Rain on the Roses

June came in like a lion today- the much anticipated rain is coming down in buckets, accompanied by gale force winds! It's a bit like Pooh's Blustery day but oh did we need it! The garden was dry as bone, and the rainbarrel has been empty for weeks. I caved in and hooked up the hose to kitchen sink a few days ago but even that didn't do much more than settle the dust. I've  been reluctant to transplant most of the seedlings- the leeks and beets went in last week and are hanging on but only just. The strawberry spinach vanished in a day- whether if got eaten or just evaporated I'm not sure but there's no trace of them now. I even held off on direct sowing my beans for a while, hoping for a good rain- they eventually went in to the ground the day I watered and are all up now thankfully. I've got some zucchinis, squash and brussel sprouts on the deck still in their seedling pots- they will be grateful to be finally transplanted in the ground now that it's rained. It's not the bounty I was expecting by this time but lettuces are ready to pick and yesterday I harvested rapini and garlic scapes to make our first garden meal of the year, in time for my June 1st prediction!

The rest of the garden is still rather bare for this time of the year; for someone who was so anxious to get going earlier this year I've been surprisingly slow to plant, for a variety of reasons. Some things in the works have had me stalling but if all goes as planned there will be a much different strategy this year. In the previous post I wrote about how my garden space has grown over the years but what I didn't mention was how much the surrounding trees have also grown. For while I was able to trim back branches to allow a decent amount of sun to get through but each year it's gotten more difficult and the overhead canopy has gotten more dense. Last year the tomatoes in  the ground barely ripened at all. In previous years I have taken advantage of the roof next door as well as some key sunny spots of our deck to grow a few tomatoes in containers. Well we now have neighbours next door so that space is gone, and our deck see less sun each year due to the same shade trees. The only solution is to go up!

Our building has a flat black tar roof, ideal for growing heat loving plants but we didn't have a way up there. We considered using a regular 6' ladder but that seem precarious at best. So the Russian and I put our brains together and came up with a solution that is hopefully going to allow me to grow all my tomatoes and peppers up there, as well as few other things in containers. It's not quite finished but it holds my weight and feels stable enough to climb. The farmcats seem to like too. I still need to figure out how to transport or collect water up there but hopefully I'll have an update from the new rooftop garden in the near future!


My other big news I've been planning to post about has to do with work- there's been some wonderful developments in my job description that have me actually excited to go to work lately.  I've been assigned as the steward of our somewhat neglected greenhouse space so I've been very busy cleaning it up and making plans to let it live up to it's potential. As well I've been able to include some general improvements to FoodShare's outdoor space as a whole; adding things like rainbarrels and rain chains as well as new garden beds and plants. There's been so much to do and I promise I will do a full review, complete with photos very soon.

Progression

Like most aspects of the internet, the blogosphere is not immune to trends. In my daily blog perusing I often find certain topics will make the rounds and it can be interesting and informative to read different takes on various subjects. Lately one of the most popular subject seem to be hugelkultur - you can read some great posts on it here and here. I was intrigued by the idea of hugelkultur and after reading several posts about using woody waste to build soil fertility and enhance moisture retention, it dawned on me that I have been doing a variation of this all along!

When we first looked this apartment, one of the things that sold me on it was when the landlord mentioned that there was a garden in the back yard and I was free to use it. We moved in Nov 1 2008 and I soon discovered that his idea of a garden was to dump about an inch of top soil on a former gravel driveway, but at least it wasn't a paved parking lot like my previous apartment!

2009

Trying to build up enough healthy soil to grow vegetables when you don't have access to much in the way of resources, nor the funds or means to acquire some from elsewhere can be a challenge. In the spring of 2009, my first post about this garden talks about  a few of the things things I did to build up the soil, from free compost courtesy of the city, to zoo poo that we scavenged from the High Park Zoo. One thing I didn't mention was gathering the mess of fallen leaves, sticks and bits of wood to make a pile where the garden ended ( it's just visible in the photo). I left that pile there to break down over the next year, adding mulched leave and some compost occasionally.

2010

In the spring of 2010,  I covered the whole pile with fresh compost, moved the bricks to include it and gained about 2 more feet of gardening space. I raked a new pile beside the new composter and repeated the process for the following year. The decomposing pile wasn't very aesthetically pleasing though, so over the summer I  planted some sedge grass and other grasses on top. The grasses grew very tall and lush; this served a dual purpose of disguising the pile, and also acted as a mini hedgerow to deter wandering dogs from trampling the rest of the garden.

2011

 In 2011 I repeated the process again, moving the composter down a few feet, and creating a new pile of woody compost. I dug the grasses that survived the winter out of the previous bed and plopped them on the new pile and my garden grew by another 2 feet. Extending the bed closer to the laneway also allowed me to grow more things that required full sun. I left room at the foot for the garden for garbage and recycling bins which keeps people from discarding things like dog poop in my compost or worse.



This year I have moved the garden down yet another foot but I have reached the end of expansion. Our laneway was redone last fall and the lower section of every driveway was covered with asphalt. The last woody compost pile now butts up against the pavement. To make it a bit more like a real hedgerow, I've planted a raspberry cane and moved the rhubarb which was not looking very happy in its spot under the tree. I moved the grasses to the edge as well and I think they'll stay there for good. I kinda like my mini thicket

2012

Moonstruck