Archive for the ‘Gardening’ Category
Tomorrow is my birthday.
So, it seems only fitting that as I prepare to spend another year in this skin, I should reflect on what it is I’m planning to do in the coming months, particularly in relation to gardening.
With the exception of the various forms of root stock I ordered (potatoes, sunchokes and asparagus) all of my seeds have arrived. I spread them out on the kitchen table last night and simultaneously felt surges of fear and excitement. There’s something rather exhilarating about the potential of this year’s garden with the many unknowns I’m introducing into the equation, but at the same time I can also see the immense amount of work all of the seed packs represent.
Of course, the few months between receiving the seeds and actually planting them into the ground is excruciatingly painful for someone as impatient as I am. There is the distraction of starting the seeds in the basement, but that is just a temporary solution, which is why I invariably end up going back to the seed catalogues that keep showing up at my door and ordering more. In fact, immediately after I placed the orders for all of the seed packets that you see above, another Richter’s magazine (ironically) showed up, attempting to entice me into purchasing again. To date I haven’t caved, but only because I’m not sure whether I realistically have room for all of the things I’ve already bought. Regardless of that concern, I’m sure before May rolls around there will be a few more seed orders arriving at my door.
As an added bonus, the company that sent me the seeds on the very left (Heritage Harvest) included a free package of tomato seeds with my order, and I’m very intrigued by them. They’re called Henderson’s Wins All and apparently this heritage variety grows grotesquely massive 2-3 pound specimens. While some of you may be aware of my fascination with all things tiny and squee, I’m also (surprisingly) amazed by those biggest vegetable ever contests that people hold every harvest season. Between the Sicilian Saucer (another 3 pound beast) and this new Henderson’s I think I’m going to have giantesse all wrapped up this year. I’m expecting it’ll be a very Alice In Wonderland-esque garden with all of the tiny cherry tomatoes being dwarfed by these 2 oversized plants.
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Tags: Books, Cowbell, Gardening, Gayla Trail, Grow Great Grub, Heritage Harvest Seed, Mark Cutrara, Purveyors, Restaurants, Richter's, You Grow Girl
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After much deliberation (and a healthy dose of procrastination), I’ve finally selected and plotted my intentions for the 2010 garden.
It might seem awfully early to some, but seeds must be ordered, delivered and started before a springtime sowing in late May can be accomplished.
This year will be interesting for a number of reasons.
Primarily because I’m going to be trying to grow a couple crowns of asparagus for the first time, but I’m also attempting rare French strawberries from seed, as well as leeks, garlic and chard.
As you can see from my crude 10,000 foot drawing, there are lots of different veggies being installed, as well as a small bee garden that I hope will attract a healthy amount of polinators to our rooftop sanctuary. We had a bit of a problem with the lack of bees last year, though I’m not sure if it was due to colony collapse or the overall shitty weather, but it can’t hurt to encourage them with a pretty flower garden.
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Tags: asparagus, beans, beets, carrots, chard, Clover Roads Organic Farms, Gardening, garlic, herbs, Heritage Harvest Seed, leeks, lettuce, Lists, peas, peppers, Purveyors, Richter's, Salt Spring Seeds, shallots, tomatoes, Urban Harvest, Vesey's, West Coast Seeds
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Isn’t that a beautiful picture?
That is an heirloom caprese salad courtesy of my own garden, circa September 2009.
And as winter drags on in it’s pithy little way, I find myself drawn to the photos I have of my garden (or the spoils thereof) to help keep me going during this wretched time of year.
As usual, I had seed catalogues to pore over at Christmas again, and have spent the better part of a dozen hours agonizing over what I should, would, could grow this year. In a surprising twist of fate our condo board reversed their decision to rip up and replace our roof deck this year, so I unexpectedly have the luxury of planning a 2010 garden once again. It may seem early, but once I determine what to grow, seeds will need to be ordered and started indoors, so really, I’m right on schedule.
Given my (ample for a roof) yet rather confined space, it’s always a difficult task deciding what I should grow. Successes from previous years fight for acreage against new plants I’ve been seduced by but have yet to try. The fun part is attempting to harmoniously blend them all together in a symbiotic way.
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Tags: Gardening, plans, West Coast Seeds
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For close to a month now, I’ve been patiently waiting for Indian summer to set in.
I’ve optimistically/delusionally put off closing up the garden in the hopes that some unseasonably warm weather would drop by and bring the masses of tomatoes on my vines to fruition.
But, with the Everyman and I leaving for a week’s vacation at the cottage, it appeared I would have no such luck, so rather than hoping for the best while we were away and potentially losing all of the tomatoes to frost, I sucked it up and stripped the plants bare over the weekend.
The damage?
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Tags: Cooking, Gardening, jalapenos, Preservation, Recipes, salsa, tomatoes
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The slightest chill has been in the air when I leave the house in the morning lately, which is an indicator of one thing in particular;
Summer is coming to a close.
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Tags: beets, celery, figs, Gardening, peppers, tomatoes
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Here, my friends, is one of the real reasons I go to the lengths that I do to take care of my unruly rooftop garden.
What would from the outside appear to be a rather pedestrian sandwich, is actually the pinnacle of summer indulgences for me; the toasted tomato sandwich.
The bread? Baked fresh Sunday morning. The tomatoes? A handful of sun-warmed San Marzanos from the roof. And the bacon? That would be a meaty plank sawed from the slab I cured and smoked recently.
