Fall Inspiration: The Last Entry of 2012

                   Fall has arrived and gardening inspiration is in the air. As I stand in my now decaying garden, I feel surrounded by all the possibilities of what kind of garden I will create for next spring! Maybe I will grow a small garden for herbs alone, I would love to focus more on heirloom seeds and grow vegetables I haven't tried before, maybe I will devote a whole section to just tomatoes  or maybe I could build one of those old English countryside rock walls! Who knows, but I am super excited planning for it.

Nothing like tomatoes.

Beautiful heirloom vegetables, my new passion!

       But first thing is first. In order to be able to grow a successful garden in the spring, you must do a lot of fall prep for it. Some people consider these chores but I love doing it. The first thing I needed to do was to empty and take inside any container pots I have. So after arguing with the hub-unit about how the pots are NOT going to ruin the ambiance of the garage, a.k.a. the man cave, a male concept I will never understand, we moved them inside to prevent them freezing and thawing and thus cracking.

Getting the pots emptied.

Watch your back!

The potted soil is full of great nitrates for the garden so I try to strategically dump it and move it around and mix it with the fallen leaves so that it preps my garden soil so its rich and organic for next year. My dog also likes to help me!

I bet you don't look this good gardening ;)

White dog plus dirt equals bath.

The next thing is to take in any last vegetables that you are still able to harvest. I was surprised at how much I was able to harvest in November in Nova Scotia! Onions, kale, tons of parsley, beets and mint. I am actually thinking the kale might last through the winter, which would be great!

Harvesting in November!

The last thing I need to do are remove any structures. In my garden I put up bamboo trellis for the beans and these need to be taken in or they will rot.

Takin her down.

OK this was a little bit tedious.

How easy was that! The garden is now ready for next year! Although I am sad my gardening season is over, I will have all winter to dream, plan and sketch my ideas about how the garden will unfold next year. One of the greatest joys about gardening is the possibilities are endless, no two years will be the same in a garden and therefore I never get bored. Thanks to everyone who read my blog, commented and shared it. It was amazeballs to write it and ever more amazeballs that people actually read it! I look forward to the spring season 2013!

The Organic Harvest...hhhmmm.

    

     When I read about about organic gardening in books and magazines, images of healthy hippies gathering veggies from the backyards of their homestead farms for a communal feast of food, wine and song pop into my head. I yearn to be one of them free, growing my own food, raising chickens and frolicking with my rambunctious cows. But alas I live in the city, in a most unhomesteady house without a hippie around for miles, unless you count the urban hipsters but they are a whole different breed.

Look how happy those hippies are!

An urban hipster...just not the same attitude.

   

        I kept the hippie dream in my heart when I started my own garden this year. Therefore upon the first sign of harvest I ran out to my backyard with kitchen shears in my hand. I proudly took photos of what I had grown and paraded the food into my kitchen. As I began to prepare my feast, I started by excited washing my greens when I noticed something in the bowl crawling around and there it was.... an earwig. I tried not to freak out but I was totally freaked out. I quickly washed it down the drain and put it out of my mind. But how in the frig could I get it out of my mind when I proceeded to find 2 more earwigs and several bugs I couldn't even name! At that moment my hippie dream faded just a little,I began to understand that organic gardening came with its own baggage...that being critters. I did enjoy my veggie feast that night but I ate a little more slowly and carefully than I normally would. Just in case.....

My excitedly taken photos of kale, romaine, basil and green onions.  Pre-earwig of course.

The beans were very safe. I love the purple ones. They are green when you bite into them.

Look at them beans.

Broccoli Rabe As The Garden Grows

         The garden season is well underway and I am learning so much. Everyday is a new beautiful discovery and I can't wait to get out to the garden in the mornings with a mug of coffee to see what's new that day. Surprisingly a garden can change so much in one day! Which is why....lesson one...you should use garden signs! Apparently those little markers that gardeners use are not just to make the garden look cute. I did not use these when I transplanted my seedlings. I thought with my super genius powers I would just remember what I planted and where.......ummm no.

Surprisingly Important!

Using my Super Genius Powers of Remembering.

