Oh, the difference in having proper equipment! We paid out like suckers – went to the garden shop and parted with over a hundred bucks for four feet of spring-time sanity: a Jump Start Grow Light. (Only $60 at U.S. Amazon? What the HELL, Canada). Boom time? Oh, I think so. It has a pulley system, [...]
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Can we even stand the wait for warmth? I’ve been cautioned off putting too much effort into the balcony, but moderation is short-hand for wasted enthusiasm. Despite preference for muddy boots over patent leather, and obscene, gluttonous love of rhubarb… our balcony has a big job to do. Occupy my twiddling green-ish thumbs until this: Source: The Telegraph It’s one [...]
[Part 2 of 2. Previous post: revisiting last summer's balcony garden + full plant list]. I’d made wild and determined promises about growing the most gorgeous balcony garden last summer. It wasn’t. Certainly I loved it, but it wasn’t categorically Best In Show. Learned? A lot. Growing from seed: we grew 18 things on the balcony plant list [...]
Ever try to bend nature to your will? And how does that usually work out? Uh huh. Last spring, with uncharacteristic greed, we bought 2 kilos of seed potatoes – half Russet, half Yukon Gold.. That’s a lot of potatoes, far more than our little community plot could handle. To address the excess, I thought [...]
In February, I estimated we could grow $500 of food in our 75-sqft community garden plot. With the parsnips harvested (& roasted to sweet, sweet perfection), there’s only soggy kale left out there – and kale wins no one’s heart. 2011 garden harvest total? Hold back your tears, guys. It was a very beautiful, very [...]
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Nearly Christmas! Let’s gather round our common hearth and dabble in eternal hope + optimism. Mm – that’s not quite our style, is it? While many cities offer holiday house tours – Vancouver’s option was $50 a head. I couldn’t decide quite which Max Mara coat and Hermes scarf, so I left the society ladies [...]
More obscene than Usher’s tour bus, more imposing than a freight train. You don’t expect to wake up and see a double decker bus on your balcony. How did it get there? Well, we kinda sorta built it. Going crazy with pre-spring fever, I was hatching all sorts of ideas for potting benches and green [...]
My first year as a gardener, I played the bumbling fool interfering with nature. Last year, season two, it was a nice reason just to be outside – a welcome break from house hunting. New year, new challenge. In 2011, Paolo and I dig for victory. Food and flipping? It’s no tenuous correlation. Not the [...]
Despite frosty appearances, it’s not winter anymore. It’s pre-spring. There’s proof outside my bedroom window where the tiny bulbs we planted last autumn are now 6” tall – and one particularly ambitious crocus is about to bloom. Excitement in the universe. Paolo & I are the most adorable little gardeners on earth. We’re definitely still [...]
Skim a batch of MLS listings (in our bracket, at least). Find outdoor photos: balconies gardens back patios decks (Did you see how I said gardens there? It was a trick. There are no gardens in our bracket). Anyway, 10:1, these outdoor chunks are the most unloved things you’ve ever seen. Small table, two chairs, done. “Can [...]
