Nicotiana

September 22, 2008

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Charles’ Tobacco

To begin, I am going to preface this entry with a note about tobacco since I know this topic is controversial and likely to ruffle some feathers. As adults we are all aware that smoking tobacco is addictive, is accredited to causing various forms of cancer, and is generally not a healthy thing to do. By writing this post I am not condoning smoking tobacco and I am definitely not encouraging anyone to start! But I also believe that it is an interesting plant worth discussing and that if you’re going to smoke, growing your own is a much better way to go.

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One afternoon last year, while riding my bike through an alleyway, I was stopped short by a little garden tucked into a thin strip of soil between the pavement and a garage wall. A large nicotiana sat growing alongside a crop of mint, a sunflower and a tiny coniferous bonsai. By its size and girth I could tell the nicotiana was a smoking tobacco plant (Nicotiana tabacum) and not one of its flowering cousins, common in many home gardens including my own. I got off my bike to take a picture. Turns out I was right. The grower was actually sitting on a lawn chair in the open doorway of the garage with a group of young dudes. We chatted about the garden and his tobacco plant briefly and I went on my way.

I thought about that plant for the rest of the year, stopping to watch its progress whenever I rode through the area. I hoped to catch the gardener out on a lawn chair again before the end of the growing season. I wanted to ask more questions and possibly take some pictures of him with the plant for my Green Minds Project. Unfortunately the end of the season came without our paths crossing again.

When springtime rolled back around I started to think about that little garden once more. I rode through the alley several times hoping to find a new little seedling in its place. Finally, about a month ago while on my way to photograph my brother’s garden, I happened upon Charles, the urban tobacco farmer out on the lawn chairs again.

Charles is a young guy, probably in his 30s. Whenever I bump into him he’s shirtless and listening to classic rock while smoking joints and enjoying a few brews with his buddies. They make art in the garage. I think he also works long hours in construction which is why he was unable to commit to another plant this year. In addition to growing tobacco, Charles also grows hot peppers that he then uses to make his own homemade sauce. And he cans it too! If you were to look up the photo of a gardener in a book or magazine you would not see a picture of Charles. Not even come close. I’ve met a lot of gardeners by now and the more I meet the further away I get from finding THAT gardener. I’m more certain then ever that the stereotypes we’ve culturally cultivated around the myth of the gardener are a total load of crap. Gardeners, even the hardcore sort, can’t really be pinned down. Ultimately, why we garden is personal and there are just too many reasons to take it up.

And yet while few gardeners I have met actually fit The Profile, what they all have in common is an infectious enthusiasm for their gardens and a generosity about sharing them. In that sense Charles is like all the best gardeners I have met. He has an enthusiasm for growing plants that pours out of him in conversation and has had an obvious effect on his neighbours and friends. While showing me some of last year’s tobacco harvest, still hanging in the garage, he mentioned that a few other neighbors had been inspired to grow the plant in their own yards from seed he was more than willing to share. I explained that despite a dedication to flowering tobacco varieties and a whole lot of enthusiasm for his plant, I am not a smoker and don’t have any use for smoking tobacco. Chances are slim that I will ever grow the plant, yet he still insisted on sending me off with enough seed to start my own tobacco farm.

He also sent me home with a big piece of uncured leaves and a brief outline of the curing and fermentation processes. While they do seem like fairly involved processes and a lot of labor they also seem like something anyone can do with some practice. You’ll have lots of opportunities to try and try again until you get it right since one tobacco plant makes A LOT of tobacco! Growing your own means taking control over the quality of the product, removing the herbicides and pesticides that are most likely in use during commercial growing practices never mind the harmful additives that are used to cure and ferment. And for every smoker that grows their own, there’s a few thousand dollars less per year in the hands of the big tobacco companies.

For More Information About Home Growing, Curing and Fermenting Tobacco:

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June 23, 2008

11 Comments

Grazings

This post (I kind of hate that word to describe writing here) is going to be piecemeal, a quality that is indicative of my life right now as I float or rather scramble from one task to another in an attempt to keep up with the season and my workload. I’ve been trying to write something cohesive here for over a week now. “Just focus and write on one topic,” I say. And then I am up and off to do that thing that must be done immediately or taking reminder notes for future tasks that are later lost. I’m a multi-tasker by nature. I thrive when there are lots of physical and creative tasks to challenge me. It just makes writing in this space a bit tricky. The two don’t really go hand-in-hand. Things are probably going to be spotty here in the coming months as I try to negotiate these contradictions.

