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 “Oh the days are long/ ‘Til the baby comes…” – Sinead O’Connor
That’s right – I’m still waiting for this baby. One week past my due date and just learned today that the baby, which for the last nine months has been perfectly positioned, has rotated and is now posterior. This just confirms my suspicions that he or she will be a shit disturber.
There are about a million things you can do to try to rotate a posterior baby; one of them is getting onto your hands and knees as much as possible. Scrubbing the floors on all fours was suggested. Since that has about as much chance of happening as this baby being born on Earth Day, I decided to crawl about my back garden instead. While I was there, I thought I’d snap some photos.
The two above photos are of BC-native yellow fawn lily (erythronium; aka trout lily or dog’s-tooth violet). I believe this one is Erythronium grandiflorum but I can’t quite remember - I’ve moved the bulbs from house to house as I moved over the years. They look delicate but are naturalizing well and survived last week’s hailstorm nicely.
 Even people who claim not to love ferns have to appreciate the unfurling of this maidenhair fern (Adiantum pedatum), right? 
And the site of fiddleheads – so cute! – on my Western Sword Fern (Polystichum munitum). You have to love those, too, or you’re just not wired right.
My new evergreen huckleberry (Vaccinium ovatum) will hopefully provide me with some berries this summer.
All three of my Japanese maples are in various stages of unfurling. This is Acer palmatum ‘Firegold,’ which, when viewed from below when the sun’s shining on its leaves, is just this incredible blazing red. Hence the ‘fire’ in its name, I suppose. This could also be ‘Fire Glow’ – I bought it from the Japanese Maple Guy at the farmer’s market and haven’t found many references to ‘Firegold’.
I love my Acer palmatum ‘Beni Kawa’ – the perfect small space alternative to ‘Sangu Kaku’.
Finally, here’s Acer palmatum dissectum ‘Viridis’ – with its lovely weeping form – making its appearance. Hopefully this baby isn’t far behind. Happy Earth Day, everyone!
Want to change the food system? Here are 40 great ways everyone – from individuals to the government – can do so.
Some of my fave’s:
For individuals:
#6 Establish community canning workshops where people can work together to can food.
#8.Establish a Young Farmers Institute for the next generation of farmers.
#12 Encourage Community Fruit Tree Projects to harvest unwanted fruit, and have it juiced for sale and for fundraisers.
#13 Create a “Buy Local” label for use in retail food stores.
For municipal councils:
#18 Prioritize the use of local organic food at all city-owned events and facilities.
#23 Require the provision of food gardening space in all larger
development proposals. In smaller developments, require a development
cost charge payment to a Community Gardens Fund.
#25 Integrate ornamentals with edibles, bio-remediation, fiber and medicinal plants in city landscape planning.
#26.Establish a community-wide composting program.
For provincial/state governments:
#31 Prohibit the removal of land from the Agricultural Land Reserve without replacement with equivalent quality farmland.
#33 Remove regulatory barriers that prevent local stores from selling
locally grown dairy and meat products, and other barriers to producers
processing and distributing their products locally.
From Guy Dauncey and Carolyn Herriot via the 100 Mile Diet.
Ever wonder what these funky little kits are for?
Before planting in the spring, I like to do a quick soil test for pH (soil acidity or alkalinity) and nutrients (your basic NPK, or, nitrogen, phosphorous and potash [potassium]). I just use an inexpensive testing kit from a local nursery, although if you want a more detailed soil analysis or suspect you have serious problems with your soil, you can have it tested in a lab. In the US, your cooperative extension office does this. In Canada, try this.
I don’t really need a kit to tell me what’s up with my soil; Vancouver soil is typically acidic and nutrient deficient (perhaps because the rain leaches the good stuff out?). Despite regular amendments with compost, I’m always fighting those underlying traits. I like to do the test anyway, partially because it’s fun in a nerdy Grade 8 Science kind of way, and partially because I just want to double check.
This year’s test didn’t reveal any big surprises. Again, my soil was borderline acidic, so I’ll add a bit more lime. If your soil is alkaline, try granular sulphur, coffee grounds, or pine needles.
As for the nutrient test, my soil was low in phosphorous, and even lower in nitrogen. Typically, other than amending with compost and manure, bone meal and blood meal are suggested as organic soil supplements for these deficiencies (blood meal is high in nitrogen; bone meal in phosphorous). I’ve used both in the past, but this time I decided to look for alternatives to these slaughterhouse byproducts. No, I’m not a vegetarian, nor am I concerned about contracting BSE through the use of bonemeal. But in the past year I’ve stopped buying commercially-raised beef, so it would just seem wrong to use a byproduct from that industry. And I also question how blood and bone meal can be considered an organic amendment, when they aren’t likely produced from organically-raised beef. Plus, well, let’s face it: spray-dried blood is just icky.
