‘Garden Babies’ butterhead lettuce; ‘Chioggia,’ ‘Touchstone Gold,’ and ‘Red Ace’ beets; ‘Blue Lake’ beans; and ‘Pruden’s Purple,’ ‘Sweet Baby Girl,’ ‘Sasha’s Pride.’ and ‘Odessa’ tomatoes.

The garden is entering its period of slow decline. And while I really love perennial gardens in the fall, with their russet tones and funky seed heads, a veggie garden that’s slowed production just reinforces the fact that winter—and it’s imported produce—is right around the corner.

There’s winter gardening, of course, and soon I hope to harvest the arugula, kale, mache, Asian greens, spinach and lettuces I sowed in August. But right now, I’m in a bit of a lull, just coaxing the last few warm-season crops to maturity. I’ve still got tomatoes and beans coming off the vines, while I think the zucchinis and cucumbers are pretty much done. A few measly lettuces and beets,  sowed in midsummer, are ripening now. Oh, and there’s herbs, of course, and a ton of green onions (I thought the seeds were expired, so I tipped the whole packet into the container. And, well, yeah. The seeds were most definitely not expired).

What are you harvesting now?

It was midsummer. Both my garden and local farmer’s markets were overflowing with succulent fruits and vegetables. Yet even as I enjoyed the bounty of the season, I felt anxious. How many more days would we have together? The peaches would be done in a week. The cherries were already long gone. And in a month, I’d be back at the supermarket grudgingly buying hothouse tomatoes. The answer, I felt, was in food preservation. Canning would allow me to cling to summer, to stretch out that all-too-brief period of riotous plenty.

I wasn’t alone in this belief, of course. If the recent surge in new books, websites, workshops and tweets related to food preservation is any indication, canning (and pickling, freezing, and drying) is hot. You might say food preserving is the new gardening. The trouble, of course, was that I didn’t actually know how to can food. Well, that’s not entirely true. Starting when I was pregnant with Lila, I’ve made a couple batches of jam every year (quince, strawberry, green tomato-raspberry). But preserving something other than a sugary fruit slurry was intimidating. Any fool could make jam, I thought, but canned peaches seemed complicated (spoiler: I needn’t have worried).

Enter Put ‘em Up: A Comprehensive Home Preserving Guide for the Creative Cook, from Drying and Freezing to Canning and Pickling by Sherri Brooks Vinton (Storey, 2010). Aimed at folks like me—the locavores, the food gardeners, the foodies, the crafters, the DIY set—Put ‘em Up (the title nods to “putting up” or preserving food) is an accessible, thorough guide to preserving the harvest.

The book is divided into two parts. The first covers food preparation and preservation techniques with clear, easy-to-follow instructions and illustrations. The second provides over 150 recipes, organized alphabetically by edible—from apples to watermelon. (Faced with a flat of quickly-withering blueberries, I loved being able to flip to the Bs and find a half-dozen simple recipes.) The book covers all the basics—and then some—in both sections. Recipes range from classic (strawberry jam, bread and butter pickles) to adventurous (berry-spiked bourbon, wasabi beans).

Author and real food advocate Sherri Brooks Vinton writes with a casual, straightforward tone instills confidence and inspires you to drop everything and make a batch of kimchi. With this book in hand, I’ve canned peaches (so not difficult), oven-dried tomatoes, and made blueberry fruit leather. And I can’t wait to keep going.

Is it just me, or is this tomato giving me the finger?

Given my penchant for indoor containers with a dash of quirky cool, I had to share GAMA-GO’s Power Planter.

The Power Planter is a small, porcelain, desktop planter in the shape of a nuclear power plant.  It comes complete with organic soil and wheatgrass seeds, and is $16 at GAMA-GO. This would also make a great vessel for growing cat grass. What? Your cat’s always on your desk, anyway.

Other funky indoor planters from my archives:

Science and Sons Park Planter

Vitamin Living’s IV Plant Pot

Pad Outdoor’s Pad Aluminum Planters

Boskke’s Sky Planter

Karim Rashid’s GroBal

Pastense’s Retro Planters

Design Within Reach’s Bordato Illuminated Planter

In my book, I wrote something about how, when you’re gardening in a small space, everything is visible…and thus, there’s no room for broken tools, ugly containers, or plants you’re really not too fond of.

