“When you start your seedlings in April, and it ends up growing in September and you only harvest one tomato, you eat it! Damaged or not…”
Chloé Fortier-Devin gets carried away while telling me about raising awareness of the waste caused by urban agriculture. And I laugh recognizing that I ate the ugliest cucumber last summer. I would never have bought it at the grocery store, but I had grown it, so I actually lowered my quality standards.
I just wasn’t warned that it was so difficult to grow food that looked… like food.
It is precisely to rediscover the source of her food that Chloé, 30, founded the Jardin de la divinette: “We are so disconnected from what we eat and how it is produced! Just growing herbs allows us to better appreciate the work of the market gardeners who feed us. »
Except that Chloé went much further than that to understand the nature of said work…
Holder of a bachelor’s degree in arts from Concordia, she began her career as a museum mediator when the pandemic interrupted our lives. The one who has been gardening on her balcony for five years then gave new impetus to her hobby by convincing her father, a trained horticulturist, to create a vegetable garden on the roof of the family plex. The same summer, Chloé signed up for an introductory day at the Complètement légume farm, in Mirabel… In 2021, she joined as a market gardener for the summer season.
The adaptation is “intense”, specifies Chloé Fortier-Devin. “The first week, you sleep well, but you hurt everywhere! » This is nothing to slow down his budding passion. At the same time, she grows seedlings from artisanal seed companies in Quebec… Not on the farm, but in her living room. His plants quickly found buyers. Noting people’s interest and their many questions, Chloé wrote and illustrated an urban gardening guide: Planning a balcony vegetable garden.
Sunshine, space, type of pots, soil, fertilizer… The little booklet casts a wide net and marks the first stage of the consulting services company which will be born in 2022: the Riddle Garden.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
For several years, Chloé has been producing her own seedlings.
Seedling production then moves to the basement of Chloé’s father, Richard Devin. Hence “Garden of the riddle “.
The name of the company testifies to a filial love, but also to the fact that for Chloé, “gardening is a lot of experimentation, tests and discoveries”.
Let’s think about the water storage tanks that she and a cabinetmaker friend created last year. The entrepreneur uses heavy-duty storage bins, agricultural drains and filling tubes to make 100 liter bins which include 25 liters of water reserve. “The water rises in the plant by capillary action with the roots and the earth,” she explains to me. It irrigates itself and the water reserve can last up to a week! »
Still with a view to sharing, she plans to offer a bin manufacturing workshop with 5-gallon boilers and recovered materials (let’s say it’s a format better suited to balconies).
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
The new premises of the Jardin de la divinette, in Rosemont
This year, the resourceful entrepreneur is starting a new chapter: she is finally occupying commercial space, “with a lease and everything”! In mid-February, Chloé Fortier-Devin moved into a 200 square foot room hidden in the basement of the Ateliers de la Transition Socio-Écologique, in the Rosemont–La Petite-Patrie district, in Montreal.
A logical place, considering that ecology is at the heart of this urban agriculture initiative.
First, there is a desire for hyperlocality and to allow customers to pick up their seedlings on foot. Then all the pots are recorded. Even though Chloé is currently testing plants without a pot using a clod press which creates very solid blocks of soil vaguely resembling brownies.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
It’s mid-April, as production begins. Within a month, the plants will be mature.
She does not yet know if it will be entirely conclusive, but she does not hesitate to inform her customers of her tests. The farmer advocates transparency and communication. (She also asked the virtual subscribers of the Riddle Garden to vote for the shirt she would wear during the photo shoot. Good choice, everyone.)
Either way, gardening is about letting go. Many of us have understood this in recent years.
I learned, by reading this 2022 article, that 53% of the population of Quebec maintained some form of vegetable garden in 2022. More importantly: 6% of these gardeners had started their activities during the pandemic, according to a survey produced by Dalhousie University and the Angus Reid firm.
Read the article “Gardening is becoming more and more popular”
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Several plants are intended for the Bouffe-Action collective gardens, in the Rosemont district.
Chloé embodies this enthusiasm: “Food security is important in times of crisis… And gardening is good for the body and the mind. It doesn’t have to be complicated when you put the stuff in place to make it work! You have to have a good time with your plants. »
So, any advice for people who want to join the movement without getting upset (or who only know how to grow terrible cucumbers)?
“Start without too many expectations,” answers Chloé Fortier-Devin. Sometimes you start out with ideas of self-sufficiency and it might not happen right away! I also suggest growing what you like, then trying varieties and colors you can’t find at the grocery store. Oh, and to put flowers in the vegetable garden! Because it will be beautiful and it will attract pollinators. Ultimately, you have to be patient. Gardening is the opposite of the immediacy to which we are accustomed with our hectic pace of life. Sometimes we look at a plant and want to shout “GROW!”, but it’s no use. We work with living things… There are always surprises. »
After all, who doesn’t like surprises?
Visit the Jardin de la divinette website