It's fall. My favourite time of the year. Though that's probably because when I think of fall I think of bright autumn leaves in the sunshine, cool crisp air, fuzzy sweaters, comfy blankets, and curling up with a hot chocolate by the fire. The reality is me trudging off to work in the rain under grey skies and coming home in the dark because the sun has set before I even leave the office. Ah well, it's still very lovely. On this rainy grey November day though I thought I'd FINILLY post the pictures I took in September, shortly after I moved into my new place. Back when it was sunny and we were still wearing tshirts...even outside!

( Lots of pics, click here to see it all. )

So it seems like everyone's pretty happy with the new digs!! I certainly am. Maybe the plants can tell.

What else is happening... I adopted a couple of mystery succulent sproutlings from work, but I think I got to them too late and they seemed pretty intent on dying. I've also adopted 3 Spider Plant babies. One is in soil and 2 are still rooting in water. All are doing nicely.

I bought myself an Aloe a while ago. It was crooked and top-heavy, but I cut it back some and even in the dark-ish corner where it's sitting now it seems to be content. Wow, the corners are really dark in here right now. It's 1:30pm and it feels like 9:30pm.

On a brigher note, here are a couple of my neighbors during a visit on a less rainy, less cold and less miserable day:

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Thse birds were so impressed by the October Daphne in bloom they came in for a closer look

Yup, Rogers are indeed incompetent. Probably not as much as Bell, but still pretty bad. Bad enough that I waited by my phone all day while the installation guys apparently came and left after knocking on the wrong door.

I'm antsy to get some pics of the new balcony, but have been preoccupied with unpacking.

The Nicotiana and the Kalanchoe never quite recovered, so have been left behind. I also had to leave my tomato plants because they're difficult to transport, but they're in good hands and I'll be able to go and harvest ripe tomatoes when they're ready. I picked 4 this weekend! I also need to go and pick up a few of my succulent houseplants that got lost in all the excitement, and will do that this week.

I posted some pictures of the Butterfly Weed that's turning red on the YGG forums, and, well, turns out it isn't butterfly weed at all! I guess these mysteries come in 3s. Once I figure out what I have I guess I'll have a better idea of how to take care of it.
It's turning red from the bottom, not the top like trees do, so I still don't know if something weird is happening or if it's normal.

Yesterday I bought myself a baby Snake Plant. They're supposed to be very good at cleaning the air, and they don't need too much light.

Once I'm a bit more settled I'll do a picture post. The new balcony is just the right size for my little garden.

Last night I made perogies (ok, I mean I prepared some frozen ones) and topped them with a mix of chopped tomatoes, chives, rosemary and thyme, all homegrown (ok, I mean I bought them as little plants and they grew into bigger plants). I topped all of it with grated mozzerella. YUM! Those Supersonic tomatoes are supersweet. I had some plain yogurt all ready to go but finished the perogies without using any.

I'm making myself hungry. Is it lunchtime yet?

I've finally caught up and have brought the balcony back to some semblance of order. All plants have been pruned, watered, and de-aphided where necessary. I had to let some of my flowers go... I'm moving out in less than a week now, and a few of them were beyond hope. All the Black-eyed Susans, the Firecracker Columbine, the Calibrachoa, and the Calendula all went.

The Nicotiana and the Kalanchoe are still not aphid-free. Both are blooming though, and look pretty...ok the Nicotiana looks pretty tired but, as my last post showed, it's got serious aphid issues... If I can't get rid of the bugs in time for the move I might have to cast those two out of my garden. :(

My Chinese Lantern seedling still appears to be a seedling - it never grew and I'm not sure why. It sprouted several leaves but is still only an inch or two tall. Hopefully I can bring it inside over the winter and coax it to keep growing. The Butterfuly Weed is nice and tall and leafy, and is finally starting to form little buds. But the leaves at the bottom are turning bright red. I have a feeling that's a bad sign but am not sure what to do about it.

Moved some boxes and things into the new place today. It's been a tiring weekend, but I'm looking forward to getting the apartment together. I hope my internet gets hooked up without any problems...last time I moved it was a bit of a fiasco. Let's hope Rogers isn't as outrageously incompetant as Bell is.

I ate my first home grown tomato on my birthday, right off the vine. It was SO GOOD!!!!!!!

Alright, everything's settled.

My plants will move to a new home, out on a new balcony! There isn't as much room, and it's west-facing rather than south-facing, but I hope to bring as many of my sproutlings as possible. I move at the end of August and I'm looking forward to getting to know my new space.

For a while there I took a break from the garden in order to focus my energies on finding a new home, so I'm having to make up for a bit of neglect now.

