Tomatoes!!!!!

As I mentioned on my other blog (Renaissance Woman) yesterday, I've been feeling rather lackadaisical lately.  I think I've been busy with a lot of things, uninspired and just feeling like the world was rushing past at an alarming rate (still am feeling that, actually), so I just haven't felt inspired to blog.  I barely felt inspired to garden, which is strange for me.

This year, instead of planting the upwards of 100 tomato plants that I've done in the past, I planted about 40.  I paid very little attention to them, sprayed with copper spray (which helps prevent blight) only 2 or 3 times all summer when I should have probably been doing it every 10 days or two weeks, and only trimmed the plants occasionally.  I really let the garden do it's own thing - with the exception of a few concentrated days of weeding mid-summer.  I didn't water very often because we had some rain and I just wasn't into it.  And when I did water, I'm ashamed to say I didn't take it out of the rain barrel, but used the sprinkler.

By all accounts, I should have had overgrown plants with very few tomatoes, blossom end rot and blight.  They were kind of overgrown, but no blossom end rot (which is caused by inconsistent watering) at all and very little blight (a few, but so far, not too bad.  I could still end up with a lot of blight - a couple of years ago most of my tomato crop to blight after they were all picked.  I estimated about 200 pounds worth.  So I'm not counting that out yet, but I do have a few tomatoes to deal with:

I'm thinking I'll have to make tomato sauce this year - and maybe green tomato pickles (although I really don't enjoy eating pickled things at all).  I've already canned about 30 jars of just tomatoes!

Any other suggestions?

We also got lots of potatoes, carrots and onions this year.  Not so many peas.  Maybe I'll blog about that one next.

Climate Change and why we should all garden!

This blog is not intended to be a political soapbox.  And this post is not intended to be political, although some people might think it is.

First off, the topic of climate change should not be political, although it seems to have become one (and I use the term "climate change" on purpose here, as opposed to "global warming", only because in some places on the planet, we are seeing a cooling instead of a warming - although the planetary mean temperature is going up, some people use colder than normal temperatures to argue against "global warming" and I don't want to be part of that silly discussion).  In my mind it isn't a matter of the "climate change supporters" opposing the "climate change deniers".  It is a simple fact that our weather is changing and becoming less predictable.  I don't think at this point that we're in the "we can't survive it" stage.  It's just more severe than it used to be.

In 2005, I lived in Calgary when we experienced the worst storm my husband had ever seen (I'm not sure I can say that since I did see a storm that spawned 20 tornadoes when I lived in Texas, but the Calgary storm was pretty nasty).  It produced what was called a "once in a hundred years" flood - many basements were flooded and the moose had to be relocated from the zoo.  Then we moved away closer to Edmonton, about 2.5 hours north.  Four summers ago the stage at the Big Valley Jamboree was torn down and one person died under it, in a storm that also saw my family huddling in the basement and a large tree land on our garage.  Two summers ago, in Millet, Alberta, (10 minutes north of us) I saw the results of a hail storm that left gardens in tatters and vinyl siding looking like the victim of a 1930s Tommygun attack.  And this past week we've all been watching in awe as Mother Nature left Southern Alberta struggling to come to terms with more water than they've ever experienced before - ALL of the animals at the zoo had to be moved and I think 75,000 people moved from their homes in Calgary alone (not to minimize it, of course, a whole lot more horrible things happened, but you can Google it - let's just say it was many times worse than 2005).  A mere 8 years after the "once in a hundred years" flood, we suddenly had a "worse than ever recorded" flood.

Climate Change is not a political subject, my friends, it is a reality.  It IS happening, whether we like it or not, and denying it's existence will not help fix it, nor will it help us deal with the consequences.

So here's where I think we can all do a little bit to secure ourselves.  If these massive weather events continue to occur, our food safety will be in jeopardy - I'd say it's already tenuous.  We will not necessarily be able to get corn from Iowa if there are droughts there.  We will not necessarily be able to get wheat from Alberta if there are massive floods.  We will not necessarily be able to get oranges from Florida if they have frost.  We need to be able to at least partially feed ourselves.

