Great Gardens Grow

Great gardens take time. The learning curve never ends.

When people ask me how to get started with a garden, one of the first questions I ask them is how much time do you have to spend in your garden each day?

The reason I ask this question is people often have great gardens in their minds but in their daily lives, they simply do not have the time to care for those gardens. Sure, the first few days are full of energy as the garden bed or beds are prepared and the seeds and seedlings are planted and everything is watered.

But then life happens and the busy schedule that is many peoples’ reality starts to take over and tending the garden gets put aside or left to the weekend. Now, once a garden is established, you do not need to visit it every day, although I do recommend that if you really want a thriving organic garden then allow yourself at least five minutes each day.

During those five minutes, all you are doing is observing, looking for changes like any unwanted visitors or signs that something may be wrong, brown leaves, chew marks and so on.

This early warning will increase your odds of saving the plants before the problem zooms out of control.

Also, in unusual weather, heavy rains, excessive heat or not enough heat, you need to care for your plants, to help them endure the extremes, and still produce the flowers, and vegetables you want.

Great gardens take time. Do not start a garden you do not have to have the time to tend. Be sure to enjoy a quiet stroll around the garden. You are looking for anything unusual, so you can handle it, pests, diseases, before the situation gets out of control, then,  back and watch nature do her thing.

When you calculate your time as part of the overall garden design process you will avoid building a garden that is too big for your lifestyle and also avoid the disappointment that can follow, especially if this is your fir

Food is Our Common Ground

Everything needs to eat.

What we eat varies due to personal preferences, ethics, financial ability, for in our world, food is a commodity and no pay, no eat, is the rule; culture and political and religious beliefs also play a role when we choose our fare.

Regardless of our food choices, the one choice that we cannot and usually do not want to make is to not eat. We eat or we die

If we eat but do not get the nutrition that our body requires from the food we choose then we become ill. If we do not eat enough, even of good food, then we weaken and become ill.

In North America, we often complain of our fast paced lives and how busy we are; this reality is well reflected in our food lifestyle, fast food dominates the food scene. Drive-thrus and delivery, microwaves and frozen entrées have replaced cooking; which, along with growing our own food, is a basic survival skill.

How many people would suffer greatly, if they could no longer pick up or order in their supper or no longer pop something into the microwave and wait a few minutes for dinner?

How many days food do you have in your pantry or storage cupboards? When was the last time that you preserved any food?

How long would your food last if the transportation system broke down and the food you buy was no longer on the grocery store shelves and the pizza place was out of dough?

North Americans have let the food supply system slip out of their grasp and the very item, the second most important need that we have, after air; water being the first, is in the hands of companies that are in many cases far away.

We can live for up to three weeks without food, but only 3 days without water.

Food is trucked, flown and put in box cars so that it can be shipped to its destination. How fresh can it be if it has been sitting in a container for 2 weeks before it reaches your plate?

Do you know how far your last meal traveled before it became a meal?

Tomatoes, for example are being bred for their ability to travel rather than their flavour. So we get tomatoes that can travel but are tasteless.

Even the fast food that we so dearly love relies on transport to deliver the bulk of what it serves.

Transportation requires the use of fossil fuels to power the truck that carry much of our food and the airplanes that fly in the foods from distant ports. The price of gasoline is rising in many places as is the price of food, they are connected.

The agriculture industry is one of the biggest users of fossil fuels, not just for transportation, but for the production of pesticides and fertilizers as well.

There is an episode of West Wing where President Bartlett is speaking to his chief of staff. The topic is the news that mad cow disease has raised its head in the United States. The President says and I am slightly paraphrasing this: “Often what we take for granted is the very thing that turns around and bites us in the ass”.

The conditions that the animals that we consume are kept in are all too often appalling to say the least; this means that before they are killed they suffer. This reality is the reason that many people become vegetarians.

There are a number of food based movements that are working to address food quality, local economies and the sheer pleasure of preparing and sharing a meal with friends and family. The organic movement has become big business, the push to local food ahs drawn nation attention and the slow food movement has spread across nations.

If we have any real interest in improving our quality of life, our environment and address issues such as poverty and hunger then we only need to look inside our cupboards and refrigerators and begin to change with what we put in them on shopping day.

Food is our common ground; we all eat so let’s give our next meal some thought.

