We've recently moved to a new house with a large yard, full of new gardening opportunities - and lots of trees;
...the garden journey continues.
Come spring 2014 I'll be moving many plants from my previous garden to our new space, starting over again with a new perspective, and new meaning to everything I do.
We're still close to Lake Superior, still five blocks away but now with Hillcrest Park and the Port Arthur Ridge in between. A very different landscape.
We love to cook, and use fresh herbs & veg from our kitchen garden. For the culinary curious: amy's cookery
I like to read books about horticulture and honey bees, literature and writing, ecology, biology, botany, history, the history of gardening, and forestry (urban mostly), food and agriculture, photography, art......
all images are my own, taken by myself in my gardens - unless otherwise cited
amy.gardenerd@gmail.com
glossary
Q W E R T Y U I O P A S DF G H J K L Z X C V B N M
"Indeed, you'll be happiest if you learn to think like a tree: setting down sturdy roots (the soil prep), manufacturing your own food (the leaf mold and compost additions to the soil) and committing to the long term (the five or so years it takes to get established)."
LORRAINE JOHNSON
Composting Council of Canada
Showing posts with label community gardens. Show all posts
Showing posts with label community gardens. Show all posts
Yesterday, R built a new fence & gate along the back of the dog run. With that I now have a gate that I can open (the previous one was wobbly and tied together in such a way I couldn't manage it on my own), and access to the back lane.
M salvaged one of the pieces of the old fence to use as part of a fort for her two adventurous little men - it can be seen in this photo leaning against her back fence. She has plans for back lane raspberries, while I have plans for pumpkins. What will be next? Back lane chickens? ...we could only wish..
Trending now is a new generation of back-to-the-land
gardeners reviving and reinventing a very old concept in gardening:
interplanting home-grown vegetables and herbs with flowers to make the most of
urban spaces. Area gardeners are creating spaces where families can retreat,
eat, educate, and entertain. Thunder Bay is becoming a city where back lanes
are grazing grounds, where neighbours plant seeds, ideas grow, and biodiversity
is the aesthetic consideration of our backyard gardens.
Filled with healthy plants that provide both beauty and abundance,
there is an ever increasing interest in edible gardens, whether in a backyard,
a community plot, or on a balcony. No matter the size – edibles are everywhere.
People are growing tomatoes and peppers upside down from balconies, or on them:
herbs and peas in pots combined with favourite annual petunias, calibrachoa,
edible pansies and marigolds. This is inspiring; the possibilities are endless.
Companion
planting in the eco-friendly garden understands the symbiotic relationships
between the plant species, and with pollinators. The ways in which opposites
attract in the garden can be used to establish beneficial habitats: sun lovers
provide shade for those who require it, nitrogen fixing plants can be paired
with heavy feeders to balance soil nutrient, and deep rooted plants together
with those with shallow roots can work together in the same space.
Attracting
pollinators and beneficial insects by planting their favourites, which in the Thunder
Bay area include beautiful, hardy deciduous shrubs such as hydrangeas or
weigela, perennial cornflowers (bachelor buttons) and coneflowers (echinacea ),
monarda (bee balm), sedum, and veronica – these and other plants with high nectar
concentrations will draw in helpful hummingbirds , bees, and bats. Herb plants,
such as coriander, dill, and parsley not only complete a kitchen garden, but
are all the preference of beneficial bugs.
The same
works for deterring unwanted visitors; if you want to keep aphids from your
roses or lupins try interplanting garlic, which also helps to prevent fungal
diseases. Hardy area roses such as those in the Explorer Series, Mordens, or
Rugosas attract pollinating bees and butterflies to vegetable crops while their
intoxicating scent fills a backyard with home grown aromatherapy.
Prevention
as pest control can be easily achieved both in containers or garden beds. Interplanted
sage, calendula (pot marigold), mint, and geraniums repel pests through summer,
while migratory birds are lured by late fruit bearing shrubs and trees. Here, a
pesky mosquito problem can be taken care of with the inclusion of a bat house
in the garden. Bats are active members of the garden ecosystem and also work to
pollinate fruits trees, tender annuals, and disperse seeds.
