Crooked Farmz is a backyard ‘microfarm’ in East York and a research space at Downsview Park that totals about 1/4 acre in size. We culture microbes via small-batch composting methods for use in brewing compost teas, grow a wide variety of market garden vegetables for the local community, offer an assortment of urban agritourism opportunities for small group events, and provide field school workshops across a spectrum of themes related to natural farming and regenerative agriculture.

Core Principles

Biodiversity. Biodiversity is the first word that guides everything we hope to accomplish in trying to improve soil health. To this end we pay attention to diverse composting techniques, plant polycultures, native pollinator species, soil food web observations, landrace seed saving, thresholds of least intervention, positive feedback loops, and edge effects.

Green Economy Leadership. Climate change demands movement away from traditional business practices into more environmentally-sustainable alternatives. Leadership in these new practices will emerge as much from grassroots entrepreneurship as it will from large corporations: we seek economies that are circular, reciprocal, zero waste, and low carbon.

Benefits Maximization. The first phrase you learn in an MBA program is ‘profit maximization’, and if there’s anything most crooked about Crooked Farmz, it’s the approach taken to this phrase: work within a business context, don’t maximize profit, but maximize benefits for everyone, including ecologies and more-than-human relations.

Learning/Unlearning. Crooked Farmz is continually in the process of learning about agricultural history, composting technique, agroecology, regenerative farming, and more. In turn we share information about these topics on an ongoing basis. Meanwhile we are always attempting to ‘unlearn’ land-based settler-colonial practices and move toward right relations.

Care for Land and Water. The lands on which we work as Crooked Farmz are governed by the Dish With One Spoon wampum, which bound several Indigenous nations to share the territory and protect the land and water. As a settler working with composting and soil health, it is important to likewise endeavour to protect the land and water and respect these obligations.

Mni wiconi – Water is life.

Carbon Footprint

Our goal at Crooked Farmz is to be at the forefront of a new low-carbon economy in the East York area—and we understand this guiding principle is a significant consideration for our customers as well. Not only is this to recognize the wave of the future, but also to acknowledge the importance of history and honour our obligations to care for the land and water on which we live, work, and grow.

Some of the ways we’re attempting to reduce our carbon footprint every day include:

Sourcing and Distribution: 95% of the materials used to make our compost and compost tea are sourced from the immediate neighbourhood, while 95% of our finished compost tea products and amendments are distributed to our ‘very local’ CSA subscribers and farmers’ markets. This allows us to dramatically reduce our reliance on fossil fuels for the logistics of the business.

Packaging: The compost tea brewed for our CSA subscription program and for sale at farmer’s markets is bottled in 1-litre glass mason jars. We retrieve and reuse all of the bottles from our subscribers and accept all used mason jars for return at our farmer’s market stall, reducing our reliance on disposable plastic packaging. The bulk quantities sold as part of our Pro Desk program to professional horticulturalists, landscapers, and backyard farmers are packaged in 5-gallon CFIA-certified food-grade HDPE plastic buckets. We also accept these for return or encourage consumers to donate them to neighbourhood container gardening projects.

Solar Power: As we expand our operations we are attempting to the best degree possible to use solar power for our operations: the water we use for cleaning mason jars and brewery equipment is heated with solar energy, and as we continue to add capacity we plan for all of our brewery pumps to likewise be powered by zero-emission solar.

The Product: Research is increasingly demonstrating that compost tea itself has the potential to sequester atmospheric carbon and store it in the soil. As we increase the number of homeowners and backyard farmers who are using compost and compost tea on their vegetable gardens, ornamentals, perennial shrubs, lawns, etc., we can begin to imagine a patchwork acreage taking shape across East York capturing carbon in its soil ecology.

Brief History

After a number of years of backyard gardening, compost making, and compost tea brewing in East York, Crooked Farmz was first visioned in the fall of 2018 and opened to the public in spring 2019. We’re now entering our sixth season of business.

A few highlights:

2019- Our first season, operating out of a 750-sq.ft backyard microfarm, with 23 dates total to sell freshly-brewed compost tea at Withrow Park and Cabbagetown Farmers’ Markets. Compost tea is also available as a 4-issue monthly subscription with home delivery: 6 subscriptions sold in the first season. Won first prize in the DIY Innovation category at the Toronto Urban Growers’ Best in GrowTO urban gardening competition for improvements to an urban thermophilic composting method. 

2020- COVID-19 pandemic leads to major increases in home gardening, but also major restrictions on farmers’ markets. 6 dates total at Withrow Park. Formal re-launch of subscription program as a CSA package, which includes home delivery: 13 subscribers join. Beginning of bulk sales to professional clients. Won first prize in the Professional Innovation category at Best in GrowTO with an inexpensive design for a scalable compost tea brewer.

2021- A focus on the CSA subscription program grows the base to 51 subscribers. Formal launch of our Pro Desk program, which brews compost tea in bulk quantities for professionals on demand: immediate uptake in Toronto horticulture market. Farmers’ markets: 13 dates total between Withrow Park and Leslieville. Crooked Farmz won the Innovation category for the third time at Best in GrowTO with an open source schematic for producing quality biodiverse composts in a limited footprint.

2022- Farmers’ markets: 18 dates total between Withrow Park, Leslieville, and Sorauren, plus 4 pickup-point dates at Downsview Park. CSA numbers drop by 80% attrition but then rebound to 37 subscribers. Development of agricultural and arboricultural Pro Desk markets. Signed a 5-year lease with Fresh City Farms for a 2,500 sq.ft growing space at the Downsview Park Farmers’ Project and began improving soil later in October.

2023- Farmers’ markets: 23 dates total at Withrow Park, Leslieville, Sorauren, East Lynn, Eglinton Way, and The Stop at Wychwood Barns, plus 12 pickup-point dates at Downsview Park, and Toronto Native Plant Market. CSA program grows to 64 subscribers. Formal launch of CRAY@Downsview (the Compost Research Array at Downsview Park Farm), which includes a compost workshop teaching facility, Three Sisters lunar garden and permaculture space, Johnson-Su demonstration farm, and the beginning of a landrace squash breeding project.