Repurposing Old Blinds

Our neighbours are renovating their basement suite and taking all sorts of things to the landfill. One day, we saw them loading some old window blinds into their van. "Wait!" shouted my partner, "are those window blinds??"

Yep, they were... those old flimsy thin metal blinds that are so annoying. What the heck could we possibly want with them? Well... reduce... reuse... repurpose!

We had visited one of the community gardens in the spring for their plant sale. They produce a LOT of flower and veggie seedlings and all of those little pots need plant tags. What do they use? Old metal window blinds! Yep, they cup them into 4-6" pieces, and then stick the plant labels (printed out) on the blinds. They work perfectly!

Ever since then... we've been on the hunt for old window blinds. And we found them next door! We happily carted two sets of window blinds back to our place where they lay on the ground for several weeks. 

We only need one set as it will make tonnes and tonnes of plant tags for us. The other set... we thought we could take it to the community garden, because they are always looking for more window blinds.

After getting in the way of lawn mowing several times, I decided to just sit down and cut up our set of old blinds. They are so thin that a pair of sturdy scissors worked just fine.

The one set of blinds made hundreds of plant tags, more than enough to keep us going for quite a while!

And they work great in the little pots that we have planted up for sale. Right now, we are using a wax pencil on the tags but I think a Sharpie would work as well. 

This system works way better than going to Home Depot and buying some cheapo plastic plant tags. I love it when we find something that works so well! And when the plant tags reach the end of their days, we can take them to metal recycling and not throw them away. Win-win-win.

Preserving the Bounteous Harvest

Right then... all that planting we did in the spring for our Covid-19 Victory Garden has... well... born fruit. A lot of it... and not just fruit, but vegetables as well. Right now, our fridge is bursting with parsnips, prune plums (Italian plums) and tomatoes. The question now becomes... what, oh what, do we do with it all??

Option 1 - Freezing - Easy

This is an easy option. Overwhelmed by dozens of zucchini the size of your forearm or calf? Shred them, squeeze out excess moisture and measure 1 cup amounts into freezer bags. (Cause zucchini loaves need 1 cup of shredded zucchini). Label (always, always label!) and then pop into the freezer. Easy peasy.

There can be more prep involved as well. Freezing tomatoes is easy but first they should be blanched and the skin stripped off. Actually... almost all vegetables benefit from some blanching before freezing.

Fruit is better - we flash freeze our raspberries and blackberries on cookie sheets and then toss them into freezer bags. But... freezer space is at a premium sooo...

Option 2 - Canning - Moderate to Challenging

We've done a fair bit of canning in the past - things like jams, jellies and chutneys which are all moderately easy. All of those can just be mixed up and processed in a pot, put into canning jars, sealed and once the seal goes "tunk" or "tink"... depending... you are good to go.

We've also canned some apple and/or pear sauce, as well as some tomatoes... all of which need a water bath after being sealed.

While we have a pressure canner... we have yet to use it. Too scarey... a friend told me too many stories about people missing chins and noses after prematurely opening a pressure cooker and/or pressure canner. Sigh...

And... as anyone looking for canning supplies right now (September 2020) knows... they are like hen's teeth thanks to Covid-19. I must admit, I saw this coming back in April and stocked up on some more canning jars so we are well equipped. We just need to get off our butts and do it... maybe some plum chutney again this year.... mmmm... so good.

Option 3 - Drying - Easy?

Our experience with drying things has been limited to herbs. Things like dill and oregano and thyme which we will cut, bundle with string and then hang in strategic locations around the house. We kind of end up looking like an herbalist's shop... We have tried drying them in the oven as well but that seems to take an awfully long time for very little output.

For a few years now, my partner has been rumbling about getting a dehydrator... and this year... I bit the bullet and bought a 10 tray dehydrator from Cabela's. Woo-hoo!

Now... we aren't going to be making any jerky or any other meat products but... there are all sorts of possibilities before us... we could dry zucchini... or parsnip... or plums... or herbs... or tomatoes!

That is going to be our first experiment... drying tomatoes... We had hoped to use our little cherry tomatoes, but... the manual recommends blanching and de-skinning the tomatoes... which I really don't want to do for cherry tomatoes. But... some other people online have success just cutting the cherry tomatoes in half and dehydrating them that way... so that may be one of our first experiments.

After that... we might do prune plums... and maybe even some parsnip chips...

Peering over Fences

There are times where I wish Google Satellite was real time instead of one or two years out of date. Something is going on in the yard of a neighbour... not a next-door neighbour... but the next door neighbour of our northwest kitty-corner neighbour. I'm thinking they are building a garden but... it's hard to see. It wouldn't surprise me though. We've been hearing a lot of shovels kicking into soil and skilsaw blades digging into wood around the neighbourhood.

For ourselves, we are building three new beds along the south side of the house. It's quite a narrow strip but... the stucco on the house makes it a very warm little ecosystem. The three beds are destined to be the homes of squash and zucchini plants. We're hoping these warmth-loving plants will take off back there. And... we won't have to deal with their vines trailing all over the yard! Just have to figure out a way to be able to water them consistently...

