Scattered throughout the St. George campus lie small oases of thriving vegetable and flower gardens.
They can be found in an underused green space behind the Lash Miller Chemical Labs building; in a secluded quad belonging to St. Hilda’s College; on the roof of the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy; and elsewhere.
The gardens are used for research and teaching by different members of the U of T community. Last summer, that included students taking part in the urban agricultural practices summer course (ENV381H1Y) offered through the School of the Environment.
The course is designed to teach students how to grow their own food locally in an urban environment using sustainable methods. It also included lectures, guest speakers and practical gardening sessions during which students literally got their hands dirty planting and harvesting.
“It’s for students interested in sustainability, food sovereignty and the food system,” says Béatrice Lego, the course instructor. “It’s for students interested in learning about growing practices so they can implement them in their own lives and gain some control over the food they eat.”
Lego is the former coordinator of the U of T Scarborough Campus Farm. She has a PhD in chemistry and did research in nanotechnology but turned her focus to urban agriculture when she moved to Toronto. As part of her new career, she created the Huron-Sussex community garden on the St. George Campus.
The course attracted a variety of students — some from the School of the Environment but also from the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape & Design and various humanities and social sciences programs.
“I took the course because I was interested in food security, having traveled overseas to places where things like drought make it harder for people to feed themselves,” says Kriti Bhatt, a fourth-year Trinity College member in the international relations program.
“Food insecurity comes from relying on other people to decide what food's available, having other people dictate what you can eat that week, having other people and companies tell you how much it costs,” says Bhatt.
“Food security comes from people being able to grow their own food and learning practices like knowing what plants to plant together to yield better results, or how to maintain more nutrient-rich soil.”
Jameson Campbell is a fourth year English-major student. His summer project was to test how well microgreens fared in different growing mediums — from a mixture of soil and coconut husk, to hemp, to a non-organic medium called vermiculite.
“I was a chef for a long time, so a course on growing food seemed germane,” says Campbell. “I worked with microgreens that entire time, so, I really liked the idea of learning how to grow them.”
The course was originally developed by Michael Classens, an assistant professor with the School of the Environment, and Nicole Spiegelaar, an assistant professor, teaching stream, and academic director of Trinity College’s Integrated Sustainability Initiative.
“I teach a course in the fall, The Edible Campus, which is in some ways a companion to the summer course,” says Classens.
“The hands-on food courses are designed, in part, to provide pedagogical integration within the context of the forthcoming Lawson Centre for Sustainability which will have a community kitchen and rooftop farm. This, in turn, is part of the broader Trinity Integrated Sustainability Initiative.”
For Bhatt, there were enjoyable takeaways from the course besides learning about food security and how to be a better gardener.
“It was a really nice way to spend the summer and be outside,” she says. “Plus, we got to harvest what we grew and take it home, that was really nice. And although I can’t grow a lot of vegetables on my balcony at home, this course helped me in doing that — and every little bit helps!”