A Kootenay Country Garden

Planning leeks for next year

2011-12-12T22:56:00.000-08:00

I just got the last of the kale in today. I love running the stripped leaves through the food processor, so much easier than endless chopping. The resulting fine green flakes can be kept in the fridge for quite a while. They are a great addition to all kinds of soupy saucy concoctions.

Alas, the last leeks had to stay in the garden. The ground was too frozen. Sure, I could stick the fork in and get a clump of dirt complete with leek, but trying to remove the leek from the half frozen dirt just resulted in broken plants. Forget it. We'll get them in spring. They should have been mulched, but it is hard to get straw in between the plants if they are planted in an intensive square.

Plan for next year: plant one whole bed with a double row of leeks on each side of a single row of Brussels sprouts. They are all heavy feeders, need lots of water, would like a good layer of mulch, and are not harvested till late fall. How many leeks would that yield? Let's see...9 per square foot...so 3 per lineal foot...63 for a row....times 4. That should do it. Must do some reading to see if one row might be better.

We just dined on colcannon with cheese/leek sauce made with rooster broth. The whole meal except the cheese came from the land. I love it when that happens. Alas, not nearly enough.

Bed time.

Chicken Politics

2011-11-10T18:10:00.000-08:00

Warning: the following post contains content that may offend vegans, or animal loving omnivores who believe meat grows on styrofoam trays. Viewer discretion is advised

A bit of history: We used to have egg layers, with meat as a by product. At the peak of production I actually had 99 birds, in several overlapping flocks. Then a series of predator disasters ranging from bears to racoons to domestic dogs made me give up. Some years later I did meat birds for 5 years. More on that another time.
This year I decided to try my hands at real chicken keeping again. The barn was fine, but the run needs to be rebuilt. I suck at creating infrastructure. Now, on to 2011....

The flock arrived in batches of three.

First came the Big Girls, 4 veteran Black Rock hens. They were free, a gift from an acquaintance who wanted to rejuvenate her flock but did not want to deal with over-aged birds herself. The Big Girls have just finished their fourth summer, which will most likely be their last.

I had not planned to get birds till the fence around the outside yard for them was done, but this was an offer I couldn't refuse. So we got started inside the barn, with the best of intentions. I do apologize for never getting the outside part together yet. But they had lots of room, a dirt floor to scratch in under the straw, and plenty of fresh green treats.

The Big Girls were soon joined by 4 Isa Brown hens, also an offer I couldn't refuse. An almost-commercial egg farming acquaintance called to ask if I wanted some 1 year olds @$5 each. He renews his flock every year. Oh yes! I only took 4, for chicken-political reasons. I figured 2 groups of equal size would come to an understanding easier. In retrospect I should have taken one more. The Black Rocks are so much bigger they easily dominated the newcomers.

One poor brown bird was designated to the bottom of the pecking order and spent most of her time high up on the roost, only coming down to eat and drink quickly and furtively when the others were distracted by the daily treat of fresh kale leaves. Such is the way of chickens, alas.

Between them they laid 5 or 6 eggs daily, and there was much rejoicing. But we knew they would stop laying when the dark days came. Only this spring's hens will lay through the winter.

Therefore the next step was taking possession of 10 unsexed Ameraucana chicks, lovingly raised from eggs by a friend who has the perfect set-up. They were 4 weeks old when I got them, past that horribly vulnerable stage when they really should be under a hen's wings.

Within days it became clear that one chick was sick. When it looked half the size of its mates I helped it out of its misery. Another one mysteriously disappeared. This happened in the same week that I found a pile of small grey feathers on the porch, the only time that happened. The working hypothesis is as follows: the door may not have been quite closed while I was in the barn. Curious chick got out and met the cat. So then there were 8, a nice symmetry.

The barn is dividable in half, so I can have both an established flock and a growing one in there. Both halves thrived and did their chicken thing. Once the Young Ones were of equal size, I opened the door and let the flocks mingle.

Ah, the joy of having twice the space to roam around in! Ah, the trauma of having to deal with more chickens!

At first the Big Girls effortlessly maintained their superiority, with the Isa Browns clearly in second position. In spite of being bigger than the Isa Browns the Young Ones were duly intimidated. It was quite funny to see a scrawny Isa chase a sturdy Young One away from the feeding place. It took no more than a small snapping movement in its direction. Even the bird that had previously been the bottom of the pecking order grew bolder. Her place was taken by my favorite Ameraucana, a slim elegant mainly white bird, probably a hen. Poor girl. It is no fun being the only one of a colour if you are a chicken. It is true: birds of a feather flock together.

Then some of the Young Ones started to crow. At first it was merely amusing and instructive. Araucana hens look a lot like roosters, so the only way to know for sure who is who is to spend time in the coop and see who is making the noise. The first one to declare himself was a fairly mellow guy who did not do much to assert himself. That changed when more of his mates got into the act.

One day I got in there and three birds were molesting a fourth, who barely escaped with its life. There was so much fighting going on that even the Big Girls cowered in corners.
The next day I took care of 2 who I knew for sure to be roosters. This left the most aggressive one for the time being, since I couldn't catch him. Peace did not totally return, but things were a lot more settled with the Big Girls in charge again. Today the most aggressive rooster met his fate. One more is a rooster for sure, but he was sitting way up on the dividing wall between the two halves, out of reach. Just wait, his turn will come.

Meanwhile, the eggs have gone down to 2 or 3 a day and the weather is getting miserable. The coop is uphill from the house, a grueling trek once we are snowed in. This place was never designed as a homestead. It just sort of grew, never mind the details for now.

The first snowy day with frozen water containers was a real wake-up call. I have to admit it:I am getting old and lazy. In spite of good intentions in the spring I just don't feel like doing this anymore. Therefore I have decided I will just be a summer chicken keeper.

Next year, sometime in early spring, I will get a small fresh batch of one-year-old hens again. In late fall they will be either butchered or sold. As for the present bunch: All roosters and the Big Girls will become heavenly stew. The Isa Browns and any Ameraucana hens will go to my tender-hearted chicken friend, who runs a nursing home for ageing chickens. In return I will take some of her excess roosters for more stew. She knows what will happen to them, but prefers to pretend she doesn't.

And now, I have some boneless rooster breast to do up for dinner.

Postscript: Well. My chicken friend just came to take everyone not destined for the pot to her place. It turns out there was a reason I could not tell the Ameraucana hens from the roosters: they were ALL roosters. We turned them loose again and they shall meet their fate tomorrow or the day after. I could not bring myself to butcher The Big Girls after all. They just have such a nice personality. I was still getting 2 or 3 eggs a day, it might be them. Judy has access to spoiled hay for bedding, and is willing to take care of hatchery babies in her perfect set-up. We might start all over next spring.....I am tempted to get 25 unsexed heavy heritage breeds.

Wins and Fails in the garden of 2011, from Asparagus to Zucchini.

2011-09-27T20:53:00.000-07:00

Asparagus: 100% WIN.

I planted some along the fence last fall, and asked only for survival. They came up in spring, got some company, are thriving and ready for another winter with a nice blanket of chicken-poopy straw.

Basil: 120% WIN

Every year there is a crop I count on that doesn't deliver, and something else that totally surprises me. In spite of the cold spring and early summer, this year the surprise is basil. I have a glut.
I started a whole tray with the intention of selling some at market. They had just come up when the greenhouse was finished.
They loved it in there! Two days later the slugs had mowed them down to tiny stubs. They had been planted thickly, so I put the tray on a shelf in case any new seeds might sprout. They did. The whole thing was too late for plant sales, but I gave quite a few pots away and will make pesto as soon as I buy some sunflower seeds and figure out the food processor.

Beans: 60% FAIL
Planting was delayed because of the slow cold spring. I did start some pole beans in the greenhouse. They were good sports about being transplanted. Smiling happy babies. Then the slugs noticed them. The End.
Well, not quite. Three plants out of 15 survived. Once the weather turned warm they recovered and swarmed over 5 poles. Beans started to arrive....yes! Then the voles came back. If there is one thing I hate to see it is wilted leaves high on a vine, because the bottom has been chewed through. It is such a waste!
The bush beans came up sparsely because of the cool weather, and also got hit by the rodents. I put out traps again, cat or no cat. She only goes into the garden when she follows me and then I quickly snap the traps closed. One fat vole was caught, and after that the depredation seems to have slowed down a bit. The traps are occasionally sprung, I hope the loud SNAP serves as a deterrent.
We have a good feed of fresh beans about every other day, but not nearly as many as I'd like and none for freezing. This is an easy crop that grows well here and I used to harvest it by the bucket.

Next year: put out traps right away, plant excess beans, plant pole beans and spares in greenhouse, use black plastic to warm the bed for bush beans.

Beets: 80% WIN
I planted them in the fortress and it worked! They are a favorite target of the rodents, but so far I have not seen a single bite. They should have been watered more faithfully once it got warm and dry, and I should have thinned them and given them a boost of COF sooner. But all over, I am happy.

Broccoli: 70% WIN.
It was a great spring for all members of the Brassica family. We got some decent heads and lots of side shoots. But it could have been even better. Next year: have a continuous supply of fresh plants in the greenhouse ready to replace older ones.

Brussels Sprouts: 90% WIN
They are still growing, but it sure looks promising.

I do wish I had a dozen plants instead of a measly 6. Heavy slug damage in the beginning took out a few, and I made some mistakes in spacing, as reported earlier.

Cabbage: 60% WIN

What was I thinking, planting them in between the Brussels sprouts? I did get a few nice heads but the last 2 were left in the garden too long after they matured and got half eaten by slugs. These reds are a late planting, we'll see if they make it. The chickens will enjoy them if they don't. With a family of 2 one cabbage is good for 4 meals, so a little goes a long way.
Next year: start no more than 4 at the time, plant the 2 best ones, have replacements ready to follow early cold-loving greens. Or start making sauerkraut or kim chi.

Carrots: 99% FAIL
This was the weirdest thing: the carrots never came up. Now I may have used old seed for the first planting, a stupid false saving. Windows of opportunity were lost because carrots can take a long time to emerge, so I waited 3 weeks. Finally I planted some good fresh seed in another spot, and only some of those came up. I have no idea why. I heard that other gardeners had to reseed several times as well. Carrots don't like cold soil, so perhaps pre-warm their bed with black plastic next year.

