May 9, 2006
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Journal Seasonal

Musings on Plants

Kelly Gilliam

Today I was eyeing the plants at my grocery store. We all know not to ever expect much from the grocery store plants, as they’re usually completely neglected, dry, and limp looking if not half (or totally) dead. However, the grocery store plants are the closest and easiest for me to get to, so I like to puruse and sometimes get a spectacular find.

However, that’s not what got me thinking today. What got me thinking, was the urge I have whenever I see a half dead plant. I know from discussions on the forums that these urges are natural for us that have gone beyond the occasional gardener to the obessive gardener.

It sounds bizarre for those of you who aren’t constantly picking through and checking on their gardens, and looking for seeds of bizarre and exotic plants. But I liken it to the cat lover who can’t help but rescue a stray cat. I can’t help but want to rescue the poor neglected plants. I can see their beauty through their browned and wilted leaves, I know that just with a little TLC they could flourish.

That doesn’t mean I save every plant, however, but I sure want to. Perhaps that’s why every inch of available windowsill space is covered with little (and some not so little) plants. Almost every plant I’ve bought has been an attempt to save its life, save for a few here and there.

I have to stop myself some times and realize, that while I hold a plants life as extremely important, sometimes my need to eat is a little more important than a withered and dying aloe that I’m positive would live 100 years if just given a little care now.

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April 29, 2006
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Events Gardening 101 Links Seasonal

Plant Sales – Mark Your Calendars

I hate to be so Toronto-centric but there are a number of local and very good plant sales coming up that ya’ll should know about. They’re more bang for your buck, the experience is fun, and often times the haul is of better quality than your typical garden super centre.

FoodShare’s Plant Sale

When: Saturday, May 13th 10 am to 1 pm (plant sale); noon to 1 pm (Annual General Meeting) 1 to 2 pm (Lunch by the Field to Table Kitchen)
Where: FoodShare’s Field to Table Centre 200 Eastern Ave.
What: ORGANIC seedlings grown by FoodShare in their rooftop greenhouse.

Parkdale Horticultural Society Plant Sale
When: Saturday, May 13th 11 am to 3 pm
Where: Community Centre at the corner of Lansdowne and Seaforth
What: Annuals, herbs, perennials, bushes, etc starting at $1 and going up to about $10. You can also purchase tickets to their Garden Tour or praying mantis egg cases for your garden. They also have a second room of local vendors.

Swansea Horticultural Society Plant Sale

When:Saturday, May 13th 9 am to 1 pm
Where:Swansea Town Hall 95 Lavinia Avenue
What: No idea. I’ve never been to this one.

Note that all three events are happening on the same day. You may be able to hit them all with the right strategy in place. That said, I leave you with a few Plant Sale Tips young grasshopper:

  • Arrive on time – In fact, arrive BEFORE the start time. A gym or church basement filled with plants can clean out within an hour. Tardy people are left with chives, catnip, and orange daylilies if they’re lucky.

  • Do Not Hesitate – Hesitation is for losers. Choose now, decide later. You can always put something back, but you can’t get something that is gone.

  • Get Crazy – Follow the example of hoards of screaming mothers during the height of the Cabbage Patch Kid mania. I’m kidding. I just wanted to make that Cabbage Patch Kids comparison. Did I mention how some of us didn’t get one and how all the popular kids brought theirs to school the first day after the holidays and sat them on their desks and swung them on the swings at recess, and how some of us were completely left out from that right-of-passage because they didn’t have mothers willing to go all the way and do what it took to acquire that stupid, ugly doll? Until their understanding aunts stepped up to the plate and ordered one sight-unseen but it was the ugliest kind with the most bizarro name and how the whole ordeal haunts them to this day? Think of the children.

  • Bring a Cart – One flat is the most an average person can hold while still leaving one hand free to pick and choose plants. Get yourself a wagon or a cart and be hands free.

  • Bring an Assistant – Girlfriends, boyfriends, and siblings are easily guilted into this role. They can hold extra plants, a water bottle, and a towel with which to dab your sweaty forehead. You think I’m kidding.

  • Bring Enough Money – These events are cash only. Estimate the amount you will need and then double it. You don’t want to regret putting that $2 raspberry bush back.

