I am a design educator and urban vegetable gardener. For the past 18 seasons I have micro farmed a roof-top vegetable garden in downtown Toronto, Canada which has been described as a “first-class example of both urban food productivity and creative applied research.” The vegetable garden on both upper and lower roofs consists of approximately 50 planters of various sizes, shapes and material. Vertical trellises for climbing fruit and vegetables help to extend the growing area and a versatile aluminum framing system acts as a season extender when used with a variety of coverings such as shade cloth, greenhouse plastic, mesh and floating row cloth.

The beds and planters features a water oxygen reservoir known as a SIPs. The sub-irrigated planter reservoir system capitalizes on capillary action providing the plants with consistent water and oxygen at the root level. This growing system greatly contributes to a plant’s optimal growth in a challenging roof top environment and conversely saves water, nutrients and time. I have given private and public SIPs workshops at the Urban Agricultural Summit held at the Toronto Metropolitan University, The Canadian Organic Growers Conference (COG), St Jamestown, Seedy Saturday Brickworks, Richters Herbs and The Zen Buddhist Temple. I have also been a guest speaker for the Vertical Veg Club Webinar in the UK.

I have led a group of volunteer gardeners in the conversion of raised beds into SIPs at Winchester Park and The Children’s Garden in High Park.

My own garden has been featured in written articles and published photographically in books, magazines and seed catalogs.

In 2015 my roof top veggie garden was awarded a Design Award of Excellence in the Small Scale Residential Category from the organization Green Roofs for Healthy Cities. I accepted the Award in Brooklyn, New York. In 2021 I was featured in the documentary “In My Backyard” by documentarian Jamie Day Fleck.