I’m still in the thinking/planning stages of my garden for this year, but very soon I’ll start my seedlings. I have a terrible habit of starting them far too early, and then end up with gargantuan plants that I awkwardly jostle around in the house for weeks until it’s safe to move them outdoors. So…
Category: In the Garden
Farming in the urban shadow in Waterloo, Ontario
Urban farm pressure. A combine harvests wheat off Fischer-Hallman Road in Kitchener. As Kitchener’s suburbs have grown outward, the once-quiet countryside has become a busy suburb. Photo by David Bebee. “Urbanization forces farmers to become land speculators, even the ones that don’t want to be,” By Greg Mercer, Record staff Jan 06 2012 Excerpt: Flourishing…
Forgive the tardy (and now married) blogger
It’s been a month already? What happened?! Oh yeah. A little thing called life. Chris and I are now married (yay!) and our wedding was a beautiful, blissful love-in with our family and friends. There are some photos floating around out there but I’m waiting to post about all the details until I get the…
Beets galore
Last week after getting home from a weekend at the cottage I inspected the beet patch to see how things are going. Low and behold I had gargantuan Chioggias coming out of my ears. I should have known, as they are the earliest of the beets I like to grow. I also have some Detroit…
Finally some rain
Over the last week we’ve finally had a decent dose of rain. It’s not enough — we need a lot more — but I won’t complain. Today was a very misty one, and everything is pleasantly coated with little drops of dew. It’s incredibly sticky outside now though, because while we’ve gotten some rain, the…
Positively pickled
I think my house smelled like dill pickles for a week after this. It started with garlic dills and dilly beans. And then I bought more cucumbers for making relish. But I had way, way too many. So they became sliced garlic dills, with some added chili to kick them up a notch. I made…
Ode to my Dad
It’s Father’s Day and since Canada Post workers are locked out, and my card to my Dad is likely still sitting in the post box by my office, I thought I’d do a little shout out to my papa from here. My Dad works as a metal fabricator for a local shop, which comes in…
We have a new neighbour
For a while now I’ve noticed a couple birds of prey around our hood. A couple years ago I snapped a photo of one in the tree across the street, guessing that it was a Cooper’s Hawk, and earlier this spring I often saw a couple of them flying around within our block. About a…
Just in time for spring: mittens!
These babies are looooong overdue. I think I started them around this time last year. The hibernated for a while. And then when I picked up the torch this spring to finally get them done, I finished the left mitt, which fit perfectly, and then realized the right mitt was way, way too small. I…
The Bottom Line
I’ve recently tuned into this podcast by environmental hero David Suzuki, called The Bottom Line, on CBC. According to the website, The Bottom Line “explores the disconnect between our modern values and our relationship with the Earth. It is a celebration of our biological makeup that dictates our most basic human needs – the real…