Who smells like garlic?

I smell like garlic! Those who dout me, take a whiff.

This is our first attempt at growing garlic, K cleared out the community garden last week, I planted 194 cloves in it tonight. We really like garlic, almost all our recipes call for garlic and we usually double it. So hopefully if all goes well we will never have to buy it again...... maybe.

We got the garlic from a friend who grows copious amounts of garlic. All together there were 46 bulbs, 40 Music or "Musica" is another name thrown around, so I've heard and read a few times. It is a Porcelain variety which netted me 155 cloves of really good size. 6 Persian Star, which are of the Purple stripe varieties and got 39 cloves.

I really don't know a whole lot about growing it so I read quite a bit about it, and talked to some of our friends. Everyone seemed to be in the same boat with depth and spacing.

This is what we started with, spent a little bit of time separating them while watching some shows.

This is where all those cloves ended up. My rows aren't the straightest, but that's alright to me! I tend to wobble a little too.

And then it got dark @ 5:30, so this is how it ended.

194 so that's 8 rows of 24, two of those rows may have had 25 in them, you do the math. Rows are 10" apart, planted 6-8" apart and 3-4" deep with 2" of mulch and going to throw some more on there this week before the neighbours get rid of their leaves. Straw is a preferable mulch, but we had plenty of leaves off the neighbours lawn and he already bagged it so half the job was already done. That's permaculture right there, let someone else do half the work... haha I kid. But seriously straw would have been better, the leaves are going to turn into a mat, in the spring when the leaves thaw we will have to loosen them up so as to let the little garlics poke out. Just another reason to get out of the house and out of doors earlier in the season I guess.

well

Adios Amigos. Go listen to Ramones now.

July 2nd 2013

This video is from July 2nd, the highlight of this video is the black cat Boss, who distracts the director during a few moments of filming and the giant cherry tomato plant. Everything looks a lot better in this video, all the plants have taken root and taken off very well, this is where the real excitement of gardening comes in. So with out further ado the video.

Woah!

So yesterday was wicked beautiful out, sun shinning. Just beauty bod, had lots of good sun time today. Raked up all the twigs that the cedars dropped over the winter, top dressed the raised garden bed with some sheep manure, brushed all the loose hair off the dogs. just thrilled that it was so warm out, I fully enjoyed it. Got time to take some pictures of our seeds we have been starting in the collector room (the room that collects everything).

First up we have from Edible Antiques, Azoychka Tomato, Pirkstine Orange Tomato, and Moon and Stars Watermellon, This was our first time ordering from E.A. I'm not into writing reviews but delivery was fast, nice envelopes with good description.

Edible Antiques, I like the envelopes.

Then from The Cottage Gardener, we ordered new Sandul Moldovan Tomato, Little Finger Eggplant(I kid here it is), Some flowers Calendula, Heirloom Sunflower mix, Cardinal Climber, Sensation Mixed Cosmos.
From last year we are using King of the North Sweet Pepper, Five-Colour Silverbeet Swiss Chard. We also bought Organic Kelp Extract, we have a hard time finding any good fertilizers that aren't Scotts Miracle-gro brands in our area, so this will apparently make upto 255L.

and from last year or maybe the year before we have from Cubits Chadwick Cherry Toms, Bloomsdale Spinach and from Urban Harvest, Little Bells Pepper (which we saved seeds from last year) we couldn't find anybody who had them and were running low. and Vates Blue Curled Kale.

We have our small greenhouses heating up the soil in the raised garden beds to transplant house Kale, Chard, and Spinach. We took them out yesterday to harden off in the nice weather, today isn't as nice, hence why I am writing this.

Here they are with their packages.

I wanna thank these people also for the work that they do finding suppliers, collecting seeds, find sustainable organic and Heirloom Varieties. Cause its something that I would not want to do. I am happy to support them.

These are our planned plants for this season, we are getting quite the collection.

