Garlic
Turnips
Snow Peas
Snap Peas
Beets
Swiss Chard
Carrots
Salad Mix
Zucchini
Kale
Zinnias
Pretty awesome if we do say so ourselves.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
A bumper harvest
It's amazing what you can grow when you put your mind to it. Today we harvested a huge variety of veggies and the box this week included:
Garlic
Turnips
Snow Peas
Snap Peas
Beets
Swiss Chard
Carrots
Salad Mix
Zucchini
Kale
Zinnias
Pretty awesome if we do say so ourselves.
Garlic
Turnips
Snow Peas
Snap Peas
Beets
Swiss Chard
Carrots
Salad Mix
Zucchini
Kale
Zinnias
Pretty awesome if we do say so ourselves.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
Carpe Annum ... Grabbing the Year
We caught the tail end of last year's growing season but hopped aboard January of this year.
Lasagna Gardening ...
That's when we began preparing our third back yard, Seema's garden, by composting in situ over an existing lawn.
Recipe:
Lay down a first layer of cardboard.
Top with many bags of fall leaves gathered off the sidewalk the year before.
Followed by many visits to the beach to collect bags and bags of seaweed/seagrass
and a final layer of a couple van loads of City compost.
Finish with a dusting of rock phosphate and lime in late spring.
Now just wait for the weather to stabilize above 10 degrees and you are ready to plant..
By March we decided that as the grass layer was not fully dead let alone decomposed, we would plant fruit and leaf crops: lettuce, tomatoes and summer squashes and wait another year before rototilling and planting root crops.
Lancing Road
Preparing the beds in spring takes alot of hard work. Weeds to be removed. Amendments to be added to each bed according to what will be planted and rototilled in. Beds to be reshaped. Bean supports set up. Starting and tending trays and trays of seedlings. Many enjoyable meetings over coffee at the neighbourhood coffee shop to select seed, decide on quantities, set goals and objectives, and discuss lessons learnt.
By April we were ready to plant root crop seed; the mood full of excitement, resolve and anticipation. The stop/start beginning to the season meant we replanted seed a few times. Doubt lurked in the dark corners. Much of the seed did not come up particularly carrot, swiss chard, kale, leeks ... many differing varieties. What was going on? Why the poor results? But with some adjustments to the timers on the watering system, repositioning sprinklers and the stabilizing warmth, the garden began to grow.
We did manage to meet Jake's goal of 'all crops in the ground by the beginning of May'. I hope he is satisfied with our efforts and pleased with Joyce's decision to allow us into his beloved vegetable garden.
More Lessons Learnt at Lancing
Lancing we soon discovered, was not a garden for lettuce. The wire worms that haunt the soil there, have an insatiable appetite for it. We were glad we had other gardens that favored lettuces and concentrated other salad greens at the Lancing garden.
The blank spaces in the rows became opportunities for succession plantings, more crops to replace those we were pulling from the ground. We learnt lessons about timing, as we missed the fast paced radishes as they quickly passed their prime, rising above the earth and the slugs chewed little white craters into their red skins.
First Shares of Spring
It took a while for enough variety to be ready for harvest before we could offer shares for sale.
Each harvest feels like a celebration. We all come out and enjoy the pleasure of pulling the first baby beets, cutting the fuscia stems of crisp chard leaves. Combining the elements of a delectable salad mix then washing, cleaning and primping it into bags. Treasure hunting for sugar snap peas, reserving the plumpest one for my own mouth, as I work my way along the row.
We are proud to offer the fresh, healthy food we work hard to grow.
We do love a Free Deal
We discovered a variety of free nutrients and ammendments within the community. Some for the beds, some for the compost bin. Kitchen waste is collected regularly from our coffee shop. Coffee chaff from a small coffee roasting establishment. Soy mash from a local tofu shop. Our compost bin is smoking! All that good stuff in the compost bin will fuel next year's crops ... Cardboard boxes for distributing the harvest from the liquor store. Wood ash from Luc's fire place. Comfrey for making compost tea. and there is the added bonus of getting to know our neighbours and them getting to know us.
Harvesting the Garlic
Arzeena knew enough to plant garlic in September of last year. It tied up two beds for six months. As the curly scapes began to unwind they signaled harvest time. Who new the satisfaction of harvesting garlic. We "ooohed" and "aaahed" over the size of the largest bulbs, we felt wealthy and satisfied breathing in the pungent fragrance; admiring the great piles of garlic.
... and the Sweet Peas are Blooming
We planted zinnias and sweetpeas as - 'man does not live by bread alone'. The first georgeous stems went to our benefactor, Joyce because we are grateful and we have to express it somehow.