Understanding
soil composition is a good preventative step, and helps to simplify the process
of soil building. By topping up and amending we improve soil nutritional quality;
plants grow strong, more resistant to harmful insects, and produce more flowers
and fruit. Supplements such as bone and blood meal, NPK compounds (nitrogen,
phosphorus, and potassium), and by replenishing mulch will provide the balanced
nutrients for plants to bloom profusely, and produce large yields. Choosing appropriate
plant type fertilizers saves valuable energy and improves the efficiency of the
garden.
Our Boreal
climate, with its many shifts in temperature, allows us optimal chances to
observe seasonal blooms: through our long (often confusing) spring time
weather, tolerating the heat of July becoming lush in August lasting through
October. By designing environments which are diverse, stable, and have the
resilience of natural ecosystems, our garden spaces will thrive and require
less intervention.
Sleepy G Farm
photo credit to Sleepy G
on the majestic Sibley Peninsula, Pass Lake
I'm sort of incredibly jealous of local farmers right now. After connecting for a Walleye story I'm overwhelmed with daydreams of goats and chickens on acres of garden.
Then I add R's dream of a traditional Australian pie shop and add some lambs to our farm.
A few greenhouses...
Fields of flowers. I say sort of when I think about the amount of work it is for the families, and exceptional commitment to what they're doing.
I have farm envy, chicken envy after writing this one - not that I wasn't already afflicted.
I am amazed by all our local farms, each doing unique and innovative things, gardening with both knowledge and creativity, challenging the climate on the Boreal Edge.
Restricted by space, I could not possibly do these farms justice in the short W article, but do hope to follow up throughout the season - including this blog and Twitter too. There is so much to tell about how farming is reinventing itself in the Thunder Bay area.
Though I was featuring only three, Thunder Bay is surrounded by farms that have so much to offer. This week the Kampoff's dairy farm in the CJ, showing what they've been doing for generations - complete with evolution and newness. I went to school with those kids - Thunder Bay Christian School....a lifetime ago. Maybe it was through that connection (and my father being drawn to Dutch fellows) that brought him, the math professor, to take up farming.
He put in a good effort, for a hobby farmer. I was chased off the school bus by geese, my mother will tell you stories about running out of the house with a broom to shoo the rooster from the foot of the swing-set, so that my sister and I could get off. Matt from Boreal Edge was telling me all about their new chicken flock of 100 pasteurised laying hens and all I could think about our "pasteurised" laying hens roaming free everywhere - no "eggmobile" to keep me safe...sigh...
It was an interesting childhood.
I became far too attached to the chickens, and our goat (who was often found tied to the mostly chewed Tamarack tree outside my bedroom window); then there was Brutus the bull (?), and of course the baby animals in spring. Oh I loved the day Dad came home with a box full of baby chicks to keep in the family room with lights until it was warm enough, and they were old enough, for the coop (non roaming coop). I realise much more now, in retrospect, why my mother cringed the way she did. I laugh a little imagining the conversations my parents had.
The math professor farmer was a bee keeper and an apple grower, wannabe Geologist, Forester, Ecologist. Our property boundary was shared by the Wishart Conservation Forest, and the Current River. What a playground I lived in. Far from the urban lifestyle I live now.
Time and weather thwarted my photographic hopes, but the season has only just begun. I imagine a lot of sweeping farm panos in my future.
Sleepy G Farm is a new farm, re-establishing an old farm. Belluz Farms are reinventing themselves with each generation, each offering a variety of local produce - enough to sustain a family of four, for less than what you would pay in any chain store but better: fresh, and locally grown.
I think what deters people, or where value is lost, is the lost knowledge of storage and preservation. I bought apple for lunch at the neighbourhood Safeway yesterday - "Ontario Grown," in other words: out of cold storage. Storing and canning, preserving - it all takes preparing and planning - which isn't nearly as daunting as it seems. Understandably space can be an issue for some families - speaking as someone who lives in a century home in an overcrowded downtown neighbourhood. Closets? Say what? ...but, every challenge has a solution, somehow...solve it.
