City Farmer News » Ontario

Living Cities Company in Kingston, Ontario

Michael Levenston — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 17:07:31 +0000

The Living Cities company, created in 2008 by Queen’s student Nathan Putnam, aims to bring urban agriculture to the city

By Janina Enrile
The Journal – Queen’s University
Oct 22, 2010

Excerpt:

Living Cities has helped to create many changes in the Kingston community. Providence Care Hospital, for example, has allowed Living Cities to use some of the unused space on their property for their urban farming.

“They’ve been very receptive to our ideas and very supportive of the ideas we’re trying to make [happen],” Putnam said, adding that the overall feedback from the community has been very positive.

According to their website, Living Cities has also taught in schools about green efforts, and has designed and built rooftop gardens for winter use. During the summer, they grow vegetables and pre-sell them offering farmers a secure income and patrons a weekly selection of fresh organic produce. One of the most notable accomplishments of Living Cities was their creation of Canada’s first university-wide vermicomposting program, Worms to the REScue.

Vermicomposting is an innovative way of composting organic materials using earthworms. Personal vermicomposters were available to students in the 2009-2010 year, along with several for common space areas like residence common rooms.

Read the complete article here.

See Living Cities website here.

Community garden earns funds from Town of Markham, Ontario

Michael Levenston — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 23:04:40 +0000

Promoting green projects. Ivan Currie (from left), Barbara Rovet and Sidney Friedman work on a community plot at their Thornhill condominium in this file photograph. The Town of Markham has awarded another housing complex, near Bayview Avenue and Hwy. 407, $3,000 to be used for a community plot at 58-townhouse complex. Photo by Steve Somerville.

Another community garden that received about $1,800 will be at Baythorn Public School in Thornhill.

By L.H. Tiffany Hsieh|
York Region.com
Nov 30, 2010

Excerpt:

A condominium garden that would illustrate how a community garden can be integrated into higher density developments is one of several environmental projects granted funding from the Town of Markham last week.

“There’s going to be more density in Markham, so it’s good that people have access to local foods. That’s what our growth decision has determined,” said Katie Burns, the town’s sustainability co-ordinator.

The public garden, to be situated on a private 58-townhouse complex at Bayview Avenue and Hwy. 407 next spring, received more than $3,000 from the town under an application from Markham’s sustainability office.
Staff initially expressed concerns about the use of public funds for a garden on private lands as well as matters such as public parking and accessibility, but the project was eventually endorsed by the town’s environmental issues committee and approved by town council.

Read the complete article here.

Artan Gardens in the middle of downtown North Bay, Ontario

Michael Levenston — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 21:56:13 +0000

A trailer showing Zell and Krist growing, revitalizing, and transforming the Artan Garden into a Creative Cultural Centre in North Bay Ontario.

Artan Garden

Mr. and Mrs. Artan came to North Bay with their family over 35 years ago. Mr. Artan built a cottage at the end of Judge St. The foundation is still there in the back parking lot. Mr. Artan came with many skills; his talents in stone masonry, cement, and permacultural design came from his long career as a General Contractor, at the age of ten, Artan was laying ceramic shingles on Mediterranean homes. Artan Contracting was a thriving business and employed many in the community.

Mr. and Mrs. Artan developed this garden over 20 years ago from a gravel pit into a burgeoning hobby farm that produces fresh food for the farmers market. Mr. Artan built a sprawling 4500 sq. ft. cottage on site, from recycled and reused materials, with a greenhouse, animal runs, a chicken coupe and a bunny hut. Mrs. Artan, a noted horticulturalist, blooms a flourishing hobby farm there with her husband. They plant every year their multi-award winning, heirloom, all-natural seed stock.

See Artan Garden website here.

Seed Your City to Feed Your City.

Artan Gardens is an arts and horticultural organization. We are committed to growing more nutritious food and rejuvenating the environment. Together, with friends, colleagues, schools, business ambassadors, Government and local food groups we can Cultivate Creative Culture within urban centres.

Join and support our nation-wide program to grow and propagate heirloom seeds: Seed Your City to Feed Your City. This unique program blends the Arts with Horticultural education. We provide heirloom seeds and step-by-step guides on how to grow them with an interactive ECO-SCHOOLS curriculum. Seed Your City gives everyone the opportunity to grow their own produce, feed their city, and create stunning edible landscapes.

