Planting done, watching bees

Because I rent the main floor of a Victorian semi in Toronto, I'm lucky enough to be a renter with a garden. Today, I finished the spring planting with the melons, hot peppers and flowers including marigolds, gazanias, mums, lantanas and foxgloves.

Now I intend to sit back, have a beer and watch the bees at work. The foxgloves went in on the edge of a wild back corner, and will grow in that part shade to provide a visual break between the vegetable garden and the wild corner. The marigolds are scattered in the garden for a bit of colour and to keep something in flower all season. The lantana is right up near the patio to attract butterflies and bees for my amusement.

I've always been fond of bees, but after reading Keeping the Bees last month, I find myself wanting even more of them. Now they'll have more reasons to visit while my various other plants grow up to flowering size.

So far, there hasn't been a lot in bloom in the garden. The strawberries gave the bees some pleasure, and right now they're loving the chives, as well as the pansies I planted earlier. In a few days they'll also have the sage, which is about to bloom and this year is several feet in girth. Later they'll have various vegetable and fruit blossoms to keep their tummies full, as well as the flowers I just planted. And later in the summer the nasturtiums will begin cascading over the deck from the window boxes in which I planted them this year (very conveninet for salads.

What is in the garden this year?

Bed 1

(morning shade, afternoon sun)
Lavender
Gazanias
Royal Purple Beans (which I plan to train up over the fence)
Broccoli
Radishes
After this comes a big patch of mint, which I dry for tea.
Various lettuces
Carrots
Beans
Corn
Marigolds
Roses

Bed 2

(centre, full sun)
Lantanas, chives and mums
Strawberries and chives
Eggplants
Buttercup squash
Honeydew melons
Canteloupe (we'll see if these take)
Down the middle is a row of corn, down the edges rows of carrots

Bed 3

(Morning sun, late afternoon shade)
Tomatoes (yellow pear, purple calabash, black cherry)
Basil
Parsley
Red mountain spinach
Rainbow chard
Lettuces
Marigolds
Carrots
Foxgloves

Bed 4

(Deck, midday sun)
Sage
Oregano
Cucumbers
Carrots
Onions
Radishes
Nasturtiums (coming down from above)

I let the fifth bed, which was small and unproductive, go this year. The bit of lawn and the day lillies will soon take it over.

Garden costs

This spring I put edging around the beds and to isolate the mint (which is incredibly invasive). Cost about $50
Seeds. Mostly used leftovers from previous years, so about $15
Plants. Started most from seed. Spent less than $25
Fertilizers. Nothing. Top dressed with two wheelbarrows of my own compost.
Total: under $100

The first two years, when I was preparing the beds, were the most expensive, as I needed to improve the soil, buy hoses and lots of seeds, etc. Still, I doubt I spent more than $200 even in that first year. Here on in, the garden will probably cost me about $50 a year. It's about 400 square feet of planting area, and the lettuces alone will pay for the costs. Then there's everything else. And the real benefits are watching all the birds and insects that come, not to mention the incredible flavour of truly fresh veg in the city.

Next week the garden should provide my first salad. I can hardly wait!

Spring carrots

I thought I'd hit the jackpot. When the snow melted, the tops of carrot plants poked out through the soil. The last crop from last year that had been too small to pick in the fall had come up!

A grand new strategy! Plant in autumn, eat in spring!

Sadly, no. I chose some plants that were readying to bolt this week. The roots were generally small and those that weren't had pale, somewhat spongy interiors.

No spring carrots for me, after all. But a lesson learned, and now some room for flowers. I'll be choosing flowers that a) I like, b) are bee-friendly, and c) may help repel or distract pests.

Keeping the Bees

When I first moved into the Green Tenancy with its tangle of a backyard, I had a notion of keeping bees. It was one shared by an upstairs neighbour who daydreamed of apiary. Sadly, it was a dream we could not fulfill because doing so would put us in contravention of the Ontario Bees Act.

But not being allowed to keep honeybees doesn't mean you can't enjoy bees or the pleasures of amateur mellitology.

Bees are an absolute necessity for any gardener. They pollinate our fruit and veg, making it possible for us to grow most of our food crops (though grains and corn generally work without 'em). Over the last few years, I've been enjoying watching the various bumble bees, hornets and swat bees (I think that's what they are) buzzing around my various flowers.

Last week, I sat down with a copy of Keeping the Bees, an excellently written and very lively book by York University mellitologist Laurence Packer. If you like bees or gardening, this book is a must-read. Not to mention a fun read.

It contains more than just an overview of bees, bee genetics, bee habitats and a solid argument for using them as environmental indicators. It also shares the author's incredible passion for his subject and provides some great ideas for urban gardeners. Here are a few tips I picked up from the last chapter:

1. Plant a variety of flowering plants, particularly native species. Some ornamental flowers aren't very bee-friendly, many native plants are. A variety of plants is good for a garden anyways, and it seems my mixture of strawberries, peas, beans, tomatoes, flowers, triffid-like squash and more is as good for the bees as it is for my plate.
2. Plant some raspberry or blackberry canes and don't chop them down at the end of the season. Some bees live inside old canes, which is really cool. Besides, these brambly vines produce excellent fruit for eating and for attracting birds (which, like wasps, are great natural predators of common garden pests). I planted blackberry canes in the back alley this year. If they grow anything like the ones I had in London, then they'll likely deter the raccoons a bit, too.
3. Provide nesting sites. In addition to blackberry canes, you can stake tomatoes with bamboo. Leave the stakes out year-round to provide bee habitat. Carpenter bees also like holes in wood. I tossed an old tree trunk in one corner of the garden that I let go wild. That corner has sprung up with bee-friendly wildflowers such as goldenrod, as well as mint and several other plants, and I've no doubt that both the soil and the old trunk are now home to all sorts of nifty insects. Will have to go back there with my son and a magnifying glass to check it out sometime.
4. Buy organic food when possible. Many pesticides are bad for bees, either killing them or sterilizing them. Kind of a silly practice when you consider that bees are important pollinators for most non-cereal crops. As Packer points out, "You can help the bees in this way even if you live in a high-rise without a balcony."
5. Encourage politicians to support bee-friendly policies such as planting wildflowers on verges, banning cosmetic pesticides or letting areas of parks grow wild. To my city's credit, they've banned cosmetic pesticides and are letting several sizable areas in parks grow wild (which is far more attractive than you might imagine).