Local Food

Beans, Beans, Beans

Beans are a perfect crop. For the home gardener, there are two types of beans that you will want to consider. One is the pole bean. Pole beans will need some kind of support; support that is strong enough to keep the plants from tumbling to the ground.

The support must bear the full weight of the plants but it has to also withstand the summer winds and storm. You do not want to come out one fine sunny morning and find that last night’s storm knocked your beautiful beans flat.

The other is bush beans, which are a smaller and more compact plant, and will provide a heavy first harvest as well as a lighter second picking before the plants are finished.

When you use bush beans you may be able to plant more than one crop during the season so that a continuous supply of beans is always close to maturing.

I have built tripods/teepees from poles to use as supports and if the poles are long enough and put into the ground at least six inches and securely fastened at the top they have withstood some fairly heavy wind storms.

Beans should not be sown until the danger of the last frost has passed; damp and cold soil will cause the bean seed to rot and bye-bye bean.

There is a wide variety of beans to choose from and remember when you buy seeds of any kind, beans included, read the seed package and follow the instructions.

Beans are also a great way to introduce children to gardening and the connection between food and the earth.

What you need are a bean seed, a small garden pot (3 inches across) some soil and water. You will also need a place at home to put the pot where it will get 4-6 hours of sunlight.

Fill the pot with soil; make a small hole using the pinky finger about ¼ inches deep, put in the bean cover over, water.

Then place the pot in a sunny spot and watch it grow. Be sure the planter has drainage and be sure to place a saucer or something else to catch the excess water.

We have done this exercise with quite a few children over the years and they enjoy the planting and have often told us about their beans and even brought pictures.

This exercise works well with children between the ages of 2 and 4 years old but children up to 7 have participated and had fun.

Create a Balcony-Container Garden

Balconies and containers make a great garden.

If you want to create a balcony garden then there are a few things you need to do.

First and possibly the most important step is to ask yourself, how much time do you have to spend taking care of the garden? Balcony gardens usually take the form of plants in containers and may actually require more attention than a backyard garden does.

Balconies can be hot, dry and windy spots and this means that your plants will need to be watered frequently. You will also need to check on them regularly to determine if watering or other attention is required. Pests and diseases can affect the balcony garden.

The second determination you will need to make is how much sunlight the balcony receives. This, in part, determines what you can grow. If your balcony is heavily shaded then most vegetables are out but shade plants are in.

This is where the right plant, right place (RPRP) guideline comes in handy. You place a plant in the location where its needs are met and that plant will flourish if something is lacking, water, soil, food, then the plant may die or languish. So select your plants with knowledge and care.

Now that you know the light conditions, you can decide how much space you want to allow for the garden. You will need room to move around to care for and harvest. What else do you use your balcony for?

The last question is are you growing herbs, vegetables, fruit, yes you can grow dwarf apple trees on a balcony if the conditions are right, or ornamentals.

Once you have answered all the questions you can draft your garden plan. This does not need to be elaborate, a pencil sketch on a piece of paper will do. Simply indicate where the plants will go and be sure to include anything else that may be on your balcony, chairs, for example.

The plan is not carved in stone and you can make adjustments as you go; it is designed to keep your focused and not to get carried away.

It is easy enough to buy more plants than you can use when you visit a garden centre. It can be difficult to resist some of the floral beauties that are teasing you into taking them home.

Use your garden plan to develop a plant list and do your best to stick to the list. It can be helpful to talk with the garden centre manager or a horticultural expert and explain your plan, before buying.

Balcony gardening is as rewarding as any other form of gardening as long as you follow the few simple steps that I have outlined. Most importantly, have fun gardening is a joy, not a chore.

How to Grow Mint

Mint grows and grows and grows spreading by stolons. It is best grown in a container so that you do not spend a considerable portion of your gardening time, harvesting and then getting desperate as it spread just trying to get rid of it.

The previous caretaker of this property must not have known that. So I have a plentiful supply. I plant to dig it up and put it into several containers.

There are approximately 25 species of mint and hundreds of varieties; there are differences in flavour, scent, colour and shape.

Mint is a great container plant and works best in a container that is at least 12 inches in diameter. Use a good organic potting soil; be sure to water regularly and divide the plants every two to three years.

Mint can also be propagated through cuttings.

In the kitchen, mint is used in desserts, on fish, lamb, jellies, hot and cold drinks, soups and can provide a cooling contrast in chillies and salsas.

