Canada’s Seed and Plant Sanctuary was started in 2002. It’s one of a number of organizations in North America committed to the preservation and promotion of heritage seeds. The Sanctuary keeps records of edible crops for Canada and they collect and store seeds. You can join the Salt Spring Sanctuary Society and select seeds to grow and report back on. Which is what I did in 2011.

Pictured below are four of the five plants I grew in 2011. King of Denmark Spinach, Greek Cress, Gerard’s Cress and Pepper Cress. The fifth plant I grew was New Zealand Spinach (Tetragonia tetragonioides), which unfortunately didn’t set seed within my growing season.

I haven’t had a lot of success growing spinach, but King of Denmark Spinach (Spinacea oleracea) pictured above (top row) seemed to work well on the balcony. This variety germinated really well and produced for a number of weeks before setting seed. It’s an early summer spinach, with thick, dark green, tasty leaves. Its seed was clustered along the stem. The seed clusters were prickly, rock hard and a little tough to break apart – quite the armour-plated protection built into this plant.

Greek Cress (Lepidium sativum), pictured above in the second row also germinated well and grew into a container full of thick spicy leaves. It produced a healthy amount of seed. The tiny rust coloured, almost kidney shaped seeds were enclosed in tissue-thin pods that were easily dispersed by the wind. Peppery Gerard’s Cress pictured above (third row) and Pepper Cress (bottom row) both produced a very similar looking seed pod to the Greek Cress although quantities were notably smaller.

Although I grew each of these plants in separate clay containers, all of the Cress produced a leafy, bright green plant that would be easy to combine in a container with herbs or annuals. And if you are interested in learning more about saving seeds, Seed Living has a list of 10 resources and the Seed Sanctuary provides a great overview to get you started.

Tastings well underway. Cheers to a new gardening year…

That’s gin to water – the brew I put together in order to stunt the growth of one of the containers of paperwhites I have on the go. I’ve never tried the stunting potion before. I typically plant paperwhite bulbs in the bottom of a tall glass vase so I don’t have to stake them once they start to bloom. The vase provides the support. But this year I’m doing a side by side comparison, gin and no gin. I’ll post the results in a few weeks when the flowers are in full bloom. Cheers to that.

Well, the clean up on the balcony garden continues. I’m always a little surprised just how many containers are on the deck – the number becomes clearer when I get to move each one.

So step by step.

The ponds get emptied first. But they don’t get moved – too heavy. The firewood gets moved closer to the patio doors. The large clay troughs that I used for the veg crops don’t get moved at all, ditto the pea trellis. The soil in the big troughs gets dug through, to clear out any large root clumps that may have established themselves during the growing season. And then containers get stacked in the troughs, to help keep the soil from blowing around.

The pots get brushed out once the soil has been removed. The Adirondack chairs get moved over to the east side of the deck, where they get stacked on each other. The BBQ gets moved over closer to the patio doors as does the table and chairs. The container trays get washed and stacked – and checked to make sure any cracked or damage ones get tossed out.

This simple approach to container and tray maintenance helps get everything ready for the cold winter ahead (knock on wood, I haven’t had any clay containers break due to frost or the cold) and ensures a literally clean start in the spring.

Because I’ve had success in wintering over my small clematis in the alpine troughs, I’ve decided to try to also winter-over the big one. It’s not in a really big container so it fits inside my pepper pot. I’ve nestled it into the larger clay pot and will fill it up with soil. Probably just delaying the inevitable, but we’ll see if ‘The President’ lives to see the spring.

The alpine troughs, which are on rollers, have been moved to the east side of the balcony. There they are out of the direct sun, so don’t get so dried out and they also will get covered by snow when it comes, as it collects and drifts on that side of the deck. This part of the clean-up is super easy since we got the metal roller platforms for the troughs. Point and gently push them into position. I’ll keep watering everything for a few more weeks until we start to get some serious frost.

Balcony gardening season almost done.

The seed tassel from the top of the broomcorn plant, sorghum vulgare was used to make this little brush, officially called the ‘Turkey Wing Whisk’ by the North Woven Broom Company. The raw material, an annual grass that used to be grown in the U.S., comes from Torreon, Mexico. The broomcorn is unprocessed and isn’t coloured in any way so the green tinge on some of the tassels will eventually change to pale yellow as it dries out. The whisk is strong but provides a nice soft brush, so I’m using it on the troughs and to tidy up around the containers. It’s a nice addition to the balcony garden toolbox.

The three ponds on the balcony get cleaned once a week. I don’t have filters in any of the ponds and they have fishes in them, so in order to keep everyone happy, including the bacteria that works hard to keep the pond chemistry balanced, I do a quick cleanup on Sundays. The tools are simple – a cheap fish net, a small container of clean water and a plastic tray.

