It's funny how all the winners are either Italian for have Italian sounding names... does something in the culture manifest as a green thumb?
Lawns are yawns. Grass is passé. That's the message coming out of a recent contest masterminded by City Farmer, a nonprofit urban agriculture group that set out this summer to uncover the best food gardens in Vancouver. The contest attracted only 26 entrants, but, organizers say, the idea came late in the season evolving from earlier efforts to organize a food-garden tour. Entries revealed that gardeners are modest folk: many competitors (including all the winners) were nominated by their neighbours. Gardeners are also proud folk: arriving unannounced, with only a street number to guide them, the City Farmer judges soon found themselves being guided through the greenery, says program coordinator Spring Gillard, and in one case they were even fed chicory, harvested on the spot, rushed to the kitchen, cooked, and drizzled with oil and vinegar.
How space was utilized, crop diversity, whether or not there was a composting system, overall health of the vegetation, and visual appeal, plus "an emotional response that's hard to grade", all influenced the marks allotted. Only the narrowest of margins separated the three winners: Rocco Calogero, Manuel Arruda, and Tarcisio Pasetto.
Filled with, at different times, chicory, radicchio, basil, tomatoes, kiwis, figs, grapes, prunes, pears, and corn, Calogero's garden occupies two back yards and much of the front yard. It produces something different every week, says his daughter Lucy: "[My father] has been growing vegetables since he moved from Italy over 30 years ago. My mother makes enough tomato sauce for the family year-round, and sends some to my sister in Victoria."
In second place was Manuel Arruda, whose garden includes an orangery with oranges, lemons, tangerines, and guavas all flourishing; three different pear varieties on one tree (many food gardeners graft); and a thicket of densely planted beans. The Pasetto garden includes, according to Gillard, "what looked like a field of radicchio. He eats salad twice a day, and says, 'Some people watch TV 16 hours a day. I garden.' " An honourable mention went to graduate student, farm activist, and UBC Farm caretaker Derek Masselin for his personal garden on the UBC campus. (Tours of his garden are available weekdays. Call 822-3560. Organizers hope winner's gardens will form a larger tour next year.)
Entrants spanned socioeconomic, ethnic, and geographic boundaries. A new Canadian family on the East Side raises the "three sisters" - beans, squash, and corn - all ripening companionably together. A doctor in Shaughnessy grows salsify, Jerusalem artichokes, and a guerrilla squash that climbs from his compost bin and clambers over the garage roof. A Kitsilano roof garden rewards its owner with cucumbers, chard, arugula, basil, and heirloom tomatoes, all grown in containers.
For many, moving away from the traditional grass lawn is a health issue; for some, it's a way of socializing. "A lot of gardeners use their front yards [for food gardens]," Gillard says. "They're not hidden away at the back." And a front yard bursting with tomatoes is a topic ripe for conversation.
Vancouver's food gardeners also get marks for environmental awareness. All entrants practise composting and organic growing, and many have water-collection systems. Conscious of the ongoing wheel of the seasons, all routinely save their own vegetable seeds for the following year.
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