Avenue Magazine Edmonton

Ron Berezan has many happy childhood memories of visiting his Polish grandparents and playing on their five-acre market garden plot in north Edmonton. He remembers late-night games of hide-and-seek and waging fierce shelling wars against his cousins from among the rows of peas. Best of all, he remembers the joy of munching on juicy, fresh-picked strawberries, tomatoes, carrots and peas.

Berezan is carrying on a family tradition in his choice of livelihood, but instead of growing and selling produce like his grandparents on both sides, he designs and builds what he calls “edible landscapes” for health- and environmentally conscious urban clients. He also teaches them how to grow their own food, a skill that has diminished over the last two generations as suburban-style lawns and ornamental beds replaced vegetable gardens in the city.

“People are hungry for a new food experience,” says Berezan, who launched The Urban Farmer five years ago. “They want a closer connection to their food. They’re becoming more aware of the price being paid in taste, freshness and quality for the mass-produced food they buy in grocery stores. They’re also concerned about environmental and food-security issues.”

Vegetable gardening is enjoying a resurgence of popularity in Canada and the U.S., where seed sales doubled in 2008 over the previous year, according to the Garden Writers Association.

“All the experts predict it will be one of the top gardening trends of 2009,” says Tina Burback, manager of Greenland Garden Centre in Sherwood Park. The “grow it yourself” idea is catching on, agrees Jim Hole, co-owner of Hole’s Greenhouses. Hole expects vegetable seed sales this year to
increase by 25 to 50 per cent, and vegetable transplant sales by as much as 20 per cent.

Health and environmental concerns — as epitomized by the 100-mile diet movement that promotes buying locally produced food — as well as a troubled economy and escalating food costs have all played a role in the renewed interest in urban vegetable gardening. Berezan now has a six-month waiting list of potential clients for edible landscape design, and his gardening classes (he teaches about 30 a year) fill quickly. 
   
“This is much more than a business,” says the 48-year-old, who has a master’s degree in environmental philosophy. “It’s very satisfying to be able to earn a living doing something that I love, and has social and ecological relevance.” Berezan brings 15 years of experience in social activism to his passion for gardening. He’s deeply concerned about the environmental and economic impact of the large-scale commercial food-growing system, which relies heavily on the consumption of water, fossil fuels and pesticides. A study by the Union of Concerned Scientists, heavily quoted in David Suzuki’s Green Guide, blames this large-scale system as one of the greatest sources, second only to transportation, of environmental pollution today.