Possible veggie garden plots

To the west, our behind-the-house neighbours have been busily building garden beds and their aquaponics greenhouse is up and running. There's quite a bit of gardening chit-chat flying across the fence. We even donated some strawberries, chives and parsley to their endeavours. Although, at the moment... we don't even have to chat over the fence since the fence has disappeared. It has been on the verge of falling down for several years but with some judicious propping up, we've managed to coax it along. This year though, we happily agreed to replace it and foot half the bill. At the moment, it is just new fence posts and cross-ties but it is coming along. We can't wait for it to be finished as a number of our long-term projects have been on hold until the fence got "done".

To the north, our new neighbours, who just moved into the house in October, are busily building raised beds. They are gardeners from way back, having brought with them a bewildering array of pots and planters with various forms of greenery - flowers and shrubs mostly. Their yard is essentially a blank canvass and, as we've chatted over the fence with them, we've learned that they have big plans for the backyard. It's exciting to be able to watch the progress taking place.

A blank canvas yard

As we walk around the neighbourhood on our twice daily exercise beat, we see other evidence of gardens being transformed. It seems that a lot of people have an abundance of extra time on their hands and things are happening!

Even tenants are getting in on the gardening aspect. We noticed a house down at the corner (with no fence to peer over) where the tenants have been busily digging garden beds. They actually chose a good house as the previous elderly owner had several fruit trees, raspberry canes, a compost bin, and several raised beds. Interestingly, the tenants have decided to try sunken beds. They excavated the ground down about a foot and then filled their excavation with good soil. Interesting idea... although they now have several piles of very rocky soil sitting around their yard. Will be interesting to see what they do with that. Next time I see them out there, I might just go and chat them up, from a distance, and see what their plans are...

And... down at the cul-de-sac, there is a well-established garden, complete with deer fencing and a little greenhouse. Down the dead-end road, there might even be chickens in a coop, as well as a ramshackle greenhouse... and a new deer fence going up. That same dead-end street has a backyard with some great raised beds, one of which is dedicated to various herbs.

And... I did just do a little virtual fly-over of our neighbourhood with Google Satellite and there are actually several other yards with raised beds in the backyards that look like potential veggie beds. I'm thinking there are way more veggie growers out there than I first imagined!


There's a part of me that is tempted to deliver a little note to all the gardener-occupied homes in our neighbourhood and suggest a little plant-and-swap. Something along the line of "we'll grow zucchini, why don't you grow squash... and then, later, we can trade". Or something along those lines... I haven't gotten that far yet... small steps...

Grow Food not Grass

When we bought our house seven years ago, the back yard was a blank slate. There was a lot of grass and not much else. A couple of fruit trees, a shed with some grape vines, and some neglected flower beds.

How times have changed... We started with one raised bed built during our first summer and that has expanded each year.

This year's project is to install some squash beds along the south-facing side of the house. That side gets great sunshine during the summer and gets very hot with sun and heat reflecting off the stucco siding. Perfect for heat-loving squash and zucchini.

We don't even have to deal with the sod in that area as the ground was torn up and redeposited during perimeter drain excavation work. We already knew, but learned again, how insanely rocky the underlying soil is - glacial till at its finest. We will never have a shortage of rocks in our yard... Just choose a spot, dig down more than 2 inches and start excavating... We have done a lot of digging in our yard as we have planted various shrubs, grasses, and removed the lawn to build raised beds. It seems we are on point... at least in this area.

Replacing a lawn with a garden, be it flower or vegetable, is a growing trend. A lawn is not very eco-friendly on a number of fronts.

Before...

Lawns use an inordinate amount of water... and given that our summer dry season usually saddles us with water restrictions, lawns turn golden yellow in the summer. Mostly. There is always the older retired gentleman somewhere on the street who believes that a green lawn is a sign of good home ownership, status or something. Apparently lawns in the US require the most irrigation of any agricultural crop in the country...

My Dad was one of those older retired gentleman. When he lived in our basement suite, he could never understand why we didn't water the lawn and spread weed killer and moss killer all over it. I tried to get to the heart of what it was for him... something along the lines of "what will the neighbours think". I would hope that they'll think that we are eco-friendly rather than sloppy homeowners...

After...

Which leads me to my next point... weed and moss killer are biocides... they are poison and there have been more than enough studies to show that things like Round-Up are NOT good for humans... never mind bugs and birds and worms and other creatures that lived here long before we came along.

And the run off from the lawns... as they are watered... means the biocides end up in the streams and rivers where they continue to poison and kill.

There are of course, other options... like tearing out the grass and laying artificial turf. Although... there is a house near us where the front lawn is artificial and... it has weeds growing in it. Real weeds obviously. I'm not sure how that is even possible but it is... Mind you, the older, retired gentleman who lives there seems to be a Snow Bird who doesn't do a lot of yard work...

And then... one could also just paint the yellow lawn in the summer rather than watering it... it's a growing trend although seems rather... excessive. In our community, a yellow lawn in summer is a badge of honour...

Lawns are also a lot of work... even if all you do is mow them... they are a hassle. And let's not even talk about the weeding and feeding via various means. I go over the front lawn on my hands and knees a couple of times in the summer and stab out the worst dandelions and other weeds. It's easier during the dry season because the grass is golden and the weeds are still green which makes them super easy to spot... But all that crawling and stabbing is hard work... although very therapeutic...

A house in Quebec... before and after

We still have an almost unsullied front lawn although it is shrinking from the outside inwards. We added a little 2 foot wide strip of flower garden along the driveway, and then expanded the front of house garden bed by another 3 feet or so.

