Get grounded with weekly audio love letters to an urban garden
What does the garden sound like? What does it feel like throughout the year? What is unfolding in this moment? What am I tending and savouring this week? I’m Jen Knoch, an urban gardener in Toronto, and I’m bringing some of the marvels, triumphs, and inevitable challenges of this growing season to your ears. Gardening Out Loud is a series of weekly audio love letters to, and conversations with, a little patch of soil. Listen in for my reflections and observations as I experiment with sonic chronicles of the 2023 growing season.
This isn’t about how-to or to-do, though I’ll talk about what I’m up to as the weeks go by. Above all I want to hone gardening’s most essential skill: paying attention. After a dozen years, I’m still working on it, and I’d like to share that practice with you. Grow along with me, in your imagination or in your own space, as I cultivate food and cut flowers, and soak up the beauty of this tiny urban refuge. Gardening Out Loud is restorative radio to help us all slow down, get grounded, and make a bit of space for connection and natural wonder.
The Land
The garden is about 650 square feet of west-facing growing space, located just west of downtown Toronto, Canadian plant hardiness zone 6A. (5A by USDA categories.) It sits in the yard of my rented apartment in a century house whose future is always uncertain — each season I get to garden here is a gift. I have grown food and flowers in this soil for 12 years; for about six of those years, I had the joy of gardening here with my best friend. Before that, this space was cultivated by my Italian-Canadian neighbour, Vito, who passed away almost a decade ago and first turned the soil and constructed the side bed that runs the length of the yard.
The garden sits on the traditional territories the Mississaugas of the Credit, who are the current treaty holders. It is within the lands of the Dish with One Spoon wampum agreement, made between the Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee, which binds them to share the land peacefully and protect it. Settlers and other Indigenous groups are invited to participate in the spirit of the agreement. The one spoon for the common dish ensures that everyone is responsible keeping the dish full and that no one takes too much. I endeavour to steward the land in a respectful and sustainable way, sharing abundance and supporting human and non-human life.
The Gardener
I am a professional book editor, an amateur environmental activist, and occasionally a writer. You can read my pieces on gardening and agriculture in Chatelaine, the Globe and Mail, and The Quarantine Review. I’ve also been published in Reader’s Digest and the Toronto Star. For two years, I wrote the newsletter Five Minutes for the Planet, which took a science-based look at eco issues looking for what we can do about them. With 12 years of gardening experience, I know a lot but still have so much to learn. I live overlooking the garden with my partner and our sweet black cat. Follow me on Instagram @jkknoch.
Join me?
Opening theme composed and performed by Jordan Venn, with support from my avian neighbours. Photo by Jennifer Curtis.
