A Week With Robyn Harvey

Last week we received a phone call. Robyn Harvey, community gardening expert and environmental advocate was tending his plots and invited us to join him. We raced over to see what Robyn was up to and to check out his fantastic gardens. When we arrived, Robyn was all smiles, touring around the garden, offering us herbs to nibble on and teaching us about leaf composting, planting and spacing in the garden. He let us plant some tomatoes and taught us the trick of adding bone meal to the compost while planting. Robyn was full of gardening stories and tips, as well as humor in the garden. His biggest advice to us was to always remain humble. Gardening is an art, but much of the work and success is not up to us! The day felt a little surreal. Robyn was commenting on the amazing gardening happening around the city, and hopes and dreams for the future. His dream involves young people participating in the urban food movement: Veggie City setting a great example of the possibilities in years to come. Did we also mention that Robyn has an uncanny knack with young people? Throughout our day with him, he showed patience, humour and spontaneity to two of our mini volunteers, and over the week that we spent with him planting our resident gardens, Robyn was able to draw out mini residents and include them in planting and watering the veggies. We not only learned to separate our basil and cilantro herbs before planting, but Robyn helped us to make sure that our plants had enough space to grow and that we had optimized our gardening space. Robyn will continue to mentor us, especially during harvesting times, offering up much needed support along the way. Thank you Robyn for getting your hands (and feet) dirty with the Veggie City crew!