Quick Harvest Monday

As I was digging roots out of the ground for you, I thought, what would Veggie Patch readers prefer - the dirty or the clean photo?


From left to right: daylily tubers, parsnips from the pathetic parsnip patch last year, a parsley root and two self seeded parsnips looked great from last year.

Speaking of dirt, check out how much better our soil is than when we first moved in. You can see how this shovelfull reveals a sandy, lighter textured soil beneath the darker, more organic rich surface that is kept mulched with compost, leaf mould or other organic conditioner throughout the year. If I were to go a shovelful further, you would see a progressive lightening of texture and colour with the occasional greyish clay lens. Nice to see (not) hard work pay off.


The partially finished compost that it was topdressed with last fall is ready for another coat of organic matter after spring seeds have germinated.

You really wanted to see the dirty one, didn't you?


Roots with dirt on them, fresh from the garden.

Your Veggie Patch is Big Business

One of the most wonderful things about gardening is the opportunities to share - ideas, seeds, plants. Little packages of promise, a seed transforms into food, medicine, craft materials, ground builder, habitat, beauty and more. A high percentage of the plants that I grow in my garden have been given to me by others though for more unusual specimens I have had to hunt long and go far, even for natives. For things I can't find through my seed networks, I rely on small seed companies that use organic, sustainable methods, grow their own seed, and prefer heritage varieties or those bred by traditional methods.


Cheap eats or at least plants that produce fruit at the local big, box store.


A couple of years ago, I noticed Big Business muscling in on this backyard veggie gig. It had always been there supplying sweet corn and onion starts but now it was selling 'heritage' varieties too.



Oh know it's that same blond skinny lady that's sold me shoes, cars, shampoo, and now carrots?


The bigger the Grow-Your-Own club grew, the more the Green Eyed Money Monster noticed. Eat-Local, Be-Healthy, Urban-Farming - the buzz words of a movement toward producing food more sustainably were cut out of the newspaper of trends and pasted ransom note style onto their own advertisements.


Going for a can of paint at your local box hardware store, you might just stumble into these bold displays and think "This is the year I will finally grow some of my own food." You might fill your basket with your very first packet of lettuce and tomatoes. Great! Get Growing!



The new outdoor room seems to be the Victory Garden. I'm sure it's just Martha's concern for the planet and interest in cooking...


In the meantime, if you are looking for alteratives, here are some sources.


Seed Trading Networks - There is lots of variation here from living seed banks such as Seeds of Diversty to round robins started from local plant/seed swapping sites like Plantcycle. Any place gardeners hang out, is a place to find people's trade lists such as Gardenweb and Homegrown Goodness. Of course, to trade you need seed and there are lots of great books at the local library on how to grow and collect your own garden seed. Realseeds in the UK has good descriptions for various plants. I can't forget Bloggers Seed Network. Lots of bloggers, in fact, will have seed lists and enjoy trading or just sharing seed. Speaking of free, some places like Wintersown are just that generous!


Garden Clubs, Nature Organizations, and other local plant sales - Plant enthusiast clubs, or demonstration gardens, like the Ottawa Horticultural Society and the Wildlife Fletcher Garden - Saturday June 5, 2010 from 9:30am - 12:30pm - commonly hold plant sales. Also watch out for the Rare and Unusual Plant sale held at the Experimental Farm on Sunday May 9, 2010 from 9:00am - 1:00pm. Even the City of Ottawa is giving away trees. Plant sales are often used as fundraisers too - watch for them as the season warms.

Local Seed Companies - Seedy Saturdays are a great way to learn who your local seed sellers are. Some of them don't have big operations or even websites as I learned when I met Mountain Grove Seed Co. from the Perth event. Organic / alternative food stores such as Rainbow Foods will ocassionally supply 'small seed.' The advantage of seed that is grown locally is that it will be better adapted to local conditions. You can get plants too such as from Yukos Open Pollinated Seed Plant Sale - I'll post details on her plant sale shortly, and I Wet My Plants - local blogger who also has a tomato sale.

Over the Fence - Don't just send those spready (okay, invasive) plants over (or under) the fence to your neighbour, pass some beans and tomato seed along as well. It is also the best way to get ahold of any plant with enthusiastic growth. Mint should not be bought! P.S. If you do buy mint, then just get it from the grocery store, stick those branches in water and watch them root before your very eyes. Some of the best varieties of veg have names like 'Italian Friend Tomato,' and 'Bert's Bean.' This might be slightly annoying to people who are trying to sort out all the multiple names for similar varieties but it doesn't change that it is a good plant!

