TAKING STALK OF CITY CROPS
It began as a neighbourly offer to start a farm in people’s yards. Months later, the corn is ‘10 feet tall’
It began three months ago.
Jay Rosenthal’s front yard was average for Toronto, filled with grass and not much else. Now, it has come alive with vegetables.
“It looks amazing. The corn, honestly, it’s10 feet tall,” Rosenthal said. “Over the past month, we also have four or five squash growing. And tons of beans. We could pick10 beans a day and we still have more beans than we could eat at this point.” The farm began when Anthony McCanny, 24, moved to Brockton Village at the end of May. McCanny, who developed an interest in permaculture, an ecologically sound way of living using a technical approach, promptly distributed 250 letters to his neighbours, offering to farm their yards.
He eventually took over five properties and in the months that followed, he harvested a wide variety of crops, including romaine lettuce, arugula, radishes, turnips, beans, cucumbers, tomatoes and kale. But the first farm McCanny planted was in Rosenthal’s front yard.
After covering the small, approximately 11-by-11-foot grass yard with newspaper, to smother the grass and cause it to decompose, McCanny and his partner, Sarah Kern, covered the yard with organic compost, top soil and mulch. They, along with Rosenthal and his daughter, Stella, began by planting blue hopi corn and scattering dried green peas over the soil, before planting beans and squash two weeks later, after the peas were harvested.
“Every morning we open the front window and see it has changed . . . It’s fun to come out in PJs to get the newspaper and look at all the stuff,” Rosenthal said. “We’ve eaten the beans from our yard. From other people in the neighbourhood we’ve had radishes, tomatoes, salad greens and cucumbers.”
“When working with nature, you have to take some losses and realize you’re not totally in control.” ANTHONY MCCANNY NEIGHBOURHOOD GARDENER
McCanny keeps some of the crops for himself and distributes the rest amongst the land owners. Eventually, he hopes to donate to food banks and non-profits once he perfects his craft and has overflow crops to spare.
Rosenthal said his children, Stella, 7, and Cy, 3, have especially loved their front yard farm. The towering corn stalks stop people on the street, and he said both his kids love giving tours of their plot.
“They love talking about it,” Rosenthal said. “My daughter went to camp and I was with her when she met her bunk mates and she was joking she lived on a farm. It is funny but I had to say, ‘You don’t. Some people might actually live on a farm. You live in the city and there happens to be stuff in your front yard.’ ”
That’s not to say everything has run smoothly. There’s been the occasional setback. Attempts to harvest mustard seeds to eat as sprouts were unsuccessful as the stems ended up being tougher than expected, but they did work to cover the ground to keep the moisture in as the corn and squash grew.
The squash in the Rosenthal’s yard also took a turn for the worse when McCanny noticed some mould affecting the crops, something he could not catch early enough since he was out of town at the time. But McCanny views the entire experience as a learning process, as well, and believes a few squash plants will survive.
“It’s a story of loss in all the success. I think that’s what gardening is,” McCanny said. “When working with nature, you have to take some losses and realize you’re not totally in control. The most important thing is to then try to learn from it and try to figure out how to reduce the chances of that striking again.”
And McCanny will have a chance to grow squash again. He has plans to continue his farming next year, and hopefully even take on a few new properties.
He can be sure of one thing. The Rosenthals are on board.
“Oh yeah, we’re going to do it again next year,” Rosenthal said.
“I want to recruit other people too. Other people want to do it. People from outside the neighbourhood have expressed interest. Anthony will have to figure out how to manage that.”