Here’s the drill. I take out all of the floating plants, put them in the tray and give them a rinse in the sink. This gets rid of any dead plant material and washes off algae and crud that has been attracted to the floaters. I remove the rocks in the ponds. The rocks are there to give the fishes a place to hide and play. I use the net to scoop up debris, fish waste, uneaten food and crud that has accumulated in the pond. I remove some of the water and add fresh water from the bucket (where it has been gassing off for a couple of days). I then put the rocks and foliage back in the pond. Repeat.

The pond plants have been growing quickly so each week I remove a handful of green so we can see the fishes. And when the weather is warm and windy, we also need to top up the ponds on a regular basis – so there is always a bucket of water at the ready. I’ve lost a few fish, but that’s OK, I always assume that there will be a few that don’t make the cut. And that happens in the first week or two of set up. Once the pond chemistry gets set up to support the right number of fish, just add food and watch ‘em grow. Pretty easy.

If you are in the Calgary area this weekend, why not take in the workshop at the Calgary Zoo hosted by west coast photographer Allan Mandell. The ‘Within the Garden/Within a Flower’ workshop will kickoff this Friday evening with a lecture followed by a planning session for Saturday’s photo shoot. Saturday is a full day of hands on shooting in a selection of public and private gardens in Calgary. Sunday activities will include another shoot – this time at the Zoo’s glasshouse followed by a show and receive feedback session and potluck dinner with workshop attendees and instructor Allan.

If your weekend schedule is full but you’d like to attend the Friday lecture for inspiration, tickets can be purchased for that single event.

Contact the Zoo directly for more information, to buy tickets for Friday night and to register for the workshop. Attendees supply their own equipment of course. This is a great opportunity to work with a professional and meet others with a passion for gardening and photography.

The gardener helper and I took photography when we were in school. We learned how to shoot and process film in the olden days before digital and PhotoShop. So we’re old school, but do like to keep our gear up-to-date to take advantage of technology. All of our cameras travel well. We choose gear that is high quality, tough and light weight, suited for biking and hiking. Here’s what we are currently using in the balcony garden.

The Sony Nex5, pictured above is the newest member of our photo equipment collection. It’s a large sensor mirrorless digital camera, with a Novoflex Adapter that allows us to use our manual Nikon lenses, which are 24 mm, 50 mm and 85 mm. The combination of the lenses and the high quality sensor produce amazing photos. We’ve had these lenses since the early ’80s. Focusing and aperture selection are manual.

The camera body is about 10 cm (4 inches) long, 5 cm (2 inches) high, and 2.5 cm (1 inch) deep, without the lens. We’ve been playing with this camera to take shallow depth of field plant portraits. The tilt viewing screen feature also makes it a lot easier to take my favorite low angle plant shots. We’re liking this new camera.

While all of our still cameras shoot video, you can’t beat the ease of use of the handy cam. The Sony, above left, is a HDR-TG1. It’s small – 11.5 cm (4.5 inches) high, 3 cm (1.25 inches) wide and almost 6 cm (2.25 inches) deep. It’s extremely compact and fits comfortably into my hand although I’m still pretty shaky when I’m at the controls. Our HD video camera is used to shoot all of the BalconyGardenerTV videos. It comes with a hard case which protects it when we throw it into a pack.

The Fujifilm X100, above right is the gardener helper’s fixed-lens range finder. It has a hybrid optical/digital viewfinder. Fast, easy-to-use manual controls and high quality imaging is the result. It’s reminiscent of Leica rangefinders and harkens back to school days when manual control was the norm. In your hands it feels like a old-style camera. No zoom on this puppy, it’s a fixed lens, so you have to know how to use a camera to take a picture. We both like that. It’s 11.5 cm (4.5 inches) long, 5 cm (2 inches) deep including lens and about 7.5 cm (3 inches) high, so another compact piece of equipment.

And last but not least is my point and shoot Leica, D-Lux3. I love this camera and usually have it with me. It’s light, compact and fits my small hand. What makes the camera special is the wide 16:9 aspect ratio. It’s perfect for landscapes and the high quality Leica lens produces sweet macro shots – I tend to have it on macro auto focus a lot. It’s small size – 10 cm (4 inches) wide, 4.5 cm (1.75 inches) deep including lens and almost 6 cm (2.25 inches) high also makes it the perfect hiking companion, in addition, of course, to the gardener helper.  The retro leather case ain’t too shabby either.

So that’s the gear that helps make the balcony garden look good. What camera are you using to make garden pictures?