Their concepts aren't new or even unique - they're proven, tested, and evolved. CSA shares from Sleepy G Farm are quite different from what Belluz Farms offer, each local farm with variety - and with local producers of beef, lamb, chicken, eggs, milk, cheese, chocolate, fruits, vegetables, herbs, ...include area artisans, honey, syrup, tea, wheat & rice. What else do we need? Jeff & Kerr and their coffee, Denyse's pancakes, Sovereign Room, Growing Season, omg this list is too long to begin. !
We're doing pretty good here in Thunder Bay for local sustainability. Pretty incredible actually.
Along the McIntyre on my way to work
with flowers for my desk.
2010
The other day R and I were driving down east John Street, we had just past the Junot lights and were travelling along side the shared bike lane. R made the comment that he rarely sees cyclists using that lane, continuing our on-going conversation that follows all the letters to the editor in the Chronicle lately.
We're both in favour of the bike lanes, but regularly - as with all things - discuss all angles (which is one the many things I love about us). In this case, along John Street, I can see why he wondered about users - they are a little scarce, and I know why.
First, what the shared lane there does is give people the choice: to either follow the straight forward commuter route, or connect to the recreational trail. Personally, the decision is simple: recreational trail. As I explained to R,
"The reason you don't see as many riders using the shared lane here is because anyone who really rides in this city is in behind there (pointing beyond the houses south of John) riding along one of the best stretches of recreational trail in the city."
It rolls like a coaster along the McIntyre river bends. It's a quick trip, a fun one - there's no better way to begin your day. That was my route to work...., *fond memories* ...sigh.
If you've got wheels under your seat, (or under your feet), this trail is the one to ride. It would be a beautiful walk, but I haven't walked it since 8th grade at EQ - and people are all over it with dogs and children, so you have to be aware. That's what bike bells are for.
faces along the trail
April 2011
I stop for photos along this stretch of trail often..., sometimes I ride it back and forth a few times, then stop to take photos... . There's the river, the sunshine through the trees, bends in the path and wildflowers, but what I search for with my lens are the faces. The faces have been there for years - for as long as I've taken this path. I've never seen the person who draws them despite being there are all times of day, at all times of year. They reappear after rainstorms wash them away, and are in predictable locations, but are still each different every time - as faces are.
I remember feeling heartbroken when I learned the city was moving the trail that follows McVicar Creek behind the 55+ Centre on River Street. They were cutting down trees. Thankfully I attended the Streamwalk, and heard all about the rehabilitation and conservation that has actually gone into the project - and though a few of my favourite trees are now gone, most remain, like this group standing a little too close to the old trail:
Along McVicar Creek
2006
They're still accessible as the old trail has been adopted as a detour, smaller and hidden in the new plants protecting our pretty urban stream. The new recreational trail still has a charming flow, curving with the creek, with new trail-side trees that will someday, hopefully, stand too close to the trail.
Impressed on my memory are my morning trips down this path. I didn't have a camera back then, but took the time to take it all in, remember it, appreciate it. I knew life would change and I wouldn't always take that route, it was inevitable. I did well though because it's all still there, even the sounds of the songbirds and the way the sun - when still low on the Giant's horizon - would dapple through the trees. I don't even have to close my eyes.
Evenings too are beautiful along this trail, but my memories of evenings aren't just of returning from work; rather all the evenings spent with Hannah when she was young, learning to ride her bike, and inline skating for the first time.
Back then I lived in a location that allowed me to take the
recreational trails to work in less time than it took me to drive. I'd ride most of the way with my feet up, with my camera around my
neck and a coffee in my hand; I’d arrive relaxed and refreshed.
between the university and college
along the McIntyre
There’s no road rage on the recreational trails in Thunder
Bay. People say good morning, smile, comment on the beautiful day, on the
falling rain. Or snow, and when it does snow I’ve always found that the trails
are cleared before the streets are, not to mention clean with fresh snow on the trees around. Who doesn’t love fresh
snow on trees?
