Soggy Sod

Much rain today. YAY!

Damned Cold Night

It dropped below zero last night and I'm happy to say the plants are still in good spirits. :)

The oldest broccoli is looking awesome.

The others are still puny but not wilted or frost-nipped.

The parsley's not growing quickly but it'still looks healthy.

Walking on the Riverbed

Realizing I may not have another oportunity like this, I decided to walk along the river and see what there was to see. I started by Blackfriar's bridge and figured I'd walk along the edge to down-town.

Facing Blackfriar's Bridge

Facing Toward Down-town

Some industrious person made little stone towers.

I only got about this far before a mother goose in her nest hissed me away. At that point I decided it best to just turn around and go back.

Walking back I noticed something boxy in the river...

Closer inspection revealed it to be a printer! Unfortunately being full with river silt made it too heavy to lift.

The cement curb looking edge I was walking along when I came upon the goose nest is the normal water level for this river, and most springs the park on the other side gets flooded.... so by my non-measured guestimate, I'd say the  river is about 3-5 feet too low right now due to lack of winter snow.

Gone in a Flash

Well maybe if a week is a flash.

And as quickly as dandelion season started, it ended.

Sprouting Like Weeds

There comes a certain week every spring where every dandelion for miles blooms at the same time. The rest of the year you can find a small patch here or there, but if you want to make wine, this first flush is when you'll find enough blooming heads... and for the past 4 years, I've missed it every single time. I start out with the best intentions of having everything ready for spring... but one thing happens, then another, and suddenly, it's spring and I'm looking around at all the beautiful dandelions thinking how I wish I had the money go buy the supplies before they all go to seed... but knowing deep down, I've missed  making dandelion wine again.

It's like a yellow haze over every green swatch of land.

Do you have a favourite "weed" you like to use as food?

Critical Compost

My mini hoops were drying out quickly, and I didn't have confidance that (separately) they had the critical mass needed to keep working properly, so I combined them as one larger hoop and gained a lot of room for more materials.

Before (close up with squirrel)

After (far left corner)

Also, the pile of autumn leaves I had been using throughout the winter is reaching it's end.(Peak-leaf, if you will) I mentioned this to Megan and we talked through my reluctance to use our abundant newspaper/junk-mail due to the possibility of it becoming a solid, soggy, mat that prevents air circulation when wet. I'm going to use shredded newspaper mixed with other things and see how it goes.

Happy Squirrel Saturday

I'm told it's the new thing...

Re-reading and Remembering

This will save a ton more water than switching to a "low-flow" faucet or shower head.

"No electricity is needed and no water is required except a small amount for cleaning purposes. One gallon of water can clean two five gallon receptacles. It takes one adult two weeks to fill two five gallon toilet receptacles with humanure and urine, including cover.

This requires one gallon of cleaning water for every two weeks of humanure toilet use as opposed to the standard thirty gallons per person per day used to flush a water toilet."
~ Joseph Jenkins

Lets do the math for an average person for a month:

Normal Toilet:
30 gal./day X 30 days = 900 gal. of drinking water (& whatever they use at the treatment plant) wasted.

Humanure Toilet
1 gal./2 weeks X 2 = 2 gal. of rain or grey water that should be added to the compost pile anyway


Wow.

I Scooped the Local Paper!

A full five days after I reported on the low water levels and the precautions needed they run this!

Shameless copy cats.

Planting the Midnight Soil

Okay I know that title's just way off but I'm too tired right now.

Just finished planting the backlog of seeds from these past few lazy weeks and up-potting the seedlings that have been desperately waiting... some didn't make it.

John and Meg both said it was late and to do it tomorrow but I know me... and I had to do it then or it would get put off another week.

We got most of the verticals in today. Netting can go on as needed.

Just the side beds left. Pretty eh?

John's first comment when we got the first one done was, "Wow that's a lot of real estate. It's like another full bed of room!" That's the idea folks and I sure hope it works out well.

Something I've been thinking about for MUCH later(we won't be doing it here) is humanure to save water, soil nutrients, and money (on water and soil amendments). Done properly it's perfectly safe and better for the environment than creating sewage.

Here's a link to the book that started it all The Humanure Handbook so you can read for yourself.

G-nite folks.

Getting into the Swing of Spring

I got plenty of weeds pulled this weekend and a bunch more seeds started. (see calendar for details)

Tree sprouts from a neighbor's box elder.

Don't know what these are but I didn't plant them.

Beautiful Day in the Neighbourhood

Remember back in early December when the water was up over the graffiti? Well now it's so low you can see the gravel. This just re-enforces my decision to buy a rain barrel.

This is the local community garden. All I kept thinking was "why all the weeds?" and "where's all the gardeners?"
Guess they'll show later in the season.

Spring Has Sprung (pic-splosion)

Neighbor's Crocuses

Someone's Daffodils

Just Gone, Not Forgotten

Life has been keeping my mind busy with work/school/financial issues and I've been keeping busy(games, videos, reading sci-fi, stumbleupon) trying to avoid that stress load. Unfortunately gardening is new and requires leaving my comfy furniture... those alone put it in the stress category. As such I haven't planted anything new since the last update.

I'm going to work on training myself to see gardening as a distraction instead of a responsibility... but that might take a while.

P.S. I bought an aloe and had to up-pot it as it was already root-bound. This doesn't count as garden stuff because it's not food.

P.P.S. We went to home depot and got the poles for vertical supports but we haven't put them in yet.

P.P.P.S. We priced do-it-yourself and pre-made rain barrels. IT comes out about he same if you don't have access to free supplies for the do-it-yourself model. We're going to get between 1 and 3 rain barrels this summer.

One last thing... I have just updated the calender so it should be accurate now.