Welcome to my new garden blog!

Hi all,

I've turned my former travel blog into a chronicle of my attempts to transform my urban backyard garden into a productive permaculture garden. As of late, I've become a garden nut, spending every spare minute that I am at home with daylight planning, planting and propagating.

We moved into this house in November, and the first project was to install a composter. The city subsidizes these for residents, so I promptly installed one in the corner of the yard under the Japanese maple tree. Five months later, it's working well, and absorbing all our biodegradable waste without seeming to fill up much. I still have a worm bin as well, so have no problems handling all we can produce.

The next job was to remove two rows of hedging cedars which weren't contributing a lot to the yard, just taking up space and blocking light. Ben did this while I was out of town for work. I came home and voila - no cedars! Thanks to Sara F. for giving them a good home.

Next major project was to move a number of viburnums and a rhodo from in front of the house windows. This is the only really sunny area of the yard and thus prime real estate for veggie beds. The shrubs got moved to other places in the yard (shadier locations), and I dug out turf, added sea soil and manure, and edged with the bricks I already had. I tried to create a version of the permaculture "keyhole" bed, which enables the gardener to manage the entire bed at arm's length. Still debating if I'll need to make these raised beds eventually - we shall see how this season goes, then decide.
Once set up, I planted radishes, peas, mesculun greens, pac choi, kale (that I had overwintered), and spinach. All but the peas have come up. Unfortunately, the slugs seem to have a taste for radish. I installed some beer traps, and have caught one in the last week. Maybe the sole culprit? I recently planted some mustard greens and corn salad (Mache), and another round of peas, as the first ones didn't germinate being too close to the house with not enough moisture. Everything else is up, but going slowly due to the cold start to spring.

I also trellised (with Ben's help) the espalliered apple tree that came with the yard. It's hard to find a place with enough light, but I think its current home between the garage and fence is the best bet, unfortunately. Hope I get some fruit! It has spartan, gala, macintosh, and gravenstein grafts on it, so it would be amazing if it produced this year.

I've also been planting a number of perennials. A hardy kiwi will grow up the arbour along the westernmost fence, I hope. It will have to compete with overhanging fruit trees and a trailing rose, so we'll see how it does. Also planted a blueberry, so I'm excited for fall! Raspberries from Ben's parent's old house were planted, and they've all got leaves. Hurrah! Also found a couple canes abandoned in the mud in the yard, so moved them and they seem happy too. Got a rhubarb as well, which has another leaf coming since planting.

I finally made it out to pick up a rain barrel from the city's transfer station (they subsidize the cost), so installing that with the necessary diverter piping will be this weekend's project.

Tonight I just started some tomatoes (2 varieties), cucumbers, and peppers in my propagator inside - I hope it's warm enough for them to germinate! We have radiant floors, but don't keep the heat turned up all that high, so I'll have to see what I can do. I might cave in and pickup a heated mat from Lee Valley to speed things along.

Phew! That's just an overview of the past five months. I'll try to post some photos soon so you can actually see what I'm talking about. From now on I should be updating more frequently, so you won't have to read as much.

Would love comments, ideas, hints and tips from you experienced gardeners out there, and from those I haven't heard from in a while!

Till next post,
-K