Cauliflower: 80% WIN
Cauliflower is a Prima Donna, and as a rule I don't do those. But hope springs eternal, and it was such a superb spring for the whole cabbage family that I tried once more. I got three nice heads. Of course they could have been bigger.

Celery: 100% WIN
I bought 8 plants, 6 outside and 2 in the greenhouse. All did well, though they never compare to the tender pale stuff from the store.

Cilantro:99% FAIL
It barely even comes up. Will keep trying. I am stubborn that way.

COF: 100% WIN
COF stands for Complete Organic Fertilizer, as per Steve Solomon's instructions. Wonderful stuff, and so convenient.
Click on the link to read an article in Mother Earth News that explains all. It is adapted from "Gardening When it Counts".

http://tinyurl.com/COF-by-Steve

Cucumber: 30% WIN
I got just one plant, after the greenhouse was up. It surprised me with a steady supply of long English cukes. In the greenhouse it makes sense to plant all-female hybrids. Alas, it got some kind of pest eating the leaves. Mites?
According to an expert grower the humidity that cukes need is too much for tomatoes, so ideally they should be grown in separate greenhouses. Cukes that are too dry are a magnet for mites. Learn something every year. This one was tossed before the pests spread. Will plant some next year in the very back, in soil, and separate that section by a plastic wall, so it can be kept more humid.

Currants, red and black: 70% FAIL
This is tragic: there was a good crop but I barely got around to harvesting them. Contrary to raspberries, which will spoil while you look at them, currants will keep on the vine for months. But not forever. I am still eating handfuls of reds now and then, but the black ones just dried up and fell off. Hanging head in shame.

Eggplant: 100% WIN
I have never even tried to grow any, but bought one plant in honor of the greenhouse. Surprise: it is thriving! Such a pretty plant, and it seems sturdier than the disease-prone tomatoes, even in a pot. Baba Ganoush is coming to Thanksgiving. Next year I will grow 2 and plant them in soil.

Flowers: a mixed bag, may do a separate blog on them.

Garlic: 85%WIN

Alas, we do have the dreaded rot on the land. It damaged about 15% of the crop. The crazy thing is that you will find a perfectly healthy bulb right next to a diseased one covered in mold. I throw out all leaves, rotate religiously and buy fresh seed bulbs, but it still happens.

Greens: 70% WIN

Some slug damage early on, Arugula and Tatsoi went to seed too soon, but mainly it I should have started more fresh plantings.

Kale: 100% WIN

Bless the sturdy indestructible stuff.

Red Russian has become an endemic weed in the garden, I fed it to the poor barn-bound chickens all summer.

Add a few traditional Dutch curly plants, and volunteers pop up in various shades of pink and green and degrees of curliness.

Leeks: 100% WIN

Of course they loved the cold wet spring. They got a generous application of COF halfway the growing season, plus diligent watering once it got dry. They are still growing.

Onions: 60% WIN

As always, multipliers did great, regular onions not so much. The red onions got some rot. Shallots got a hint of it but otherwise did well. I will keep trying to grow regular onions.

Peppers: 60% WIN

They are such heat lovers that getting any at all is a win, even in the greenhouse. I bought a few plants that I stuck in 2 gallon pots. The Italian frying peppers did really well, but some of the plants produced 2 peppers and then quit. What I learnt this year: pick off the first few flowers, they will keep bearing longer.

You can't start them early enough. Now that leek and brassica babes can be moved to the cold greenhouse early on, I will have more room on window sills and under grow lights for finicky people like peppers. On the other hand, if I only want a few plants, why not buy different varieties from someone who has a heated greenhouse? Yes. Cucumbers ditto.

Potatoes: 80% WIN

See these beautiful blossoming plants? They don't look ready to be harvested, right? Well, they were dug up a few days later to beat the varmints to them. Just in time too, I found quite a few half-eaten spuds. This bed had late varieties that might have yielded even more. The other bed had been harvested earlier. Overall I have about 80 pounds of nice potatoes, which is a lot more than last year. A decent yield but I was hoping for more.

Pumpkins: 50% WIN/FAIL

WIN, because I have 3 nice ripe small sugar pie pumpkins. FAIL, because I was hoping that 2 plants in a good bed would yield a lot more. It was too cold, then too dry, and they didn't get pollinated much either, being on the other side of the purple beeplant.

Raspberries: 100% WIN

They loved the wet spring, a bit too much. I still have ambitious plans to move them around, never mind the details here. Out-of-bound shoots were left alone last year, so I'd have plenty to transplant. HA! Sarah Palin has nothing on them. The rogues went rogue, see below.

We'll see what we can do but it may have to wait till spring. Chris did the picking and we have a nice crop in the freezer.

Snow Peas and Sugar Snaps: 50% WIN/FAIL

I blame myself for the FAIL, it was a good year for peas. They were planted in a bed at the edge of the garden that did not receive much TLC the last few years. I should have given them a boost much sooner. The good news is that pre starting Norli snow peas worked just fine. Those vines did indeed start bearing earlier and were as sturdy as the ones planted in the ground. We had some meals but hardly any for freezing.

Swiss Chard: 100% WIN

Same comments as kale. Bless the stuff. By the way, the secret to cooking it into a tasty dish is as follows: don't be afraid to simmer the snot out of it. Add some grease, some vinegar, and a source of calcium to offset the oxalic acid.

For a Meditterranean flavour, use olive oil, balsamic vinegar and a generous sprinkle of Parmesan cheese. For an oriental flavour, try sesame oil, rice vinegar and roasted ground sesame seeds. Another idea is to use the whole plant when it is very young and eat it as salad. Eliott Coleman started selling his crop as 'butter chard' that way and can barely keep up with the demand.

Tomatoes: 60% WIN

Tomatoes are an iffy crop in a short season climate, and the first thing one thinks about when gifted with a greenhouse. We are getting some, but I had been hoping for more. I would have started other plants if I had known about the greenhouse earlier. The Early Girls I got at the market showed the first sign of disease quite early. They kept bearing anyway.

The disease, whatever it is, is slowly spreading to the other side of the greenhouse. The big mistake I made was lack of ventilation. I rolled up one side, but stupidly forgot I could roll up the far wall as well till recently. DOH! Next year.

Next year I will also start plants earlier, plant more late varieties, use a sturdy tipi of poles instead of cages, and leave more room between plants. Romas and some large beefsteak variety in the greenhouse, early varieties in the garden, protected by Reemay wrapped around the poles.

The big question is whether these beefsteak tomatoes will mature before either disease or frost does them in. The answer is they ripened amazingly well indoors in boxes, but didn't have much flavour that way.

Winter Squash: 100% FAIL

As Wayne Gretzki is supposed to have said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. With the cold year in mind I never even started any squash plants. But at the last moment

I bought 2 Bush Delicata plants and put them in the greenhouse with a sturdy tripod to climb. If I had known the late summer would bring 6 weeks of warm sunny weather they would have gone outside.

The vines grew like mad. It took a long time for fruits to start, and then the powdery mildew hit and it became clear the squashes would never amount to anything. I threw them out. But squash vines and blossoms are such a joy that we can almost consider the fruits a bonus.

Zucchini: 60% FAIL

See previous post "Dude, where is my glut?"

Dude, where is my glut?

2011-09-21T22:00:00.000-07:00

To illustrate how strange a year this was : in late August I actually paid money for 2 zucchini. That is obscene. Zucchini just happens, right?

It is mid September as I write these notes, but because everything is about a month behind we should consider it August. In August we are typically looking for recipes to utilize the glut or for places to give it away. Not so this year.

Yes, we had some zucchini for daily use. We even enjoyed a brief flurry of long English cucumber from the greenhouse. But because it is usually so prolific I only put in 2 zuch plants. It was cold and wet till August, so I hedged my bets and planted one in the greenhouse and one outside.

The one in the greenhouse grew well, but was not getting pollinated much. It also developed powdery mildew quite early in the game. Out it went, before the whole greenhouse got it.
My hopes were now pinned on the single zucchini plant in the veg garden. Ha. It didn't get pollinated much either! There were only a few decent sized fruits, and many that did not
grow much before the end grew soft and rotten, a sign of squash virginity.

The hypothesis is that the bees were all busy in the big purple bee balm plant, that never made it to the flower garden this year. The zuch is right behind it. The bee balm was just humming with insects. I considered clipping it back but we need to be kind to our pollinators.

I had also bought some plants at the last moment: one yellow crookneck, planted outside and one Peter Pan type, small scalloped summer squash.

The yellow squash is prolific, but most of the fruits are staying small.

Peter Pan started life out in the greenhouse as well, in a huge pot. What was I thinking? He got moved to the garden after the garlic was harvested, and managed to survive and even thrive. There is now a whole bunch of tiny scalloped squashes happening. But because it is getting colder and the nights are longer, nothing is growing much anymore.

I am grateful for what we have, but can't help asking: 'Dude, where is my glut?"

Beginner's Mind forever, and some notes for next year.

2011-09-10T21:22:00.000-07:00

My formative years, age 4-17, coincided with the time my poor mother was cooped up in a third story flat without even a tiny balcony to catch some rays. She was a passionate gardener, but did not have the chance in those years. Gardening is therefor not something I grew up doing, or even being exposed to. This does make a difference.

In contrast the family was enriched with twins when I was 8. As the oldest child I was promptly promoted to mother's helper and did a share of diaper changing and bottle feeding. When I had my own children I was pleasantly surprised by a confidence that seemed body-deep. Yup, I know how to do babies. Not so in the garden.

Mom finally got her yard when the family bought a row house in a small town North of Amsterdam. Alas, by that time I was almost in the last year of Gymnasium, and totally involved with preparing for the grueling final exams. Mom's garden efforts were of no interest to me. I didn't hear the call of the dirt until we moved to the Kootenays in 1970.

Our children, who grew up with gardens even though they never worked in them, have lately taken to urban food growing like ducks to water. They have both commented that somehow they picked up skills without knowing it.

As for me, more than 40 years and almost as many gardens later I still feel like a beginner. And to my utter disgust I still make dumb mistakes, some of them over and over. Keeping records is a great idea but apart from basic crop rotation I have never done enough of it.

So here is some notes to myself so I will do better next year.