We have debated turning the front yard into a series of veggie beds but... we also suffer from a plague of deer all year round. And deer love nothing better than to sample each and every plant to see whether it is palatable. Most vegetables would be right up their alley...

Although... perhaps potatoes (leaves are toxic) or rhubarb (also toxic) would survive the deer buffet? We did try a few squash one year which seemed to do OK with their prickly stalks and leaves.

Mind you... raised beds are not all fun and games. Our dry summers mean that watering the veggie beds can be an onerous task. Most vegetables benefit from low and slow watering but in the summer we are limited to hand watering... which means most beds get heavy and fast watering which doesn't benefit things like carrots. We've tried them and they are super fat at the surface, a good inch in diameter but... only an inch long. It's the watering thing... heavy and fast means only the top laywer of soil gets watered. We need low and slow... Our goal is to get an irrigation system for each of the raised beds but other priorities have... well... taken priority. Perhaps this year it will actually happen given the enforced stay-at-home-as-much-as-possible orders. Which show no signs of easing as I write this (April 1).

In the News - Food Security

For years, I've read about "Food Security"... and how, living on an island as we do, we should look at building up our food security. I have to admit, I've never really looked into it all that much, I just took it to mean that most of our food comes from "away" and, in any sort of a disaster, we'd be stuck. Huh.

Now that we're in a pandemic disaster... food security is front page news and... it means a lot more than just where the food comes from. Here's a definition from one local organization...

When a community is food secure, all of its citizens have dignified access to affordable, good-quality, nutritious food. While this may seem simple enough to achieve, the effects of globalization, the rising costs of real estate, and growing income disparity, are all conspiring to disconnect the average citizen from the source of their food.

As people lose the ability and skill to grow and prepare their own food, they become dependent on distant suppliers, out of season produce, and processed foods. In short, the source of their food is not secure and the quality is compromised.

Now that makes a lot of sense. It's not just where our food comes from (distant vs. local suppliers) but what sort of food we access (processed vs. fresh), when we access it (in or out of season) and how expensive it is to access (affordable or expensive). On top of that... with many people relying on restaurants, fast-foods, junk foods and/or the ever popular TV dinners... cooking has fallen by the wayside. And let's not even talk about vegetable gardening which, to many people, is a complete mystery. Then... of course... there's preserving food from the bountiful garden harvests - freezing and/or canning... which is another deep mystery.

In many ways, food security means us (me and you) getting as close to fresh food as possible and eliminating as many of the middle men/women as possible. So many different ways of doing that...

• shopping the perimeters of grocery stores - produce, meat, dairy, bread - and skipping the processed/junk food in the middle aisles
• shopping at farmer's markets and buying locally grown
• growing our own food - even herbs on a balcony is a step in that direction or maybe it's a plot at a community garden
• foraging for food - blackberries are an obvious first choice on the Coast...
• gleaning for food - people post when they have excess produce (e.g. an over-abundance of apples) and gleaners come and pick it and then distribute it to food banks, etc.

Seems pretty simple and low-key until we toss Covid-19 in to the mix... and then all of a sudden food security becomes front page news and a burning topic of discussion. Let's see...

• meat processing plants are reducing production and/or shutting down due to the virus (e.g. (Cargill meat plant in Alberta, Smithfield pork plant in South Dakota, JBS SA pork plant in Minnesota, and, recently, United Poultry chicken plant in Vancouver)
• foreign workers, who harvest a lot of the produce, are having a harder time getting into the country which might impact the food supply

There is, of course, a common denominator in all of this... the meat processing plant staff work elbow-to-elbow in very confined quarters. It's easy to see how a virus could spread quickly. And... the foreign workers are housed in very crowded quarters... again, easy to see how a virus could spread quickly. Wherever we have living beings crammed close together, it's going to make it really easy for any disease to take off... be it in pork processing plants or in dairy herds or fur farms or any meat market where live animals are sold for consumption.

British Victory Garden poster

On top of that... we have the United Nations warning us that the future could bring famines of "biblical" proportions in more than 10 countries. These countries are already teetering on the edge due to war, drought, locust plagues (I kid you not) and/or economic hardship. It won't take much of a push from the Covid-19 virus to tip them over the edge.

It's enough to give one the heebee jeebees... So, what's a person to do? After all, I can't fix what is happening, or going to happen, in Ethiopia... or anywhere else in the world. I really only have influence in my little corner of the world, all 8200 sq ft of it to be exact.

A few blogs ago, I wrote about the idea of Victory Gardens... an idea from the Second World War. I'm not the only one... type in "virus victory garden" and be prepared to be overwhelmed by a tonne of news articles about gardening taking off...

As it turns out, some cities are taking an active role in encouraging individuals to grow food. Victoria, BC, for example, voted to grow more food plants in the cities nurseries, rather than flowers. The food seedlings would then be delivered to individuals in need, who would continue to grow them.

