Not a gardener.

On the first page of the West Coast Seeds 2007 Gardening Guide: Seeds, Supplies and Wholefoods seed catalogue, then (and maybe still) President of West Coast Seeds Ltd., Mary Ballon, makes the following address:

"Today I want to share something that really helped me prepare for the future. It has to do with the difference a word can make. Will I be a 'gardener' or a 'farmer' on my city lot? The implications are profound. Am I to tend the property, to keep it nice looking and raise a few vegetables or am I going to raise food and ensure the long-term fertility of that soil and the security of my family? All over the world small scale agricultural producers are called farmers I think we need to become a nation of people who see themselves as farmers, as creators rather than consumers. I will be a farmer and I urge you to ponder that perspective for your own efforts. A neighbourhood of farmers, sharing their harvest and their seeds and their recipes will strengthen our communities."

Ever since I first read this, it made sense to me - and I think that Ms. Ballon skillfully articulates the sense of purpose that I feel. Though to be honest, I don't know if I'm ready to start calling myself a "farmer". But what the heck, maybe I'll just try it for a while and see if it catches on.

Farm on!

The delicious strawberry.

I love strawberrys! When I was a kid my parents had rows of strawberry plants in their garden and when in season, my sisters and I would comb through the plants looking for ones that were just ripe enough to eat - blowing the dust off and eating them up, a little green or not. I wish I could describe what they tasted like. It's not that they were that juicy, or that sweet, but they had such a unique flavour that you knew you were using your "stawberry" tastebuds.

Strawberries are a great point of saddness for me. I see them in the store and they look FANTASTIC!  So beautifully plump and perfect. And huge! They could be apples. But man, do they taste awful! Awful. I think of a cross between styrofoam and something tasteless.  These store bought beauties from Mexico, California and even yokel Abbotsford lack that somethin' somethin'.

So I'm gonna grow my own. I've bought a package of "June bearing" plants from my local nursery and have planted them in strategic locations around my vast property. For $6.99 I've aquired 10 little seedlings. They came in a cardboard tube that when opened revealed a bunch of anemic plants crammed on top of eachother. I know that I have maybe 5 books that contain info about the needs of strawberry plants, but really, who has time to read? As a result, I am going by the write-up attached which states: "full to partial sun, well-drained soil".

Don't plant them too deep or they'll rot, don't plant them too shallow or they'll dry out. Who would have thought that Nature would have been so particular?

I've planted 6 in the front of the house which gets full southern exposure, but has soil that you could make a bowl out of. I've planted 4 in the back in one of my "raised beds" which also gets the benefit of good sun in addition to first rate compost. However, I kind of feel like I want to reserve this coveted "raised bed" space for other items such as . . . such as . . . something not so sprawly.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

But according to the package, I'm supposed to have berries in June . . . so Mom, I'm going to have to borrow your canning equipment once again for my bumper crop and subsequent Jamfest. That's right, Jamfest.

I missed my mom.



Whaaaaah!!

It's been two weeks since my last blog post and it's weird that it coincides with my mom's spring break absence. She came back last night and during our short phone conversation she was able to adequately guilt me into starting up my writing again.

Actually, I didn't feel that bad about it. It would take a lot of guilt to actually motivate me to do something and between you and me, I can handle A LOT of guilt. So I guess it's just nice to have my biggest fan back in town. Alas and alak - my public needs me!

As you may have noticed the picture at the top of this post, I must inform you that the cutie-pie little shamrock that was the rockstar of my very first post had a near death experience not three days after it came into my home. I have to admit, my self esteem was a little rocked. With this in mind, I would like to bestow a little nugget of wisdom that I have gained during this experience:

Plants need water.

So when you have a little plant, in a little container, it just will not do to leave for three days without taking your little green friend with you. However, I am happy to report that Sham is making a come-back and has been transplanted into a bigger pot and stuck in the back yard. I will let nature take care of the rest.

With this mini-disaster christening my season, my motivation and enthusiasm seemed to wane. In addition, I have a few other excuses that have suited the purpose of justifying my procrastination quite nicely:

1. My yard looks like a wasteland.

2. My living room looks like a wasteland.

3. This weather SUCKS!

But excuses aside, mother earth waits for no one. I'm not going to let a little mud and mess unnerve me and squash my dreams! So tomorrow, strawberries!

It's good to have you home Mom!

Spring Equinox.

March 20 marks the Spring Equinox of 2011. If that even makes sense. Does it "mark" it? Or it just happens? What is it?

Obviously, don't be fooled into thinking that I know anything about Equionoxs - though I am just savvy enough to realize that today is the first day of spring.

According to my very brief internet searching, spring equinox has to do with the position of the sun to the equator. While this scientific explaination seems rather boring to me and insignificant, the spiritual side is much more intersting. I haven't really looked into what other cultures think about the first day of spring, but I know for myself, when I stepped outside this morning, there was something special in the air.

For me, there is no denying the resonance of life in all it's forms on this beautiful March day.

I would also like to say Happy New Year! to everyone celebrating the Persian new year, or "No Rouz" today! I dare not pretend that I know much about the traditional or modern or cultural significance of "No Rouz", but don't take this to mean that I don't deeply repect and honour it! Because I do, especially as I have a Persian husband and in-laws.

