Archive for May, 2010
This month marks the 6-year anniversary of breaking ground on my back patio project. I use the term “breaking ground” loosely as the year was basically a mud pit in the winter and a dust bowl in the summer.
Over the course of a few months, my husband loaded up more than 30,000 lbs of the backyard “soil” (another loose term) into a wheelbarrow and replaced it with a patio surrounded by beds and a small grassy area.
In the next 5 years the patio changed many times over. New house colours. New patio furniture. New deck. And last year was the beginning of the potager phase where I packed this wee garden with hundreds of vegetables, herbs, fruit, and flowers.
This year it already looks quite a bit different. I have replaced one of the tomato planters with a strawberry planter. I’ve been growing only lettuces in the wine barrel planters as they get too much shade from the trees now. I’m now growing mushrooms in my zen garden under the deck. I’m only going to grow what was a success last year (sorry, no purple cauliflower) and I’m going to try to keep the clutter down (damn giant purple cauliflower).
May 24 2010 | Projects and Vancouver | 24 Comments »
I found some newly-hatched spiders on my hose reel the other day. They were huddled together for warmth in what I affectionately call “SpiderBall”.
May 19 2010 | Photography | 11 Comments »
Not a whole lot of work went into my hanging strawberry planter project. I tucked some extra runners into a hanging planter I found at a thrift store and hung it off the garage. I’ve kept it watered for 2 months now and look how well it is doing. It is covered in little green strawberries and a ton of flowers. Not too shabby.
May 17 2010 | Gardening and Growing Food and Projects | 10 Comments »
Can I get a “hell yeah!” ?
So far it has been a MAGNIFICENT May. I adore what’s blooming right now. I’ve been eating veg from the garden daily. I have plenty of warm afternoons in the garden. Now add that to the fact that the sun is out until 9PM, you need a sun hat, and my back patio officially opens for entertaining this weekend and…
Hell yeah, summer is here!
May 15 2010 | Flowers and Photography | 15 Comments »
I was out taking my photos for Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day today and was so pleased at how much my shiitake mushroom block was growing after only 3.5 weeks. I’ll be serving up a mushroom dish for dinner this weekend for sure.
May 14 2010 | Growing Food and Harvest and Projects | 5 Comments »
I did find some wonderful goodies at the Van Dusen Plant Sale last weekend despite the fact that I attended the sale solely to get my paws on a mushroom growing kit. The sale was an absolute zoo even with the rainy weather which made it a bit difficult to get to the Western Biologicals Ltd. table but once there it was worth it to see the great display of mushrooms and take home a block to grow my very own shiitake mushrooms. Here is what mine looked like when I got it home.
I’ve followed the instructions so far to the letter and a week later I already have mushrooms forming but I can’t say that I’ve actually DONE anything. I opened the bag, watered the block and then set it under my deck. So far so good. I’m confident that they’ll look like the display mushrooms very soon:
My intention in growing anything is to learn about the biology through home experimentation and I’m not sure watering a prepared fungus block is the way to do that. So I picked up a pamphlet on some upcoming classes that I’m considering signing up for. They offer a farm tour as part of the classes and I’m always up for a farm tour. We’ll see. It’s been fun so far and I’m sure I’ll enjoy my mushrooms. I do see this project evolving into something more though.
Western Biologicals Mushroom Display
If you are in the market for a mushroom block at home, I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to try it. Western Biologicals has no website so call them at 604-856-3339 for more info.
May 01 2010 | Growing Food and Projects and Vancouver | 9 Comments »
