November 29, 2007
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Reviews Stuff

Holiday Gifts for Gardeners 2007

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Please note that items are listed in U.S prices.

1. Extreme Close-View Monocular – $16.95 A small, pocket-sized viewing scope that magnifies objects 7x from 10″ to infinity. Perfect for the geeky gardener or amateur naturalist in your life who enjoy getting a closer look at insects and flowers in the garden. It’s also really helpful for identifying bugs and disease. Of course, some may prefer to see those things from way back here, thank you very much.

2. Earthly Paradise Calendula Salve – $12.99 I make my own but if I were going to buy hand salve I would buy it from Earthly Paradise who just happen to make a killer salve. A healing hand salve is an absolute necessity for gardener’s like me who prefer not to wear gloves since the soil can really sap the moisture right out of your hands.

3. Oak Nail Brush – $12.36 It’s become a ritual: Returning from the garden the first thing I do is scrub my hands and nails with a bar of my favourite oatmeal soap and a good nailbrush. This beautiful oak brush is handmade using white tampico bristles — I have no idea what that is but it sounds terribly posh! And really, at that price it kind of is.

4. Richter’s Pot Maker – $12.95 Make your own seed-starting pots using newspaper — recycled and free you’ll never complain about running out of pots again.

5. Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education by Michael Pollan – $11.20 This isn’t a how-to guide but a book ABOUT the act of gardening and a “…manifesto for rethinking our relationship with nature.” A great thinking book for any gardener and one that I have personally gone back to many times.

6. Kitchen Compost Pails – $16.95 Again a Lee Valley item. I have seen these pails available elsewhere however they tend to be priced at a few dollars more. These buckets act like a sort-of purgatory for kitchen scraps, a holding station between produce and the compost bin. Believe me, being frugal-ish people we were resistant to purchasing a special container just to hold kitchen scraps on our counter, juggling an assortment of yogurt containers before finally taking the plunge. It was so worth it. This baby holds a lot and the handle makes it easy to carry out to the composter, especially given that we often have to carry ours a few blocks to our community garden plot!

7. Modern Birdhouses – $195 Like their human-sized counterparts these birdhouses modeled after real Modernist houses designed in the Case Study Houses Series are not cheap. But say I had a lot of money, and say I had enough that I could splurge on a very fancy birdhouse, I’d get the Richard. Just saying.


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November 7, 2007
6 Comments
Reviews Seeds Stuff Veggies

Kokopelli Seed Foundation

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I want this book! We took a week off last month, staying at the home of an avid tomato gardener whose name I have not sought permission to reveal (and therefore will not). While there she introduced me to the Kokopelli Seed Foundation, a non-profit organization based in France who are working to actively address issues of food security and preserve biodiversity by producing organic open-pollinated seeds as well as educating and promoting these issues globally.

One of their projects is the book, “The Seeds of Kokopelli” by Dominique Guillet is a massive 440 page, hardcover tome introducing Kokopelli’s work and farms, as well as proper pollination, seed production and saving techniques for an assortment of vegetables. The bulk of the book functions as a food plant directory introducing thousands of open-pollinated and heirloom herb and vegetable varieties. My host had the French version of the book at her home
(“Les Semences de Kokopelli“) which proved to be a bit of a tease given that I could only gaze at the photos, picking up a line or two of French here and there. Even still, on quick glance the book introduced me to a few interesting varieties that I’ve got on my list for next year including:

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What I saw has absolutely convinced me to order a English edition for myself. $46 (includes shipping to Canada) is an excellent price for such a massive encyclopedia of plants. The price including shipping to the US is a deal at $34-38.

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October 30, 2007
14 Comments
Fall Links Places

Cactus Ghouls

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I have so much to tell you about last week’s trip to the Montreal Botanical Gardens but I can’t seem to wade through the millions of photos and thoughts without first showing you one of the silliest, most ridiculous crimes ever perpetrated on a plant for human amusement and seasonal decor.

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October 24, 2007
2 Comments
Fall Gardeners Veggies

Giant Loofah

One of the things I love best about this site is checking out the fantastic gardening projects members of this site share via the forums. Last week, while making my morning rounds, I came across this fantastic, Godzilla-esque loofah (aka luffa) grown and recently harvested by forum user rachelanderson.

Isn’t it incredible?! There’s enough sponge there to wash dishes and scrub backs for years to come. I would suggest she enter some kind of local Fall Fair event with that thing. I’m afraid of Rachel’s mega-sized loofah, a trait that marks it as a potential candidate for first prize in The US of A or Canada where something as exotic as a loofah is bound to confuse and delight.

A loofah sponge is not the easiest product to successfully bring to full term in cooler climates. The plant needs about 110 days to go from vine, to flower, to fully mature fruit. I’ve covered growing loofahs in the past (page 164 of the You Grow Girl book) and even though I know a thing or two about the process I have never grown anything worth holding up alongside Rachel’s sponge. Her success is so inspiring, I just had to know her secret so I emailed her hoping she would be willing to offer up some tips.

Here’s what she said:

  • She lives in West Virigina, somewhere between USDA zones 5 and 6.
  • She shares a garden plot with her dad. They used a giant plastic sheet as mulch that was installed in the spring before any weeds had a chance to come up.
  • She started the seeds in potting soil around mid-May and planted the seedlings in the garden when they were big enough to make the move.
  • They put rock dust on the plants in the morning before the dew dried to keep the bugs and deer from eating them.
  • They did not use any fertilizers.
  • She attributes most of her success to the plastic mulch which kept weeds from stealing soil nutrients from garden plants. I’m going to add that the mulch probably helped to prevent drought and warmed up the soil earlier, keeping it warmer for a longer length of time.

Thanks Rachel! Your loofah is certainly inspiring and dare I say, ummmm… enviable.

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October 18, 2007
2 Comments
Reviews Stuff

Lavender Rose Moisturizer

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Now that the colder, dryer weather is upon us and the further-drying baseboard heaters have been turned on I’ve been loving my new bottle of Earthly Paradise’s Lavender Rose Moisturizer. This yummy-smelling moisturizer is made here in Toronto by Colette Murphy using organic and fair trade ingredients, all of which are simple (no crazy chemicals) and listed right on the jar.

I used to buy the Calendula Moisturizer for it’s powerful skin-healing properties but was taken in by the delicious combination of lavender and roses added to many of the same nourishing ingredients including organic calendula oil.

I bought my jar directly from Colette at the Dufferin Grove Farmer’s Market here in Toronto and it looks like she is only selling this particular type in-person. However the equally-yummy Calendula Moisturizer is sold both in-store and online at Grassroots Environmental Store.

Cost: $17.99

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