Tag Archives: Urban Agriculture

Vegging Out in the City

Posted on by
4

Katie @ Maloca Community Garden

The warm spring this year has my green thumb itching to plant something. Growing (at least a part) of my own food has been a seasonal ritual for most of my life. I grew up in rural Nova Scotia where my family had two gardens, one that was a general vegetable garden and one called “the patato garden” (which is where we grew a year-supply of potatoes and winter beans). I got away from gardening the first few years that I lived in Ontario and moved between a few cities. But once Jim and I settled in Toronto and we recieved a gift of tomato seeds I began to discover there are a variety of ways for urbanites to grow food.

So now that spring seems to have sprung I thought I’d share a few of the options that you might find in your city if you want to try flexing your own green thumb.

Container Gardening:

As the name implies this is gardening in containers. As long as you have a small corner of outside (balcony, front steps, etc.), a receptical with some drainage, some decent quality potting soil and a willingness to water regularly, it is an easy way to plant a garden when you don’t have a backyard.

Pros: close to home, does not require much space, fairly easy to maintain

Cons: some start-up costs, need to regularly water and feed (i.e. add compost to) your plants, low odds of meeting other gardeners

Allotment Gardening:

Allotment gardens are usually administered by a local government and involve renting a plot of land for a fee. There is usually a set of rules to follow to make sure you stay on good terms with other gardeners.

Pros: the plot is yours to plant what you want, you get to meet fellow gardeners (if they are there at the same time as you)

Cons: costs associated with rental fee and tools, often there are waiting lists to get a plot, not many community oriented events

Community Gardening:

A garden that is initiated and administered by the community. There are a lot of different models out there including having plots for individuals and families, having a communal garden or growing the food for a food bank or other community organization.

Pros: a great learning atmosphere for new garderners, growing community as you grow food, usually lower membership fees (that cover the cost of shared tools)

Cons: time consuming to be one of the garden organizers, local governments can have a long process to set up new ones on public lands

Backyard Sharing:

Do you want to garden but don’t have your own backyard? Do you have a backyard that you aren’t using and would like to see as a veggie garden? Maybe you are lucky enough to know somebody that can help – but if not you can now find your match – online!

Pros: you can search for a match and share your expectations online, you get to meet a neighbour and get to know your community better

Cons: you have to be willing to negotiate and perhaps comprise to garden, unless there is a garden-tool lending library nearby it might cost you to get started

A Few Enterprising Opportunities: Growing food in the city is usually done more for recreational reasons than to make money (many of the options above don’t produce enough food or there are rules against selling the food). But there are a few entrepreneurs out there turning urban food growing into a way to make money. One is a service to plant and tend backyard vegetable gardens for people too busy to plant their own (Young Urban Farmers). Another is SPIN (Small Plot INtensive) Farming where a farmer will grow high value crops in other people’s backyards, usually in exchange for some harvest or a rental fee.

This year, I’ll be doing a mix of container gardening and backyard sharing. I’ve already started my tomato and basil seedlings.some that will go to my back deck, some in my friends’ new backyard and share the remainders with friends and co-workers. Is anyone else planting an urban garden or know other ways to grow food in the city?

Urban Tomatoes

Posted on by
2

My engagement with urban agriculture started with a gift to my husband Jim a few months before we moved to Toronto.  A close friend gave him eight small yellow envelops of seeds as a birthday present.  The uneven typing  on the envelopes read “White Queen,” “Tigerella,” “Lime Salad,” “Purple Cherokee,” “Yellow Pear,” “Black Seaman,” “Peasant’s Paste,” and “Druzba.”  They were heirloom tomato seeds from a Seed Sanctuary in Kingston, Ontario.

The following February we bought a seed starting tray, potting soil and a cheap grow light and planted a full tray of seeds.  The thought of growing tomatoes from seed, especially in a basement apartment with a north facing window, seemed like we were setting ourselves up for failure.  Up until this point the only tomato plants in my life had come from garden centres.  Every June, my parents would take us to buy tomato seedlings from warm, humid greenhouses scented with chemical fertilizers.  And now here we were starting tomato seeds in February, months before the potential plants would head outside in what seemed to be a totally inhospitable environment for heat and sun-loving tomatoes.

I was wrong about the tomatoes.  We ended up with over 40 healthy seedlings when it came time to transplant them to larger pots.  And then there was the question of where to put them.  The patch of grass outside our apartment window was ours to use but our landlord was insistent that we were only allowed to plant in pots.  It could handle a few plants, but what about the rest?  The need to find a place for our tomatoes led us to find Maloca Community Garden at York University, where Jim and I were both studying.  The initial e-mails sent to the garden were slow to be answered but in a short time we were showing up to regular community work days and had negotiated a plot for most of our tomatoes.  This was my introduction to community gardening and urban agriculture.

A lot has happened since that first introduction to growing food in the city.  That first year we invited a couple of on campus friends to help us out with our plot of tomatoes.  The tomatoes grew into a dense thicket (and were delicious).  That fall Jim and I were elected to the community garden’s steering committee and we spent the following season leading workdays, setting up a blog, fighting to get the garden on the campus map and trying to grow the “community” part of the garden in addition to the vegetables.  The third year we passed responsibilities of the garden over to a new steering committee but helped to get a new water tank and grew not only enough tomatoes for ourselves but also many for our communal plots.  That summer was when I started working in Markham, a large suburb north of Toronto, with a big part of what I’m focusing on related to local food and urban agriculture planning.

Community gardens and urban agriculture are moving into the mainstream.  And whether the trendiness of the 100 mile diet or the necessity caused by a global recession is the source of this current interest, there are a lot of reasons why our Canadian cities should be embracing community gardens and figuring out how agriculture can work in cities and suburbs.  Beyond the potential to reduce the carbon footprint of our food by growing and eating food we grow, there are other environmental benefits including reduced use of pesticides (most community gardens prohibit the use of all but the most natural pesticides), onsite management of organic waste through composting and much needed plant variety for our pollinators.  Plus community gardens can serve as great site for eco education and with a bit of management can help beautify communities.  Beyond the environmental benefits, there are also social, cultural and economic benefits to community gardens, including healthy food and physical activity, improved community safety, access to culturally appropriate foods, welcoming public space, increased food knowledge, affordable program to maintain, and improved partnerships throughout the community.  And there are also a lot of ways that cities can support community gardens including supportive land use policies, financial support, public-private partnerships, technical assistance with site and design, management of programs, education and design.