Eden's Eve

In the past weeks, I've been writing a lot off-blog so I've been rather low on words. But now, in honour of the last days of October, I'll post some doubleplusgood updates from the garden:
New record from Big Daddy. This chard leaf is over 95 cm long! I'm sure it could have gone longer but I was impatient to harvest one night. If I can control my harvesting urges, I should be able to get one over a metre long... but time may be running out.I also have a new record for my peppers! I've been harvesting some green ones that are over 9 cm tall, even larger than the one pictured here. And best of all, I got my one red pepper to ripen fully to a stunning scarlet! It's all documented here in this photo series:


For fans of the birds, here are a couple of photos of them from our time out today (October 30), enjoying the sunny afternoon:



Here's one with all my little darlings in one shot:


For M who asked for garden advice: First of all, I really cannot claim to be the best for advice on garden productivity, unless you use me as a negative example. It took me three years to get not much, as I have been lamenting for over a year on this blog. That said, I would recommend Lee Reich's Weedless Gardening, which is basically a gardening method inspired by nature. Besides the perk of having a theoretically weedless garden, I like the philosophy of minimizing disturbances to the garden and soil, which furnishes me with a ready excuse for not working too hard on it, so here are links to some articles by Reich.

My personal Holy Grail for gardening has been the tomato: you can't buy anything that tastes like a freshly homegrown tomato. I found sweet bell peppers to be rewarding also, since my green ones are about as sweet as the red peppers I buy at the supermarket, and my one red pepper was even sweeter and riper than that! I also like having fresh greens so I'd recommend some lettuces, which are pretty easy, and will grow early in the season. Don't plant too much because you probably won't be able to eat it all before they go to seed in the heat. Buy the tastiest lettuce seeds and watch the soil, since that will have a huge impact on flavour. And of course, I'm partial to Big Daddy and Swiss chard in general, which will keep going even through the summer heat.

Try some fresh herbs, since it's so much better to pick what you need from the garden than to go with dried herbs or chance it with fresh cut herbs from the store. I adore basil, but thyme, rosemary, or any other herbs you use would all be good choices. With the basil, you could make pesto, and with the tomatoes, you'll have most your ingredients for a fresh tossed summer pasta with extra virgin olive oil. (Remember that EVOO is good for your health, being a source of health-promoting monounsaturated fats and polyphenol antioxidants.)

As for size, I think that's very much a personal preference. Have it be as big as it needs to be to do what you want. Consider how much you like digging and toiling. If you're not sure, I'd advise starting smaller so that it's not too overwhelming at first, but leave open possibilities for future expansion. Also, you can use some containers if you have a nice lawn you don't want too huge a hole in, but keep in mind that containers will be more time-consuming to water. Smaller plants like herbs and lettuces will do best in containers, or even peppers if the container is large enough. I find that tomatoes really need their space, so that goes best in the plot.

Timing depends on your season. How long and warm is the summer where you are? If shorter, you may need to start earlier by seeding indoors, which may be a good idea anyway. But if you're looking for minimal work, you can always forgo that and just toss some seeds at the dirt and see what happens!

Jardin de Verdure

As requested, I'm posting a photo of my whole garden, as well as a little map plotting the location of the different veggies. The huge tall drying plants are the lettuce plants gone to seed. Usually I would pull them out after they flower, since they're not so edible by then, but I decided to let these ones go to seed to see if I'll get tons of lettuce plants next year without sowing any. I've since pulled up the seeded lettuces to make room for the other plants and laid the lettuce corpses to rest under the tomatoes. My philosophy toward gardening is pretty liberal and permissive, for those who haven't already guessed.

Apparently, peppers do well to have their first central fruits taken to encourage further growth of other peppers. So, after the initial peppers, I have been trying to remain patient long enough to let some of my bell peppers grow larger. I measured one of the larger peppers I've ever harvested at about 8 cm tall. We'll try to do better than that! Actually, one of my container plants is growing a bell pepper that is starting to ripen in spots to a vivid scarlet! I'll be so happy if I get a red pepper -- I just need this warm sunny weather to hold up.

