It is officially Spring, and warm sunny days are just around the corner (with the exception of the odd one-day snowfall in April, that is…) Here at Avling, that means lots of discussions and excited planning around our rooftop garden. Micheline Lalonde and Lindsay Sangster, Avling’s full-time farmers, have been working away for several weeks already, growing lots of produce from seed and nurturing them indoors, and it’s almost time to bring them up to the roof to transplant into the ground.
We think it’s the perfect time to catch up with them and get the inside scoop on what’s happening on the roof for the upcoming season. Ready to dive in and get your hands dirty?
Tell us what you’ll be growing this year!
We will continue to grow vegetables that were featured on our patio menu last year like zucchini, winter squash, cucumbers, mini purple daikon radish, hakurei turnip, garlic, fennel, mizuna, and several varieties of tomatoes and hot peppers. We are also growing an extensive variety of herbs for our kitchen, bar and brewery including hyssop, lavender, lemon balm, rosemary, basil, thyme, oregano.
Flowers are just as important as produce, as they’re pollinators which create a healthy garden ecosystem and attract butterflies and bees. This year we’ll be growing zinnia, gaillardia, sunflowers, calendula, nasturtium, cosmos, and many others..
There’s also a lengthy ‘to-grow’ list from the brewers including marigolds and pineapple sage, with some other ‘top-secret’ growing plans too!
What are you doing this year that’s different than in past years?
After 2 years, we have a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t. We are scaling back our crop selection and focusing on what works best for our space. This year we will be focusing more on tomatoes, hot peppers, cut flowers and selecting crops that thrive in our hot, dry conditions, such as okra and amaranth. We optimize our shoulder seasons, meaning we are planting early in spring and extend our harvest until December. This year we started selling our own saved seeds from last year’s harvest.
How are things staying the same?
We’ll be hosting pop-up markets a little later into the spring-summer, we’ll still always have produce available in retail, and we’re continuing to work with the brewery to grow marigolds and pineapple sage for annual brews, like Orpheus and Carillon.
We will continue to grow the same amount of zucchini, squash, cucumbers, lettuce and greens as last year, they were featured on the patio menu.
In terms of infrastructure, we’ll be keeping with our composting program, and we’ll utilize cold frames for winter farming. The compost program is especially exciting because we get to divert kitchen waste from the landfill and turn it into soil nourishing product, or, what we like to call Black Gold. We’ll use the finished compost on the garden beds to enhance soil health.
What’s new to the rooftop this year?
First up, we’ll be employing something called Frass Application. Frass is cricket poop, and we’ll be using it as a new fertilizer. Frass has many benefits, such as being lightweight and highly nutritious, and it stimulates soil microbial activity.
We’re also partnering with Miinikaan, a group of indigenous farmers who offer consulting, landscape design and garden installation, and demonstrate Indigenous Agroecology teachings. This year, we’ll be offering up a dedicated plot on the roof, that they will utilise in order to design and grow an indigenous food garden.
Lastly, we’ve seen a real surge in interest around our workshops over the past year, so we’re going to expand the program this season and add private classes for small groups too. We’ll be covering everything from gardening for beginners, pollinators 101, guerilla gardening, how to use herbs, and much more!
New this year, we’ll be adding the option for people to book their own private, small group visits too, which means that when things begin to open up again, we’ll be able to safely host groups for special events like birthday and engagement parties, or even just evening get-togethers on the roof for workshops. These are especially exciting for us because we’ll be able to personalize the classes to what each groups wants to learn and grow, while tailoring them to existing needs and knowledge levels.
About Avling’s Farmers
Micheline Lalonde came to farming from wanting to reclaim some agency over how her food was grown. Having worked in restaurants for nearly 15 years, farming felt like a natural transition. It interests her today, not for the idea of self-sufficiency which is what first drew her to the industry, but rather farmings ability to create community resilience. Mich lives in the Junction, and her favourite green spaces are High Park in Toronto, and Algonquin Park. When she’s not working on our rooftop, she’s spending time with her cat and dog, back country camping, and (in the before times, obviously) travelling to new cities and hanging out in dive bars.
Lindsay Sangster first became interested in farming because of its connection to the natural world and her favourite part of the job is literally watching things grow “Seeing seeds germinate and observing plants grow over the course of a season from flowering to fruiting to harvesting and then watching the plant go to seed, I’m constantly in awe. There are always opportunities for learning, and sharing that with others is what makes farming so special.” When Lindsay isn’t farming here at Avling, she’s cycling - she’s currently in training for a 130 km trip to Niagara, or you can find her wandering aimlessly through Toronto’s neighbourhoods, reading astrology memes, or admiring Golden Rod, her favourite plant.
To learn more from our farmers and our green roof, check out this recent feature from Living Architecture Monitor.
Have a question for our Farmers, or an idea for a workshop? Send us a message at garden@avling.ca or drop your suggestions into the comments below!