Grazings

This post (I kind of hate that word to describe writing here) is going to be piecemeal, a quality that is indicative of my life right now as I float or rather scramble from one task to another in an attempt to keep up with the season and my workload. I’ve been trying to write

Wishing and Hoping

I’ve been spending a lot of time looking at this scene lately. Just standing still for minutes at a time staring into what is quickly becoming known as The Abyss. Staring and thinking. Thinking about where these plants will go. Thinking about which of these plants will have to be given away. Trying to keep

CBC News at Six

The CBC News at Six sent over videographer Michael Dick this morning to shoot a segment on the rising trend in growing food gardens on roof tops for what I believe is tonight’s news. I guess I should have asked. It was still cold and windy on the roof by noon but the sun has

Chaos on the Roof: A Before

Click the image to see full-size. This is what the roof looked like last Friday shortly after we had commenced project The Best and Most Ass Kicking the Roof Garden Has Ever Been, EVER 2008. High winds on the roof have made me a little fearful of getting up on a ladder to take and

FYI – New Category

I recently added a new category, “Gayla’s Gardens” to the site archive. I’m sorry about the title, I know it’s lame. Just reading that back makes me think it should be displayed in Mistral and accompanied by a photo of me sporting matching floral-patterned knee pads, apron, gloves and a GIANT smile. I’d be wearing

Thrifty Ugly Bucket Camo

The discussion around inexpensive containers for indeterminate tomato plants in a recent post has brought up a good point regarding how to conceal the clinical blandness of food industry buckets. The conversation in that post reminded me of a brilliant camouflage technique I discovered on a Saturday walk through my own neighbourhood a few years

Winter is Cold, News at Eleven

Photo by Davin Risk Sigh. This view of my roof garden from the door feels a million miles away today. Remember summer? Yeah, me neither. If not for photographic evidence I would have to assume these so-called memories are in fact only beautiful delusions. I know many of you in the Southern Hemisphere are in

Gayla Trail Garden: August 2018

The Horribly Late Roof Garden Clean Up That Never Was 2007

I desperately need to clean up my rooftop garden. Desperately. Double desperately. It’s horrible how long I’ve let it got this year really. The warmer Fall temperatures were wonderfully evil and I just went with it pretending that Fall would continue forever. I rewarded myself for cleaning up at the community garden so early this

Rooftop Garden (July 2007)

Panoramic of the Roof Garden July 21, 2007. The following was found in my archives and is dated for July 14. The rooftop garden is coming along beautifully this year. I do believe it is my best year yet. I was shocked to discover that on final count I am growing 14 tomato plants and

Living in Toronto – Growing Heirloom Vegetables

I had a TV crew here for about 2 hours one scorching hot and humid afternoon in August shooting a segment on heirloom vegetables for a show called “Living in Toronto.” There are other “Living ins” across Canada however the first is set to air tomorrow afternoon. Details: CBC “Living in Toronto”, 1pm – 1:30pm.

Food That Hardly Travels at All

A friend pointed me to this opinion piece in the New York Times that looks at the Eat Local concept as a way to mark environmental impact in food production. The article describes a New Zealand study that challenges the assumption that distance traveled automatically means higher fossil fuel consumption. The study doesn’t undermine the