Brampton - Backyard Garden Program

Brampton, ON, has taken it a step farther and started the Backyard Garden Program in which they are giving away free seeds and soil. This is a step beyond what Victoria is doing! Because, let's face it... most people don't know the first thing about growing vegetables. And while seeds do work for many things (carrots, beets, peas, etc)... it can be tricky if you're a first time gardener. The soil... the water... the location... all play a role. The good thing seems to be that there is always someone in the neighbourhood who knows something about gardens... I was reading this one article about an amateur gardener from Vancouver. Her neighbours are wanting to get on board with gardening... even though they've never done it... but at least they have the amateur gardener to dispense helpful advice!

I've also come across the idea that more cities should be planting fruit and/or nut trees instead of ornamental trees. While I'm not sure how this would work along city boulevards (pollution and a morass of fallen apples in the fall)... it certainly would be a good idea in parks and along walking paths. A few years ago, I was in Winnipeg, and came across their Public Orchard at The Forks... a nice little grouping of fruit trees and berry pushes which anyone can pick or harvest. Cool idea!

So, there is some hope out there... and it all begins with some small steps. When we started our vegetable garden... we started with one raised bed... which became two the following year... and so it's gone. This year, we added three small beds along the sunny side of the house. Just another few small steps.

Lockdown Options - Consuming, Creating, Cultivating

I went to the pharmacy the other day and had to pass by Michaels which had a big sign in their window saying "Yes, We are Open". My immediate thought was... how is a craft store an essential service???

But as my partner later enlightened me... people would go crazy if they had nothing to do at home. Which makes sense. I mean, if hardware stores are an essential service, why not a craft store?

Michaels sells more than just crafts, they sell fabric as well, especially important now that our Fabric Land shut down. If people can get home repair items at a hardware store... then it makes perfect sense that they can also get clothing repair items at a craft store.

Which got me thinking... as nice as a stay-at-home order is in the short-term... kind of like an extended holiday for some... it will become insanely boring after a while. Seeing the same people... looking at the same four walls... walking the same few blocks. We don't really thrive well on sameness... I know that after two weeks of a tropical vacation, I am more than ready to come home and resume all my little projects and get back to writing. Sooo... what do we do with our time as this stay-at-home thing seems to extend indefinitely. It ain't going to go away in 2, 4 or even 6 weeks. We are in this for the long haul.

The way I see it... there are three routes available to us:

Consuming

Now that the shopping bug has finally be nipped in the bud... is consuming dead? Not being able to go to the Mall... not being able to browse for clothing or whatever... is consuming over and done with? Not really. There's always online shopping although I understand Amazon is prioritizing food deliveries... so people might have to wait for their latest tchotchke to get delivered. It's always bothered me that we are referred to as Consumers. The word "consume" doesn't really have a great connotation...

verb (used with object), con·sumed, con·sum·ing.
   to destroy or expend by use; use up.
   to eat or drink up; devour.
   to destroy, as by decomposition or burning: Fire consumed the forest.
   to spend (money, time, etc.) wastefully.
verb (used without object), con·sumed, con·sum·ing.
   to undergo destruction; waste away.
   to use or use up consumer goods.

Yeah, no... not such a great word. Although quite accurate for us in the First World... we do have a tendency to use up and/or devour things... more than our fair share of things too.

And let's not even talk about consuming food... the shrinks also warn against over-eating during this stay-at-home time. It's easy to slip into though because food (and alcohol) have such deep comfort-giving roots within us. I'm actually kind of surprised that the run on food in the grocery stores didn't also generate a run on the liquor stores. Clearly we all know that food is the first essential that we need (and alcohol comes later)... but how much food do we really need?

And it's not just physical consuming... there is also the consuming that happens when we sit down and binge watch four seasons of the-latest-hot-new-show on Netflix. Or start playing video games non-stop. Or binge on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc... Or even the news feeds... Binging on information... All of which is not good during this pandemic lockdown thing... or so the shrinks tell us.

I came across a blog post a few months back that really stuck with me: Be a Creator, not a Consumer. Which leads us to...

Creating
We all have a creative drive within us... whatever it might be. To create something... a song, a piece of clothing, a shed, a book, a poem, a video, a podcast, a photograph, a painting, a garden... So many different ways to create. And... obviously... there are people who consume what we have created... by listening, reading, watching, admiring, etc.

So really, there is a balance between consuming and creating... although I came across an intriguing figure the other day, the 1% Rule. Basically, when it comes to information on the internet, 99% of people are consumers and only 1% are creators. It's kind of an extreme outlier of the Pareto Principle (80/20 rule). But there are also many ways, beyond the internet, of being creative. Just take a look at Etsy... there are tonnes of people out there creating all sorts of things and selling them online.

But maybe we don't even have to sell what we create... maybe it's enough to just know that we are creating something that wasn't there before we sat down. To look back at the end of a few hours and go "There... I did that... I made that". To me, it's about making the world a slightly better place... that I push back the chaos a bit and bring order where entropy would normally rule. To gather random words and stitch them together into something that makes sense, that communicates something, that shares a bit of me or a bit of information. And perhaps it only benefits one other person... or maybe more than one. To me, that isn't really necessary... although it is nice... but at least it benefits me. The more I write, the more clear I get on life and the lessons to be learned from it. And if what I create has some beauty and flow to it... even better.

In many ways, creating is the way in which we use our innate talents and put them to use... and even build on them. We are cultivating the garden of our gifts... which leads me to...