WE NEED TO GARDEN!

And we don't just need to garden so that we can sustain ourselves next winter if the power goes out and we can't get groceries for a few days.  We need to learn how to garden (and teach our children how to do so) so that if our infrastructure collapses significantly, it's become a part of our daily lives to sustain ourselves.  We are a the whim of a very large, complex transportation and economic system that is very vulnerable to major weather events - and we are having them.  Frequently.  We really need to take more responsibility for our own day to day needs so that we are not left suffering when our regular way of life isn't working anymore.

And we need to grow more food than we need - so that when our neighbours are dealing with a catastrophic event, we can help feed them.  And vice versa.  If my garden is decimated by a hail storm, I'm hoping someone a few miles away can share their food with me.  I really am hoping that.  Please share!  I'd rather have to end up composting some of my bounty because no one needed it, than not have any to give to those in need.

I'd lost perspective on all of that this year.  I haven't been as passionate about my garden - or about not using plastics, or about recycling and reducing.  But the Calgary floods brought it all back into perspective.  Although it's hard work, and sometimes it feels like everything is just ticking along status quo and the hard work isn't worth it, major disasters remind me that things are indeed changing.  That urgency I've felt to adjust my life and to get a better handle on our self-sustainability wasn't just a whim.  It's real and I need to get back to it.  Time to get back to taking care of my people and the Earth.

Late Start

Well, it's been a late start to the garden this year.  Our weather was crazy and we seemed to have gone directly from winter to summer in the matter of 2 weeks.  One year I remember planting some of my peas as early as mid-April (which, believe-you-me, is early for around here).  But this year I only got them planted on Monday (May 13).  A few peas were growing on their own, so I re-positioned them and have a few plants that are 4 or 5 inches tall at this point.  I also had 3 carrots survive in the ground over the winter (thought I got them all, but there's always a couple), so they are now in pots and I will try to get seed from them like I did with my lone second-season carrot last summer.  You see, carrots have a 2-year life cycle and only go to seed in the second year.  More information on carrots can be found at the carrot museum!  And there are about 6 onions I missed last year, too.  They are all sprouting.

I've gotten most of my plot weeded, although there is still a lot left to do.  And I did manage to plant a couple of potatoes that had very long "eyes" as well as the garlic.  So today I will go out, continue weeding, maybe thin out my raspberries, and possibly plant some lettuce.  Spinach should be planted now, too, BTW.  Although if it's too hot, neither will do terribly well.  We might have missed the lettuce/spinach window, but no harm in trying.

As a lot of you know from FB, I have extra tomato plants if anyone in my area is interested.  Most of them are heirloom, but not all.  I'll be most likely planting mine on Sunday as it seems any threat of frost is past (famous last words).  Of course, if frost does come back, we cover all our plants with old sheets, buckets and towels.  Never throw them out, they come in handy in early and late summer when frost threatens our little crops.

I'm going to be slightly less ambitious with my garden this year.  Every year I just pack the soil and the garden ends up like a jungle by the end of the summer.  This year the plan is to stick to the plants we really utilize, and not to crowd everyone.  To that end, I've planted my pumpkins in a separate area by our fence - not technically a garden, but I guess it is now.

Hope you all have a chance to go out there and get dirty.  My toenails won't be clean again until fall - so don't look at them!

Mice in the Compost

New garden-related problem - I seem to have a mouse nest in my compost pile.

My first clue was that the cat has been hanging around the compost for the past month or so - whenever it has been warm enough to be outside.  And she's been super interested in what's going on in it - she looks like a vulture staring down into the compost.  Remember Snoopy when he looked like a vulture?  Well, that's Jack.



The good news - I have a cat who is a mouser - she's gnawing on one in the back yard right now. 

The bad news - I have to turn that compost pretty soon and I'm not looking forward to disturbing mice while I do it.

So research is needed. 

