Healthy food and garden education

Jane Hayes, Director

Jane is a gardener, educator and artist with eighteen years of experience. She founded Garden Jane in 2007 to help people learn how to grow and connect to healthy food, gardens and each other. Jane has worked with 23,000 people since then (and at least as many plants and soil organisms!). She invites people in with story telling, art and play, and shares what science, research and pattern-based observation have to offer. Her accomplishments include establishing the City of Toronto Children's Garden Program and High Park Children's Garden. The award-winning program still reaches thousands every year and has expanded to include 22 sites. Jane also worked with FoodShare, the City of Toronto's Community Garden program and Evergreen, helping set the stage for the growth of community gardening, school gardens and urban agriculture in Toronto and across Canada. Jane's Bean Keeper program shares seed knowledge across ages, bioregions, schools and organizations. She contributed to Food Not Lawns in Oregon, a group that now works internationally, and simultaneously co-directed Circus Discordia, an amateur circus and fundraiser. Jane has a B.A. in Anthropology and Environmental Studies (U of T), a Masters in Environmental Studies (York U) and certificates in Permaculture Design and Teaching Permaculture. Jane is mom to Chloe and step mom to River.


Jillian Hovey,
Facilitator of Sustainable Community Planning & Design

Jillian is an international permaculture teacher who has been teaching since she received her Permaculture Design Certification in 1996. Her teaching and other projects range from urban lots, to off-gird green houses, to entire eco communities. Jillian holds a B.Sc.(Agr.), and has completed all but her final exam for a Masters in Environmental Studies. Jillian was invited to be the Executive Director of the Ecovillage Network of the Americas in 1997, where she helped to manage the Ecovillage Training Center at The Farm in Tennessee. Jillian subsequently founded The Sustainable Living Network in Toronto, and has served as its Executive Director since 1999. The gardens and offices of the Sustainable Living Network, and the Sustainable Living Books community service bookstore, have inspired and supported thousands of people on their path towards sustainable and healthy living. Jillian has a grounded and clear teaching style, which facilitates deep connection for people in the events she leads. Jillian is deeply committed to her personal growth, and has been mentoring and coaching people on their personal paths for many years.


Daniel Hoffmann / The Cutting Veg

Daniel and The Cutting Veg have joined forces with the Garden Jane team to envision and deliver innovative condo garden and urban agriculture community programming. Daniel is an organic farmer and social worker. He manages The Cutting Veg Organic Farm, an eco-social enterprise working in southern Ontario to cultivate personal, social, environmental, and economic health through organic agriculture. Daniel aims to encourage lifestyles that are healthy for families and the planet by providing local, organic produce through Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) programs in the GTA, in which people become members of the farm for the season, and receive a weekly share of the harvest. Daniel also runs the Global Garlic project, growing ~20 varieties of garlic, including Israeli, Tibetan, Persian, Korean, Italian and more. Daniel oversees The Cutting Veg Food Coaching program, which offers educational opportunities to the community, and includes a Farming Internship, Garden Coaching, "Veg Ed" workshops, and Agri-Biz coaching. Daniel welcomes people to visit the farm and participate in the veggie growing process, so that folks can enjoy the therapeutic and educational benefits of working with the earth and with fellow community members.


Windpath Media

The Windpath Media and Garden Jane teams both have a strong interest in permaculture and have been exploring opportunities to work together. Windpath Media produces innovative documentaries, dramatic feature films, and visual art works that investigate the human condition, draw attention to alternate perspectives, and search for common sense. Windpath Media is excited to work with organizations like Garden Jane whose goals have a foundation in a commitment to principals of permaculture as a way to deal with a changing world.     
 

Interns, Volunteers and Supporters

Interns, volunteers and supporters are an integral part of Garden Jane's team and ability to reach so many at times and work deeply at others. Each person brings energy, a variety of skills and resources. They help garden, research, develop and deliver high quality resources and programs. They help promote and they grow infrastructure so we can generate more economy around the work. In turn they learn, share, build networks and strategies to contribute their own unique piece to the world.

For this current opportunities, see our Permaculture Food Team page.


Stephanie Banh is fascinated with the interactions between permaculture and community health. She aims to connect the green education she is acquiring with her studies in pediatric health. She enjoys contributing to Garden Jane with her work on photos, social media and program delivery.


Caitlin Langlois Greenham is an environmental educator, urban farmer, and permaculturalist who is passionate about transforming our communities and food systems.  She has co-facilitated the Children’s Garden Permaculture Project with Garden Jane since 2011 as part of her Master of Environmental Studies degree.  In 2012, Caitlin co-founded an innovative urban herb farm and herbal products business, Sage Rising (link to sagerisingherbs.worpress.com), with Garden Jane volunteer Jessica Lemieux.  Caitlin believes that we can rebuild our relationships with nature by sinking our hands into the earth whenever we can, sharing our home-grown tomatoes, and always saving seeds to grow again. 