Aphids attacking my Night Scented Nicotiana : (

Ugh... I read today that having dandilions is good for your garden because they attract ladybugs, who love to eat aphids. I think I'm going to start a container of dandilions. They're edible too, and exremely good for you. And I just love them anyway. They're determined, spirited little flowers that I think are only unloved because they're so hard to control. This makes me not want to put them in containers at all since it feels to me like caging a bird, but I think it would be nice to include them in my (new) garden.

( Click to read more... )

In other developments, 3 out of 4 of my Kalanchoe plants are bouncing back from aphids and flowering happily. My Butterfly Weed plant has grown to a ridiculous 2'6", and my Upland White Aster is forming little buds. My Mosquito plant produced some little purple flowers - which was a nice surprise. I accidentally let my Columbine go to seed, but it's still producing flowers and I've saved the seeds for planting.

It's starting to feel a bit like fall, even though it's still been very hot. It's the flavour of change that lets you know something is coming, and it's exciting. I've been very lucky to have the space that I've had, and to have been able to start gardening on this comparatively grand scale even though I don't have a yard. I hope my new home allows me the same freedom to experiment and learn. Actually, this feels a bit like leveling-up in a video game. A south-facing glass balcony turned out to be a piece of cake, but how will I do in a west-facing one? My space will be more limited so I'll have to plan more carefully. The winter will be coming soon too so I'll have to switch to indoor gardening and reconnect with my houseplants. No problem, all part of the fun and a chance to try new plants.

As it often is when I update this blog, it's a holiday weekend and I would normally have spent the day at work. So I have a 4-day week this week, and then another one next week because I'm taking my birthday off. Good grief, that means my birthday is in a week... The summer goes so quickly.

Guerrilla gardeners break the law with 'green' graffiti

Andy Johnson, CTV.ca News

Toronto — As cities grow and green space disappears, a group of environmentally conscious urban dwellers are taking matters into their own hands to turn parking spaces into gardens, bus stop roofs into lush terraces and neglected parks into inviting play spaces.

It's a phenomenon called guerrilla gardening and it's changing the way our cities look as volunteers, working mostly under the cover of darkness without permit or permission on private property, transform abandoned public spaces.

(Full Story)

All of my worms died. Every last one of them. :(


Not sure what went wrong. Maybe I didn't put enough air holes. Maybe the box was too small. Maybe the worms were impostors and not really red wigglers at all. Maybe it just wasn't meant to be.

I guess it's good timing. I'm looking for a new home and at the moment I'm not sure that I'll be able to bring my garden with me, let alone a bin full of worms and rotting veggies. I'm sure that would be fun to explain to my new landlord. "Well, see, when I said I didn't have any pets I meant I didn't have any normal pets..."

I know that no matter where I end up I will grow something, anything, wherever I possibly can. And if I find I have the room, I'll probably try the composting thing again. Somehow I'll make this work, and if I have to be creative about it then fine.

I am sad though. All those innocent worms. And not knowing the fate of my baby tomatoes, my confused Amarlyllis, my resilient Kalanchoes, my dizzy looking pepper plant, my mystery seedling....


But life is change. Or, to put it differently: Shit happens, but it does make great fertilizer. It's all in how you handle it.

A funny thing's happened... I seem to have some mis-labled flowers.

My Calendulas, which the seed packet said would be peach pink, have come up pale yellow.

One of the 2 plants I labled as Fireweed seems to not be fireweed at all, has different leaves than the other, and has bloomed some kind of maroon-y flower... Not sure what it is since it doesn't seem to match any of the descriptions on my seed packets. Weird! Oh well, maybe once my camera is juiced up I'll take a picture of the mystery flower.


Recently I've switched to using coir instead of bagged potting soil. After not finding my favourite and supposedly eco-friendly brand of soil 5 or 6 times in a row, desperate to avoid Miracle Gro products and still wanting to not buy anything with peat moss in it, I came home with a couple of bricks of coir.

For some reason I'd convinced myself that coir alone wasn't a good choice for potting established plants, but I was very wrong. I still have some compost left from a public eco-day (I do love FREE COMPOST!) and have been mixing that in and using it as mulch. My plants are happy, and so am I -- even 2 of the tiny bags of soil were heavy for me and awkward to carry home on the subway, but coir is extremely light and goes a loooooong way. I'm sure it's much cheaper by volume as well.