Big brassicas like Brussels sprouts and kale will take up the entire width of a 3 foot wide bed. They may look tiny when you plant them out, but don't get fooled. Do not try to save space by staggering them in 2 rows. Just plant them single file down the middle and leave lots of room in between. Use the space along the edges for any of the following: pre-started salad greens, a row of carrots or leeks, or mesa peas as a cover crop. Snap beans that way worked well in terms of space, but the water needs are different. Devote 2 beds to tall brassicas and plant compact cabbages in a square foot bed with miscellaneous.

Likewise with tomatoes. Be realistic about your ability to keep up with pruning. The reality is that you won't. There is lots to do in summer. While you are otherwise occupied your sweet tomato babies will morph into a tangled jungle that resists any effort to organize it. This happens year after year. So stop setting yourself up for failure and plan accordingly. Give them room and ample support. You should know by know that a cage or a single post is never enough.

An unexpected success this year was the Stupice tomatoes that ended up outside, on the tipi that was intended for pole beans. Slugs ate all the beans on that tipi, and I had some tomato plants left over, so as an afterthought I stuck them there. They love it! They get to behave like a vine and climb, with a bit of help now and then. They are actually out performing the crowded plants in the greenhouse.

Poles for any purpose is one thing we have in plenty. Collecting them from the bush is a good chore for late fall and early spring. The more we can get done before the May panic hits the better.

There. Now back to some doing.

A Year of Slugs and Lilacs

2011-07-04T21:11:00.000-07:00

From the earliest days of spring I had a feeling this would be one of those cool, wet, non-summers we get now and then in B.C. It has been a while. Our springs have been colder and later than used to be normal (who knows what normal is anymore?), but our summers, once they arrive, have been hot and dry.

Well, here we are past the solstice, and the weather is still variable and cool. April and May were horrid, June has not been that bad, really. Above: the combination of a "Rick Box" and a Lee Valley pop-up tent allows me to have a salad garden close to the house, luxury!

Plants are growing, though with some setbacks. Carrots never came up. I heard the same thing from several people. WHY?
I started some pole beans in the greenhouse and planted them as nice healthy little plants, to the great delight of the slugs. They were stripped to nothing. It is a terrible year for slugs.
Or rather, it is a very good year for slugs, not so good for the embattled gardener.

But there was one big surprise among the late-everything and the slug set-backs: Lilacs.

The big lilac in front of the house was glorious.

The small white lilac I planted next to the sumac finally honoured us with some blossoms, but they were hidden beneath the leaves, hardly showed, and I forgot to take a picture.
The surprises were outside the cultivated areas.

Many years ago, during the first year we lived on the land in the tipi, I planted a few lilac shoots that an acquaintance had given us. At the time, 1976, the land was an abandoned hayfield colonized by bracken fern and surrounded on three sides by wooded crownland.

I planted the lilac shoots close to the 'hippie well', the hole dug in the ground where we got our drinking water in those years. Over the years the cottonwood babies grew into big trees, but the lilacs never did anything. Eventually I stopped paying attention to them. Until this year, a full 35 years after they were planted, this bouquet appeard in the middle of nowhere. Go figure.
Then there was the lilac I planted near the old log house when we still lived in it. We moved down to the trailer in 1987. It never showed much enthousiasm either. Eventually the deer fence went right through the clump. I wasn't even sure it was still there. You guessed it, it bloomed, fence and all.

Crazy year.

We have a greenhouse! And other doings.

2011-05-31T21:44:00.000-07:00

It is 11x20 feet, 8 feet tall, and is actually not a greenhouse at all but a car shelter.

Originally I planned to build a hoop house with PVC pipes and use that wonderful woven poly by http://notherngreenhouse.com/ . But an online friend in Ontario suggested this. Hers has survived a winter and she never even had to shovel snow off the roof. The advantage is that it is a kit and one doesn't have to build and invent.

My husband surprised me by putting the thing together single-handedly. This is not supposed to be possible. He took a few weeks, used clamps and ropes inventively, and DID it. My thoughts had been going to work parties, a big hassle.

All the tomato and squash plants are in there now, smiling broadly. Today would have been a good day to spend in there, because it was icy cold (around 8C) and pouring rain.

However, today was my chance to fill the truck of my friend Els with manure, so she could drive it up here when she had to come to Nakusp tomorrow. I do a lot for a truckload of well-rotted, worm-filled sheep and goat shit. Elsje lives an hour's drive South of me, and has more manure than she can use on her own homestead.

Continued a few days later.

It wasn't so bad. I had pictured us wheeling barrows of shit through squelching mud and then loading into the truck, but all we had to do was fill the truck from one big wormy pile. It only took about 40 minutes. Yes, we were wet, but it was so worth it. This picture is Els unloading the truck the next day. The woman is my husband's age, 74, and casually jumps on top of the truck bed without the need for something to mount from, like yours truly.

The other big event of the day was taking posession of the 10 chicks that another friend hatched out. Just in time too, her next batch was emerging from eggs even as we collected this bunch. These guys are by now 4 weeks old, past that extremely fragile stage. and are settled in one half of the barn quite nicely. The big girls were a bit annoyed about being locked out of half the barn, but they continue to lay eggs, bless them.

I promise they will have outside access before August, but first I must get the garden ready...It is beginning to occur to me that it may not be possible to have gorgeous flower gardens, a large collection of plants for sale AND a thriving veg garden all at once.

But we'll carry on trying. Doronicum is splendid this year.

YAWN. Bedtime. I am too busy DOING to do much blogging.

Chicken progress

2011-05-04T21:48:00.000-07:00

The Universe appears to be all in favor of me getting a laying flock again. Today I cleaned out the coop and managed to fix the old nesting boxes. All is ready for the 4 middle-aged hens I am getting from an acquaintance for starters.

Called the friend who was planning to order chicks, so we could order together, and it turns out she has an incubator and is setting eggs as a hobby. I have dibs on 10 healthy
Araucana mixes that hatched yesterday, and best of all: I won't have to fuss with babies! Hallelujah!

And to top it off, the neighbor with the problem dogs offered to electrify the fence in order to prevent problems. Do I have a good neighborhood or what?

Got a bunch of bedding plants started for Farmers Market, only 2 more weeks, yikes...Worked outside till 8, didn't even check FaceBook or email all day. Still behind but loving every minute of the May frenzy. Yawn. I think my hair is dry and I can go to bed now. Enjoy the spring everyone.

BLISS!

2011-04-22T21:11:00.000-07:00

FINALLY. Yes, I am shouting. We finally had a day that might qualify as spring. The max was 13C , not exactly warm yet, but the sun was shining, I had no other commitments today except work/play outside. The kids are fine, Old Dutch is fine or pretending to be, my body is slowing down a bit but not hurting. The world may be going nuts, but there are days to pay attention and days to ignore it. Today is the latter.
Blue sky, freedom, a garden. I need nothing more to be blissfully happy.

The second wave of spring flowers is coming out. No dafs yet, and their number will be disappointing anyway, see earlier post. But the little primroses that started life out as supermarket specials have never been so beautiful. The Lungwort showed its first flowers. A bag of mushroom manure sure makes a difference. More later. I had 2 well-deserved beers and that is enough to cause impaired typing.

Life is good!

Things coming together!

2011-04-19T12:03:00.000-07:00

Greenhouse: ORDERED!
Chicken run: HELP ORGANIZED!

A small unexpected financial bonus allowed me to order an instant greenhouse. I am getting the Clearview garage from Canadian Tire. A friend in Ontario has one
that she used as a greenhouse and is happy with it. I even have permission to call her for technical advice if needed.

I had been thinking about creating a hoop structure with that wonderful woven covering from http://northerngreenhouse.com/, or building an ambitious earth-bermed thing, but we have to take the reality of our human nature into account.

As mentioned before, I am a klutz with 2 left hands, both all thumbs. They are healing hands with green thumbs, but the thought of having to bang two boards together makes me break out in a cold sweat. It also takes me forever, and calling the results rickety would be an understatement.
Old Dutch is actually quite handy, but is hampered by the lack of a suitable work area with a level floor and saw horses and such. Besides he really does not enjoy the process. So it is easier to find other means of getting things done.

This prefab thing can be set up in one day with a bit of help, and then it will be DONE. The better can be the enemy of the good. Besides, if I ever do get more ambitious things together the shelter could be moved and used for other purposes.

The chore of rebuilding the chicken run has been a daunting mountain. To begin with I need three gates. Well, need one, but more is so much handier. The barn is divided in half, so a laying flock of hens can do their thing while new chicks are cared for in the other half. I also want the run divided in 2 so the vegetation in one half can recover while the flock demolishes the other. Gates are coming! All built, and free lumber to boot.

A dear friend believes, mistakenly, that she owes me a favor. I did extra volunteering with her handicapped daughter this winter, so Mom could have some time off. My time in winter has a different value from my time in the growing season. Besides I love the young woman dearly. An afternoon with Rosie always leaves me feeling uplifted and grateful for my life. It was no hardship and we'll likely do it again next winter. But hey, if someone wants to give me free lumber and enjoys doing rough carpentry I will gladly accept!

This is the way the world is supposed to work: helping each other out and each doing what we're good at. This truly is a blessed corner of the world.

And so it begins, 2011

2011-04-16T22:42:00.000-07:00

A new season, time for the ugly "before" pictures. The snow is almost gone but not quite.

Most of these pictures were taken April 7. I am finishing this on April 16, but it has been so cold that not much has changed. Overall I feel fairly satisfied with how the place emerged from the snow. Not perfect of course, but tidier than it has been in other years. The danger now is that the slow start of the season is lulling me into slowing down when I should be out there working like mad. As I type this it is SNOWING again. The weatherperson uttered the dreaded word "trough". Once you have a trough of cold air over B.C. it can take months to warm up.

April has always been an unpredictable month, and a brief snowfall that doesn't stay long is not abnormal even in early May. But those cold spells used to be interspersed with warm periods. This year it is just staying cold, with hardly a day over 10 even when it is half decent. I have decided a greenhouse is a mental health necessity.

Of course we have had plants started under grow lights.

While I am desperate for some warmth and blue sky my gut is telling me we are in for a cold, wet summer. I hope I am wrong, and in the meantime the woods are happy.

The first spring flowers, in the sheltered bed right below the living room.

The once and future big sunny border. That enormous daylilly on the corner really needs to be dug up, divided and replanted..

How many years have I promised to do it next year?

The Doronicum has multiplied wonderfully. I will be able to transplant some and create some babies for sale. I love the daisy-like yellow flowers. They bloom for a long time, and for some strange reason the enemy has been disdaining them.

