Gardening requires optimism. You have to look forward with hope and see past the weeds and the voracious insects to the season of your favourite rose or the first snap peas. You have to persevere.
Miscellaneous
Some summer photos
I’ve been back from vacation for a few days now; long enough to be pining for days spent by the water and evenings with a bottle of wine and a few dozen mosquitos. I’ve got what feels like a few million posts to write, but I’m not quite ready to leave holiday mode just yet. […]
Painted Ladies
Another before-and-after post for you this week. This, of course, is a caterpillar, the larva of a painted lady butterfly. The Very Hungry Caterpillar is one of Lila’s favourite books, so my mom thought she’d enjoy seeing the transformation process up close. Like in a box on the mantle. A few days after my mom […]
Seven tips to make gardening “away” easier
Gardening at home, with easy access to seeds, tools, and water? Easy. Gardening several blocks from home? A bit more work. Gardening several blocks from home when you don’t have a car and there’s no water source near your garden? Call me lazy, but that sounds like a lot of work. Having gardened at several […]
Garden-themed birthday party
For Lila’s second birthday, we had a garden-themed party. Of course. What two-year-old doesn’t prefer gardening to Dora or dinosaurs? (Actually, Lila is way more familiar with turning the compost (she loves worms. Parenting success!) and picking greens than she is with cartoon figures. She still refers to her preferred (Dora-branded) toothpaste as the one […]
Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire now on TV
I recently had the opportunity to watch The Botany of Desire, a two-hour special that will premiere on PBS on October 28 at 8pm. You should make a note of that date, because you won’t want to miss this. Subtitled “A Plant’s Eye View of the World,” The Botany of Desire is based on the […]
Gardening tools for the new parent
A year ago, that would have been an iPod speaker.
Jake Gyllenhaal, horticulturalist
Jake Gyllenhaal inspects seedlings for the School Garden by Global Green USA on Flickr. Jake, you can inspect my seedlings anytime. Just sayin’. Here’s the story (via City Farmer).