Companion Planting

Lemon Balm -

This summer we grew an herb garden!
We planted a number of herbs, including mint, oregano, rosemary, thyme, parsley, dill, chives, and three types of sage. To our delight, five wild Lemon Balm plants grew on their own!
Lemon balm is a native plant in the mint family.

Lemon balm can be used in tea, in cooking and baking, medicinally it can be used for skin care and it even repels insects.



I dried the plants for quite a while, first outside on the back porch but eventually moved them into our games room in the basement.
Finally today I harvested the plants and now I have four 500 ml jars full!

Such abundance and free! Gifts from the universe :)

Community Garden Harvest 2010

Community Garden 2010

everyone helped out

We built key hole style garden beds.

Things grew and grew...

Beyond our wildest imaginations!

garden meeting

Our first pot-luck!

Harvesting worms!

This summer, for the first time we "harvested" the compost from our worm composter !
There are many types of worm composters on the market today, some are very fancy and look nice, but a simple Rubbermaid container with some holes drilled in the bottom has worked for us for a number of years.

The compost in this container needed to be separated from the worms. This is quite simple but time consuming. I enlisted the kids to help and they were happy to save the worms for me!

First you need some newspaper or garbage bags, or both like I used. You simply take out the compost and the worms make their way to the bottom of the pile. This is best done on a sunny day in the backyard. Once the compost is spread out you remove the worms,(you could keep some in the compost you are going to use in the garden) We took them out very carefully and returned them to the container.

In the end we were left with many buckets of beautiful compost to add to my garden!
This was in June, and things sure have grown since then! Gotta love those worms! They eat your garbage (food scraps) and give you compost! yeah!

Community Garden Pot Luck

Last Friday we celebrated our community garden with a pot luck. The New Westminster Community Gardening Society is in it's first year. We have successfully started two community gardens this year. After many meetings, fund-raisers and the hard work of many individuals the dream of a community garden is a reality!

The design came together under the supervision of some innovated individuals, this garden has 15 plots and the plan includes another 15 for next year. We also plan to have fruit trees and an herb garden.

We have been sharing tips and I have already learned a lot from the more experienced gardeners in the group.

We enjoyed all these different foods, the mayor Wayne Wright also attended! The pot luck was held in the church hall, this garden is on the front lawn of the church!

Garden Tips

From my community Gardens Group this message came through last week and I thought I would share it :)

As some people are still planting and others are harvesting, making
way for more crops;I though I'd give a quick breakdown on what's
perfect to plant at the moment.

July
Direct Seed - Kolrabi, Asian Greens, Beets, Carrots, Scallions,
Turnips
Transplants - Late Cabbage, Cauliflower,

Aug
Direct Seed - Arugula, Carrots, Corn Salad, Overwinter Onions, Radish,
Spinach, Turnips
Transplants - Broccoli, Brussel Sprouts

Sept.
Direct Seed - Corn Salad, Garlic, Rutabagas, Spinach
Sow Lettuce under cover

Happy growing
-Rob

Kale Chips!

I don't know what is going on in the culinary world, but it seems that Kale chips have sprung onto the menu everywhere!!


I first heard about this crispy delight a few months ago at a food sustainability seminar hosted at the public library. The speaker was a well informed foodie. whose true love is food sustainability. (her name escapes me but I will fill in later) She has many ideas and information to share about growing and sustaining local foods. Either by backyard gardening, buying in local co-ops, farmers markets and other food sharing programs like the fruit tree sharing project.



One secret she shared was a fantastic recipe I just made again today to go with lunch.

Crispy Kale Chips! The recipe is simple;

De-stalk kale and cut into 3 inch pieces
place on roasting pan
add Olive oil,a small amount of apple cider vinegar, and salt
bake in hot oven at 350 for ten minutes
the kale will crisp up like chips in a few minutes
serve and enjoy!

A few weeks after the lecture where I first hear of the kale chips, a mum brought Kale chips to a home learing drop in. It was on someone else's blog yesterday and then again today I heard a reference to "Baked Kale" and "Kale chips"! I guess good news travels fast.

Besides being an extremely healthy and surprisingly delicious snack it is also an incredible sustainable crop as it grows year round in B.C. _ this does not explain why I have yet to find any of locally grown variety at the major chain groceries over past few weeks.
I will check out the winter farmers market this weekend and hopefully find a local source of this super food soon!

P.S. My kids and husband love these "chips" and that's enough for me!


Photo credit: EcoQuaker

How sweet it is!

Our peas have come up in our rooftop garden!

From the garden; mustard greens and lettuces!
This weekend we were happy to see so much has grown in our garden! Most of our greens were ready to pick and a lot of it had "bolted" which means they have sprouted flowers or " gone to seed" Our garden goddess, Jackie, has been a huge help and suggested we pull all the greens and eat them now so we did!

I made a birthday dinner for my brother on Sunday, and accidentally served him a lady bug with his salad, well you know it is fresh and no pesticides! He was a good sport and ate the rest of his salad after I removed our little friend.