Luckily, many of his suggestions are ones I'd picked up from other sources over the years or had already done by pure coincidence. And I am enjoying watching several bee species in the garden, despite the predominantly rainy weather this spring.

Making a compost screen

This spring is the beginning of my fourth summer in the Green Tenancy, and a couple weeks ago I determined that it is finally time to empty the first of my composters. After removing the sturdy black plastic outer structure and a bit of non-composted straw from the top, I quickly realized the compost would need screening.

You see, different materials take different amounts of time to compost. Almost everything had turned to a nice, rich soil (and it is true that there's no odour save a pleasant earthy smell). But a few bits hadn't broken down sufficiently to go in the garden. Also, because of occasional thin layers of dirt added (it adds micro-organisms and speeds composting), there were a few bits of gravel.

I needed a screen.

Thankfully, I'd put the composter on a sturdy metal mesh. This I placed on top of the wheelbarrow, then shovelled some compost onto it. With my son holding the mesh in place, the system worked. But, being eight, he soon lost interest and I found the mesh wouldn't stay in place on its own.

Making my own screen
Because the mesh nicely fit the length and width of the wheelbarrow, I took it down to my basement workshop. On a shelf I keep some lengths of wood for whatever projects come along. In this case, I selected some old railings from a retired bed.

Normally I am an advocate of careful measuring, but this is no fine woodworking. Here's what I did.

1. Set the mesh on the floor
2. Cut two pieces for the longer sides. These I made so they'd stick out 7 or 8 inches on either end. This was partly to make sure they'd be long enough to straddle any wheelbarrow, but also to serve as handles for shaking the compost through.
3. Position those two pieces on the mesh, with 2-3 inches left over on either side (to later fold up and staple into place.
4. Cut two pieces for the ends, just long enough to fit inside the sides. Again, leave some extra mesh to fold up and staple in place.
5. Pre-drill and nail sides into place. I used two nails on the end of each sidepiece and selected 1 1/2" (4d) spiral finishing nails
6. Place the mesh on top, then push it down into place so that there's an inch or more of mesh going up the inside of the box on every side.
7. Tack the mesh into place. Heavy-duty staples or U-nails make the most sense, but finding none handy, I just tapped finishing nails in part way and bent them over.

The result? Well, art it ain't. But it worked well. It stayed on the wheelbarrow, was easy to shake, and gave me nice, evenly screened compost.

What didn't compost?
Not much. Almost everything broke down nicely. There were some exceptions, though.

• Rocks. Obviously.
• Black olives. They were partway there and had turned red and cork-like on the inside. I put them back for another year or two.
• Wood. Even the sturdy stems I'd lined the bottom of the composter with had broken down, but a couple larger chunks of wood had to go back.
• Egg shells. Don't compost these. Instead, bake or boil them to kill micro-organisms, then grind them with your mortar & pestle and apply the coarse powder to the garden. It adds calcium (handy if your soil is too acidic) and may also deter some annoying pests (slugs, I'm lookin' at you!). We did find one whole, uncracked egg, which was unfortunate.
• Rabbit poo. Some was still in pellet form, but with two years of composting, I'm betting it'll be okay for the garden, so I let it go through. The critters in the garden seem to have broken it down already.
  

That's about it. Two very full wheelbarrow loads provided a thin layer for all four beds, and only about three shovelfulls of material went back for another cycle. And I continue to send less than a pound a week to the city's green bin (occasional chicken bones, for example) and greedily hog all the lovely banana peels, apple cores and tea leaves for myself!

Oh, and I also keep my coffee grounds separate. I've heard they repel slugs, so am scattering them directly on the garden. We'll see if it turns the lavender brown.

Pansies who love chicken wire

My son and I were cleaning up the yard on Saturday and he found a piece of old chicken wire. It was a cast-off scrap from a cage I'd built last year to protect our strawberries. Since it wasn't very big, I told him to bin it.

Then, on Sunday, I realized that was a mistake and retrieved it. Turns out this piece of chicken wire may be the solution to one of my biggest problems: squirrels in my pansies.

As my son potted pansies for the hanging baskets, I cut the chicken wire into rectangles to cover the surface of the planting boxes on my deck railing. Then I scooped out about 1/5 of the soil and lay the mesh on top of the remaining soil.

Then I cut four holes through which to plant the pansies, after which I covered the mesh with the soil that I'd removed earlier. This was repeated for three boxes and two pots down on the patio.

This morning, the unprotected front pot has clear evidence of squirrel tampering. But the planters with their new layer of chicken wire look undisturbed. If all goes well, this will prove to be the solution to one of my squirrel problems...and save the lives of countless innocent flowers!

Great Toronto urban agriculture walking tour

Once again, I had the pleasure of organizing a walking tour for delegates at the MagNet conference in Toronto. Last year we had a great time exploring brownfields and brown beers on the Lower Don River walking tour. This year it was time for an urban agriculture walking tour!

Why urban agriculture?
Well, there is the fact that it's a hot, trendy topic. That is, it's about as hip as gardening ever will be. But if you read this blog or any of my other work, you know that I'm not exactly about trendy. Urban agriculture was the theme because two good books on the subject came out in April and May by Toronto authors. And conveniently, they'd done a very similar tour as a Jane's Walk already.