It’s true. Unlike with many larger properties, in a small urban garden, balcony, or patio, you don’t have the luxury of a hidden corner where you can stash your crap until that elusive day you can sort through it. You’ve got to make every inch of available space work extra hard.

And that’s hard.

Gardening is messy work. No matter how minimalist you attempt to be, gardening always seems to bring with it bags of potting soil, tomato cages, gloves, spray bottles, plant tags, and empty containers that need homes. Unless you resort to keeping them inside (like you’ve got room for that!) it’s tough to store these things neatly and securely outdoors.

It’s always been a challenge for me. And it’s one, I’ll freely admit, that I don’t have worked out yet.

That’s why I’m sharing my current garden storage solution with you. I’m not totally happy with it, but it was the best I could do while sticking within a tight (less than $100) budget.

This is the ugliest corner of my back patio, which is why I’ve never shared it before (my husband would disagree, of course, but he’s uncommonly fond of barbecue). What you’re looking at is the back wall of my house (my living room is on the other side). That round vent-like thing is the “chimney” for our gas fireplace. If we had tons of money, I would replace that with a double-sided fireplace that could be enjoyed indoors and out. But we don’t, so the chimney stays, and we try not to look at it.

Besides being somewhat unsightly, the chimney gets hot when the fire’s on, so I can’t place plants, furniture, or, say, a custom storage cabinet against that wall.

Instead, we bought a low, cheap, resin storage bench, which does a pretty okay job of hiding most of my tools and garden crap.

Here’s a peek inside. Bags of organic fertilizers, tools, potting soil, gloves, twine, etc. My biggest problem with the storage bench idea is that doesn’t allow for much organization. Stuff gets buried. But it manages to keep everything dry and contained, and really, that’s about all I can ask for the price.

How do you corral all your garden stuff?

I love green in the garden. Who doesn’t? It’s the colour of new growth. Photosynthesis. Good health.

But that’s not the green I’m talking about here. I’m talking lime green. Pucker-yer-lips, jolt-to-the-system lime.

I used lime green cushions in my back patio to add a punch of colour to an otherwise subdued palette. The lime of the pillows is echoed by the bright, bamboo-like foliage of Northern sea oats (Chasmantheum latifolium), which you can see peeking out on the left side of this photo. Lime contrasts so nicely with red cedar, as well as charcoal gray stone (or Sunbrella fabric, as the case may be).

Looking for other lime green accents? Here are some of my faves.

Green hose clothes from Dirt Couture.

Green ceramic stool (similar to this one). Photo by David Tsay.

Panier side table from Hive Modern.

Lime green gravel! Photo by Sassy Gardener on Flickr.

Classic jardiniere from Bauer Pottery.

And then there are plants, of course. Like this lime green nicotiana. Photo by scott.zona on Flickr.

So many lime green heucheras! This one is Heuchera ‘Key Lime Pie’. Photo via The Plant Directory.

As you can see, I’m still collecting beans and zucchini, while the broccoli plants I harvested from in early summer have rewarded me with a second flush of petite heads. I love that.

I’m also harvesting tomatoes, scallions, herbs and cucumbers, and am still eating potatoes from last month’s harvest. I’ve planted most of my winter garden, so hopefully will be seeing greens back in rotation within a couple weeks.

What are you harvesting now?

I’d like to introduce you to some of the tomatoes I’ve been harvesting this year.

I grow tomatoes every year, without fail. They are a must-have, even though they take up a significant portion of my growing space. For me, the major problem with growing tomatoes isn’t blight or blossom end rot. It’s choosing only four or five varieties to grow out of the many hundreds available. I agonize over my tomato selections. Do I grow a favourite from last year’s harvest? Or try something new? Usually, I opt for new—always on the search for the Best Performing, Best Tasting tomato. This year, I grew five varieties, two of which I’d grown before.

This is one of my new ones. ‘Sasha’s Pride,’ also known as ‘Sasha’s Altai,’ is a Russian heirloom with a great story. It’s an indeterminate (vining) early-ripening tomato with clusters of golf ball-sized fruit. Though I think it’s a beautiful plant, with its velvety stems and pagoda-shaped fruit, I find the flavour a little mild for my taste and probably won’t grow it again. Apparently I’m unusual, however, because Organic Gardening magazine rated it one of the top 10 early ripening tomatoes.

