Fall at the Food Security Institute

First Nations Elder Dave poses with the heirloom beans he planted earlier this year.

Autumn is upon us! It's time to pull up eggplant and cucumber plants, plant garlic and fall rye, put away the irrigation hoses, and pickle all those green tomatoes. It's also time to bring the mason bees in out of the cold, sort and store heirloom beans and edible flower seeds (including calendula, borage, and sunflowers), and generally batten down the hatches for winter.

In the next two weeks, the Rooftop Garden Volunteer Team will be busily working on these and other tasks. If you're interested in helping out, let us know.


Colourful pepa de zapallo heirlooms, a bean variety originally from Chile.


Fresh tomatoes and eggplant from the roof. At a recent cooking workshop, we made two simple eggplant dishes with home-grown produce: Japanese-style grilled eggplant with sweet miso sauce, and Vietnamese-style roasted eggplant salad with fresh herbs and chilies.




Food Security volunteers assembling jars of flavoured sugar to sell as a fundraiser.


We'll miss you, Emily! Toronto is lucky to have you.


Persimmon and fig trees in their temporary spot on the Rooftop Garden (waiting to be planted at the Harvest Fair).


Esther at the information booth.


Our flavoured sugars come with one easy sugar cookie recipe and some facts about sugar you might not have known. For example:

Sugar production supported the early Dutch, French, and English colonial empires. Sugar cane grew on slave plantations in the Caribbean and South America, helping to fuel the slave trade with Africa. Cotton and tobacco slave plantations in the American South were modeled after 17th century British sugarcane plantations.

In 2009, Canadian company Rogers Sugar began growing genetically modified sugar beets in Alberta, despite over 4000 concerned emails and letters from consumers. Now Rogers will be selling genetically modified sugar made from the beets.


Windermere volunteers at the Harvest Competition table. Pictured: winning entry for the Biggest Sunflower category.


















Winning entry for "biggest zucchini" (Photo courtesy Youth Media














Tammy explains the Harvest Competition (Photo courtesy Youth Media.


Coming soon: The Tree Planting Story and photos, safe canning tips, the death and times of Norman Borlaug.