Books? What books?
The first book off the shelf was Sarah Elton's Locavore, which I reviewed here when it was released. The second is City Farmer, by Lorraine Johnson, my favourite punk gardener.

I haven't reviewed City Farmer yet, mostly because the conference and a big pile of work got in the way. It's complimentary to Elton's book. Elton's is a travelogue of agricultural innovation. Johnson's book, by contrast, is the same thing in microcosm. It's conversational and frienly, like its author. It's a resounding success when she gets talking about specific projects, which bring out the colour in Johnson's writing and show how passionate she is. On the macrocosm, Elton's book outshines City Farmer, and it flows better. But Johnson's book is highly accessible, and the more practical it is, the better it is. You should do what I did and pick up a copy of both.

Didn't you say something about a walking tour?
Yes, I did. We met on a sunny Saturday morning at 10:00, in Trinity Bellwoods Park. Just before the walk it had been proposed as a protest area for the G20 summit that the federal government stuck Toronto with. But that's another story.

At the park, Johnson and Elton were joined by a third guest speaker, Ravenna Barker, the urban agriculture project manager from FoodShare. I think I kind of scored a hat trick with these speakers.

In the park, we started with a discussion of Carolinian forests, which used to cover the Toronto area but are almost gone today (though common south of the border...more of an extirpation than an extinction), and discussed some edible trees. Johnson showed us a community greenhouse where she rents a shelf to start her own seeds. Handy for urban dwellers, particularly those with limited indoor or window space. This led naturally into a discussion of food systems and greenhousing, the latter of which was a particularly interesting part of Elton's book.

We moseyed west along Queen Street East to a corner park that had been planted out by someone in a neighbouring apartment building. It wasn't food gardening, but a gorgeous transformation of what would otherwise have been a barren, sunstroked corner of dirt and rubbish.

Next it was on to a boulevard. That is, a road with a strip of grass down the middle. Barker told us of plans to beautify the neighbourhood by filling the boulevard with ornamental vegetables--plants both pretty and edible. Sadly, after residents gave it the green thumbs up, the municipality nixed it, apparently out of fear that people couldn't safely walk across the street to tend the plants. Truly a lost opportunity.

Our penultimate stop was at a market garden on the grounds of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. There, we discussed composting in the city and looked at the FoodShare garden, which is about 100 yards square.

Finally, we headed to the Drake Hotel. The Drake has an unsightly concrete service area on a back alley, in which it has created innovative raised planting beds using cinder blocks. It's not enough space to affect the restaurant's food imports, but is big enough to provide nice, fresh herbs. Apparently they may be exprimenting with mushrooms, too, and the space will be used for VIP chef events. The holes in the cinder blocks are planted with aromatic herbs to ward off pests. It's a great idea, as it'll keep the mint from staging an all-out invasion of the beds (as happened in my garden this spring).

And so, with our heads full and our bellies empty, we went up to the rooftop patio for brunch. And mimosas. Because, after all, it was Saturday.

See Green Tenant's 10 steps to organizing a great walking tour!

Digging, weeding and getting ready

Environment Canada forecast a warmer and drier spring than usual for most of Canada. As a result, I'm planning to plant out most things fairly early this year. I will probably do so around the time of our average last frost: May 9.

Work
There haven't been many posts on Green Tenant of late. It's been a very busy spring, with a lot of writing and editing. You might enjoy a couple pieces I did for the Globe & Mail. One was on brewing and the environment. There's a lot more to be said, and rest assured that it's a subject I'll revisit here. Best part of the story was learning afterward about some of the beers I'd overlooked. Last week, I was at C'est What? and had the chance to try one of those small brewer's organic beers. It was the Lug Tread lagered ale from Beau's. Refreshing, a bit hoppy and, if I recall, maybe a bit citric. Refreshing, enjoyable and an unusual beer. Try one if you can. A more recent story for the Globe was on solar energy, which has become a controversial subject in my home province, as well as a fast-growing industry.

Gardening
I've been digging, raking and weeding today. Right now, the three larger planting beds are ready, with only one smaller bed to go. Most surprising was what's sprouted out there. I expected a few onions, which I'd left from last year because they were too small. There were also a couple garlics.

Unexpectedly, there's a large and healthy oak leaf lettuce, five or six red mountain spinach (which didn't do well last year, but look healthy so far) and thousands of giant red mustard green seedlings. One or two mustard green plants will be more than enough, so the rest will have to come out (Toronto folk are welcome to them).

The seeds I started indoors are doing very well, so I have high hopes. To see what I'm planting, you can check out this post. This week, I'll be direct seeding fava and purple beans, peas and a few other things.

In case you're wondering, the picture at the top is not of my hollyhocks. I haven't planted those yet. That one is from my mother's garden a couple Octobers ago. My hands are far too dirty to be taking pictures today.

Locavore: is local agriculture feasible?

Right off the bat, I have to say that I approached Sarah Elton's new book, Locavore: from farmers' fields to rooftop gardens--how Canadians are changing the way we eat, with some reservations.

I know Elton and frequently enjoy her writing and CBC Radio broadcasts about food. But I have an uncomfortable relationship with the local food movement. There's a lot to admire about the locavores—their commitment and attention to food, their enthusiasm (even if sometimes bordering on zealotry), the way they innovate and change urban landscapes.

At the same time, it's frequently an elitist movement. Most working-class people can't get to the farmers' markets, often held during working hours. I love my vegetable garden, but only can tend a plot of its size because I work from home and can go weeding when cubicle farmers are taking a smoke or coffee break. Local organic food also tends to cost more. It's usually worth it for the quality, but that quality is all too often a luxury that many cannot afford.

