"O Canada"

Happy Canada Day!  In honor of our friends to the north, whom some (myself included) in the USA view with envy, I did a little lookie-loo as to the state of urban homesteading across the border.

In Kitchener, Ontario, you could visit Little City Farm, an eco-bed & breakfast.  Based on their "welcome" information, it sounds like they offer a great place to stay, good food grown on their 1/3 acre farm, and hold 20 different workshops throughout the year on a variety of urban-steading projects.  Their photo gallery is lovely, too.  Check them out at www.littlecityfarm.ca and maybe plan your next stay to the metropolis of Kitchener.

There's a nifty online publication called City Farmer News (www.cityfarmer.info/category/canada) where you can find a raft of stories about what's happening in small city farms across Canada.  There are some lovely photos, such as this one below, showing what people have done with their small yards.  Incidentally, you can also click on links to find out what city farmers & urban homesteaders are doing in countries all over the world.

courtesy of www.cityfarmer.info

In Canada, you can join the National Farmers Union (NFU) if you farm any size farm at all, including small urban farms under one acre.  This reflects polls that have suggested that in some cities, such as in Vancouver, up to 44% of residents grow some of their own food.  44%!!  In a city!  Amazing.

In Victoria, British Columbia, the Lifecycles Project (lifecyclesproject.ca) offers a variety of initiatives to link gardeners and homesteaders throughout the community, as well as educate the public about food security issues.  Additionally, this group actively works to increase local food security by encouraging more production of food within the city, hopefully reducing areas the only food available is food that was grown hundreds of miles away.  Some of their projects include Sharing Backyards, where people with space to grow in can coordinate with urban farmers who need a bit of earth to plant seeds in; Growing Schools, which works with community schools to develop gardens and awareness of food security & production; and the Diggers project, where a team of volunteers works to construct and develop new garden spaces.  There's even a culinary garden internship available!  Gardening and eating...now there's a winning combination.  Yum.

Oh, Canada.  Once more, I am green with envy over your green gardens.