The other challenge to choosing a topic comes in the form of the many things I am not allowed to write about. The many assorted secretive magazine assignments, projects, things that rhyme with “look”, etc I am supposed to keep under wraps. Unfortunately, it seems that everything in the gardens is related to these secret projects this year. Tell me I can’t speak about or write about something and you can bet it will be the single focus of my thoughts. There is nothing else to discuss but that single thing or assortment of things. Nothing. And since I am not allowed to write or speak about the things I am most enjoying right now, I am left at a loss for words.

So… ummm… in the category of Things I Can Talk About….

I made some stuff this weekend. A film maker was coming by on Sunday night to shoot the roof garden for a short film she is making and so I naturally thought, “Gee, I have nothing better to do, what with the fifty million things on my to-do list so why not make a skirt for the occasion!” I am often most inspired when time is limited. The skirt is a reworking of an old skirt that was so long and bulky it looked like wardrobe for “Big Love.” It had a useless and heavy piece that wrapped around the front like a faux wrap, making the skirt weigh a ton and not suitable for summer gear. So I took it apart, chopped it down, resized it, and put it together as a slightly a-line skirt. I then drew the little seedling illustrations onto potato halves and printed with fabric paint. I was a bit distracted, applying the first print askew so that the “seedlings” look more like Ginkgo leaves, but whatever. It works. The end.

I wanted to make good use of the potato stamps while they were still viable so I sewed up a new runner for our small table. It is dark chocolate brown (everything in brown!) with a light linen strip that I printed in green. I would take a picture to show you but the light isn’t right in the kitchen and I hate using a flash. And if I get up to do one more thing this post will never be done. I also sewed up coasters for the living room (did not use the stamp), a little catnip pillow for the cat (She actually rests her head on it!) and hemmed a curtain hung with a raw edge over a year ago. Getting shit done! And adding new tasks to the list. Woo!

Plantings

In the category of actual gardening… where do I begin? The community garden is pretty much planted. As far as this stage goes anyways. I have a few secondary things that I want to get in soon and there are a few seedlings currently residing in the roof’s “waiting area” that I REALLY want to squeeze in somehow. But how? I’ve cultivated quite a knack for making something out of nothing but there are two things I can’t make for the life of me: Making money grow on trees and making more space. The space is maxed out and can’t be maxed any further.

The plant I especially can’t let go of is the ‘Haley’s Purple Comet’ tomato. The seeds arrived a little late so this seedling had a late start falling behind the other seedlings that were planted out long ago. I tried this variety at a tomato tasting party last year and HAD to have it. It produces the most delicious, small, dark purple fruit. Back in the 80′s when Halley’s Comet was coming around for its once in a lifetime world tour I got a cheap telescope for The Holidays and hoped with nerd-like enthusiasm to catch a glimpse of the comet despite the fact that it wasn’t really visible from our side of the earth. I never did see it but I did spend a few nights looking at the stars and the moon or gazing up from the top bunk of my bunk beds at the poster of the moon that came with the telescope that I had affixed to the ceiling with tacks. Sometimes those tacks fell on me in my sleep, that’s how dedicated I was to astronomy.

If I could allow my skin to be pierced in my sleep by falling tacks then damn it, I can find a spot for this tomato! The comet has a special place in my heart so how can I resist a dark tomato named after it? I have GOT to find a space for this plant but there is nothing that can give. There are no plants to be removed. There is no more space!! My last ditch attempt will be to get another container… to put where, I don’t know. It’s a horrible dilemma.

