Some signs of life...

Another short time warp to illustrate the growth of our seedlings.  This year we took a trip to Lee Valley for some gardening supplies, and decided to invest in a grow light.  We opted for a full spectrum ballast, and with some creative rigging were able to create a little grow space in our living room.

The seedlings responded extremely well, we started to see results very quickly!

Light!

Things started growing so quick we had to transplant from the tray to small pots in only a few days! The light has proven to be a great investment, we saw results far beyond what we had last year.  Our home just doesn't get enough sun to grow from seed, this is all part of learning process.

Sprouting!

Well, we're going to have to go back in time here, just early April, so not too far...

 We tried a new soil for the seedlings this year, one with a natural fertilizer comprised of sea plant materials.  Instead of mixing the soil with water and then filling the tray, we added the soil first and then watered, hoping that this would mean a less dense mixture for the sprouts to grow through.

Nico inspected the mixture and approved.

Seeds! Again this year we purchased almost all of our seeds from William Dam.

Labels go on, seeds go in, now we wait...

Onion sets!

So we just barely missed a spring snow storm and got our onion sets in!  A couple of weeks ago we put our onions in, and only a day later it snowed, the weather has been odd to say the least, but it feels much more like spring now.

 

This claw actually really works well, loosening up the dirt was quick and easy.  We did a quick till over parts of the garden in the fall before we sowed the oats, so that helped too.  The now dead and dried oats came out easily as well.

 

 We're planting these onions beside the garlic.

White onion sets from Tregunno Seeds.

Sets get planted one at a time...

...and are covered with the dry oats for protection (good thing too, we were not expecting the aforementioned snow!)

A little water and they're ready to grow!

We're back!

Unseasonably warm weather means early garden excitement! We know that we can't get started on much yet, but some things are already happening!

Garlic!

We planted some garlic bulbs grown by our friends Matt and Erin and 22 of 24 of them are starting to come up!  I'm really looking forward to scapes.

Oats!

We planted some oats as a nurse crop or cover crop, we timed it right so they died off in the cold weather before going to seed leaving a mulch cover and a nutrient source for the soil.

Wild strawberries!

Our wild strawberries survived the winter and hopefully will grow much larger this year.  They were a late addition to the garden last summer and came from my grandmothers garden.

Kale!

Some kale popped back up already too!

Garden!

Our work is cut out for us, this year there will be some changes, some things will stay the same, and as always when dealing with Mother Nature, much will be left to the unknown!

Feelin' Saucy.

So with a bumper crop of tomatoes, there is really only one thing to do...

MAKE SAUCE!

I love tomato sauce, not just because I have Italian ancestors, but because it tastes damn good.  My grandmother always made sauce when I was a kid and froze it or canned it for the rest of the year, her garden was heavily dominated by tomato plants for this reason, but she would also buy bushels from a local grocer in Niagara as well.  Needless to say she made a lot of sauce.

Simple Ingredients.

Homegrown tomatoes and homegrown basil, a simple start to something so delicious.

The Machine.

I have few things that were my grandmother's; a couple of pictures and this beautiful juicing machine.  Well used and well loved this easy to use machine makes sauce making easy and fun, and requires only a little elbow grease.

The Hopper

Tomatoes go in the hopper...

Juicin'

...and juice comes out - the skins, seeds, and stem ends come out the other side and make a perfect snack for the worms in our vermicomposter!

Teamwork.

Tracie's sister Dee earns her room and board (for once) by powering the machine.

So we juiced our tomatoes raw, put the juice in a pot with some basil, tomato paste, salt & pepper, garlic, hot peppers from the porch garden and boiled it into an amazingly aromatic sauce - we then froze portions for later use.  But, Maria - a friend of ours (with much deeper roots to Italy than I) swears by boiling the tomatoes whole first, and then juicing them.  She said her family has always done it this way, and essentially you get sauce straight from the juicer. Anyone out there have any input into how this might affect flavour?

We made a second batch a week later and opted for running a couple of hot peppers through the juicer with the tomatoes, a great idea from Tracie that created an amazing smell in the kitchen instantly.  I was really happy with the turnout, and and the plan for next year is more tomatoes, which means more sauce, which means a happy me.

Growth: Updated

Some faithful readers may remember the the first post about the growth of the seedlings that we had growing in the kitchen with intentions of populating the garden.  You may also remember the subsequent posts that described their demise and our eventual need to sew new seeds or plant purchased seedlings direct into the garden.  But what you won't know is that a couple of those original seedlings survived! The survivors have been growing on our porch, and have actually been doing quite well.

Above is basil that we grew from seed mixed with some that we planted from our Plan B food share, I didn't actually think the food share plant would take, but Tracie proved me wrong!

I was really glad that at least one Flame Pepper sprout survived. My grandfather always grew hot peppers in his garden and I can remember him flicking open his ever-present jackknife, cutting one from the plant and popping it whole into his mouth - a feat I never attempted, and one that never failed to impress me. The pepper plant has been thriving despite it's limited space, sharing a small planter box that was given to us by our landlord with the basil plants.  It flowered with tiny but pretty white flowers and then exploded with peppers, and continues to do so!

Peppers maturing and drying.

A Green Zebra Tomato seed also survived! After growing it in the same window box as the basil and Flame Peppers for a while, we transplanted it to this bucket and it's flourished all summer.  So far we've got about a dozen tomatoes including what's on the plant now, but that's better than nothing! We also sewed some zebras right into the garden but they didn't sprout. Or so I thought - while picking tomatoes from one of our cherry tomato plants, I noticed a larger green tomato poking out through some clover, initially I had ignored it believing it to be an unripe one from a nearby roma plant.  Further investigation showed it was indeed a single zebra on a single stalked plant!

Even though only three plants survived it's been fun tending to them and having some garden experience at home, when we can't get to the garden.  Next year the porch will be used to a greater extent, especially after seeing what kind of sun it gets and the success of the plants currently growing.

 

Bzzzzz bees!

One of the things I love about the garden is the amazing variety of wildflowers, there's so many flowers I've never seen before, and it seems that there are new ones on every visit.  I was extra excited to see how much insect life was attracted to them, especially bees.  Bees have been something I've taken interest in ever since I heard about Colony Collapse Disorder, I was shocked and somewhat in disbelief that the bee population was so drastically affected. I love going to the ROM and looking at their bee colony which is housed in plexiglass with an identified queen; I could stare at them for long periods of time, fascinated by their hard work, productive lives, and high intelligence.  I was very saddened to hear that the colony died off, but am happy to hear they have started a new colony so more people can learn about bees and see them in action. I guess I always took it for granted that bees were out there diligently pollinating our crops and making honey in return, a very thankless job - and one that is extremely valuable.  According to the NRDC, bees pollinate 30% of the world's cultivated crops, and 90% of the wild ones, that's a pretty mind blowing statistic, considering the sheer amount of crops we consume regularly. So it's great to see the bees in our garden, legs laden with pollen, buzzing from flower to flower, making their honey, and giving us the gift of fruit and vegetables, a gift of life.

Team work!

You can actually see the pollen on this one's leg!