I also got a picture of the only cucumber I've ever had as this is my first year trying cucumbers. There was one cucumber before this one that I was just about to harvest, but when I went to get it the next day, it was already gone -- undoubtedly the work of one of the monster squirrels. The cucumber was tasty though; I felt so accomplished and connected to my nearly-idyllic little garden when I plucked my cucumber off the vine, washed off its prickles, and then chomped on it while working outside.

PS. The plan view of the garden is kind of upside down when compared with the view from the front edge, so if anyone is trying to match up the veggies with the map plan, just turn that around. In other words, the top edge of the first photo points North, while the top edge of the plan photo points South. Happy orienteering!

Look Ma! Spray Millet!

It looks like I've managed to make my very own homegrown birdseed after all!

After letting some of the pointy mystery seeds that I blogged about in July mature, we did a taste test. Once the birds figured out how to extract the seeds from the outer husks, they loved munching on it! I put some photos up in yesterday's post, although they were actually shot last month. Unfortunately, the monster squirrels grabbed most of the pointy seed heads for themselves, so the birds only got one or two. I also grew some oats, but the squirrels also ate that all up before I could harvest it for the birds.

Last week, though, I noticed a new kind of seed growing in my soil! Look familiar to anyone?

Yay for spray millet! The birds love it! They were just finishing up this one today!

Now I just have to figure out how to keep the squirrels away from the birdseed long enough for the birds to eat them!

Cornucopia

Last day of an era. My Occupation Title changes tomorrow so I've been trying to wrap up and do as much as possible before that. Shopping and stocking up on supplies. Even cracked out the ironing board for a rare (probably less frequent than annual) ironing session last night.

Best of all: I found an unmolested red tomato in my garden! I would have wanted it to mature a bit more, but even more than that, I wanted to avoid further pillaging from the evil squirrels, so I decided to harvest my little fruit and let her ripen in the relative safety of the great indoors. Isn't she gorgeous? My beaut's currently occupying an elevated position on my southern windowsill where she can bask in the sunlight. Should be perfect within a couple days.

You may notice the bed of Swiss chard that my Tomato is resting on in the photo. This is my first year growing this and I love it already: no bitterness in my homegrown chard, and even the thick strong salty stalks are juicy, not overly fibrous or tough at all. In my garden, there are two Swiss chard plants: one who's a little itty bitty guy, and another one who's quite large, to put it mildly. As I write, I'm cooking up three of the leaves in some chicken stock, which will probably feed me for a week, since the leaves are from Big Daddy. Why have I named this plant Big Daddy? Observe.Yep, that's a metre stick, and this leaf measures in at over 90 cm. For the Imperialists out there, that's about 3 feet. At these sizes, how can I blame Bitty Baby for cowering in Big Daddy's shadow? Though slight, he's still a cutie, and I'm sure he'll grow up to make me proud.

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Saw Ex Drummer today at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film, situated in Ostend, Belgium, is about a famous writer who's approached by three handicapped musicians to fill out their rock band as the drummer. With the soundtrack alternating between fairly sweet melodies and hard noise rock, Ex Drummer is a barrage on the senses: harsh scenes illustrating the lowest depths of humanity, surreal glimpses of violence and chaos, with some parts so extreme that they're absurd, funny, hyperreal and disturbing all at once. Well done, and I'd probably give it 3 chards, but for all the shock, I'd prefer something a bit more humanist or edifying, and there was no redemption in this film. No strong morality tale. Unnerving editing choices -- if you see it, you'll know what I mean. I'm still jarred by its effects; it's violent, graphic, loud and generally unsettling to see. The director, Koen Mortier, was there for some Q&A after the film, and he was so charming and funny, reeling off anecdotes with a soft-spoken accent, that the whole thing was rather incongruous for a Sunday afternoon. Makes me think of pointillism. Odd effect.

Also probably spotted Ethan Hawke outside some TIFF party after, but without cinematic lighting and makeup, it's hard to say for sure whether it was him or one of the other Hollywood types who look like him. Nice suit, though.

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Behold the Carnage

I just went out to visit my garden and this is what I found.Some may grok how heartbreaking this is for me. For the past three years, I have been killing myself trying to achieve a homegrown ripe tomato in my own garden... my Holy Grail. I've survived sunless summers, hailstorms, bad soil, weed overpopulation and angst-ridden bouts of self-doubt. Now the bastard squirrels are running rampage over my garden and pillaging the choicest chunks of my fruit.