Jessica Lemieux has a passion for food, gardening, and health promotion. When she is not learning about permaculture principles with Jane, she is farming with Fresh City Farms. She is exploring the intersection between permaculture and horticultural therapy. See her blog here. Jessica is expecting a baby this spring.


Holly McLellan was an intern in 2006-7, developing an ecoliteracy program for Woburn Public School. She went on to do the same for a second school in Scarborough through Frontier College. She has recently taken a position as International Director of Programming at the Youth and Philanthropy Initiative. There she is using her community development skills to support youth to learn about getting involved in their communities. Holly is also mom to an inspiring little girl.


Candice O'Grady joins us from New York City. She is using her journalism skills to help develop articles and resources on kids and permaculture gardening, diversity gardening and conflict resolution in gardens. Ask us for her articl, published in Interaction, a publication of the Canadian Child Care Federation. Candice has a little girl lighting up her life.


Nathan Payne graduated with a degree in Food and Nutrition and volunteers his health promotion skills along with contributing to community gardening efforts. He enjoys all aspects of food production and continues to grow in the field visual arts. Nathan is currently taking the Physical Activity Assessment and Promotion certificate through Ryerson and enjoys gardening with the team. Nathan has a lovely baby girl.


Emma Rooney has been with Garden Jane for four years focusing on horticultural therapy and kids gardening. She led the first Garden Jane program for kids touched by cancer, and co-developed and led March Break programs in the Hope Community Garden. Along the way Emma worked as a Project Coordinator at Greenest City for a youth food program and as the City of Toronto's Children's Garden Expansion Assistant. She also coordinates horticultural therapy workshops and is moving to Germany for a year. See her blog.


Blythe Weber completed a year with Garden Jane, bringing deep farming and gardening knowledge with her and leaving ready to start her own business. She launched her business, Growing Spaces, which centres around her farming and preserving skills. She sells her preserves, maple syrup and other yummy goods at Toronto farmer's markets, including Dufferin Grove (Thursdays, 3:30-7) and Sorauren Park (Mondays 3-7). She's expecting a baby this spring.


Kate Willison

Thanks to everyone above as well as past interns Tamara Green, Joanna Jack, Marsha Ostrovsky, Lana Winter, Jingwei Zhang for all they've contributed. Thank you to Robin Salt for her help on the website and course logisitics, Greg Alan Elliott for our logo and signage artwork and to Karoush Javidi for photos we're using in handouts. Thanks to Courtney Raponi for her help with guilds and medicinal plants research. Thanks to all the many gardeners who have helped make the gardens wonderful. Thanks also to David Powell, Anne Shaddick, Carrie Ann Watson, Ian Jarvie, Diana Teale, Diane Wolfe, Lisa Spinks, Laurel Waterman, Lucie Dufault, Katrina Simmons, Harriet Friedmann, Karimah Gheddai, Jerome Godboo, Munju Ravindra, Frank Iacobucci, Linda Hayes, Yozajandi Hernandez, Manfred Humphries, Maria Liu, Zoe Ludski, Yussin Ramos, Rene Morrison and so many others for their contributions to promoting and supporting the good work.


Advisors, Influences and Community Collaborators

Garden Jane draws inspiration and advice from nature, along with these wonderful people, some of whom are current clients or collaborators: Lauren Baker and the Toronto Food Policy Council; Deb Barndt; Solomon Boye; Heather Coburn Flores and Food Not Lawns; Debbie Field and FoodShare friends; the Evergreen team; Keely Forth; Daniel Hoffmann and The Cutting Veg; Johanna Beyers; Jerome Godboo and his band; Jesse Hayes; Linda Hayes; Richard Hayes; Toby Hemenway; Jude Hobbs; Jillian Hovey and the Sustainable Living Network; Elaine Ingham and Soilfoodweb; Beth Knox; Collette Murphy and Urban Harvest; Munju Ravindra and Ideas Unlimited; Wayne Roberts; Yafit Rokach; Susan Richardson; Caroline Scotchmer, Paul Stamets; Seeds of Diversity and Bob Wildfong; Alvero, Rodrigo and Plan B Organic Farm, Monika and Greenfields, Ted Thorpe and the many other farmers and farms feeding people in the Toronto area. The list is not complete without acknowledging the many people groups who work for food access, public seed sources, the right for children to be outside, and social-environmental issues of all kinds.