Garden and Food books by Gayla Trail

Getting My Seeds Started, Right

This year will go down in history as the year I not only started seeds on time, organized all seeds by category (direct sow, indoor starts, and never-going-to-grow-it-so-trade-it-already), AND managed to draw up some kind of “plan” beyond casual (and quickly forgetten) mental lists. I rule. For now. We’ll see what happens when transplant buying

Keeping Kitty Off the Goods

My 12 year old cat Voltron is a determined plant nibbler – in fact most cats have a natural curiosity about their surroundings and tend to enjoy a little taste of fresh greenery now and again. Unfortunately many common houseplants are toxic so it is worth familiarizing yourself with both your plants and your cat’s

There’s Some Livin’ Going On

We’ve been experiencing unseasonably warm temperatures here in Toronto which have pushed me to get out and do some early-season garden work. I can’t recall being this eager to get gardening but I suspect that I am always this excited, it’s just the lapse of time between fall and spring that has me convinced my

The Lazy Gardener’s Automatic Seed Starting Chart

Calculate seed sowing and planting dates in seconds with Maggie Wang’s easy-to-calculate version of my original Printable Seed Starting Chart. You’ll never wonder when to start your seeds again! Download the seed starting chart file. If you don’t have excel, you can download a free open-source office suite with a spreadsheet application at openoffice.org or

Seedy Saturday 2006

I spent the day selling t-shirts and books at the Toronto Seedy Saturday event this weekend. It really is growing bigger and better every year (see a pic here). The aisles were packed with excited gardeners from 10 am on and I got to meet a lot of great people, talk gardening (my voice is

Canada Blooms: Herbs & Edibles

I gave a workshop/demonstration today at Canada Blooms on growing herbs and other edibles in a strawberry pot but I ran out of handouts. I wasn’t expecting such a great turnout! Thanks to everyone who came. As promised I have posted a printable version of the handout here for those who missed out. Thanks to

Handy Seed Starting Chart

by Gayla Trail Remembering when to sow and when to plant out can be tricky when you’ve got a wild variety of seedlings on the go. Download and print out this seed starting plan to chart out the sow dates, and planting out dates of this year’s crop. Download chart here

EVENT: The Stratford Gardening Festival

Join me for two events on Friday March 3 Coffee with Gayla: 2:00 pm An informal chat in which I will talk about my own gardening story and life; my personal passions; why I garden the way I do and what gardening means to me. Urban Gardening: 3:30 pm An intro to organic gardening in

OREGON

Sat. Feb. 11, 2006. Vegetable Gardening Symposium Clackmas Community College, Gregory Forum 8 am to 4 pm This event includes a selection of wonderful speakers on varied topics related to growing food [See link above for full listing] I will be giving a presentation called, “Gardening with Limited Resources and Challenging Spaces” (Pretty self-explanatory) at

Visiting the Book

I know it’s geeky but I like to stop in bookstores to check for the book. If I’m in a new city I’ll check in stores I pass on the street, and in my own city I’ll check in stores I know carry it just to see it on the shelf. It’s still a huge

Associated Press – You Grow Girl

From: Associated Press (ASAP) You Grow Girl December 7, 2005 “Gayla Trail became hooked during her second year of college, when she and several housemates took their “crappy little backyard” and turned it into a vegetable garden that quickly became her responsibility. She really didn’t know much about planting and caring for vegetables, but with