To say that mint is easy to grow is an understatement, it will do well, in both sun and shade and ask little. It will take over if left to its own devices

You can grow mint from seed and get a jump on the season by starting the seed indoors or if you prefer direct sow then into the garden in the spring; be sure to space the seedlings 12" to 18" apart

Once the leaves begin to appear they are ready to be harvested. Mint leaves can be sued dried, fresh or frozen which enables you to keep a supply on hand all year round.

The morning is the best time to pick the leaves as the oils are strongest.

Mint Tea: (for 2)

5 mint leaves

1 bag green tea

Boiling water

Put tea bag and mint leaves in teapot, add water let steep for 6 minutes and you have a refreshing, hot beverage.

Mint Sun Tea:

In a one-litre gallon jar with a tight-fitting lid place 8-10 mint leaves, fill with water and place in sunlight, let sit all day or for at least 8-12 hours. Make this in the morning. You can then add honey, a teaspoon or so to taste or lemon, pour over ice cubes and enjoy.

Are You a Humble Gardener?

Why does a gardener need to be humble? After all, look at what he or she creates, beautiful flowers, healthy herbs and tasty vegetables, surely that is a sound reason to be proud. But, pride is not the issue, it is important to take pride in your work, to fully appreciate the value of what you do. 

When I refer to humility or humbleness, I mean the quality of being courteously respectful of others. This attitude is the opposite of aggressiveness, arrogance, boastfulness, and vanity. The humble gardener does not say, "Me first," but her humility allows her to say, "No, you first, my friend."

Humility is the quality that lets us go more than halfway to meet the needs and demands of others.

The second reason for calling a gardener humble is the root of the word humble itself. Humble derives from the Latin word "humilis," meaning "low," which, in turn, comes from the Latin "humus," which means "earth" or "dirt" or "soil."

Soil is the foundation of the garden; soil nurtures the roots, feeds them and helps them develop strong and vital plants. The humble gardener knows this and understands that the job is to build healthy soil, for once this has been achieved, the garden will thrive.

The most effective way to build healthy soil is first, to avoid artificial additives which will drain the soil of its vitality because these poisons kill the millions of little helpers who work with the plants to produce delicious tomatoes and beautify roses.

The second way to grow healthy soil is to add organic material to it periodically. Compost is a perfect source of organic material and your plants will reward you when you spread it around.

You can purchase compost, be sure it is organic or make your own. When you make your own you reuse those kitchen scraps (vegetable cuttings and eggshells, for example, rather than tossing them away.

Grass clippings can be added to compost as can leaves, rather than bagging them up, cover your garden in the fall with them, or bag them set them aside until the following spring when you break them open and add the contents to the garden beds.

The humble gardener appreciates the bounty that nature provides and the assistance the birds, bees and spiders as well as many, many much smaller beings provide in helping your garden grow.

My Small Garden 2019

Grex beans, mammoth sunflowers and glass gem corn.

In Praise of Dandelions

They grow everywhere or so it seems. You do not have to tend them, water them or feed them. All you need to do is appreciate them and harvest them, then enjoy them as wine, tea, in a salad or deep-fried as fritters.

What I am I going on about, well dandelions, the most misunderstood and under-appreciated “weed’ in the world, well that may be a bit over the top, but you get my drift.

This is urban food foraging at its most basic. You may not even have to leave your own property to gather this most versatile plant. If you are a homeowner and have a lawn, the odds are good you have a handy supply of dandelions.

Now you may have spent hours, each summer, in vain attempts to make the dandelion go away, but somehow, no matter what you do it keeps coming back.

Now you can give up the struggle and start reaping the rewards that nature has been putting in front of you for all those years and rather than doing battle, go and get some supper.

Dandelion greens are one of the season’s first edible arrivals and the ragged leaves add a distinctive appearance to the meal. They are best picked when young. Dandelion greens are high in vitamin A in the form of antioxidant carotenoid and vitamin C.

It is not necessary to be a gardener to take advantage of this useful plant. All you need is a lawn that has not been sprayed with poison in an attempt to control the weeds and it is quite likely that you will have dandelions aplenty.

You can harvest the root, the flower and the green, so the whole plant, pretty much, is useful. The root can be ground and used as a coffee substitute, something like chicory, in case you are looking for something a little different in the morning.

You may find it faster to collect the dandelions if you work with at least one other person that is if you are planning to harvest the whole plant.