Speaking of the enemy....daffodils are supposed to be hassle-free, or at least deer resistant. Someone apparently needed to take a few nibbles first, and pull one all the way up, before deciding that the book was right. SIGH. I was counting on those. They didn't eat them down to nothing like they do tulips, but the tentative bites went through the flower bud.

The sumac that anchors the big sunny bed where it hits the driveway is one of my favorite plants.

I sure hope it survives the gnawing of its bark by either deer or rodents.

In the fenced veg garden it is still too cold and wet to do anything.

To the new cat's great joy, the catnip has survived. My other cats rolled around in it, this one mainly eats it. She is also helping herself to voles, so let's hope the plague abates a bit.

Ordering Seeds with Steve Solomon and TEOTWAWKI in mind.

2011-02-17T22:46:00.000-08:00

TEOTWAWKI, for the innocent, is The End Of The World As We Know It.

I don't live in fear. We don't sit on guarded stashes of dried food. I like modern civilization a lot, and have no desire to revert to a mythically idyllic Luddite or Amish existence.
But I am aware that we are living in extremely interesting times. Peak oil, climate change, financial collapse, the list goes on. The collective memory of the Winter of Famine, 1944/45, is imprinted deep in my psyche. What if next year brings massive crop failures, and seeds will be unavailable or at a premium in 2012? Just in case, a bit of preparation for potential scarcity doesn't hurt.

How does this affect the choice of garden seeds? At first glance one would opt for open-pollinated everything, and start saving seeds like mad. We have an active seed exchange in town. However, after reading and re-reading the chapter on seeds in "Gardening when it counts" by Steve Solomon, I am not so sure that hybrids are always a bad thing. This book is worth buying for the chapter on seeds alone. It has become my Bible, and I have a shelf full of garden books.

To recap Steve: saving one's own seeds is perfectly fine and recommendable in the case of self-pollinated plants, like beans, peas, lettuces and tomatoes. Select the best plants and collect some seeds, or in the case of lettuces encourage them to go wild. Simple, at least in theory. In practice I am too eager to eat the first good peas or tomatoes, which are exactly the ones you want to mark and let mature for seed.

Getting quality seeds from plants that use wind and/or insects to pollinate is much trickier. As the old timer said, if you want true seed you have to "play pimp to the pumkin".
Members of the squash family are a promiscuous bunch that love to get together with their cousins, with mostly undesirable offspring as a result. The same goes for the cabbage family. Even if one avoids undesirable combinations, it takes more than a few plants to keep a variety going. If too few specimens are used the variety will suffer from inbreeding and die out. Think of veggie Hapsburgs.

It takes a minimum of 200 top quality cabbage plants to keep a variety going. We can see that this is well beyond the scope of the average home gardener. I am happy to leave it to the experts while we can.

According to Steve many hybrids do indeed perform better. If you do not plan to save seeds anyway and only have a smallish garden those expensive packages of hybrid seed just might be worth it.

So this is what I am doing this year. First, there are quite a few seeds left over from last year. Alas, the poor things have been abused. You know how it goes. Go up to the garden, take the box along, park it in the shade. Next thing you know it is in the sun. Leave the same box outside on the deck in early fall to freeze at night. Not a pretty picture. I will make sure the seeds sprout vigorously before planting them, and make sure I have replacements as well. So far the leeks were started with 2 year old seed. They came up fast and are growing vigorously, bless their sturdy hearts.

So, for this year: use last year's seed, but have replacements handy and use at the first sign of wimpiness.
Buy what I feel like planting, hybrid or not, for this year and/or next.

For "just in case": buy some bigger packages (much cheaper) of favorite bean and pea varieties, even though I plan to save my own as well. Buy some OP varieties of cabbage, squash etc. Store the seed stash properly. Consider it buying peace of mind.

Sources:
http://stellarseeds.com/
A small company with a limited but high quality selection, all local to my region.

http://saltspringseeds.com/
Dan Jason has been a farmer, writer and activist for many years. His book "Greening the Garden" is a classic by now. I would buy more of his seeds if he were not on Salt Spring Island, a banana belt compared to the West Kootenay.
However, to my great joy he sells some seeds that were produced by Andy Pollock in Houston, B.C., way up North.
I got those and some quinoa.

http://richters.com/
Herbs, herbs, herbs. I still have seeds from last year and, shame, the year before. In my experience it pays to just get some things as a plant. Richters' plants are always good and arrive in top condition, thanks to an ingenious packing system.

http://damseeds.com/
I have been buying seeds from William Dam since my first pathetic efforts in 1970. I was glad to see the company listed in the Bible. Steve is not easily pleased.

That will pretty much do it, but I may also take a look at the 2 other Canadian seed firms for short seasons. http://stokeseeds.com/, and http://veseys.com/

Happy planning and planting everyone!

How I love my internet!

2011-01-09T20:27:00.000-08:00

It is the middle of winter and the seed catalogues are in. I am still enjoying the slow pace of the snowy season, with lots of internet time. But I am slowly gearing up to start thinking about gardening again by cruising relevant sites.

One of the great joys of the cable connection is access to Youtube. My favorite writer Steve Solomon collaborated with someone to give some speeches on "beyond organic".
Great stuff. But best of all: Joe Salatin offers videos taken on site at Polyface farm. There might be a chicken tractor in my future yet.

How I love my internet!

What a difference a week makes!

2010-11-25T20:14:00.000-08:00

Lots of things went wrong this year, but I did have a nice late fall garden of greens. This salad was picked on November 16th. Now it is time for the Brussels sprouts and kale, if we can find them.

The picture above and the one below are dated November 23rd.

What a difference a week makes!

Growing Food: The Bottom Line

2010-08-28T23:23:00.000-07:00

Once again, I did not get around to keeping meticulous records. There is still time to note what grew where and how well it did. I will get to it next week. But it is too late for the money factor.

The intention was to keep track of all cash laid out to make the garden happen, weigh the produce coming in, and show how profitable the enterprise is in dollar terms. Let's be honest here and admit an ulterior motive.

As Marge Simpson says: "Marriage is a beautiful thing, but it is also an ongoing struggle for moral superiority".
I was hoping to triumphantly wave the final tally in my cynical husband's face. He is being very kind about it, but if truth be told he'd rather have a wife who is less obsessed with her gardens and more into going places.

Alas. Not only are there no records this year, they might well turn out negative. Is this my punishment for being so smug about having the deer fence?

MWAHAHAHA. That maniacal laughter came from Ma Nature, the bitch. Sacred Mother my foot. She has zero interest in my survival as an individual. From Her point of view I am merely a superfluous over-aged member of an over-abundant species. Her critters have been burrowing into the garden and having a feast, see previous posts. The total yield from the garden is anywhere from 30 to 50% below what it could have been.

Above a poignant close-up of a vole-eaten beet, and below a clump of might-have-been potatoes. The potato vines had been chewed through as well.

Finding vines chewed-through is even worse than finding half-eaten roots. The pea harvest was reduced by at least 30% as a result. One row of potatoes is pretty much a total loss. Now they are starting on the beans.

Anyway, when one adds up the cost of bagged manures, ingredients for COF, floating row covers, garden hoses, tools, gopher traps etc. one has to seriously question if it is all worth it. Why not just get vibrant organic goodies at the farmers' market?

Yet giving up has not even entered my mind. On the contrary.
Already I am working on strategies to outwit the varmints next year. More fortresses will be built! The traps will be baited at the first sign of damage! So where does this compulsion come from?

When all is said and done, I garden because that's what I do.
I am a pagan. Nature is my connection to the divine, whatever IT may be. Growing food is a form of communion.
The true bottom line is that I garden to feed my soul.

A mighty fortress. This one's for Rick.

2010-08-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

The Rodents are at it again, now they are eating the potatoes.

I am NOT amused. The stinky spray made the rounds again, it seems to help a bit. It is also possible that they come and go for their own reasons, who knows. So far they have chewed through a few pole bean vines, but not done too much harm. Yet. The bush beans are looking fabulous and are just starting to bear. Please Great Vole and Gopher, have mercy!

Anyhow, in a desperate effort to have at least some places that are 100% secure I put hardware cloth underneath some of the 3 ft square boxes. Here is one upside down acting as soil sifter. A stand-up one is coming. Then they are covered with the pop-up tent thingy from Lee Valley, that miraculously fits exactly over them!

There you have it, a mighty fortress.

And this doggerel popped up in my mind. I couldn't resist.

Rick (who made the boxes) is sure to know the melody.

A Mighty Fortress is our Box

Protection for the Garden

To gopher, squirrel, deer or fox *

It truly shows no pardon.

Voles burrow underneath

With eager chomping teeth

Their hunger is so dire

but all they taste is wire

Victory is the farmer's!

*Foxes are no problem, but find me another animal that has one syllable and rimes with box.

This, by the way, would be typical of the kind of rime presented at a traditional Dutch Sinterklaas.

At the Feet of the Raspberry Goddess

2010-08-05T15:57:00.000-07:00

Raspberries are one of my favorite crops. They are delicious, super healthy like all berries, expensive to buy and so perishable that you can never find good fresh ones in the store even if money were no object. Worshipping at the feet of the Raspberry Goddess is what my friend Gail calls it. Such a lovely phrase. It is exactly what I have been doing.

They are almost finished now, but for the last 3 weeks no matter what my intentions are when I go to the top garden, I end up picking raspberries. The husband did a few stints when the glut was at its peak. The help was much appreciated, but here's the rub: for him it is a chore. For me it is pure joy.

Alas, we are looking at jungle here. Originally the raspberry rows were at right angle to the main veg beds. But they never quite got enough water, and I wanted a grape in that spot. So I started a long row alongside the veg beds, well-manured and mulched, at the outer edge of the garden. It is producing well.

Next thing you know the garden area gets expanded during project deer fence, so the raspberries are no longer at the edge. The grape dies, again. I can't grow the damn things for love or money, but that is another blog. Volunteer raspberries are reclaiming their former home and they are welcome to it. The plan now is to create more support structures at right angle to the veg beds and put more
raspberries there. We will just have to drag the hose out now and then. Raspberries, if mulched well, don't need a lot of extra watering. With this plan in mind, the suckers that wandered away from the main row were allowed to remain until they can be dug up.

The result is JUNGLE! And I have not had a chance to start work on that project yet. I can't believe it's August.....

