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Vegetables in the Garden
Spring Planting
Last year was the year of experimental vegetable gardening, not that we don’t have many years of experience but very little of that in Canada. We had three excellent raised beds installed for us by Urban Seedling and stock the beds with seedling vegetables or seeds obtained from the same people.
The beds are each 8ft x 3ft and divided into one square foot areas in each of which different vegetables are planted or sown. As each variety matures and is eaten there is something else ready to take its place. Basically with very high density growing and three seasonal (spring, summer, fall) plantings we grow more than enough for the two of us and some over to store in the freezer. The productivity is very high.
This week, the spring seedlings will be delivered.
Two of the beds have supports for climbing beans and tomatoes but we also grow varieties of salads including some oriental ones with great taste such as tatsoi and mizuna, roquette, peas, bush beans, peppers, aubergines, onions, garlic and those sorts of things.
To give you an idea of what the beds look like here are a couple of images from last year. One showing a bed in early spring and the other packed out with mature food in mid summer.
Nesting Time
15 years later This is quite exciting - it looks as if a pair of Carolina Wrens are building a nest in an accessible (to us) site after an interval of some 15 years. We were taking our morning constitutional when we happened to observe the pair buzzing back and forth with nesting materials and a couple of [...]
The Importance of Water
Opened up the waterfall (cascade) in the garden this morning and within five minutes a pair of Robins had already found it, took a splash and then proceeded to haul out wet leaves and chunks of moss which they flew off with to a neighbouring garden where, I guess, they are building a nest. This is why [...]
Scientific Stamp Collecting
I am reading and enjoying a fascinating memoir at the moment. If you'd like to read it, look for "A Curious Boy: The Making of a Scientist" by Richard Fortey. The author is a contemporary of mine, just a couple of years older, and was a palaeontologist at the Natural History Museum in London. I find many of [...]
Wilting Violets
The world is becoming scared of its own shadow and populated by wilting violets ... Earlier today while our on the snowshoes we happened upon a rabbit's foot, some scattered fur and a little blood. Probably a coyote's dinner. I took a photo and posted it to our local nature group Facebook page as an educational opportunity [...]
Minimal-Knead Sourdough Focaccia
This is an adaptation of a recipe culled from a baking blog (thanks Emily for the link) the URL of which I omitted to save. I have been playing around with various methods of making focaccia and I think this one comes the closest to my personal ideal of what the bread should look and taste like. Not [...]
A Year of Neighbourhood Nature
How time does fly — just over a year ago I was inspired by a fine naturalist from England (thanks Tom) who had set himself the challenge of identifying 1000 UK species — birds, grasses, spiders, whatever. I had a couple of exchanges with him was assured that the concept was not trademarked, and so I thought to [...]
Bright Winter with Tracks
Almost the end of February and a light snowfall overnight coated everything with a covering of snow and ice. The sun came out, the temperature was not many degrees below zero. In three or four weeks most of the snow will be gone (though more could arrive) and there will be a couple of weeks of mud [...]
A little squirrely joy for a winter’s day …
Clearing out the basement, well, truthfully, a corner of the basement a few days ago I uncovered a three hole pipe which, for those readers who are not into folk music, is the blown half of a pipe and tabor - the original "one man band". Once upon a time I learned to play a single tune on [...]