SEEDS OF OUR CITY : CASE STUDIES FROM EIGHT DIVERSE COMMUNITY GARDENS

Many gardeners bring seeds from there countries of origin to have a taste of home in Canada and choose to grow food plant varieties that are not available in Canadian grocery stores. Toronto's numerous community gardens are examples of how Toronto's landscape is changing to reflect this diversity.

FoodShare was funded by the Urban Issues Program of the Samuel and Saidye Bronfman Family Foundation over three years (1999-2002) to develop case studies of eight very different community gardens. The final report, available from FoodShare for $15, presents the case studies and details the food people were growing in their gardens, the diversity of gardening approaches, lessons learned, and municipal food policy implications.

Throughout the Seeds of our City community development and research project, we were interested in learning how much food can be grown in the typical community garden plot, and what kind of impact it has on the food security of the people involved. Essential to this study was the involvement of a core of dedicated gardeners who settled in Canada from many different countries: China, Ghana, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam.

Seeds of Our City, a partnership between FoodShare, the AfriCan FoodBasket and Greenest City, brought gardeners from across the city together. Community building took place through exchanges of gardening stories and seeds at events in the fall and winter. Gardeners from across the city visited each other's gardens, exchanged produce, meals, stories and seeds as the project evolved. The variety and amount of food grown in gardens across the city was recorded along with growing techniques. We hope this report's stories, research, and documentation, will enable us to better understand the potential for urban agriculture in Toronto and other cities.

Click to see pictures of the SEEDS OF OUR CITY COMMUNITY GARDEN TOUR 2000

Cost $20
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