Hmm. Now that I think about it, though it might not be connected in any way, it seems to make perfect sense that Persians would have the begining of spring mark their new year. A couple of years ago I went to the big museum in Toronto and they had a pretty impressive exhibit of ancient Persian culture. One of the things that stood out for me most was that so much of the artwork, from carpets to poetry, reflected a love of gardens. One specific piece of information has stuck in my head and you'll have to humour me because I'm just going by memory but it was that, admiring the beauty of gardens was a very spirtual experience because in essence you were admiring God.

While I'm not a religious person, I feel that I am quite spiritual and that idea made perfect sense to me. Maybe that's why I like working in the garden so much. If there is a God, he certainly knows I'm not doing him any favours by mucking around in the dirt and trying to make things grow. But for my own well-being, there is something that works about being connected to the earth.

I hope that everyone enjoys the day and I appreciate the chance to share my thoughts!

The Worms.

I like worms. They are totally gross, but I still have a healthy respect for them. They are selfless and peace loving little animals. So cute and pink, eating their way through garbage and leaving their wonderful poops so plants can have a better life. It's very nice.

A couple of years ago, when we were still living in our condo, I bought myself an indoor worm composter. It was a pretty simple set up, and I thought it was cool, cool, cool. I did really well with it actually. I tended them daily and made sure they had enough food and water, and by golly, they sure ate up those kitchen scraps! But then I got busy, and I forgot about them. Days turned into weeks and then I was too filled with guilt to even lift the lid to see the extent of horror that I had caused.

That was 2 years ago. The light of day had not touched their poor little corpses till Thursday, when my sister called and asked for me to pass it on to her.

Actually, when I did finally lift the lid, there was little evidence that they had actually ever existed. They must have just totally shriveled up. I guess I was expecting Pompeii or something. Anyways, my son and I dumped it onto our compost heap and filled it with new dirt, some leaves and about 50 hand picked red wigglers.

You know where I found all those worms? In my compost. It was amazing! It was a squirming metropolis! It was pretty disgusting . . . I kept having to reassure myself that they all weren't going to jump out en masse and burrow into my face. Ew.

There were actually more, but by the time I pulled out the camera most of them had burrowed down.

So, good luck Sister! I am so proud of her giving this worm thing a go. Up until a couple of weeks ago she didn't even recycle, and now she's composting?! Who rocks?? She does! Yeah!

Since she is going to do such a fantastic job with this, I have invited her to be a guest blogger so that we can all stay updated with the status of her new project. Graciously, she has accepted this invitation and so I will look forward to her upcoming posts!

In conclusion, I guess the moral of the story is: support mother nature, and be kind to worms - we are all in this together.

And it's never too late to recycle.

Peace out.

A bit of an introduction . . .

The state of things as of 7:00am this morning.

I don't want to give the impression that I have a lot of gardening experience. While I have spent hours, days, weeks, years, squatting in my parents' garden doing manual labour like pulling weeds and picking rocks, I have not actually had the chance to plan and follow through with my own plot.

Two years ago my husband and I bought our first house. While modest, it does have a "great", as in "larger than townhouse", backyard. That's really the reason why we (I) chose the route of detached house, as I can tell you, the joys of owning a 800 sqaure foot house built in 1948 are extremely limited.

It was last summer that my husband and I, with the help of our son, built the raised garden beds illustrated in the above picture. (That in itself was quite the ordeal, but I'll save that for a later post.) But we didn't finish until July(?) and so it was already late in the season and we didn't get much going on except for some lettuces and basil that I bought as seedlings.

I guess I should stop saying "we" because while my husband is awesome and supportive and does whatever I ask of him, he is not into the whole gardening thing, and he has made it very clear in his own subtle way that the fewer truckloads of dirt dumped on our driveway, the better.

Anyways, so this year I want to have an ass kicking crop. I want to taste vegetables like how they taste in my dreams. I want to have such bounty that I have to give it away. I want to have my pantry stuffed with all my canning and pickling and jamming and whatever else you can do with fruits and veg.

So, I've read a lot of books, or, maybe more acurately, looked at a lot of pictures in a lot of books, and taken a course or two (or one), and I think its time to actually do some practical, experiencial stuff. Personally, I find I learn best by doing and while I might not be the fastest learner, hey, this ain't no competition, so who cares?

Now is my opportunity to do my own thing! Cool. Well, lets get started!  . . . um . . . tomorrow.

I'd also like to thank you for joining me. We can garden together! I'm happy to have to you along for the ride and I appreciate all comments and input . . . except of course if they are mean comments and input. But you are obviously lovely, so this would not apply to you.

For my part, I'm going to try to write posts that are honest and entertaining, and definately not preachy. I hate preachy! I don't really forsee myself having the patience or expertise to write instructions on how to do various gardening things, so I'll probably just be linking you up with information that will hopefully be useful.

I'm going to practice organic gardening in the most basic sense of the word, which, we can talk about later. I also reserve the right to swear when I feel like it, but I don't have the dirtiest mouth around so things should be kept pretty respectable. Therefore, poisonous garden - no, poisonous language - maybe.

Well, have a wonderful day! It is Friday after all. I'll be back tomorrow with something interesting to say about compost or maybe something else. You'll just have to come back and see for yourself!

And, yeah, the dog does eat the compost. All. The. Time.

Gross!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

In my experience, St. Patrick's day has been a great day for new beginings, so I am starting off this blogging adventure with my wee shamrock. While, I don't have much to say this first day, I'm not going to let that stop me! So I'll just wish you all a beautiful day, and I'll be back tomorrow with an exciting post. Hopefully.

(And just in case anyone is wondering, the goldfish cracker is for perspecitve. This shamrock is in a really tiny pot!)