Balancing the hard work with Pleasure
Market gardening is aching, sweaty, wet and cold in turn, slow, laborious work with many rewards. Seeing the very best in the companions you depend upon to do what they do best. Doing all that you know how and surrending the outcome to nature. The deep, ancient, fundamental satisfaction of simple pleasures - popping a small, straight carrot from the earth and admiring it, relaxing in the shade, comparing notes and lessons learnt. Stepping in time to the primordial heartbeat of the earth.
Lasagna Gardening ...
That's when we began preparing our third back yard, Seema's garden, by composting in situ over an existing lawn.
Recipe:
Lay down a first layer of cardboard.
Top with many bags of fall leaves gathered off the sidewalk the year before.
Followed by many visits to the beach to collect bags and bags of seaweed/seagrass
and a final layer of a couple van loads of City compost.
Finish with a dusting of rock phosphate and lime in late spring.
Now just wait for the weather to stabilize above 10 degrees and you are ready to plant..
By March we decided that as the grass layer was not fully dead let alone decomposed, we would plant fruit and leaf crops: lettuce, tomatoes and summer squashes and wait another year before rototilling and planting root crops.
Lancing Road
Preparing the beds in spring takes alot of hard work. Weeds to be removed. Amendments to be added to each bed according to what will be planted and rototilled in. Beds to be reshaped. Bean supports set up. Starting and tending trays and trays of seedlings. Many enjoyable meetings over coffee at the neighbourhood coffee shop to select seed, decide on quantities, set goals and objectives, and discuss lessons learnt.
By April we were ready to plant root crop seed; the mood full of excitement, resolve and anticipation. The stop/start beginning to the season meant we replanted seed a few times. Doubt lurked in the dark corners. Much of the seed did not come up particularly carrot, swiss chard, kale, leeks ... many differing varieties. What was going on? Why the poor results? But with some adjustments to the timers on the watering system, repositioning sprinklers and the stabilizing warmth, the garden began to grow.
We did manage to meet Jake's goal of 'all crops in the ground by the beginning of May'. I hope he is satisfied with our efforts and pleased with Joyce's decision to allow us into his beloved vegetable garden.
More Lessons Learnt at Lancing
Lancing we soon discovered, was not a garden for lettuce. The wire worms that haunt the soil there, have an insatiable appetite for it. We were glad we had other gardens that favored lettuces and concentrated other salad greens at the Lancing garden.
The blank spaces in the rows became opportunities for succession plantings, more crops to replace those we were pulling from the ground. We learnt lessons about timing, as we missed the fast paced radishes as they quickly passed their prime, rising above the earth and the slugs chewed little white craters into their red skins.
First Shares of Spring
It took a while for enough variety to be ready for harvest before we could offer shares for sale.
Each harvest feels like a celebration. We all come out and enjoy the pleasure of pulling the first baby beets, cutting the fuscia stems of crisp chard leaves. Combining the elements of a delectable salad mix then washing, cleaning and primping it into bags. Treasure hunting for sugar snap peas, reserving the plumpest one for my own mouth, as I work my way along the row.
We are proud to offer the fresh, healthy food we work hard to grow.
We do love a Free Deal
We discovered a variety of free nutrients and ammendments within the community. Some for the beds, some for the compost bin. Kitchen waste is collected regularly from our coffee shop. Coffee chaff from a small coffee roasting establishment. Soy mash from a local tofu shop. Our compost bin is smoking! All that good stuff in the compost bin will fuel next year's crops ... Cardboard boxes for distributing the harvest from the liquor store. Wood ash from Luc's fire place. Comfrey for making compost tea. and there is the added bonus of getting to know our neighbours and them getting to know us.
Harvesting the Garlic
Arzeena knew enough to plant garlic in September of last year. It tied up two beds for six months. As the curly scapes began to unwind they signaled harvest time. Who new the satisfaction of harvesting garlic. We "ooohed" and "aaahed" over the size of the largest bulbs, we felt wealthy and satisfied breathing in the pungent fragrance; admiring the great piles of garlic.
... and the Sweet Peas are Blooming
We planted zinnias and sweetpeas as - 'man does not live by bread alone'. The first georgeous stems went to our benefactor, Joyce because we are grateful and we have to express it somehow.
Balancing the hard work with Pleasure
Market gardening is aching, sweaty, wet and cold in turn, slow, laborious work with many rewards. Seeing the very best in the companions you depend upon to do what they do best. Doing all that you know how and surrending the outcome to nature. The deep, ancient, fundamental satisfaction of simple pleasures - popping a small, straight carrot from the earth and admiring it, relaxing in the shade, comparing notes and lessons learnt. Stepping in time to the primordial heartbeat of the earth.
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