Allotment review and dreams for 2013

As many of you already know, we began our journey into allotment gardening two years ago with a large, sunny plot at Ottawa’s city-run allotments in the Alta Vista neighbourhood.  The garden is 25′ x 50′ and when we arrived in the spring of 2011, our designated plot was boggy (ok, under water!) and unkempt.

When we were finally able to access it after the water had subsided, we carefully pulled up all the sturdy tomato stakes, piled them in a corner and waited for our delivery of mushroom compost.

Of course, when we returned, the stakes were nowhere to be found.

We started slowly and methodically and finally had a significant portion (say, two-thirds) of the entire plot prepared and then planted.  At the end of Year 1, we had tamed much of the space, leaving it top-dressed with straw to await the spring of 2012.

Then, this past year we had a relatively dry season.  But miraculously, we still had a bountiful harvest.

Not least of which the cutting garden – it was rapturous!

Of course, this is from someone who has a relatively small city plot, mostly shade, where it has never been possible to seed annuals simply for the joy of cutting and filling vases in the house.

But now I present you with the real reason for this post.  Behold:  the epitome of veggie gardening — the gardens at Longwood.

Honestly, a girl can dream can’t she?

Now I know that Longwood has an army of gardeners working on these display gardens, and a wealth of knowledge, but it’s good to have something to aspire to, no?

Meanwhile, in our own allotment, I will have to make crisper edges, organize my veggies better as well as place ornamental flowers and vegetables so that they make sense visually (my nasturtiums last year looked lovely as young plants but soon overran both the plants next to them as well as the path) — I think I’ll use the ‘Lemon Gem’ and ‘Tangerine Gem’ marigolds as an edger next to the leafy veggies.

Image from: http://www.flower-gardening-made-easy.com/edible-flowers.html

I’ll also think about constructing more efficient and effective plant supports, something that Longwood does spectacularly.

And growing monster sunflowers ….just for the joy of it (and to feed the birds)!

Now don’t be telling me that veggie gardening is all about the harvest because yes, I am in agreement with that.  But as an ornamental gardener primarily, I am determined to make my allotment a feast for the eyes as well as for the belly :c)

As it stands, I have a long way to go!  I can’t wait for the spring …. I’ll keep you posted.

 

Allotment garden memories: Summer 2012

I thought I’d take a look back at our 2012 allotment garden season.  Such a clean slate back in May!  Still there are some straw bales left over from the first year, but much has already been laid down on both the beds (to keep weeds suppressed and the moisture in) and the pathways.

Our virgin outing on May 24th, 2012.  Armed with forks, home-grown seedlings and bonemeal.

Tomato plants laid out much further apart this year than last.  And only about 6 or 8 plants this year instead of double that from last year!

And greens seeds are going in!

A few weeks later there is already bounty… ‘Monet’s Garden Mesclun’ from Renee’s Seeds was insect-free.

Not so much with the ‘Spicy Greens’ mix, where it looks like slugs or earwigs have been leaving their mark.

I set aside one whole bed for seeding annuals and other cutting flowers.  I scattered the seed in the last week of May and a few weeks later, the fruits of my moderate labour were sprouting.  It’s hard to tell what’s a weed and what’s worth keeping at this stage so you just have to watch and wait.

By late July, the garden is bounteous with flowers ready for cutting for the next two months.  Borage, cosmos, zinnias, nasturtium and others, with hollyhock putting on a first year’s growth.

A bucket full in the back of the car!

Fresh cut flowers in the house make everything better.

All the yellow surrounding our plot is goldenrod; not the source of my terrible hay fever last year since that was courtesy of ragweed.  I believe the mechanical cultivation of the rear of our garden last spring gave the goldenrod seed a chance sprout, making the section that we didn’t weed full of it by the late summer!

Even with extra muscle, digging the mid-summer weeds out of the ‘last frontier’ was back-breaking work.  And don’t be thinking I didn’t do any of that labour; I was the dirtiest, sweatiest one there!

This past summer was very hot and dry.  Despite the parched lawns and droopy plants elsewhere, our allotment didn’t seem worse for wear.  We didn’t have any regular irrigation other than putting on the sprinkler every so often – and this was mainly to soften up the soil that we’d be weeding.

Goodnight allotment garden.  See you next spring.

 

The definition of polite

So Canadian.

