STORYTIME: Urban Farming in Toronto - Year 10

Welcome to my annual post and apologies for being slow at this. We are are now in year 10 farming in the city of Toronto. Lots to share, and always, thank you for your time reading this. I promise that I have use zero AI in any of the images shown here - I just simply capture nature and tell you a story.

This is the project from what it was before. Very poor soil composition, incredible compaction, so many wheelbarrows of compost to move, but what a view! There's a hill close to the farm that if you go climb it, this is the view that meet you.

The project so far! 11 acres of urban farm - we have expanded our operations and most importantly, we have locked in a long term lease with the federal goverment that allows us to now do the work without any land access worry. We have collected other partners along the way and you'll get to meet them in this post. I cannot express the hours we've spent here, the sweat that has gone to bring this project to where it is today. I get emotional just looking at this - what a view!

This is always something I can watch for hours. These are bees on our basil bed last season, I had to share this. I mean, can you imagine that honey flavour with this pollen?

This is where all my money has gone, no joke, literally! we invested so much of our time and labour in our soils so that our crops are successful and strong with all the nutrients they need.

This does look like AI doesn't it. Promise, its not, this was evening after a harvest that I walked through the farm to capture this basil plant at magic hour. We had planted over 200ft of basil and the whole farm had this incredible aroma

The watermelon that could! Promise not an AI generated image - you are welcome to verify. This was an experiment we did trying to grow watermelons in the city. Little did we know what its a local delicacy to local wildlife. They were gone before we could harvest, we did get some, but not enough, no regrets though

Now these are the peppers you should know about, they are called picnic peppers and they are incredibly delicious! small with incredible sugars, honestly if you're in need of a sugar snack late in the season, these are incredible finds. For us, the community loves them when the are ready for harvest.

Bokchoy harvest is one of my favourite tasks. These are super flavorful with honestly minimal kitchen skills and you can make an incredible meal. They also grow very fast in spring and love the cold seasons

ok, these beets are a constant at the farm. I love them, and you should too! check their nutritional value and you'll know why they are in the superfood group especially those into brain health. For me, I make beet chips over the summer months for my snacks and they are delicious!

I had to take this picture of this incredible cabbage! it was so glorious (can I use that to describe it?) we had a great harvest of cabbages and intend to grow more this season

We had 400ft of cabbage beds with adjacent beds of carrots and beets

Mini lettuce heads

The rabbits loved the kohlrabi beds! I can't elaborate how decimated these beds got after the rabbits found them. They are cute, yes, I give you that, but they are insatiable and they can eat! Then they breed, and come back for more! little beautiful bunnies

Shout out to my brother Arnest, who farms beside me. Hes the face behind SARN farms and I recommend him and his work to all who don't know him and his work. Originally from Uganda, Arnest is such a humble soul and his produce is always incredible to behold throughout the growing season.

Our community favourite - dare I say, we grow the tastiest field salad mix in the city. We get people asking for this crop all season long! it grows fast, we harvest and deliver them with maybe a day between harvest and your table.

Our field tomatoes in our tunnels did incredibly well last season.

10 points to those who know what this is. Garlic scapes are incredible for pestos and garnish in meals.

This is how we manage our harvests. On the top are the customers and the rows are the crops. We started working with our city food shelter chefs who receive these harvests directly from our farm to their kitchens.

These are the end of season kale beds. Most of the farm looks like this in spring. With very little activity, brown, dead plants and what winter left for us.

This is the bane of my existence. Thistles are very prevalent at the farm, and if you don't capture the bottom horizontal root, early in spring, you'll be fighting this all season. I've seen some that are 4ft +

One plot at the farm was full of weeds and its soil needed help. We use this silage tarp in the heat of the season to burn the weeds. This is a very effective method but time consuming. For a market garden, costly!

I partnered with Crooked Farmz to get their compost tea as a mix to help build the biological matter in the soil. The device is the back is syphon that was created by my Mennonite friend that hooks up directly to the main line and the compost tea gets spread to the fields by overhead irrigation.

This is the result of the process. Pretty good huh!

With our visiting corporate groups through our corporate social responsibility, we prepared 700ft of garlic beds. First we lay a heavy compost layer, plant the garlic then lay another thick layer of compost above that before winter comes.

These are the beds early this spring

These are the garlic shoots today

Shout out to my commercial flower farmer, Michelle. The Farmers Rose is one of the best flower farmers I know and every season, the flowers that comes out of the fields are mind blowingly beautiful

My words fail, if you've ever visited a flower farm before, you'll understand when I tell you that your words will fail you to describe the experience. The amount of pollinators, the colors, the fragrance - just incredible

Early spring this past week, new flowers coming!

We work closely with George Brown school of culinary arts, where we engage upcoming chefs in teaching how they can engage with local foods and growers. The Chef here is Chef Mah - an incredible person who has been teaching these minds in managing and working around abundance of seasonal food, in and out of season.

We have also partnered with the Toronto District School Board to bring these lessons to young curious minds. Teaching them how and where their food comes from and what role they play in it.

We have started to do community gardening workshops. Its the most exciting thing to see more and more people learn that what I'm doing isn't rocket science, and that anyone can learn how to grow.

Our farm is in a large open field, a perfect ground for kildear birds. We have to be constantly careful not to disturb their nests. We have learned to work together so they don't yell at me all the time.

Early morning views

Early sunrise is my favourite

Zucchinis in the morning light

We had an incredible project to start a garden project at a park for 6 months. The project was to show how youth and the seniors can work together at a community garden, grow and harvest, together.

TAKE Notes - when building a raised bed, create it in layers. The bottom should have large chunks of wood, be dead branches, trunks, whatever you can find. Add woodchips after to fill any and gaps between the large chunks of wood. Then add compost, and at the top layer, add a thin layer of fine wood shavings. Wet well, I mean liberally, soak it good. Give it a day to soak up, then plant

This is the result

This is our first 2026 lettuce field plantings.

Thank you for joining me on this ride. For those who have kept up with the project so far, much love and if you live in the city of Toronto or adjacent, come by say hi!

My goal is to find a way to grow food and how we access the resources, accessible to all - thats not too much to ask, yes?