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Tags: bacon, Baking, bread, Cooking, Gardening, tomatoes
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Picked these from my garden last night.
Amazingly, even though this has been a pitiful year for tomatoes, mine have come through with a minimum of complication, aside from the fucking aphids.
There are a few other varieties that haven’t quite ripened yet, but these 10 provide a pretty good snapshot of what I’ve been nurturing for the last few months.
All varieties were chosen for their superiority over bland, supermarket cardboard tomatoes.
In case you were wondering, from left to right, we have;
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Tags: Gardening, tomatoes
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For those who doubted my ability to produce a decent harvest from my garbage can garden, I give you proof of the potatoes and sunchokes I unearthed yesterday.
Two chitted potatoes blossomed into over 4 pounds of decently sized spuds, though the sunchokes clearly needed to stay underground longer.
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Tags: Gardening, potatoes, sunchokes
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At this time last year, I was up to my eyeballs in lusciously imperfect tomatoes.
But, like almost everyone else this year, my garden’s been slow to blossom. About 2 or 3 weeks ago I was finally able to start harvesting close to a handful of mixed cherry tomatoes per day. Even though we’re now a couple of days into September, I still haven’t tasted the first full size fruit yet.
As with the red ones above, I’m not sure what varietals these (and the one below) are. I don’t recall planting any white varieties, but these tomatoes seem awfully pale to me. Perhaps they might be garden peaches…
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Tags: artichokes, beets, celery, figs, Gardening, jalapenos, lemons, poblanos, potatoes, shallots, sunchokes, tomatoes
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I’m more than a bit OCD about a lot of things.
It’s a trait that I’m constantly trying to keep in check, but in the garden it can sometimes be difficult to manage without going a little overboard.
Nowhere is this problem more apparent than when it comes time to prune the tomatoes. Last year, after reading how vital it was to prune indeterminate varieties of tomatoes so that they put their energy into producing fruit rather than extra shoots, I hesitantly gave the plants a once over. I hated every moment of it, in the same way that I hate thinning seedlings when they’re younger. But then, oddly enough, I found that after a heavy rainstorm (which we’ve had often both this year and last) the tomato plants tended to become unwieldy much quicker. Before I knew it, I had to prune back the plants every few days. And once it was a regular occurrence, I became ruthless about it, often pruning more than was probably necessary. It got to a point near the end of August where the plants were nothing more than branches laden with tomatoes, stripped almost completely bare of their foliage. So, it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that I’ve had the same challenges this year. After half an hour in the garden last night, I was left with a substantial pile of discarded plant matter.
The good news is, pruning back that much growth makes it easier to find the tomatoes, and will improve the air circulation, which is always beneficial when growing over 30 varieties of tomatoes in tight quarters. I’ve snapped a few shots of the varieties I’m able to identify;
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Tags: Gardening, ramblings
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The garden thus far has sucked hard this year.
I’m sure you’re all aware of that based solely on how little I have mentioned it in posts (other than to deride it’s general crapiness, that is).
While this year everything is stunted and weak and quite lame, by this time last year we were enjoying full flourish, with a pint of tomatoes (our main crop) to be picked every other day. This year, all I’ve gotten so far is a bucketful of lettuce, handfuls of strawberries and scads of small, unripened tomatoes.
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Tags: Gardening, rantings
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Despite it’s lethargic start, the garden is now in full swing.
The cooler weather seems to have been most beneficial to the salad bowl, which is still going strong, even though we’re halfway through July. By this time last year it had already bolted and gone to seed. I love to go up to the roof and aimlessly stare into the variegated shades of green, interspersed by the occasional frond of delicious red leaf lettuce. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something soothing about staring at this picture.
I suppose you could say I have the pastoral dream, and though I’ve had a blast growing my little microcosm of deliciousness on the roof these past 2 years, I am really looking forward to this taking off, so I might be able to have some in-ground opportunities. I’ve often considered propositioning some of my Little Italy neighbours for just such an arrangement, being they are mostly older and retired, but one glance from our rooftop confirms that they still take pride in their yards, growing tomatoes, grape vines, and zucchinis galore. In some ways the Sharing Backyards concept reminds me of a favourite childhood book, The Tiny Little House. The gist of the book is an old woman who makes amazingly delicious cookies, but has nowhere to sell them. Her and two mischievous little girls decide to renovate an abandoned little house into a cookie shop, and hilarity ensues. Like the old woman from The Tiny Little House, some day my ideal space will come…
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Tags: Books, Farm City, Gardening, Little Italy, Novella Carpenter, Purveyors, Shared Backyards, The Tiny Little House, Urban Harvest
Posted in Books, Gardening, Purveyors | 1 Comment »
The Everyman and I took the better part of Canada day week off to putter around the house and generally have ourselves a mini-vacation.
One thing I’ve been putting off for the last month is getting my tomatoes potted up properly, mostly because I wasn’t able to find a kiddie pool until recently. More than anything, the past week has given me an opportunity to catch up on all my gardening, and finally get the last of the plants into the “ground”. Aside from all of that, we finally got our patio furniture; after almost 2 years of living here, the rooftop is now satisfactorily complete.
The best part of our patio set is this killer coffee table with inset ice tray. Perfect for keeping your bevies cold while you lounge around on a hot and sticky afternoon.
A garden pictorial follows;
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Tags: Gardening, rooftop
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