We’ve hit midsummer, a time in my area when the garden tends to go downhill. While there is much bounty to be had, many plants begin to suffer in the heat. Or it is just their time to go. Or we’re just too darn tired/hot/fed up/over it to keep up with garden chores. Sometimes we …
While strolling through my neighbourhood, I recently came upon two rogue edibles, a basil plant and an amaranth that had escaped from front yard gardens nearby only to make a go at life in soiless conditions. I found the basil growing in a crack between the curb and the road. An attempt to rescue it …
“Anyone anywhere can have a garden…” Sound familiar? I was shocked when I heard the first line spoken by Carol Bowlby in this National Film Board of Canada film on urban gardening from 1984. Separated by birth and about thirty years, she and I. Watching the film was like watching myself go through my own …
I took advantage of the overcast conditions on Saturday afternoon to plant out some perennials into the street garden. And since I just used the words street garden (along with the above photo) you can probably predict where this is going. The next morning I went outside, looked over at the garden, and found a …
We popped over to the community garden yesterday afternoon with a frozen pail of compost. I thought I would take some pictures so you can see what it looks like in the middle of winter. As you can see, not much is happening. Drab and dull. We stop using our plots between October/November and March/April …
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 …
I like all sorts of gardens, no matter where they are made. Here are a few gardens, including a few edible plants, tucked into crumbling concrete crevices in a local alleyway (around Niagara St and Tecumseth in Toronto). Photos taken by Davin Risk. Related: Alley Tomatoes From Out of a Crack… Behold, a Tomato N’ …
I am terribly behind. We took a short leisure trip to Montreal about a month ago, I took pictures with the full intention of posting about it, but then I didn’t. But now I am. I’m gonna do it. I’m gonna do it and then I’m gonna hit publish rather than starting it and then …
Since The City of Toronto is week three into a city workers strike that includes garbage collection, it appears (see above) to be a very good time to reintroduce some resources on small space composting. One sure-fire, easy way to compost that I haven’t included here is to dig a hole. Yes, like the infomercials …
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 …