Sleepers, enjoying the weather. Guarding the Gnomes home.

Oh, Ahead

So, as I sit here in a coffee shop, listeing to spongebob on the TV hanging over my head, waiting for the work on my work truck to be complete. I have some time to write a post.

 We have sowed, watched and waited for the first batch of our veggies to develop, all but 6 pots have sprouted. We saved some pepper seeds "Little Bells" from last season, last spring we couldn't find any from the suppliers that we use. All of our own have sprouted which is awesome, can't wait they were good producers, we froze quite a few of them little buggers.

We ordered from The Cottage Gardener, we also ordered from Edible-Antiques.

We are trying a different variety of Tomatoes this year. Last year was kind of a let down with our Brandy-wines, though it was a shitty season altogether but we want something that isn't as prone to cat facing, and blossom end rot. We got another variety of Eggplant which produces more, but smaller fruit, which is alright (I am not that big a fan of those Aubergines).

Chard and Kale in the back.

Kale

Zoey

Peace I am out......... doing stuff I am supposed to be doing.

Earth?

What is Earth? Is it a planet in this huge vast area, and no one really knows how big it really is?  They can lie and tell you they do know, but, its all guess work.
We call lots of things Earth, Black Earth, Diatomaceous Earth, Soil is sometimes referred to as Earth, Earthworms, Earth Shelter, Earth Quake.

What is Earth? Dirt? Yes, at least to me it is. I like it and all the things it can do. Support life, Micro organisms, It supports me and my feet, my home, my plants, the animals in which walk on it, the farmers market I go to down the road, my bicycle and car tires, the grass in which my dogs pee and poop on, where my cats can chase mice and bugs and think they are hiding in, The enormous and beautiful trees, the water that sits on it, or goes through it and gets filtered. We can all thank dirt but most of us don't. This is my thanks.

We dig into it, we plant our veggies and flowers into it, sow seeds into it, walk, run, trot on it. Sleep and sit on it, put different types of dirt into our bars of soap, press it into pottery, make buildings out of it. Get it in our hair up our cracks, under our nails, stuck to our feet, packed into our boots and shoe treads, tread it into our houses, sweep it up throw it back outside.

How many times have you looked up at a tree? To see its Large trunks, colour and shape of its leaves, its twists in its branches, texture of its bark.

Now?

How many times have you looked down at the Earth? And seen its jewels and gems, colours and textures.  Whether its arid or saturated, if its hiding treasures just underneath its surface, whether its been compacted to support buildings and roads. Has it been disturbed?  Is some creature running through it like a miniature subway system, or did another creature bury its meal for safe keeping? How many different layers of different types of dirt are beneath you?

Peace, I'm out.

What the Pud!?

Well its getting cooler up here now. Maybe it will warm up again in the next few weeks. We sowed a few spinach, kale, and chard seeds. The chard we sowed a few weeks ago have grown very well and ready to be eaten, the spinach I believe got eaten by squirls. The second bunch of seeds we put into the ground, just to see how long we can keep them going under our mini green houses, or just over winter under some mulch, since that was successful the past winter.
Well to get to the point of this, my Little lady friend went out to help with a fundraiser for the Healing Horse Center at Boston Pizza, for their vet and hay bills. I went and got some groceries and made a mess in the kitchen. What mess did I make?
I made Chocolate Pudding mess, but not just any chocolate pudding, since the two Humans in the house are lactose intolerant.

3 Avacados - scooped out and pited
1/4 cup almond milk
1/2 cup of Honey (or to taste)
2tbsp of Peanut Butter (optional)
1/4 tsp of Salt
2 tsp Vanilla extract
1/2 cup of cocoa powder

put it all in the food processor mix until smooth, scraping the sides back into the mixture. Refrigerate and bam pudding.

Now this tastes good but don't be fooled its not going to taste like "regular" pudding, but if you have good ingredients it will taste good. But, thats just my opinion

Most of the ingredients.

All of the ingredients.