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I’ve had this little cast aluminum trowel for ever. And I broke it last fall when I used it to pry a saucer out of a container.
Stupid, I know.
Shopping opportunity? For sure. But surprisingly I’m going to try to file it down first and see f I can just smooth out the jagged edge. More connected to this little tool than I thought.
It’s been a windy spring. Everyday. It gets a little tiring. And it’s hard on the new plants. The cloches have helped. But last week while puttering about on yet another windy weekend on the balcony garden watching the peppers get pounded, I decided that I needed to either bring them in again our give them some protection.
This temporary bamboo wind break turned out to be simple and effective. Carefully positioned so that the pepper can once again stand up straight. I’m going to keep it in place until the flowers are set and the fruit starts to form.
Here’s some other ideas that I’ve seen for wind breaks that you might want to consider for your balcony.
The garden helper has a new camera. He can now take a black and white photo and isolate specific colours.
I’ve noticed that it’s getting harder to find terracotta containers here for the balcony garden. Curious.
The two largest nurseries in the city don’t seem to carry them any more. The nursery where I purchased my large terracotta troughs last year (that I’m using for vegetable gardening), just cleared out all of their stock. What’s going on?
My balcony containers are hypertufa, cement, granite and terracotta. I like the warm feel of terracotta. I like how it absorbs moisture. I like it’s colour and texture. I like that it gets heavy when it’s been watered. I like that you have to be careful with it and deal with it before the big freeze hits in the fall. To me, a terracotta pot is an intrinsic part of gardening.
Two of the small, local run nurseries that I frequent still have a bit of stock. So I scored two more large troughs to expand the vegetable garden. Looks like they might be my last.
And these three beauties pictured below were part of a recent blow-out sale at another nursery. I think they had been in the store a while, full of dust and filled with plastic plants. But, behind the grime was the beauty of clay. These pots have a gorgeous shape and a rough, textured finish. They are ready for real soil, plants and water.
A perfect celery pot don’t you think.
It was a big weekend for gardeners in Calgary and many other regions across the country. May 24 is the traditional time for planting the garden in Canada. But it’s still not consistent, dependable, warm weather here yet, especially at night. This week it will drop to 6˚ C most evenings. Now my memory might not be the greatest, but I do recall last year when I spent over a month hauling my heavy tomato containers in and out of the apartment in an attempt to keep them from turning yellow (the tomatoes, not the containers). Which eventually they started to do because there was limited heat and just a bit too much rain.
So I bit the bullet and bought a three pack of plastic cloches. They fit perfectly over the rim of my clay pots. So the tomatoes, which I have been hardening off, are out, planted and now nestled in their own little greenhouses.
Each cloche has a little vent at the top that let’s you tuck the toms in every night. The edge of each cloche is also drilled with holes for metal pins that would help keep the caps in place. Unfortunately this brand doesn’t come with the pins – but nothing that a little duck tape won’t fix. I’ve got two little pieces of tape on each cloche to help ensure that they stay put. On second thought, I’ll add more tape before the wind causes me a problem.
Like Bucolic Bushwick in Brooklyn, I like to prep for planting a little bit at a time. It’s my way of saying hello again to the garden and getting back to it, uncovering the containers that have been stored and stacked out of the way and hatching the new plan for the garden layout – which is often not that different from the old garden layout on my balcony – there are only so many variations in a small space.
My garden helper moved the wood pile – away from the patio doors and around to the east side, and mixed up a large bag to special soil for me, which helps expedite filling the containers – although I’m not in much of a hurry. This year the garden helper also contributed part of his day off to building and installing the bamboo trellis for the peas. Lucky me.
I initially thought the bamboo trellis would be hand tied and secured with butchers twine, like balcony gardener Fer in Japan but at the end of the day, black cable ties were the bindery of choice. While they’ll provide a nice snug fit, most likely they will be only one-season worthy as the plastic will eventually become brittle in the sun. I noticed Mark’s Veg Plot is using a nifty single bamboo cane support for his veg containers – looks like a pretty sturdy way to integrate a simple trellis into the garden.
With labels at the ready, I’ve started planting peas, spinach, chives and greens. And with warmer temperatures on the way this week, another round of seeding will happen by the weekend. Still lots of prep to do in the rest of the garden. And still a little too cold to set plants out. Which is unfortunate – the collection inside the apartment continues to grow and now includes tomato plants, peppers, strawberries, clematis, ferns and of course the bamboo and blueberries are still hanging in. But they’ll all be going on day trips outside this week.
I need to get up earlier.
If you are out and about this Saturday in Calgary, the CRAGS annual plant sale is on from 1-3 pm at the Lakeview Community Hall. There will be lots of great plants for sale from local, knowledgeable, friendly gardeners, local nursery Rundle Wood Gardens will be there as well as Rocky Mountain Tufa and a good nursery that travels here from BC each year. It’s worth a visit. So bring your cash, a tray and a friend who could even help you carry a second tray. I guarantee you won’t go home empty handed.
I always like the weekend before I set up the balcony garden for the growing season.
Rolling out all of troughs and determining what survived or succumbed to our crazy winter, and pulling out all of the empty clay pots to remind my self what I have. I hatch a plan for what vegetable seeds will get planted where and what troughs need attention and possibly replanting this year. I’ve purchase what I hope will be enough new soil for the season (and hauled it through the living room) and I’ve washed the patio windows and the cement deck.