[I often think about the fact that people with cars have the ability to transport immense amounts of stuff with almost no thought. I think that perhaps if everyone had to carry everything they wanted/bought/owned in their hands or on their backs they would not only be more selective about what was worth having, but also more appreciative of what they did bring home. We've pretty much lost the connection between physical labour and finished products in this industrialized consumer society, but maybe if we all bought only as much as we could carry at a time, we'd be a little bit better off... ]

There are only a couple of catches with the coir. The more minor one is that coir is kind of granular and it tends to stick to your hands, so is messier to work with than potting soil. I enjoy getting my hands dirty though, so this is only a minor nuisance.
The other silly thing is that the granules are almost exactly the same size, shape and yellowy-brown colour as the aphids that have been stubbornly (but only somewhat successfully) feeding on my plants lately. So when I'm checking for aphids I really have to pay attention and question whether every crumb of coconut husk is actually alive.

So the aphid battle continues but their numbers are way down. Hopefully I'll get the last of them before the season is over...


In other news, my largest pepper plant is enormous and has begun to flower! The tomatoes are slowly growing. Alas, my pea plants are history. The peas were pretty tasty though.

My Black-Eyed Susan has also bloomed.

And, speaking of mystery plants, I found a large seedling that had started to grow in what it must have thought was Seed Heaven, but was actually the compost bin. Of course I potted it. I have no idea what it is, but it's doing very well. Second chances are wonderful things.

I recently learned about this wonderful thing called guerrilla gardening. It's big in London, England. I was even more thrilled to learn that there is a local chapter of guerrilla gardeners right here in Toronto. Fantastic! There's something I'd like to get involved in, I thought. Not a week after I became aware of all of this exciting anarchy activism, I even picked out a plot that I would love to see rescued from neglect. It's near the subway and see it every day on my way to work.

That very same week, I noticed someone filming an area of broken concrete directly across the street from my chosen patch. Within a day or two, the concrete was gone and the space was full of large boulders, one of which was etched with a sign proclaiming that these stones were generously donated by a corporate sponsor. There was a team of workers and a camera crew doing interviews.

Within a couple of days, there was a garden.

And this pissed me right off.

How dare these corporate bastards come in and spend money to do what hard working concerned citizens are willing to do for free! How dare these self-righteous jerks come in and beautify my community just so they could boast about how generous they are! More importantly, how dare they out-garden what I thought my little patch of land might look like if I could get some people together to help me pretty it up?!?!

Okay, my initial reaction was definitely a gut one. After some venting and some swearing and some thought, I grudgingly have to admit that what they've done is, overall, a positive thing. Did those workers really care about what they were doing, or were they going through the motions for a paycheque? Probably the latter, but in the end maybe it isn't THAT important. At least there's a garden. Sure, it's tucked behind a subway entrance on a hardly-used road that seems to lead to some kind of industrial area, but at least it isn't a patch of cracked pavement anymore. That's got to count for something. And maybe it isn't as grassroots as I would like it to be, and maybe the people involved were doing it more for recognition than for the love of gardening, and maybe it's a little too flamboyantly "LOOK AT ME, I WAS DONE BY PROFESSIONALS!" for my tastes, and maybe I'd secretly like to plant some really invasive weeds among the perfectly landscaped....landscape...... But really, if they'd put up a store or turned it into extra parking space, I probably would have complained that they could have turned it into green space.

So, back to my garden!

I'll begin with the bad news. The bad news is that my pea plants are pretty much done. One has died and the other is on its way out. I'm also continuing to have aphid problems. I thought my kalanchoes were just very thirsty or done flowering but it turns out they're swarming with the little buggers. I've had to hack it back to just leaves. A bunch of other plants are also infected. Argh. I'm battling them off though, more on that below.

Now the good stuff. I purchased a cute little 3-level plant stand at the thrift store for $11. I'd seen it before and passed on it, but when I went in the next time and saw it was still there waiting for me I had to take it home.

Now my butterfly-attracting flowers can actually reach above the balcony railing instead of sitting behind glass. I have the insane hope that I might be able to attract hummingbirds too, but they probably don't fly this high. Then again, I've found nothing online to suggest they wouldn't be around or interested in my flowers.

Not one but TWO tomatoes have sprouted from my ever-expanding tomato plants. Wow, these things drink a LOT of water. The bottle-feeding is working well, but I have to refill the bottles at least twice a day. If I really watched them all day I'm sure they'd go through more than a few refills.

I still can't seem to stop buying plants, even though I have a pretty big collection now and am constantly having to get bigger containers as the babies out-grow their pots.

Let's do a run down, in no particular order.

