almost edible

 garlic chives

sweet cherry 100 & peas

in the ground so far:

radish:
Watermelon radish - Chinese origin, ball shaped, red flesh / white skin, Crispy, mild, sweet. Grows best under cooler temperatures. Can be eaten raw or cooked.

Cherry Ball radish: Quick growing, small, round, bright red fruit. Crisp white flesh. Mild flavour.

carrots:
Purple Dragon (heirloom) - Deep purple/red skin with orange-yellow flesh. Sweet, spicy flavour. Medium length, tapered.

Scarlet Nante - Dependable, sweet, and crisp. Bright orange. One of the most popular, easy to grow varieties. Stubbies.

Creme de Lite F1 - Creamy skinned, tapered, juicy sweet flesh. No need to peel, best raw but tasty cooked.

beans:
Velour Dwarf French - Long, purple pods. Stringless, great texture. Compact bush habit; long bearing, disease resistant.

Blue Lake Pole Bean: Smooth, stringless, and strong flavour, meaty texture. Long bearing, dark green pods.

spinach:
Long Standing Bloomsdale - Dark green, thick textured, long bearing. Crinkled leaves, rich in iron. Prefers cool temperatures of spring and fall, easy to grow, likes to be moist.

beets:
Cynindra Formanova - Long, carrot-like dark red roots, tops are excellent greens. Slow to start, great producers. Keep moist.

Barbabietola da Orto / Dolce de Chioggia - Italian heirloom named for a fishing town near Venice. Alternating red and white rings, excellent for greens fresh eating, & pickling.

also:
Peas, lettuce, mesclun, leeks, Brussels Sprouts, kale, Swiss Chard, 'Sweet 100' cherry tomato, 'Yellow Boy' tomato x 2, 'Roma' tomato x 2, Jalapeno Pepper, Asparagus, garlic.

Herbs: Thyme, Lemon Thyme, Rosemary, Sage, Italian Large Leaf Basil, Purple Leaf Basil, Lemon Verbena, garlic chives, onion chives.

radishes
25 May 2012

in the ground

radish x (2 varieties)

spinach

beans

asparagus

carrot x (2 varieties)

beet x (2 varieties)

leeks

tomato x (3 varieties)

1 jalapeno pepper

kale

chard

brussel sprouts

peas x (4 varieties)

mesclun

rosemary

sage

thyme

lemon thyme

lavender

basil

garlic

Dear Garden Diary,

With three times the garden, I'm trying to carefully plan some perennial edibles - like asparagus, some herbs, - and pre-plan some rotating crops to make the most out of our small space. This year I also want to take advantage of time, with early crops and late ones, so we don't miss out on so much while we're away.

I'm going a little crazy. So many options, so many ways to do this..., and in our over zealous way we have already bought more seeds than we could ever plant & tend. I'll have to share some seeds once I have this year's "plan" in mind.

I have never followed "the plan"...

Working in a greenhouse never helps either, without fail I come home with something, every day.. R already understands this is not an income, more a loss really. Luckily he's not bothered by it. Also, with his "give me plans and I'll build it" ability, we will have a succulent wall by summer's end.

Most of the time spent with my new iPad has been setting up apps for writing and gardening, greenhouses, and note taking. I've already set my iEye on more apps I can't yet afford (the expensive ones are always so clever, damn).
I don't think the iPad is going to take the place of my doodle pad and pencil in the garden, but I don't think it'll be far from reach.

Gah, remember all those days I lugged garden books and notebooks in my backpack, on my bike, to the greenhouse, the university, everywhere. Insane. Books are great home companions, always will be best - but for travel I'm digging this new technology.

Spring Cleaning

Spring cleaning swooped into the front garden late Monday afternoon while R was at a meeting. It brought cold beer and a rake, and took about half and hour to make a disaster of it all, and another hour to clean it (ish) before R returned and we went on with our never ending list of things to do.

