Garden Wisdom

A brisk walk through UBC Botanical

The quintessential winter salad garden!

Happy New Year to you all. The 11th of January was a nice bright day, the kind of day for a winter walk with a pace slightly quickened by the cold air. The Botanical Garden at UBC is one of Vancouver’s ideal spots for such a walk, with lots of points of interest throughout the year. We’ve had a couple of frosty nights since then, but it was nice to actually find some plants in bloom. And they’re still harvesting vegetables out of the food garden, with some over-winter cover crops placed here and there in unused beds.

Elsewhere there are Brussels sprouts, chard, celeriac, kohlrabi, mizuna, arugula, mustard, spinach, garlic, sprouting broccoli, mesclun mixes, and several types of kale. In short, lots of food plants are still growing, destined for the food bank. There are fava beans and winter peas pumping nitrogen into the beds, and winter wheat chugging along despite the cold, ready for tilling masses of carbon into the soil in the spring. Nothing short of inspiring.

We are so happy to work with Brendan Fisher, who manages the Food Garden, and looking forward to a new year of West Coast Seeds varieties on display at the garden. You will see more here, of course.

The Food Garden is quiet, but far from empty.

Cold hardy mizuna and red mustard.

Red Ball Brussels sprouts add a touch of colour.

Lacinato kale insulated with some straw mulch.

Winter wheat just looks like grass - but it's still growing!

Winter field peas add nitrogen and organic matter to the beds.

Mizuna, having bolted, in bloom in January. Now that's hardy.

Keep a sharp eye out for the tiny flowers still visible around the garden.

A bit worse for wear, but yarrow is still open.

This stuff is in bloom in the Garry oak meadow.

Holiday gift ideas for good karma & peace of mind

As something of a humbug, I make sure to stay away from shopping malls in the weeks leading up to Christmas. The music, the promotions, the crowds… It’s all a bit overwhelming and commercialized for my personal taste. I prefer a lower key approach to the whole thing, and when it comes to gift giving, I have come across a few very thoughtful ideas that carry a deeper meaning than a tie or even a good book.

A personal favourite of mine is “giving” conservation away. The Nature Conservancy of Canada has a program called Gifts of Canadian Nature that allows you to make a donation to the Conservancy on someone’s behalf, thus protecting an acre of Canadian habitat. The donations are available in a range I would describe as affordable to generous, and then the giftee receives a calendar, a certificate, and a letter from NCC’s president John Lounds. And, incidentally, you receive a charitable tax receipt. There’s a promo video here: Cariboo habitat.

Another great gift idea is sponsoring one of the owls or other raptors in care at Orphaned Wild Rehabilitation Society (O.W.L.), which is located here in Ladner. You can spend $20-$35 by sponsoring a specific bird in their care on behalf of a friend or family member. The giftee in this case receives a certificate with a photo and story about the sponsored bird. During open houses, it’s even possible to then go and visit the sponsored bird – which is a pretty neat way of connecting with your donation. Check out O.W.L’s Bird Sponsorship Program here. Donations to O.W.L. are also tax deductible, by the way.

There are so many worthwhile conservation programs and other charities that really count on donations. These two are just a couple of my favourites. However you choose to spend the holidays of the coming weeks, may they be happy and peaceful.

Exciting new things for 2012...

Well it’s been a shamefully long time since my last post. Happily, during that time we managed to get the 2o12 catalogue sorted and off to print. It’s now back from the printer and just starting to ship. I’ve also managed to review the website, and bring everything up to date. I’ve finally had a chance to bring our selection of wild bird feeders and seeds up to date (and correct!) on the web site, too.

The growing guides in the catalogue are now more uniform, and have a little more information. I tried to make them a wee bit more concise for this year. We shrunk the font size by half a point and reduced the “leading” (the spaces between lines of type), which offered more room for colour pictures. I tried to include as much history as I could track down for the heirloom varieties. Some of them have rather good stories.

We brought back The Three Sisters this year due to demand. It’s a great summer project for kids. There are a couple of new certified organic lettuces in the 2012 catalogue, including some of the ones I mentioned in the 2010 lettuce trial. And a new lettuce called Jester that is grown by our friends the Mortons down in Oregon. It looks fantastic.

We tracked down Claytonia, as well – the Miner’s Lettuce that’s such a good winter vegetable. I highly recommend this one with next winter in mind. Our onion growers will be pleased to hear that yes – both Kelsae and Ailsa Craig will be available this year – really. We’ve had a very hard time bringing these two varieties in over the past couple of seasons, but they’re in the house this time. I also recommend the beautiful little Italian heirloom onions, Rossa di Milano, for very long storage capacity.

I am looking forward to the arrival of Pasilla Bajio and Scotch Bonnet chile seeds. The former is mild and full of flavour, the latter is devilishly hot and belongs in jerk paste for summer grilling.