Cat Scat

Last week, on an impromptu late evening visit to the garden I laid down some fresh compost in an area I was set to plant later in the week. When I went back a few days later the local cat, whom we call Crazy, had used that spot for a litter box. Delightful! It wouldn’t be enough to simply remove the poo because once a cat has claimed that spot they like to go back to it again and again. And based on the evidence it was clear that Crazy REALLY liked that spot. Luckily this was just a casual visit. I hadn’t arrived with an arm full of seedlings to plant. Instead, a friend and I had stopped at the garden to sit under the trees with our coffees on the way back from the market. I had a couple of oranges in my sack so I peeled them and scattered the peels all over the area. It worked! When I arrived back a few days later the area was untouched.

The Roof

I’ve entered the home stretch! I’ve planted the bulk of it and cleaned up the mess. I was actually able to lay down our twig table runner and candles last night which marks the first time anyone has been able to use the seating area for its intended purpose since I started hardening off seedlings well over a month ago. We’ve been eating lots of salads and the peas are coming in strong. We’re just days away from the first ripe strawberry. I’m most impressed by my potato plants. They are already getting close to the top of the garbage can they are growing in. The Nicotiana alata flowered for the first time a few days ago and I’ve got peppers forming earlier than ever. Everything looks so lush and smells wonderful. I can’t help brushing my hands over the various smellerific plants every time I walk past them. who needs store-bought perfume when you have a garden?

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April 19, 2006

15 Comments

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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June 21, 2005

8 Comments

Photos of My Rooftop Garden

As promised, a few photos of my rooftop garden in June.

In the foreground you can see lemon cucumber, tomatillos, and peppers.

- A full view from underneath the gazebo – Facing north.

- Facing west

- Facing west (closer) – Sweet and hot peppers in the foreground with purple tomatillos in the grey, oval-shaped container and a tomato in the larger grey container (right side). That’s ‘Siam Queen’ basil hanging out the front of the tomato container. To the left you can see another large grey container (white tray underneath) with a tomato plant and some red rubin basil. It’s hard to see in this pic but I’ve added a decorative trim of twigs that I bent into an oval shape. I did a similar thing to protect the peppers (foreground) from the raccoons that insisted on digging the seedling up every night. Worked like a charm.

Fire escape silver boxes – The box on the left has lavender and various succulents while the box on the right has miniature curry plant and portulaca. The plants underneath are various basils, nicotiana, tangerine gem marigold, and green sausage tomatoes. There’s a silver fir tree tomato hidden back there too. It already has one small tomato!

- An old washbin holds beets, chives and catmint. – This looked exceptionally great when the chives were blooming. I need to fill in that bit of space with something flowering.

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June 3, 2005

2 Comments

Garden Update: Street Garden and Roof

This week has been a frenzy of cleaning, selecting plants and planting. As hard as I try, I’ve got perpetual dirt-under-the-nails. I should have thought to take a picture to show what I mean.

I haven’t been up to much in the side/street garden (it really needs a name) so I’ll start there. Earlier in the week I transplanted a hyssop that used to take up residence in one of the planter boxes on the deck. Today I moved a big bunch of anise-hyssop that sprouted in one of the large containers on the deck. Now it can spread itself all around the street garden. That’s okay cause it’s a native that can withstand drought and attracts lots of beneficial insects to the garden. I’ve got my own mini version of The Clash of the Titans happening down there.

And speaking of titans, the plume poppy is up to it’s usual tricks. It’s massive and growing fast! I have already pulled out a bunch and have tried transplanting some into containers and the large planter boxes on my deck. I am discovering that plume poppies do not like to be transplanted. All the leaves are dying back, however the roots underneath the soil are good and new leaves are slowly poking through the surface. I decided they would be good in the planter boxes because they’re tall and hardy and will provide good screening and pretty tropical-look foliage once established. I don’t know why I didn’t try this sooner. This morning when I was out taking photos, I discovered a pigeon living underneath the dense plume poppy foliage. See, it’s not all bad.