Cultivating

We are cultivating our garden... taking the gifts of earth, sun, compost, water and seeds and bringing them together in a way that encourages nature to do what it does best... create abundance out of the tiniest starting points. It always amazes me how prolifically abundant nature is... how many seeds come out of one poppy pod or out of a dill plant... hundreds, thousands out of... one. We can help it along with compost and manure... but ultimately, we can only watch and marvel as nature takes its course... and try to keep the slugs at bay!

But there's more to cultivating than just gardening... it's all about cultivating the gifts within ourselves and others as well. If we have children, how can we cultivate them and encourage them to grow and be the best that they can be. Children learn by example... so what are we doing to cultivate our own gifts?

This is where I begin to see a distinction between consuming and cultivating... consuming is the mindless, ravenous consumption of entertainment. For what purpose? Just to consume because we are bored or... whatever. But cultivating... to me that means there is a mindful purpose behind what we are doing. Like when I am researching a blog topic and reading different articles... I am very focused on what I am looking for and how it relates to what I am creating. If I then get distracted and end up on YouTube watching a never-ending stream of funny cat videos... well... that's consuming again! Or... if I get sucked into the news feeds and end up just consuming information instead of cultivating knowledge...

Maybe now is the time to cultivate a new language or brush up on an old, rusty one. My German is kind of rusty... there must be online courses out there (for free) that I could tap into...

There are so many different options and YouTube (used mindfully) has a tonne of how-to videos out there... Maybe now is the time to learn how to bake bread or muffins. Or perhaps this is the perfect time to start digging into your family tree... Or learn how to can food...

I know this... when this whole stay-at-home lock down thing eases... I want to have something to show for it. Which is also something the shrinks are suggesting during this time - control what you can. So... in our small little piece of the world, what can we control? Where can we bring order out of the chaos? How can we make the world jut a little bit better than it was before... So that when this all ends... in a year or more... we will come out of it more connected to ourselves, others and the earth... to make it a better place for all...

And honestly... it never hurts to start a garden... even just a few pots with herbs or tomatoes. We are at the start of our growing season... the perfect time to begin...

Victory Gardens - Dusting off an Old Idea

First, let me say this - we grow a garden every year. Our back yard looks like a little urban farm. When we bought this house 7 years ago, the back lawn was a blank canvas. We started with one raised bed, then two, then four, then six. And now we have a greenhouse as well. None of it is necessarily pretty or worthy of Home & Gardens magazine. But... it works.

And now... we seem to be ahead of a growing trend. I went to Country Grocer on Sunday to get a few odds and ends, as well as some tomato and cucumber seeds. They usually have a great selection of West Coast Seeds but... it looked like the locusts had been through the seed rack.

Now... it is seed planting time here on the West Coast (sorry Rest of Canada). And a lot of people do garden here but this... this seems to be more than the normal run on seeds.

We are still waiting for the first arrivals of veggie seedlings (tomatoes and cukes in particular) but... so far nothing. There are cruciferous seedlings (kale, cabbages, brussel sprouts, etc) and herb babies but... none of the other stuff.

Sooo... we have dug out our seedling starter kits and are going to start some tomatoes and cukes. Oh yes, I did find some seeds on Sunday, but not your typical ones. Cukes were limited to lemon cukes, which are seriously yummy but look like little prickly lemons and I imagine your average novice gardener has no idea what they are like. We also got some little orange cherry tomatoes, again, not your typical tomato variant and left behind by the locusts.

I had actually stocked up on seeds over the last two weeks so we are well set for the spring growing season. Let's take a look at what we grow/have grown/will grow/won't grow!

Veggies
Here's what's already growing in our garden:

• Kale - your best leafy green ever - we have some old kale from last year which is just starting to leaf out nicely again. We also put in some new kale seeds.
• Swiss Chard - also a nice leafy green and we have about a dozen plants that over-wintered and starting to bush out again. Haven't planted any new ones yet.
• Garlic - planted last Oct/Nov and ready for harvest in July. Pretty easy to grow as long as you don't over-water in June. We grow hard-necked garlic and it makes pretty big bulbs with massive cloves - only 4 cloves/bulb.
• Leek - I've been nursing my leek population from one year to the next and we now have some two dozen leek teenagers. I had bought leek seedlings about four years ago and they overwinter well and divide underground. It takes some patience to wait for the babies/teens to mature but this year might be the year.
• Onion - we have four stray onion plants that avoided previous pickings. Will see what they develop into. We haven't had great luck with onions though.
• Asparagus - we have about 4 asparagus plants and I have yet to eat one spear of asparagus. This year might be the year though... 
• Radish - have a couple of rows of radishes planted last fall. They are starting to fluff up and hoping they will produce some good radishes for eating. Also started a few rows in the greenhouse this spring.
• Broad Beans - planted some last fall and a few to fill in this spring. We've had moderate luck with broad beans (aka fava beans) and have some in the freezer.
• Corn Salad - has nothing to do with corn. It's known as Rapunzel in Europe and we have it everywhere. We bought a packet a few years ago and then some of the plants went to seed and... well... we don't need to seed again. It is a tiny plant though and takes a lot of effort to pick and wash and...
• Mesclun - baby greens mixes - you can get different variations. We planted some in the greenhouse several weeks ago and have started a short row outside. The trick is to plant in stages otherwise you'll be swamped in a sea of green. Easy to grow, quick to harvest. Just use scissors to cut the baby greens and they'll leaf out again at least another two times.
• Peas - we have some trellises along some of the raised beds where we have planted climbing peas in years past but... this year I found bush peas! Game changer!! Cause they can be planted in any of the raised beds and really help with crop rotation. So we have about 100 bush pea plants seeded.