We have been eating them with yogurt as breakfast for weeks now, given quarts away, gobbled them by the handful while working in the garden, and there are 2 of these boxes in the freezer.

The heart of summer

2010-07-27T19:30:00.000-07:00

It is one of my favorite weeks of the year. Those last days of July. Such a wonderful month, and it seems to go on forever. It has been summer for a while now, and it feels as if it will be summer forever.
I am much too busy with gardening, harvesting, the summer child (almost a teen now) the market and extra Reflexology to do much in the bloggosphere.
Just a quick wave from the Heart of Summer. Sitting on the steps after 11 PM, in the warm breeze, watching the gibbous Moon play peekaboo with the mountain, eating chocolate ice cream.
Heaven. I hate having to sacrifice any precious summer hours to sleep.

The picture shows the big sunny flower border at a rare moment of perfection. The yellow loosestrife and the foxglove were both blooming and it was glorious.
I used the wrong setting, that's why it is blurry. It still gives an idea of the view from the steps.
And here is another fuzzy picture of the roses in the small bed by the steps.

Her Majesty in the pink

2010-07-05T13:08:00.000-07:00

There is a plant I call Her Majesty. Your Majesty when she is being directly addresed. She -this is definitely a lady- is a pink peony that I planted when we still lived in the log house. That makes her at least a quarter century old. She is part of the flower beds that are being revived inside the deer fence.

After years of neglect and barely surviving she has responded magnanimously to a thorough weeding and a good helping of mushroom manure.
Peonies don't bloom long but they are so spectacular when they do. She is still being overshadowed too much by a hawthorn tree that will be dealt with later, see Shiva and Coyote.

The best way to enjoy her blossoms was to bring them inside.

This peony is the essence of pink. Totally in your face and overdone. The flowers are ridiculously huge. You want to bury your face in them and inhale them to satisfy your inner little girl longing for all things soft, pink and ruffly.

None of the pictures really do her justice, but I tried.

Varmints

2010-06-28T17:36:00.000-07:00

I could cry. Really. There seems to be no end to it. I must have lost 20% of potential snow pea harvest already, and every day brings more bitten-off plants. The stinky spray stopped working. Some plants were bitten through higher up the stem.

I do believe we have figured out what caused it, and it is bad news. Gophers are even worse than voles. (We still have those too).

Yesterday I was turning on the tap that sits right in front of the old house, and this big fat radiantly healthy-looking rodent got startled from underneath the old house and ran past me. It looked like a gopher.

This afternoon I was planting more onions around everything, supposedly obnoxious to varmints, when I noticed a swaying movement out of the corner of my eye. I was just in time to see a big rodent halfway up a Bok Choy plant that had gone to seed, at the edge of the pea bed. That explains the higher-up bites. Down below it stinks but higher up the stems are sweet and juicy. They are starting on another patch of peas as well.

It is almost funny but I am not amused. This is a lot of work. I love it, but one does want to see results! My mental health is quite invested in the ability to grow at least some food.

Perhaps one needs animal helpers to garden after all. I am beginning to understand the importance of irritating little dogs that dig things up.

Bless me Flora, for I have sinned

2010-06-20T19:59:00.000-07:00

Bless me Flora, for I have sinned.

I plead guilty to Iris abuse.

Not all irises have been abused. These tall beauties are pretty happy right now. This little corner gets the most intense care.

Then there are the neglected, but still happy customers in various places, like this half wild flower garden that needs re-digging and fertilizing.

Waiting patiently for attention in among the grass. I only have one pair of hands, and they are not the most efficient ones...

The abused ones were two sets of clumps. First a batch of white ones that was in the big sunny border, and totally needed to be divided and replanted. Their new home was going to be in between the big pink poppy and the red peony in the half-shady bed along the short green stuff. It really does not deserve the term lawn. Alas, when they were transplanted we were in the middle of a drought, I used a mushroom manure that turned out to be quite yucky, and I didn't do it early enough. They sat there and looked miserable. I ripped them out, stuck some in a nursery bed and tossed some into the wild. Some of them will surprise us with flowers a few years hence, like these.

But the worst abuse was heaped upon a large batch of lovely blue iris that I got from a friend last year. They had been a foundation planting and were in the way of badly needed renovations. I stuck them where the greenhouse had been, "just for now." Early in spring they were in the way and I dug some of them up, stuck the still dormant corms under a pile of hay, again "just for now". Packed up some for Melanie in Ontario, but the price of shipping was more than they were worth. Forgot them in the box. This was a huge batch, quite a few of them started to bloom abundantly in their temporary home. By this time the Big Wet had started, and I transplanted some while they were blooming. They even put on a reasonable show for a few weeks. Alas, the foliage started to look quite disgusting. OUT, again....

This time I trimmed both roots and leaves and stuck them in pots. Some iris plants survived the winter in the pot and they were great.

So bless them Flora, and may your humble subjects bloom in that garden that is always perfect: The one NEXT year!

This means WAR!

2010-06-17T22:36:00.000-07:00

In spite of having an early start this year and not going anywhere I still managed to wrest Late out of the jaws of Early. Never mind the details of why and how.

But I have gorgeous snow peas blooming, and we have been eating lettuce and Chinese cabbage that was in the same bed.

This morning I noticed several wilted tips among the lush foliage. Guess what: the vine has been snipped off just above ground level.

What does this? The immediate suspect is Voles. Just when you have a deer fence and start thinking you can enjoy the fruit of your hard work another life form demands a share.

I'd be willing to negotiate but it never works like that.

So this means WAR.

Garden Lessons painstakingly learned: Being Shiva and dealing with Coyote spirits.

2010-05-28T21:35:00.000-07:00

There are some garden lessons I have finally, painstakingly, learned.

The first one is this:

Respect Shiva the destroyer as an aspect of Creation.

Plant and tend only the best and compost the rest. The garden is NOT the place to nurture runts. Less is More.
One huge carrot will yield more than ten overcrowded stunted roots. Thin, thin, and thin again, ruthlessly. Cauliflower for instance needs the right weather and high fertility, or else. It can take up a huge amount of precious space and not yield more than a few tablespoons worth of curd. Rip it out at the first sign of wimpiness.

When you go out into the garden, decide which hat you will wear: herbalist or gardener? There is a time for both. Decide on one, lest you become paralyzed by indecision and your garden entirely covered by weeds, healing or not.

Dandelion, Chickweed, Plantain, Purslane, Shepherd's Purse, Burdock, Mullein, Yellow Dock, Horsetail, Sheep's Sorrel:
they are Coyote spirits.

Yes, they are wonderful healers. I am glad to see them. But keep this in mind: They deserve respect, but do not need protection. They are quite able to look after themselves, thank you very much. They will gleefully trick you and take over if you let them.

In the past I have fallen for the plant equivalent of beseeching brown eyes. A friend mentioned how she had been anemic till she took tincture of Yellow Dock. In her words:"I can feel it building me up." So I let one or two plants go to seed. Good grief. I can practically feel that plant smirk several years later whenever I dig up one of its enormous roots.

Sheep Sorrel may have been one of the main components of Renee Caisse's cancer healing formula, that still doesn't mean I want it taking over my new tomato bed. And so on.

So today, dear chickweed, I am visiting you as the gardener.
I will take a few of your luscious leaves to add to the salad, but the rest of you will be tossed on the compost pile. Look for me in two weeks at the new Moon, when I will don the herbalist hat and make some of you into a tincture.

Here we go again, slow progress

2010-05-05T10:20:00.000-07:00

This picture is the daffodils in full glory on April 24. The primroses in between are a bit disappointing. I thought they'd spread faster. The band of periwinkle on the other side of this small bed, with the lovage in the corner, looks really nice, but the colour just doesn't photograph well.

Can it really be more than 2 weeks since the last garden blog?

Blame working outside, two seasons of MadMen on DVD, and an ailing internet connection. Our cable company is installing a better cable. While the work is in progress the connection has been coming and going in mysterious ways at unpredictable moments.

Anyway......the bad news is that every day I get less done than I was hoping to do. The good news is that almost every day something gets accomplished. Most days I am out there even in the most disgusting weather for at least 4 hours.

The picture above shows the tidied-up part of the flower beds so far. I am slowly learning a few basic tricks for the design-challenged, but that is another post.

Didn't I promise the food garden first dibs on time this year? I lied. The market starts on May 22, a bare 21/2 weeks from today, and I must make a good show the first few weeks. So much time is spent in the plant corner potting up little guys.

It would be nice to have a beautiful well-organized shed for this, but we just have an old sink filled with potting mix and surrounded by soil mix, pails, plant pots, etc. Ping! Idea! We'll make the lack of greenhouse a selling point! Tough, greenhouse-free plants! Heehee.

Then there is the But First! factor.

Last fall bed #2 was left ready to go, manured and all, destined for miscellaneous cool small stuff. Greens, carrots, beets, leeks, that sort of thing.
Some of the best leftover market plants got to overwinter in it. So before I can use the bed for vegs they must be moved.
Below, bed #2 with market plants, catch a glimpse of peas to the right, they're up.

Some of them will just get potted up again, but some are destined for flower beds inside the deer fence. I love lillies, they sell well, and this is the only place where I get to see them bloom. Deer wait till the buds are fat and sweet and then devour them.

But that means cleaning out old abandoned flowerbeds. Sigh.
These date from the time we lived in the old house and saw them from the window. Back in the golden age when deer were fewer and we gardened without fences. Did that really happen?

Here is the start of one born-again flower bed. It was covered in quack grass. Anyway, you get the picture. Every job calls for another job to be done first. That ugly cardboard will get covered with woodchips, I promise....

Lots of vegetables have been be pre-started in containers, so one of these days there will be an instant garden.

After the balmy late winter and early spring the weather turned cold again. Above Box Mountain with fresh snow on top. The perennials slowed down a bit which gives me a chance to catch up with the transplanting. We finally got some meaningful rain, hallelujah! It was getting scary out there, the dead grass and bracken crunching underfoot like midsummer. Just before the big rain barter-partner Rick sharpened the lawn mower and husband Chris mowed the lawn. What a difference that makes! And now, out with me, the plants are waiting.....

The Joys of Barter, Progress and Medicine

2010-04-18T17:35:00.000-07:00

Gaia (or deity of choice) bless barter. Don't get me wrong, I love "real" money, but it tends to be in short supply. Alas, the beautiful notes from what used to be Nelson's barter bank are no longer in circulation.