                                                                                                                                                                              

After a couple of weeks I had no idea what was a weed, herb or vegetable. I then proceeded to have to taste every seedling or supposed seedling, glad I didn't get poisoned,  and by process of elimination, identify each plant. I managed to figure it out after a lot of bitter tastings (I discovered martinis help this process a lot) The only plant which really stumped me was the broccoli rabe. I had never seen it before let alone tasted it! I am still not sure how to pronounce it either? Of course I always speak it with a thick Italian accent and therefore no one questions me about my pronunciation.

      Turns out broccoli rabe is delicious! I didn't know when to harvest it or how to cook it but after a little research I discovered some important tips. The first is, you must harvest the small heads before they flower. If it flowers it becomes very bitter and unpalatable. So timing is crucial to the harvest.

Look closely can you see the small heads? Now is the time to pick.

Don't eat it now! Just cut off the flowers and new baby edible heads will come up.

I cooked them in a little butter and yum!  It also grows like a weed and produces daily so it has a very good garden return.

     I think when you have a small urban garden like mine, maximizing returns from you garden is crucial.  This means planting things that will give you a big harvest in a small space for a good chunk of the summer. I think it will vary from garden to garden so it is best done by trial and error. In my garden, the radishes, kale, romaine, butter crunch, sweet peas and beans are all super performers.

Look at all the sweet peas.

Try not to stare at my massive kale bush!

 While the swiss chard, beets and herbs have either not grown or barely grown.

Tiny beet plant.

                                       
 Not maximum returners. That's Okay though. I have learned to not plant these next summer and to stick with what grows well in my small space.








  
                    

Love in the Time of Gardening

  

 I am pretty sure that my husband thinks I am having an affair. There are my unexplained absences, unaccounted for money spent and the evening trips to "the store" for milk and bread that take a little too long and never result in any milk or bread. Where were you? What were you doing? he asks. My responses are always vague. 

  I am having an affair of sorts. It is just a lame and embarrassing affair with my local garden center. But I just can't help myself. I enjoy the little thrill I get by sneaking out to the garden store this way. Nobody knowing where I am, the anonymity of it. Some people take baths or watch T.V. to de-stress but visiting my garden center, to me, is pure relaxation. When I am pursuing through the various fruit trees I long to buy, spotting the newest hydrangea hybrid, striking up a casual conversation with a fellow garden enthusiast over what the perfect shade plant is, I feel my troubles melting away. Oh and the smells roses, lilacs, basil...heaven. I swear there is more oxygen there as well and I immediately feel more energetic. 

     I am at the garden center so much that I sometimes think the staff may think I am a bit of a lurker or maybe an escapee from some kind of institution but I don't care. My pure pleasure over rides any sort of odd looks from the staff. Maybe one day I will tell my husband where I am, but just not today. 

The Garden Hoe has Gardened

          A riddle wrapped in an enigma. A question within a question. That is where last weekend's gardening endeavors have left me. I feel like James Joyce with a veritable stream of consciousness spewing forth all my unanswered gardening questions and gardening related confusion. I hope you can follow along.
        Well I have the patience of a 7 year old and just couldn't wait any longer to put out my seedlings into the garden. I know, I know too soon but I have always been wild and crazy and so I put them out. It seems warm enough? Well none have died yet so that is a good thing. A totally inappropriate friend of mine suggested I take garden hoe-esque photos of myself in the garden which I thought would be very fun but since my 7 year old took the photos they remained P.G. Although I will totally give him credit for the photos when I am rich and famous. But back to the seedlings... Here they are, wild and wooly but they didn't get too out off control as I had previously thought. So lesson 1 learned, you can implant an excessive amount of seeds in a small  container and have it work out.


                             I love how my son cuts of the top of my head in every pic.
                                                       Maybe a little Freudian?

              The first problem I encountered was these little nest like pots I had planted the seedlings in. Do I take the seedlings out of them or plant them right into the ground?

                                                           The Nesty pots.

         I didn't know so I planted some in the nests and some without the nests. We will see which ones turn out better.


        So after I made that agonizing decision  (trust me it was exhausting) I ran head on into another problem. If each one of those seedlings is an individual plant and if they are all bunched together in the ground will they grow properly? Do I have to take each individual seedling and separate it and then plant it. And how far apart do I implant them? The stress!!! So lacking patience I just lumped them all in together and said a prayer to the gardening gods and we'll see......


                                                       Look how stressed I look!

