GARDEN JOURNAL

What I’m reading – No Guff Vegetable Gardening

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.

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Seeds for Vegetable and Herb Balcony Gardening

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.

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Capital Idea

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.

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One of Many

There are lots of great gardeners in Canada who write about their gardens. Elaine in Vancouver, Jodi in Nova Scotia, Helen in Toronto, Ms. S in northern Alberta, transplanted Marguerite in PEI, the Kitchen Magpie in Edmonton and many others showcase the diversity of not only gardening across the country, but writing about and publishing photo journals to illustrate the experience. I’ve learned something from each of them and am happy to be part of the Canadian gardening gab.

Thanks for this.

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Balcony Gardener as a Wordle

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Nothing But Time

Here we are ready to get growing for another garden season and I’m just getting around to editing the balcony garden journal footage from 2009. I like how my journal has moved from its original large sketchbook format in 1989 to an online version in 2001 to the movie clip version in 2009. That’s 20 years of growing notes.

But no matter how I’ve chosen to track my progress, my journal reminds me of the many plants I carefully selected, planted and nurtured. And a few that didn’t make it. Gardening history indeed.

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Seedy Saturday Reminder

Seeds are like lipstick. A lipstick purchase is the perfect starting or ending point to a full day of clothes shopping – lots of brands and colours available, you can always find just the right shade for the day or time of year and it’s usually inexpensive. The perfect little gift to yourself. I’m finding that buying seeds provides the same type of pleasure. Lot’s of brands and variety available, you can find just the right new variety or more of the same reliable performers, it’s always inexpensive and the perfect little gift to yourself.

So here’s a shopping opportunity for you next week –  Seedy Saturday in Calgary is happening March 20.

10:00 am through to 4:00 pm
Montgomery Community Centre
5003 16th Avenue NW – Hwy 1 and Home Road

There are over 20 exhibitors confirmed and if you have 2-3 hours to volunteer, organizers are looking for support – contact information is on their website. You can give away or take away clean pots and trays, other gardening supplies, magazines, newsletters and books at the garden Giveaway Table. Bring your stuff by 1:00 pm to allow time for others to choose something to take. So support buying local, track down those special heirloom tomato seeds you’ve been looking for and find a good home for gardening pots and books that you are ready to pass on. See you there.

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Refreshing Refresh

Thanks H for the WordPress upgrade.
And for any of my regular readers, the ‘comment’ prompt is now upgraded and friendlier.
Test driving open.

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Journal Journey Part 20

In 1998 we started to look at condos. We had hired out the lawn cutting, Spring garden clean up and housekeeping and were taking off every weekend to the mountains to ride. The focus was definitely away from the yard and garden.

So one of the last entries in the journal was a plan for the side garden. All of the older homes in the neighbourhood had old sidewalks tucked to the side of the house, with about a 15-18 inch space for foundation plantings. The plan below is for the east side of the house, which got a bit of morning and afternoon sun.

You’ll recognize the old standbys in the plant list – hens and chicks, wooly thyme, dianthus, sedum, liatris and bergenia. Also planned for a pattern of stones and crushed rundlerock. I did implement the plan before we moved, it was pretty easy to do.

So that’s a wrap on the old gardening journal. There were a couple of years where I didn’t make much note of what I was growing, then implemented a simple online journal version in 2001 (to the present) to document the balcony garden. I still keep a paper journal to draw in, make notes, build plant lists and hatch a plan, just as I keep buying books.

Something comforting about being able to bridge old school and new. Or maybe you really can’t teach an old dog new tricks, unless they have tech support. 

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Journal Journey Part 19

Ever entered a gardening competition? I did in 1998. The category was Small Rose Garden, 20-50 bushes. I had 2 judges visit and scored a 79 and 77 (each out of 100) to place second in the category. 

What I didn’t count on was that if you won, you not only got this ribbon, but you also got to host the public on competition winner weekend. I had 750+ people visit the garden over a 2-day period. Needless to say, a quick warning to the neighbours about the influx was necessary and luckily, they were all understanding.

 I scored a 20 out of 25 from both judges for General Arrangement and Aesthetics. Comments included ‘excellent variety’, lovely fragrance as we judged’ and ‘healthy plants’. Full points for Evidence of Overwintering, almost full points for Quality of Bloom, Fragrance and Variety and lowest marks – much to my disappointment for Pruning – as I believe I was born to prune.

Always something more to learn…

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