But we can still practice the noble art of money-less exchange on our own. I have been giving a neighbor weekly Reflexology sessions all winter in return for various chores when the time comes. Simply an hour of my time for an hour of his. Can any exchange be more fair? I told him not to worry about running up a credit, we'd square off in spring.

Are we ever!

I have two left hands and they are both all thumbs, but they are healing hands with green thumbs. Rick is handy. It has been a great deal for both parties.

So far, my new friend has fixed my stove, which saved us about a hundred bucks, fixed my food dryer, saved me some anguish over the computer, built the basis for a rooted cutting system, and best of all built me a whole pile of sturdy wooden boxes for use in the garden. It is a good thing the wife started to come as well, because I have more projects in mind.

The middle garden will be entirely laid out in boxes, surrounded by wood chip mulch. Does this start to look better or what! Note more frames that don't have a home yet.

Up the hill the first bed is planted with snow peas and sugar snaps, and some miscellaneous early greenery

along the edge of the bed. Just a single row, no square foot stuff. The very earliest planting, done on March 27, took forever to come up. It was a total experiment, normally we can't even plant in April, let alone March. We got a cold spell right after that. I was and still am so desperate for moisture that I even welcomed snow and sleet. As long as it's wet.

Today I got overly ambitious in the kitchen and didn't get as much done outside as I wanted to, but these tomatoes got transplanted into generous pots.

And finally, I found the mother of all Dandelions near the raspberries. We ate the leaves and the roots are soaking in wodka for tincture. My liver will be grateful.

Before pictures and ambitions, continued

2010-04-12T12:34:00.000-07:00

I should be out there digging instead of yakking about it, but it is just 4 degrees Celsius out there in the morning, and it is fun to have a record.
Details about what needs to be done later, first, let's set the scene.

The garden work consists more or less of three sections, each of which needs major overhauling. They vie with each other for priority status.

There is the FOOD garden. It lives in a fence up the hill, right in front of the old house. It will get top priority this year. Think of it this way: plants for the farmers' market may or may not sell, for money that may or may not keep its value. But potatoes, carrots and kale will sustain us. For a more thorough treatise on this topic see Terry Pratchett's "Making Money".

Even before The Great One elaborated on the theme I have for years proclaimed more faith in the potato standard than in the gold standard.

The mess above is the Middle Garden, on the other side of the dwelling from the sunny border. So named because I used to have a garden at a lower level as well. The Middle Garden was originally meant to be an extra veg patch, especially for labour-intensive things like salad greens. The exploding deer population put the kibosh on that use. Dreams of more fences are starting to dance in my head, but meanwhile the space is used for herbs that don't get deered and as nursery beds for market plants.

Above: Campanula Conglomerata and Yellow Loosestrife, two of the tough-as-nails perennials that I divide, pot up and sell.

The sign says:

Heirloom perennials

Adapted to local conditions

Resistant to deer

Easy maintenance

Garanteed to thrive or another plant free.

Few things make me happier than standing behind a table of glowing plants and have people buy them up. I have quite a few return customers. But I must find ways to be more efficient at it. This year I will make plant-sized divisions, and let them grow out a bit more in a well-manured bed instead of in tiny pots. Why did I not think of that earlier? That way they are easier to water as well. I have spent way too much time moving plants from one pot to another, not to mention dunking each pot in a pail with PLANet Food once a week.

Below: Siberian Iris.

Another favorite: Lungwort, AKA 'Boys and Girls' or 'Youth and Old Age', because it shows one pink flower and one blue one. This is a member of the forget-me-not family, to which Comfrey belongs as well. It is a generous soul that spreads from the rhizome and self-seeds for good measure. Deer may nibble the young plants but they simply come back. They bloom for weeks in spring, do well in shade, and the leaves look nice all year.

It makes a nice substitute for finicky hostas.

As for the name: I didn't take it seriously as a herb, but my friend Maggie's horse knew better. One spring Goldie had bronchitis. He ate all her Lungwort. By the time the plants were gone so was the bronchitis. By the way, Maggie is a herbalist who makes amazing salves. Her healing salve has soothed severe child eczema, and her liniment is superb for helping broken bones to heal once the cast is off. Her horses are hardy curly Bashkirs, good for people with allergies.

Section 3 is the flower gardens around the dwelling. This is a part of the border around the 'lawn'. It is not really a lawn, just what happens to grow here cut short. It needs to be peed on more systematically for lusher grass.

The picture at the top of the Blogspot blog is repeated here for the Multiply gang. It is of one of the rare moments a section all came together. The trouble is that the best designed garden is not static: the Iris collection that is just perfect one year needs to be divided and moved next, and so on. And now I have to get off this addictive machine and water the babies under the grow lights. To be continued.

2010, and so it begins! Lots of ugly BEFORE pictures.

2010-04-10T22:02:00.000-07:00

Here we go, garden season 2010.

Does anyone know what is normal anymore? Last year the land was still covered in melting snow on the first day of spring, which used to be normal.

This was the entrance to the fenced top garden on April 1 2009.

This year we had the mildest, dryest winter ever, courtesy of El Nino and melting arctic ice.
This was February 18.

We saw the first timid spring flower, a volunteer Eranthis, poke its head through the Sweet William foliage on February 27. Not March, February. That may be normal at the coast but not here.

Eranthis is one of my favorite spring flowers. I want it to spread and go wild. Once on an early spring trip to Holland my youngest sister-in-law showed me a park where a mixture of snowdrops and eranthis had gone totally wild. Gorgeous! My three original babies are working on it. They self-seed nicely but it takes a few years before they bloom from seed.

I actually did a decent job last fall. The little flower bed right by the dwelling entered winter all tidied up. I had annuals in one section, removed them, and re-planted Primroses, Lungwort, and Daffodils. They will in turn be removed in late May to be replaced with annuals like last year. I got over being a perennial snob. You gotta love marigolds.

This bed is also the place for snowdrops and crocuses. Unfortunately they get disturbed during the main season when other plants are moved or cultivated. The ideal is a pattern of fat clumps, there are too many singletons. Also the dark purple crocuses seem to be more vigorous than the lighter ones. We'll have to plant some extra whites and oranges this fall. Contrary to tulips (deer food) and daffodils (eaten by thrips) crocus does thrive and spread.

Ambitious plans exist for improving the sunny border that runs from the driveway to the dwelling. There is no reason why it cannot be 8 feet wide, instead of 4. That is the trouble when you have 10 acres to mess around in instead of a well-defined urban lot. I tend to bite off more than I can chew, but so what. We are having fun.

Right now it looks like this:

Just wait, it will be transformed in about 2 months!
And that is just the start................

That was the garden season of 2009

2010-03-06T18:22:00.000-08:00

I am writing this early March 2010, filling in the gaps so we can start keeping a proper garden diary as we go from now on.

Here is what happened in 2009.

I was off to a good start. Just for once, I actually had my seeds ordered and ready in time. Even though the weather was miserable much of the time I had started lots of bedding plants and made some headway with the spring cleanup.

These notes are from April 10 2009: "The long-awaited spring has arrived, finally. One week of warmish weather has removed almost all the snow, exposing the sins of fall.

Every year I swear that this fall I will leave the flower beds in perfect order, so we will wake in spring to tidy perennial beds weedlessly sprouting new growth, in a perfect design too. Yeah, right, who am I kidding?

Oh, and did I mention that we had some trees cut down, so we have piles of branches everywhere? And that I want to start lots of extra bedding plants for the farmers' market, and transform the veg patch into a square-foot garden, with tidy cribbed-in beds and mulched pathways?"

Not complaining, just grumbling. Then, just when I was starting to hit my stride, I suddenly had to leave.

My dear mother died, as unexpectedly as that can be at age 93. I had to go to Holland for the funeral and to do the eulogy as promised. It was good to be with the siblings. More on the trip on the general blog.

In contrast to home the season in Holland was way ahead of itself. I got there on April 30. It was warm, everything that could bloom was blooming and the trees were fully leafed out. Delicious!

We spent May 1 in Maastricht, where this picture of chestnuts in full flower was taken from the old city wall.

Once back home I wrote this: Kootenay gardeners should NOT take 2 weeks off in early May. This trip was necessary and good for the soul, but oh boy, are we paying for it now! In a way it was good that we were still a full month behind normal.

Nice flowers, but we expect to see this late April, not May 17.

The forsythia finally bloomed, for the first time ever! It had never yielded more than a few reluctant flowers. Merciless pruning seemed to have done the trick. But come on, May 20?

We made a trip to Kelowna on May 20 to buy some building supplies. This slope near Lumby was yellow with those wonderful Balsam Root spring sunflowers, that normally bloom late April/early May.

The yellow in this field is flowering dandelions, and note that chilly-looking sky.

The weather turned nice right after this, and the horrid non-spring was followed by a wonderful
four-months-long summer, filled with sunshine and a stream of visitors. For the first time in years it felt as if time was slowing down, instead of speeding up. That's what I need from summer, even if briefly: a sense of timelessness. That carefree living with the doors and windows wide open, hardly any clothes, secure in the knowledge that tomorrow is another sunny day.

But meanwhile, in the garden, I had to go to the first farmers' market as a customer instead of a participant. That HURT.

The pressure was on. From the Multiply blog:

I love all garden work. Fiddling with little plants in pots for sale, trimming the edges and weeding the flower beds, moving perennials about, digging up and planting the vegetable garden. For some weird reason, even though my restless mind goes bonkers when I have to go without print, screen or radio input for more than 10 minutes, I can garden all day and not get bored. Go figure. What I don't enjoy is the feeling of HURRY. No matter watter I do, some other plant friend is hollering: "Hey lady, what about ME?!"

Eventually we more or less caught up. Some money was made with sales of perennials, some beauty was enjoyed, some food was produced.

The spud weighed in at 1 pound, 5oz and was perfect, not hollow inside.

I even had a few decent peppers and tomatoes, a rare occurrence. Superb garlic,

and some lovely glads, though the DEER started eating those.
They never used to. They love the flowerbuds.

Even though it is still far from the perfection of my visions, the place looked pretty nice at times. The neighbor's cat agreed.

One final gift from the veggie garden, as late as November. I thought we were down to carrots and kale, but there were some hardy fresh greens. I love tatsoi!