I feel a huge relief for doing it, but also slight unable to move comfortably - in a good way, bad but good - not sick bad in any way, which if fine by me. My body just wasn't prepared for the sudden session of garden yoga. I cleaned back to the mass of ferns, and broke them down as mulch - that seems to have kept the ferns going thus far, so we shall just continue. Everybody else seems to be returning with enthusiasm.

Lady's Mantle
from Heather's garden

Pulmonaria, Lungwort & Heuchera 'Lime Marmalade

Columbine, 'Songbird Goldfinch'

I planted peas on the weekend: mammoth sugar heirloom, two rows of early snap, one sugar pod, and one sugar daddy. Short rows, but enough to enjoy an early harvest, then move on with the space. They're planted in our micro-climate nook, which has been ready for seeds for weeks. I'm brave enough, are you?
Peas like cool soil, cold even - and can tolerate light frost and snow. Pansies too, and radishes, lettuce too.

We have peas and lettuce coming, radishes soon, just had to find the seeds...

I can not wait to start digging in the new bed.., just a matter of time.

I've decided that the greenhouse is going to thoroughly consume me this year with dirty green wonderfulness, and I'm just going to let it have its way with me. I'm going to try to photo document as much as I can without being a pain, and getting the job done, and not killing my iPhone ...what a blessed thing the iPhone is.

Dear Garden Diary,

I've been Mrs. M for nearly two weeks, and in one week I'll be back standing under the open roof of a greenhouse. These are some pretty good weeks.

With my mother feeling fairly well, a little relief has set in - a chance to catch my breath before the next spin, I feel a positive energy these days that I haven't had for a while. The cabin fever has been unbearable.
We took Claire for a walk through the waterfront on the first evening of day light savings; refreshing and muddy, but it got me even more excited about the coming months. Last year I was still in too much pain to enjoy any of this - I've missed it.

So, with visions of plant tags dancing in my head, I can't help but start to think about what our backyard will bring this year. Claire and I enjoyed Sunday morning on the back balcony, nearly hot with spring sun.

Our little micro climate section of our kitchen garden is already clear of snow with green parsley poking through, next to lavender and rosemary - both of which seem to have sprung back. Amazing. John Davis is embarrassingly out of control and I'm so glad. I need to tidy him up a little before photos, but I can say that he's got more healthy cane than I've ever seen. grin

Sweet Woodruff and the Hardy Geraniums are appearing along the west fence. I can see it own't be long for the rest. Though the area gets mostly afternoon shade because of the Tamarack and the fence, it does get nice warm morning sun, and protected protected from most wind it has it's own climate.

Gromit Wensleydale observed the kitchen garden this morning and has approved the planting of peas and radishes. Maybe even some lettuce. He is ready to snack. (dogs snacking in the garden will be frowned upon this season) I pulled out the seeds and tags from last year, added them to this year's already growing stack and already know that we are running along that yellow bring road to another garden bursting at the seams. Not that I mind too much. R's enthusiasm is great, and after he dug up that whole new bed for our vegetables we're both ready to play with possibilities.

The anticipation for greenhouse season is busting in me. Bring it on!

Dear Garden Diary,

The new garden look enormous compared to our previous dedicated kitchen garden. R moved all the soil, I took the photos and made soup. (I don't know how I keep ending up with this end of the straw...)

Okay, the yellow brick road is a bit much in this doodle, but - like I tried to explain to R, I'm imagining some recycled brick as the border between grass & sunny perennials and garden, in a colour like the Bora Laskin building. A yellow brick road yes, and about a foot and a half wide.

The doodle above will be one of many garden plan doodles from now until the end of winter. So many possibilities. :) I probably could have made more plans the other day when I did this had I not spent so much time putting eyes on the beets and bees in the flowers.

This was the soil we had delivered in..July, I think, from LCR Estates. On a rainy day, in the evening. Must have been right before we left for Oz. R (with Ms help) moved it all in the rain from the drive to the dog run. It's beautiful triple mix, and has already filled the whole west side garden (new this year after having to remove all the rocks and pebbles because a certain dumb Basset kept swallowing pebbles). The vet bills this year far outweighed the gardening bills. 

