Heirloom tomatoes, clockwise from top left: Odessa, Black Brandywine, Green Zebra.
It was a dismal year for tomatoes in Vancouver – mostly due to the lack of a real summer. Unlike the heat waves and droughts experienced on other parts of the continent, we had almost autumn-like weather – rain and cloud interspersed with random life-saving days of sun.
All of this equalled bad news for tomatoes growers. I planted five heirloom varieties – Green Zebra, Odessa, Black Prince, Black Brandywine, and Black Sea. Only three produced enough to be declared successful; the other two gave me a few tomatoes, but I don’t know that I’ll grow them again.
On a positive note, this was the first year in a long while that I didn’t get tomato blight, despite the rain. Probably because I had them under an overhang, and used a ground-level drip irrigation system.
The three winners are shown above. Odessa, a small, early, deep red determinate variety, was very prolific and had great flavour. Large and lumpy Black Brandywine was a moderate producer with a deep rich flavour. And Green Zebra produced loads of small, sweet and tangy salad tomatoes. I’ll definitely be saving the seeds and planting these varieties next year.
 Clean lines and bold colours are still a rarity – though there were perhaps a dozen container wholesalers present at the CanWest Hort Show, this display of Elho watering cans and containers from Calgary-based Red White and Blue Imports was the one that caught my eye. I love their simple yet impactful designs.
Comments are now fixed – feel free to innundate me with your wise words!
 I stopped by the CanWest Horticultural Show last week (”Western Canada’s premier nursery, landscape and floriculture trade show”). Like most hort shows, the types of exhibitors don’t vary all that much from year to year, so what I look for – in addition to anything really different – are the overall trends.
Not exactly a new trend, but worth noting because it’s still going strong, is a little rule of (green)thumb I call “foliage first.” (Well, maybe “good bones” should really be first, but foliage is definitely my personal weakness!) Bold/vibrant/dark/textural foliage ruled the display gardens again this year, making for some lovely green oases under cover at the convention centre – such a treat at this time of year. These two photos are of Garden Grove Nursery’s display garden, which, not surprisingly, won Best Nursery Display Garden.
Green roofs and living walls also featured prominently. NATS Nursery really impressed me with their huge selection of BC native plants and Live Roof display. I wonder how long we’ll have to wait to see green roofs really catch on.
As usual, chemical fertilizer and pesticide manufacturers were on the scene, but organic-based product manufacturers made a good showing too.
Tomorrow: bucking the trends.
Thank you to readers who have let me know that they weren’t able to leave comments. I recently upgraded to MovableType 4 and there have been a few hiccups. I’m working on this one and hope to have it fixed soon!
I’ve been feeling irritable and grumbly lately, and generally unfit for human consumption. When I was a kid I had about a half-dozen “forts” I could run away to in this situation. I could use one right about now. Something like this pretty “concrete pod” from Kazuya Morita Architects would make a lovely little forest retreat.
Via Shedworking.
Mmmmmmm… pretty. It’s Columbian designer Danilo Calvache’s Flora Table. Lo amo.
Via MocoLoco.
A recent post by the Germinatrix, in which she discusses the similarities between cooking and gardening, got me thinking about a conversation I had with my husband a few nights ago. While Germi proposes that “good cooks are often good gardeners – and vice versa,” Ben and I were talking about how nicely our hobbies (cooking and gardening respectively) mesh together – but seldom is one of us tempted to try out the other.
I’ve never been much of a cook. I enjoy eating, but unless someone feeds me, I’ll subsist on foods that require minimal preparation. That’s not to say that I can’t cook. I just don’t. I do grow a lot of my own food, yes, but it’s mostly because I prefer local, organic produce – as long as someone else cooks it for me.
Ben, on the other hand, is clinically obsessed with cookware and condiments. Sometimes living with him can be exhausting (as well as fattening!) because he plans upcoming meals even as he’s preparing the current one. And good luck finding room in the fridge, freezer or cupboard for any new products. But he’s a great cook, so I can’t complain (well, I try not to).
Anyway, a couple nights ago we were eating outside in the garden, and Ben said something along the lines of “you’d think you’d enjoy cooking… it’s so similar to gardening.”
I think the difference for me is that cooking a meal is a short-term prospect. You cook, you eat, you’re done. The meal is good or great or bad – either way, you’re full. Gardening is cumulative. Invest your time, see results, improve on them – see greater results. Maybe you’re never “full,” but personally, that’s what I love about gardening: I can never have enough.
I love the grasses in my garden. I also love my cat. What I do not love, however, is what happens when the two mix, which they frequently do.
Oh Schnoopette, why must thou daily ingest my grasses? Why, when thou knowest they induce thou to vomit? Why dost thou shun the specially-purchased “cat grass” in favour of my pennisetum? And why – oh God! – why dost thou choose the 100% wool, long-shag rug to bless with your digestive mishaps?
We’re in week eight of a municipal workers’ strike here in Vancouver, and a lot of people are pretty pissed off about the whole thing. But the tree hugger in me is kind of enjoying it. See, the City’s gardeners are on strike, as are the garbage collectors. Public boulevards haven’t been mowed, annual plantings haven’t been renewed, parks are looking a bit scruffy – and the resulting urban wilderness is kinda cool. Because lawn and garden clippings aren’t been collected by the City, Vancouverites are being encouraged to leave their clippings on the lawn (something we should be doing, anyway).
As for the garbage, well, our alleys and the Downtown Eastside aren’t looking so hot, but there is an upside to it all. No trash pick-up means less trash. Apparently composting has taken off, with compost bins sold out across the city. Hopefully many composting newbees will continue to compost long after the labour dispute is settled.
Although it’s what I strive for, I can’t pretend that I produce zero garbage. I always try to be conscious of the fact that placing trash in a bin isn’t the end of the story – that that bit of plastic will sit in a landfill for eons. And having your trash sit in your backyard or on your balcony for months certainly brings awareness to just how much garbage each of us produces. I hope each of us affected by this strike will take a moment to reconsider our relation to garbage, and rethink the rate at which we produce it.
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