This is a dangerous time to be a vegetable at the University of Toronto.
A small garden outside the Students’ Administrative Council building has become a centre of controversy in recent months.
The small plot of land has provoked high-level meetings between student leaders and university administration, become a symbol for community gardeners, and been the target of horticultural terrorism.
The seeds of this controversy were sown by the Prolific Potters Project (PPP), a group whose mandate is to provide organic vegetables for hungry students through U of T’s food bank.
The PPP had been planting organic vegetables—quite peacefully—in concrete planters outside the Graduate Students Union (GSU), but those plans were uprooted when nearby renovation meant the plants had to be moved. SAC offered to put the garden in front of their building at 12 Hart House Circle.
“It wasn’t an approved change to the landscape,” says Gary Nower, Manager of Grounds Services at the Facilities and Services Department. “They removed hostas from the [planting] bed. Those plants cost money.”
“We thought that last year’s SAC executive had gotten permission from the Accommodations and Facilities Directorate (AFD),” said SAC University Affairs Commissioner Mohammed Hashim.
The AFD is the committee responsible for approving all renovation and construction of university property, and would have had to approve the transplant.
“What we learned, after we dug it all up, was that the permission wasn’t there,” Hashim said.
A high-level meeting was called to resolve the situation.
This meeting, according to Elan Ohayon, a governor-elect to the Governing Council and a member of the PPP, included about a dozen representatives—the U of T administration, the PPP, and the three student councils, SAC, GSU, and APUS.
The resolution was amicable on both sides. “On the whole,” says Mary Auxi-Guiao, equity commissioner for SAC, “The University Administration and Grounds do support us…but there was a lot of miscommunication.”
Gary Nower agrees: “We said [in the meeting], ‘Nobody’s against your proposals, but you need to get approval.'” The PPP and Grounds are now cooperating on the garden: “We’ve irrigated the area so [the PPP] won’t have to worry about water so much,” says Nower.
But just as the two sides were reconciling, unknown parties were plotting against the garden.
“About two weeks after we got approval to continue at the project, we found a white substance sprinkled around the garden,” says Auxi-Guiao. “By the end of the week, certain plants that this substance was around started to die.”
The plant assassin remains a mystery, but the murder weapon appears to have been salt.
“It seemed kind of strategic, the way only certain plants were targeted,” says Auxi-Guiao. “I know it seems kind of ridiculous, but this looks premeditated.”
“Most people who vandalize just rip the plants out of the ground or tear off tree branches,” says Nower.
Though the martyred garden was never producing bushels of food, people involved say it was an important symbol, and that it will be replanted.
“We got a zucchini, I think a few lettuce plants were saved, some basil. Maybe a sunflower or two,” says Hashim.
“Carolyn Xia [of the PPP] is revitalizing the whole garden.”
But with the plant-killer still at large, no one can guarantee there won’t be other gruesome episodes of herbicide.
Photograph by Simon Turnbull