  • Make a List – And then burn it because frankly there is no way to know what they will have and that list will be thrown out the window five seconds into the sale. These sales are about adaptability. Rise to the challenge. People who stick to rigid plans and lists tend to come out empty-handed.

Feel free to add your favourite, local up and coming plant sale to the comments.

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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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March 31, 2006
8 Comments
Bulbs Containers Flowers Gayla's Gardens Herbs Seasonal Seeds

There’s Some Livin’ Going On

We’ve been experiencing unseasonably warm temperatures here in Toronto which have pushed me to get out and do some early-season garden work. I can’t recall being this eager to get gardening but I suspect that I am always this excited, it’s just the lapse of time between fall and spring that has me convinced my excitment is bigger and better than ever!

It began a few days ago when I got up the drive to clean the street garden. What a mess! I can say with all certainty that it has never been so disgusting. The impetus for this sudden clean-up was the shocking discovery that several clumps of crocus blooms were buried underneath empty liquor bottles (Vodka being the liquor of choice), cigarette filters, and burger wrappers (All I’m going to say is that certain unnamed fast food chains should be sponsoring this clean-up). Thanks Toronto! I know how hard it is to walk those ten extra feet to the garbage/recycling can. SO HARD!

Here’s the evidence: Before | After

I know it doesn’t look like much but that represents the sweat of 2 adult people, 2 garbage bags, a nearly full recycling bin, and some plant material. The fence is toast. This year I’m thinking about getting some rebar and using that for posts. Try and knock that over drunk guy who tramples through the garden to urinate against the wall at 3 am! Or drunken dude that falls into the irises and completely smushes them with his entire drunken body ruining a beautiful display of just-in-bloom flowers!

gayla_seeds_mar06.jpg

So then I acquired more seeds.

  • Lettuce: ‘Lolla Rosa’ – A bright red lettuce.
  • Calendula ‘Antares Flashback’ – Multi-coloured blooms with reddish undersides. I love calendula because you can just toss some seeds in the garden and they’ll come back up by themselves. You can eat the petals or use them to make skin salves.
  • Nigella ‘Cramer’s Plum’ – White flowers with plum coloured pods.
  • Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii)
  • Sugar Pea ‘Carouby De Maussane’ – Flowers are purple instead of the usual white.
  • Mexican coriander – In trade.
  • Tomato ‘Pera d’Abruzzi’ – Also in trade.
  • Beans ‘Scarlet Runner’ or ‘Painted Lady’

I have been growing chives in a galvanized metal tub out on the rooftop for several years. They are just starting to come back up. I can also see anise hyssop, and wormwood making an appearance.

I made a quick trip to the community garden today on my lunch break to check on early spring progress. I picked a few beans (see above) that were left on the vine over winter.

gayla_beans_hands_mar06.jpg

The onions were in full swing:
gayla_onions_mar06.jpg

Lemon balm was poking through the soil in more places then I would appreciate, as is their way:
gayla_lemonbalm_mar06.jpg

My visit was cut short by an unexpected rain shower that continues as I write. While it put a damper on our sunny, warm weather, it does ensure that I’ll be able to get out there soon to plant some peas, greens, and the bulbs I neglected to get into the ground before it froze (oops). Spring is starting.

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March 31, 2006
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Gardening 101 Propagation Seeds Spring

The Lazy Gardener’s Seed Starting Chart

Guest post by Maggie Wang

Calculate seed sowing and planting dates in seconds with this even handier version of the Handy Seed Starting Chart.

  1. Download the seed starting chart file. If you don’t have excel, you can download a free open-source office suite with a spreadsheet application at openoffice.org or Google Docs.
  2. Enter the “Frost Free Date” for your region in the yellow box at the top. See almanac.com
  3. Before you can say, “Presto chango” the spreadsheet will quickly calculate all sowing and planting dates and place them in the appropriate fields.
  4. Print your chart and hang near your seed starting set-up or tape it into your garden journal. It is that easy!

You can also download a do-your-own-math PDF Seed Starting Chart for the mathematically inclined.

Maggie Wang is a full-time video game developer and part-time illustrator fascinated by numbers, cats, computers, fitness, karaoke, growing stuff, and cooking healthy foods that don’t taste like sawdust.

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