Earlier this summer, the
Thorncliffe Park Women's Committee (TPWC), in partnership with the Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office, set up a community garden in an unusual spot: an unused stretch of pavement around the back of the high-rise apartment building.
They did it using
EarthBox, a container gardening system that lets users grow produce in almost any condition (and location).
Tomorrow morning (Thursday, Aug 29th), the volunteers will converge at the neighbourhood's R.V.Burgess Park to reveal the fruits--and vegetables--of their labour.
"The volunteers will do the harvest, we'll have the produce from the garden, and we'll invite other community members to come and taste the produce," says Sabina Ali, coordinator for TPWC.
The boxes have yielded a range of crops, including organic tomatoes, eggplants, hot peppers, okra, cucumbers, and herbs.
The idea for this new model of community gardening, says Ali, came out of the success of TPWC's more traditional gardening initiative.
Since it was founded in 2002, the Thorncliffe Park Women's Committee has been an advocate for better public space in the neighbourhood, and in particular for making better use of Burgess Park, the area's only accessible green space.
Not only is Thorncliffe Park one of Canada's most densely populated neighbourhoods (30,000 people live in 34 high rise buildings in an area that is approximately two square kilometres), it also houses the largest concentration of children aged 14 and under in all of Canada.
"We are a group of women, residents, from Thorncliff Park who just came together to revitalize the public space in the neighbourhood," says Ali. "Because of the high percentage of children compared to the rest of Toronto, [Burgess] Park is especially important to us. It's a public space and we want to make sure it's a good place for the children and the families."
In the six years they've been operational, the Thorncliffe Park Women's Committee has successfully lobbied the City to reuse another park's old playground equipment (Burgess' equipment, torn down in 2005, won't be replaced until next year), started a very successful regular market, and have used the park for a number of recreational actives including puppet shows and arts and crafts lessons.
In 2012, after securing a plot of land from the city, TPWC set up two community gardens in the park--a larger one for the whole community, and a smaller one just for children.
The response to the gardens, says Ali, "was amazing."
In fact, the response was so good that Ali had to put enthusiastic volunteers on a waiting list. She says that's why the container gardening idea was so exciting.
"We already have a long line of volunteers on our gardening waiting list and this offered them the opportunity to grow fruits and vegetable in their balcony as well. So we recruited gardeners from our waiting list and invited them to come to the session about container gardening."
Ten interested volunteers took part in the pilot program and Ali is hopeful that TPWC will be able to secure funding to continue the project into the future.
"Our goal is to engage women in sustainable urban food production and to demonstrate potential for significant income generation for community members," said Suzanne Karajaberlian of Summerhill in a press release. Summerhil is local business who partnered with the Thorncliffe Park Women's Committee and Thorncliffe Neighbourhood Office to deliver this project.
Writer: Kat Snukal
Source: Sabina Ali, Project Coordinator, Thorncliffe Park Women's Committee