I'll keep you posted on what I find, but upon initial perusal, it looks like I need to do more maintenance than I have been.  Turning the compost is vital.  But the problem is that the compost bin we have is so large that I have a hard time actually turning it.  It is really hard work.  But I guess I just have to put aside several hours (when it's warm enough) and turn it a couple of times per year.  Maybe buying a barrel composter would help.

The other thing is that I occasionally add meat to the compost - apparently a no no.  As is adding baked goods which I often do.  These things attract vermin.  And let's face it, vermin aren't good to have near food.  There's Hanta virus, not to mention the Plague - both transmitted by small rodents. 

1/4 inch mesh lining the bottom and the sides would be good, too.  And putting newspapers and boards across the top as a cover might help.  They say to always have a cover, but my compost bins are large wooden slat numbers, and a real cover would be cumbersome.

I think my best solution to this problem is the cat.  She's good at what she does.  And instead of getting upset when she kills something, I should be grateful.  Because she is doing her job!

Plants? In the greenhouse.

My first year gardening in Alberta, I thought I'd start my own tomato seeds.  It was a pathetic mess.  They got lanky and fell over and were generally not usable.  So the next year I bought a small greenhouse at the local hardware store and set it up in one of our tall south-facing windows.  It works like a charm.  I start all my seeds in it and they thrive in there.

As do other things.  The first thing to sprout every year is fuzzy ....

Our cat, Jack.  Enjoying the warmth and sunshine in the greenhouse.

I also have some pumpkins sitting in our basement.  My plan was to cut them up and can them - but they are a little past their prime, so last week I cut one open to get the seeds.  Several of them were germinating in the pumpkin, so I planted them.  It's early for squash.  I think you want to go more like 3-4 weeks before the last frost - we're more like 10 weeks out, but they were ready to go.  I'll have big plants when they are ready to put into the ground. 

I also started basil today.

Winter! And tomatoes.

Hello everyone!

I've decided to split off my gardening/urban farming posts from Renaissance Woman and create a separate blog for them.  So welcome to Northern Urban Farming! 

I'm wondering if "farming" is a good word for it.  I don't actually farm.  I don't raise chickens or rabbits.  But someday I might.  And since Urban Farming is a good catch phrase, I'll stick with it.

For anyone new to my blogs or unfamiliar with where I live, I'll just give you some relevant info.  I live in a small town (about 12,000 - which, if you think of it, several hundred years ago would have been considered an urban centre) in Central Alberta, Canada.  It is March 18, 2013 and this morning it was -19C when I woke up.  This is not typical weather for March.  But, then, at any time of the year you can hear anyone say that it isn't typical weather.  We have unpredictable weather here.  The forecast for less than 2 weeks from now is for +10C every day.

Gardening here sounds like it is a challenge - and I suppose it can be.  But since I never seriously gardened anywhere else, it just seems normal to me.

I hope I can share useful information here for other people trying to garden in colder climates.  I'm just about sharing information, so if you have something useful and practical to add in comments, I welcome them.

As I stare out the window at all that snow, it's hard to think about growing food out there in the garden.  But it is actually time to think about planting.  Yesterday I planted tomato seeds for the summer.  I usually plant between 125 and 150 seeds thinking some won't start.  Usually they all do - but some don't start soon enough and the plants will never produce tomatoes.  So start more than you need.  But early to mid-March is the time.  Don't start them any earlier.  They won't mature earlier, somehow they all seem to produce at the same time anyhow, no matter when you start them.  But later than mid-March and they probably won't. 

You need a VERY sunny spot to start tomatoes.  Anywhere without enough sun and your plants will get long and lanky and will never survive or stand on their own.  So warm and sunny.  Later, when it is warm enough to take them outside (10C or above), I'll try to remember to tell you how to ease them into it.  Indoor sun is different from outdoor sun and you have to let them get used to it.  Imagine throwing yourself outside all pale and sensitive from being inside all winter - you'd get sunburned!  Well, I've had a lot of sunburned plants over the years from leaving them out too long too soon.  But getting them outside early is important.  The more wind and movement they get as young plants, the stronger they will be as mature ones.