Save Your Own Seed - I know, I already covered this one, but in the hard slog that is Autumn when we are cutting down the jungle sized weeds, hauling in pumpkins and almost wishing for snow to give us a break, don't forget to pull some seeds off your favourite plants. Your slightly too common amaranth or magenta spreen is something another person is yearning for. Besides, sharing is what us gardeners do.

Harvest Monday - Taste Test Take II

This San Michele cabbage head breezed through our unusually mild winter. I could harvest it but I think I'll let it, and its friends make seeds.

Apparently, this unseasonable spring decided to take a U-turn as soon as the official spring date had passed so after today's possible high of 9C, we are nose diving into forcasts that use the words: Freezing Rain, Possible Flurries and Double Subzero Celcius temperatures. I know spring will return but as I will have to wait, I am going to go outside and see what salad materials I can harvest from the still unfrozen ground.


Orach sprouts up early.

I have baby nodding onions (Allium cernuum) in the ground and decided to take a nibble today. At first, I thought, not much of a strong taste but then a gentle, mild quite pleasant oniony flavour developed after a couple of chews.


Pale yellow crocus half open on this partly cloudy day.

Also in the front garden were crocuses and violas a-bloom. Among them were various bellflowers. I tried two. The first was a small, yellow leafed variety which was not bad but as you can see it would take quite a bit to bulk up a salad and the common Campanula persicifolia (I believe). At first, I thought "tastes green, like grass" but really it was not bad and there was a fair amount of leaf available. Ox-eye daisy never really impresses me when it comes to green so I designate it 'pot herb' until I experiment more. The leaf buds are sometimes pickled as a caper substitute.


Zebra mallow edible but palatable?

After various grassy greens, I popped some Zebra Mallow - Malva sylvestris - into my mouth and though I find its texture a bit tough (preferring the salad version 'curly mallow'), it had a very pleasing sweetness. Oregano was quite good raw or maybe it was in comparison. I was also happy to see that my Celeriac made it through the winter. The early greens shooting up were very yummy, tasting just like the swollen root/stem.


Young salsify sending up grass thin leaves.

I also nibbled on some salsify - Tragopogon porrifolius - which is called 'oyster root' as is Scorzonera. It's leaves are thin, almost grasslike but they are not hairy like its perennial namesake and so the lettucy flavour could be better appreciated. Too bad it didn't produce more abundant spring shoots.

And now I'm going to hide indoor until spring reappears and its pea planting time.

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Plants for a Future - Bellflowers
Pickled Ox-eye Daisy buds from Forbes Wild Food

Organic Orchard - The Interview

One member of Homegrown Goodness, a plant breeder and enthusiast forum, always stuns me with the pictures of his orchard so I asked if he would be kind enough to agree to an interview. He agreed and here is more insight into what he grows.

Where is your orchard?

My orchard is situated in Burgundy where the climate is half continental - zone 7. We have our last frost around the middle of May and our first frost in the middle of October. In the winter, the temperature rarely gets below - 10°C (but we had -18°C this winter ! ). Unprotected aerial parts of fig trees were almost all "burned." Fortunately, I grow some of them under a tunnel.

How many trees / fruiting bushes / types of fruit do you have on your property and where did you get them from?

I grow approximately 130 to 150 trees. There are maybe 100 different varieties, mainly apple trees (60-70%), pear trees (10%), along with plums, cherries, peaches, figs, apricot, but I don't count on them because of the climate. 2009 was an exceptionnal year and we had big harvests. I also have 40-50 fruiting bushes. They came from catalogs, tree nurseries which grow their trees organically. I can't name all of these, but here is some of my favorites:

Pépinière Burri
Christophe Delay Pépiniériste
Pepinieres Chataignon Vial
I obtained many cuttings from "Les croqueurs de pommes" - information at bottom

Would you describe a season of harvest from what becomes ripe first to what is the last fruit to ripen?

We eat the first strawberries in May from inside the tunnel. I had selected very perfumed varieties that produce from May to October to avoid frost. Next come the raspberries, blackberries, and then the first pears "précoce de trévoux" in July, apples "transparente blanche", "vista bella" in July-August, etc ... and finally the Physalis peruviana. We can store apples until May- June such as "sainte-germaine, "Jolibois," "querina," and "belle fille de Salins."

What varieties are the work horses (most reliable and productive) of your orchard? Which are the rarest or most interesting?