I was even resigned to letting them have the tomatoes that were growing on the ground, but was that enough for them? Oh no. These selfish rodents had to climb up and kill the one ripe one blushing against the trellis.

Send in your recipes for squirrel stew.

Flying Without Flying

All is going swimmingly in the flock this summer.

I have finally figured out how to exercise C. I was inspired by how they exercise clipped birds at Parrot Island Sanctuary, which I read about in Companion Parrot Quarterly: they hold his body and let him flap around the room while being held. They really seem to think they're flying! Here's the video I watched from their website of a woman flying an Amazon parrot this way.

A couple days ago, I tried it just like on the video, cupping C's body in my two hands and letting him fly, but I couldn't really get his body, so he'd often end up flapping out of my hands and landing on the ground, as I tried to run behind him at the same rate as his flapping. A lot of stop and start. He gets very excited when he's outside and desperately wants to fly. So when we were outside today, I decided to hold his body with just one hand and started running around the yard. Well, he did it! He started flapping his wings and kept going like he was flying! He even held his little feet back in a flight position! I was so proud of him. We did that a few times, then I realized he was looking pretty spent so we figured that's enough for one day. That's why he looks so sleepy in the photo.

I plan for us to do more flapping like this for as long as we can. I hope the summer's long -- I figured this out so late! Of course I will still do the flapping on hand but he can't sustain that very long because of his weak legs and feet and/or excitement, which means he often flaps/falls off my hand. Besides, this seems like much more fun for him, and better exercise for me too.

B has taken to the branch I set up outside as home base, and will often fly straight there when I say "Fly to perch". I'm also now able to encourage him to fly from my hand, to get exercise flying around a bit outside. Today was the first day where he's been able to launch from my hand, fly up, loop around, and land back on my hand. He seems to turn back around as soon as he's gone anywhere; that's how devoted he is to us (not really "us", of course, but just Bird C, really). When he lands elsewhere, on the roof, or in a spruce, he comes back almost immediately (within 1-2 minutes). Those were both today; he was very cute, hopping from branch to branch on a spruce until he had a clear shot back over to us. I couldn't actually see him, but I was circling counterclockwise around the spruce to see him, and he was hopping to circle in the same direction on the opposite side of the trunk, so I'd hear him and see the branches shake a bit with a flash of grey-black tail every now and then.

B loves the camera. When I'm shooting, he looks right at it and will even start serenading it sometimes. Today, I took a series of closeups from a high angle, and he was very agreeable, tilting his head up to eye the camera whenever I asked him to look up for the shot. What a star. He's even got the moody hooded brow.

Wondering what the birds are sitting on today in these photos? Me too! In the Spring, I collected some of the birdseed husks that they'd finished eating and scattered them in the garden, hoping it'd help break up the soil and keep it from impacting. Over the past few months, these grassy things have started growing. At first, I just thought they were grass and let them be. Then they started getting really tall really fast, and growing these seed heads that don't look like anything else I've ever seen in the wilderness of the yard. They're starting to mature from fresh green to seedy brown, and I think I can recognize the little seeds coming in. I'm wondering if they might be millet. Or if not millet, whatever those long pointy seeds in birdseed, that come with the round millet, are. Does anyone know?

Do I dare think I finally have a source of organically grown bird seed? I pulled up a clump of it to transplant to a pot with some flowering spinach, so that they can play with some living greens indoors, assuming they survive the transplant.

Up to the minute news!

Data from N. hollandicus Operant Conditioning
Criterion: Subject must beak target rock as indicated with target stick. Beaking the stick or beaking another rock before indicated target is counted as an error. Subject is still rewarded upon successful touching of target, even if numerous incorrect trials are made first.
5 targets used: pink, clear, green, shiny, rust rocks.

2007/06/28
Session C1: 82% correct. 14 successful repetitions, 3 errors. Errors with "pink rock" and "clear rock". [Session interrupted near start. Bird B jumped across to the treat dish and gorged himself while researcher was distracted with telecommunications.] 1226h.

Session B1: 33% correct. 5 successful repetitions, 10 errors. Zero correct repetitions with "rust rock" and "shiny rock". Some errors with "green rock" and "pink rock". No errors with "clear rock". I've observed that Bird B appeared to dislike the rust rock the most, often throwing that one off the table first. Animosity toward rust rock appears to have declined recently. 1233h.