The wild rose bush I planted last year seems to have attracted a healthy colony of aphids. The plant looks good, has grown quite large (I’m thinking it’s time for a trellis), and is producing lots of flower buds. But the aphids! The horror! I’m not freaked out much by bugs but you should have seen how thick they were along some stems. It gives me the shivers just thinking about it. They were like teeny, tiny, evil robots of destruction, making their way over a densely packed spread of shivering green and red bodies searching for a position with stem contact. Yikes. I first discovered this last weekend on the way out for lunch and vowed (shaking fists at the sky) to get to it the next day. Thankfully, it rained overnight and that washed off a good many of them. This week I have been going out daily to wash them off followed by a douse of my herbal buzz spray concoction (it’s in the book). I was pleased to discover that year-old herbal bug tea still smells okay — which is good since the wind shot some of it back at me. As predicted nothing else in the garden has any sort of bug infestation — just the roses. In fact most of the plants around the roses are insect repellents, but those crafty aphids still managed to find their way to the gold.

The soil is terrible on that side of the garden (the new side) and I’m sure that’s not exactly helping the roses fight the good fight. The plants look healthy but one look at the soil tells me otherwise…. I really need to add more amenders to that side and add two more bags of mulch to the entire garden. Weeds are coming up faster than I can pull them in certain spots and the soil on the newer side is just sadly lacking in decent organic content. I used up all the compost in containers so I’m going to have to buy some.

What else is happening:

I fixed the fence and extended it slightly. I ran out of branches before I could cover the entire garden. Oh well.
The irises are in full bloom. It looks like someone stepped on a few but so far an entire section has not been destroyed, unlike last year. I even had enough to cut a bunch to enjoy indoors. Also see wild dwarf iris.
The Euphorbia is in bloom. I cut some of these to bring indoors as well. This one emits a sappy secretion so burn with a flame (I used a lighter) before placing in water.
Planted the Nicotiana I bought at the Parkdale Plant Sale before we left for New York. I saved some for the deck too. They get really big and lush but the night-time blooming habit means I must have some on the deck in order to enjoy the flowers.
Peony is in action.
Purple Smoke Bush seems to be making a comeback after being stepped on last year. Someone cracked the main stem right where the large stems join. Special thanks and shout-outs once again to the drunken idiots who see the garden as a handy place to urinate on their way from the bar.

And now moving on to the deck:

First there was the cleanup. That’s boring stuff so I won’t bother. I decided to do as little as possible before leaving for New York because I worried that plants would not survive in my absense. Unfortunately a few of the alpines I purchased at the Parkdale Plant Sale did not make it. A cosmos I bought as a prop for a television appearance was eaten by an animal. And speaking of plants eaten by animals, an unknown mammal is back at it again this year. It could be a squirrel or a raccoon since they are the only culprits around here. I have yet to see either on the deck but am left every morning with the remnants of a disaster. Okay I’m exaggerating because anything they tend to be interested in that I have covered with a chicken wire or plastic bottle cloche has been left untouched. However, some plants that were not covered have been either completely eaten (a newly planted sedum. Who knew? They never go for this!), or partially eaten (lavender, sage).

A bunch of containers are yet to be planted up, and with this Sunday’s Herb Fair at Harbourfront I expect to have a lot more planting to do, but here are some photos of finished projects.

Fire escape planter box – I can’t technically call this a succulent box anymore because I added an english lavender this year. It looked really good two days ago before the unknown mammal ate half the lavender and crushed a few of the large sedum stems. A cloche now protects the remaining lavender.
Some veggies – There are more but here’s a big cluster of containers. Here you can see (clockwise): black cherry tomato, lemon thyme, rosemary, purple beauty pepper, purple tomatillo, lemon cucumber, green sausage tomato, silver fir tree tomato, and another tomatillo.
Cart full of plants – I picked these up yesterday from Colette of Urban Harvest at the Dufferin Grove Farmer’s Market. These include the purple tomatillos, all the tomatoes I listed above, two basil varieties, peppers (and more than listed above), and lemon and tangerine marigolds. The marigolds are really cool. They have feathery foliage and really do taste like lemons and tangerines. In fact I’d say they taste a lot like citrus peels. Definitely not your average, boring marigolds.
More plants – Mrs. Burns lemon basil, red rubin basil (I think), dill, a striped german tomato I got from a friend at a party last weekend.

More News:

- A bunch of us from the Toronto YGG group are meeting up at the Herb fair this Sunday at noon for a plant geekery field trip. Anyone in the area is welcome to join us.

- I’ve begun posting about my trip to New York over here. I am also keeping a general book-related journal here.

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