What sets Elton's book apart is that she is clearly aware of all this. She's also frustrated with some of the more ridiculous approaches, such as the 100-Mile Diet (which is a fantastic read, if not a feasible lifestyle choice for those of us who have long, dark winters).

Is Locavore worth reading?
After a didactic opening, Elton plays to her strength with good storytelling. The book is essentially a travelogue, one of the most popular and successful genres in post-millennial publishing. She mucks about on farms in New Brunswick, Ontario, British Columbia and Saskatchewan. She relates real stories about real people and real communities. They're communities that have seen their agricultural markets change and disappear. More importantly, she introduces us to the visionary people who have seen ways to adapt to new realities without abandoning their agrarian roots.

The book is well researched and surprisingly positive. It moves at a steady pace, and it's plain that the author had an editor who was good at keeping the narrative unmuddled by essays. There were, as I recall, only three points during which Elton slipped into essayist mode, and they're well spaced and worthwhile.

Is industrial agriculture sustainable?
There are two fundamental questions the book needs to answer. The first is posed on page 74:

What's more pertinent to the discussion is whether industrial agriculture is sustainable. The larger question the food miles debate demands of us is whether a global, industrial agricultural system is the best way to feed the planet. Can humanity continue to farm this way into the future, extracting the same yields without destroying the integrity of the environment?

It's a great question, but one which anyone picking up the book has probably already answered for themselves. "I'd hazard a no," Elton writes. She provides a quick summary of the problems with the industrial food system, but not a thorough investigation of them. To be fair, that's not the purpose of the book. Many, many books could be, and have been, written on industrial agriculture, food quality and quantity, and the environment. This book is about an alternative system.

Is local agriculture feasible?
This is the real question. Can we grow food closer to the markets? It's not a food miles question, and Elton provides a good discussion of why the issue is more complex than simple food miles. She points out that local food can be worse for the environment in some circumstances. She also, quite fairly, points out that there are things we simply cannot grow where we live, things which, like chocolate, some people just won't give up.

The book succeeds because it presents examples of how we can produce food differently. She explores local farmer's cooperatives that bypass the supermarket system and how these have helped farmers change the way they think about crops. She talks about heirloom crops that can bring flavour, texture and variety back to our tables while using fewer chemicals. She discusses the benefits and potentially huge environmental costs of greenhousing. The book shines because it's a travelogue of fresh agricultural ideas.

Ultimately, however, there are big questions that remain unanswered.

The big one for me is one Elton herself raises: Urban agriculture is great, but how can you get enough calorie crops in a place like Toronto?

The local food opportunities suggested seem to all focus on market gardening: growing high-profit crops like salad greens, rather than staple foods such as grains. It's the one question that nagged at me as I finished the book on a flight back from New York earlier this month.

And it's a question I look forward to asking Elton when she joins me and other environmental journalists at the pub on Tuesday night.

Concrobium: an unexpected way to deal with plant mold

I hate to be a shill for any product. But every now and then one comes along that does something unexpected. This winter, it was Concrobium.

Concrobium is an anti-mold treatment made from food grade vegetable dyes. It's non-toxic, which makes it a rarity in the realm of mold treatments. I first encountered it when writing a review for Green Living some years ago.

It does a decent job in the bathroom, though it doesn't bleach stains the way chlorine does. Of course, it also won't slowly kill you the way chlorine does.

But that's not why I'm bringing up the product now. This winter it did something unexpected.

It saved my amaryllis.

You see, I planted an amaryllis bulb in January. It went into a pot with a coconut husk soil alternative that really soaks up water. Within a week, a layer of white mold had colonized the surface. I could scrape off the top layer, but figured that probably wouldn't keep it away.

Then, one morning, I saw a bottle of Concrobium in the bathroom and remembered the time I asked the marketing director at Siamon's, its maker, about the non-toxic claims. He told me he drinks it during demonstrations. Not that I don't figure a marketing director would drink pure chlorine in order to prove it safe, but if it kills the amaryllis, that's not the end of the world. And it would raise some interesting questions about the contents of the bottle.

I gave the soil and bulb a good spray, making sure the surface was saturated.

Within a week of that one treatment, the mold was gone. The amaryllis was, as you can see from the photos, just fine.

So, looks like we've got a new application for Concrobium.

Sunday at the Thunderdome of Seeds

There's snow in the forecast for today, but all the same, it is time to start thinking about gardening. Yes, it's time to order seeds and even to begin planting some indoors.

With that in mind, we headed so the oddly named "Seedy Saturday on a Sunday," hosted by the Toronto Community Garden Network. It's a wonderful show of seeds and food from smaller producers and community gardens. Probably a good thing I didn't bring much cash.

There's a misguided, pastoral image of organic gardeners as these zenlike beings that are completely in tune with nature. The packed event at the Wychwood Barns (themselves an interesting story) certainly buries that myth. Picture about one gardener per square foot all jockeying for position at the seed racks. I kept expecting Martha Stewart to come charging through, clearing a path with a giant scythe.

As crowded as the scene was, to be fair, it was a well-behaved horde of horticulturists. And the seed pickings were superb.

Because there were so many people, I didn't feel I could ask questions as much as I liked. Instead, I just picked up a few things I knew I wanted (purple beans, autumn glory sunflowers, nasturtiums, etc.) and decided to grab a couple things that I'll just take a chance on.

Below is a list of what I picked up for $1.50-2.50 a pack. Oh, and for useful information including a link to an interactive planting calendar, check out my post from about this time last year.

