We are Urban Agronomists

With all the craziness of renovating, I've hardly had any time to post on here. Before I delve into descriptions of my trials and tribulations of cabinetry, or lament on the fact that we are so uncertain about our relocation options....I will set out to give a little background on our greatest hobby and passion for life.

Agronomy. That pretty much sums up most of what we appreciate. Despite the boudaries of our urban confines, and the ordinary frontward appearance of our semi-detached suburban home, our backyard is a veritable urban farm.

When Mr.J and I first started dating, he had begun the journey here, by having a densely planted tomato garden which was about 2 ft wide, and stretched the length of the yard.

He also had many many tomatoes and various other plants growing in what seemed to be nearly 100 pots, scattered in some sort of semblance all over the then oddly shaped deck which previously accomodated a pool.

From my own experience, I knew that keeping lots of veggies in pots is not nearly as sustainable as keeping them in the ground. So the first spring I lived here, I set out to change that. Not only did I grow from seed several hundred tomatoes, but I enlarged the garden space to accomodate them all in the ground. Primarily in raised beds, which I constructed from the old sheet metal above ground pool, which was sitting around, waiting to be re-purposed.

Here are some of my tomato starts in yogurt cups last winter:


7 yards of triple mix later.....we had an extensive vegetable garden, where we grew tomatoes, corn, potatoes, squash, zucchini, carrots, beets, radishes, amaranth, beans, peas, fennel, various herbs, salad greens and swiss chard.

Here's a pic taken by Boy S of our garden last summer. You can see, its a pic taken by a 6 year old...but you can also see amaranth, dill, tomatoes, bolted lettuces and maybe some squash.



But, it doesn't stop there. No, we take it just a little bit beyond having a veggie patch in suburbia. We also make all our own compost, from kitchen scraps, from our guinea pig manure and from chicken manure. Here's a pic of the big double compost bin I made last spring. This bin handles the second stage compost, and the yard waste. We have separate bins for fresh veggies, and manure.

Here's a shot of my double compost bins:



And, in case you're wondering where the manure comes from....well, initially it came from our guinea pigs, Sooty, Jasper and Pepper (rip Pepper). But it just wasn't enough. That, combined with our strong commitment to eating local organic food...our inability to obtain fresh local organic eggs with less than an hours drive, and the fact that organic eggs run about $5-6 a doz here, and aren't always available. We're fortunate that our city is one of the few in Ontario which does not outlaw the keeping of laying hens....so enter our small flock of backyard layers.



Here's a shot of the eggs I gathered this am:



I also made an attempt to keep things going during the winter. I made a small tent for the chard...but really I should have gone the extra step to use plastic, and to close it in on one end. The open end means that our dog enters, and sometimes 'grazes' on the new chard growth. Its amazing though, with such a mild winter, that hte chard is growing a bit, even in February.







And I guess, in a nutshell that pretty much sums it up. Personally, I really feel that urban agronomy is one of the most responsible and both ecologically and economically sustainable ways to use urban land in Ontario.

The sad reality, is that most of our urban land is some of the very best farmland in all of Canada. But we turned it into cities....and the food system we have in place favours cheap production, not healthy food, or wise ecological choices, and thereby pushed family farmers off their great land, in favour of mega corporate farms. The family farmers either went out of business, or are now farming on less desirable land, and we import so so much food, from far far away, which is ecologically disastrous in so many ways (not to mention, skirts the ethical labour laws we have here by purchasing commodoties produced where those laws don't exist).

So, I hope that even though, I'm now in the business of going out of Urban Agronomy, I can inspire someone else to carry on in these boots one day. Even if it means just a simple veggie patch-it is so much more of a responsible land use than a giant lawn come golf green.

I'd also like to toss in that my future SIL and BIL live in a new Oakville neighborhood that manages land in a non-traditional suburban way. Their home is a 3 story town home, occupying a small physical footprint, with a very tiny backyard. So a shout out to all who live in a neighborhood like that, where land is more valued, for one reason or another, and more people live in less suburban space.