 

Painting and panting: what have you been doing in this heat?

Where the heck have I been?

Well, I thought logically, that if we were stuck in the house for a portion of this heat wave that Ottawa has been having, we should be doing something constructive.

Painting anyone?

No, I said ‘painting’ not ‘panting’!

It’s been so hot and dry that lawns are looking like this.  The only bright spot here is the chicory, with its luminous blue flowers, not showing any ill effects from the lack of water.

You would think that our allotment would also be showing signs of serious thirst.  We visited in the middle of the drought and found that the annuals and biennials that I grew from seed were looking no worse for wear.

The zinnias and clarkia are stealing the show, but the borage is also looking stunning.

The allotment so far has produced some really beautiful produce:

This ‘Bright Lights’ rainbow chard has been harvested several times for an excellent vitamin-rich vegetable.  I saute it with garlic and onions, and serve it alongside a broiled salmon filet.  Yum.

And these beets are a variety of jewel-toned specimens – red, gold and candystripe!   I’ve harvested a few (haven’t found the gold ones yet), cooked them up and had them in a lovely beet salad with locally made goat cheese that I purchased at our local farmer’s market from Clarmell on the Rideau in Manotick.

Many of the veggies I’m growing in the allotment are from seed I obtained from Renee’s Garden, a seed producer in Felton, California.

Renee Shepherd has been in the seed business since 1985.  After completing a PhD and teaching Environmental Studies she opened Renee’s Garden in 1997.  Through her work with Shepherd’s Seeds (1985 – 1996) and Renee’s Garden Seeds, she has made many ‘exotic’ varieties of vegetables and herbs just a phone call or email away to us gardeners around the world.  She says:

This seed line is my personal selection of new, exciting and unusual seed choices of time-tested heirlooms, the best international hybrids and fine open-pollinated varieties. I  harvest and use the vegetables and herbs in my kitchen to choose the most delicious, and cut the flowers for bouquets to select the finest colors, forms and fragrances. Our varieties are tested and guaranteed for every major US climate zone.

We have been clearing more and more of our allotment as time and the weather allows, making space for some new shrubs that I am trialing (more on that later) and a spicebush (Lindera benzoin) that I obtained from Connons Nursery from my friend Dan Clost (who along with working at a very large and well-known nursery also happens to be an excellent tale spinner and writer).  It is a native shrub that is the host plant for the caterpillar that transforms into the swallowtail butterfly and is a great alternative to the comparatively loud forsythia – if you can find it, that is!

Of course the other imperative necessitating finding space to grow large shrubs is to provide shade for said companion, Skye-dog:

For our allotment has none.  And Skye spends much of her time while we’re there sitting in the car :c(

So, the painting is complete, the heat wave has subsided just a tad, and more work in my own garden (and those of my clients) beckon.

 

Emma Dibben: illustrator and allotment gardener extraordinaire!

These luscious figs, just enticingly juicy enough to make your mouth water and purple enough to evoke jewel-like baubles, are the work of English artist Emma Dibben.

If these images look at all familiar to you (like these delightful French Breakfast radishes), it might be that you’ve been lucky enough to acquire a re-usable Waitrose shopping bag.

Emma graduated from Falmouth College of Arts  with a degree in illustration in 2004 and makes her home in Bristol.  Today she has an impressive list of clients besides the mythic Waitrose …

… so you may have also seen her work in issues of House & Garden magazine, BBC Gardens Illustrated, Conde Nast Traveller, The English Garden and other print media.

But fans of her work can also buy her originals or signed prints either from her own website or from the Bristol Contemporary Art website here.

Emma has an allotment garden which she has blogged about since 2010 and this is where she gets much of her visual inspiration.

I find the best illustration is done by those who have seen, felt and tasted their subject.

Emma clearly has a green thumb and exercises it regularly on this plot of verdant earth.

Sometimes with company…

She is a committed allotment-er and grows not simply veggies in the ground, but fruits and berries from trees and vines.  I think her allotment is not simply abundant but also beautiful.

Even in the winter -

 

Her artistry both on paper and in the garden has truly given me renewed inspiration for my own plot which, by the way, just experienced tomato devastation.  So at my virgin allotment in the ‘colonies’ -

- with tomatoes that I had grown from seed and planted thus-ly:

They now look like this one:

I have been told by Mary, a veteran allotment-er, that the culprits are field mice (our guesses had been giant cutworms, voracious earwigs, rabbits, groundhogs, etc…).  Well, live and let live I say so immediately went out to the Lansdowne Market the following day and purchased four new tomato plants: 2 Brandywine and 2 I can’t remember (another heirloom variety).