Outside
- Firecracker Columbine (aquilegia)
- Dark Red Mohave (bracteantha) a.k.a. Strawflower, I think
- October Daphne (sedum sieboldii)
- Amarilis
- Upland White Aster (soldago ptarmicoides)
- Black-eyed Susan (rudbeckia hirta)
- Fireweed
- Little Wonder Peas
- Supersonic Tomatoes
- Green Peppers (grocery store variety)
- Rosemary (rosmarinus officinalis)
- Sugar Baby Watermelon
- Chives
- Thyme
- Butterfly Weed
- Wild Bergamot (monarda fistulosa)
- 'Kimono Orange' Celosia
- Cupid's Dart
- Calibrachoa (MiniFamous Sun Violet Veins)
- Calendula
- Kalanchoe (blossfeldiana entretien)
- Night Scented Nicotiana
- Mosquito Plant (pelargonium x van leenii)
- Clovers (that I found growing in another plant I bought and decided to keep them)

Inside
- African Violet + 1 successful clipping
- Jade
- Calandiva
- Baby Necklace Plant
- Aloe
- Somona
- Chinese Lantern seedling
- clipping from an unknown tree someone abandoned behind my apartment building

Yikes. I have broken the 30-mark. I really should stop getting new plants. Especially since I also have a substantial collection of seeds, many of which I haven't tried planting yet.

Speaking of ridiculous numbers of things, I now have 100 new pets. I've taken the plunge, and have started vermicomposting. (Who knew there was a Worm Digest magazine?) After getting the run-around from one bait shop, I found another that was willing to sell me some Red Wigglers. I wasn't sure how many I'd need considering there are only 2 of us and we don't cook every day, so I thought I'd start with a 1/2 pound, which they told me was 100 worms. So that's 100 lives I saved from certain death as fish bait. Beat that, Humane Society!

I read that worms regulate their population according to the space and amount of food they have, much like rodents in captivity. The difference is that the adult worms die and let the babies replace them, unlike rodents who eat their young. Who would have thought that worms were so noble?

The bin is made of a cheap latch-top container I got at Canadian Tire that I drilled air & drainage holes into and covered with black tape to keep light out. The whole set-up cost about $16. Oh, and I put a $5 winter boot mat that we already had in the house underneath it. A black garbage bag probably would have sufficed but the mat was just taking up space anyway.

The worms seem to be adjusting to life in our kitchen. You're not supposed to disburb them too much so I have to stop myself from feeding them every other day, but I have fed them a couple of times and everything seems fine. I'm starting to realize just how much of our garbage waste is compostable. I went through our (embarrassingly gigantic) pile of recyclables that had yet to be taken down the to our building's dumpsters, and a lot of it I salvaged as bedding material for the squirmies. We get quite a lot of junk mail. Also, besides vegetable scraps from cooking, tea bags, etc. from the kitchen, I can throw in bits of my plants that I prune off. And then there are all of those random things you don't think of as compost material - shopping receipts, the labels off tinned food, the "Jesus Loves You" pamphlet you get from the Village Of The Damned girl who corners you while you're waiting for the bus... Apparently you can reduce your waste output by as much as 40% this way. Plus - free compost!!!

In other news, I came up with a new recipe for my aphid spray. I found out recently that ginger is a good insect repellent, I suppose because it burns the way lemon does. I was looking up its uses because I had just brewed a batch of ginger tea for myself and was wondering if it would be good for fertilizer. So I added strong ginger tea to lemon juice, some water, and a drop or two of environmentally friendly soap, and then just for some extra kick I added a bunch of tobasco sauce. Ok, it doesn't smell as nice with the tobasco in it, but it works very well! In fact I have to be careful when I spray it because breathing in some of the mist is enough to make you cough. I've decided I should grow some hot peppers so I can use the seeds in the spray instead of resorting to hamburger condiments...

So that's what's new in what now passes as my garden.

Peas!!


Plant #1



Plant #2

Five pods in all. Yip-pea!

Yes, I just wrote "Yip-pea."

Also, my "Mohave," which is really a Strawflower (Bracteantha), is blooming.


So it's instantly gone from cool pea-loving weather to 31C. As of 6pm, it was 38C with the humidity. And it's going to be like this all weekend. Yep...hot. So much for the winter blues.

Oh...I think I just figured out what's on my Black Eyed Susan plant. Thrips! They're not friendly. The ones I saw look like this -- their bodies are about as wide as one or two strands of hair:



These are the babies. Better get rid of them before they start multiplying. :(

On this sunny, warm gorgeous day (ok, it decided to get dark and start raining as I began to write this) I decided to spend some time pruning and fussing over my plants. Just when I thought I was all finished, I discovered that a bunch of them were being attacked by aphids - my 2 pots of pepper seedlings, my Black Eyed Susans, and one of my Fireweed seedlings.  Nooooooo!!!