The new seeds

• Green Arrow Shell Pea
  
• Jewel Mix Nasturtium
• Royal Burgundy Bush Bean
• Atomic Red Carrot
• Cosmic Purple Carrot
• Purple Beauty Pepper
• Autumn Beauty Sunflower
• Striped Cavern Tomato (Cedar Grove Organic Farm)
  
• Garden Peach Tomato (Cedar Grove Organic Farm)
• Sweet 100 Tomato (Cedar Grove Organic Farm)
• Frances Williams Hosta (Cedar Grove Organic Farm)
• Early Wonder Tall Top Beets (Cedar Grove Organic Farm)
• Little Marvel Pea
• "Lettuce"
  
• Spinach

The last two are pouches from the Perth/Dupont Community Garden, and the contents came from various gardeners. What exactly they contain is a bit of a mystery. But that's part of what makes gardening fun!

Look for a community garden seed sale or seed swap in your area. They're a great way to get interesting seeds from people who know your area, whether you're renting a small farm or just have a window box.

Gardening, canning, how the season ended

My first year with a full garden was 2009. Before that I'd had a single bed (mostly spinach) at my flat in London, and started with one good bed (tomatoes, salad greens) at the Green Tenancy here in Toronto. This year I expanded it to four beds totalling about 400 square feet.

A lot of things worked well. I gave a preliminary report here, and since then have, obviously, finished the final harvest.

One of the biggest hits were the purple carrots, shown above. My son loves bringing them to school for lunch, cut into "coins." The other kids don't know quite what to make of them. They're lower-yield than some other varieties, but I harvested several pounds of carrots and gave lots away.

Canning

At the end of the season, I began canning and freezing. This is all new territory to me. I blanched and froze a big bag of royal purple beans, and a mountain of beet greens. I meant to do the chard, but kept eating it up until the first snowfall killed it off. Chard, I must say, is extremely hardy and it survived many frosts, some light and some pretty heavy. Good thing I like the stuff.

Local fruit is also a wonder of late summer. Because Toronto is close to the Niagara Peninsula, there's an abundance of inexpensive, fresh and delicious tender fruit in late summer. The baskets are often too big for my son and I to get through in short order, so canning makes sense.

First came the currants. Graham and I stopped at a farm fruit stand on the way home from visiting his grandparents one day, and he was curious about the red currants. We bought a basked. They were, not surprisingly, rather tart. So I made jam. Currant jam is delicious and deliciously simple. Currants are high in natural pectin, so all it takes is the addition of water and sugar. A basket, however, yielded only two small jars of jam. They're a sticky fruit to deal with, and a lot of labour for a low yield. All the same, it was good enough that I'll do it again next year.

Then came a great buy on late-season strawberries (lots are grown around here) and, my personal favourite, peach season. I followed a recipe that claimed added pectin would not be required. That was simply untrue. I now have six jars of peach jam that is delicious, but a bit runny for use on toast. I added a bit of pectin to the strawberries, but clearly not enough, and the consistency is similar to that of the peach jam. Not perfect, but very yummy and, as it turns out, versatile, as they work adequately on bread, but superbly as an ice cream topping.

I also canned peaches, pears and beets. The pears went well, and look like they'll be good for compotes. The peaches should have been riper, and seem to mostly be firmer than I'd like. I'll try making a peach crumble this week and see how it goes.

Beets
Beets normally thrill me. But this season they came out strangely shaped and often fibrous, and with odd colours, sometimes white. I don't know what happened. I canned about 3 L of them (boiled, then packed in vinegar). I'll open a jar this week and see. They look pretty enough, though.

Now winter is here and I'm indoors. I did some winterizing, have finished a couple of end tables I built last year, and am ready to get on with new projects. Check back soon for new Green Tenant projects, tips and updates on some ongoing projects.

Freezing purple beans

Last year, when we cut down the tree in the backyard, I noted that the garden would have to produce some food to offset the small amount of carbon that the weedy tree would have sequestered.

Today, the garden is producing. There are many pounds of carrots in the ground, there's more chard than I can eat, the beet greens are turning into triffids.

One of the most spectacular plants is the Royal Purple Bean. They're essentially a green bean, but they grow a glorious purple. In all honesty, I'm not a big fan of green beans, but I rather like these ones. They've got a bit nicer flavour and texture than most of the waxier beans I've had. The seeds came from Brother Nature, and are one of the more successful plants I've started with their seeds. In fact, the six or seven vines are producing more than I can (or want to) eat.

The curious thing about these beans is they turn green when cooked.

Today I picked a pound or two of them and decided to freeze them. I basically followed the instructions on this site, but I made one change, as Brother Nature suggested that the colour change is about the right amount of time for blanching.

Freezing Royal Purple Beans

1. Pick and rinse the beans
   
2. Drain and end them, cut into about 1" pieces
3. Place in boiling water until they just turn green (about 2 minutes)
4. Drain and immediately transfer to a bowl of ice water (use lots of ice)
5. Soak in ice water for 2-3 minutes to cool
6. Drain thoroughly
7. Place in airtight freezer bag and place in freezer

It's also a good idea to mark on the bag what's in it, in case you freeze a lot. If you're freezing veg, do it immediately after picking. Leave the purple beans on the vine to look pretty until they're ready.

Now I'll have some tasty, homegrown purple beans this winter. Best of all, by the time the long weekend is over, plenty more will have grown to feed me next week.

David Suzuki digs this balcony garden

The David Suzuki Foundation recently ran a contest called "David Suzuki Digs My Garden." One of the things I like about the contest is that it recognizes not every gardener's situation is equal. The contest has categories for big and small gardens, vegetable and ornamental gardens, new gardeners and cold-climate gardens.

On the Balcony
In particular, I like the Small Gardens category, because it showcases gardens that many renters can create. This year, the winner in that category was Melanie Kramer from Toronto, Ontario. Her garden is the one pictured above. Her garden is 20 feet in the air and is amazingly lush for a mere 44 cubic feet of soil.

In that small space, she planted "arrays of peas, beans, strawberries, rapini, garlic, calendula, and nasturtiums." Just goes to show that a balcony garden can be beautiful and bountiful.

