Projects

City Farm School was an urban agriculture training program that was designed to prepare and support its participants to become emerging leaders in the urban agriculture movement. To achieve this goal the school addressed three main areas:

1 – Organic food growing – learning how to grow food in the city
2 – Food Politics – understanding & addressing food security and food sovereignty
3 – Creating sustainable communities – community engagement

City Farm School focused on educational engagement to create unique demonstration sites which addressed issues of urban agriculture and food security. The program grew out of a pilot project in the Concordia Greenhouse in 2010 to become the leading urban agriculture training program in Montreal. During it’s tenure it ran at maximum capacity each year engaging more than 200 people in the internship programs, and an additional 150 people in the advanced courses.   Beyond the student body, City Farm School interacted with more than  1000 Concordia community members, 250 volunteers,  15 external organizations and grew over 2000 kg of fresh produce on campus.

The Tea Atrium was one of the main public spaces in the greenhouse and hosted many events, from fundraisers to educational workshops. The atrium encompassed two rooms and was filled with medicinal herbs. The main activities of the Tea Atrium Project included maintaining the garden and drying herbs to make and provide low-cost tea for those who visited the greenhouse. In the past, we also worked to share more information with the public about the medicinal herbs grown on site.

This project aimed to construct an accessible, year-round urban gardening demonstration for Concordia students and the wider Montréal community, installed permanently in the Concordia Greenhouse. The Balcony Garden was intended to attract individuals interested in practical, small-space gardening. Alongside the installation, staff produced an online balcony-gardening resource tailored specifically to Montréal growers, addressing a clear gap in locally relevant, practical information. This downloadable PDF compiled step-by-step instructions from the demo site and guidance on common challenges, and its impact was assessed through download metrics and reports of new balcony-gardening initiatives in the city.

The project also served as a hands-on, participatory learning opportunity, inviting students and community members to develop skills related to urban agriculture. More broadly, the Balcony Garden contributed to the urban-agriculture movement at Concordia by offering an interactive entry point for growing food and medicinal herbs, complementing existing student-led initiatives such as rooftop gardens, sustainable cafés, and composting programs.

This project also offered four workshops: Vertical Gardening 101, Self-Watering Containers, Managing Pests, Compost, and Fertilization, and Starting Your Balcony Garden. Over the years the Balcony space became an integrated focal point of the Greenhouse and was a favourite space for students to hang out.