It’s just a really nice way to travel around this city. From
Current River to Westfort the recreational trails connect to commuter routes,
and in many areas weave through residential streets connecting them to
commercial areas, the hospital, and the university.
to McIntyre Centre
along the McIntyre
In recent years the city has been stalling information signs: some about the urban streams, other about wildlife - birds in particular - that can be seen along the way. The people do that too, I've found. Not only are good mornings and comments on the weather welcome, but people seem to strike up conversations about things they've spotted along the path. Maybe it's because I've always got my camera in my hand, and they think I'm out hunting for the perfect shot (which I always am)..., I just think it's nice that people take the time to stop.
Drivers are always in too much of a rush, and the only talking your generally hear on a Thunder Bay street is that of jeering at jerk drivers who don't know how to use a turning signal. I find that stressful, even in little doses. Little does of these recreational trails can take away that stress.
I'm trying to come up with a short 300 words to use to describe the recreational trails for The Walleye and find myself stumped. I could go on forever about so many little things - things that mean something to me, that I love about so many places along the way. Where do I begin? Where do I end? Pick up a map, throw a dart at it and ride there by trail? Go for a walk in your backyard..., because there's probably a trail nearby...?
- with beams of morning sun bouncing off The Hangar behind.
July 15, 2008
My first (and I suppose aesthetic) thought is that they are such strange neighbors. Together though, they illustrate quite well the partnership of urban spaces and gardens. SOME CONTRAST.
Except, this perspective is just one, from one rather large tomato garden to one rather large athletic facility. If you didn't know it was an athletic facility, this picture might make you think I'm talking about growing tomatoes on a runway. Had I turned around and taken the picture into the rising sun, you would think I was sitting in cleared space of a forest, with a river running through it. I love that about our garden.
Many thanks to Erin, Heidi & Bryan with their Roots to Harvest teams for all the helping hands in the garden!
Sara has been carefully tending to the tomatoes, plucking beetles and eggs (grin) and staking. All of the plants look wonderful. She also has been busy planting, and transplanting two other FSRN 30x15ft gardens - with attention to companion planting. I'll update more on those later. Around the tomatoes she's planted herbs and peppers.
One of these days I'll capture her as she flies into my office with hair askew and dirt all over, clutching her great pink hat and filthy, filthy notebook. It's a fantastic image even in a one line description. you should see it.
A common challenge in the life of a gardenerd is white paper and dirty dirt.
Old Brooks
70-85 days
great texture, sharp acidic flavour - great in sauces and pastes
Connie's heirloom tomatoes were transplanted by Sara and Roy June 21st. The plants have endured a lot already, but most look alright now that they're in the garden. Sara was careful to plant them deeply, and sink any broken stems. Beneath the new three way mix is quite a heavy clay, which she has expressed concern about, a concern I share...but, the soil's properties are not unexpected, all things considered - so we just have to work with what we're given this year and hope for the best.
Some will require staking.
Before and after additions to the soil; the three piles delivered by LCR have now been distributed between Connie's tomato garden, and two 30x15 FSRN plots at the south end.
Many thanks to the help from the Physical Plant/Grounds for moving the soil from one end of the garden to the other!!!
Jeff is going to come rototill it all again - time permitting, hopefully on Friday. :)
"The 30'x15' FSRN plots remain the same (except for the combining of 2 15^2 plots for Connie's tomatoes), but they took up all of the ~90' on the south edge. I figured that the compost area that was to be against the east side of the FSRN/15x15 plot block could be pushed into the triangular area beside it to the east.
The garden was not as long as indicated, so the biology plot length was cut from 90' to 85'. Even at this length, the compost area on the south side of the bio plot will also be pushed south into the open SE triangle (edible flowers, as it was marked) area. Seeing as two compost areas were pushed closer than planned into the SE corner, they might be combined into one? (The other two composting sites fit into their original locations.) Because the width at the widest point of the garden was significantly short of estimates, the bio plot also had to be taken down to 25' in width.
The layout changes to the SE corner led to a small diagonal entrance way being created for access to the raised bed area. I have only marked off the outer edges of this area, as I imagine there will be some construction of the beds going on in there. I made this area 10' wide, and very roughly 100' long (running against the north side of the FSRN/15'x15' plots).