In the Parking Lot
But one other category caught my eye this year, and that's the Starting Over category. Lots of companies offer free parking, but Associated Labels, in Coquitlam, BC, offers its employees free garden plots.

In many cities, garden plots are hard to come by. Like Jay Ashworth, who entered his company in the contest, I like the idea of office workers being able to take a break, go outside and pull some weeds or pick some salad greens for a healthy lunch.

You can find all the winners, as well as lots of other useful gardening information, on the David Suzuki Digs My Garden website.

Nothing fresher than veg from the backyard

Without any doubt, the garden has been a success this year. Devoted readers will recall that I spent the winter developing elaborate companion planting maps and rationalizing the removal of a tree from the backyard.

I've learned a lot this year. There's a lot I learned during research and planning for the garden, but the greatest lessons have come from this season. Some things worked really well, others did not.

Plants that worked
As you can see, the Royal Purple Beans are beautiful. They're also tasty and have been producing really well. What else is working out?

• Rainbow Chard - 8 plants give all the cooked greens we can eat
• Radishes - fast, reliable results
• Carrots - the first are coming out of the ground now. None of the purple ones yet, though
• Buttercrunch Lettuce - mild flavour, grew well. Second planting coming in now.
• Tomatoes - Sweet 100s and Roma are now full of fruit. Ate the first cherry toms last week
• Autumn Joy Sunflowers - animals ate most, but the two survivors are big and beautiful
• Nasturtiums - growing like Triffids. Flowers are sweet and peppery. Delicious.
• Arugula - lovely, simply lovely
• Mustard Greens - phenominal growth. Has a sharp, wasabi-like taste, great in stir fries. Will plant less next year and only the Giant Red variety, which looks better. Leaves are spiney when small, much nicer when they're bigger
• Eggplant - low survival rate, but two plants are doing really well. The purple one looks great. Still too early to tell what yeild will be like
  

Plants that did not work
It's been a very cloudy, rainy summer here in Toronto. As a result, many plants are shorter than I'd expect or are not producing well. Here are some things that didn't work out.

• Celery - For some reason, most of it didn't take
• Oak Leaf Lettuce - One grew huge, most didn't germinate. Not a great texture
• Peas - tried an heirloom and some older hybrid seeds. Germination rate poor, very small yeild. Partly to blame are the slugs, which almost ate my peas to death. Will try again next year
• Broccoli - Squirrels ate it all. Every last stalk. A second planting is coming up now.
• Cucumbers - six plants went into the ground, two survived to flower, but they remain an inch high
  

Mixed results
A few things did okay, but not fabulously.

• Fava Beans - plants did well, couple hit by disease. Otherwise, great flavour and satisfyingly tall, early plants. But they're a low-yeild plant. Will probably include again
• Beets - great for greens, high survival rate. Will not plant in the little peat pucks again, as they restrict bulb growth too much
• Onions - not a fantastic survival rate (started from seed). Will try again, with same caveat as for beets
• Zucchini - One plant is finally coming along, others dead. Move to sunnier location
• Corn - grew well, but squirrels took down many stalks. First cobs will ripen this week. Planted Sunny Vee, which seems to only produce one cob per stalk. Try different variety

Red's Garden Stir-fry
When I ask my six-year-old what he wants for dinner, his answer frequently is "Stir-Fry!"

My stir-fry is made of whatever is ready to pick in the garden. Right now, that's mostly chard, purple beans, fava beans and mustard greens. I fill a large collander with veg until it's heaping. If you use cauliflower, broccoli or carrots, add them before the chard stalks.

1. Thoroughly wash all vegetables. Separate stems from leaves on chard and mustard greens. Discard mustard green stem, chop chard stems into 1" pieces. Chop up leaves
2. Cut of ends of purple beans and chop into 1" pieces. Remove fava beans from pods.
3. Chop one onion and add it to hot pan or wok with 1/4 cup peanut oil. Clarify onions. Add a clove or two of garlic, chopped.
4. Add chard stalks and cook for 2-3 minutes.
5. Add all beans (and peas, if you have them) and cook for one minute
6. Add chard and mustard green leaves, cook until wilted.
7. Add extra-firm tofu (in 1" cubes) or gluten (I live in a Chinatown, so tins of duck- or chicken-flavoured gluten are readily available).
8. Add sauce and one or two packages of udon noodles. Toss, heat and serve.

For a sauce, I mix together:

• 1/4 cup sesame oil
• 3 Tbsp dark soy sauce
• 2Tbsp rice vinegar
• A squirt or two of hot chili sauce
• 2 Tbsp brown sugar

These measurements are approximate. It's not something I measure. Adjust it to your taste.

Do you have favourite recipes for your garden produce? Post them in the comments so I can try them out!

Today's lunch: from field to table in less than five minutes

Finally, summer weather has come to Toronto. With warmth also comes an abundance of salad greens. I've taken to stepping outside to pick my lunch most days. Really, there's nothing that can compare with a freshly picked salad.

Today's delight was mostly made up of butter crunch lettuce leaves and beet greens, with a few leaves of oak leaf lettuce, a bit of giant red mustard green, a few leaves of basil and parsley, and one nice red radish.

I grew more mustard greens than I need. A little bit goes a long way, and as they mature, the greens get very strong. The giant red have a nicer texture and are a touch milder, it seems. The green ones get spiny and are quite strong, almost like wasabi. I'm thinking that I might try rolling sushi with some large leaves. I'll also freeze some for use in soups this winter.

Soon enough, I'll be producing enough of certain produce that I'll have to start preserving some, either by freezing or by canning. There's an interesting article on how to handle vegetables to maximize nutrient retention on the Oregon State University website. Because vegetables lose certain nutrients quickly, a salad this fresh is incredibly healthy. My body seems to feel better after eating one.

