Exploring the world of gardening. Observations, gardens to visit, thoughts on ecology, gardener interviews, and commentary.
On Saturday afternoon Mary and Joan (and Davin, of course) came by and helped us clean up hundreds of cigarette butts, several broken bottles, the bamboo fence we built two seasons ago that had been literally and purposefully kicked in inch-by-inch along its entire length, a bag full of miscellaneous garbage, concrete dust left by …
Hey Toronto! Let’s grow some seedlings together! I posted about this in the forums but wanted to push it here as well since seed starting season in Toronto is happening NOW. So here’s the deal: I’ve managed to secure shelving space in a local, community greenhouse to grow seedlings this spring. Because You Grow Girl …
During our trip to Austin, Texas last week, Ted Forbes, a fellow photo and design geek, drove out to Austin to go on a photo safari. After a series of snafus (mostly my fault), we ended up driving out to Hamilton Pool Preserve, an amazingly gorgeous waterfall about an hour outside of Austin. If you …
Phew, that was fast. I put the finishing touches on an article late last night and it is already up on the Guardian website. This one, about the relationship between myself and my maternal grandmother is a bit more personal than usual and I am still getting used to having put it out there. However, …
I listened to this essay about the importance of physical labor by urban gardener Mary Seton Corboy yesterday morning on the This I Believe program and thought it was so brilliant I had to share. Listening to her talk about digging ditches made me want to run outside and dig something… except that it is …
While in the Cuban countryside, we came upon a number of very old cemeteries that always sat right next to the ocean. I was told that one cemetery dated back to 1919. How they managed to survive the hurricanes when so many homes with much more distance from the ocean haven’t is beyond me. This …
I’m back! I’m covered in mosquito bites. Itchy. I’m sunburned. Also itchy. I’m feeling much more alive and functional than I was before I left, although my brain is also super scrambled from the complexity of this trip. What a trip! I went in with certain expectations based on our previous trip and a certain …
It’s that time of year again. I’m supposed to write some kind of rundown of the year highlighting the ups and downs. Look to the future. Make resolutions. Count my blessings. Recap events. Write some kind of list, maybe? But the brain. The brain is dead. The brain was worked overtime for too long and …
I have already stated that I don’t care for the Holidays, and yet there are a few staples that I do enjoy: cooking and eating good food, making bath products for friends, super tacky over-the-top decoration, and sewing little herbal squares. I’m not sure what it is about the last one. I suppose it started …
My composting worms are housed in an average-sized bin that we keep in the hallway just outside our apartment door. This spot next to the recycling bin is great three out of four seasons of the year since it saves precious space inside our apartment and is the perfect distance between the roof garden and …
“Green Thumbs Up: The Surprisingly Soothing Results of Ground-level Activism” The full article can be seen on the EYE website.
While writing the composting section for the new book, it occurred to me that my list in book one was rather incomplete and only covered some of the things we compost at home. There’s a surprising number of common, everyday items that are fit for the compost, yet many gardeners tend to stick to the …