And finally, the crew that removes or trims trees around here delivered a huge load of chipped tree waste. It will be used to mulch the pathways in between the properly defined raised beds. I feel like a rich woman. Just wait till next year!

Brown time will be short this year

2010-02-25T22:06:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on April 20 2009

"Brown Time" is the time after snowmelt and before the grass and bracken kick in. The gardens are still too wet to work, the plants are sleepily stirring underground but not doing much yet. There may be a few crocuses and snowdrops, but otherwise every green shoot is a rare cause for celebration.

We can walk all over our domain. In winter the snow is too deep, in summer the bracken too high. We stick to trails. But in spring the whole place is there for the cruising.

Ideally, Brown Time lasts from about mid-March to mid-April, and is a leisurely season of getting re-acquainted with the land, dragging messy branches to brush piles for burning, raking up some of the dead vegetation from the bracken field to use as mulch later on, tidying up the flowerbeds, moving some perennials around.

I am not one of those gardeners who can vizualise the lay-out with graph paper and ruler. I have to stand around leaning on a shovel and see the actual thing.

In a not-ideal year like this one March is still a winter month and the snow isn't gone till mid-April. That means we have to hit the ground running.

May is PANIC season. Everything wants to be done at once. I have to get the beds cribbed-in and the pathways permanently mulched this year because I just cannot keep up anymore.

It also appears to be a law that anyone who has received a Gift Certificate for Reflexology around Christmas wants to use it in May.

Victoria Day weekend is early this year, the first market will be on Saturday 16th, and I have hardly any plants made yet. And of course I don't have the income tax done yet. So what the H am I doing wasting time blogging?

HALLO! Earth to Ien: get off this addictive machine! NOW!

Happy Easter

2010-02-25T21:35:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on Multiply, April 12 2009

The picture is from last year, but the primroses, a gift from Beth, will bloom again soon.

Living with snow cover for 4 months sure makes one appreciate spring. Every year it blows me away that it is actually happening again.

If Christmas is about the return of Light in darkness, Easter is the celebration of Life returning to the land.

In mythologies the son, daughter or lover of God or Goddess rises from the underworld. Christ, Adonis, Tammuz, Kore, pick your deity of choice.

For now, this increasingly multicultural country is still doling out a long weekend during the Christian holiday. I wonder for how much longer? Why don't we just move the whole thing to the spring Equinox?

We need meaningful, spiritual celebrations that are shared by the entire community. Places with a homogeneous population can still use their local religion, but this option makes less sense in increasingly diverse modern cities.

Simply celebrating Earth's seasons is one way to bring people together that is both secular and spiritual.

We can all agree on one thing: whatever Force is responsible for this beautiful, fragile sphere we call home, it wasn't us.

Whether we credit heavenly entities breathing life into clay, or a precious lucky moment on the way from the Big Bang to the final darkness of a Universe speeding away from its center, we are Here Now. No thanks to us.

Green grass, running water, animals, flowers. Just for now, the right distance from a middling star at the right time of its life. So frail. So precious.

Happy Easter.

The leeks are showing!

2010-02-14T16:12:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on March 2 2009

I know, only a true fanatic can get excited about this. But I didn't expect my leeks to show the first sign of above-ground life for another week, and by golly, here they are only a week after being planted. I seeded them sparingly, just one or two seeds in each little square. I will be experimenting with the Square Foot Gardening method this year. (http://squarefootgardening.com)

Today I started 3 kinds of tomatoes, green peppers and parsley. We had some fresh snow but most of the day is above freezing. The great melt has started! March is a popular time for people who can afford it to take a quick trip to Vegas or other sunny spot. I can so see why!

Thanksgiving 2008. Living with the Wheel, and a kitchen brag.

2010-02-14T13:28:00.000-08:00

The children are long grown and doing well, my Old Dutch and I settled in a peaceful routine. No drama, no soap opera, no clawing our way up any career ladder. Just daily life with some part time money earning endeavors.

The heart of my life is really just deeply experiencing Nature's Wheel. As mentioned before, ask me how I am, and you get a weather report. For some people it would be the most abhorrent boredom, but I find it totally satisfying. The picture was taken on Friday October 10, on a walk in the neighborhood. After more than 30 years I still walk around full of wonder and amazement that I have been allowed to live my life here.

A report of the season just past. Spring was icy, the worst we have ever seen. But once it started in mid-June the summer was quite pleasant. The weather was a bit more changeable than we are used to here.

In these deep valleys weather has a tendency to get stuck. Whatever it's doing, it doesn't know when to quit. You welcome the ending of a drought, but then it pours for three cold weeks. Or you enjoy the coming of beach weather, but the next thing you know the woods are burning.

This year we saw an alternation between sun and rain that made the gardens grow and saved the woods from burning. The end of August was disgusting, but we got some nice weeks in September to make up for it. All in all a good season. I had a bumper crop of raspberries and took the trouble to freeze the best ones on a tray, so they stay separate. The blueberries are store bought.

Just layering the berries in a tall glass with Olympic's Organic French Vanilla Yogurt makes the most delicious desert. We had it for Thanksgiving yesterday.

Thanksgiving is my favorite event of the year. Christmas is too much, and at that time of year I feel like hibernating anyway. TG is hype-free, and because I try to grow much of our food it means a lot. If the garden yields only one serving of a vegetable it gets served at this dinner. It is a way to honor the devas.

So here is my kitchen brag, served to an appreciative small party of neighbors.

Appetizer: zucchini and carrot sticks with dip, raw sliced Jerusalem Artichokes in vinaigrette.

Homegrown of course.

Dinner: small store-bought turkey, I took a break from raising chickens this year. Stuffed with 4 whole bulbs of home-grown porcelain garlic, the garlic got mashed into the gravy.

Stuffing made with bread crumbs from the crusts I can never throw away and keep in a bag in the freezer, sage and onion from the land, lovage from the land, small tomatoes from the market.

Parsnips from the farmers' market roasted together with the bird. YUM.

Green and wax string beans, the only baggies from the garden. It was not a good year for beans.

The weather turned cold and rainy just as they were ripening.

Salad of finely chopped young kale leaves with grated carrots and finely chopped multiplier bulbs, the rest will be planted for next spring. For some reason I grow great multipliers and garlic, but ordinary onions and leeks don't like me. Kale and I have a love affair going.

Desiree potatoes. Nice variety with red skin and yellow flesh. We got about 100 pounds of spuds, excellent year for them. Plenty of parsley to sprinkle wherever.

Apple sauce from one of the volunteer trees.

Desert: I cheated and bought the pie crusts. Pumpkin pie with pumpkin from my market buddy Colette, yogurt and homegrown raspberries.

All in all a nice little feast, and today is the best: leftovers!

A special quote for this day:

You ought to be Thankful,

a whole heaping lot

For the places and people

You're lucky you're not

Dr. Seuss

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO MY FELLOW CANUCKS!

Digging New Ground

2010-02-07T16:37:00.000-08:00

Originally posted on Multiply, September 21 2008

We finally had a wonderful stretch of sunny dry weather. The summer company is gone and plant sales at the farmers market are done till next spring. It is time for some serious land work.

What this land wants to do is grow coniferous forest. Anything else is a struggle. You can take any young tree, dig it up and transplant it, and it will say "Oh, you want me here? Sure, no problem!".
The trees near the old house in the picture were not there when we bought the place in 1970.
The 10 acre (4 hectare) plot had been a hayfield, but was too rocky to be productive farmland. We were told so honestly. We had no ambition to farm, just to garden. You can see the tall grass, weeds and above all bracken fern that covers the ground before we start digging.

Originally the vegetable patch was an open space in front of the house. Deer might wander through and take a nibble occasionally, but it was no big deal. Somewhere in the early nineties the deer population exploded. It became necessary to build fences. Son Alex did a heroic job of building fences with young trees from the land. Cut tree, strip off branches, drag it over, dig the hole, all by hand. It was his summer job while he was in high school. Alas, an untreated pole will eventually rot. Last spring we bit the bullet and actually paid someone to come over with a machine and put treated fence posts into the rocky ground.

Small cheat here, this is the same friend on a different chore.

Chris did the job of extending the fence upwards. Deer can JUMP.

In the process the garden space was enlarged. Black plastic was put over a strip of the extension. This week I finally got around to digging part of the new stretch. We're talking back-breaking labour here. Stick fork in, pull up bracken root, remove rocks, repeat...

The pictures above show the junk that comes out of the ground. For a raised bed of approximately 5 by 7 feet I removed five, yes five, of those five-gallon pails full of bracken roots and 4 pails of rocks of various sizes. Some were big like this one, though I have dug out bigger ones in the past.

It took more than a day of work, but here is the result: a raised bed, double-dug, enriched with dolomite lime and composted manure. A worthy home for soon-to-be-planted garlic. The area surrounding the bed is covered first with flattened cardboard and then with cut grass/bracken etc. I used to use landscape fabric to keep down the weeds but stuff always ends up growing through it and then you have to remove this tangled mess. Cardboard or newpaper just dissolves into organic matter. Thanks to Mike Groarty's terrific newsletter for that tip.

There is even a creative use for all those rocks. The big pots that people gave me at the market this year are held in place by the rocks that came out. The edge will bloom with marigolds and nasturtiums next year. I can hardly wait!

Postscript: The garlic was fan-tastic. But the combination of a late spring with a very dry summer meant that the potted plants were disappointing. I have removed the pots and replaced them with hens and chicks and Rodiola Rosea, a medicinal sedum, as edging.

A wildlife calling card.

2010-02-07T14:34:00.000-08:00

Many years ago, on our very first trip to Banff, I hardly dared to leave main street for fear of running into a bear.

If someone had told me back then that I would comfortably live with bears in the backyard I would never have believed it. We don't see them live all that often, which is best for both parties. The only good bear is a SHY bear.

I am still chicken about going into the mountains to pick berries or mushrooms, unless there is a small group. Every dark tree stump looks bear-shaped. This is totally irrational, since my chance of running into one is just as great right here at home, especially at this time of year.

The volunteer apples are almost ripe. Judging by the appearance of this "calling card", as the old timers so delicately put it, the bears are not waiting around. This one is right by the side of the driveway.

Snow Falling on Lungwort

2010-02-05T22:34:00.000-08:00

This was originally posted on April 18 and 21 2008

Snow falling on blooming Lungwort. And others. Crocus and Snowdrops are finished, Periwinkle and Lungwort starting, Iris and Columbine UP.