And then there are the new squashes… I still have squashes around the house from the trials this summer. I was fascinated to see that Galeux d’Eysines actually gets wartier in storage! I am a complete sucker for oddball squashes, and this season we’ll have Pink Banana Jumbo, Triamble, and Queensland Blue pumpkins on offer. I’m going to have to get some of the Pink Banana Jumbo seeds to Mr. Singh! I grew Snack Jack pumpkin this summer, which is the one to grow if you like eating the seeds. The seeds were a big hit, and kept Jeanette and myself sustained during many, many long hours of catalogue work.

And some new flowers are coming for 2012. With the popularity of our Alternative Lawn Wildflower Blend in 2011, we saw that people really like low-growing, self-sowing annuals. Both Plains Coreopsis and Baby Blue Eyes are perfect for this use.

And on the garden gadget front, I am really looking forward to the arrival of soil blockers. I think these tools are essential for the small organic farm. They allow you to literally create a block of soil into which you can plant seeds. They are available in various sizes, so as your seedling grows, it can be “potted on” into larger and larger soil blocks. This eliminates the need for all that plastic, and allows the tender young roots to grow unimpeded as they await transplanting to the garden. Our soil blockers will be arriving in January, and I’ll make another mention of them when they show up.

Those are most of the highlights that I’m excited about for this coming season. Check out our New Products page for a more comprehensive listing. I hope everyone enjoys the new catalogue, and savours it over the dreary months of winter… Spring is not that far away.

Slow news day? No way!

I must apologize for the lack of recent updates, but we are now about neck-deep in the 2012 catalogue project, so my time is limited and my focus is absolute.

I am pretty pleased with some of the improvements we’ve made and some glorious new photography that we’ve managed to add. The project goes to press in mid-November, and will be printed before Xmas. The first mailings will begin shortly after that and continue into January. We can’t manage all of the mailings at once due to cost, but it will turn up in your post eventually, with lots of time before planting.

While I’m away from this blog, please trust that I’m working with a small team of very dedicated people who want to bring you the good, better, and best of what we have to offer in terms of quality product and information. We love our fans!

Back soon,

Mark @ West Coast Seeds

Listening to Brian Campbell talk Mason Bees

Last Sunday’s class at WCS was a sheer pleasure. There weren’t a lot of students, but the ones that came got a hands-on lesson about mason bees as only Brian can give. Brian loves bees. He seems to live for bees. He’s actually kind of bee-like in some ways. But his passion, his gentle sense of humour, and his voluminous knowledge make him a great teacher.

The class, of course, was on winterizing mason bees – the art of dismantling the nests, retrieving the cocoons, washing them, and preparing them for storage and release in the spring. Why bother with all the fussing? As Brian says, in nature, mason bees get along quite well without any nursemaids. Some survive in perfect health, and some succumb to naturally occurring parasites and other diseases – such is the way of the world. But, as Brian continues to explain, by providing an artificial mason bee house, we create not only an ideal home for them, but also for their parasites and predators. And this will become clearer in the photos below. So we are obliged as bee wranglers to help them deal with these pests.

Brian unpacked a tall set of stacking trays bound together with electrical tape. You can see in the photo above that some of the holes are capped with mud, which is the clearest sign that mason bees have nested within. Each nesting stack is separated into pieces, and then each piece is split in half, revealing the inhabited tubes. The diameter of each hole and the length of each tube are tailored to the exact size that suit mason bees. If a mason bee female finds a hole that is deeper than six inches, she may cap it at that depth, and then proceed as usual. In ideal conditions, she lays an egg, deposits a ball of pollen to be eaten by her young, and then walls the tube closed, like masons do, before laying a new egg, depositing another food ball, and so on. She lays three female eggs near the back of each tube, and three male eggs nearest the opening. She can control the gender of the offspring by releasing fertilized or unfertilized eggs.

Her young hatch from their eggs in a larval stage, eat the food she has put away for them, and then spin themselves into a silken cocoon where they will remain until spring, and then emerge as adult bees.

Brian led the students through the gentle lifting of the cocoons from the nesting tubes, and each was then placed on the surface of a large pan of cold water. The cocoons are air-tight, so they float. Any that have been breached by parasitic wasps will sink, and these can be discarded. Then the process of cleaning begins. Each cocoon is gently rubbed between thumb and forefinger to dislodge frass (bee poop), debris, and pollen mites. Pollen mites are the real point of all this cleaning. They live in flowers and are picked up by passing mason bees, sometimes during pollination, sometimes during the collection of pollen food stores. It’s very likely that some will end up in your mason bee tubes. If they are not removed, they can suck the blood from the developing bee. If they are present in large numbers, they can devour the larva.

