This text is part of the special Environment section
The Montreal region often conjures up images of crowded terraces on the first sunny days of spring, festivals, skyscrapers and certainly, also, bridges and traffic congestion. Rarely is it associated with gardening. And yet…
Logan Penvern, who is doing his doctorate in environmental sciences at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) under the supervision of Éric Duchemin, director of the Urban Agriculture Laboratory, discovered that more than a third of people who inhabit the metropolitan area garden.
The doctoral student studied the data from a survey carried out among 1,375 randomly selected residents in five territories chosen for the difference in the profiles of their inhabitants and their types of housing: the Montréal-Nord and Côte-Saint-Paul–Ville- Émard, in Montreal, the Chomedey district, in Laval, and the cities of Longueuil and Terrebonne. Between 31% and 44% of people garden in these areas.
Among the people surveyed, one household in ten even manages to produce more than a quarter of its consumption of fresh fruit and vegetables during the summer months. The share of crops in the diet of people who garden varies, but it is in Montreal North that it is the most important, with four out of ten households. “However, it is the territory studied which has the highest density, and it is not there that there is the most space for gardening”, indicates Logan Penvern, who won the audience award at the the UQAM final of the My thesis in 180 seconds competition.
How to encourage gardening?
Surprised to see that gardening is so popular in Montreal North, Logan Penvern also sought to understand why. “It was noted that several of those who responded to the survey mentioned that they garden outside their place of residence, often in the ground, thanks to community gardening programs as a tool for greening and food security” , he explains.
To garden, you must of course have access to land and have time. “The survey made us see that there is often a contradiction: several wealthy families have a house with land, so they have access to space, but do not have time to garden, indicates Logan Penvern. For their part, less well-off households often have less access to space because they live in apartments, but some would have time to garden. »
In Rosemont, the Partage ta terre initiative tackles this contradiction by pairing people who lend their land to people who want to garden there.
There are also different strategies for gardening despite a lack of space. “For example, we will see vertical crops on the balconies with climbing beans in particular, remarks Éric Duchemin. On the balconies, where it is often very hot, we will also see people installing water reserve trays so that they do not need to water their plants several times a day. »
To promote gardening, we must also ensure that people have the knowledge to do so. “There are several training courses offered, such as those of the Urbainculteurs, the Grand Potager, the Académie potagère, and we have put the site online cultivatetaville.comthe Quebec portal for urban agriculture,” lists Éric Duchemin.
Perseverance is also necessary for gardening. “It takes time to create good soil in an urban environment, and we have to adapt our crops to pests, such as the leaf beetle, which is very present in the Montreal region, and the squash borer”, specifies the professor, who gardens in his backyard in Pointe-Saint-Charles.
Logan Penvern, who chose his doctoral thesis topic to pay tribute to his Breton grandmother who produced the best potatoes he had eaten in his life, describes himself as a very bad gardener. But he continues to grow a few plants on his balcony. “The squirrels are enjoying it more than me,” he laughs.
A solution to environmental challenges?
The vegetable gardens provide gardeners with fresh fruits and vegetables without the need for transport, but the quantities produced remain too small to make a difference on the environmental level, according to Éric Duchemin.
He believes that it is especially in terms of greening and biodiversity that urban gardening brings something. “All these gardens provide space for birds and insects, including bees, which play a big role in pollination,” he explains.
Urban agriculture also makes it possible to reuse the organic matter in which there is phosphorus. “Phosphorus is a non-renewable resource: it comes from phosphate mines,” explains Mr. Duchemin. We must keep it as long as possible in the loop of agriculture, and one of the solutions would be to use more compost, which we produce in large quantities, to grow fruits and vegetables in the city. »