There is still a large heap left in the dog run, which R plans to move this weekend. I guess I'll take photos and make soup. 

Dear Garden Diary,

iGarden
8 November 2011

Yeah, I took this photo using my iPhone, dangling it over the balcony's railing. Dangerous. Earlier yesterday I dangled it over a bridge on May Street. This is why I have to return to using my Nikon for photos, with it's sturdy strap - less likely to slip through my fingers to a watery or pottery death. I've been so distracted with the iPhone photo apps lately that I haven't bothered updating about the garden. These things happen.

Well, we cleaned (R did most all of the gross work) and tucked away pots, preparing for winter the best we can. If we weren't basement hoarders we might have more space to store things. hmm.
R also did all of the digging, creating additional vegetable garden space. There is now three times the space and half the grass lawn. We're definitely putting a yellow brick path in to boarder the grass and perennial garden because we are corny like that. grin. Beyond the mugo pine the potentilla will be taken out and a gate will be put in its place.

This is exactly what happened with my first garden. Over eight years I slowly turned sod into garden. This is only my third season with this yard. Heh heh... We'll always have to have sod in the dog run - and the dogs will have have the run of the "dog forest" to the west of the existing path. It used to be a lovely, kept formal garden with lush grass that could only be manufactured. It was beautiful.
But it wasn't my kind of garden, and I think R feels the same (he grew up with orchards and bees, and did the dogging after all). It's fun to have a productive yard, and we both want to use this new space wisely. We now have the space to properly plant after our over-zealous seedling shopping sprees, we vow not to screw this up. We had more tomatoes than we could handle this year, giving them away from a box on our door step in the end...

I've said it before: our most challenging hurdle (more even than having a Gromit) is leaving the garden at the peek of the season. That's a toughy.., summer vacation time is summer vacation time - and family beckons. In the real world family trumps gardens, so the gardener has to adapt. I'm thinking there has got to be a way of planting around our three week adventure away.

I am so excited to have space for root vegetables in our own backyard. So excited. I think a couple fine brussel sprout plants would fit too. grin.
There's still a heap of triple mix waiting in the dog run to be put into the new garden, some lime, meal, and whatever compost I can come up with. It looks good and wormy already, so we're off to a good start.

Now that it's November, it's time for doodling gardens not digging in them..., taking long baths, settling in for winter. I can't help looking forward to next year, feeling so much better after feeling so off for so long. I didn't even realize how ill I've been until I started feeling better - things like balance: just in the last two weeks, while walking downtown noticing that I feel more steady than I have in years, and my body moves more cooperatively (if that makes any sense). I can breathe a little deeper, sleep a little deeper, think ahead again. It's actually quite remarkable, and a little scary.
Whatever infection that started this all - back in 2009, I'll probably never know..., and honestly I don't even care about knowing anymore. It all makes sense, the culmination of an infection (undoubtedly starting in my kidneys, as per my initial complaint, spreading, finding equilibrium with my immune system, reacting autoimmune: "lingering pathogen") combined with a toxic overload - mold most likely, and god only knows whatever else (Ryan Building). Stress. Miscarriage. Depression.
I won't disregard gardens and greenhouses either, sadly. There's a reason why products get pulled from shelves and tests are run on soil. It could happen to anyone, really, for so many reasons - making it hard to fuss about - unless you plan on living in a bubble, or worse: in fear.

It took two very different approaches to medicine: Western and Eastern, two hemispheres, an acupuncturist from the picturesque Leura Mall, and four local female doctors practicing in four unique healing directions to bring me back. The last month has been like an awakening.

I believe that by the time next spring arrives I'll be back to where I was, maybe even better.


CURRENT MUSIC: Watching the Wheels - John Lennon

yellow brick road

4 October 2011

While enjoying my morning mug of coffee on the back balcony this morning, a new plan for the garden came to me. Rethinking the proximity of the dog run to the vegetables, as well as sun exposure, I simplified the plan by bringing the new vegetable garden toward the house, next to the current kitchen garden. My previous plan seems ridiculous to me now, and complicated. I don't know why this didn't come to me in the first place.

