I think you know I can’t resist a weird tomato. Crazy colouration, misshapen fruit, variegated foliage… the freakier, the better. One of the first tomato anomalies I tried were varieties with fuzzy foliage, and peach-like fruit. There’s a bunch out there: ‘Garden Peach’, ‘Wapsipinicon Peach’, ‘Elberta Peach’… I think you get the idea. All of …
Back in 2010, when I was travelling to promote the release of my second book, Grow Great Grub, I made a stop at a small bookstore in Montreal. Before the event, I went plant shopping with the store manager, who wanted to get a little herb garden planted in front of the shop. In the …
This year I am committed to writing more here about growing leafy greens. In my last post I provided photographic documentation of almost every one of my harvests of leafy greens in the 2017 growing season. As promised, this post is a complete list of every plant depicted in those photos. I omitted crops such …
Winter is halfway through and I’m sick of it. Over it. Tired of the back and forth freezing and thaw. This week snow and ice, next week thaw and mud. I’m missing the garden big time, but what I’m missing most aren’t flowers, bright colours, smells, or living soil, although I miss those things too. …
I grow several allium species and cultivars in my garden and I find that many of them serve as a hub for a surprising range of pollinators. This is nodding onion (Allium cernuum), an easy to grow, multi-use plant that is native to Carolinian habitats (parts of Canada and the US, including right here in …
I have not been very diligent about posting here, but I have continued to follow the directive I set for myself in 2016 to photograph and identify the bees and other insects that inhabit my garden. Aliens in My Garden is a series capturing the fascinating insects that inhabit my small, urban garden. While many …
Both Davin and I regularly document the garden’s progress throughout the year with quick and easy cellphone shots taken from specific vantage points. We’ve been doing this since year one in this house and we both post these updates to our respective social media accounts (links below). He takes photos from the kitchen window at …
A post shared by Davin Risk (@langueverte) on Nov 18, 2017 at 11:34am PST Davin shot this ethereal, slow motion video in the garden last weekend. I believe these were the same midges that danced around me one afternoon a few weeks ago as I was constructing a cold frame over this bed in anticipation …
I wrote this short piece recently as a series of tweets on Twitter and then transcribed it to my Instagram and Facebook accounts. But because too much falls into the social media ether these days, I have transcribed it here with a few small changes. When I was 16, going on 17, I dug my …
I chose TASTE as my prompt for the first day. My original plan was to choose a handful of different basil varieties and make comparisons between the flavours of the different flowers as a way to get to know them better. However, once I was out in the garden I found myself tempted by several …
With the garden season winding down or gearing up depending on your location, now is a time when many of us are getting back into the garden after some time off. I thought it would be fun to take advantage of the seasonal shift and start a community Grow Curious project that anyone can do, …
To celebrate my new book Grow Curious, I’m giving away prize bundles to three randomly selected people. We are also offering 10% off the book (print or eBook versions) in our online shop until Monday, September 4. To apply the discount to your order enter curiousinaugust into the space marked “discount” at checkout. Each prize …