And here's what's coming onto the horizon soon...

• Parsnip - going into the ground soon. Haven't ever tried them but going to give it a go this year. We roast them in the oven and they are yummy...
• Kohlrabi - going into the ground soon. One of the cruciferous veggies - it looks super weird but we tried it a few years ago. The raw flesh is kind of juicy like an apple but tastes a bit like broccoli stalk - very mild cabbagey flavour. I was surprised at how yummy it was having been fed cooked kohlrabi as a kid and hating it with a passion. Makes a good slaw too. Easy to grow too. 
• Scallions/Green Onions - going into ground soon - we have better luck with these than with regular onions sooo... going to try them again this year.
• Beets - going into the ground in mid April - we've planted them every year and they always do well.
• Bush beans - not planted until July but they don't take up a tonne of room and they produce a lot!
• Tomatoes - as noted, starting them in the seed trays - will then move to greenhouse and maybe some outside pots
• Cukes - also going to start in seed trays inside and then move to greenhouse
• Squash - got some butternut squash seeds this year. Likely need to start indoors and transplant in May. We've had mixed results with squash but haven't really been on top of feeding them well. They are heavy feeders so going to give it a better try this year.
• Potatoes - if we can find the space! We've grown them the last few years and they generally do well although are not huge producers in raised beds. 
• Nasturtiums - technically a flower but the leaves and flowers are edible in salads! And very yummy with a bit of a peppery nip to it.

What we aren't growing this year:

• Carrots - we've not done well with carrots. They will look fat and juicy at ground surface, a good inch in diameter but when you pick them... they are all of an inch long as well. It's a watering thing. We'd need to really perfect our slow and low watering with an irrigation system or a little sprinkler or something. But... our summers always have watering restrictions on sprinklers sooo... we are passing on carrots this year.
• Cabbages - we've grown some from Country Grocer seedlings - green, red and savoy. They did OK but we aren't big cabbage eaters.
• Broccoli - it actually did amazingly well the one year we got Country Grocer seedlings... but we kind of got overwhelmed by broccoli that year. 
• Peppers - we've tried them in the greenhouse in previous years... meh. The hot chili peppers did OK but the bell peppers were a wash.
• Eggplant - we tried that once in the greenhouse and got one eggplant from one plant. Not worth the effort or the square footage! 
• Spinach - ours always bolts... although we may try it again... there is some disagreement about whether to waste square footage on this again...

Herbs
Herbs we have in our garden

• Chives - lots and lots of chives... chives everywhere...
• Oregano - taking over the world
• Thyme - regular and variegated
• Rosemary - after several false starts with baby rosemary's dying due to... something... we finally have a good, strong plant!
• Sage - also several false starts but now have a good, strong plant.
• Tarragon - a bit concerned since it seemed to die over the winter but... is sprouting from the bottom again - yay!
• Parsley - we have it everywhere... and it keeps coming back so that's good!
• Dill - unlike the other herbs, dill isn't a perennial but seeds itself very robustly. We planted dill seeds one year and... like the corn salad, don't need to seed again! It will just start coming up everywhere... 
• Cilantro - we haven't perfected cilantro yet... not sure what the secret is... but we do have some seeds from last year's plants so will try again. 
• Mint - would take over the world if it could - several different types
• Lavender - not an herb for eating per se... although I guess some people do use it that way.

Herbs we are planting this year:

• Summery Savory - tried it a few years ago and it worked in a pot - doing that again this year... it goes nicely with all the bush beans! It's an annual though... but doesn't self-seed as well as the dill.
• Basil - maybe. We still have reams of basil pesto from previous crops. It usually does well for us except last year when it was a failure on all fronts.

Fruits
And... we have some fruit too!

• Pear - tree was here when we bought the house. They are stewing pears and not really eating pears but... they make a darn good pear sauce! 
• Plum - the nice black ones... but the tree is on its last legs and didn't produce anything last year. The black plum tree is grafted onto a wild plum root stock which means we have little wild plum trees trying to pop up all through the year. One that has been allowed to grow produced some tart little oval yellow plums one year. Hasn't done it again though...
• Prune Plum - is technically the neighbour's tree but hangs over the fence... super yummy but the tree needs to be watered consistently... so need to stay on top of that this year.
• Raspberries - hands down the best value for square footage. Given how expensive raspberries are... this is a winning crop. We aren't always on top of the picking though because the crop is a bit much sometimes but... we start our winter with bags and bags of flash frozen raspberries.
• Blueberries - not really a big grower at the moment. We got a bush off of Kijiji a few years ago and split off two rooted babies. So we technically have 3 plants but only the mother plant produces berries. Need to keep the birds away... We only got a small handful of berries last year but have high hopes for this year.
• Strawberries - started with 10 plants purchased for $0.10/plant... now have a LOT of strawberry plants. But we need to weed out the old plants and let the satellite plants have free rein. Old plants don't produce as well... And we just got some ever-bearing strawberries last year...
• Grapes -came with the garden and the neighbour's garden. But then we scavenged a few from an old vacant lot and... we have green grapes in the fall.
• Fig - little baby fig given to us by a colleague a few years ago. Still waiting for the first fig...
• Rhubarb - almost forgot... It's a very forgiving plant. It's been dug up and moved several times and... it's still a happy plant.
• Blackberries - of course... doesn't everyone on the West Coast have some invasive Himalayan Blackberry in their yard? We give the blackberry free rein in our Back 40 corner of the yard. We also go foraging out in the world and usually start our winters with bags and bags of flash frozen blackberries. As well as blackberry liqueur... mmm....
• Apple - we don't have an apple tree but friends of ours do and they always have too many.... so we make apple sauce in the fall and then can/freeze it for the winter. Just core, peel and simmer with a tiny bit of water and cinnamon. No added sugar required. Same with the pear sauce.
• Quince - we don't have a quince tree but the apple tree friends do and one year we made quince jelly... it was a darn tricky process though and didn't turn out great - more like quince rubber... might try again and hope we estimate the "set point" better.

