It’s an overcast and cool day in Toronto yet Stella Rosenthal, 7, has her shoes and socks off as she stomps and jumps on the dirt in her front yard. She’s compressing soil in the shape of a key, for a garden about to be planted.

“You’re going to eat greens now,” her father, Jay Rosenthal, tells her. “It’s going to be a thing you do.”

The pair are planting a garden with Anthony McCanny and his partner, Sarah Kern, their new Brockton Village neighbours. They met just a few days ago. It’s the first step in a project McCanny, 24, has just launched, to use front and back yards in the neighbourhood for farming produce.

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The partnership began with a letter, left by McCanny in Rosenthal’s mailbox. He distributed 250 letters to his neighbours, offering to farm their yards. His apartment doesn’t have any yard space and he had recently developed an interest in permaculture, an ecologically-sound way of living using a technical approach.

“There are probably people around who want fresh produce who don’t have the time or interest or skills to work the land they have,” McCanny recalls thinking. “I thought how awesome would it be to turn land in a city yard of grass, not doing anything particularly useful, into food producing land?”

McCanny says he’s been “self-educating pretty intensely” to prepare for planting. He cited stacks of library books he’s read, including Will Bonsall’s Essential Guide to Radical, Self-Reliant Gardening and Sepp Holzer’s Permaculture, and courses he has taken, including an online introduction to permaculture course from Oregon State University and local permaculture training courses.

“I crossed my fingers when I was dropping the letters off,” he says. “I was certain no one would contact me and that it would be a complete wash.”

But McCanny was wrong. He’s received about 12 responses so far and has begun working with around half of the people who reached out to him.

Tammy Robinson, spokesperson for the City of Toronto’s licensing and standards division, said there are no restrictions on planting fruits and vegetable gardens on private property in Toronto.

“A person can plant a vegetable garden in the front of their property if they like,” she wrote in an email.

Jane Welsh, acting project manager for environmental planning in the strategic initiatives, policy and analysis unit of Toronto city planning said the only restrictions are “growing food for agricultural purpose, in terms of purpose for sale.”

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McCanny has no intention of selling the produce. But how it’s shared is “open to discussion,” he says. As a default, a quarter of the crops he grows will be given back to the land owners, and McCanny will keep three quarters for himself or to give to food banks and non-profits.

He’s hopes yard farming will “bring the community together.” The neighbourhood — which Rosenthal says has a “stoop culture” in the summertime — took notice when the group began planting, as various neighbours stopped by to see what was happening and chat.

Rosenthal’s yard is the first to be planted on this late May day. McCanny has covered the small grass yard with newspaper (to smother the grass and cause it to decompose), followed by organic compost, top soil, and mulch.

Eventually, they will plant corn, beans and squash. This day, they started with the blue hopi corn, followed by scattering dried peas over top of the soil, which will grow in about two weeks, and be ready for harvest right before the beans and squash are planted.

Rosenthal thinks his children, Stella and Cy, 3, will especially benefit from the garden.

“They’ll be able to view it from our front window which I quite love,” he says. “Being more connected to the food you eat is always a good thing. Seeing the life cycle of food in real time is really powerful.”

June Komisar, associate professor in the department of architectural science at Ryerson University, agrees. Growing ones own food “gives us a greater appreciation of where our food comes from,” she says.

“And it does give you much fresher food than you would ordinarily have,” Komisar says. “For children, if you want to get them to like vegetables, something that’s extremely fresh from the garden that’s right in front of your house is extremely compelling.”

Rhonda Teitel-Payne, co-coordinator for Toronto Urban Growers, agrees that gardens at home are a “very important tool.”

“I think more homes should be doing this, more businesses, more groups, more schools, more apartment towers,” Teitel-Payne says. “People tend to think in terms of private homes for being a great place for yard sharing but there are so many opportunities.”

McCanny isn’t done yet. He’s hoping to involve more people in the project.

“I’m excited to think about what it will look like next year,” he says. “But there’s lots between then and now. I’d like to be able to expand it and bring other people on.”