Oh, and that salad? It's completely organic with zero food miles and cost next to nothing. More importantly, it tasted fantastic!

First salad of spring

I'm lucky. I live in a wealthy society, in a modern era in which I can get fresh greens all year long. These include nice, tasty mixed salad greens in the middle of February.

That said, they pale in comparison to last week's salad of fresh greens. It was the first salad of the year from my garden, and it was wonderful. The greens were full of flavour, especially the peppery arugula (which is known in the UK by the much cooler name "rocket") and the mustard greens. The leaves on my standard mustard greens develop a slightly hairy texture when they get bigger than a couple inches across, but the giant red mustard greens don't seem to do so.

The radishes are abundant. I've two varieties, and the first ones are a rich purple on the outside, creamy white on the inside, with a mild flavour. They were well-suited to the salad, which my six-year-old son shared. I can't wait until he pulls up his first purple carrot.

Readers: the squirrels are wreaking havoc on some parts of my garden. Companion planting will probably help, and I got a lot of good advice from How to Grow More Vegetables, but those companions are just sprouting. Any tips?

For my season's initial ideas for the garden and some handy links (including an interactive planting calendar), click here.

Changing my mind and planting out

In contrast to yesterday's torrential downpours, Toronto enjoyed a beautiful spring day today. Since yesterday (May 9) was the average last frost day here inspired me to look at my planting calendar. It suggested that this was the weekend to plant seeds for sunflowers, nasturtiums, carrots and onions and that I should already have transplanted my lettuces and broccoli...on April 4!

Since frost seems unlikely, I spent a few hours in the garden today. I'd already directly sown my peas (think I see one peeking up today), a few radishes (doing well), arugula (not sure if it's up or if those are just weeds) and fava beans. The fava beans are doing fabulously, as you can see from the photo above.

In that same photo you'll notice a lot of straw. David and Alison, who live upstairs, have two lovely, fluffy rabbits named Emma and Amanda. These wonderful little fertilizer machines have been providing top dressing all winter long. My plan had been to use their bedding as mulch and just open up spaces for planting. Gardening the no-dig way! Yay!

However, weeding through the straw is a pain and there are a lot of plants to go in. Rather than weed everything and shift mulch about nonstop, I decided to just chuck my grand plan out the window and dig it in (except in a couple places where I'd already begun planting, such as around the fava beans and strawberries). The good news is that, in the bed I planted last year, there are tons of big, juicy worms where there were only a few when I made the bed. My soil looks to be very healthy and I have high hopes for my yields.

Today I planted two large beds. The tomatoes, zucchini and corn have yet to go into the ground (a little early yet), but most everything else is in now.

Bed 1, which is by far the biggest, will have most of the tomatoes. Today, in it, I planted marigolds (the workhorse of companion plants), various salad greens, rainbow chard, basil, parsley, spinach and mint.

Bed 2, which gets the most sun, will eventually have some corn and zucchini. Today it got marigolds, chives, a new everbearing strawberry plant (to compliment the two my dad gave me from his patch), some lettuces and spinach, nasturtiums , leeks, carrots and nine rows that alternate between onions, beets and radishes. There's also garlic at the far end, around a little rose bush.

Tomorrow, as weather and work permit, I'll work on beds 3 and 4.

So far, my only disappointment has been the poor germination rate of my marigolds (everything else I ordered from Brother Nature has had a decent germination rate, so this is probably an anomaly). But a little shop on the corner sells them and they're very inexpensive, so no worries. I also bought my tomato plants from them. No rare heirloom tomatoes this year, just sweet 100s and romas. But next year I'll get my act in gear earlier and plant some that will be a bit more fun.

Oh, and the carrot patches should be fun. I mixed three different seeds. Every time I pull up a carrot, who knows what it'll be. Nantes Touchon? Tendersweet long hybrid? Purple haze? (Yes, I planted purple carrots. Part of the goal is to have fun gardening with my six-year-old son.)

In addition to the other two beds, I still have four or five pots and various window boxes. Because the garden has so many veg, I think I'll use all the planters for flowers. After all, a garden shouldn't just be productive, it should also be pretty.

Some gardening posts that might be of use to you:
Vertical gardening
A handy gardening book for apartment-dwellers

Seedlings, chickens, bees and the city

My little plot of veg hardly qualifies as urban agriculture. If all goes well, it will make a dint in my grocery bills, though. But as May approaches and my seedlings, as you can see, are beginning to sprout nicely, my thoughts are turning more and more to what we can do with our limited urban greenspace.

First, an update on my garden. Few of the early season seeds planted directly have sprouted yet, save for the radishes. There's been lots of rain, though, and I expect to see some activity once the weather gets a little warmer. The strawberries I transplanted last winter from my dad's patch are still alive. I'm sure the squirrels will be thrilled. The seeds I started indoors are doing very well, except the marigolds, which have been late to start. For seed sources and my early plans, see this post. They've recently moved onto the deck, into a lovely little collapsible greenhouse my parents had, but weren't using. These stands are also handy for balcony gardening, as the plastic cover acts as a windbreak and will help keep your plants from drying out. The outdoor sensor of my thermometer is in there, so I can easily see if it's getting too hot or too cold.

But back to urban agriculture. Thanks in part to the localvore movement, it's becoming a new area of interest for many urbanites. I'm looking forward to learning more at the Society of Environmental Journalists' Toronto pub night on May 5 at Harbord House (7:30 p.m., upstairs bar, RSVP to SEJpubnight@saunderseditor.com). The guest speaker will be Ravenna Barker, an urban agriculturalist with Foodshare.