Session C2: 80% correct. 12/3 R/E (# of successful repetitions over errors). 2 out of 3 errors were targets to stick rather than pink and clear rocks. Touched green rock instead of rust rock on the other error. No errors on green and shiny rocks. 1233-1238h.

Session B2: 50% correct. 10/10 R/E. 1 error was target to stick. 1238-1243h.

Session C3: 100% correct. 10/0 R/E. 2027h.

Session B3: 83% correct. 10/2 R/E. Both errors on green rock. 2029-2031h.

2007/06/29
C1: 57% correct. 8/6. Zero correct on green rock. Some errors on rust, pink, clear. No errors on shiny. 1339-1343h. Recorded on video 6915.

B1: 82% correct. 9/2. Errors on rust and pink. 1 error on rust was target to stick. 1348-1351h. Recorded on video 6916.

C2: 83% correct. 10/2. 1 error on pink. 1 error on rust was target to stick. Duration 2:36 minutes, ended at 1355h. Recorded on video 6917.

B2: 64% correct. Errors on rust, pink, and clear. Duration 2:41 minutes, ended at 1355h. Recorded on video 6918.
1 target added: purple rock (polished amethyst)
6 total targets used: pink, clear, green, shiny, rust and purple rocks.
C3: 100% correct. 19/0. 1403h. Recorded on video 6919.

B3: 82% correct. 9/2. Duration 1:48 minutes, ended at 1408h. Recorded on video 6920.

C4: Data lost and estimated at 57% correct. Estimated #R/E at 8/6. Many errors, subject disinterested. 1756h. Video recording attempted but failed. Possible distraction?

B4: 50% correct. 4/4. Subject disinterested. 1800h.

Bird C's performance is quite consistent, and successful repetitions usually increases with repeated sessions in succession. C appeared to be stimulated by challenge of added purple rock, and gave a 100% success rate on 19 repetitions immediately after. As previously noted, Bird B's performance and interest fluctuates wildly with his mood. I believe many of B's errors are in fact expressions of frustration as he attacks various targets before focusing on the task. Some of B's errors are due to laziness/efficiency as he beaks all targets in vicinity to procure reward with the least amount of effort.

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Garden update: 2 tomato plants have survived transplanting to the garden, and while not exactly thriving, they are surviving. A couple of tomato seedlings have sprouted out in various containers. Unidentified green lettuce in garden along with other plant life (unsure if it's mesclun lettuce or weeds) are doing well and some have been harvested. Red butterworth lettuce in containers also doing well. Several sweet pepper plants are growing, with one in particular growing leafier and larger. Others are tiny.

I'll post another version of the flyaway bird photo. Can you spot him?

Springing Sprout

Some of my seeds have sprouted! The broccolinis are doing extremely well; almost every one sprouted up, although a few did not survive. I also have a couple of tomato and pepper sprouts, although I may have crushed one of the tomato when I accidentally dropped the curtain on it.

I also decided to seed some greens in my little garden plot today. I sowed some Catalina Spinach, Buttercrunch Lettuce and a couple of Chinese cabbages, Bak Choi and Choi Sum. Afterwards, I realized that the Buttercrunch and Chinese cabbages were in the same spot in the plot as last year. Too late -- I'd forgotten to plan ahead and rotate! I'm hoping it won't matter since the cabbages failed last year anyway. Last but not least, I planted some Red Butterworth lettuce and more spinach in some containers outside on the deck. I'm curious to see if they will grow better and faster in the theoretically warmer container soil.

Coming up, beans and cucumbers! I just bought the seeds about a week ago, on the advice that they're rewarding and easy to grow. This will be a nice challenge for my brown thumb.

Cold Cry Mates

I ran a bunch of errands today and bought a nice warm pair of black yoga pants for myself. The strange thing was that, in the front of the shop, there was a large rack of bathing suits. Mental check. Swimsuits? In the winter? It just snowed a few days ago and shops are selling swimsuits already!

Maybe this means it's about time to sow the seeds in the garden. Do I sow because we're coming on to mid-April and I won't have my harvest unless I start soon? Or do I hold off because it still snows and I'm supposed to wait until "all danger of frost is past"? Maybe the snow doesn't count, as long as I don't actually see any frost. Damn, I wish it were warmer.

