Tag Archives: In the Garden

Composting guerrilla style

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This is kind of a goofy video but I love the concept of guerrilla composting! As we in Toronto get closer to the last yard waste pick up date of the season (week of Dec. 10 in my neighbourhood), the window of opportunity to grab up bags of leaves put out for pick up is almost up.

I’m lucky enough to have ready, easy access to horse manure at my parent’s farm. I usually try bring some to the city once it’s fully composted, but getting it relatively fresh for composting at home is another option… although transporting uncomposted manure in tubs in our car may be stepping outside the acceptable line as far as my hubby is concerned!

I hadn’t really thought of grabbing up bagfuls of coffee grounds from the local coffee house but that’s a very smart idea too. I’m sure there are already many people taking advantage of this in the city, but I should ask around at my local shops. We already compost virtually everything that we can — I have two black composters at work in my backyard along with a wire leaf mulch composter, and I’m pretty impressed with myself that this year I’ve only put out a few bags of leaves and bins of the tougher garden waste (stick windfall mostly); most of our leaves have gone into the leave mulching wire bin, or I’ve ground them up with our new WORX leaf mulcher (which we got for a song, on sale for $20 at Canadian Tire!) for adding to the beds as insulation for my garlic crops.

What it really comes down to is space for composting. I’m lucky enough to have a large backyard. My composters work very well even though they’re in 100% shade. They would be working much faster in the sun, but as they are, I can usually sift out a couple wheelbarrows full of great compost twice a year. Guerrilla composting on the magnitude shown in the video requires a good spot you can back a pick-up truck into and make a nice big pile. It would work even better if you had a small loader tractor to turn it once in a while. But all the same, the concepts could be applied to a single black composter in a small yard, if you wanted.

My food-growing passion has rubbed off on my parents enough that this year my Dad plowed a small plot where my mom and I are going to grow some winter squashes next year, along with maybe a few other veggies that don’t do so well in my small urban patch. In the city, squashes take up an enormous amount of space, and they usually don’t make it to maturity before the squirrels eat them. But on the farm the squirrels are minimal, and my parent’s dog does a good job keeping them at bay. We plan to grow things that aren’t super time sensitive for harvesting, as I can only get to the farm every so often and don’t want all the work to land on my mom, which means peas and beans are out, but maybe some potatoes are in! I’m excited to have an extension to my grow space next year! As the plot was formerly horse pasture, compost will be an important factor in getting the ground grow-ready.

Garlic

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Seed Garlic

I was so pleased with my garlic this year that I’ve decided to plant more than twice the amount for next year. In fact, by next spring, I may regret how little space I have left in my garden for anything else!

As the years go by and I gain more experience growing veggies, I’ve found that there’s certain varieties of plants that I like to grow, and others that aren’t worth the hassle, whether it be because of unpredictable yields, space considerations or whatever. I love to grow tomatoes but I often end up with way too many cherry varieties (and/or yield), so next year I plan to be very strict with myself stick to one cherry type and a couple of slicers (I usually buy my romas for canning because you just can’t beat $15 for a local bushel at my nearby grocery store). I also like to grow one particular variety of chiles (name unknown) and they are seriously prolific, and do best in pots. Sweet peppers are grown year round here in greenhouses, and I find they need a very long season, so they’re often not worth the effort when you can get such good fresh local ones at the market. Salad greens are always rewarding of course.

But garlic! Good quality local garlic is rather pricey, but I prefer it over the nasty, often old stuff that’s shipped over from China and sold in the grocery store. And sometimes there are localish varieties of garlic available at the grocery store (i.e. American), but I tried some once and while it was very fresh, it had an awful musty flavour that made food inedible (who knew there’s such a thing as badly flavoured garlic!). It’s a shame that more grocers don’t engage in contracts with local garlic growers more often — we have really great garlic available right here!

