I really need to play with this lens more often

The light was just perfect this weekend so I pulled out the 50 mm lens yesterday, for the first time in ages, possibly since we got the camera. I know, sad. I’m pretty stuck on using the 18-200 mm, which is just so versatile. But maybe not anymore… I just love how you can get…

They need to do this at every school

The Toronto Star published a story this week about Scarborough’s Bendale Business and Technical Institute’s market garden, believed to be the first of it’s kind in Canada. This high school garden is a partnership with FoodShare, and was started with an 11-month, $65,000 Ontario Community Go Green Fund grant. The garden has a whopping 26…

Makes my blood boil!

An article appeared in the Toronto Star today about the City of Toronto Transportation department squashing a family’s front-yard veggie garden. A garden where they were growing food to teach their four young children about urban agriculture. Because of “encroachment on city property.” Instead, Allan Smithies, Manager, Traffic Planning/Right-of-Way Management at City of Toronto thinks…

Moving up in the world

So… after trying half a dozen contractors over the spring and summer to give us quotes, and only a couple of them actually showing up to give a quote, and both of those coming in at figures hovering around $8,000 to $9,000, we finally found a reliable contractor who came in at a very reasonable…

Garden nearly wrapped up

Yesterday’s freakishly warm temperatures aside, September has been a fairly quiet month for the garden because of the very cool temperatures. The tomatoes are nearly done, and the chilies and peppers are taking their sweet time ripening in the cold. There are still some leeks on the go; I’ll leave them be until we get…

Tomatoes, tomatoes and more tomatoes

I have tomatoes coming out of my ears. Goldies, Black Zebras, Purple Calabashes, Aunt Ruby’s Yellow Cherries, Yellow Pears, San Marzanos, Wonder Lights, Sweet 100s, Des Andes, etc., etc. I’ve been giving the cherries away like mad because I just cannot keep up with them, until this week when I found a really fabulous recipe…

Poppy love

I enjoyed a totally blissful weekend at the farm, so much so I just did not want to come back here to this tense, cop-ified city of mine. The G20 is right around the corner and I work in what is anticipated to be a major hot spot for protesters. Today I could feel serious…

Growing my own strawberries this year

Last year I planted a couple strawberry plants in my side bed where it’s quite sunny, as a bit of an experiment. I don’t have a lot of veggie space to devote full time to strawberries, but I thought it might be nice to pick a couple handfuls of berries now and then. Last year…

Rested and rejuvenated

So I’ve been MIA from the blogosphere yet again but for good reason. Firstly, I’ve been migrating to a new laptop which hast taken some time to get my Aperture library moved (and to learn Aperture 3, which has been completely overhauled from version 2), getting other software installed and bookmarks and address books ported…

Tulips, we hardly knew ye

We’ve had a wicked cold snap here in Ontario. This weekend Chris and I were at the cottage and it snowed! Lots! None of it really hung around but Saturday saw plenty of the white stuff falling. Thankfully I had avoided temptation and not yet put out any of my tomatoes, despite the wonderful early-summer-like…