The rise in popularity of low- or “no-maintenance” (ha!) landscapes is part of a simultaneous trend: the one where you’re supposed to do everything perfectly, yet have it all look effortless.
My garden
My edible balcony garden
Here’s a peak at my third-floor veggie patch. It’s pretty utilitarian. There’s no room for a barbecue or even a chair. Heck, squeezing between the planters can be a challenge. But we’ve got other spaces for those fripperies. This balcony is dedicated to production. And boy, it’s productive. Everything is grown in containers, and this […]
Now harvesting: mid-July
Would you look at that craziness? Someone ought to get their plot under control. Oh wait, that’s my whacked-out bed. The arugula is flowering and flopping, the radishes have flower stalks as thick as woody perennials, and the lettuce is so crowded it’s getting claustrophobic. Despite the seeming neglect, I’ve actually been harvesting from this, […]
Now harvesting: mid-June 2011
Last year I decided to introduce a series of blog posts I called “Now Harvesting.” Every week or two, I chronicled the food coming out of my garden. I thought it would be a good way to identify lulls; times when my garden wasn’t producing to its full potential. It would, I thought, help me […]
Sowing and sprouting: early April
It may be miserable and wet outside, but it’s balmy here under the Gro-light. It’s been so wet here in Vancouver that even if the soil weren’t too soaked to support seed growth, not even the most hardcore gardeners are braving the downpours to plant. Today, I literally ran out to the salad garden during […]
Arugula and radishes: fashionably late to the spring planting party
Finally! I’ve got some seeds in the ground. Normally I’d have had arugula, peas, radishes, and spinach started weeks ago, but all this travel has kept me away from the garden. I’m also totally disorganized this year (normally I’d have one or two of these filled out, too). Thankfully the weather cooperated this weekend and […]
Japanese maples in autumn
I’ve always thought of our back patio garden as a spring garden, with its ferns and ephemeral natives. It took a positive comment from my husband for me to look objectively at the space and think, “wow, it does look pretty great right now.” I know, duh, right? With three Japanese maples—one normally red, one […]
Now Harvesting: late September
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 […]