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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 [...] 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 [...] 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 [...] Some blooms are already open, but in a couple of weeks, it's going to be crazy! There are a number of garden-related places around the Lower Mainland I like to visit several times a year. Some are relatively local, like the UBC Botanical Garden, and I may manage a couple of trips per month. Others [...] Just for the record, let it be known that in 2010, September was miserable, October was okay, and November did not usher in the violent winters we normally see round these parts. November 2nd is the first average frost date for the Vancouver area, but averages can swing in either direction. We had a light [...] Our friend Noel Brechin had some rather amazing results with an Italian tomato variety called Cuore di Pomodoro. These tomatoes were BIG! Noel forwarded some images to me to share. Check these out! This grand champion was 18" in circuference, weighing 3 lbs, 4 oz (1.54 kg!) Not quite as big, but still 16.5" in [...] Remember – I’d love to share images of your gardens, too. You just need to email me with a short description. The end of the season and the main harvest period turns up some genuinely unexpected results in nearly all gardens. I have seen carrots embracing before, but never with the level of intimacy shown by [...] Triamble is another heirloom of the "Australian blue" group. This oddity is always tri-lobed. Each lobe has its own, separate seed cavity. I have a kind of obsession with squashes. It should be a healthier one, too, because I’ve just never developed a taste for them. In truth, I can’t even be swayed by pumpkin [...] Camouflaged to perfection in the shade of an eggplant leaf. The greenhouse tomato, pepper, eggplant, and melon trials have pretty much wrapped up, although there are still melons coming. Today was the day to cut down the last of the peppers and eggplants – I’m keeping the Thai Dragon chilies because they dry so well, [...] Along with the tomatoes we grew out for the 2010 greenhouse trial, we also tried out all our eggplants. I had grown one a couple of years ago in a raised bed outside with no particular effort to increase warmth in the soil, and it was kind of puny and disappointing. However, we had some [...] |
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