Page 18 - 06_July-Aug-2025

City
Health
Food for Tomorrow
From rogue orchards to rooftop gardens, a growing
urban agriculture movement is feeding Edmonton
On a recent summer morning,
I walked my dog to Laurier Heights
Food Forest, a community orchard with
fruit-bearing trees and berry bushes.
Chopper sat patiently beside the bushes
while I gathered our favourite sun-warmed
raspberries and chatted with my 94-year-
old neighbour who became a community
league member to help maintain the forest.
Like many, she initially thought it was a
City of Edmonton project, but in fact, it
began as an unsanctioned initiative by
long-time residents Marilyn Dale and
Karen Wilk, who first imagined creating a
community orchard in 2018. They pitched
their idea to Community Services in a
Dragons’ Den-style competition and won
$1,000 towards the purchase of trees and
plants. That was the easy part.
After almost a year of navigating the
paperwork and still not getting anywhere,
they took matters into their own hands.
“We went completely rogue,” says Wilk,
then president of the Laurier Heights
Community League, which is how we met.
(Full disclosure: I joined the board in 2023,
and now volunteer as communications
lead.) With a small army of “guerilla
gardeners” (amongst the volunteers, a
master orchardist and permaculture
expert), they rented a bobcat and started
digging and planting — government
approval be damned.
The City eventually sanctioned the
project and permitted its expansion. It’s a
good thing too, considering that it just
cancelled the City Farms program, a
five-acre urban farm that produced over
114,000 kilograms of fresh produce exclu-
sively for Edmonton Food Bank clients.
With household budgets stretched thin and
food prices continuing to rise, we need to
think about feeding ourselves. Food forests
are one simple way to help. Sharing food
from our personal gardens is another.
The Yard Becomes Farm
Canadians have a long history of growing
their own food in difficult times. During
the Second World War, communities
across the country planted Victory
Avi Levin's PHD Farms self-serve sidewalk market in Ottewell
INSET: Cherries from Laurier Heights Food Forest
Gardens to reduce pressure on transpor-
tation networks needed to move soldiers
and supplies and boost morale. During
the pandemic, tending gardens was a
practical pastime and a meaningful
way for people to stay grounded. For
some, it also became essential to their
well-being and sense of resilience.
When Avi Levin lost his job as a molec-
ular virologist in 2018, gardening helped
manage the stress of unemployment.
Within a few years, his stress-relief garden
in Ottewell was producing more than he
could eat, so he set up a small market cart
in his front yard to sell extra apricots,
herbs and vegetables for cheap. Today,
Levin’s Ottewell property, including his
home and renovated garage, is a veritable
urban farm. Starting in December, he
grows hundreds of seedlings on rolling
metal racks in time for the spring open-
ing of his self-serve market. I visited him
just before the May long weekend to buy
organic, home-grown seedlings for my
garden.
Levin is soft-spoken and reserved —
until you ask about planting. “People just
don’t know that there are so many things
you can grow here,” he says, showing me
the vines on an arched trellis that will
photo NATASHA CHIAM; cherries DIANE KIRWIN, LAURIER HEIGHTS FOOD FOREST COORDINATOR
18 EDify. JULY•AUGUST.25