If you haven’t done it already, now’s the time to cut back your tomato plants.*

Why? To focus the plant’s energy on ripening its existing fruit, rather than on producing new flowers and starting new fruit, which won’t have time to grow and ripen before the first frost. Now you know.

*Technically you’re supposed to do this four weeks before the first frost date for your area. In Vancouver, that’s November 5, but I find that my tomatoes stop growing and ripening long before then.

Posted by Andrea Bellamy at 10:21 am | Permalink | Comments (11)

Ever fantasize about going “back to the land”? Growing your salad and side dishes, making your own goat cheese: that kind of thing. But, you tell yourself, it can’t be done. Not until you own that idyllic farm.

Bollocks, argues 26-year old Jenna Woginrich in her Mother Earth News blog post titled “A Renter’s Homestead.” Jenna is a homesteader who grows tomatoes, raises chickens and spins yarn from her own angora rabbits. She’s also a renter – something that doesn’t keep her from taking steps toward self-sufficiency.

The landlords I’ve had would’ve freaked out if they’d known about my cat. I can’t imagine what they’d do if they found out I was keeping heirloom chickens. Actually, I can. It rhymes with depicted. Jenna has an idea for keeping landlords happy, though: “offer them a dozen organic free-range eggs every two weeks and some homemade tomato sauce. They’ll cave like spelunkers.”

In my experience, if the place you rent has an “outside”, most landlords are just thrilled to learn you’re a gardener – they’re probably not going to impose stylistic considerations on the types of plants you introduce. After all, before you came along, the yard probably only saw rudimentary lawn maintenance.

I got started in vegetable gardening because I was a renter. Vegetable seeds are cheap, and investing money on perennials for someone else’s garden wasn’t on my to-do list. I had a big lawn-filled backyard that needed… something other than lawn. A few months later, I had a big, beautiful veggie garden.

Don’t have a yard? You’d be amazed what you can grow on a teeny tiny balcony. No balcony? Find yourself a community garden and get yourself a plot. (If the waitlist is too long, spearhead the development of a new community garden in your ‘hood. Many local governments are increasingly sensitive to the benefits of community gardening. If they balk, tell ‘em it’s good for the economy.)

Point is, as Jenna puts it, “you don’t have to put off your fresh food dreams” just because the conditions aren’t as ideal as you think they ought to be. Growing even a little bit of your meal is better than all store-bought, right?

Read Jenna’s blog here.

Posted by Andrea Bellamy at 3:22 pm | Permalink | Comments (5)

Richard Reynolds, founder of guerrillagardening.org, wrote the book on guerrilla gardening. Literally. It’s called On Guerrilla Gardening.

Now you can watch the Web’s most famous guerrilla gardener at work in this short video. If you’ve ever wondered what guerrilla gardening looks like, watch as Richard facilitates an ambitious project in London’s East End.

My favourite scene is Richard’s novel approach to a gardener’s all-too-common dilemna: how do you fit all the plants you’ve just bought into your car? Try this at home only if you’re driving a very short distance!

Posted by Andrea Bellamy at 9:10 am | Permalink | Comments (2)

Renee's Garden container lettuce 'Garden Babies Butterhead'

How much do I love ‘Garden Babies Butterhead’ container lettuce from Renee’s Garden? To put it in Grade 3 terms – I would marry it.

I’ve never grown lettuce so… perfect looking. It’s like a Whole Foods produce manager sneaks onto my balcony every morning, mists it gently, picks off any errant flecks of dirt and whispers tender words of encouragement.

I’ll be honest: I don’t grow a lot of flawless veg. I don’t know if it’s because I don’t use chemicals on my garden – to kill pests or to enhance growth, or simply because homegrown rarely looks like the uniform, bred-for-long-haul-shipping produce we’ve come to expect in our supermarkets, but mine are always the lumpy tomatoes, the hole-punched kale leaves.

So Garden Babies Butterhead brings out in me a kind of smug pride. Here is perfect lettuce. It’s a salad-lover’s fantasy, delicate and sweet. But more than that, it’s a gardener’s dream – easy to grow, pest resistant and f*#ing gorgeous.

Posted by Andrea Bellamy at 9:39 am | Permalink | Comments (4)

Hello? Anybody out there?

It’s been a record 34 days since my last post. I wish I could say it’s because my summer has been full of jaunts to Europe and glorious days spent picnicking, skinny dipping, and sipping gin and tonics in my garden.

The reality is more like jaunts to the drugstore and days spent at various mom and baby groups, doing endless loads of laundry, and wiping poop off my jeans.

The culprit responsible, of course, is Lila, my now almost four-month old daughter. [This is where I'd insert a cute but completely gratuitous photo of Lila if I could figure out how to successfully upload photos via WordPress. Grrr - what am I doing wrong??] Update: Solved! Thanks everyone who commented with their suggestions, and Ryan for fixing the issue.

Lila, three months old

I won’t start talking about how amazing and beautiful and highly advanced she is, because, let’s face it, that’s boring (and debatable) to everyone except maybe her grandparents. What I will say is that the girl fights sleep like it’s the worst thing that could happen to her, leaving me with very little time for things like Heavy Petal. And eating.

But I can’t blame Lila entirely for the lack of posts. I’ve also been busy switching blogging applications. (Goodbye, MovableType, hello WordPress!). I’ve made a few small changes to start. I’ve changed my blogroll (”Heavy Petal loves…”) so that only two links from each of the four categories show up on the homepage (to reduce clutter). Click on “view all” and, well, you can view them all. I haven’t had a chance to add all my favourites, so if your site is missing, it ain’t personal. Please leave a comment or send me an email and I’ll make sure to add you.

I’ve also added a few new link categories: Home and Design, Sustainablity, and Vancouver. Home and Design made sense because I find a lot of inspiration for the garden from these sites, some of which makes it into my posts. I’ve got tonnes more links to add here.

Sustainability was also a no-brainer, because of the organic slant of this blog, as well as my tendency to digress into non-garden-related sustainability topics. More links to come here, too.

Finally, the Vancouver links section will be helpful for Vancouverites, of course, but there’s also some great links of interest to all gardeners (see City Farmer, for example) and those planning to visit our fair city.

With all the time that went into updating Heavy Petal, I’m dedicated to regular posting once again. It feels good to get into the garden – if only virtually.

Posted by Andrea Bellamy at 12:08 pm | Permalink | Comments (16)