Sadly, our really early spring shoot got kiboshed by the site location – the one we’ve been working on in Inglewood all winter – getting tied up in politics. We had a cool shoot with snow around, cold frames doing their spring thing, and alas, it wasn’t in the cards to become our first vid of 2013. The story with … Read More
November Garden Greens
The snow is falling, it’s -3C, with -20C in the forecast later this week. And yes, still harvesting garden veg. Was last year too. Not because I have a greenhouse, hoop houses, or even stuff under cold frames [well.. I do, but not for this stuff]. Just planted cold hardy veg in August and let them tough out the elements. … Read More
Already Late for Next Year’s Seeding, Dang.
This is a first for me. Normally this is a March/April job – prepping soil for the coming year’s planting. My recent adventure at my local organic veg grower reminded me I was a bit behind the ball, as they already had onions, spinach, etc coming up for wintering over. Their little cold-hardy plants will have roots prepped to send … Read More
Permaculture, Meet High School
I’ve long looked at vast school grounds, wondering how much food could be produced if there was will. I’ve had friends try to climb that hill to no avail, primarily falling apart on concern for maintenance and who’s going to do the work. Like many things in the food world, perhaps it just took some scale – Jasper Place High … Read More
Direct Sown Seedlings
Germination. Although the snow has taken a serious beating as of late, my north garage bed that in the past has provided for copious greens is still under about 2′ of snow. But in the cold frames, life has begun. Arugula [seen left], radish [bottom], spinach, and the mesclun and ‘greens’ mixes are showing their faces. Not a great accomplishment … Read More
This is a Cold Frame
I’ve been talking about cold frames a lot over the past months, and invariably get ‘what’s a cold frame‘. This is a cold frame. It’s a piece of Dutch geniusness. And I find it slightly embarrassing that we, living up here in Edmonton, are not friends with it, nevermind masters of its use. Its purpose is to prolong growing seasons … Read More
2011 Seedlings: Arugula
I remember years [15-20 years ago, mind you] when evidence of the winter’s snow lingered until early July. I think it will be one of those years. I’ve cleared snow off some south-wall-beds and the resulting heap of remaining snow is about 7 feet tall. No matter. The face of the 2011 garden is showing itself in the first seedlings. … Read More
The January Garden
This serious snowfall has really made me think about year-round provisioning of food from our yard. Information from growing zones a few warmer than ours feels irrelevant, a ‘year-round-harvest’ unattainable. My body aches from shoveling. The additional snow will likely make for later than normal access to soil for planting. Roads were impassible. Doom. But the mountains of snow too, … Read More
The Year of the Insect
I spent a lot of time this past winter with my nose in books, one of the topics being permaculture. It’s a pretty dense topic, and I certainly am no poster-child for it, but I did make a lot of changes in my urban yard this year guided by its principles. One broad concept that intuitively makes sense is that … Read More
A Quickie Garden Tour
Valerie reminded me today that I need to post more about gardening. I’ve also been meaning to post some photos for my gardening buddy who recently moved away [who’s on dial-up, and will hate me for this post, then love me]. I have a decidedly unconventional garden with streaks of conventionality running about. I just got in from taking a … Read More