Amy's Garden

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Rhodochiton (Lophospermum)
in the front porch
reaching toward the Green Man.

I'm not sure if I'm going to plant this vigorous climber in the ground along the east fence - the middle trellis is empty, and I haven't yet decided on a permanent perennial climber for the space, so I might just leave it to play with interesting annuals.

Maybe I'll plant a number of them and just watch them grow.

Inter & Companion Planting the Edible Garden

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.

printed in:

May 2012 Home & Garden flyer

distributed by the Chronicle Journal

Sunday, 13 May 2012

Friday, May 11, 2012

Good Morning Glory

Ipomoea

I. tricolor

Heavenly Blue

Morning Glory

My grandmother, Frances Mulcahy, grew morning glories - my mother remembers them. I'll plant them on the middle trellis this year - while I decide a more permanent resident for the spot (or, keep it for annual vines?)

Red Admiral

Red Admiral
butterfly
VANESSA ATLANTA

A beneficial garden (in this case, greenhouse) bug, Red Admiral feasts on the sweet nectar of fruit trees and plants. Migratory, and common in the northern hemisphere, these pretty little pollinators are making news all over Ontario this spring, arriving earlier than recent years, and in great numbers. A sign that summer is right around the corner.

Red Admiral
on Giant Bacopa
at Bill Martin's Garden Centre

take a deep breath and hold

A woman recently commented on my photography, telling me I needed to stand still while I take photos - too much blur I guess, many errors in stitching...
I gave her the side eye as she walked away, thinking:

I've wondered ever since how often she's held her breath until she nearly faints, holding a weighty DSLR focused on a bloom while standing on one awkward foot waiting for that bumble bee to return to the lens. I should let it go. Ignorance is a funny thing..., I really try not to judge people, make assumptions - we all do it, human nature, but really...Where's the respect?

I guess not considered is that all of these greenhouse panos taken this year have been 'on the job' - while I work, becoming overwhelmed by the sight of the greenhouse (no different than most customers) - I stop, and take a photograph...mostly so that I can 'breath it all in' later (Honda Wanda), but also to share and show off what a beautiful thing I've helped create.
I often have a hose in one hand while I take these, quickly shooting before someone walks though the scene. I've dared to go up on ladders (as my fear of heights causes hand sweats and feet aches).. I think I've done pretty damn good (getting better) at the process involved in taking the right photos at the right angles with the right exposure in order to stretch the greenhouse properly, with as little warping, errors, and blur. Not an easy photographic task..., but fun, challenging, and fulfilling for my creative junkie self.

It's true. I've nearly fainted in the garden doing some sort of Karate Kid yoga on a rock, holding my breath to keep my camera still - many times. Some things just can't be done with a tripod - food photography for instance...lots of breath holding there.

I understand that some people just don't understand. What. ever.

This, this is what was going through my head the whole time she spoke to me about standing still. Then I picked up my hose and flipflopped back to where I had left off watering.

frontyardovich morning 11 May 2012

Pulmonaria officinalis
Lungwort

It dazzles me every year. One of the first to bloom, it starts every garden season with fantastic camera fodder. I probably have more photos of this plant than any other.

Also returning happily are cornflowers

astilbes

and St. John's Wort

The ferns too, of course - which R wants to thin and give away (Gerry's garden?) which will allow some space for me to add some wackydoodle plants I've been eyeing at the greenhouse, high maintenance things like Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii' (Red Banana), & Colocasia esculenta (Elephant Ear) ('Black Magic' and another baby leaf one)...so interesting.. :)

They'll have to be lifted before the frost returns and stored in the cellar for the winter. I've been generally lazy about this sort of gardening in the past, but I'm ready to commit.

Colocasia esculenta 'Black Beauty' & Ensete ventricosum 'Maurelii'

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Rhodochiton "Purple Bells"

I think I love you...

interesting information:
Horticultural & Botanical History, Rhodochiton atrosanguineum

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Lemony

Lemon verbena, double lemon calibrachoa, "Pink Lemonade" petunias, "Lemon Symphony" osteospermum..., there are more lemony plants, and I'm going to collect them all for a while I think. Most of this year's containers seem to be coming up lemon.

