The Budding Gardener

My royal tulips and a big fall cleanup

Tara Nolan — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:27:59 +0000

I was way behind on my fall to-dos, but luckily Mother Nature gifted us with a fabulous weekend to finish off those last tasks – putting away the patio furniture, overwintering my pots, cleaning up the gardens and raking (and bagging).

But before I started on the big cleanup, I finally planted the bulbs I bought a few weeks ago (this article said I could)! After reading fellow CanadianGardening.com blogger Anja’s piece on bulb planting, I purchased a bulb planter from Sheridan Nurseries. Armed with this handy tool, I dug them all into the ground and cross my fingers the squirrels won’t find them.

I chose my bulbs based on the gorgeous pinks and purples in the package photos. I hope my little royal family of ‘Purple Princes’ and ‘Pink Emperors’ doesn’t let me down come spring!

Two products that will make your life easier next spring

Tara Nolan — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 23:19:27 +0000

Yesterday Karina (Canadian Gardening magazine’s associate editor) and I met with Brent McHenry from Fiskars. Brent made his annual visit to our office to show us what’s new for 2010. We started with the crafty stuff – border/corner punches, scissors for crafting and dressmaking, and more. Craft stores make me SO happy, so having a private preview was pretty cool. Then we moved on to what’s new in gardening. The highlights for me were the following two products: the Momentum reel mower and the Sit & Store…

What’s interesting about this mower compared to other reel mowers is that the blade will last way longer – there is no metal on metal contact, so it could be upwards of seven years before you have to sharpen it. This lightweight little number can also work as an edger and is apparently 30 per cent easier to push! The Momentum will be exclusive to Canadian Tire, will retail for about $279 and will be available in January.

I carry a little basket around the yard with my tools, generally a glass of water and sometimes the phone. But what excites me about this cart is I can attach my bucket to the back and lug around bags of dirt and other heavy stuff. The top comes off, too, so you can protect your knees while you dig in the dirt!

My garden fail!

Tara Nolan — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 19:52:02 +0000

A couple of weeks ago, I enthusiastically gave the flowers I planted in my garden this year almost straight A’s in a little gardening report card. This was not only a fun exercise to reflect on the season, it will also help me remember what to consider for next year. Sadly, I have a garden ‘fail’ to add. I was very excited about finding some mid-sized cedars this spring to go along my back fence. For some reason one of them completely died on me… I’m still not sure what I did wrong. But next year, whatever I choose to plant in its place will be coddled and very well taken care of.

My sad little cedar

How should I carve this year’s pumpkins?

Tara Nolan — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 19:31:16 +0000

I love that Halloween falls on a Saturday this year. Usually it’s such a rush to carve something the night before (anything sooner is squirrel supper). Last year we got creative and scooped an idea from Martha Stewart’s Halloween issue (here is her gallery of jack-o’-lanterns). This year we have three pumpkins. Not sure what they’ll be transformed into, but we’ve got all day to figure it out!

If you’re not into pumpkin carving, try this neat idea from Mark Disero at gardentoronto.ca. Mark uses orange spotlights to turn his house into a jack-o’-lantern!

Have a safe and happy Halloween!

My pumpkin from last year - infested by rats and creepie crawlies!

Dining between the charcuterie and the olives

Tara Nolan — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:50:26 +0000

Two nights ago I attended the launch of A Taste of Ontario, a cookbook jointly published by the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers and Foodland Ontario. The dinner was hosted by Mark McEwan and held at his new 23,000-square-foot grocery store, McEwan (located in The Shops at Don Mills). Between the European-style meat, deli and dessert counters, we sampled some of the delicious recipes conceived by award-winning chef Anthony John Dalupan.

Besides launching this free cookbook (which you can also download as a PDF here), the event was meant to showcase the fresh local produce from Ontario greenhouse growers. And what a difference the lack of distance between your food and your plate can make. I received an amazing basket of vegetables from local greenhouse growers – the taste and quality are amazing!

So in the dead of winter when you’re trolling the grocery store for healthy local produce, keep an eye out for greenhouse-grown produce from a local grower.

Also, stay tuned as I will be posting an excerpt from the cookbook on our site!

It was pretty neat eating dinner in a grocery store, especially McEwan - I will definitely be going back to treat myself to some of the amazing cuts of meat, salads and produce!

I'll be cracking open A Taste of Ontario to use up some of these delicious peppers, cucumbers and tomatoes I received!

Mum-ma mia!

