Get Your Share of Locally and Sustainably Grown Veggies

Take some seeds, one part rain, two parts sun, and a generous amount of heat, and all that's missing is you: it's time to purchase your share in Young Urban Farmers Community Shared Agriculture program!

It only costs the equivalent of six lattes a week to get your hands on a bounty of the freshest, most locally grown veggies in Toronto. This is Young Urban Farmers CSA's second year growing food in backyards in the Wychwood, Lawrence Park, and Riverdale neighbourhoods, and it's going to be a great season. I've already told you how thrilling it was to receive and cook with veggies grown minutes from my home (especially considering I don't have a garden of my own), and I've alluded to my rewarding volunteer involvement with YUF CSA; now it's time to fit you into this picture. I am shamelessly advertising this great opportunity because I've benefited so much from it and really want to see the organization thrive.

What do you get? Only the tastiest GMO-free, organically grown heirloom varieties of leaf lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, kale, broccoli, radishes, beets, carrots, leeks, garlic, spring onions, shallots, tomatoes, bell peppers, hot peppers, eggplant, beans, peas, zucchini, summer squash, cucumbers, and herbs. Southern Ontario simply overflows with food in the summer months; why would you want to buy imported veggies trucked in from far away to the supermarket? Even a farmer's market can't beat this freshness - you take home your share mere hours after it was harvested, often in the very same garden it was grown in.

Support your health, the environment, and the local economy by investing in YUF CSA today. If you don't live in Toronto, please pass this on to those you know that do, and click here for a list of CSAs in Ontario.

Do you own a share in a CSA? If not, what's holding you back?

Seedy Sunday

It's still a week away, but I grew tired of hearing about Valentine's Day about a month ago. Thankfully, that was around the time when lots of buzz around Seedy Sunday was beginning to build up, and now there are only five days to go until the big event in Toronto!

Seedy Sundays (and Saturdays) promote biodiversity and encourage the sharing of traditional knowledge about growing plants. At these events, Seed Exchange Tables are set up to help you exchange food and flower seeds with other gardeners, making it easy to grow organic, heirloom, and native varieties of plants. Once you've stocked up on seeds, stick around for workshops and presentations, then mingle with the other green thumbs in attendance!

The Toronto Community Garden Network is hosting three Seedy events this year: one in downtown Toronto (Hart House at U of T on Sunday, February 13th, 12:30 - 6:00 pm), one in Scarborough (Heron Park Recreation Centre on Saturday, March 12th, 12:00 - 4:00 pm), and one in North York (Lawrence Heights Community Centre on Sunday, March 27th, 1:00 - 5:00 pm). Entrance is by donation. Click here for more details.

This year's theme is access: access to seeds, to gardening, and to food. Gardening can be such an empowering activity because it allows you to provide food for yourself and your family, it gives you control over how your food is grown, it teaches children about where food comes from, it reduces your stress, it improves your health through physical activity, and it meets your social needs when you use space in a community garden. That's why it's important to increase everyone's access to gardening, especially those struggling to make ends meet and those with physical and mental disabilities.

Do you garden? In your backyard or at a community garden? How did you get into it? If you don't garden, what are some of the barriers preventing you from getting involved?

Photo credit.

CSAs: Part of Healthy Diet

What happens when you mix heirloom plants, fertile urban gardens, high heat on sunny days (interspersed with short-lived but heavy rain showers), and lots of hard work from dedicated farmers?


A gorgeous crop of fruit and vegetables grown no farther than a dozen or so km from where I live. All mine!

That's because I bought a share with the Young Urban Farmers (YUF) CSA (community shared agriculture) to be able to enjoy more tasty food than I can consume within a week for the rest of the growing season. Featured in this week's share were, in alphabetical order:

• a blue jay bell pepper
  
• cilantro
• dill
  
• an eggplant
• flat-leaf parsley
• ground cherries (in lantern-shaped husks)
  
• hot peppers
• kale
  
• mixed salad greens
• papaya pear squash
• peas (too shy to pose for the picture)
  
• peter pan squash
• a plum
• purple kohlrabi
• radishes
• swiss chard
• thai basil
• zucchini

Can you spot them all?

When I decided to join a CSA this year, I had some difficulty deciding which one to put my money behind. Luckily, I came across YUF and immediately fell in love with them: they grow their produce in city residents' backyards, not a suburban farm! Better yet, due to a lack of storage facilities, the crops are harvested no earlier than the night before I pick them up. And if that still doesn't convince you these folks are great, consider this: they specialize in heirloom and organic varieties that aren't available at the local grocery store or even farmers markets! That's more exclusive than the iPhone 4.