Have one person cut the flower and another dug out the root using a dandelion weeding tool. The tools often destroy the flowers.

Now, because dandelions are so plentiful in many lawns you can do an early harvest and take the young leaves and leave the root in the ground to grow back and then come back for the flower and root.

Or you can harvest the whole plant when young making sure to leave a few growing so that you can harvest the flowers if you want them. There are options which make this even more fun.

So the first step is to decide what you are going to use the dandelion for, salads, coffee, wine fritters and so on and then collect the plant accordingly.

If you do not have a lawn you may want to visit your neighbours and ask them if you can harvest their dandelions. Do this in early spring before the dandelion is bloom.

Tell them what you want the dandelion for and that you will remove all the dandelions from their front lawn. Unless you really love dandelion coffee or wine, there is a limit to how many plants you will need to harvest.

Friends and family may be happy to have your drop by and visit while weeding their lawn.

It is possible that people will look at you funny and whisper behind your back but hey you are getting some great exercise outdoors, providing food for the family, that costs nothing but your labour, and maybe encouraging others to step forward and stop poisoning the community and eat the weeds.

Deck and Small Garden:

A friend filled the deck containers today. so soon, I will plant the flowers I have started indoors. This is an experiment as I have not started flowers from seed before, vegetables, sure.

The Small Garden will be cleaned and prepped next week.

Are You Food Secure?

Food prices are rising, and more and more people are turning to grow their own food to help keep the costs down. Unfortunately, far too many people do not have the room to grow much, and while growing something is better than growing nothing, very few of us can feed ourselves without going to a store and buying food.

So what happens when you have little or no land and your income is insufficient to feed your family? Food security is often discussed in terms of what we called the Developing countries. However, there are far too many people across North America who are a paycheque away from hunger.

Sure there are food banks and lunch and breakfast programs that can help but there is no guarantee they will always be there to help. The food banks depend upon people being able to give surplus food and what happens when the surplus dries up?

When would your food supply run out if you were unable to buy food anywhere? Do you ever think about how secure or perhaps, better put, insecure your food supply is? What is food security?

In 1996, the World Food Summit defined food security as existing “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life”.

Generally speaking, food security is defined as including both physical and economic access to food that meets people's dietary needs as well as their food preferences.

Food preferences include vegan and vegetarian choices as well as ethnic cuisine.

Food is a commodity. This means it is bought and sold in a marketplace. This is a good way to do business, as long as all the participants have the means to shop, and buy the food their bodies and minds demand. Unfortunately, many families cannot feed themselves on the income they receive each month, and the money often runs out before the month does.

What can we do? We can encourage the growth of local food growing and producing business by shopping local as often as we are able. We can encourage the development of community gardens, yard sharing and community shared agriculture projects.

Community gardens, such as the one in the accompanying picture in Campbellton New Brunswick, enable people without any other access to land, to grow some of their own food. This increases their ability to take care of themselves and fosters a sense of community among the gardeners.

Community Garden BBQ. Bob Ewing photo

Community gardens also provide a gardening education to those who need it, and new gardeners can learn about techniques such as starting seeds indoors in order to extend the gardening season.

These actions localize food production and can create jobs and incomes which means people have money to spend. This localization of food production is happening across the continent, but it needs support both consumer support and political support at the municipal, provincial or state and federal levels.

Food security is a political issue, besides finding ways to grow your own food and shopping local, talk with your political representatives and tell them to make food security a priority. Remind them food is a right, one they need to honour

My Small Garden, 2019, Year 1, Day 1

This is from last year. I plan to expand the Small Garden a bit, maybe a foot or 2. then add compost. The plot's purpose is to grow some food, have plants for seed and to do a small bean breeding project. There is ample room.

You Can Garden!

I garden in a small space because I have bad knees and recently had a triple bypass, but my Small Garden works wonders.

If you want to grow something, anything, be it fruit, flowers, herbs, or vegetables and have even the smallest space you can do so. It is all a matter of determination, knowledge and design.

A single pot of geraniums on the stairs leading up to your apartment, a community garden plot, a backyard, side yard or front yard garden; containers on balconies, decks and patios; all are ways people express their desire to grow plants.

Ingenuity will see you through.