The garlic I harvested this summer yielded about 45 bulbs, in two varieties: Music and Purple Glazer, both available through Richters. We’re already almost finished eating all the Purple Glazer, so obviously I could do with a lot more to get me through the winter. Since seed garlic is quite pricey, I used a bit of this year’s harvest to plant for next year, but also I ordered some Siberian garlic from Richters to try, and some Korean Purple from the Salt Spring Seed Company. I’m particularly excited about the Korean Purple — the heads are HUGE!

For anyone thinking of trying growing garlic for the first time, the time to plant is now. If you haven’t ordered your seed garlic, get on that right away because suppliers often sell out. For tips on growing garlic, my go-to resource is Boundary Garlic Farm’s awesome site.

Cured garlic

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Cured garlic

Cured garlic, Purple Glazer and Music varieties

My garlic harvest is now cured and stored away safely hanging in my basement. I had it on a drying rack in the garage with a fan on it for about 2 weeks or so, and then I trimmed off the dead leaves and the roots, and then brought them inside.

I tried my hand at braiding the smaller variety, the Purple Glazer, but I think this technique must be better suited for soft neck varieties, as it was very hard to manipulate the stalks into the braid. There are numerous videos on how to do this online (I referenced this one).

Cured Purple Glazer garlic

Cured Purple Glazer garlic

Music, the larger variety pictured above, has stalks as much as a half inch thick, and some of them are still quite green, so I’ve just wrapped the whole bundle with some twine and hung it up. The green in the stalks suggests its not quite finished curing but given its most of the way there it should be fine hung up in a dry spot. My basement isn’t exactly humidity free but its dry enough, and last year’s garlic did just fine.

Cured Music garlic

Cured Music garlic

The stalks of my Spanish onions were starting to fall over in the garden so I decided it would be a good idea to pull them and set them to cure while we’re on holiday, rather than leave them in the garden. My shallots are still curing, along with the last of the multiplier spring onions I had allowed to get too overgrown. My hope is I can save those bulbs and try them out in either the early winter or next spring. I’ve never saved bulbs from onions but it should be easy enough.

 

I had it backwards

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Purple Glazer Garlic

Purple Glazer Garlic

Now that it’s out of the ground, I’m pretty sure I had the variety of my garlics mixed up. I think the smaller one is Purple Glazer (above), and the larger one is Music. The larger variety doesn’t seem to have a hint of purple skin. I have half a mind to call Richter’s Herbs, where I bought the garlic, to see what they think, but I suspect that I’m (now) right.

Music Garlic

Music Garlic

Both varieties were looking like they were nearly ready to harvest, so tonight I decided to dig a few up from each type to take a look. They looked good and we have a couple nice days ahead, so I decided to pluck up the whole crop so that it can cure over the weekend. We’re expecting some rain Sunday afternoon so I’ll likely have to bring it into the garage or the basement to finish up, but… hooray!

I’m thrilled with how my garlic has turned out this year. The first year I tried growing garlic, I planted it in the wrong season (tip: don’t get suckered into buying the seed garlic they sell in virtually every garden centre and store in the spring! Garlic needs to be planted in the autumn!). Then the cloves separated and re-sprouted the next year all over the garden. I harvested that stuff but it was a mess, and the cloves were small and difficult to use.

Music Garlic

Music Garlic

Finally last growing season I planted it at the right time but the heads of garlic were small and I think I had planted them too deep. I used them too but again, really small garlic is a pain to peel and cook with.

Last fall I bought the two varieties from Richters and got them in the ground at the right time, and I made a conscientious effort not to bury them too deep (I wasn’t quite so conscientious about labelling them however).

Shallots

Shallots

The same improved planting technique has yielded much better results with my other alliums too. Pictured above are my shallots. They keep trying to flower and I’ve clipped back the flower stalks regularly but I figure they could be picked and cured too. My yellow Spanish onions are growing to a nice size too. Finally! Good-sized onions!! With all my gardening experience, getting good yield in my onions has alluded me until this year!