                                   New gardening tool for my birthday. Thanks Linda!

                                             Finished product, a little sad and pathetic.

                        
        Superstore was charging $20.00 for a "salad container" we made our own.

Star Trek Musings in the Garden

     

                                                     The bent spade and new gloves.


        Let me tell you there is nothing like a garden to humble you. I went out last weekend to do a little weeding. I dressed up in my new pink, jaunty Crocs and my matching pink, zebra print gardening gloves, spade in hand and feeling uber-gardeny and very cute I entered the garden. About an hour later, I left the garden a sweaty pit-stained mess, panting, carrying my now bent spade and my pride back into the house. Oh yeah, and I hurt my back.
         How did I hurt my back? It was the weeds that did it. I started off slowly, pulling the small ones. Feeling confident, I began to tackle those deep rooted dandelions. You know the ones with the never ending roots. You keep digging and digging and never really find the end of them. Well I kept digging and pulling and they were starting to wear me down. I almost called it a day until an image of The Borg came to my mind. Who are The Borg? Are you serious? They are my favorite cybernetic collective from the best, yes I said it, Star Trek series ever.....Voyager.  And also Star trek next generation. Now The Borg are inspirational in many ways, but what really struck me in the garden was their unbelievable ability to never give up. Even when Captain Janeway had their backs were up against the wall, their numbers dwindling did The Borg ever give up. Noooo! They kept assimilating. Well I drew strength from their positive attitude. I told those weeds," Resistance is futile, you will be assimilated." And then I hurt my back.



                                                    The Borg

The Merry Mishaps of a Gardening Newbie

        Growing up on one of the busiest streets in a city I have always longed for the exact opposite. Instead of waking up to ambulance sirens and gas fumes, I wanted roosters and rolling green pastures. I would fantasize  about milking cows, riding horses and picking apples. My childhood dreams extending into my university days, reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles  I found myself envying her life as a milk maid.  I swore when I finished school I would buy a huge farm and have fresh eggs every morning, eat my lunch straight out of the garden and sit on my porch in the cool evenings watching the fire flies after a hard days work with my handsome (often shirtless) field hand Antonio.(what? it gets hot!) But I digress. I am now finished my school, married( not to Antonio) with a son and guess where I live...on a busy street in a city.
       So here I am with a small backyard and my eternal, nagging, desire for farm life. Although I had dabbled in gardening before, five days ago I came across a magazine that caught my attention. Urban Gardening it said, with the big ripe tomatoes taunting me on the cover. I quickly bought it. After reading it cover to cover I was inspired but also intimidated by all the sowing instructions, hardening off, making your own organic fertilizer (seriously?), bug fighting and what not. Can't you just put the seed in a pot and give it water and then put it in the garden? I decided to find out. I also decided to blog about it so that next year I can hopefully do it better as I am sure I will make many mistakes.    
         So here is what I have done so far. I have purchased seeds that will grow in my area. What growing area am I in? I have no clue. I live in Nova Scotia.  I know there are such things as growing areas. I just don't know what mine is. Basically I figured if the seed store is selling the seeds, chances are they will grow here. Smart huh? So here is what seeds I have bought : White Russian Kale (no idea what this is) Kale, crazy red and white ringed beets (I thought they were pretty), rainbow swiss chard ( again very pretty) , basil, cilantro (yum) buttercrunch lettuce (again never heard of it) the proud romaine lettuce (I love Caesar salad) arugula, watercress and beans. I think I might of got a little too excited buying seeds as my garden is tiny and I am not sure how big these grow. I also bought an indoor seed starting container that has a plastic dome.  I planted the seeds 3 days ago. When I say I planted the seeds, I mean I put all of the seeds in the packet into one or two compartments. I thought some might not come up. Like when they plant extra embryos inside a women in case some don't take. I should have learned from Octomom. This was major mistake number 1. They have already sprouted 100's of plants. It is a little out of control and I am not sure what to do know as it is still too cold to put them outdoors. But I am just going to think on it until it is a lot out of control, which I am guessing might be in about 5 days time.  Thanks for reading! Please feel free to give me advice!! And I will see you in about five days time!
                                      
                                                        Here is my seed starting kit. Kind of lame.

                                                 Here are the 100's of seedlings after 3 days!

                                                     Here is my tiny garden plot. Needs weeding.