The Benefits of Bolting

We are approaching the dog days of summer and in the heat many vegetables are starting to flower. I am always surprised when I see people pulling up all their plants that have bolted, to make way for new plants. Of course once some plants have bolted their greens are bitter to taste and we need to remove them so that we can have a continuous supply of plants to eat. But those plants that have flowered are great for the garden. I would like to make an argument for intentionally letting some vegetables flower and go to seed.

Seed Saving

Leaving plants to go to seed, and then collecting the seeds, may not be on the list for novice gardeners, but I believe that it is important. It provides free seeds for subsequent years' gardens, which is always a good thing. It also preserves a diverse living history of plants so that we can maintain and grow plants that we do not typically see in the grocery store. There are many other benefits to seed saving, but an important one is that it takes the control of seeds out of the hands of corporations such as Monsanto and their terminator seeds.

Kale seed pods drying.

Continue reading at The Green Phone Booth>>>

Save Seeds, Save the World

Over at The Green Phone Booth I'm blogging about the whys and hows of seed saving.

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Happy Earth Day

There's a lot in the news and on the internet to drag someone down these days. Global warming is worse than we thought? Polar ice caps melting at an accelerated rate? Oil spills in backyards? Stephen Harper pulling Canada out of international agreements? Gah! Sometimes I feel so overwhelmed with information and powerless as an individual.

Personally I've had the rug pulled out from underneath me this past week and a half, with my mother in intensive care in the hospital. The only thing that has helped me to not feel overwhelmed, besides the love from my husband and daughters, has been to get outside and do some much overdue gardening.

I was looking forward to celebrating Earth Day this year with the students in my class. I had some fun activities planned, such as making a salad with the greens and herbs we grew in our classroom container garden. Unfortunately I am not at work while I deal with my mother's illness and care for my grandmother, so this will have to wait until I am back in the classroom next week.

This weekend when I was able to carve out a bit of time to power garden I realized that I was spending the Earth Day weekend how I should be spending it. I was doing something small, something personal and something real for the Earth.

I was excited to add homemade compost to my raised garden beds. We started backyard composting a year and a half ago and this was the first time I used any of it in my garden. As can be seen by the photo below, the garden beds look primed and ready for all the seedlings that are currently residing in my living room. The soil smells amazing; much better than the chicken manure I used last year before my own compost was ready. I was even more thrilled to do this because my neighbour finished building two more raised beds for me this past week, bringing my total to four.

My compost bin last fall, almost ready.

I had quite an ordeal weeding the beds and literally chopping down the kale trees that I had growing from last summer.

My kale and <ahem> garden, last October. I was still harvesting 

leaves at this point. It was probably a foot taller this weekend.

Seriously, they were huge; the stalks were about two inches wide. I would have kept the kale leaves but they had gone to seed and tasted bitter.

All the weeds and leftover garden ready to be chopped for the compost bin.

After weeding I had some pleasant surprises; there were some more beets growing, which I picked for the greens, and the potatoes I started two years ago are coming along nicely. I'm happy to see my garlic growing, although I wish I'd planted more of it last fall as some have not come up.

I am looking forward to seeing how my garlic turns out.

I finished the afternoon planting some peas directly outside, to which I will add some that I have started inside. I've cheated a bit by purchasing a few pea plants from the garden store just so I see some green in the beds.

All my baby seedlings getting ready for the garden.

I have big plans for those four garden beds!

Happy Earth Day.

A Fabulous Fundraiser

Just in time to start thinking about spring and the coming growing season, my youngest daughter's preschool is doing what I think is the best fundraiser idea ever. Ok, I may be a little biased because I have done a vegetable garden for the past few years. They are selling seed kits from West Coast Seeds! I love this for several reasons.

As I've already said, I love my vegetable garden and I am excited to learn more this year. The kits range from flowers to container gardening for people with limited space to heirloom varieties. Check out the tomato varieties below. Hmm, which ones to pick for my garden this year?

I also love West Coast Seeds. They are an ethical company involved in the community, they sell organic and heritage seeds (no GMO), and their staff is very helpful. I recently bought an indoor growing system and my entire family is watching the sprouts grow before our eyes (seriously, every time we look at the sprouts they are bigger!).