Spring bulbs tend to get eaten by various critters. Tulips are just deer bait, but daffodils get hit by some wormy varmint. They die out instead of spread, like they are supposed to. I should treat them like an annual and plant lots of them in the fall.

It is past the middle of April. We have had exactly 3, count them, three nice days that were more or less normal for the time of year. Actually more like 2 and a half. Yesterday was the half day. I was happily transplanting things in the perennial bed right in front of the dwelling, hence the digging fork.

Astilbes were moved to a shady spot elsewhere in order to make room for baby roses. This is the only bed where I can grow roses, deer adore them. Lots of astilbe plants were put into pots for the farmers market later.
Now it is snowing again. It is even staying on the ground. There is nothing I can do about it, and I know I shouldn't whine etc etc, but Oh dear Goddess, I so badly need some blue light and some warmth!

The periwinkle kept stoically blooming in its sheltered corner.

I am looking out the window at the snow while doing my income tax, not the greatest combination. Son Alex is here for a few days. He spent about an hour explaining the difference between heat and temperature, and why global changes can translate into all kinds of weather. I am a bear of very little brain. Hard science doesn't stick easily. My primitive brain says: Global Warming? Bring it on !

April 20, the first day of Taurus. Usually spring is bursting out by now. An occasional spring snow is not uncommon, but it usually melts during the day. This one stuck, and it snowed off and on all day yesterday.

April 21, spring sunset with winter colours. Even after it stopped snowing it took several days before all was clear again.

Snow drops, originally posted March 2008

2010-01-29T21:30:00.000-08:00

They sure live up to their name. The snow is disappearing fast. Soon it will be one of my favorite seasons: "Brown Time".
That is the time, late March and early April, after the snow melts and before the grass really starts coming up. It is a time for leasurely poking around the land, tidying up, making some brush piles, rediscovering the place all over again.
There is no rush yet, that comes in May. Everything still seems possible.

Some years the snow cover lingers till Mid April, and we move straight from being stuck to Panic Season. This time it looks like we'll be clear in another week at most, Hurray!

A Timeless sense of wonder

2010-01-29T21:02:00.001-08:00

Originally posted on March 25 2008

"If I had the influence with the good fairy who is supposed to preside over the christening of all children, I should ask that her gift to each child in the world be a sense of wonder so indestructible that it would last throughout life, an unfailing antidote against the boredom and disenchantment of later years, sterile preoccupations with things that are artificial, the alienation from the sources of our strength."

- Rachel Carson, *The Sense of Wonder*

Thanks to Rob Brezhny for putting that quote in his newsletter. Rob Brezhny is an astrologer, writer, and free spirit who I totally adore. His book
*PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA:
How the Whole World Is Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings*
It is available for sale at http://tinyurl.com/qaj62
Read some of the book online: http://tinyurl.com/2ughfv
Sign up for his newsletter at http://freewillastrology.com/

The fairy that Rachel Carson talks about must have been at my cradle. I have never needed substances to be utterly entranced and distracted by the incredible glory of a blossoming dandelion.

An old hippie friend once told me that I was "A naturally stoned person". So help me Goddess, it was meant as a compliment. I guess the shower of fairy dust did it.

I feel so sorry for children who live far removed from Nature. As Black Elk ( I think it was him) said: It is easy to forget the Great Spirit when you live away from his [sic] works. Or something very close.

Goddess, Great Spirit, or as Dylan Thomas called it: The Force that through the green fuse drives the flower", it is all One to me.

The Western world just celebrated Easter, the latest version of a god descending into the underworld and re-emerging.

I see the Resurrection in every blade of grass, in every flower.

Thanks is given daily for the incredible privilege of being allowed to live in paradise. To Whom it may concern.

Naming an old friend

2010-01-19T17:31:00.000-08:00

What did we do before Google?

I have known and loved this plant for years but never knew its name. For lack of the real name it went by the handle "TOFYS", for Tall Old-Fashioned Yellow Stuff.

Then a customer at the farmers' market told me that her mother used to grow it and called it "Golden Glow".

A Google of Golden Glow immediately took me to a website and lo and behold there is our old friend. Her official name is Rudbeckia Laciniata "Hortensia". Since she doesn't look a bit like her cousins Echinacea or Black-eyed Susan, I would never have guessed.

The website even had hints on how to shorten her a bit. The flowers are great but 7 feet tall is a bit much. She always keels over after a rain. Pinching her back in June works like a charm. It brings her down to a manageable 5 feet.

There is even a new shorter hybrid variety, but it is not as prolific as the old standby. Prolific is what we want for babies that can be turned into cash!

The website is http://perennials.com/. The name "Heritage Perennials" turns out to be a protected trade mark. I had no idea. That's what I put on my sign at the market. How can they take 2 common words and claim exclusive use for them???

My first reaction was: "I will continue to use the term. Come and bite me!"
However, I had a little exchange with John, the owner of the site, just to thank him for the fantastic resource.
He was so nice and helpful that I will honor his trade mark. He even had a suggestion to use instead. I now sell Heirloom Perennials.

Thoughts on break-up, March 2007

2010-01-19T17:06:00.000-08:00

I am starting to feel cabin feverish. We have lived surrounded by snow since the end of November. The place has looked like the picture below a lot. The end is obviously near. It is getting warmer and the ditches are running with melt water. We can't DO anything outside yet. The land is covered with a foot or 2 of slush.

It is tempting to just want to skip this time and hurry forward to spring. But then I catch myself. The older you are and the more the future shortens, the more you need to cherish each moment just as it presents itself.

Living in the "if only" is a luxury for those whose future still feels unlimited. I don't mean to be morbid, but the reality is that I am 63, my husband is 70, and every year that we continue in good health is a Gift. OK, we work at it, but still.

You start to realize that this moment, here and now, may well be one of those good old days that you look back on in the future. Why not appreciate it NOW!

Of course this applies to us all. But the young are granted the illusion of immortality. The rational mind knows better, but the body/soul has not really caught on yet.

As I am typing this I see a rare glimpse of sunlight over the melting snow.
So I sit here behind the desk and appreciate this brief ray of sunlight, even though my soul is yearning for blue skies and green plants.
Appreciate this ramshackle trailer home , because it is shelter.
Appreciate my pain-free sturdy body, extra pounds of cellulite and all.

And so on.....

Let Them Eat Kale!

2010-01-19T16:28:00.000-08:00

We are getting layers of past here! This is being re-posted January 2009 from "Blog from the Kootenays", where it was moved from yahoo 360.

Note from October 29, 2007: I am happy to say that we finally have a good deer fence. It wasn't ready till mid June, so I still didn't have quite as much garden as I'd like. And would you believe that some crops are now being eaten by voles, a rodent related to lemmings. They devastated the snap beans, did serious damage to carrots, and were starting on the potatoes when I harvested them.

What's left? Well.....we have a LOT of kale!

From Yahoo 360, October 25 2006

We are working on a new fence, but this year deer ate the garden. With one exception:
For some reason this particular bunch has not touched the volunteer kale. Members of the Brassica family are supposed to be a favorite deer food. Thank goodness these kids have not read the book.

Kale has started to self seed and is almost becoming a weed. Even in good garden years it gives us our first taste of fresh greens in spring and the last fresh leafy greens after the frost in fall.
We have a sort-of-curly green, and lots and lots of wonderful Russian red, the toughest survivor of all. The red kale was a gift from my friend Beth James who died in 2007. Every spring I give baby kale plants away to anyone who wants them in her name.

The traditional Dutch winter dish is finely chopped steamed kale mixed with mashed potatoes and served with smoked sausage. It turns out the Irish and Scots claim the same dish for their own and call it Colcannon. Satisfying comfort food in any language!

We are also eating cheese-and-kale sandwhiches for lunch, kale and red pepper stirfry with beef or tofu for dinner, smuggling it finely chopped into lentil soup and wherever else it will go. The trick with kale is to chop it really fine and add some grease. Bacon, butter, olive oil, sesame oil, whatever the dish calls for. A bit of fat helps your body to convert the beta carotenes into vitamin A.
Kale is low in calories and one of the richest sources of nutrients in the plant kingdom. It freezes well too. Just look at this baggie of intense chlorophyll, ready for the freezer.

Later my kale garden got in the paper! From December 3 2007:

The friend of a friend who came to our land a few weeks ago, enjoyed a tour of the place and then sat on my not-quite-pristine kitchen floor sipping Lapsang Souchong tea and stripping kale seeds off the stalks, this person turned out to be a high-class chef and food writer. I am glad I didn't know it or I might have felt self conscious. Karen wrote about her outing in her monthly column in the Vancouver Sun that was devoted to kale. "The mother of all kale gardens " that she mentions is mine!

Karen Barnaby's article is still here: http://tinyurl.com/29k859
Another place with good information on kale is http://whfoods.org

At least the garlic is in!

2010-01-19T13:03:00.000-08:00

This was originally written in 2006 for yahoo 360 and re-posted October 29, 2007 on Blog from the Kootenays, musings on Life, the Universe and Everything. Not that anyone cares, but I try to keep my records straight.

Gardening is such a boring topic for non-gardeners. So now all the garden blogs are going into one spot and from there I can have fun making the rounds with other gardeners. The picture is a sample of my 2009 garlic. It is still excellent and with no sign of sprouting in mid-January 2010.

This happens every year, alas.

I lose interest in gardening about mid October.
From April to September I am obsessed with the garden.

Every spring I swear that this time I will keep going in the fall and wake up from the snowy season with a lawn, or what passes for it, neatly mowed and raked, flowerbeds tidied up and ready to burst into glorious bloom, and the vegetable garden ready to be planted after a brief re-dig.
Oh, and I won't regain the weight that I lose every summer. Yeah, right. Who are we kidding.

This is Bear Woman's season. She figures it is time to slow down and fatten up. She wants to curl up with a pile of books or in front of the computer with a big pot of tea and a pile of carbs by her side. It doesn't have to be sweet, just nice and starchy. Buttered whole wheat toast with elderberry jelly from the farmers market will do it.
Bear Woman is not playing fair this year. I have developed a pain in my left heel, probably Plantar Fasciitis. It hurts to stand or walk, let alone work outside.

Fortunately I have a new ally. FlyLady is by my side, whispering her mantra: "You can do anything for 15 minutes!" So no matter what else does or doesn't get done, at least I got the garlic planted today.