Weekend Project: Halloween Planters

October 28, 2011 By 5 Comments

For the Halloween weekend project we put together a variety of festive planters and used some DIY rock spiders to dress them up.

We designed our planters with a colour scheme of purple, white, and orange plants along with various spooky additions that are nods to the holiday season.  The supply list can vary depending on what you have or can find.  Hover your mouse over the photo for a list of what was used in each planter.



Organic materials showcased in the four photos are ornamental kale, Filius Blue hot pepper, heuchera, aster, crocosmia seed heads, Cinderella pumpkin, warty pumpkin, artists gourds, butternut squash, and buttercup squash.


Other items you’ll see are a witch’s broom, rubber hand, Boo sign, rubber bats, and DIY rock spiders.  Most of what we added was readily available in any store carrying Halloween décor.  When the holiday is over, we plan to take the kitsch out and leave the gorgeous planters for some festive fall colour.  We’ll definitely keep the spiders though!

 

For more Halloween decorating ideas check out our Halloween Hop Wreath and Jack-o-Planterns.  Have a wonderful and festive Halloween; may it include some garden therapy.

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Harvest Report

October 3, 2010 By 8 Comments

There has been so much that has needed harvesting with the cool and super wet weather that we have been having that I just can’t keep up with it all.  This is a collection from my home garden and my community garden plot: many tomatoes, fairy tale eggplant, leeks, small wonder spaghetti squash, zucchini, a baby cinderella pumpkin, and hops from the community plot (what the heck am I going to do with the hops???)

 

 

I also needed to pull out some carrots from the home garden before the dreaded rust fly burrowed in.

 

 

 

 

And I’ve been pulling beets for almost 8 weeks now, whenever we want them for dinner.

 

 

 

 Needless to say our dinner plates have been very colourful the past few weeks!

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First Harvest of September

September 6, 2010 By 9 Comments

It’s harvest season.  There are piles of produce filling my fridge, tabletop, counters, bootroom and basement.  I have bags and bowls and boxes of fresh food overtaking the house, overflowing the allotted foodstuff spaces, making it so I need to step over it all to just get through a doorway.  It’s definitely harvest season. 

Here is what I’ve harvested from my community garden and home gardens.  While I don’t grow a lot of any one thing, I grow a few of a lot of things.  Over 100 varieties of edibles making this definitive season of plenty.

From my community garden plot:

  • Potatoes: Red Chief, mystery white variety

  • Tomatoes: Black Russian and La Roma
  • Beans: Kentucky Wonder Brown, Kentucky Wonder Wax, Fortex Filet, Orca, and Purple Peacock
  • Grapes

 

  • Mammoth Melting Sugar Snow Peas (the last of them this week due to powdery mildew taking over)
  • Beets: Detroit Supreme, Red Ace, Chioggia, and Golden
  • Squash: Small Wonder spaghetti, yellow spaghetti, Little October pumpkins

From my home garden:

  • Tomatoes: Siletz, La Roma, Green Zebra, Red Zebra, Sungold Cherry, Sweetheart Grape, Isis Candy, Gold Nugget, Patio, and Moneymaker.  I recently saw a recipe for roasting them in a dutch oven and now I have one on my kitchen gadget wish list along with a food strainer for making roasted tomato sauce.

 

 

  • Fairy Tale eggplant
  • Basil: Organic Sweet Basil, Thai Basil
  • Peppers: Filius Blue, Thai Dragon, and Garden Salsa
  • Aunt Molly’s ground cherries

  • Wild arugula and lettuce
  • Rainbow chard
  • Soybeans

I took some time this week to reflect on this abundance and the colder months to come.  While the days are long and busy now, I’m growing as tired as my plants are from a healthy growing season.  But the glut of produce is available now to enjoy.  The rainbow of colours and fresh flavours will soon be a fond memory so I best savour this season.  With these thoughts I planted my winter seeds and regained my energy for picking and packing away summer’s bounty.

thanks to Daphne’s Dandelions for hosting another wonderful Harvest Monday.

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Harvesting in Early August

August 9, 2010 By 8 Comments

This month my neighbours and I have more growing than we can harvest and eat so there is quite a bit of food sharing going around.  Almost daily I get a delivery of somthing, like a giant bowl of fresh figs, that I turn into some lucious creation.  I have also now organized a farm fresh egg delivery in my city neighbourhood and been out picking wild berries – all making for a crazy first few weeks in August.

I’m currently harvesting the following veg from my home garden and the community garden plot:

Beans: Purple Peacock, French Filet

Peas: MammothMelting Snow Peas

Tomatoes: Black Russian, Siletz, Sweetheart Grape, Gold Nugget Cherry, Sungold Cherry, Isis Candy Cherry, Red Zebra, Tumbler

Sema Fino Florence Fennel

Beets: Detroit Supreme, Red Ace, Chioggia, and Golden

Chard: Rainbow, Fordhook Giant, Rhubarb

Peppers: Filius Blue, Garden Salsa

Basil: Organic Sweet Basil, Thai Basil

Squash: one Gold Nugget was ready at the community garden

Potatoes: Red Chief, French Fingerlings

All this has made for some interesting recipes like carmelized figs, fig ginger jam, walnut pesto, and mixed veggies ragu.  I’ll be sure to share very soon.  If I can get out of the kitchen long enough.  help.

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Flora Friday: Squash

November 13, 2009 By 1 Comment

Market Squash (Large) (2)

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Autumn at the ByWard Market

October 5, 2009 By Leave a Comment

Woolly mittens, potted mums and pumpkins have a way of making you feel ready for autumn.  Forget the stunning foliage turning fiery colours, the ByWard Market in Ottawa was alight with signs of cooler days.  A few things caught my eye in our nation’s capital that day:

The beauty of such a distinct season is not lost on this Vancouverite who usually experiences a fall of shorter days much the same as the rest of the year, but a bit cooler at night, and often more rainy.  In the East, it is a distinctive turn of days, encouraging folks to wrap up the garden, get ready for a great harvest feast, and enjoy the fruits of their labours.

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