This time tomorrow, I will be back on the farm where I spent all my childhood summers. One hundred acres in rural Ontario, where we roamed free until the farmhouse bell rang us in for meals. It’s what the neighbours must consider a hobby farm, though to be fair it is actually a tree farm – half of it wild bush, another quarter planted with tidy rows of pine and spruce; trees that were bought, a penny a piece in the early ‘70’s, from the government of Ontario during a reforestation campaign, on the condition they wouldn’t be cut down for at least twenty-five years. Other than the few dozen that served as Christmas trees over the years, they’re all still standing. There are also three fields, used by local farmers for harvesting hay, and then there is the vegetable garden, still tended by my father, for the family’s personal use. 

Although it is not a working farm in the traditional sense, it is still the epicentre of my agricultural education.  As children, we were encouraged to tend our own vegetable beds, planting an assortment of seeds with great excitement, then weeding with considerably less enthusiasm, if at all. We were sent to the garden before dinner, to pick peas or beans, or snip herbs. We ate warm tomatoes straight off the vine, and wiped carrots on our shorts to get the dirt off before crunching into them. Sometimes, when there was simply too much to eat or give away at the end of the summer, we were allowed to make vegetable people, with overgrown zucchini bodies, pepper heads and corn silk hair, assembled with toothpicks. When I get back tomorrow, I will see my grandfather’s asparagus forest still producing and my grandmother’s gooseberry bush ripening, despite the fact that those who planted them have been gone for some time.  

A recent crop of books with ‘Farm’ in the title has triggered this nostalgic daydreaming. In fact, I’m supposed to be reviewing them. City Farmer: Adventures in Urban Food Growing (Greystone) is written by Canadian gardening guru Lorraine Johnson. This book is incredibly reassuring for urban dwellers who can relate to my childhood memories of running out to the garden for fresh produce. The truth is you do not need a whole farm to grow food to feed your family. You can do it in your backyard, on your rooftop or your balcony. I’ve recently read about people who have been successfully gardening in containers suspended down their apartment windows . If you need more convincing, or some advice or motivation, then City Farmer is a fantastic resource. Johnson’s book is a manifesto on how city farmers can become more active, while Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer (Penguin Press) is Oakland, CA-based Novella Carpenter’s humorous memoir of farming in the city. This one is at the top my summer reading list, based on the glowing New York Times review found here. In Farmer Jane : Women Changing the Way We Eat (Gibbs Smith), Temra Costa was prompted by the nineteen percent increase in women farm operators from 2002 – 2007 to profile various women (including Novella Carpenter) who are furthering the sustainable food movement. Each of the chapters examine areas of change in which women are involved increasing the level of sustainability in their local food systems. As the feminine voice in agriculture becomes more pronounced, Farmer Jane provides information and support to those who wish to better understand the movement, or become involved themselves. It's true when they say that "farms feed cities". However, there's no reason why cities can't pitch in as well.