This summer, my weekly local food shares have challenged me to cook and prepare vegetables I previously could not even identify. What I've discovered is that for intimidating vegetables, simple methods work best: cut swiss chard into bite-sized pieces, then wilt in a pan with sautéed garlic, olive oil, salt, and pepper. I add a spritz of lemon juice when I'm feeling particularly adventurous. It's that easy! No wonder there are so many celebrity chefs on TV...

Community shared agriculture is an excellent idea because it benefits everyone involved: the "customers" receive very fresh, very local, organic food and pay about the same as they would in a grocery store, except they know the "who", "where", and "how" of the life cycle of the produce. Also, shareholders are supporting the local economy, help to maintain land used for agriculture rather than urban sprawl, and get to learn about how food is grown and when it is in season (this is especially vital for children living in the city).

Meanwhile, the farmers gain from this system by making a living without having to share profits with distributors. By receiving in the spring the budget they need to carry them through the whole season, producers can focus on the farm and the quality of the crops they are growing. Furthermore, the direct relationship they have with shareholders fosters a sense of responsibility and pride in their work. Even the land itself benefits! CSAs use sustainable farming practices, and in the case of YUF, areas that were previously unused (resident's grass-covered backyards) are transformed into productive land.

While I look up a recipe to make use of that purple kohlrabi from this week's share, check out the links below that will help you source a CSA in your area and find out more about how you can support ecologically sound and socially equitable agriculture.

• Ontario CSA Farm Directory
• LocalHarvest (search American CSAs by zip code)
• Biodynamic Farming and Gardening Association: Introduction to CSA

Happy eating.

Local, fresh, delicious... need I say more?

I think we need a new word to describe produce so local that it doesn't even travel one city block from harvest to kitchen. The equivalent of local-squared, only way more catchy!


Yup, that's a garden bed chock full of basil, a number of varieties of it, actually - that's purple basil up in front, looking and smelling so good that I had to restrain myself from tasting a few leaves. Which is saying a lot, considering I was completely stuffed after enjoying a lovely afternoon tea some twelve floors beneath this garden, in the Library Bar on the lobby level of the Royal York Hotel. Look a bit more closely at the picture and you'll soon notice that my friends and I were standing on the hotel's lower rooftop, right downtown, only a stone's throw away from other skyscrapers and condos. After the tea service, we were treated to a tour (guided by an apprentice chef, no less) of the hotel's herb garden and were pleasantly surprised to find more than just herbs:


Bees are easily one of my favourite insects (but I have to admit it's not hard to top that list when I have a fear-bordering-on-phobia of spiders and centipedes) due to their multi-tasking role in pollinating our crops and allowing us to repeatedly steal their honey. Also, they're cute and have never stung me. Bonus! So, upon seeing this collection of beehives, I was certainly delighted, then impressed when our guide explained that these bees not only help fertilize the plants in the herb garden, they are also known to fly as far as the Toronto Islands (3km away) to collect nectar from the wildflowers that grow there. Now that's a strong work ethic...

But wait, there's more:


It's hard to describe what heirloom varieties of tomatoes taste like compared to the random, no-name tomatoes you typically find in a grocery store. Basically... more tomato-y. These are the ones I often can't even be bothered to cut into a salad, because I'd rather just eat them whole, no dressing or salt required. The ones pictured here are pear tomatoes, which is fairly obvious from their shape. They had some other heirloom varieties that I didn't immortalize with my camera because they weren't ripe yet, but I'm guessing with more sun and heat in the forecast, it won't be long before they are served to some very lucky hotel guests. Jealous!

There were lots of other goodies on the roof, including way more herbs than I could identify, squash, edible flowers, and grapes:


Just before leaving, I was pleasantly surprised to find so much mint that just walking past it freshened my breath:


They're even cultivating a chocolate mint variety that, just as the name claims, tastes like chocolate! If you stop to think about that, it makes no sense. Mint that tastes like cocoa would be unlikely but somehow more naturally-occurring than mint that tastes like a human creation. But I'm not complaining!

The existence of this garden, and the knowledge that others like it are popping up all over the place, makes me very hopeful for the future. Although it may be unfeasible to grow enough produce on rooftops to feed an entire city, this is a start, and even if we can't all eat the meals created with this urban harvest, everybody benefits from green spaces on top of buildings: green roofs absorb heat and filter the air, reducing both smog and the urban heat island effect.

So let's hear it for downtown rooftop gardening! I raise a toast with my cup of tea.