While I cry to myself about the injustice of the local climate and its consequences on my agricultural instincts, I'll share a scan of my favourite sticker in the whole wide world.

Seeders

I'm starting seeds for my garden. Today I did some broccoli and tomato seeding in some peat pots and egg cartons, and last week I did some bell pepper and zucchini in peat pots. I'm hoping this will extend my season enough so that I can finally get some fresh ripe tomatoes from my garden! That's still my goal... third year's a charm, I hope.

Last year I found that seeding in the peat pots made it near impossible to control the moisture, so I've planted the seeds in the pots individually, then planted the pots into a compost/soil mix. This worked fairly well last year, almost a 100% success rate, so here's hoping for the same. I'm actually being reasonable this year and trying not to overseed since it breaks my heart when I have to kill the excess sprouts so young. I hope this is not too few: 9 broccoli seeds (one fell out into the big pot), 6 tomato, 2 zucchini, and a bunch of pepper seeds since they don't do as well.

Spring forth and prosper, little ones!

Blame it on the Jalapeno

The season's over and the garden was a miserable failure. Out of all the jalapeno plants, I only got one stunted little pepper out of it. But, I have to admit he was a hot little guy -- Spiced up an eggplant dish all by himself! For the second year in a row, I couldn't get any tomatoes to ripen, even though I think I started the tomatoes early enough this year. I seeded them indoors, and then transplanted the seedlings. I got numerous green tomatoes but was too tired of them to even enjoy the ones I did harvest, so most of them ended up rotting. I got one or two yellowing-to-light-orangey tomatoes late in the season, while it was starting to get frosty, but the squirrels had taken big chunks out of those before I could beat them to it. Maybe I'll do better next year, if I don't give up on growing veggies during our balmy 10 degrees Celsius summer season.

I have started an experiment based on a bet with my friend who is getting his Ph. D. in Chemistry. I mentioned that a washed carrot will shrivel up faster than an unwashed carrot and Mr. Scientist disagreed. The bet is on: Two carrots marked, one washed, both placed side-by-side back in the fridge. More to come!

Only Fruit

A belated garden update: About a week after my first pepper, I was looking at my garden wilting and suddenly saw a huge zucchini on the ground, a good 40 cm long, 10 cm in diameter and heavy. I have no idea how long this gigantic fruit had been growing clandestinely under the leaves, but either it'd been undercover for a while, or the plant had an abrupt growth spurt and died, leaving all its energy in this single mammoth squash. I detached the fruit, which fed me for the next two weeks, but nothing I could do would revive the wilting plant. I have a feeling that this is the only zucchini coming out of my garden this year. I wonder if I realize how many parents sacrifice their lives when they bear offspring.

It's been a cold summer.

It's not summer anymore.

My First Pepper!

I haven't been able to sleep all night, so I finally took the birds outside for a morning stroll in the garden. It had just rained during the night, so the morning was fresh and cool. The birds fluffed up immediately and Charley started singing a mating song. He hasn't sung it so fully in weeks; lately, he's only been singing a few truncated notes at a time before losing interest. They like being outside.

Anyway, I've been trying to grow a veggie garden for two years now. This was the first year I successfully got my sweet peppers to sprout and grow into plants. I just read up on peppers, and found that I'm supposed to harvest the first central fruit to encourage bushier growth and more cropping. I had been saving my one good-looking pepper, hoping it would grow large and eventually red/orange/yellow. But, after reading that, I decided to go outside and harvest my one pepper.

My first pepper!

Maybe I'll post photos if I can figure out how to do that later. I hope the cropping works! I need some vegetables going here. All season working on the garden, and all I've had so far is two and a half heads of lettuce and a zucchini the size of my pinky. The spinach, eggplant, other lettuce, broccoli, bak choi, gai lan chinese cabbage, jalapenos, onions and tomatoes have all flopped so far.

Last year, I was able to get broccoli, basil, a bit of dill and coriander, and green tomatoes, so if the sweet peppers crop well, and I can get both last year's and this year's successes, then I'd almost have a real honest-to-goodness productive garden next year! I'm very excited!