If I had to plant another time, I would choose 80% of varieties that produce every year (or nearly) and are resistant to diseases, such as "querina," "jolibois," "reine des reinettes," "belle fille de Salins," "reinette d'Amboulne" for the apple trees. For the pear trees, my selection could be "conférence," "sucrée de Montluçon," "précoce de Trévoux" and a pear to be cooked like "Saint-Remy." As for grapes, I would choose "perdin," "aladin," "pinot noir." For the remaining 20%, I would select for taste, sometimes exceptional in my opinion, such as "tiuffat," "pomme cloche," "rayotte de Nommay," "patte de loup," "reinette ananas" (apples), "Joséphine de Malines" (pear), cerise "belle magnifique" (cherry), "des Béjonnières" (plum) "ronde de Bordeaux," "pastilière," "dalmatie" (figs), and "velvet" (peach).

How do you grow your fruit? Any tips or tricks that you would like to pass on?

The most natural ways possible : I use compost and I almost never spray. Sometimes I use plant infusions: mainly comfrey, nettle, equisetum. I also sometimes apply powder of basalt. The idea is to make the trees stronger and to accept that all is not perfect. For example, we can't avoid completely the troubles caused by the carpocapse - coddling moth. These fruits are used for making juice.

Do you do any other gardening / growing?

We produce all the vegetables we need as many gardeners do : potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, onions, corn, parsnip, garlic... very classic ! ...but I tried unusual plants in a classical garden (without a total success) to grow amaranth for grains and quinoa. Producing the nearly perfect protein is a dream for the moment.

Are you involved in any organizations?

Kokopelli: I think it's not necessary to introduce this well known association. I save some seeds (just for sharing ) for the organization.

Concerning fruit trees, I was involved in the "croqueurs de pommes" a funny name meaning "Apple biters" for a french organization saving heirloom varieties, mainly fruit trees.

A local association (no link, sorry, where everybody shares what they know : botanic, recognizing and using wild plants, grafting (my field), etc...

I would like to add some links of magazines / associations which were very important and help me on the way :-

http://www.terrevivante.org/ - I discovered them in 1982.
http://www.natureetprogres.org/
http://www.greffer.net/


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Thank you Gérard for your work in creating this inspiring orchard.

Harvest Monday - Spring Taste Test

The unusually warm weather we've been having is that NSD (No Snow Day) is fast approaching. We'll probably get a few flurries before spring really settles in but tomorrow the forecast is calling for an incredible 15C!

So for harvest monday, I did some taste testing of various spring greens as I made a salad.


Corn salad looking lush in March

The bulk was provided by corn salad - Valerianella - also known as lamb's lettuce and it really is a valuable crop right around lambing time. I did not seed these lovely, crunchy, mild tasting leaves as they are reliable self seeders. They have slowly spread outward from the original spot they were sown to cover a good 8 foot wide radius, just enough for plenty of winter and spring salads. Besides being abundant in spring, they are also available in the coldframe all year - yes, you read me right.

To this mild backdrop, I added flavour.

Egyptian onion did not disappoint, providing succulent onion tasting hollow spears. Bloody dock was crisp and slightly sour as expected from a member of the Rumex genus. Sorrel was lemony and chicory was mildly but pleasantly bitter. Horseradish shoots, as always, were an interesting addition with their pleasantly pungent, slippery flavour. And there was a mound of parsley from overwintered plants, tasting just as it should.


Bloody dock opening its decorative red veined leaves.

Surprises in great tastes for spring shoots were Red Valerian - Centranthus ruber - which had an excellent mild, sweet crunchy flavour like the best lettuce and English Daisy - Bellis perennis - whose leaves were almost peppery like arugula. Funnily enough, Plants for a Future had different impressions of the quality of these greens. Maybe it is in the amount of frost they received.

In my so-so category included salad burnet - Sanguisorba minor - whose reputed cucumber taste is always lost on me though I did pick up something vaguely gasoline like. Scorzonera has a nice nutty taste but it is hard to appreciate because the leaves are hairy. Also, Mallow - Malva moschata - is a bit too fiborous for fresh eating in my opinion. I prefer the seedpods.


Salad burnet takes over the brick.

Plants that I did not swallow included yarrow - Achillea millefolium. It had a prickly unpleasant texture which made me spit it out. I think I'll leave it to medicinal uses. Also, creeping sedum was too acrid. I do like Sedum telephium whose succulent leaves were excellent when I had them on a wild weed walk while they were growing under deciduous leaf cover.

That's all for today but enough to full my salad bowl. Lots more plants to nibble on in future days. Welcome back spring, early though it may be!


First flower of spring - winter aconite. I also have a viola almost in full bloom - crazy!

Gardening on a Gabriola Slope - Terracing

No, not my garden. My mom's. They also have daffodiles a-bloom.


My parents have carved them out a little oasis on a gulf island in the northern Pacific Ocean. You know these people, they call you in February to report blooming bulbs and all that. And by carved out, I mean literally as the land was levelled out so that a house could be build leaving a steep slope looming behind them.



Terracing of a steep slope.