I especially love that  it is a fundraiser that encourages people to grow their own food and educates children about gardening and the environment.

If you are local and would like to purchase a seed kit, contact me or leave a comment here.

The seeds are sold in kits. Kits A - K are $15.00 and the Deluxe Kit is $34.95

A. Annual Favourites Collection: alyssum, jewel nasturiums, Flanders poppies, giant blue point zinnia, sensation cosmos, sparky marigold

B. Cut Flowers Collection: Pacific beauty calendula, red beauty zinnias, baby's breath, rainbow snapdragons, mixed cornflowers, multiflora sweet peas

C. Sunflower Collection: velvet queen, lemon queen, autumn beauty, peredovik, teddy bear, giantess

D. Perennial Flowers Collection: Veronica "blue bouquet", columbine, echinacea coneflowers, Iceland poppies, shasta daisy, verbena

E. Sweet Pea Collection: bijou, mammoth, matucana, high scent, old spice

F. Heirloom Vegetable Collection: dragon tongue bean, scarlet nantes carrot, red Russian kale, little marvel pea, Amish deer tongue lettuce, small sugar pumpkin

G. Gourmet Salad Collection: raddichio, lemon cucumber, super gourmet lettuce blend, scallions, mokum carrot, French breakfast radish

H. Baby Greens Collection: Bull's blood beets, komatsuna, red mustard, chicory, chervil, salad bowl lettuce

I. Herb Garden Collection: cilantro, parsley, basil, chives, dill, sage

J. Patio Vegetable Collection: valentino bean, patio cucumber, lettle gem lettuce, little marvel pea, gypsy pepper, tumbler tomato

K. Heirloom Tomato Collection: brandywine, gold nugget, bonny best, black krim, yellow pear, Italian paste

L. Top 10 Deluxe Collection: parsnip, eggplant, pepper, tomato, broccoli, rainbow swiss chard, carrot, West Coast market mix, zucchini, spinach

Garden Reflections 2012

The growing season is quickly coming to an end. I can feel the nip in the air in the morning and evening, and we have to remember to take a hoodie or light coat when we head out the door. As much as I will miss summer, I am excited about the changing colours of the leaves, the smell of pumpkin spice and pulling out my favourite sweaters again. We are crazy for Hallowe'en in my family, which is a close second to Yule and Christmas. If I were being honest with myself, I think autumn may be my favourite season.

But I am sad to say good bye to my veggie garden for another year. This was my second summer with full garden beds in a backyard (container gardening in our townhouse in years prior) so I am a newbie and don't think of myself as a gardener yet. But I am starting to get my "sea legs" and figure things out through trial and error.

One of the raised beds in mid July.

After following some urban farming blogs I am starting to get the idea that I need to keep a journal of the season to remember what grew well, what didn't do well and why, any problems I encountered and any changes for next year. So that is what I hope to do with this post!

This is what we gave to our neighbours several times throughout the season. 

This year, for the first time, I grew almost everything from seed, and with a few exceptions this went well. I grew the following:
pumpkins
zucchinis
carrots
cucumbers
radishes
tomatoes (two kinds)
swiss chard
brussels sprouts
kale
spinach
lettuce
beets
peas
green beans
potatoes (seed potatoes from last year in soil)
cilantro*
basil*
strawberries*
chives (from previous years)
green onions (from previous years)
raspberries*
blueberries*
*not from seed

Some of the seed packets I used.

One of the things I loved about growing my plants from seed is that it was immensely satisfying watching each and every plant sprout and grow taller and stronger. My daughters and I would check on them daily and talk about what the seeds looked like, perhaps why some sprout sooner than others, and why some didn't sprout at all. We had great conversations about optimal growing conditions, and what happened when a section of seeds and seedlings were overwatered or didn't get enough light. It was an amazing learning opportunity for all of us to see the seedlings, which all looked pretty much the same as initial sprouts, begin to differentiate into the various plants, and we had fun trying to identify them without looking at the labels on the pots.

My wee babies, I mean seedlings.

The other thing I loved about growing from seeds is that this time I really felt like they were my plants. In fact, they were like my children and I felt pride and joy as they grew stronger and began to yield food for us. Conversely, I felt sad when some died because I planted them outside a little too soon and when some struggled after some heavy rain. I felt far more invested in them compared to the plants I have purchased.

