The latest Edible Vancouver is out, and with it, “Making Friends with Favas,” my article on growing and enjoying fava beans. Favas (aka broad beans) are one of the few things you can actually sow in November. Plant ’em now for a spring harvest.
Essential fall gardening tools
After a gloriously long summer (we had our longest dry spell in over a hundred years), autumn has finally arrived in Vancouver. While most of the active planting and harvesting is over til spring (garlic and favas excepted), there’s still lots to be done in the garden. We recently moved from our townhouse into a […]
Harvesting and cooking with garlic scapes
Does your garlic look like this? Like it’s decided to shed its trustworthy girl-next-door image in favour of something a little more loose and blowzy? Don’t worry: it’s cool. Just means it’s garlic scape time. If you planted a hardneck variety of garlic last fall, you’ll see a looping central stalk emerging right about now. […]
It’s a Snap: Bean-growing Basics
Beans are one of summer’s simple pleasures, on par with picnics and outdoor pools, bare feet and blackberries. While a farmer’s market loot bag of tender, local string beans is an undeniable delight, fresh-picked, homegrown beans can elevate a basic weeknight supper to a thing of beauty. And growing your own? Easier than you’d think. […]
Handmade Garden Projects
I’m happy to be taking part in a virtual book tour for Handmade Garden Projects, a new book from Timber Press and author Lorene Edwards Forkner. I had the opportunity to meet Lorene and tour her wonderful Seattle garden last summer, and I was thrilled to see many snippets of Lorene’s very personal and whimsical […]
Salad Days: How to Sow, Grow, and Harvest Your Best Crop of Lettuce Yet
It can be hard to get excited about a salad. Especially in winter, when laziness prevails and a “salad” consists of a handful of mixed organic greens narrowly rescued from slow suffocation inside a plastic box. It’s okay. Even though we can grow lettuce all winter long doesn’t mean we must. After all, it was […]
How to grow leeks and make potato leek soup
Every month, Heavy Petal collaborates with Willowtree — a website for those with food sensitivities who want to find their culinary bliss — to bring you a celebration of an in-season edible. I’ll tell you how to grow it; they’ll tell you how to eat it. Yay! Although spring feels like it’s just around the […]
How to grow kale and make a kale smoothie
Every month, Heavy Petal collaborates with Willowtree — a website for those with food sensitivities who want to find their culinary bliss — to bring you a celebration of an in-season edible. I’ll tell you how to grow it; they’ll tell you how to eat it. Yay! If you haven’t already succumbed to kale’s seductions, […]