Tara Nolan — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:50:11 +0000

I can’t take credit for planting them, but I love the dependable, gorgeous colours my chrysanthemums bring to the yard each fall – white, pink, yellow, orange. Still covered in bees, these are not delicate flowers. The frosty temperatures we had last week didn’t harm their little faces at all! I haven’t done it yet this year, but I love to snip a short stem full of blooms and place them in water, low to the vase. It’s like a ready-made, elegant bouquet! Just make sure they aren’t covered in little bugs. I made that mistake last year!

A bumper crop of teeny tomatillos

Tara Nolan — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:13:49 +0000

The tomatillos that managed to escape my broiler and blender last year reseeded themselves and produced three plants this spring. There could have been more, but I think I inadvertently pulled some out. Anyhow, they are finally ready and survived this frosty week. They are much smaller than last year, but made a delicious salsa verde last night. Last year I mentioned a recipe I found on CanadianLiving.com, but I also really enjoy the variation I’ve created with a recipe from the old Wish magazine site because it calls for honey. A delicious addition to the tacos I made last night… yum!

My garden’s report card: the annuals

Tara Nolan — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 15:37:25 +0000

In a recent column, Canadian Gardening magazine’s editor-at-large, Stephen Westcott-Gratton, wrote up a report card for his garden. The recent change in the weather from mild and pleasant to downright frosty has inspired me to reflect on what worked – and what didn’t – in my own garden.

Now I definitely need to practice my botanical photography, but here are some photos of my favourite plants this year. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to take a photo of some before they started going downhill, so those I’ve just listed at the bottom.

I planted my Picotree Cosmos around the edge of my vegetable garden to create a lovely, tall border behind my veggies. Now I suspect some of the seeds were carried off by the squirrels because I didn’t end up with much of a border, but nonetheless, I’m very pleased with the fuchsia and delicate pink blooms that are still gracing my garden. Grade: A

I bought this Lantana (a Lucky Red Hot) from Home Depot on a whim one weekend and it took over! You can see it shading my ornamental grass. But the flowers were lovely and it didn't require much water to survive in my dry, sunny front garden. Grade: A+

Other successes:

My herb garden. Most of my herbs came from the President’s Choice Lawn & Garden Centre at my local Loblaws and a PC event I attended. For the first time I used almost all my fresh herbs in my cooking (which is incredibly satisfying)… the only ones I didn’t use were my lemon thyme and my sage. Grade: A+ (I give my cilantro a D because both the plants started from seed and the plants that just appeared in my garden died)
My Red Antirrhinum majus Snapdragon. This one flowered on and off throughout the summer and was a little finicky, but well worth it for the gorgeous crimson blooms. Grade: B+
Kong Rose Coleus from Pape Garden Centre. This lovely plant drew my attention because of its lime green, fuchsia and purple foliage. I planted it beside an Irish moss I bought at Sheridan Nurseries. The squirrels carried away the moss, but left my lovely Coleus behind. Grade: A+
Begonias - I had a peach and a fuschia and both were gorgeous! Grade: A

Will my new pen biodegrade as I’m writing my to-do lists?

Tara Nolan — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 16:01:39 +0000

Despite working on the web, I’m still a paper person. I keep lists and notes in more than one notebook, I’m forever jotting things on Post-its and I still keep track of my life in my daytimer. Not particularly eco-friendly, I know, but at least my pen now is! A few weeks ago I was sent a Paper Mate Biodegradable – a nifty new pen made of parts that will decompose in soil or compost.

So maybe next spring after all my note taking, my pen will be inkless (though you can buy refills!) and I’ll be able to bury it and see how long it takes to biodegrade – right alongside my Cargo PlantLove lipstick case. It will be like a little bioplastic graveyard in my garden!

Trees for Toronto

Tara Nolan — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:53:40 +0000

While I’m on the subject of Toronto, as I was driving over the Bloor Viaduct on my way to yesterday’s event, I was admiring the gorgeous canopy of trees in the Don Valley that are just beginning to turn. Living in the city you sometimes forget just how much green space there is.

Queen’s Park is another gorgeous ‘green’ area in the city and last week, William Thorsell, Director & CEO of the ROM along with Toronto Parks and Environment Committee Chair Paula Fletcher unveiled new interpretive panels and tree identification signs as part of Trees for Toronto. The aim of TFT is to renew the urban forest in Queen’s Park, which originally opened in 1860. It is home to 47 varieties of trees, including red and white oaks, butternuts, Norway maples, lindens and pines.

Has anyone seen these panels up close yet?