In the new plan the fence is simplified - the whole east side of the garden, deck & Barbecue Central included, will be fenced off with two gates: one to the path to the vegetable gardens, deck and barbecues, the other to the clean, dog-free grass. When the dogs are being well behaved (ha ha) they will be able to join us on the grass, or R at the barbecues, maybe even nibble on a cherry tomato or two...but otherwise will have nowhere to go but through their forest and to the dog run at the back of the yard.

A little bit of mulch around the edge of the path to keep from overcrowding the walkway, and along the fence, to keep it neat (perhaps a few dainty sweet peas along the fence each year, keep it simple). To separate the vegetable garden from the grass and the sunny perennials: a brick path. I've always loved the look of a reclaimed brick path in the garden. Why not in yellow brick... ?

Years ago, before satellite radio at the greenhouse, there was a CD player. Every CD I created for us to listen to had a recording of Somewhere Over the Rainbow; it became expected. From Mary Lou Williams in Montreal, to Art Tatum, Dick Hyman, Stanley Jordan, to Chucho Valdez - I still have them all in an SOTR folder. How fitting that I meet a man who takes a yellow brick road home to Oz each year, and together we aim to reconcile our love for dogs and gardens in a small downtown plot. I'm sure we can find some yellow brick at the ReStore.

If we do that, I'm definitely going to have to find some Narcissus 'Lemon Drops' for the garden.

Fresh Garden Salsa

from our garden
27 September 2011

Today's harvest. I think I'm making some salsa tonight! 

I'm making things up as I go, using standard salsa ingredients:

8 tomatoes, coarsely chopped 

2 jalapeño, finely chopped

4 cloves of garlic, minced 

4 green onions, finely chopped 

2 capsicum (any colour), finely chopped

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil 

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice 

1 teaspoon kosher salt 

1 white onion, finely chopped

I might add some red onion also, and more garlic to taste. We have some nice looking orange capsicum in the fridge, which I'll add - and whatever else of interest I might find in there. Results to follow....

Dear Garden Diary

We've been eating a lot of tomatoes.
R's been experimenting with homemade ketchup recipes,
which become experimental barbecue sauce recipes, for testing on our guests invited to Porkfest(s).
I've got salsa plans for the next abundant harvest; and, you know, nothing says welcome home like having our favourite tomato, basil, and feta salad fresh from our backyard since we've returned from Australia.
Garden, you've been tomatolicious this year.

Three weeks ago I saw my first Aussie bees.

lavender, Barbara's garden
Mildura, Victoria

Yesterday, R saw his first hummingbird.
It was beautiful as it hummed in and out of the blooms below us.
We had been standing on the back balcony, enjoying
(and sharing with the dogs)
some beans that have climbed to balcony floor.
(Any stalks that dared to go beyond that has been chewed loose by a dog.)
We were discussing the garden,
and its future plans,
when the hummingbird flew in to enjoy some scarlet runner blooms and thriving nasturtiums.

semi-double blossom
Mounding Nasturtiums
Buttercream

 As wonderful as it was to see, I felt a little sad for the little bird - because of what he could have enjoyed. Leaving the garden at high season makes keeping on top of things very difficult. There were a few Nicotiana blooms left, which he did find, but I know what he could have had - a hummingbird version of Porkfest. Without deadheading and feeding, most of the potted plants are overgrown and exhausted. It was a hot dry summer, and new plants suffered a little stress. There should be so much more still blooming.

I'll take what I can get though, especially the Nasturtiums. They've rambled their way under and through R's newly constructed back deck and make me smile.

The nasturtiums pop up everywhere in the garden, and make up a great deal of the jungle. The heaping, heavy tomato plants make up the rest. Peas went to the dogs, and apparently carrots now too...

Clifford enjoys a carrot.