As you may remember from last year, I had high hopes for this allotment and my hopes have not been dashed.  This season we have grown and already harvested different varieties of greens as well as some Rainbow chard.

Here is Monet’s Garden mesclun from Renee’s Seeds.

In the last couple of weeks the plants have grown exponentially!  I have also snagged some blackberry, raspberry and haskap plants from certain death on a rack in a Loblaws garden centre as well as several shrubs that I received to trial as a result of my membership in the Garden Writers Association.  Lucky me!  So, although my allotment is several minutes from home and completely at the mercy of mice and men, I am hopeful that it can begin to flourish as a place of ornamental experimentation and tasty produce.  I may even buy some fruit trees!

I’ll be back again with more photos.  In the meantime, I will dream of Emma’s beautiful plot and devise ways to make mine half as lovely.

 

The Crab Shack, Tybee Island

Repeat after me:  Yum.

This meal was called the “Half & Half”: 1/2 a pound of shrimp and 1/2 pound of snow crabs legs.

I’m not such a fan of the giant cup of melted butter, but I can tell you that nothing on this plate needed extra butter.  The shellfish was juicy and succulent and tasted of the ocean and the corn was already dripping.  Nothing extraneous here.  Well maybe the ‘Crabber Cocktail’.  Boy, was it all good ’cause I ate the whole thing!

This place is called The Crab Shack and is located on Tybee Island, just off the coast of Georgia about twenty minutes from Savannah.  According to their motto, it is “where the elite eat in their bare feet.”  While I didn’t see any movie stars without shoes on, I did see plenty of alligators in their “Gator Lagoon”.

The gators here are babies, raised in captivity, and are sent back to their breeder when they get too big.  Don’t know what happens to them then, but they seem to be well taken care of here.

It’s a combination ‘tiki’ Disneyland and laid-back seafood mecca.  When I say laid-back, I mean you throw your shells through the hole in the centre of your table and they fall into the garbage bin that’s underneath.  You sit in the dappled shade under the live oak tree, lazily watching everyone eating around you or at the gorgeous marshland and tidal pools just feet away.

Skye-dog managed to remain laid back too, even with the resident ‘rescue’ cats wandering around.

 

Valentine sweet tooth

For two weeks now we’ve driven by this place.  I am not a ‘sweets’ person, per se, but I do appreciate good chocolate and  homemade treats.

So in honour of Valentine’s Day, when everyone should get to indulge, I give you the Candy Kitchen.

Scary, yes?

But wait … there’s more!

We’ll take one of everything!

(wink)

 

A foodie interlude

I am always on the search for the best latte.  And I believe I may have found it.  Here.

Now, I prefer to believe that this luscious, creamy, rich and nutty cuppa was made with skim milk, even though I neglected to ask for it that way.   This will allow me to believe it was a ‘low-cal’ indulgence.  A girl can dream, can’t she?

This amazing coffee originates from the Metropolis Coffee Company in Chicago, but you can also buy it by the bag here in this independent and friendly cafe in Indian Shores, Florida.  I might just have to bring some home…

And in the same spirit, I believe that this jackpot — that is, this incredibly moist, flavourful, gigantic and scrumptuous muffin was also calorie free.  It was the orange cranberry one and they make them all here, in house.   I say you should have one flavour every day and then start over again.

This foodie interlude was brought to you by the Indian Shores Coffee Company, my kind of place.

 

Salad vs. fried twinkie. Hmmm…let me think.

Today we went to the downtown St. Petersburg farmers’ market.  It is held every Saturday and is amazingly well attended, both by buyers and vendors.  It looked to me that just as many locals frequent this market as tourists.

One of the things that was so thrilling were the plants.  This woman is selling Frangipani (Plumeria) cuttings which miraculously root when you stick them in soil!

These are desert rose (Adenium) plants — such gnarly trunks and smooth branches with giant, in-your-face blooms!  I love the bonsai feeling of these show stoppers.

And peach trees!  Oh what I could grow if I lived here!