I checked my book and learned that aphids don't like citris oil, and that I can easily make a home remedy with citris peel in only 24 hours. Great! Too bad I don't have any citris fruit in the house. I also can't bear the thought of those little plant blood suckers getting another whole day to hurt my plants and give birth to more already-pregnant babies.

So here's what I whipped up. I took some lemon juice (which we do have!), watered it down a bit, and added a little drop of eco-friendly dish soap. I used this on the end of some Q-tips and wiped off all, or hopefully all, of those little aphid buggers. It seemed to do the trick - they tended to stick to the Q-tip. I'm a little worried because apparently citris oil can sometimes burn plants, and I'm not sure if this applies to citris juice. I guess I'll find out soon.

On my Black Eyed Susan I also found some teeny tiny bright yellow wormy/grubby things. I have no idea what they are. They're so tiny I didn't notice them even while scrutinizing every leaf for aphids. I'm going to leave some of them on in case they're friendly larvae of a bug that likes to eat aphids, but will keep an eye on them.

In other news:

• My Morning Glory seedlings have completely wilted. Talk about "live fast, die young."
  
  
• I realized that the tomato/pea baskets weren't getting  any direct sunlight, so those are now tied to the balcony railing. We have glass panels instead of just railings around the balcony, so they should get some decent light. Still, I think each tomato plant will have to grow some more to get comfortably out of the basket's shadow.
  
  
• One of the pea plants has grown a pea pod!!!!

What's this? A hint of sunburn?? Okay, I guess it's finally spring. :)

Well the snow is gone. We've had some hot weather. Does that mean it's finally spring? It doesn't really feel like it. It's been "unseasonally" cold and although it's almost June people are still wearing jackets to work. As you'll see from my photos below, it's gray grey gray.

I haven't let this discourage me too much and have been indulging in my gardening hobby regardless. I make frequent trips to thrift stores in search of cheap planters, I browse at the local veggie markets for little plantlings to bring home, and have recently stocked up on potting soil. I also found a parking lot garden centre that is conveniently on my way home from work and has a mind-boggling variety to choose from.

So here's what I have to show for my efforts.

What does Montreal have lots of?
SNOW!
What else?
Plants in bloom!

Who'd have thunk it.


I got snap-happy on my recent trip to Montreal's Biodome and Royal Botanical Gardens (featuring a fantastic butterfly exhibit). I've narrowed down the photos to only the really interesting ones, or at least I tried to.

First, the Biodome. The main feature there is really seeing the animals, and I did get a bunch of animal shots, but I ended up getting distracted and preoccupied with all of the cool plant life around.



( Lots more pictures. )

Next, the butterfly exhibit at the Royal Botanical Gardens. Again, lots of butterflies around, but lookit all the pretty flowers!!!



It was a great trip and seeing all of the greenery really helped with the dragging winter blahs. Plus, seeing the ridiculous amount of snow in Montreal made Toronto's winter seem not so bad. We really are a bunch of crybabies and Montrealers have every right to laugh at us -- even before the playoffs start.

Ahh, the first full day of spring. It's Easter weekend and I didn't have to go to work today. Okay, it's still barely breaking 0C but who cares, life is good.

Time for a picture-intensive update on my wee plantlings.

I'm looking forward to actually getting some plants outside and starting a little container garden on the balcony. First things first though...

Hey hey, my peas sprouted in no time.



Beginner's luck? More likely I'm not keeping the seeds warm enough, so my cold-loving seeds are in heaven while the rest sit there and look at me funny. It seems even the top of the fridge doesn't stay warm in this drafty apartment. Oh well, baby plants make me happy. And that's a very good considering that we're in the middle of a massive snowstorm. Our 3rd or 4th blizzard this season. There is a whoooole lot of snow. Yup. It's still winter!

Today I planted my first seeds.


Okay maybe it's still a bit early... maybe it was -9C at some point today... maybe there's still snow all over the place and the balcony is coated in a layer of ice... but I figured I'd give some seeds a shot. There are plenty more where they came from, and it seemed a shame to have a big bag of seed mix just sitting there...

I had the bad luck of being bitten by the gardening bug right in the middle of winter. Since then I've resorted to coddling my houseplants. I may have coddled at least a couple of them to death. Even my spunky Jade is starting to look sickly, so I treated it to some proper cactus mix.

Hopefully spring will wander in soon and perk everything up. I've always appreciated winter and its beautiful snowscapes, clear quiet nights, fireplaces and hot chocolates, not to mention the holidays and all of that heart-warming manic binge-festing. Ah bliss. But being cold gets tiresome. Never seeing daylight gets tiresome. Walking on thick jagged sheets of ice where there used to be sidewalk just isn't as fun as it sounds. I think some spring is definitely in order.