Your first step is to get to know the space where your garden will be; in particular, how much natural sunlight does it get none, all day or somewhere in-between? Once you know that you can start to develop a plant list selecting plants that thrive in the amount of sunlight that yoru have available.

Now how big is that space; room for one container or can you set up a small backyard market garden?

Garden design is one of the places where it pays to be honest with yourself. You may have space to grow enough food for a family of four but are you actually going to invest the time that is required to do this or is a small kitchen herb or cut-flower garden more stable for your lifestyle?

If you have a small space and that is our focus here, then the process is easier, similar but also simpler? How much light does the space get; how big is it and once you know the answer to those two questions, what do you want to grow?

Containers are a highly effective means to grow your favourite plants in very tiny spaces. Fruit trees, vegetables, herbs, tomatoes, cut flowers and many, many vegetables will do well in a container. The main rules: 1- make sure the container is big enough for the plant tog row and 2- be sure that there is drainage so the plants' roots do not get overly wet and rot.

Be sure to place something under the container that will catch any runoff; this may be particularly important on balconies and stairs where there are other people living below you.

Anything can be a container; anything that can hold soil and some water that is. I have used a pair of old work boots to grow Johnny-jump-ups and put them out on my balcony. They brought more than a few favourable comments and drew peoples’ attention to what else was growing there.

Visits to garage sales and flea markets can uncover some intriguing containers that may add a distinctive design touch. Make sure to match the container to the surrounding elements.

My favourite small space, single container garden consists of one Camp Joy Cherry tomato plants plus two basil plants. The Camp Joy is a heritage plant and a good producer. Tomatoes and basil are natural companions both growing in the same container or cooking in the same dish.

This combo is ideal for deck or patio and is be perfect on a backyard patio just near the kitchen door so the plants are right at hand when needed; as long as that spot get 6 hours of sunlight each day, they will provide you will tomatoes and basil to add fresh flavour to your meals.

Gardening Hand Tools

A gardener is only as good as the tools the gardener uses.

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When it comes to gardening, good tools make the job easier, just try and prune that shrub with your kitchen scissors, it may work, and you may break the scissors or hurt your hand. Using a properly, ergonomically designed pair of pruning shears.

Pruning shears are used on branches that are up to a one-half inch in diameter. If you use your pruning shears on anything larger you will harm the shears and possibly the plant. A poorly pruned branch is a wound waiting to be infected.

Which pruning tool you purchase will depend upon the pruning chores that need to be done. If you do not have trees or shrubs, including roses then you do not have a great need of pruning shears.

For example, Fiskars makes the PowerGear Pruner which maximizes leverage to reduce cutting effort, while the rotating handle minimizes strain and fatigue, especially during extended use.  To make this tool even more appealing it comes with a lifetime manufacturer's warranty.

Now most hedges require some level of pruning and buying a set of hedge shears that are easy to use and strong enough to do the job. There are companies that specialize in making ergonomic hand tools for gardeners and I suggest that regardless of yoru age or physical condition you give them a serious look, why make the job any harder than it need be.

Smith & Hawken is another company that makes ergonomic hand tools. Their hedge shears have High carbon steel blades, with s curved blades and adjustable tension settings as well as lightweight aluminum handles are covered with ergonomically sound grips.

If you are growing cut flower then a good sharp, be sure it is sharp, knife will do the job, like any tool, keep it clean.

Buy a pocket knife that has a lock back blade which won’t slip and cut you when pressure is applied. There are a number of companies that make knifes especially designed for the gardener; if you do not have a good pocket knife give one of these some thought.

My hand trowel is one of the most used tools in my small but busy tool kit. Much of my gardening these days is done in containers of one kind or another and the hand trowel is perfect for adding soil and compost to the containers. You can buy long-handled versions so that if you do not need to bend down or kneel to the garden.

I find the trowel also very useful for digging holes for bulbs, backfilling those holes or adding compost to the rose bed.

There are tools that are specially designed for container gardening and if you garden that way then these are worth the investment.

 NRG, for example, makes a hand trowel that has an ergonomic grip which makes the work easier.

Buy good quality tools and buy only what you need; the first step before spending any money is to assess your needs and buy the tools that make the job easier. Good tools are worth the money.

I can buy a hand trowel in the dollar store for a buck but the blade bends easily and the tool becomes useless fast. I am not eager to run to the store to buy a new one when I am gardening.

Take care of the tools you do buy clean them and keep them dry; they will last a very long time.