Category: Projects

The Regent Park neighbourhood in Toronto is undergoing a revitalization to create a healthy, sustainable community that will bring vitality to Toronto’s Downtown East. As one part of this revitalization process, The Growing Connection has partnered with the Regent Park Community Food Centre and Daniel’s Corporation to bring two popup gardens to the neighbourhood. The first garden is located on Regent Park Boulevard, aka The Mews and the second garden being located within the CFC’s current garden at 40 Oak Street. Here are a couple photos of the garden installation

Growing Herbs for Better Nutrition?

The Boston not-for-profit Community Servings asked TGC to build a container garden. Community Servings is a meals program that prepares and delivers 7,500 meals each week to almost 800 individuals and families who are homebound with acute, life-threatening illnesses.

THE PROJECT
Community Servings’ CEO, David Waters faced a significant challenge. Their space was extremely limited, and lacked direct sunlight. How to overcome this?

The first step was to understand what CS’ expectations. TGC asked what they wanted to grow.

David Waters didn’t hesitate, “We want to grow a variety of herbs for our chefs to use in our daily meals.” OK – Herbs can certainly grow without much direct sun and little space, but TGC was initially skeptical.

Herbs? What significant nutritional impact could herbs have for a high volume of meals and for extremely “at risk” clients?

IMPACT
David’s answer was this… “The people that we serve are very sick – often almost too weak to eat the meals that we send. But the scents and tastes of fresh herbs work some kind of magic. They motivate our clients to eat the meals, which in turn helps them to stay strong.”

And, while it’s hard to measure exactly how many clients are influenced by those herbs, we can measure the ongoing success of Community Servings. The TGC garden has been expanded, and now grows arugula in an additional 30 feet of containers. CS also received a prestigious Food Innovators award (2013) from the Mayor’s office in Boston.

At TGC, we draw on a wide range of skills and experiences to support our clients. Still, as we found in Boston, often the best approach is simply to use our ears, to listen carefully.

We will consider each challenge from a client’s perspective.

Huichol Women’s Project for Nutrition and Income Generation – Tenzompan, MX

The village of Tenzompan is located high in the Sierra Madre mountains of Jalisco State. In the 1990’s, the Government of Mexico built simple greenhouses/hoophouses in many poor communities to reduce malnutrition, particularly for indigenous families. Despite good intentions, most of these projects were not successful, and are no longer in use. Tenzompa is a case in point – with a TGC solution.

The Tenzompan hoophouse was too far from water. Water is heavy; hauling water for hundreds of meters was a huge burden for the women-growers. Too much effort… Project abandoned.

THE PROJECT
In 2005, The Growing Connection (TGC), with the Universidad de Guadalajara Co-op Program and Fundación Selva Negra began working in Tenzompan. The hoophouse was rebuilt; TGC installed 40 growing containers. The village women were trained in innovative, low-input vegetable production. These changes proved successful, particularly due to the 60% – 80% water savings of our containers. The Tenzompan women’s project thrives today, and has been augmented by 20 more containers.

IMPACT
The women using the hoophouse and their families are better nourished (chard, spinach, celery in the cool season; tomatoes, eggplant and peppers in warmer months). Also vitally important, the women supplement their income by selling surplus food in the local market.
TGC provided the most appropriate growing system to dramatically reduce the labor of hauling water. With much less water to carry, the women gave renewed efforts to growing fresh, nutritious food.

RBS Terrace Garden and Hurricane Sandy

The USA Headquarters of the Royal Bank of Scotland is in Stamford CT. Their building features a massive third story terrace, facing east, out to the Atlantic Ocean.

The Project
In 2011, TGC built a kitchen garden on the terrace, providing produce daily to the up-scale cafeterias operated by RBS’ food-services contractor, Restaurant Associates. TGC has worked with many chefs and restaurants who want the most local, healthy food.  The innovative garden at RBS Stamford is in many ways typical. The chefs were trained by TGC to grow and harvest on the terrace, right outside the kitchen door. The chefs  easily maintained the garden ever since – easy because of the reduced labor required (no weeding, very little water).

The Lesson
In October 2012, the very existence of the RBS garden was profoundly tested as Hurricane Sandy barreled along the New England coastline. Its impact was devastating.

Several days after Sandy hit, TGC contacted Jason di Chiara of Restaurant Associates, to learn if the garden survived. Jason’s reply, “There were no problems. We just drained the water from the containers ahead of Sandy, picked them up, and moved them inside. No losses.”

Many gardens fail because they lack flexibility. At RBS, a more traditional garden (e.g. raised beds) would have been completely destroyed. Yet, the RBS team were able to simply move the garden indoors. A day after the worst hurricane in the area’s history, the garden site was in operation again.

The Keys:

1. Expect the unexpected, Nature is ALWAYS involved in our lives;
2. When engaged people care about something, they will protect it;
3. TGC always emphasizes flexible and sustainable solutions.

From Day Care Roof Garden to Generating Women’s Income

Mayama A.C.  is an NGO located in an at-risk industrial zone on the outskirts of Guadalajara, Mexico. They provide temporary refuge, tranquility and life-skills training to children (and families) who are exposed, on a daily basis, to severe poverty, violence and substance abuse.

Over 150 kids, aged 6-12, visit Mayama for three hours per week, to benefit from a safe environment, and to participate in reading/writing, art, gymnastics, and music programs.

 

PHASE ONE – THE ROOFTOP GARDEN

In 2013, with funding from the American School Foundation of Guadalajara and private donors, TGC/EcoHierto Mx built a garden on the roof of Mayama’s Day Care Center. In a few weeks, the garden was producing chard, lettuce and spinach; peppers, tomatoes and eggplant were on the way.

The Mayama roof-garden has impact on two levels:

1. the Mayama kids benefit from improved taste and nutrition during their visits;
2. the garden helps Mayama’s work, shepherding “at-risk” kids from trauma to a tranquil status. The garden is a “calm zone” used when the children experience high anxiety and need immediate relief.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The garden also offers Mayama the opportunity to dramatically improve nutrition with “at the doorstep” production, and it serves as a vital connection to nature in a toxic industrial zone.

PHASE TWO – INTEGRATING FAMILIES INTO SUSTAINABLE GARDENING

Phase Two initiated the direct involvement of the families of the “Mayama kids” in sustainable food production. TGC/EcoHuerto Mx worked with three groups of mothers (total 32 women) in extremely impoverished neighborhoods near Guadalajara (municipality of El Salto). Most of these families had little or no gardening experience. The neighborhood had no municipal water supply – water was trucked in and sold to the families on a weekly basis.

Thus, the practicality of our water-efficient growing containers. TGC trained the group of mothers through two cropping seasons.

PHASE THREE – INDEPENDENTLY GENERATING INCOME

During the last quarter of 2014, the women conducted self-evaluation and “next-steps” sessions. They defined their next step as a “concentration of production”, and initiated a test case with the goal to generate income.

The women consolidated their TGC containers (now 130 units) at a single protected site, and concentrated production on food-crops for consumption by their families – chard, spinach, lettuce, and on crops to sell at local restaurants and markets (pepper, cilantro, tomato).

The women organized a work schedule based on individual skills, interests and availability. From the initial 36 women involved, there are now 16; but these sixteen women are now more skilled, and are highly motivated.

Mayama A.C. still supports the women with low-cost inputs (seedlings, training costs), but the women soon will  “graduate” to financial sustainability. Clearly, the women have learned to produce fresh food for their families and – they hope – for the general market. The prediction is that following two more cropping cycles (8 months), this group will be independent, and will enjoy a modest income through sustainable food production.