June 6, 2006
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Foraging Recipes Veggies

Healing with Dandelions

Guest post by Emira Mears

There are a few things I have an abundance of in my garden without trying. They may be familiar to you: dandelions, chickweed and horsetail. And while I curse a blue streak as I remove the horsetail, I can’t help but think of my amazing friend Signy each time I get to pulling chickweed and dandelions out of my flowerbeds. Signy is an amazing person on many fronts, but one of the pieces in her arsenal of things that rock, is the approach she took in battling (and beating) breast cancer five years ago. While she underwent the standard chemo et. al. she also turned to food as her medicine, and among some of the cancer-fighting winners: chickweed and dandelion.

You don’t need to be in a crisis with your body state to enjoy the healthy benefits of these glorious weeds, and with the way they’re coming up in my garden right now, in concert with an imminent bounty of lettuce, I think I’ll be enjoying some of Signy’s “Pure Medicine Salad” chock full of weedy goodness all summer. (NB: this recipe was also published in the Staying Alive Cookbook).

Salad Recipe:

1 (4-to-6 cup or 1-L) package mixed salad greens
Healing herbs such as chickweed, dandelion greens, or wild violet leaves (Violata odorata) – this last one being especially good for breast cancer prevention
1/2 cup (125 mL) chopped parsley
1/2 cup (125 mL) sunflower seeds
1/2 cup (125 mL) sprouted lentils or bean sprouts
1 or 2 ripe avocados, sliced or cubed

Dressing

2 Tbsp (30 mL) flaxseed oil
1 Tbsp (15 mL) extra-virgin olive oil
2 tsp (10 mL) Bragg’s
2 tsp (10 mL) freshly squeezed lemon juice
1 clove garlic, minced
5 tsp (25 mL) ground flaxseeds

In the bottom of a salad bowl, whisk together flaxseed oil, olive oil, Bragg’s, lemon juice, and garlic until dressing is thick and opaque. Add more lemon juice to taste. Immediately before serving, whisk in ground flaxseeds. Add salad greens, healing herbs, parsley, sunflower seeds, and sprouted lentils or bean sprouts. Toss until well coated with dressing. Gently stir in avocado, being careful it does not get mushy.

If you’re keen on more ways to use food (backyard garden derived and beyond) as medicine check out Signy’s site.

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May 30, 2006
10 Comments
Links Reviews Veggies

Square Foot Gardening Review

Guest post by Emira Mears

This year, as I was faced with the task of starting up our veggie garden relatively from scratch, I did a bunch of research into garden design, veggie growing, etc and settled on trying the Square Foot method. I did this for two reasons really. The first being that it gave me a pretty straightforward plan that was easy to follow and had decided boundaries. That made the project of starting a veggie garden from scratch seem manageable what with the working full time and such. Second, that kind of regimented, planned gardening kind of runs counter to my entire gardening nature and I was sort of curious, in an admittedly twisted way, to see what I could learn from trying something kind of outside of my normal pattern.

I picked up the first edition of Square Foot Gardening from the library and surprised myself by reading it pretty much cover to cover. And, I continued to be compelled by all the talk of how easy it was to maintain such a systematically planned garden, once you’ve put the initial work into setting it up. And so, I pressed on. Martin (my partner) helped me build two 4×4 ft squares, I made a plan (with a schedule!) for what would go where and when I would plant it, and eventually replant as squares became available. And off I went.

As of this weekend I have four squares left to plant and have already moved onto replanting one of the radish squares that has been harvested, and so I figured the time was right to share my thoughts on this process so far.

I love it. Much more than I thought I would. And primarily my reason for loving it is that it is exactly as easy as promised. On the weeks when I’ve thought that I didn’t possibly have time to go out and fuss planting vegetables that won’t really give me much return for months to come (so why not wait a few more days… weeks… oops too late), I’ve remembered that to go out and plant two squares of lettuce will take me about 5 minutes including washing up afterwards. Weeding is a breeze in the raised beds, and watering has also been pretty low maintenance (though here in Vancouver the rain has done much of that for me so far). And I have, somewhat to my surprise, stayed pretty close to my original plans. I’ve made a few shifts here and there, ditching a scallion square for extra radishes to meet the in-house radish demand, or deciding that one of the kale squares could instead be planted amongst some of my flower beds to free up a square for example. But, overall, I’ve stayed pretty close to my original plan. And that’s the other great bit: going into it with a plan has been wonderful in that I don’t have to really think about anything, I just need to remember to check my book each week (which I do every Saturday morning) and make sure I’m on track. If I don’t have time to daydream and do web research, or pour over seed catalogues I don’t need to worry. Typically any one week’s tasks (exclusive of watering) can be done in a few 10 or 20 minute stints, leaving me time to worry and fuss in the flower beds.

In fact, my only complaint so far is that I didn’t plan for enough. I should have done three boxes, and I’m regretting that now. In the planning stage I thought that 32 squares (each 4×4 ft box contains 16 squares) would be enough for our family, but I’m not sure that it really is. I had wanted to replace most of my farmer’s market produce shopping for the summer, but I’m not sure how realistic that is going to be. I may need to try growing some regularly consumed extras (like those radishes) in pots or in other beds. And now that summer is coming, I’m already regretting the fact that I definitely won’t be getting quite enough of some of the staples (tomatoes, cukes, beets) for much in the way of canning or pickling, so would need to go to the market for those which seems a bit of a shame. But really, that’s a minor complaint. And I’m already looking forward to setting up a third box next year and may even see if I can maneuver a fourth box for “production” growing of items for canning etc.

I know it is typically a method lauded for small space gardening, and I can certainly see it working well in community gardens. At this point, though I’d recommend it for many folks. It really has allowed me to be pretty utilitarian about my food growing, freeing up much needed time for more creative thoughts about the rest of the garden.

