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.
Hi James,
Actually, they grow the Three Sisters with great success each summer in the Maya Garden, which is a specialized Mesoamerican garden on UBC Farm. We probably couldn’t grow the varieties used in the Mexican one you mention, as they would not do well in this climate. But simply switch varieties for ones that do grow here, and voila!
For those who didn’t know, the Three Sisters are pole beans, corn, and squash all grown in basically a big clump. Each plant offers the others something of value: The corn supports the beans, the beans fix nitrogen, and the squash provides weed control and water conservation. See more here: http://www.westcoastseeds.com/productdetail/Vegetable-Seeds/Corn/Three-Sisters-Collection/
Thanks,
Mark
Don’t see it above but in your blog I believe there was a reference to The Three Sisters, a wonderful and magical combination in the right place (under the Mexican sun ! ) . Having lived in the tropics and seen its magic, I am nevertheless disappointed to see it considered in the sun-deprived parts of British Columbia which include Vancouver. I saw it at the UBC garden two or three years ago, and I was saddened to see the result. It is only logical that The Three Sisters works with a surplus of sunlight, which is lacking here but which may be present in the Okanagan. Here, the object is to allow as much sun as possible to reach each of the three sisters-beans, corn and squash.
Great pictures. Gives one hope that Spring will soon be here, despite snow and freezing rain!