My back reminds me how heavy some of the various rocks and containers that I have collected are. And I wisely wait until help comes home to scootch the granite ponds around. The forecast this week is for overnight temps above 0ºC, so I’m planting. Finally.
There’s a new book out for Canadian gardeners. No Guff Vegetable Gardening is written and published by Donna Balzer and Steven Biggs. I’ve been looking forward to this new book – Donna is well known and respected in Calgary and I like the premise – two gardeners sharing opinions and knowledge about vegetable gardening and debunking ‘guff”.
It’s clear at first look that the book is crammed full of information. It starts off by clearly explaining the ‘guff’ premise and gets some of the main ‘guff’ out of the way. ‘Guff’ also gets included in each chapter, so it is easy to find and read about. Layered on top of that information is a ‘she said’ ‘he said’ dialogue throughout the book, where both gardeners provide personal opinions and stories. This idea adds some regional information (Donna western Canada, Steve eastern Canada) and the approach helps develop the personalities of each author.
The chapter on soil is good – both new and experienced gardeners will learn something here. The information on planning and planting a vegetable garden is helpful and much is applicable to a balcony gardener. You just have to apply common sense when you think about your containers and your growing conditions. The pages on seed terminology, seed saving, seed buying and getting your seeds started is well done and includes a wide range of information. And the tables are good – many with an ‘incidentally’ comment column that provides additional context and ideas.
When the book tackles harvesting tips the tables again, are well done including when to know to start a harvest, and when you’ve missed out. I think this is actually very helpful information for those who have limited experience with growing vegetables. Good photos in this section too. Recommendations for vegetables you can plant in succession is included in this section.
So that’s all good. Now, the look and feel of the book. The illustration style used throughout is nice – whimsical, stylish characters. The ‘Guff’ human character is noticeably the weakest illustration. The colour palette is unique and successful on some of the pages.
Where the book lets me down though is not related to content or illustration style, it’s design. Page design and typeface selections don’t match the sophistication level of the content and illustrations. Typography choices hinder readability and get in the way of the information hierarchy. And page design – the rhythm is disjointed and some of the layouts are just way too crowded and jumbled. Colour selection falters occasionally. The choice of blue for Steve and pink for Donna is simplistic, but the contrast in fonts for the ‘she says’ ‘he says’ concept visually gives the advantage to Steve, and that probably isn’t intentional.
The sample below illustrates the jumble – layout includes a couple of different hand drawn fonts, three other fonts in a range of sizes, three different approaches to boxed text, oddly cropped images, text curved to fit the oddly cropped images and an interesting illustration that is unfortunately squeezed into the centre fold (a common problem throughout the book) and grid layout and margins are broken. The pink background colour for the boxed text is also a poor choice.
It’s not hard to see that the book would have benefited from better art direction. It could have made the ‘she said’ ‘he said’ concept so much more successful, and provided the illustrations room to move and sparkle. But I wouldn’t let this criticism deter you from picking up the book. It’s a solid start – the first of a series. For those considering growing vegetables on the balcony this season, this book would be a good addition to your library.
Donna and Steve have produced a couple of videos as part of this project. This is where you can see their partnership come to life. The production quality is good and these two are accomplished presenters – comfortable with each other and obviously knowledgeable about gardening. I hope that they have plans for many more – they’ll be popular.
Want to buy your seeds locally? Here’ s a selected Canada and U.S. 2011 seed resource list provided by Seeds of Diversity.
Want to buy really locally? Seedy Saturday in Calgary this year is on March 19.
Can’t wait for Seedy Saturday? Hop online and join seedliving where you can buy, sell and swap seeds and plants.
I was asked recently if you have to by special seeds for vegetable gardening on the balcony. The answer is no. That being said, almost ALL of the major suppliers of seeds have jumped on the container gardening bandwagon and are marketing seeds for containers. This isn’t new, but it’s a lot more noticeable this year. Here are a couple of examples I found on a recent trip to the nursery.
Thompson & Morgan have an Urban Garden Collection, specially selected by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. I guess Kew and you can grow the same veg. Each of these seed packages make some reference to growing in containers, like ‘sowing thinly in windowboxes or in growbags on a sunny patio’, ‘sow seeds in a bucket sized container’, and two of them provide recommendations for the size of your container.
So with many choices, if you are planning to add vegetable gardening to your balcony this year, take the time to do a little research and planning. You need to know where and how many sunny spots you have on your balcony, what you like to eat, what you can buy locally for a reasonable price, how long your growing season is and realistically how much time you are going to spend gardening.
I have limited space in my apartment, so I sow greens, beans, peas, carrots and beets directly into containers . The greens will be planted every two weeks so I have a continuous harvest. I’ll purchase my herbs as plants instead of starting seeds. Typically I grow mint, basil, thyme, chives, rosemary and oregano. Same goes for my toms – I buy the plants – always Sun Gold and I try a new variety or two each year. Starting tomatoes from seeds doesn’t make sense for me, because I only have room for a few plants. Same goes for peppers. This year I’ll again sow spinach directly (which is one I struggle with for some reason) and cress – seeds for 3 different varieties are on order. And because I’m on the prairies I’m going to grow a bucket of wheat this year – because I think I can.
Too bad it’s still February and the ground is frozen.
I like Jessica Hische’s daily drop caps.
Her latest “G” makes me think of the many gardeners who will spend the next weeks with their noses in seed catalogues and their sketch pads at hand drawing out their plans for the 2011 garden. It’s also the perfect pattern for a little oval garden that could be cut into a lawn. I think Jessica might be a gardener.
