Birdsong Gardens
Text by Eric Lee
Images by Helen Acraman
Driving north on wide and busy Keele Street, approaching Sheppard, it is hard to imagine that off to the right, behind some trees, is the oasis of Downsview Park and its community of farmers. Kathy Horne, proprietor of Birdsong Gardens, came here when her ambitions outgrew the space she had at her house in Toronto. But arranging to garden at Downsview Park is not a simple thing, so first a little background on it: the Park came into existence in 1995 when the Canadian Forces Base Toronto was shut down. It is owned by Canada Lands, a federal Crown Corporation, not the City or Province. In 2011 they did an experiment with Urban Agriculture which gave rise to the current community of farmers. It was deemed a big success, but in the grand scheme of Park development, the farmers will eventually have to move from the north to the south end of the Park.
Dahlia’s growing at Birdsong Gardens.
The Park has two major Urban Agriculture tennants one of which is Fresh City Farms, which in turn rents land to sixteen farmers. The terms are a combination of cash and labour, about 60 hours per month, at Fresh City - not an insignificant chunk of the working month! Fresh City makes some of its resources available, including water and compost, but for a fee. This is clearly a business proposition for them and their tenants have to to be similarly businesslike. Kathy’s operation is set up to produce crops for sale which is one criterion that is often used to distinguish Urban Agriculture from gardening. This has been her sixth year of farming here.
Those are the facts and circumstances, but now we can get to the fascinating things Kathy does with her two plots that total 1000 square feet.
Flowers, herbs and vegetables grow together in one of Kathy’s plots.
Unlike most farmers, and especially those at Downsview, her crops are both fruits-and-vegetables and flowers. This tends to add an aesthetic quality to her stall at the Farmers’ Market that is not a feature at most others. It is then not surprising that images from her stall are used on the home page of our website. There is even crossover between the decorative and nutritious in the corn with coloured kernels that is both beautiful and suitable for grinding or (different variety) for popping. The corn is left to dry on the stalk, which requires ingenious techniques to keep birds from eating it while letting air circulate to avoid rot.
Strawberry popcorn!
The flowers also support the food crops by attracting pollinators and birds. She says that the presence of birds indicates a healthy garden. So the name Birdsong Gardens is no accident and touches on both the pleasure of the song and the contribution of the birds when they visit.
Each thing that she grows seems to have a story behind it, of why it is interesting to her, how she came to grow it and the challenges involved in cultivation. Everything is connected, in ways that are more interesting the more questions you ask.
Greenhouses are primarily used by Fresh City Farms but Kathy also uses a small part to start seedlings in the springtime.
Kathy is committed to the practices of permaculture and regenerative agriculture, which mainly involves making soil microbially healthy. Therefore she does not till, which would disturb the soil’s structure. Cover crops and mulches (including black plastic!) are used everywhere; there is very little bare soil to be seen. The cover crops help retain moisture and when cut and left in place turn into compost, which saves buying it from Fresh City and the labour of spreading it. She will have to, in a way, start over again, and with a more difficult subject, when the Downsview farms are obliged to move to a different part of the Park that has more clayey soil.
One of Kathy’s experimental crops, Upland rice.
Kathy is always experimenting with things, some of which, such as a middle-eastern green called jute mallow (Corchorus olitorius) from which Molokhia is made, with the hope of return and others, such as upland (sticky) rice, simply to see if they can be made to grow here. The experiments don’t always yield commercial quantities but do provide discoveries for Market patrons who are alert to the unusual, and may take home something that is available nowhere else.
Kathy at her table at Sorauren Market during the summer.