The pollen mites are orange/yellow in colour, and the more cocoons we added to the pan of water, the more apparent they became. Indeed, they actually stained the water a yellow colour as we worked.

Finally clean, each cocoon is lifted out and left to dry on kitchen towels until nearly all the moisture has vanished. Then they go into cold storage in the fridge until next March/April, when they are released and encouraged to repeat the work of their parents.

Brian separates the stacking blocks.

Then each tray is opened - contents vary.

The all-orange chamber to the left has been filled by mites.

Floating cocoons in water helps to remove frass, too.

Look at how many mites are on one cocoon!

Drying the clean cocoons before storage.

Mr. Singh

These unusual squashes were volunteers, he tells me, so we don't know what they are.

Mr. Singh lives up the street from me. I would pass his yard in the summer, and see over his fence that some extraordinary things were going on back there. Pumpkin plants and other vines being trellised up to the second floor patio… Unusual materials for trellising, like ladders and chain link fence… Horticultural curiosity finally got the better of me, and we made introductions. Mr. Singh was extremely pleased that anyone would take interest in his vegetable garden, and he is rightly proud of a pretty amazing job done.

Mr. Singh’s yard is a typical suburban size, but entirely converted to growing food plants. You can immediately tell that he’s got a good sense of humour. I share his enthusiasm for plants that do extraordinary things, but not quite like he does. Last year, for instance, he grew a spaghetti squash inside a glass bottle. He grew full sized jack o’ lantern pumpkins up a trellis so that the large fruits hung ominously into space. This year, he’s growing the Italian Tromboncino squash, and has fruits over five feet long!

He tells me that his health really improved after he discovered gardening, and I believe him. “I can’t chew the food, so I put it in my Magic Bullet,” he says. But he can do the work. He shifted another 8 yards of new soil this summer, one shovel at a time – a task that I no doubt have me in traction. And he also has managed to grow a number of food plants from India, including tinda and kerrala. How can you not share his enthusiasm?

Spaghetti in a jar?

Don't bonk your head!

Proof that kerrala (bitter melon) can be grown here.

The mighty Tromboncino!

Jeanette and Mr. Singh in front of the Elliott Street store with a five footer!

The final product at Elliott Street

Polydesmoid millipedes!

I’ve become a real geek when it comes to tiny animals. I spend so much time in gardens, in their territory, that I kind of feel obliged to know who I’m dealing with. Having a macro lens helps, of course.

This little fellow is quite likely Harpaphe haydeniana, a kind of millipede that was out in abundant numbers today at the UBC Botanical Garden. He’s only about 25mm long. Many millipedes employ defense systems such as releasing chemicals when they’re threatened. If you pick Harpaphe up, he’ll probably release a liquid that will stain your skin a bit like mercurochrome.

Although they are not insects, millipedes are garden allies that feed on plant debris, fungi, and algae, and leave behind droppings that help build humus and improve soil structure. They tend to go unseen, living beneath fallen leaves or under other decaying material. The sprinklers had been turned on at the botanical garden, so several of these millipedes had been flushed out from their hiding spots. All millipedes are grouped under the class Diploda, but the order Polydesmida only includes millipedes with this flattened body structure. They have 20 body segments, and each segment has 2 pairs of legs, except for the segments at either end, which are legless. Despite having 36 pairs of legs, they move very slowly, feeling their path with their antennae, and without the benefit of eyesight.

Late Blight

The tomato grower's worst nightmare!

This is such a painful topic! I hate for anyone to have to deal with blight, but it’s a reality on the Coast, particularly at this time of year, as evidenced below. Our new allotment garden here in Ladner is host to several first-time gardeners. Some of these folks naturally wanted to try growing tomatoes in their plots, and, unsurprisingly, are seeing the arrival of late blight. So to really spin this in a positive way, at least it has provided me with an opportunity to photograph blight, and to offer some advice on how to avoid it.

Late blight is a kind of fungus that goes by the formal name of Phytopthora infestans. Technically, it’s not a real fungus, but an oomycete, but it is fungus-like enough that we can think of them as such here. Like other forms of fungus, blight spreads itself by airborne spores. In places like south coastal British Columbia, where blight is present, it’s just one type of particle that can be found in our air – like pollen or dust. Now if these spores happen to come to rest on the right type of plant, with the right level of moisture present, they send out root-like filaments into the plant’s tissues, and begin to multiply and grow.

The first signs of blight are easy to miss. They begin as spots on the leaves. Within a day, the damage to the leaves spread down the petiole (leaf stalk) and onto the stems. These become brown and withered looking. The fruits take on a bruised look, and even a fishy smell. The whole plant will collapse in a period of a few days.