Lettuce and Radishe Squares

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May 27, 2006
8 Comments
Veggies

Purple Plum Radishes

Purple Plum Radish

I harvested my first batch of ‘Purple Plum’ radishes this evening from the rooftop garden. I’m growing them in an old wine crate alongside greens.


Wine Crate Filled with Greens and Radishes

Unfortunately, I can’t remember exactly what I planted since I wrote on the tags with non-permanant ink and it washed off after the first rain (I have several different lettuce and greens seed packets so it’s not easy to identify). However, I can say for certain that the radishes (back row) are ‘Purple Plum’, the front row is orach (not yet germinated), and there are ‘Rouge d’ Hiver’, and ‘Oakleaf’ lettuce seedlings in there.

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May 24, 2006
10 Comments
Containers Seeds Veggies

A Tale of Two Lettuces

Two sets of lettuce seeds sown at the same time; the first grown under a plastic take-out container “cloche”, the second grown without.

gayla_lettuce_cloche.jpg
With Cloche

gayla_lettuce1.jpg
Without Cloche

Lettuce growing underneath a cloche
Here it is with the cloche on.

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April 19, 2006
15 Comments
Containers Flowers Gayla's Gardens Seasonal Seeds Veggies

Phase 1 Complete

Phase 1 of “Project Deck Garden 2006″ was enacted yesterday afternoon. It was inspired by a sunny day and a headache that wouldn’t quit, which not surprisingly, was abated after a few hours in the fresh air. I won’t bore you with the details as Phase 1 involves large helpings of gardening’s lesser joys; clean-up, pot shifting, and organization. Instead I will list the enjoyable activities:

    Not 99 Cents pansies

  • Planting the “fancy”, or as I like to call them, the ‘Not 99 Cent’ pansies I bought last week. You know you’re shopping at a chi-chi garden store when they give you a paper bag for a couple of pansies.

    • Chives and pansies

  • I then proceeded to cover the ‘Not 99 Cent’ pansies with several water bottle cloches (I’ve graduated to 4L bottles) as the flowers had all been snatched off. For years I’ve been blaming raccoons and squirrels but it turns out the thieves are my beloved starlings! WHY? Are the generous quantities of seed not enough? Can’t bargain with the birds. And incidentally the pansies do have a nice flavour.

    • 'Tom Thumb' peas

  • I planted two kinds of peas: a dwarf variety called ‘Tom Thumb’, and a sugar/snow variety I am trying for the first time called ‘Carouby de Maussane’. I decided on these instead of sweet peas as the flowers are purple and the peas are edible.
  • Greens Galore – Mizuna, red mustard, several different lettuces, orach, purslane, and mache. I planted up just about every container that is currently empty, including some that will hold hot weather veggies since I’ve got nearly six weeks before the transplants go in and I will just remove some of the lettuce at that time. I’ve got a lot of seeds to use up. However, I just realized I’m out of arugula seeds! Ack!
  • Radish Challenge 2006 – I can’t recall planting radishes this early in previous years which may say a lot about why I have rarely succeded in growing a decent, edible radish. The rooftop deck is windier than a ground floor garden, but it also gets very, very hot. The season is always a bit accelerated up there, resulting in lousy radishes (but early tomatoes!). This year I will grow a decent radish if it kills me. [Shakes fist in air]
  • Carrots – I planted just a couple of the ‘Purple Haze’ in the container where the beans will go as an experiment. It really is impossible to think about this variety without singing the song… or imagining dudes with tie-dyed head bands dropping liquid acid onto their eyeballs. Just saying.

And then Davin showed up to help and informed me that in the tradition of bizarre, unexplainable things that happen around the street garden, someone had left a plastic wrapped cauliflower in the garden as a gift. But it seems, in an even stranger twist, that in exchange, they took the large paper bags that were holding the compostables that were waiting to be put out for city collection. Yes, they left the plant bits sitting on the sidewalk, but took the completely dilapitated and unusable bags. Huh? I REALLY have to get on making those signs I’ve been meaning to make since 2000.

Another seed order arrived in the mail from Greta’s Organic Gardens. I need to get on these asap as time is ticking. The bulk of these are tomato varieties I am testing out on the rooftop this year.

  • Tomato ‘Golden Delight’
  • Tomato ‘Principe Borghese’ – A paste tomato
  • Tomato ‘Gold Nugget’
  • Tomato ‘Black Seaman’ – An early variety.
  • Red Pepper ‘Fatalii’ – I HAD to get them!
  • Purslane
  • Red lambsquarter
  • Shungiku – There was a problem with the order. They accidently sent me hot peppers (a chili) but the replacement is on its way. I won’t use these hot peppers as I have a few other varieties on the go. The first Canadian to ask is welcome to them.
  • Purple Millet ‘Purple Majestic’

Can you believe I have one more small order on its way? Yikes. And now I have to get some arugula! Yeah and did I mention the seeds I impulse-bought off a rack last week?

  • Nicotiana ‘Indian Peace Pipe’ – These are by far my favourite nicotiana. They are huge (5′ tall) with fragrant, elongated blossoms.
  • Marigold ‘Lemon/Tangerine Gem’ blend – I grew these last year and was so impressed, I’ve been promoting these like crazy since. They are incredibly prolific bloomers, the flowers are tiny with lacy foliage. And they really do taste like tangerines and lemons! They did really well in containers on my hot rooftop but keep in mind that the plants get to be quite large and rotund.
  • Quinoa ‘Brightest Brilliant Rainbow’ – 2006 seems to be the year of hippie plants. Pretty and edible. I can not resist.
  • Nasturtium ‘Mahogany’ – I have tasted enough nasturtiums to know that the red ones have the best flavour.
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