When I first moved into this apartment, I wondered about keeping chickens. They're neat. I loved playing with my aunt's chickens when I was a kid, and am sure my son, Graham, will love 'em too. Sadly, Toronto doesn't allow urban livestock. Apparently, however, it's something the city may revisit, as more citizens are expressing an interest in having a few chickens. Other cities allow them, some even allow goats. Marie-Eve Cousineau has a fun article on urban chicken politics in the current issue of L'Actualité. It includes the wonderful phrase "les poules clandestines." My French is awful, but the image of clandestine chickens is now forever etched in my mind.

Knowing that chickens were out, I began to think of bees. I was beside myself when my upstairs neighbour, Alison, asked if it's something I'd consider for the back yard. Never knew my friend was a closet apiarist!

However, that's another dream that's impossible for urbanites in our area. Unless you're renting a place with one really big backyard, you can't keep bees in Ontario. The provincial Bees Act (yes, there's a Bees Act) states:

19. (1) No person shall place hives or leave hives containing bees within 30 metres of a property line separating the land on which the hives are placed or left from land occupied as a dwelling or used for a community center, public park or other place of public assembly or recreation. 2002, c. 17, Sched. F, Table.

Hives also have to be at least 10 metres from a highway.

So, for now I'll have to satisfy myself with organic vegetable gardening. And I'll definitely be at the pub night on Tuesday.

A grey-water barrel in 15 minutes!

Last year, the City of Toronto sent every residential building a new garbage bin as part of a program to limit the amount of trash going to landfill. A side-effect of this program is that there are now thousands of obsolete garbage bins that we can't use. Well, we can't use them as garbage bins.

I spent 15 minutes and turned mine into a grey-water barrel. I'll show you how to do it. (Please also see the update I posted here.)

There are, essentially, three categories of water: clean, grey and black. Clean is what you drink. Black is what flushes down your toilet. Grey is the stuff that's somewhere in between: it's your washing-up water and bath water. My barrel will be getting water from the bath. That water is fairly clean. It contains some dead skin cells and some soap, but nothing toxic or particularly nasty. Good stuff to use on the garden.

I started this project with a fairly standard plastic garbage bin, the kind with wheels on the bottom and a lid held in place by two handles. There are no holes in the body, so it should hold water. The axle for the wheels runs through its own tube and not through holes drilled into the body of the bin, so no worries about leaks there.

For this project, I nipped over to the hardware store and bought a 1/2" ball valve and a 1/2" female-threaded brass connector. Really, there should be a simple screw-together plastic bung apparatus on the shelves with flanges on either side (put one piece inside the hole, screw the other into place and presto! a watertight bung!). Sadly, there wasn't. If you find such a thing, let me know, as it'll probably be better than my device.

The project also requires some teflon tape (it's cheap, and worth having on hand for minor plumbing repairs) and a bit of silicone (I had some left over from sealing leaks around a window). Unlike normal plumbing, the water in the barrel will not be under pressure.

First, place the male end of the joint on the side of the barrel, near the bottom. Trace around it so you'll know how big a hole to make. Then drill small holes all the way around. When you're done, the bits between the holes should be easy to cut with an Olfa knife.

I knew this project was on-track when the resultant hole looked like it had been chewed by hearty city mice. Don't worry, it needn't be pretty. This is, after all, a grey-water barrel. And the hole will look better when it's done.

Check that the male end of the connector fits snugly into the hole.

Next, wrap the male threads on the faucet in teflon tape, then screw it into the connector. The teflon tape provides a watertight seal.

Run a generous bead of silicone around the hole. This will provide the seal between the barrel and the connector. Insert the connector so that the valve points down (that is, so it'll drain properly when you stand the barrel up to actually use it). Run your finger around the joint to smooth the silicone. Probably a good idea to put a bead on the inside of the barrel, too.

And shazam! You're done. Now let it dry, then take it outside and test it for leaks, as I will do with mine in the morning.

***Note: The "indoor/outdoor" silicone I used proved to be a mistake. It wasn't water-resistant and broke down. A better caulk might have worked, or the faucet kit from Lee Valley (There's a link to it in the comments section). I later fixed the problem using nuts and washers, and wrote about it here.***

Spring gardening and a peat alternative

First off, I apologize. I like to start each post with a nice photo. But I've been busy in the garden today, and am just sitting down with a coffee out on the back porch. And really, the yard is mostly dirt right now. Nicely raked dirt, but still, dirt.

Last year I prepared my first beds with peat moss and sheep manure. I expect they'll do very well. But I was uncomfortable buying so much peat. You see, peat is a non-renewable resource. There's quite a bit of it around. It grows in bogs up north. The bogs are fascinating places, teeming with wildlife, and I've enjoyed every minute of my life that I've spent among them. Yes, even with the blackflies.

But peat bogs form very slowly, over hundreds, even thousands of years. So I was quite happy to find an alternative, aptly named Beats Peat. I picked up a couple bricks at a home improvement store a couple blocks away. The stuff is made out of coconut husks, which are abundant and would otherwise be a waste product. In the garden, they work like peat moss, loosening the soil, absorbing moisture and providing the rich humus layer that's so neded, especially in one of my beds, which was mostly clay.

Some of the other beds have been top dressed with a thin layer of straw and rabbit poo, thanks to Emma and Amanda, the bunnies who live upstairs. More of this is in the compost bin, which is working away very nicely. There are robins playing on top of it right now (a sure sign of spring).

Weather permitting, I'll plant my first outdoor seeds tomorrow: peas, fava beans, radishes and arugula. Inside, some 300 seedlings are growing happily, just waiting until it's save to go outside. And the garlic that Graham and I planted last fall is doing very well. It's planted in rings around the roses, as it's supposed to be a good companion plant.

Today's work mostly involved putting a strip of chicken wire along the bottom of the fence. This is an effort to annoy the raccoons. I have no delusions about keeping them out, but at least I'll make 'em work to get my veg! As for the squirrels, well, we'll see.