Grown by Scout: A Garden of his own

Miles McVey's tomato business may be a tiny, he is finding big success with Hamilton’s top restaurants. Tending his plants is also helping him process grief over the loss of his mother.

There may be no more rewarding and heartbreaking endeavour for the average home gardener than growing tomatoes.

They are the quintessential summer fruit, but they are sensitive to change and prone to pests. Small mistakes can quickly lead to poor yields.

Miles McVey, a longtime home gardener, has learned all he can and launched Grown by Scout last year, growing about 1,100 pounds of tomatoes on a small plot of land in Flamborough. He is looking for a space for next year
that will double that yield and has an eye on sharing his knowledge with home growers looking to improve their tomato harvest.

McVey grows for eight restaurants, including two with Michelin recognition, and also operates a small tomato subscription service. Mixed in among his 18 varieties of tomatoes are the familiar – Roma, Sungold, and San Marzano – along with heirloom varieties such as Black Krim, Green Zebra, Feuerwerk, Pineapple, Orange Queen, and Speckled Roman.

He also grows Bumblebee Purple, Saint Pierre, and Tigerella, along with Alice’s Dream, and del Vesuvio varieties, from seeds that his mother brought home from Italy. The others come from Canadian seed companies.

“I have a lot of different sizes, a lot of different shapes, textures, and a whole bunch of different flavour profiles. I have a lot of different paste tomatoes, which are, obviously, great for sauces and things like that. But I think the showstopper is just the variety. A lot of the chefs like to make the tomatoes just a dish on their own.”

Everything at Grown by Scout (Scout is McVey’s middle name) is field grown.

“So nothing is covered. Meaning that if I cover them, I get a longer season. But there’s something about the sun touching them that just makes them a little bit better,” he says. “I really like a natural approach. I feel very
connected to the earth when I’m in this space.”

The learning curve has been steep. His beds are more than 50-feet long and everything is done by hand, including
watering.

“I think that it lends itself well to the tomatoes, that extra sort of attention and care. And they’re not just growing in a
monoculture. There’s all kinds of things in here, like little bunnies and praying mantises.”

He also grows beautiful flowers among his tomato plants, including sunflowers, marigolds, zinnias, and asters.

McVey says there is great satisfaction in being in the garden, being a steward of a small piece of the earth, and having the results feed people. McVey, who was born in Montreal and grew up in Toronto, sells in mixed crates.

“So when I work with chefs, I typically don’t say yes, I’ll only get you Speckled Romans or I’ll only get you Pink Berkeleys or something like that. I just say it’s a mixed flat. The product speaks for itself. It’s also beautiful.”

This year has been a challenging one.

McVey’s mother Sandra McVey died suddenly in June during a battle with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It put him behind on weeding and tending to his plants, but his garden has also been an escape and comfort in his grief.

“There’s something about being out here, you know, nurturing seeds that she brought me back. I don’t know if I’ll sell any of these. They might just be for me and my family, you know. But I definitely feel her out here when I’m working. She loves tomatoes,” he says.

“It gets you out of your head when you’re working. The way through grief, I think, for me is to be working with my hands, and when a bird comes and lands out here while I’m working, I just think that’s definitely my mom coming to say hey.”

McVey worked for 15 years in corporate retail, commuting two hours each way. In what has become a common story, he had a change of heart during the pandemic. “I felt like I saw the light a little bit, and I did a 180, and I started working in plants. My brother had just started a farm in Fort Erie, and he needed some help. So I went out and I helped him for three years.”

McVey, who had chickens and grew corn and watermelons in his Toronto backyard for years, says his knowledge exploded on the farm. His brother is a chef, which also helped McVey with connecting with local restaurants. “I am not a chef, but I very much understand what chefs are looking for in terms of uniqueness.”

But the distance from his Hamilton home to Fort Erie was a challenge, so he jumped on the chance to rent a plot of land at Mad Meadow Farm in Millgrove.

“I had never done anything by myself and that’s been really cool. And then it ended up being a great success. I’ve been working with all these restaurants that were getting Michelin Bibs last year, and some people said some really nice things about our tomatoes. I think we figured out the crawl, of the crawl, walk, run.”

McVey, whose two kids and partner come out to the plot to help out every now and then, is eyeing expansion into specialty cabbages and fennels. His subscription service offers one to four weeks of tomatoes, with recipients choosing two, three, or five pounds. McVey offers pick ups at Pinch Bakery & Plant Shop on Sherman Avenue North.

McVey also hosts a workshop in August where visitors wander through the garden, learn about growing tomatoes, and sample from a flight tasting. (Signup for the subscription and workshops is via Instagram: GrownbyScout. The 2027 subscription will open with early-bird pricing in September.)

The vision is to do more workshops aimed at helping home gardeners improve their yield.

“I think people do, especially now, want to learn about growing,” says McVey. “They’re watching the prices go up at the grocery store, and also not just that, but like this whole [parasitic] outbreak business that’s happening. My plants don’t get sprayed with anything. It’s just love.”

McVey moved to Hamilton in 2016 in order to buy a house in the Gage Park area, and has found a community that has helped nurture Grown by Scout through introductions. “I love it out here. I love the food scene and how connected they all are. How they help each other. The only way that I would have been successful last year is because of all those people in the food scene.”

McVey’s tomatoes are found in Quatrefoil and Barrel Heart Brewing’s taproom in Dundas, and Le Tambour, Born & Raised, Joshy’s Good Eats, and Pinch, all in Hamilton. New additions are Pinbones Fish Market in Dundas and McCallister’s in Hamilton. Grown by Scout also donates tomatoes to 541 Eatery & Exchange on Barton Street.

McVey acknowledges that he was skeptical when he moved to Hamilton. “You know, Hamilton’s got a rap sheet.
But wow, I have nothing but good things to say about this town. I find the community is so great because it’s all underdogs. It’s all underdogs and grit, and that’s what I’m into,” he says.

“I don’t know that I would have been able to do this in a place like Toronto. I wouldn’t have been able to access the land like this, and the Toronto food scene is more difficult to break into. I’m very happy that I’m putting roots down in this space.”

McVey has even converted his long- distance partner, an actor who lives in New York City and has always been a city girl, into a part-time farmer when she comes to visit. She hated her first time in the garden. There were too many bugs and she didn’t want to touch anything. Now, she’s eager to get to work.

“Really, the moral of that is that anyone can be a farmer. I think it’s valuable for everybody to put their hands in the dirt sometimes.”