The nastiest thing about blight is that it tends to strike at the peak of the season, just when the plants look most promising, most heavy with fruit. Once it’s on (and in) your plant, there is nothing you can do to stop its terrible course. You CAN, however, take steps to prevent it…

1. If you live in an area where late blight is present – including south coastal BC, the Sunshine Coast, Vancouver Island, the Gulf Islands, the San Juans, Oregon, and Washington – do not allow the foliage of your tomato plants to get wet, even from rain. Keep them covered under awnings, cloches, or in greenhouses.

2. Choose early-maturing tomato varieties like Glacier or Stupice, and aim for a mid-summer crop. Harvest what you can and pull out the plants before they get blight.

3. Never water with a sprinkler.

4. In greenhouses, be sure to ventilate as increased humidity can be just as harmful as rain. Foliage that is allowed to press against glass or plastic is particularly susceptible.

5. Using copper sulfate such as Bordo will create a film over the foliage that will interfere with blight’s ability to send out roots. It’s useful in stalling the onset of blight, even in greenhouses, but it requires regular applications.

6. Dispose of affected plants by throwing them in the garbage (not the compost) or burning them. Once blight is established on a plant, it will do nothing but reproduce and spread more spores into the soil and into the air. So as soon as you can identify it, get rid of the whole plant and carefully wash any equipment or gloves you use in the process.

Because blight also affects potatoes, we are morally obliged to do what we can to prevent the spread of blight. Our inaction puts a very important crop at risk. And in areas like Ladner, which is surrounded by potato fields, this is a serious consideration. I really hope anyone who has been dealt the punishing blow of blight can learn from their mistake and grow better tomatoes next year. As always, you can click on the photos to get a better look at them.

Spots on the leaves are usually the first signs.

Blight spreads very quickly to stems.

Affected plants cannot be rescued.

Dispose of all affected plants with a sense of urgency.

Squash get BIG

This morning's haul

The squash plants are getting bigger and bigger. Some of them have stretched out onto the lawn, making mowing a little trickier. Below you can see two images of the “west beds,” one taken exactly a month ago, and the other taken this morning. I’m not actually sure which of the acorn varieties it is that has stretched so far outside of the box, but it’s making fruits along the whole length of these vines. With some naivete I tagged the plants with our small West Coast Seeds plant makers at the head of each bed. But it’s now quite an effort to get close enough to identify some of them. It’s a shame these plants get so bloomin’ big, as many types are simply impractical for the back yard garden. Two years back I grew a Rouge Vif d’Etampes plant in my backyard that was ultimately 30 feet across!

Many of the plants now have powdery mildew showing up on their leaves. This is somewhat unavoidable, particularly after the rain we had last week. I may have made things worse for these plants by allowing them to get so crowded, as good air movement around the plants is one method of reducing the effects of mildew. Either way, some varieties are more prone to it than others. And growing so many types side by side is kind of interesting too. Our red kuri squash called Uchiki is already finished. I picked the last ripe fruits this morning, and the plants are dying back. In another bed, the more generic Red Kuri is bearing fruits that are just about ready to pick. Sunburst scallopini, which is such a productive and tasty hybrid, is also more prone to powdery mildew than its neighbours Starship and Benning’s Green Tint. Jack Be Little, the pumpkin-like acorn squash didn’t show any signs of fruit formation for weeks after the others did, but now it’s covered in fruit – there are scores of fruits coming from four plants. We shall see how this turns out!

July 27th

August 28th - that wheelbarrow's in trouble

Busy spring, busy summer!

I have been wanting to post some updates of how this summer has been unfolding, but I’ve been incredibly busy unfolding it! I’m growing out 24 squash varieties at the new Ladner Community Garden, and our plots at Kirkland House are looking pretty nice now, too. You can see me to the left here, between the Burgundy Grain Amaranth and Calico Popcorn, and in front of some Quinoa and Original Sun sunflower. I think the corn is approaching 15 feet tall now. Go ahead – click on the image to enlarge it.

In my own garden, I’m trying a couple of veggies I had hardly heard of, let alone grown before, including salsify – the so-called “oyster plant” – and an obscure Italian chicory called puntarelle. I’m quite excited about this last one. If it tastes nearly as good as the Palla Rossa and Treviso radicchios we’ve enjoyed this summer, we will be in for a treat. From the squash trials, we have been harvesting arm-loads of scallopini and a fine heirloom Romanesco cocozelle called Striato d’Italian – basically “Striped Italian.” I’ll drop some images in below. Out of the scallopini so far, the hybrid called Sunburst is the tastiest. Starship is prolific, and doesn’t grow the big belly some of them do. Benning’s Green Tint does get “deep” in shape, but I find it is producing about two weeks later than the others. More soon – I promise!

Striato d'Italia

Sunburst

Starship

The daily haul