Seasonal

March 10, 2010

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What’s on Your Windowsill? (Plus Giveaway)

A visit to Erika’s apartment a month back has inspired a new sense of excitement about my own windowsills. The morning after the tour, we experienced a rare winter treat here in Toronto: sunshine! While my windowsill has been transformed several times since, here’s what it looked like on that first morning of sun.

In the photo above you can see [left to right]: ‘French Lace’ scented geranium, Chilean oxalis bulbs that I recently planted, another oxalis that has gone dormant, variegated Cuban oregano (that thing does not stop growing. I have cut it back hard, several times), and the edge of a ‘Centennial’ kumquat tree.

This is the other windowsill in my office [left to right]: Microgreens freshly sown in a recycled salad container (behind), spineless blue agave (front), lithops, another dormant oxalis, donkey’s tail sedum (Sedum morganianum) (hanging).

And here’s what it looked like yesterday afternoon when the sun was shining once again [left to right]: Pelargonium ‘Fair Ellen’, yet unidentified echeveria I bought a few days ago, pelargonium ‘Mabel Grey’, another unidentified echeveria from the same purchase, sea onion (Ornithogalum caudatum).

What are you growing on your windowsill?

Please post a link to a photo or post on your blog about what’s on your windowsill. We can inspire one another and beat the winter is almost over blahs.

Next Friday, March 19 at 5pm EST I’ll randomly select two people from the comments below to win one of the following price packs:

One of our “I Heart Dirt” tees, six packs of organic vegetable and herb seeds from Cubit’s Organics, a package of assorted garden buttons and magnets (also designed and produced by us), and one of the few remaining Grow Great Grub book launch party door prizes that includes a specially made “Grow Great Grub” button and a pack of organic vegetable seeds by Urban Harvest.
Six packs of organic vegetable and herb seeds from Cubit’s Organics, a package of assorted garden buttons and magnets (also designed and produced by us), and one of the few remaining Grow Great Grub book launch party door prizes that includes a specially made “Grow Great Grub” button and a pack of organic vegetable seeds by Urban Harvest.

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March 9, 2010

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Witch Hazel

Until recently I was unaware that witch hazel is cold tolerant in my climate. Here’s the evidence: a large witch hazel tree in full bloom just this morning in my friend’s garden.

We’re experiencing a warm and sunny spell here in Toronto that is lifting our collective spirits. Suddenly things are in bloom as if it is spring. But it isn’t really quite spring and I keep reminding myself that while all signs point to it, we could have another blizzard ahead of us just yet.

March is a deceptively soft and cuddly lamb, for now.

More witch hazel:

Chinese Witch Hazel (Loropetalum chinense)

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February 16, 2010

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February at the Community Garden

We popped over to the community garden yesterday afternoon with a frozen pail of compost. I thought I would take some pictures so you can see what it looks like in the middle of winter.

As you can see, not much is happening. Drab and dull. We stop using our plots between October/November and March/April depending on the season.

If I wanted to really maximize the space, I could construct some cold frames within my plot and grow cold hardy greens like kale, mache, and spinach. And I would, but unfortunately the lane-way that leads to the garden is typically treacherous terrain through the winter months. We haven’t had much in the way of snow and ice this winter — it’s the first year since joining the garden around seven years ago that I’ve been able to get to the garden gate with relative ease.

Instead, I grow edible perennials as a strategy for extending the season. Cold hardy, perennial herbs such as garden sage, oregano, marjoram, chives, garlic chives, mint, and ‘Egyptian Walking’ onion function as the bones of the garden, holding in the soil and offering up a harvest that starts in the early spring and lasts straight through to the late fall.

Here’s what it looks like in April.

There are also a few self-seeders including calendula, chervil, bloody dock, lovage, shiso, lemon balm, and chamomile that pretty much grow themselves. They can be a curse or a blessing of plenty depending on how you look at it.

Over the years I’ve also added a few small fruit bushes including gooseberries and American black currant, and several strawberries (wild and alpine types) as a way to get garner yearly crops that don’t require seasonal planting.

This is a wild geranium that showed up one day. I always let a few survive since they’re not too invasive and I like their pretty little pink flowers. As you can see, it is also proof that plants don’t necessarily “die” during the winter, but stay alive in a dormant stage underneath the snow.

And it looks like we’ve had a visitor in our absence. I noticed new graffiti in a couple of spots along The Beer Store wall.