Thankfully, there are vegetarian alternatives to blood meal, bone meal and fish fertilizers:
Instead of blood meal or fish emulsion, try alfalfa meal* or alfalfa pellets (sold as rabbit food) to raise your nitrogen levels. With an NPK ratio (the percentage of available nitrogen (N), phosphorous (P), and potash (K)) of about 3-1-2, alfalfa is a green manure that also provides a dose of phosphorus and potash. Because it heats up in the soil, (making it a great compost accelerator) be careful not to burn your plants: don’t add it to the planting hole.
Cottonseed meal*, with a NPK ratio of approximately 7-2-2, is another good nitrogen source. Available at your local feed store, cottonseed is acidic, so unless you’re trying to lower your soil’s pH, avoid it or use in combination with lime.
Soft-rock phosphate, with a NPK ratio of 0-3-0, will raise your phosphorous levels and is a good slow-release substitute for bone meal.
*In the interest of full-disclosure, it seems unlikely that these products would be sourced organically-grown plants, unless otherwise noted. Is that why the organic gardening guidelines developed by Garden Organic (following standards set by the British Organic movement, the UK
government, and the EU) don’t endorse the application of any fertilizer, organic or otherwise?
 Just wanted to say thanks to everyone who e-mailed or commented on my last post. Your support and stories mean so much! I am going to try to squeeze in a post alerting you all when I go into labour so I can get your good vibes coming my way!
On another note, it was a beautiful sunny weekend and I managed to get a whole lot of garden-related activity in so I’m feeling pretty good right now. Amazing what a little bit of dirt and sunshine can do for you!
I apologize for the scarcity of posts lately. With the baby due in less than a week, I should be stockpiling blog posts for the upcoming crazy newborn months. Instead, I feel quite disconnected from my gardening life, and that leaves me feeling like I’ve got not much to say.
Pregnancy has now taken over my life. It’s all encompassing, and I feel
quite boring for it – and bored with it. I’m in limbo: desperate to hang onto life as it is
now but also anxious to meet the
little one. And wear different clothes.
I’m watching spring unfold through a lens. My garden may as well be behind glass, because that’s where I’m viewing it from. I’ve never been so hands-off, mostly because I can’t quite reach my plants. The other reason is that everything feels so tentative. Like I shouldn’t make plans or get too attached to those seedlings in case I forget all about them when the baby comes.
And now I’m going to go stick my head in the oven. Just kidding! Sorry for the whiny post – I guess I needed to vent.
I wandered over to Velocity Art and Design after seeing housemartin’s tour of their Seattle store. What caught my eye was housemartin’s photo of the Esque terrariums (which, by the way, are beautiful, but for $600, I’d want mine to come planted, thankyouverymuch). Anyway, I was quickly distracted by GroBal, a planter by hugely-prolific product designer Karim Rashid.
According to Velocity, “GroBal is plant care evolved no green thumb necessary. With its unique
self watering system, and stylish design by Karim Rashid, Grobal keeps
your house plants lush, green, and looking sharp.” Okay, so it’s a planter for the masses. Perfectly in keeping with the Karim philosophy – er, Karimanifesto. And let’s face it, houseplants can be trying, even for those of us with purportedly green thumbs. But here’s where it goes a little bit Jetsons:
“Grobal draws water and nutrients from the reservoir into the soil in
the top chamber. Just check the water level through the water level
indicator and refill when needed through the Nutriport… Each GroBal comes with 1 GroBal Soil disk and 3 GroBal Food 7.5 ml hydropaks.” (Emphasis mine.) I can figure out what a “Nutriport” is. And yes, even a “soil disk.” I can guess what’s in a 7.5ml hydropak of GroBal Food, but I’d really like to know before I buy. Something tells me it’s not compost tea.
GroBals are $24.95 each at Velocity Art and Design.
As I wrote earlier, for me, tomato growing is a family affair. Thank goodness! Without my mom’s greenhouse, my grandma’s saved seeds and all of our hands, the job would be nearly impossible. We grow enough for ourselves, our friends and neighbours, and this year, we’ll even have a few for the plant sales.
 A couple of weekends ago, we got together to start our tomato seeds. We planted hundreds of saved seeds from last year’s bumper crop of Black Brandywine and Odessa tomatoes, as well as some new seeds – Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter, Gardener’s Delight, and Cherry, Purple, Pink Select and Joyce’s Brandywine.
 We also tried something different this year with the actual seeding process. We made up a liquid kelp solution (1 tsp liquid kelp to 1L warm water) and dampened the soil prior to seeding. Apparently kelp helps prevent damping off, enhances the success of the germination process and contributes to strong initial seedling growth. The warm water is supposed to give seeds a head start (versus those watered with cold water). This is new to us – I’ll let you know what the results are!
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