The tomatoes remain ours, so far safe from the four legged family members.

As for the garden's future plans: they mostly involve finding new and better ways to separate human space and gardens from dogs. The dogs require space, and deserve some places of their own to run and play outside. The dogs need grass, and more than our downtown yard provides - well, the yard space would be plenty for the dogs if it weren't taken up by so much garden. We can't share it, and have to reclaim some clean human grass.
Strangely, our plans are to create even more garden space. There will be less human grass space, which will be fine: I just want some place to sit in clean grass, and smell my garden, not the dogs. Garden photography has been a precarious activity this summer, as the dogs have had free roam while the dog run is under construction (holding all the soil we had delivered in the early summer).

In the end, a new fence and a new construction project for R - and possibly some new tools. A sod cutter will be brought in to remove what's there, new soil will be added, the garden beds will be created and treated, composted and lasagna(ed) for the winter, and will be full of tomatoes, peppers, and rambling zucchini next year.
To make way for a much longed for wood fired pizza and bread oven, the Caragana will move to the new garden gate, and face the clean human grass. To make way for the garden gate the Potentilla and oat grass will be removed. Another garden gate and small fence will close off the side of the house and protect the side garden, currently full of blooming foxgloves.

The dogs will have a full grassy area within the dog run, and while we all love the basketball court it is sadly under-used - the dogs need that space more than we do right now. They'll also have free run of the newly named "dog forest" which will be lighter on junipers, allowing for great for leaping and dodging dogs. R also wants to widen the path to the dog run by moving all the rocks that line the dog forest back toward the fence. I think he's crazy, but will stand by my man.

the makings for backyard pizza

garden produce 2011

Towering Tomatoes

tomato 'Early Girl'
7 July 2011

I once had a Grape Tomato grow nearly as tall as me, but this 'Early Girl' will definitely beat that record - and it's only the beginning of July! Already up to my eye level, this was one of the plants we brought home from Vanderwees Greenhouses well established in a giant pot. Transplanted into the warmest, sunniest corner of our small kitchen garden in early May, ...it's now a monster of a thing, with nearly ripe tomatoes tucked deep inside and baby ones scattered all over.
This plant may think of itself in an Audreyesque way, but I have other plans for it.

Fee-fi-fo-fum

beanstalk climbing
29 June 2011

our edible garden

Sugar Snap Peas, Gromit and Hannah's Strawberries,  capsicum,  pink cosmos and purple salvia,  Early Girl tomatoes,  'Buttercream' Nasturtium Thyme and garlic chives,  snapdragons

Got Rhubarb?

our rhubarb (a dog toy) and some ferns
south west garden 15 June 2011

It was a monster of a thing, our rhubarb, and I wanted to eat it.

The landlord next door was working on the shed just beyond the fence near our rhubarb plant yesterday, while his wife cut the grass.. . both watching me as I came charging out of the house with the largest knife we have. I earned a few worrisome looks while I took the photos, but once I started chopping the plant they went back to their business.

The rhubarb was taken down stalk by stalk.

I was going to make my mother's "Rhubarb Crunch" ~ a recipe she got from a 1970's Yankee magazine, and made for us regularly, a fond childhood memory. I followed the recipe, but I altered it slightly; the calls for canned cherry pie filling - I don't really like canned filling, so I decided to just add a couple cups of frozen raspberries into the simple syrup (sugar, water, cornstarch, and vanilla boiled) instead. It worked wonderfully (though I made and added way too much raspberry syrup to the rhubarb and crumble - not that anyone complained..).

Four cups diced rhubarb with plenty extra :)

Equal parts rolled oats, flour, and brown sugar. 

I grated in frozen butter rather than cutting it in, or melting it to form a crumbly dough. Half is used for the bottom, half is reserved for the top. (I like a crumbly crumble, so I always make extra.)

After filling the pan with the diced rhubarb, and pouring over the raspberry syrup, it was topped and baked for one hour at 350F. We served it with real whipped cream with vanilla.

yum

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