Tomato Farming Moves From the Country to the Sky

This is a story of man versus nature.

A story of chef versus farmland.

A story of ultimate triumph.

Two years — or three seasons — ago, executive chef Tawfik Shehata of Toronto’s fine dining restaurant Vertical started a farm, much of it tomato plants.

What better way to know what you're serving to your patrons than planting and harvesting it yourself?

It was "great land," he says.

He had about a quarter of an acre up in Stouffville (24 kilometres north of the city), which the Whitchurch-Stouffville Chamber of Commerce describes as consisting of “fertile rolling farmland.” However, he was warned by other farmers that it would be very challenging, that the first five years alone you'd be battling weeds.

Nothing could stop Tawfik from his mission to bring his own hand-harvested food to his customers’ plate, including many varieties of heirloom tomatoes.

No chemicals — just hundreds of seeds, soil and a ton of hard work.

As many people who have tried know, tomatoes are not easy to grow. Sure, get a good starter plant and you'll have a beautiful bounty, but try it from the tiny little seed and see how far you get.

The huge reward of putting home-grown produce on the menu occurred a few times, but the long days and hard labour eventually took their toll on Chef Shehata.

In between home, the restaurant (where he often puts in a 16-hour day), and driving up to the farm in traffic only to find that the weeds had taken over, it was exhausting. He’d get to the farm and there would be no time to harvest after all the weeding. His lettuces flowered and his tomatoes and eggplants over-ripened.

He just couldn't keep it up anymore.

But here's where the story gets exciting; where failure turns to triumph and novice farmer turns urban hero.

"It gave my staff and me a great appreciation of farmers," he says.

Suddenly that box of tomatoes in the supermarket was a representation of a bushel that had been planted, watered, weeded and pulled. Whatever price the store charged didn't seem enough for all of that care and labour.

Most people would walk away and be rewarded for their efforts: Hey, he tried but it's just too hard.

Tawfik decided that what he'd learned in the fields was invaluable, and his goal remained — to give his diners food that he had grown himself.

So he and a restaurant-owner friend came together and built the beginning of a rooftop garden in an undisclosed location in downtown Toronto.

Using recycled and found materials, they built a beautiful greenhouse and roughly 40 planter boxes, about enough to keep Tawfik in tomatoes and herbs for a whole season. It will be fully up and running next year, but they have done an “experimental year” to see what the space could yield.

He takes me up to the rooftop for a sneak peek.

As he points out the lettuce, swiss chard, various herbs and tomatoes, he tells me about the importance of urban farming and how we could be utilizing all of the city’s unused space.  And despite that fact that I’m wearing a tight-fitting dress and heels, he has me thinking of giving it all up for a pair of overalls and gardening gloves and getting right into the soil.

There are limits to what he can do (i.e. no squash), but there is so much potential. After all, there’s about 3,000 square feet in which to plant.

“I want to harvest peas, artichokes, favas, tomatoes…” he says excitedly.

Other than the protein on the plate, Tawfik wants what he serves to be “harvested by our hands, picked the same day.”

Through his experience at the farm, he has learned what it takes to grow more efficiently.  There are areas on the roof that can be shaded (the lettuces took a beating out here in the sun this summer) and the greenhouse will allow him to grow, in Tawfik’s words, “in the doldrums of winter.”

He shows me his Mexican Midget tomatoes, which he’d never seen before this season, and excitedly talks about a new variety that clusters together like grapes. He talks about menus of the future and bringing new life to his dishes.

“I could almost be self-sufficient in vegetables,” he says. “Anything that goes on a guest’s plate. That’s my hope.”

With that, he goes off and picks some tomatoes for me to take home.

Hand-harvested, grown with care. It doesn’t get any better than this.

Vertical
100 King Street West
First Canadian Place (located on the mezzazine level of Canada’s tallest building)
P.O. Box 313
Toronto, ON

M5X 1E1 

p 416 214 2252

f 416 214 1401

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