Bringing healthy and organic fruits and vegetables into low-income areas of Toronto lacking grocery stores, this converted bus is much more than a normal food truck – it looks like an ordinary vehicle until it stops and deploys its colorfully-stocked shelves (images by Laura Berman).

As in many cities, there are ‘food deserts’ in Toronto in which it is hard to find fresh seasonal produce. Using a vehicle donated by the Toronto Transit Commission, LGA Architectural Planners helped convert this vehicle to address this issue.

“Even in a city as dynamic as Toronto, there remain neighbourhoods where residents are unable to access the foods essential to a healthy diet. This happens for a variety of reasons, including low-income, lack of access to public transit, and long distances to groceries and markets. Such conditions make it extremely difficult for individuals and families without access to a vehicle to find and purchase healthy foods. Senior citizens who might be less mobile are hit especially hard by this type of isolation.”

Lettuce, berries, okra, yucca, broccoli, apples and more fill the fold-out shelves extending out from the side of the Mobile Good Food Market. Inside, bins of additional veggies and fruits can be accessed by walking or wheelchair, a handy feature for cold and wet weather.

The project  was commissioned by FoodShare Toronto in partnership with the City of Toronto and United Way Toronto in a joint effort to help supplement unhealthy local options in neighborhoods starved for good and fresh foods.

“The design also offered the opportunity to shop from the inside in inclement weather,” notes Dean Goodman of LGA, pointing out that as a former Wheel-Trans bus, ramps for ease of entry and exit were already in place. “Good food is beautiful when displayed well, so when we decided we wanted this to be a feature we worked out the mechanism so one person could fold out the shelves, restock as necessary and display the food so it was attractive.””

Giving the phrase ‘garden variety’ a fresh new meaning for urban gardeners, this amazing hybrid plant makes it possible to raise dozens of types of produce on a single tree using low-tech grafting techniques.

A work of both art and science by Syracuse University art professor Sam Van Aken, the all-in-one Tree of 40 Fruit is the culmination of years spent experimenting with hybridized stone fruit trees that produce peaches, plums, apricots, nectarines, cherries and much more.

Treating his work (with over 250 types of fruit) as a combination of farming and arborsculpture, Aken combines heirloom, antique, and native varieties, all set to bloom in seasonal sequences designed to create edible results as well as aesthetic effects throughout the year.

The custom-crafted hybrid looks like an ordinary fruit tree until it blossoms a key points through spring, summer and fall with its rich variety of flowers and fruits.

Using a chip grafting process, Aken takes a sliver off of a tree and tapes it the growing hybrid, letting the pieces grow together over the winter then pruning them back as needed.

The resulting trees of 40 fruit continue to be grown and dispersed around the country to museums, community gardens and other public spaces.

In an interview with Epicurious, Aken explains that “as the project evolved, it took on more goals. In trying to find different varieties of stone fruit to create the Tree of 40 Fruit, I realized that for various reasons, including industrialization and the creation of enormous monocultures, we are losing diversity in food production. In addition to maintaining these varieties in my nursery, I graft them to the Tree of 40 Fruit. Additionally … I go to local farmers and growers to collect stone fruit varieties and graft them to the trees. In this way they become an archive of the agricultural history of where they are located as well as a means to preserve antique and native varieties.”