I bought the Spanish onion sets from a bulk bin at a farm supply store near my parent’s farm — rather than the ones I usually pick up that McKenzie supplies to the garden centres. Not sure if that made a difference but I wouldn’t doubt it.

I read somewhere that you can plan shallots in the autumn. I don’t know if I can find shallot sets for the fall but I’d like to give it a shot if I can. If anyone knows anyone who I could order them from in September, I’m all ears!

Rain!!

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Lots and lots of rain. Finally. Hooray!

Gloomy Friday

The view from one of the windows in at the office.

Just listening to the rain fall outside my office. Giant puddles are forming in the construction site next door. My garden is soaking it up at home. Finally. Maybe those deep cracks in my raised beds will finally close up.

Garden Freckles

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April GardenFreckles lettuce

My garden, or what’s been planted in it so far, is chugging right along. I’ve got lettuces, spinach, radishes, carrots, beets and some chard and kale in the ground in the backyard beds, but these are mixed in terms of success.

The backyard beds get less sun than the front yard, so this year I tried planting some items I thought would be less picky about sun (last year the beds were installed a bit late in the season so I put some of my extra tomato plants back there, and the only ones to produce fruit were the cherry varieties). The lettuces and spinach are all doing very well, if not a little patchy here and there. The radishes and kale also seem to be enjoying themselves. But the beets, chard and carrots, not so much.

Also a likely factor in the mixed success may be the age of my seed. I have this habit of overbuying seed, and then a few years goes by before I get to use it. Not a good practice. Some types of seeds can remain viable for years but other types are quite sensitive to age, and I was far too busy/lazy to do any germination testing. I also tried to plant less seed so that I didn’t overcrowd things, but it appears that was a bad gamble. But I knew it was a test, to see what would grow in the conditions back there, and so far, it appears those beds will likely be best for salad greens, radishes, and probably they’ll be great for using with a cold frame in the winter (an experiment I’d like to try next fall/winter). Once the leaves are off the trees those beds get good light, so I think the backyard will be great for winter veggies.

April Garden

My garlic is doing super awesome. Finally this week we’ve had a proper spring drenching, and I can practically hear the leaves coming out on the trees and the grass growing. Same with my garlic — I planted two varieties last fall and they are vastly different in their appearance. I recall planting them in a hurry because the fall was getting away from me (you know, with the wedding and all) and I didn’t mark which was which, but I’m 80% sure that the garlic on the left in the photo above is Music, and the garlic on the right, the much bigger garlic, is Purple Glazer. Even since this photo was taken the larger garlic is dwarfing the smaller one.

I’ve been hardening off my tomato and nasturtium seedlings all week, and I may try to plant a few of them this weekend, using my frost jacket cloches (the ones that hold water). I only have a half dozen of these so I can’t plant everything. My chile and pepper seedlings are unfortunately still tiny, too small to transplant still. I might have to move them outdoors too just so they get the sun they need to jump up.

It’s that time of year again

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Tomato seedlings

tomato seedlings

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 far I’ve held out on starting the seeds, but I’ve also been lazy and I haven’t even looked in earnest at what seeds I might order. There’s something about this winter that has put me off. Perhaps it’s that it feels like the worst parts of November and March that have just dragged on for so much longer than is natural — cold, blustery rain, the odd tease of fleeting snow and the wildly flip flopping temperatures. Some people feel like we’ve gotten away lightly this winter. Me? I feel gypped.

Don’t get me wrong, winter is far from my favourite time of the year, but I like to indulge and give credence to the specialness of each of the seasons, and there’s so much magic in fresh crisp snow and icy coldness. Hoarfrost is rare and beautiful. A good snowstorm is a wake up call to the power of nature. Playing in the snow with my dog reminds me of my childhood on the farm when we hollowed out caverns inside of snow drifts to make forts.

But alas, the season is in its final throes with barely a snowflake in sight.