I think that's it. I've probably forgotten something... and lest you think our yard is "huge". It's not. Our whole lot is maybe 8200 square feet and that includes the house footprint and front yard and driveway.

For our veggies we have the following beds:

• raised bed - 8' x 3' - 24 sq ft
• raised bed - 2' x 3' - 6 sq ft
• raised bed - 8' x 3' - 24 sq ft
• raised bed - 2' x 3' - 6 sq ft
• raised bed - 8' x 1.5'  - 12 sq ft
• raised bed - 12' x 2' - 24 sq ft
• raised bed - 12' x 2' - 24 sq ft
• Greenhouse - 9' x 2' - 18 sq ft
• Greenhouse - 9' x 2' - 18 sq ft

That's only 156 sq ft of growing space. Mind you, the herbs are generally planted out and about in the flower beds. Raspberries, strawberries and blueberries also planted in the ground in various locations around the yard.

Now... could we live off of what we grow? Definitely not... but it is a nice supplement to what we buy in the stores. It's also a fair bit of work... and we have to watch out for the pests: slugs (grrrr), birds (hmmmm), rats (ick) and your usual aphids, etc. Still... the veggies always taste better than store bought... and it does a body good to work in the soil and then eat the fruits of their labours.

Oh... and aside from the blackberries out in the world... there are other edibles out there. After much hunting, I found a nice patch of stinging nettles which, when harvested as young plants in the spring, and then blanched, make a great spinach substitute. More on that in another blog post...

Whether your garden is big or small... whether all you have is pots on a balcony or a whole yard... growing your own food is a hugely satisfying process. As someone once said, Gardening is a Revolutionary Act.

The ABC's of Feline Manure

Before you go, "EWWWW!!!"... hear me out. I've researched this six ways from Sunday and we've been composting our cat waste for the last six (almost seven) years. So far, no one's gotten sick... but then none of us is/was/will be pregnant. Women who are pregnant should not handle cat litter, period. But for the rest of us... read on!

Back in 2001, we added two little feline bundles of joy to our lives. Over the years, they have added a lot to our household... joy, laughter, cuddles and, as indoor cats, poop, peep and cat litter.

We started off by using your regular, run-of-the-mill clay-based cat litter. It clumped well which was important when you're trying to scoop poop and peep. It also made an unholy mess - clay dust everywhere, but that's the price you pay for having cats. At some point, I read an article which said that clay dust was exceedingly bad for kitten lungs... and presumably not great for cat and human lungs either.

Not our cat - but a typical cat poop position

I looked at different options - compressed pellets, be they newspaper or pine, didn't really satisfy the feline need for digging. I don't know about your cats, but our two were always scratching and digging... turning... and then scratching and digging some more. Apparently it helps to get the bowels moving. After sufficient scratching and digging, they assume "the poop position". Anyone with a cat will know what I'm talking about. This is not a simple squat... oh no... this is a serious standing-as-tall-as-possible squat... but I digress.

I then came across wheat-based cat litter. It looked like cat litter and was very scratchable. We made the switch and the cats barely blinked at the transition. We used that for many years and then made another switch to walnut shell cat litter.

As for disposing of our cat waste - it had always gone into plastic bags and into the garbage. We didn't really think about it too much... until we moved to the Island in 2013.

Walnut shell cat litter

At the time, the city in which we chose to live had a very explicit policy which prohibited any pet waste from being placed in the garbage bin. Apparently the bags of waste would get squished by the compactor and explode and there would be toxic cat litter bio-waste everywhere.

We had ourselves a problem. The city recommended paying a disposal company to collect the pet waste but that seemed expensive and ridiculous. I did some research. If the manure from chickens, rabbits, cows and horses was good for the garden... what about cat manure?

Turns out, there's a big difference. The above are mostly herbivores or insectivores, while cats are mostly carnivores (rats, mice, birds, etc). As such, cats can pick up all sorts of nasty diseases, bacteria and parasites, particularly if they are outdoor cats. However, if certain precautions were taken... people HAD successfully composted cat waste into feline manure. Our cats were indoor cats and didn't eat parasite carriers like mice, rats or birds sooo... I decided to give it a shot!

Turning cat waste into manure is a multi-stage process and requires patience and several different bins. When we moved into our house, there was an old 50-gallon metal drum at the back of the yard filled with leaf sludge. I emptied it out, added a few more holes to the rust-generated ones and moved it behind our shed. I also got a standard black compost bin, one of the rectangular ones because the round ones are useless, in my opinion. I was ready to begin.