As my mother says, "This bank is at a 45 degree angle and weeding was treacherous for someone who cannot walk at such a slant. The soil was not good either and plants/bushes did not really thrive. The winter rains began to wash the soil down and it looked awful."


They decided to borrow a technique from hill farmers of old by terracing.


"We started at the bottom, drilling holes through the mini-ties (four layers thick) to accommodate long rebars to hold up the logs that shore the soil of each bed.The rebar went into the soil three feet below the ties. The first terrace is quite deep, about three feet, and required a lot of soil. The second and third are not quite so deep. Filling was hard work. Buckets of soil were hauled one at a time along the walkway, down the steps and poured into the area. We estimate that approximately five yards of soil were used for the whole project." The side mini-ties are re-barred to the soil in the same way."


I take it that the soil was delivered at the top of the hill which makes sense if you knew the lay of their land.



More terracing with soil added to the what I like to call the pre-soil of the gulf islands - read crowbar required.


"Once the lowest terrace was full, we proceeded to fill the next. I planted iris along the bed and the next. On the fourth layer, there are three lithadoras, one Himalyaan sarcococca and several more irises. My back complained bitterly as we moved assembly line - putting in soil, planting the iris rhisome, along with some tulips I'd pulled up from another spot, and then putting in more soil around the roots. Dad's arms were equally unhappy as the soil was quite wet from all the rain we have been having in January and February."



Profile shot of the terraced gardens.


"The first layer was the last we planted. From the back garden were transplanted three types of Oregano, two kinds of sage, French tarragon, winter savory, blue catmint, lemon balm and chives. I also planted three vincas on the edge of the second terrace and in the future they will hand over, creating a nice display later on this year."


"The fennel was removed from the veggie garden as I've heard they retard the growth of beans. No wonder they were so pitiful last year. Now the only herbs left in the back garen are two bay trees and a lovely big rosemary bush."


Oh that's the other things those West coasters do, boast about their outdoor rosemary and bay! Nice.



Hellebores blooming since early February of course. They are called the Christmas Rose on occasion... har har har.


So mom, I'm going to make you promise to send us an update on that wonderful garden, including the veggie patch that we enjoyed last year. P.S. My mom won a ribbon for her Trombocino squash at the fair last year - most unusual vegetable I believe.

Really Easy Seed Starting

This is a post for a friend who will be balcony gardening this year. It's a simple technique for starting tomatoes if you just don't have any space. Some of you will recognize this as a variation on wintersown.*

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Cat eating your window ledge tomato starts? Want to give your squash seedlings a head start but don't have any more space under the lights? Plants always die on you because you don't have time to harden off? Plants don't perform as well as you would like with regular wintersown techniques?

I like to call this the Indoor - Outdoor technique and I plan on taking pictures of it to the end - whatever that end might be. I have had success so far.


What's going on in there? My eldest looks in the bottle mini greenhouse/planter.

Cherry Tomato Starts*

Step 1: Get a plastic jug or pop bottle and poke holes for drainage at the bottom. Cut in half. You can cut some windows in the side for further ventilation later.


Juice container with being pierced with a metal BBQ squewer

Step 2: Put seed starting mix / dirt in the bottom half. Water well. Put in some seeds

Step 3: Replace the top by squeezing in a bit at the sides. There are other ways of doing this, check out wintersown for more ideas of containers and techniques.

Step 4: Put outside during the day when the temperature is above 4 C. This is why it is best to start around April 1st but this year, with the unusually nice weather we've been having, I started now. However, for vining starts like squash, I'd wait until at least mid-April if you are planning on putting them out mid to late May. Later if you aren't planting out until June.


Yes, those are some violas started this way already up and growing.

Step 5: If the day is especially hot, open up slightly for more circulation. Entirely remove the cover if seedlings have been exposed to wind for a few days. You can also place seedlings in a box so they get less wind. If very warm, you may also want to put them in a lightly shady spot (if possible) while you are at work all day.

Step 6: Take in your planting bottle each evening unless the night temperatures are above 6C (margin of error for frost). Remember to water frequently if it has not rained or is sunny.

When the seedling is between 6-8 weeks old and danger of frost is passed, you can plant in final location. In Ottawa this varies from mid May to the beginning of June.

More pictures to come as project progresses.

Have fun!

* Tomatoes, squash can quite easily be started using regular wintersowing techniques. I like this method because I find frost tender plants get a bit bigger. I sometimes also germinate seed indoors and then give them the indoor / outdoor treatment from when they are tiny seedlings so they don't spend any time under lights but they are jump started into growing before nighttime temperatures would be conducive to that.

So feel free to just sow and leave them outside. That'll work too. You may have to water on occasion during dry weather.