DIY test for garlic stem & bulb nematode

Holy carp guys. What I am about to share is going to CHANGE MY LIFE. My gardening life anyway. Or more specifically, my garlic-growing life. Last year (um yeah… that was my last post… don’t judge) I published my heartbroken post of discovering what my years-long problem had been with my garlic, which was to…

Dashed garlic dreams

I’ve been growing an increasing amount of garlic at my family farm for about 5 years now, but over the last two harvests I’ve been really disappointed in the quality of it, and I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. It looked like rot. The wrappers were yellowed, the roots more or less missing from…

Rooting herbs to carry them through winter

For the last few years I’ve been buying herbs to plant in my herb bed to replace the ones that don’t make it through the winter, which, aside from chives and oregano that reseeds itself, means buying new thyme, rosemary, and a particular variety of dwarf culinary sage that I really like and have only…

Stitches from the past

This is a project that has been in the making for many years, involving several sets of hands. Long before I was even really trying out quilting, my grandmother was embroidering quilt blocks to give me. She bought (or was given) kits of pre-printed blocks in kind of kitschy, antiquated patterns, but it was something…

Branding or Botany?

In the last week I’ve managed to seriously catch up on my long neglected garden. One of my major projects was to expand my front flower bed, along the front of the amour stone, to give me a bit more space for perennials (that I’m perpetually over crowding) and to add some more bulbs. In…

Airing our not-so-dirty laundry

When we moved into this house I swore I was going to put in a clothesline. It might have taken us three years, but we finally did it! Clotheslines were actually illegal in Toronto until 2008, when the province voided all municipal bylaws that outlawed the practice of air drying clothes from ground-level dwellings (hello…

Lazy Deadheading

Do you do much deadheading? It’s a garden chore I get pretty lazy about. But the other day I just couldn’t ignore my front door planters any longer. The geraniums were looking very neglected and sad, and the blooms were becoming few and thin. An inexperienced gardener might think their plant had completed its natural lifespan…

Black currant, how do I love thee?

Last year I stuck a couple of black currant bushes into the very edge of the ravine, at the back of my herb garden, next to the rhubarb. Planting anything here is challenging because the properties that line the ravine are built on landfill, and it’s pretty tough to dig a hole without having to…

Been doored in Toronto? Good luck.

I started biking to work again about a month ago. It’s a welcome form of exercise I will keep up with whilst still being practical (getting to and from work and avoiding the hot, slow, crowded and often delayed subway system). I’ve been cycling off and on in Toronto since I moved here 20 years ago….

Garlic Mojo

By late February, early March, my remaining garlic harvest is usually starting to try to sprout and go soft. I usually try to roast what’s left and freeze it to prevent it from sprouting past its usefulness. This year however, I came across Rick Bayless’s Garlic Mojo (Mojo de Ajo) recipe, which is a simple…