Requirements

• Cat waste
• Cat litter - must be biodegradable - wheat, walnut, newspaper, wood - no clay, mineral or weird things
• Carbon/Nitrogen balancing agent - straw for carbon, coffee grounds for nitrogen

The Process

Stage 1 - 50 Gallon Drum

The thing to remember for successful composting is that you want a nice mix of carbon and nitrogen. If you get too much carbon, the process stalls. If you get too much nitrogen, the whole thing stinks to high heaven.

In a regular compost pile, brown material is the carbon (dry leaves, straw) while green material is the nitrogen (kitchen waste, fresh leaves).

In a feline manure pile... the poop and peep are definitely nitrogen while the actual cat litter is carbon. In amending the pile, I have used straw (carbon) and horse manure or coffee grounds (both nitrogen).

Our process for cleaning cat litter is to scoop the poop/peep every day or so until the plastic bag was full (about once a week). We then dump the plastic bag into the drum. This material is mostly just cat waste with some litter mixed in so is quite high in nitrogen. Every month or so, we'd refresh the cat litter in the litter box by dumping the old stuff, which would be quite carbon rich.

Stockpiling cat waste bags

I initially felt that the process had too much carbon and added horse manure and, later, coffee grounds from Starbucks. Horse manure is hard to come by... Starbucks coffee grounds are easy peasy, "take as much as you want!" This, however, tended to make the whole thing stink.

After a while, I eased up on the coffee grounds... and finally stopped them altogether. It seemed carbon might be the missing link...

Nowadays, I'll wait until I have four or five bags of cat waste, dump them all into the drum and then add a sprinkling of straw on top. That seems to do the trick. No stink and yet the decomposition process continues.

The drum has a partial lid on it... but still gets water when it rains heavily. You don't want a dry compost heap otherwise that stops the entire process as well.

Sooo... the drum slowly fills up... with two cats... it took about nine months to fill the drum. One cat is much slower...

Once the drum was full... I got out the shovel and garden fork and transferred the entire pile to the compost bin. During this process, everything gets loosened up a bit which is good... we need air in a compost pile. We want aerobic decomposition (in the presence of oxygen)... not anaerobic decomposition (which makes methane). The contents of the drum fit perfectly into the compost bin with a bit of room to spare. At this point, I could still see discrete cat waste material (mostly chunks of poop) and quite a bit of straw...

While the big drum had a few holes in the bottom, it generally did not get any worms into it. Maybe a few spiders building webs at the top... but no real compost-munching critters. Part of the problem is that cat waste is quite "hot" (ammonia and mineral salts) and regular earthworms struggle to survive in that environment.

I had read that earthworms will eventually adapt to survive and even thrive in a cat manure pile so I made sure that the black compost bin was sitting flush on the ground. We later had a problem with rats burrowing underneath the bin and into the manure (sigh)... so a few years ago, I installed metal mesh under the bin. Let's the worms in... keeps the vermin out.

Stage 2 - Compost Bin

I'd then walk away and let the stuff percolate in the compost bin... until the 50-gallon drum was full again. At which point... the material in the compost bin had shrunk down by about 40-50%. I would then excavate the material out of the compost bin and put it into a regular green garbage bin.

The first time I did this... I was enthralled to see that there were worms in the compost bin! They were huge and a funny pink colour (not regular wormy colour)... but they were worms! I made sure that some went into the garbage can and some were left behind at the bottom of the compost bin. Starter stock for the next batch of manure-in-the-making.

The stuff that went into the garbage can had a much more consistent appearance with the occasional poop-shaped fragment still decomposing. But at this point... it was almost ready to go. I let the stuff in the garbage can sit for another couple of months and then declared it "ready".

Worms

Where to Use Feline Manure
Now the big caveat - given that our little felines are carnivores and despite the fact that they are indoor cats... we followed advice and erred on the side of caution. Our feline manure does not go on any of our vegetable or fruit beds. It is reserved solely for flower beds.

Do the plants like it? Heck YES! The first time we spread it in a flower bed, that bed went berserk and we were amazed to see how lush and vibrant the growth was. Success!

Now... this process is not for the impatient. It takes a good 1.5 to 2 years from start to finish. This is essential in order to allow any bacteria in the cat waste to die off. The longer it sits, the better it is. And it's important to ONLY use this stuff on flower beds, not near anything edible.

Stage 3 - Almost ready to go

Our city now permits a small amount of double-bagged pet waste in garbage bins but still bans "large amounts". I'm thinking the occasional doggie doo-doo bag is fine... and maybe our cat litter would be acceptable but... at this point, our feline manure benefits our garden far too much to give it up.

I can't really articulate how much this process warms the cockles of my little environmentalist's heart. For starters we are keeping organic waste out of the landfill where it would normally decompose anaerobically and contribute methane to climate change.

At the same time, we are generating rich compost for our flower beds, which benefits not only our pocket book (don't have to buy compost) but also the bees and humming birds (who love all the flowers in our garden).

And... our cats get to play an active role in supporting our little urban homestead. Now... the next SmallStep is to figure out a way to eliminate the plastic bags from the whole process. Still working on that...