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February 1, 2010

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Garden Tour: Erika’s Small Apartment of Small Plants

Yesterday afternoon I was invited into the apartment of a fellow Parkdale resident to check out her collection of fascinating and unusual plants. The visit brought the plant junky in me out in full force. I went home conspiring to get my hands on a few of those amazing plants myself and then spent the remainder of the afternoon rearranging and caring for the gazillions of houseplants I do have. Visits to other peoples’ gardens never fail to motivate me to do better by my own plants.

Mesembs in the front window.

Erika collects alpines, Mesembs (conophytum & lithops aka living stones are examples), Gesneriads (not African violets), orchids, and euphorbias. Looking back on our conversation, I’m not completely certain that she is exclusive to those plant families. Most of her collection just seems to fall within those categories. When I asked her what inspired her collection, she replied that she has always loved diminutive plants. The perfect-sized plants for an apartment dweller.

Conophytums are a South African plant that consist of two fused leaves. That’s pretty much it. They’re some of the most simplified and reduced plants I have ever seen.

They kind of look like doughy buns. Or really cute anatomical models of the cervix. Apologies for putting that image into your head, but frankly, that’s what I see when I look at one.

Conophytum bergerii (red) and Conophytum ratum (green).

Say what? These freakish things remind me of jelly candies or those stinky jelly air fresheners everyone had in their bathrooms in the late 70s. When I was a kid, I could never help opening up the plastic cover and poking them. I REALLY wanted to poke these too but that would have been very rude. The flower (yes they do flower) comes up between the two “leaves.” I can barely distinguish where that is on the red one.

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January 26, 2010

17 Comments

First Seed Roundup for 2010

Photo of ‘Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge’ Tomato: Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

If you’ve been reading this site over the years, you can probably make a pretty safe guess as to where I am right now in the areas of seed starting and garden planning 2010. Behind. Barely started.

Most of my decisions so far have been made over a cup of coffee and with some lazy flipping through catalogues. Thankfully if you’re in my zone, we still have time. I don’t start to panic until all of the Seedy Saturday events are done. And us urban gardeners often have the advantage of hotter growing spaces that speed the growing process up once the summer heat comes on.

That’s my excuse anyway.

Tomato ‘Reisetomate’: Baker Creek Seeds sent me a preview catalogue a few months back and this was the first tomato variety that caught my eye. I love an ugly tomato and I believe this just might be the most hideous beast out there. It is essentially a large bunch of cherry tomatoes smashed together into one enormous mess. The catalogue also says that the plant’s name, meaning traveler, is derived from its use as trip food in Central America. Considering the current state of travel between the Canada and the U.S, I don’t think they’d let me bring one in my carry on as sustenance.
Tomato ‘Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge’: This is another tomato from the Baker Creek catalogue that caught my eye. These are an orange ribbed tomato (my favourite) with purple smudges on top. Reviewers describe them as mushy and tasteless but I’m going to try them anyway.
Poppy ‘Mother of Pearl’: I have nowhere to grow this one but when has that ever stopped me? The subtle, pale shades and delicate crinkliness of these poppies are too much to resist.
Pole Bean ‘Conio’: Last night I asked Colette of Urban Harvest about what was new in their 2010 catalogue and she mentioned this pole bean that she brought back from Terra Madre in 2008 and had grown out locally. Colette never fails to draw me in with new bean varieties. But what really got me about this one wasn’t the description so much as the name. Apparently conio or coño is an expletive referring to female genitalia. I’m always looking for an excuse to swear without being chastised for it.
‘Christmas’ Lima Bean: While I’m on the topic of beans, I tried to grow this variety last year. I only had about six beans so they were special. I planted them and they germinated. And then the raccoons or squirrels got them. The end. I’d like to give them a go again this year but haven’t found a source. Urban Harvest has them listed but Colette says they don’t have any. If you’ve got a source please tell us in the comments!
Sweet Pea ‘Wild Yellow’ (Lathyrus chloranthus): I saw these sweet pea flowers in the West Coast Seeds catalogue and was smitten by the yellowy-green hue. My only hesitation is in that descriptions I have found say nothing about smell and I make it a point to only grow sweet peas that smell wonderful. Otherwise, what’s the point?
Nodding Onion (Allium cernuum): I grew nodding onion in pots out on the roof nearly a decade ago and have got the itch to try my hand at these unique and ornamental alliums again. Botanical Interests have come through with seeds that have been newly added to their repertoire for 2010.
Spinach ‘Bordeaux’: I saw these last year and regretted that I didn’t get any, especially since it turned out to be such an excellent year for spinach. Imagine a windowbox full of this colourful and architecturally shaped spinach. I always find spinach to be particularly gorgeous, but these have burgundy veins to boot.