‘Odessa’ isn’t going to win any beauty contests, but it makes up for the cracks it always seem to develop by ripening extra early and performing well. This is the second year I’ve grown this variety, though I think I’ll skip it next year in favour of looking for another early season tom that doesn’t split. ‘Odessa’ is also an indeterminate heirloom. Its fruits range from the size of golf to tennis balls.

Every year I grow one large-fruited tomato variety. Something wrinkly and any colour but red. You know, something that screams “heirloom!” This year it was ‘Pruden’s Purple,’ but in the past I’ve grown possibly every readily-available type of Brandywine, ‘Purple Calabash,’ ‘Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter’ and more. And because I’ve grown all these tomatoes, you would think that I would know that they just don’t work in my climate. They ripen too late. They want more heat, and they want it to last longer. So let it be known: this is the last year I will attempt to grow such elusive beauties. From now on, I’ll stick with smaller, early-season varieties. Sure, I got four or maybe even six toms off ‘Pruden’s Purple,’ but for the size of this plant (it’d reached 6′ by the time I lopped off the top) I wanted bushels.

I wasn’t planning on planting ‘Sweet Baby Girl,’ but when my mom brought over an extra seedling that was already miles ahead of what I had growing, I had to find a space for it. I’m so glad I did. ‘Sweet Baby Girl’ is a hybrid determinate (bush) cherry tomato that has the absolute sweetest tomatoes I’ve ever tasted. Seriously, they’re like sugar: there’s no hint of acid. Will I grow it again? Absolutely. As long as my mom buys the seed again!

Finally, I grew ‘Tumbler.’ Known as the hanging basket tomato, I picked up a ‘Tumbler’ seedling on a whim and tucked it into the basket I was making. ‘Tumbler’ is a hybrid bush tomato that produces small (1′-2′) fruits in clusters. This is the second year I’ve grown it, but the ones I started from seed last year did far better than this year’s, purchased at a nursery. I love the novelty of growing a tomato in a hanging basket, but the flavour of ‘Tumbler’ (bland) doesn’t cut it. I won’t grow this again.

What are your tomato stand-outs this year? Any suggestions for early-season tomatoes I should try next year?

Acer palmatum ‘Ao Shidare’, purchased from—gasp!—Home Depot.

I realize that it’s deeply unfashionable to shop at such stores, and that my confession may come as a shock to some of you. After all, I’m a Hardcore Gardener, right? And Hardcore Gardeners are very clear in their disdain for Home Depot and their ilk (please see Exhibit A: Garden Rant).

Some of this scorn is well deserved, of course. Big box retailers are known for selling spectacularly crappy plants. Too often, they’ve been sitting around too long and are root bound, spindly, and stressed—a week away from the great compost heap in the sky. And finding a knowledgeable salesperson to help you? (Or any salesperson?) Forget it. I won’t even get into the ethics of labour policy or impact on small, independent businesses.

They do have their merits, however. They offer great value for “disposable” plants (cheap and cheerful annuals, which must be the mainstay of big box garden centre sales). I’ve also had good luck finding basic, mainstream perennials—again, for a great price (notice a trend?). I recently bought a great little Japanese maple at my local big box, after phone calls to several independent garden centres failed to turn up a dwarf green variety (apparently they’re too nondescript).

The secret to successful big box shopping, of course, is to get there when the plants are still thriving. They’ll receive regular shipments; you’ll want to be watching as they unload the truck. If you can’t do that, know what to look for in a healthy plant. Examine it for signs of disease, pests, and stress. Is it green and bushy, or gangly and yellowing? Check the bottom of leaves for pests like aphids, and the bottom of pots for slugs. Make sure it’s not root bound (do the roots circle the sides and bottom of the pot because the plant has outgrown it?).

I do love to support my local independent garden centres, and do most of my shopping there. Nothing rivals the thrill of going to a great little nursery with an hour or two to spend dreaming, planning, and, of course, buying.  Sometimes, though, it’s hard to resist a deal.

What’s your take on it? Are big box stores invariably evil? Or do you do most of your garden shopping at one? Did I just lose all credibility as a garden writer?