My lethargy will give way soon. I’m ruminating on how to keep my garden simple this year. I adore heirloom tomatoes and always start far too many. We’re planning our belated two-week honeymoon to fall smack in the middle of the summer this year, and it’s unlikely I’ll find good garden help to maintain things while we’re away, so I may even forego the usual cacophony of potted veggies and flowers in the backyard, and keep everything in the ground as much as possible. This will be a struggle — I love pots of hanging strawberries, and planters of mint. My chile peppers always seem to do so much better in the super-heated little microclimates of planters in the hot sun than they do in the ground in this northern climate.

Tomato graduates potted in recycled milk bags

Tomato graduates potted in recycled milk bags

But unless my elderly neighbour will agree to attend to my plant menagerie, dreams of overflowing planters and hanging baskets may have to wait until next year. Most of our friends live too far away around the city for it to be convenient for them to drop by for (almost) daily waterings. Chris gifted me a timer for my soaker hoses this Christmas that can be used on my raised beds out front, so at least those can be kept on a schedule, but it’s the planters that would suffer the most from inadequate care.

So we shall see. I always say I’m going to simplify, simplify. But veggie gardens are gloriously messy things, and well…there’s always room for one more plant…at least until it reaches crowded maturity!

Finally some rain

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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.

Soaked Smoke Bush

Soaked Smoke Bush

It’s incredibly sticky outside now though, because while we’ve gotten some rain, the heat is still hanging around. Not like it was last week though. I’ll take the rain and a little humidity over 38 degrees C and a lot of humidity any day of the week. I’m just pleased that my rain barrels have refilled again. I’m not sure what the official rainless stretch was but it was easily a month if not more.

Positively pickled

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I think my house smelled like dill pickles for a week after this.

Dilly beans

Dilly beans

It started with garlic dills and dilly beans.

Garlic dills

Garlic dills

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.

Spicy sliced garlic dills

Spicy sliced garlic dills

I made only a half batch of relish last year to see how we liked it. It was so great I made a full batch this year.

Homemade cucumber relish

Homemade cucumber relish

And for the first time this year I’ve had success with chard. I have no idea why it didn’t cooperate in the past. But this summer there is an abundance of this lovely stuff.

Rainbow Swiss Chard

Rainbow Swiss Chard

Summer is wonderful.

Ode to my Dad

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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 pretty handy when I need some random ‘thing’ created. This spring Chris and I had some trees removed and some limbs trimmed in our very shaded backyard, and now we feel there’s enough light to grow more veggies back there, albeit probably more cool-weather loving varieties. Learning from the creation of our previous raised beds, we knew we wanted to go with either composite lumber or cedar this time, and to make assembly quick and easy, we asked my Dad if he could whip up some corner brackets out of stainless steel. We had 12 done, with pre-drilled holes, for three new beds.

Stainless steel corner bracket courtesy of my Dad

Stainless steel corner bracket courtesy of my Dad

In the end we went with cedar since the composite was so prohibitively expensive. I had a lot of leaf compost available so I lined the bottoms with it, using thick layers of newspaper in the spots that needed some grass suppression. This week we had a (way too large) load of triple mix dropped on our driveway, and now the beds are full, waiting for some (late) planting.

Three new raised beds, awaiting dirt

Three new raised beds, awaiting dirt

Last year I also asked Dad if he thought he could make me a crank-style compost sifter. I had previously been using a pan that I had to shake manually to sift, and the amount of compost I’m working with makes that process just ridiculous. Lee Valley makes one of these types of compost sifters, but it’s around $70. The one Dad made me is magnificent, and works like a charm. I can blast through a composter’s worth of black gold in no time, allowing me to efficiently claim compost from my two bins twice a year or more, for the garden.

Crank-style compost sifter made by my Dad

Crank-style compost sifter made by my Dad

So here’s thanks to my Dad for enabling my urban agriculture experiment — for helping me stick to my roots and for being always so helpful and inventive. Love you!!! Happy Father’s Day Dad!