Some people come into the greenhouse so organized: with lists & tags, and knowing exactly what they want. I can't say I don't have lists (in my head mostly) or tags (in bags on my desk), or any plan....
The possibilities are endless though, and until I run out of pots and space the deciding and planning continues. I know that I develop spontaneous relationships with blooms I never expected to even like (especially petunias, and zonal geraniums); and though I like to think I'm not a theme type of gardener, I do it all the time - fairytales and literary influences, fruit flavoured Daylilies, colours, and now lemons.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

cleaning

begonia blooms
in my pocket

Basil

Italian Large Leaf
Basil

Lemon Verbena

through the roof

Bill Martin's

Thunder Bay

23 April 2012

Fudwick

instagramed #tbaygardens

greenhouse panoramas

Bill Martin's

Thunder Bay

Friday, April 20, 2012

Bike Lanes in Thunder Bay

Yesterday, while riding north on Court Street toward home I dodged pot holes and crumbled asphalt and small dunes of road sand left from the winter. The bike lane was barely visible, completely unsafe for riding - so I was, for the most part, riding along it's outer edge. At times I had to swerve further into the road to avoid larger pot hole and dunes.

As I approached Bay Street I glanced behind me - no traffic, ahead of me were three cars driving south on the other side of the road, coming through the green light. I signalled that I was turning left on Bay, kept riding, checking behind me, ...two of the cars drove properly on their route. The third car took one look at me approaching the intersection, on the road, on a bike, with my arm out - and slammed on the breaks, stopping in the middle of the intersection.

Oh my dog. Really people? Who is causing a problem on the road in this story? Who isn't following the rules - the law? Who hasn't been to driving school, - what score did they get on their written test? Have they read a local newspaper or listened to the news? Pay attention?
I bet drivers like that are also the ones who spend their time complaining about Thunder Bay being a deadbeat town going nowhere, where it's hard to find good work, and the beer comes in jugs. Asshats.

I am so tired of hearing the complaints about the bike lanes, the ridiculous comments from Boshchoff calling them "dangerous" is outrageous. Cyclists on sidewalks? Even more ridiculous. He needs to get his head out of the sand. What is dangerous are drivers like that idiot who slammed on the breaks in the middle of an intersection because they didn't know what to do with a bike on the road.

Understanding a line on the road is not difficult - even new lines. I can not count how many times I watched cars drift in and out of bike lanes last year. Never saw a cyclist drift in and out of a bikelane...funny that.

I think - there are better ways to integrate cyclists in urban areas. I've been hearing on the news all morning that they're planning a revitalisation of Red River Road and Memorial Ave. (about time people..) Why not put a little extra effort into adding Recreational Trails along side the sidewalk. Sidewalk for walkers, RecTrails for riders, inline skates, runners. On the curb, off the road, line it with trees, make it pretty, attract people to it. To me it seems simple.
There could be a RecTrail continued along Oliver Road (from the Balmoral trail), on the north side, connecting pedestrians and cyclists *safely* to the hospital. If traffic lights were installed, to the University too.

Again, so simple.
Oh I bet "it costs too much"...or some such bullshit. Kind of like cleaning the streets in Thunder Bay. sigh

I really hope this bike lane business continues to make news, go national. Let's call these idiots on council out. I've had enough of them.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Local Farms

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.

Boreal Edge Farms
photo credit to Chris Merkley

Belluz Farms
photo credit to Kevin Belluz

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.

Sleepy G Farm

Brendan Grant & Marcelle Paulin

RR1 Pass Lake, ON

P0T 2M0

807.977.1631

http://sleepygfarm.nfshost.com/

sleepygfarm@gmail.com

Located at the base of the Sibley peninsula, approximately 45kms east of Thunder Bay.

Boreal Edge Farm

Matt Baughman & Leigh Potvin

RR1 Marttinen Lane