Amy's Garden

new RB trees

Both the Ryan Building and the Library received new trees this year. :)

praying to the spade gods

Gardens June 18 2009

Gardenerd goes YouTube-ing

Amy's Gardens

Amy's Garden at the site of the St. John Street Beautification Project:

Tomatoes, peas, cabbage, carrots, peppers, cucumbers, and beets. Just enough.

Rohan`s Garden

Euan`s Tree Farm

Euan's Tree Farm
St John Street Beautification Project

LU Garden May 2009

http://lakeheaduniversitygarden.blogspot.com/

the Campus Garden

the Campus Garden April 2009

the Campus Garden March 2009

The Not So Secret Lives of Bees

http://www.pollinationcanada.ca/

http://www.ontariobee.com/

http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/food/inspection/bees/info_suppliers.htm

http://www.beeculture.com/

http://www.thedailygreen.com/environmental-news/blogs/bees/

http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/agdex3946

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/06/10/f-bees-colony-mites.html and http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/11/22/bees-nosema.html

http://biobees.blogspot.com/

FSRN Campus Garden Project

Putting Peas By

Peas

"Prepare. Shell...
Blanch. In boiling water - for 1½ minutes. Cool immediately, drain.
Pack. Leave ½ inch of headroom.
Seal; freeze."

To determine when to pick shell peas, check the pods by eye and feel. If the pod is round, has a nice sheen, and is bright green, it is ready. If the seeds have made ridges on the pod and the pod is a dull green, it's past its prime.

You can pick snap and snow snap peas at any time, but they're tastiest when the pods still have some play around the peas when you squeeze the pods.

Pick snow peas before the peas start to enlarge in the pods.

Frequent harvesting increases yields. Pick every other day to keep the plants in production. Pick any pods that are overly mature; if left on the vine, yields will diminish.

Peas keep best in the shell, so don't shell them until just before cooking.

1/2 CUP OF COOKED SNAP PEAS:
Calories: 34
Dietary Fiber: 1.4 grams
Protein: 2.6 grams
Carbohydrates: 5.6 grams
Vitamin C: 38.3 mg
Iron: 1.6 mg
Potassium: 192 mg
Magnesium: 21 mg

Putting Food By
ISBN-10: 0452268990
ISBN-13: 978-0452268999
My edition was published by the Stephen Greene Press © 1973.
Edited by Janet Green, authors Ruth Hertzberg (New England Home Economics teacher and County Agent), and heirloom American recipe creator and writer, Beatrice Vaughan advise on everything from root cellaring to recipes for plain Dandelion greens and corn omelets.

There's been a lot of talk lately among the FSRN about ways we can teach ways to "extend" our growing season. Preserving, to take full advantage of everything grown an obvious direction. The basics are simple, but the possibilities for personal touches to recipes are inexhaustible.

The Anglo-Saxon word for peas was 'pise' or 'pease' as in the nursery rhyme, 'pease porridge hot, pease porridge cold.'

World Food Day 2008

World Food Day 2008
Lakehead University Agora

World Food Security: the Challenges of Climate Change and Bioenergy

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations

Roots to Harvest, along with the Food Security Research Network, Advanced Institute for Globalization & Culture, Food Action Network, and LUSU hosted World Food Day today in the Agora.
The Boreal Edge Farm, Belluz Farm, Jeff's wheat mill and Brule Creek Farm, Seeds of Diversity, the Good Food Box, were among the many display booths; and Dr. Mustafa Koc co-founder of the Centre for Studies in Food Security visited Lakehead as keynote speaker.

Leaf Mould

The lightest air-stir

Released their love-whispers when she walked
The needles weeping, singing, dedicating

....
excerpt ~ Ted Hughes Leaf Mould

white paper and dirty dirt

Connie's tomatoes in the foreground

- 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

four reasons why I love Hazeldean

The Hogarth Plantation

The Hogarth Plantation is a 44 hectare property used by the Faculty of Forestry and the Forest Environment for teaching and research.

Also using it for research is Connie, who is growing blueberries in a cleared section of the forest.
These pictures were taken last September, right around the same time I stumbled upon potatoes growing in the tilled rugby field.

I know that what attracts me most to the Hogarth forest is it's resemblance to the pine "plantation" that bordered the house I grew up in. The property was named 'Singing Pines', and for years there was a sign at the entrance tp the driveway. Over the years, each spring after winter, my father would replace or re-erect the sign which would get knocked down by the snowplows (sometimes driven by himself), until eventually the sign just never went up again.

The Pines always sang through the chickadees, and were beautiful - planted much like the Hogarth trees. I love the way they smell, and how the needles collect all over beneath them; even the way they eerily creek. The trees surrounded my playhouse, running from the road to the river west to east and north until they eventually thickened with the trees of Wishart.

Tomaat!

Sara's superfantastic TOMATO MAP

Red Brandywine,
Stupice,
Harbinger,
Moskovich,
Wonderlight or 'Plum Lemon',
Landry's Russian,
Mortgage Lifter,
Doublerich,
Baxter's Bush Cherry,
Superfantastic,
Old Brooks,

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. :)

planting map FSRN 2008

for reading in a bathtub:
Harborne, Jeffrey B., and Herbert Baxter. Chemical Dictionary of Economic Plants: Dictionary of Useful Plant Products. 2001
0471492264