There was no shortage of food for sale …

… such succulent fresh produce!

Okay.  I know I’ve been belly-aching about the shortage of salads around these parts (and beyond).  So you’ll be shocked when I show you what I ate.

Are you kidding me?!!!!  Is this a dare?  I really thought about it – hard.  But in the end, a fried Twinkie would have to wait for another day…

But pulled pork sliders with homemade french fries and coleslaw — I think not.  Don’t hate me.  I’ll have a salad tomorrow…

This is the ‘hole in the wall’ that made me eat that.  It’s called The Burg Bar & Grill and it’s on Central Avenue in St. Petersburg.  I highly recommend it.  They’re nice people with good comfort food.

 

Red Fife wheat and keeping our seedy heritage alive

This is my newest, favourist thing.  Bread made entirely with Red Fife wheat flour.  This loaf has loads of flavour; it is nutty and rich, with a texture that is dense and chewy.  The perfect kind of bread for cold, late season days. 

Red Fife wheat was named after David  Fife, my great, great, great grandfather (on my father’s mother’s side) who came to Canada from Scotland in 1820. 

David Fife's cabin circa 1820s, Otonabee Township, Peterborough County

Early records indicate a friend sent him seed from Glasgow that he had found on a ship originating from Danzig.  It turned out this was an ideal strain of wheat for the unpredictable and unforgiving Canadian climate.  It was the first wheat that was grown successfully and reliably on the prairies and kick-started the industry in that tough, colonial century.  It is, therefore, a heritage wheat, the parent of all varieties grown in Canada today.

Lang Mill; where Red Fife wheat was ground into flour from the 1840s onward

This wheat was, for the most part, lost by the end of the 19th century when other, earlier to harvest and therefore more industry friendly, strains became favoured.  But Red Fife remained a parent to many of these hybrids.  Throughout most of the 20th century, this oldest strain of ‘heritage’ wheat was only being kept alive in seed banks and by small scale seed savers.   It was all but unknown to Canadians until the beginning of this century when Sharon Rempel in Victoria, B.C. and a group of passionate slow food activists, chefs, seed savers and others sought out some of these old world grains to grow again. 

When Sharon Rempel planted her seeds she had a vision: someday Red Fife would be grown again commercially. To a considerable degree, that image has materialized. Red Fife is produced by small-scale farmers—mostly, if not exclusively, organic—who grow it outside the Wheat Board’s tracking system. The movement originated in the West and from there gradually spread across the country. In 2007, approximately five hundred tons of Red Fife was harvested, from as far west as the Gulf Islands in British Columbia to eastern Nova Scotia. Interestingly, it didn’t return to County Road 4 until 2005 when four women, all of whom live and farm on David Fife Line, decided to resurrect this forgotten chapter in their local history.

“We realized we lived on David Fife Line and very few people had any sense of what that meant,” commented Helen Knibb, a member of the Fife Line Sisterhood, as they christened themselves. “We felt compelled to acknowledge our agricultural history; it’s part of our heritage.”

They contacted Saskatchewan farmer Marc Loiselle (http://loiselle.ma.googlepages.com), who became interested in Red Fife in 2001, and has made it his mission to provide seeds for growers across the country. Virtually all the Red Fife seed planted in Ontario comes from him, although local farmers are starting to produce their own. The Sisterhood planted one-and-a-quarter acres their first year, and, with the help of local farmer Peter Leahy, who was growing a small amount himself, produced a second crop, but they didn’t have the infrastructure to grow the grain on a much larger scale and bowed out of the business. Leahy’s interest was whetted and he has gradually increased the quantity he grows at Merrylynd, his certified organic family farm just outside Peterborough, Ontario. Last year he planted fifty acres, a relatively large quantity in the Red Fife world.

Like others I spoke with, Leahy says he doesn’t have enough to keep up with the demand. “People from Jamie Kennedy’s called me recently,” he told me in early April, “but I couldn’t give them any flour. I need to keep some for seed.” At least two other farmers are growing Red Fife in Ontario—Patricia Hastings at the Centre for Integrated Pest Management (CIPM) in Madoc and Sean McGivern of Saugeen Specialty Grains in the Owen Sound area.

Today, you can buy Red Fife flour in bulk at select locations like the Wheat Berry on Main Street in Ottawa, or go direct to Patricia Hastings’ farm in Madoc.