In the foreground are the tomato plants, then peas, beans and squash in behind.

Next year, however, I will not grow herbs from seed. I have had difficulties with this in the past but thought I would try again. My basil never fully thrived and it had a very bitter taste throughout the season. Perhaps it didn't get hot enough for it at a crucial point in its growth (we had a chilly, rainy spring).  I don't seem to be able to kill my chives and green onions though. The chives were given to me from a neighbour a couple of years ago and my green onions were started years ago.

Shortly after planting the newbie plants. On the right side you 

can see the peas which should be much taller by this point. 

I planted them too late.

I believe that turning the soil in my garden beds with steer and chicken manure in early April really made the difference for healthy and full plants. Last year our neighbour built the first raised bed for us (we are so lucky) and I'm not sure the soil was the best quality, especially after seeing the difference this year when my neighbour added another raised bed to our yard but I bought the manure to add to both beds. I'm looking forward to using our own compost material next growing season. I wonder if I should still add some manure? Maybe I can get some from a local organic cattle farm?

Our compost bin, purchased from the City of Richmond.

So what will I do differently next year? In addition to not growing herbs from seed (unless anyone can give me some helpful tips), I will plant my peas about a month earlier, and I will plant my pumpkins a month later. I will also put much more thought into planning where to put each plant. I was careful with spacing this year (major problem last year) but really, growing brussels sprouts next door to kale really wasn't bright. My poor cucumbers, which really weren't happy from the get-go (must read more about them) became swallowed by first the zucchinis, then the pumpkins, which were threatening to strangle us in our sleep.

Tomatoes can be finicky here in our temperate west coast climate and once again they were a challenge for me. I usually buy my tomato plants already with tomatoes on them, but last year I had fun watching them develop from small three inch plants, so as mentioned previously, I tried them from seed. One of my tomato varieties was much happier than the other, at least for growing here in Steveston. The yellow grape tomatoes are ripening much more successfully than my larger red tomatoes. The larger tomato variety became stressed in mid August (or at least that's what my internet search results told me it means when the leaves flip over and curl) and I couldn't figure out why. Coincidentally the yellow grape ones are a heritage variety I picked up at the Foxglove Farm and Garden on Salt Spring Island, B.C.

The first harvest of tomatoes that made it into the house. 

We popped them into our mouths as fast as they ripened.

What other challenges did I face? My pumpkin leaves got a powdery mildew in August, which spread to the zucchinis. Other than slightly slowing down their growth and looking really ugly, I didn't notice any ill effects. The pumpkins themselves look great right now (fully ripe) and the zucchinis are still producing for us.

We have eight pumpkins in total this year.

I don't know if I will be able to sweet talk my neighbour into building us another raised bed next year (I'd like two more for my backyard and eventually some in the front yard), but regardless I want to plant more of the veggies my girls enjoyed eating this year: triple the number of peas (a huge favourite), beans and cucumbers; double the carrots, beets, spinach and radishes. I will half the number of zucchinis, chard and kale, mostly because we also participated in a local CSA: community supported agriculture  veggie pick up once a week and guess what they grew?!? Yup, each week we were inundated with zucchini (at one point I had over two dozen in my fridge), chard and kale from both gardens. Green smoothies anyone?!

The first week's veggie pick up from the Terra Nova Sharing Farm

Our garden continues now with the brussels sprouts, which I am looking forward to harvesting at Thanksgiving in October, and possibly for Christmas dinner again. This past Christmas morning I was so proud to cut the last stalk out of my garden and cook it up for my family.

Freshly harvested brussels sprouts on Christmas morning!

At a recent visit to the UBC Botanical Garden I purchased a winter gardening guide book which I am slowly working my way through; however I'm too late to do a winter garden this year. Hopefully next year I'll have plans in place mid to late summer to begin a winter garden. Perhaps it is a good idea to grow kale in the winter garden instead, along with some cabbage (which we missed this year) and other hardy veggies.

I'm sure I'm forgetting some other crucial bits of information I will need but this long enough and a lot to process.

Do you have a backyard garden? Do you container garden? What have you learned this year?