Garden Tour: Erika’s Small Apartment of Small Plants

Yesterday afternoon I was invited into the apartment of a fellow Parkdale resident to check out her collection of fascinating and unusual plants. The visit brought the plant junky in me out in full force. I went home conspiring to get my hands on a few of those amazing plants myself and then spent the

Random Junk Found in the Street Garden Cleanup (2009)

This isn’t all of it, just some of the stranger items. Interestingly enough, the year I decide to give up on the garden is the year Operation Garden Terrorism seems to have come to a halt. Or maybe I just didn’t notice the damage because the garden looked so haggard! Past Interesting Items Found: Mystery

In Search of My Grandmother’s Garden

I am doing something big this winter, something I have wanted to do for a very long time. It has sat inside me for years and years as a wish that I never quite believed would happen. Even now, with some of the plane tickets booked, I can barely believe I am really doing this

Barry’s Garden Open House

I have written here several times about fellow Toronto, Parkdale resident, Barry Parker and his exceptional backyard garden since meeting him this past spring, but I have never shown any wide view pictures. Well, as luck would have it, Barry is hosting a garden open house this coming weekend — those of you who live

Roof Garden Tour (June 2009)

Click the image to see full-size. I’m long overdue to present a mini roof garden tour this year, let alone a garden tour of any kind. As always I’m behind, which inevitably leads to thoughts that things aren’t just right yet. Or the light is wrong. Then of course there is the classic, “But wait

Somewhat Creepy Baby Doll Buggy with Mint

One of our weekend projects was turning this vintage doll buggy into a mint planter. The plants inside are, from left: ‘Orange’ mint and ‘Ginger’ mint. I bought the buggy last fall. It cost 5 bucks at a street sale. At the time, I didn’t know what I was going to do with it, I

It is Finished

On Saturday afternoon Mary and Joan (and Davin, of course) came by and helped us clean up hundreds of cigarette butts, several broken bottles, the bamboo fence we built two seasons ago that had been literally and purposefully kicked in inch-by-inch along its entire length, a bag full of miscellaneous garbage, concrete dust left by

More Reasons Why I Don’t Grow Edibles in My Street Garden

The snow has melted and it is time to take stock of what has accumulated in the street garden since the fall. In my neighborhood, gentrification is running rampant like a pack of drunken college kids and has brought with it bigger troubles than my little garden has seen in its decade-long existence. I’ve decided

There’s Joy in Hard Work

I listened to this essay about the importance of physical labor by urban gardener Mary Seton Corboy yesterday morning on the This I Believe program and thought it was so brilliant I had to share. Listening to her talk about digging ditches made me want to run outside and dig something… except that it is

Seed Organizing

Miracle of miracles! Not only have I managed to begin my seed purchasing and acquiring process on time this year but I also spent a few hours the other night organizing them all. Ironic that the year I manage this feat is in a crazy busy one when I also happen to be unsure about

Charles’ Tobacco

To begin, I am going to preface this entry with a note about tobacco since I know this topic is controversial and likely to ruffle some feathers. As adults we are all aware that smoking tobacco is addictive, is accredited to causing various forms of cancer, and is generally not a healthy thing to do.

Gayla’s Garden: A Short Film

Local filmmaker Stacey Dodge visited my rooftop garden in the spring to shoot a short for the Toronto Urban Film Festival. Fast forward several months and her film (edited by Beau Dickson) was selected and will be showing this Sunday, September 8 on monitors in the Toronto Subway System. The short will be in rotation