls.

In March 2019, there was a vacant land belonging to Ms. Huong from Hanoi, Vietnam. When we told her about the idea to start a community garden, she agreed to give us the land free of charge for one year.

The perfect triangle of people paved the way for a successful garden organization

Duong Pham, an experienced urban gardener lead the gardening activities and taught plant wisdom to every Bee Gardener. Leonie Hofsäss took care of organizing the group, financials and social media. Yet, there was a third person who worked incredibly hard to make everyone happy: Ms. Toan from the nearby Khe Sanh Homestay. This lady stood there every single Sunday and hosted the coffee break of the gardener group. She prepared coffee, made us snacks and cut fruit for the hungry Bee Garden crew.

Duong and Leonie pictured a place where people come together at least once a week. A place where people grow vegetables for humans and wildflowers for bees and pollinators – obviously without using chemicals. It should also become an area to start the conversation about insect extinction.

Said… and done!

In the first community garden of Dalat we harvested loads of beans, corns, pumpkins, carrots, tomatoes. We planted endless different kinds of wildflowers and watched many insects enjoy the colorful bounty. We saved loads of seeds.

And we took a lot of pictures of that and uploaded all of them to the Facebook Group, counting over 400 members.

Find the Facebook Group and see more photos on the Facebook page of Dalat Bee Garden.