Just north of the raised bed length, against the west edge of the garden, I marked off a 10'x30' area for the compost/flower block marked on the plan. Just inside of that is the LUSU plot, which lost some length due to the short width of the whole garden. It is about 90' long by its original 30'.
The LUCK plot remains 30' long, but was reduced to 15' wide. The 6 10'x20' plots, and 12 10'x10' remain the same. After the placing of the preceding, only ~33'x60' remained for the large study plot area, so I just split this in half along an E-W line, creating 2 30'x33' study plots. I suppose if we have a great need for more study plots, the areas to the north of them that didn't yet have designated purposes would be suitable.
We actually could not mark off 1 of the 20x10 and 1 of the 10x10 plots due to the soil pile in the middle of them. This can be done once the soil is moved. I didn't mark off anything further north in the garden than the pile, so they could be moved easily. As the staking through the middle of the garden is done, the soil will have to be moved off to the west side of the garden and along the sod edge. Two of the FSRN plots are open to the edge, as is the tomato plot, for easy wheelbarrow access. The one inner FSRN plot can be accessed by the open 15x15 plot to its south. I think moving the soil on the sod, though a little further in distance, will likely be easier anyway as it will be a firmer surface.
The remaining length along the west side (marked FSRN/wheat/oats and sunflower border) is likely about 40'. When I first noticed that we were lacking length, I thought to cut down the sunflower border to about 5'. Does that seem like a good width at this point? (Amy's note: Yes! 5' will be fine :) )
So the plots as currently marked are:
10 15'x15' plots30'x15' tomato plot3 FSRN 30'x15' plots10'x ~100' raised demonstration bed area10'x30' west edge compost area~ 90'x30' LUSU plot85'x25' Biology plot15'x30' LUCK6 10'x20' plots (1 unmarked due to soil)12 10'x10' plots (1 unmarked)2 30'x ~33' study plots
Still to be marked:1 10x20 and 1 10x10SE compost area(s)FSRN grain plotunassigned NE plotssunflowersNE compost areawalkways
I figure a walkway starting on the west edge between the compost/flower area and LUCK running along the edge of the LUSU plot to the southern study plot, and branching off up the middles of both the 20x10 and 10x10 plots will give appropriate access. As these are smaller plots, I think I will shift the stakes over towards the study plots to make room for narrow middle walks, so no area is lost from them. Now that I know what kind of room we are actually working with on the ground with the stakes in preliminary place, it will be easy to tweak things here and there.
I think that running a walkway from the east garden edge, along the north edge of the bio plot through to the FSRN grain plot will give both access to inner areas, as well as round out easier compost delivery to those upper areas. It looks to me like the whole garden would then have relatively close access to a compost area.
Those estimated walkway figures add up to 430', just in case we need that figure."
Sara has been out marking plots since Wednesday morning, which was the only time the weather cooperated. Yesterday Sara was joined by Roy, on loan from the Boreal Edge Farm, to help put in some more fence posts in some weaker areas of the deer fence. They continued the staking until the rains became to intolerable - at which point they came to see me, in the English office.
I could hear them sloshing up the hall long before I saw them, and the sight of them would have made any Good Pig envious. Mud from head to toe - Sara even pointed out the she was in her "clean clothes". Impressed with their cherrfulness in spite of what they had been through that morning, I wish I could have been with them.
I wish Matt and his family the best of luck in regaining composure of their farm after the heavy rains.
I would like to thank the hospital for providing us with a windsock.
After wheeling the measuring device around the garden a few times I feel confident with the previously posted plan. I've tried to accommodate larger academic uses ( I find all aspects of this project beg for academic uses), medium sized plots for groups, smaller plots for individuals - all of which can be divided within, or reserved with an adjacent plot for whatever need might arise.
Talking to Sara earlier this evening in the garden was wonderful - it's great to be out there visually planning and bouncing ideas off another creative gardenerd. We talked about how we might keep bears away, nutrients and food - why we eat what we eat, marigolds, decorative yet space-conscious planting. We're collecting stakes, and soon we (Sara) can be out there marking off some plots. currently growing: some red clover and alfalfa
