Green Thumbs Up

07/19/2024

🧄 Garlic harvest!! Pulling up sooooo much garlic from the roof today. WE LOVE GARLIC! Amazing what you can grow in 5 inches of soil :) 🧄

07/17/2024

🌧️ After such a huge rainfall yesterday in Toronto, it really shows how important storm water management is in a city. Adding green roofs to the tops of buildings can reduce storm water runoff and help prevent flooding. Support sustainable urban planning for a greener future! 🌱🌍

Photo credit and for more information, visit https://urbanwater.melbourne.vic.gov.au/industry/treatment-types/green-roofs/

07/12/2024

Ella & Shenice are setting up the trellis' for our tomatoes! Come out to the Cabbagetown Farmers' Market to see what else we are growing!

07/10/2024

Check out our blog for some AMAZING testimonials from our school programs this year:

July 10, 2024 - We've had a very nice spring season in our school gardens. Participants range from Kindergarteners to post-secondary undergrad and graduate students!This was a fantastic experience for all! Tasting, smelling, learning about the plants in their garden, a green peaceful outdoor space.....

06/06/2024

Come out and volunteer in our Wi******er Garden! Located at Rose Ave and Wi******er St in Cabbagetown, every Monday at 4pm. Learn about edible and native plants and get your hands dirty! For more information, email us at [email protected]

05/14/2024

Our roof beds are prepped for another amazing year :) We begin planting corn and sunflower seeds tomorrow!

03/15/2024

2023 Year Recap!
Were getting ready for the 2024 season now... And in order to look forward, you need to first look behind you.

11/03/2023

Pumpkin grown on the roof, turned jack-o-lantern for the Cabbagetown Farmers' Market

08/18/2023

Getting into our late season crops - our sunflowers are 14 feet tall! Pretty impressive when you know that they are growing in just 6 inches of soil!

07/25/2023

Come see what we are growing! Green Thumbs is at the Cabbagetown Farmers' Market every Tuesday, selling produce all grown within 1 km of Riverdale park. Come out and buy your hyper local, organically grown vegetables and support your favourite farmers.

07/21/2023

Benefits of green roofs:
🌱 Provides food and habitat for insects and birds
🌱 Encourages biodiversity in urban landscapes
🌱 Reduces storm water run off
🌱 Cools buildings during the summer, helping them to use less energy
🌱 Reduces outdoor ambient temperature, reducing heat island effect

07/13/2023

July 7- Adding mulch to the roof garden. The sunflowers are up to our elbows and the tomatoes are starting to bear fruit!! It's so amazing what you can grow on 5 inches of soil!
Green Thumbs Growing Kids Urban Farm at TMU Nature's Path Organic

07/03/2023

Plants are popping up! The beginning of June, about a month ago, we were so excited to see our Bok Choi becoming leafy, our corn and sunflowers popping up, and our eggplants starting to look strong. It never ceases to amaze us how magical it is when plants begin to emerge and take shape.

Sophie is our tomato expert and is lovingly trimming our seedlings for optimal growth. Can't wait to try our first sun warmed, summer tomato!

06/28/2023

May 15th - We've added compost and worm castings as soil amendments and have planted out our tomatoes, eggplants, leeks, and peppers. The irrigation is ready and weve covered our salad greens for now. Now we watch them grow!

06/26/2023

May 12 - Sophie setting up the tomato trellis' while Becca sets out the irrigation soaker hoses. The garden infrastructure is now basically complete! Now to just finish planting out our seeds and seedlings and then watch it all grow :)

06/22/2023

Green Thumbs Up is a runner up for Nature's Path Organic Gardens For Good grant. Please vote for us here!

Our Gardens for Good grant program helps to support and empower those using organic community gardens to alleviate food security for their families and neighbors and create a positive social impact on the communities in which they are grown.

06/16/2023

At the beginning of May, we finished creating our garden beds. These 2 photos, taken from the kitchen on the 3rd floor of the Daniels Spectrum Building, show our hard work and progress. Now we have 4 garden beds, each about 40 feet long and between 2.5 to 5 feet wide.

We dug the pathways down to ALMOST the roof membrane and then filled it with wood chips. The soil we dug from the paths was added to the beds to create mounds and add soil depth (remember we are working with 6 inches of soil here!).
The largest garden on the right is a lasagne garden bed we created on top of the sedum for our Three Sisters patch - Much more information and excitement to come from this bed in particular so stay tuned!

06/15/2023

April 19th - Finished digging up 2 more garden beds and set down mulch and row cover. Kale has been planted in the first row and our garlic is coming up!

06/13/2023

Green Thumbs Up is a project of Green Thumbs Growing Kids, being spearheaded by horticulturists, Sophie & Rebecca. Together we are cultivating a 1000 square foot market garden upon 6 inches of soil with much more space to expand.

This photo was taken April 6, 2023 - after watching Urban Farm at TMU's bed creation video, we were inspired and modelled our farm after their example. 1 bed down, 4 more to go!


Bed Prep Video from TMU Urban Farm: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kyCEhruBw_U