Farming in the city

The local food movement is putting down deep roots in Edmonton, spreading from restaurants and backyards to new business models for farmers and consumers

On a hot Saturday in late June, a dozen serious-minded people cram into Ron Berezan’s backyard. They’re checking for aphids on his tomato plants, eating the few ripening Russian honey berries and taking detailed notes on how to make barrels full of “green tea”–organic fertilizer made by mixing water and garden plants and letting it brew.

This group of mostly 30-somethings is part of the latest trend in the local food movement –urban farming. Berezan, who chucked a desk job for full-time city farming a few years ago, is the expert on how to transform Edmonton’s urban monoculture–stucco bungalow, front lawn and two spruce trees–into edible forests and no-till vegetable plots. He’ll even show you how to use your bath water, safely, on thirsty vegetables.

There are no neat rows of peas and carrots in Berezan’s gardens. He plants the way nature intended, in clumps, wherever plants combine best to feed the soil. He likes perennials such as fruit trees and food crops. And he feeds himself and his neighbour from the harvest from their shared yard.

Berezan is busy these days. The demand for his expertise has “just exploded” in the last two years, he says, another sign that interest in local food is on the rise, like the lettuce shooting up from the hay bales in his backyard.

Edmonton Journal