1 Seed /Plant = 1 meal

100 seeds grow to feed 100 people for one day or 10,000 seeds

10,000 Seeds grow to be 100,000lbs of food or 1,000,000 seeds

See Seed Your City project overview here.

See Donation Letter here.

Update:

Artan Gardens and Climate Project Canada Launches the First Seed Your City Initiative

(Toronto – September 22, 2009) Artan Gardens, Climate Project Canada’s Georgina Bencsik, and Pollination Media launches the Seed Your City initiative, while creating a stage for green solution & service companies to present to local leaders and provincial ministers at Queens Park on September 28th 2009.

Artan Gardens, Feed Your City Organization & Climate Project Canada’s former National Manager/Coordinator, Georgina Bencsik will kick off the Seed Your City initiative next week under much high expectation. Seed Your City is a unique initiative that has several programs which all cater to the concept of creating urban food & flower gardens on roof tops to localize foods within urban cities, while educating students on gardening and farming.

Seed Your City Current Projects include:

Downsview

A 6 000 square foot green house at Downsview park where priceless heirloom seeds will be grown and distributed to schools and organizations with green roof systems.

Seed Your School

The Seed Your School campaign blends arts and agriculture and teaches creative productivity through an eco-based curriculum. Students collect seeds to replenish the seed bank and are taught simple and natural curriculum for Eco-School Greening. Through the lessons students express their connection with nature, grow and eat their own food, and save the “Seed of the Future” for community Seed Banks.

Feed Your City

Fifty percent of food will be given back to the community to feed the less fortunate and create local food sources for restaurants & food banks through out the year. All seeds will be donated back to the Seed Your City Charity Foundation, where the seeds will be added to the Seed Your City seed bank.

Matthew Krist, Production Director and Co Founder, says, “employing aspects of permaculture, including diversity, multifunctional and nutrient cycling, we engage individuals, schools and organizations to embrace the green renaissance. Every one can join the movement and there is huge potential for social and community development in this project.”

By creating living models, Seed Your City will demonstrate how food can be grown in efficient and sustainable ways, and have as little of an impact on the environment as possible.

Seeds gathered from the program are traded within schools and community parks for planting and creating Art & Garden food Spaces. “There are various methods for growing ecologically sound food, which compared to industrial methods, can be more sustainable, nutritious and tasty. “Seed Your City creates vital systems for people who actively grow their community,” said Zell Artan, Co-founder of the Feed Your City Foundation and Artan Gardens. Artan continues to say, “Seed Your City will play a unique role in creating seed bank systems to feed people within the community, and will ensure a continuous supply of healthy, non-genetically modified produce to feed our fellow Canadians.”

Over the next year Feed Your City organization will facilitate, execute and implement several programs under the initiative, the first event taking place at Queens Park on September 28th 2009 from 4:00pm to 7:00pm est. “Through Seed Your City, we can eliminate hunger, and replenish our Global Seed Pantry. Everyone can take part in this movement,” says Georgina Bencsik, Hon. Al Gore trained Certified Presenter at Climate Project Canada.

Contact: Natasha Lewis, Director, Feed Your City Organization
Phone: (416) 880-0543
Email: pollinate@pollinationmedia.com
http://www.pollinationmedia.com/artangardens.html

Brantford Ontario Man’s Food Garden Blog

Michael Levenston — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 14:20:32 +0000

Durgan has been blogging his backyard gardening efforts for a number of years and sharing his extensive knowledge of food gardening with readers. He has many interests and his excellent photographs are instructive. Subjects include: Making Juice from Fruit and Vegetables; Stiff Neck Snake Garlic; Japanese Beetle on Grape Vine; Preparing Horseradish condiment.

“The 0.4 acre garden is located in Brampton, Ontario, Canada in Zone 5. This is my sixth year gardening on this property. It was covered in grass and the soil is heavy clay of fairly good quality, but poorly drained. The property was a wet mess after any heavy rain.The first year I put in drainage pipe across and down the yard for about 300 feet all by hand alone.

“The city supplies free of charge during the month of May about a half a yard of screened vegetable compost per day. Quality 100%. I built a half yard box in my minivan, and took a 20 km round trip daily for about 75 days. I eventually put about 45 cubic yards of compost in the garden. Now I drop a seed in the ground and it grows and grows and grows.”

Durgen’s complete 2007 Journal can be found here.

And his new 2008 Journal begins here.