Canada's Local Gardener Volume 2 Issue 4

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Issue 4

2021 • 1

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2 • 2021

Issue 4

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Contents volume 2

Canada’s local Gardener

44 Dear readers and gardeners .....................................4 Letters to the editor.....................................................5 Beguiling begonias! ...................................................6 Potted, spotted begonia ..........................................10 Grow a pollinator lawn ...........................................12 Dog-friendly garden plants ....................................13 What plants do the royals favour? ........................14 Wise words................................................................15 Making new shrubs ................................................16 How to build a labyrinth .........................................18 Wildflowers and weeds: Toadflax ..........................20 Mosquitoes ..............................................................22

49

ISSUE 4, 2021

54

Have you ever grown wheat? .................................24 Two Olde Dawgs: Planting the Vegepod ................26 Seed saving ..............................................................28 Storing and preserving garden produce ...............30 Earth-sheltered greenhouse ...................................34 Potatoes ....................................................................38 Tree canopy cover in Canadian communities .......42 Beautiful Gardens: Larry Hodgson, Quebec City............................... 44 Olivia Warrington, Winnipeg...............................49 Spirit Garden South Surrey, Surrey, BC..............54 How to get started....................................................61

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2021 • 3

Dear readers and gardeners

T

his is the final issue in our first year of national publishing.

Hooray!

And what have I learned in this issue? Well, for one thing, I learned just exactly what threshing and winnowing is. You can grow your own wheat, and it’s not hard to do.

Cultivate a few blades in a potted arrangement or a few rows in your garden. And if I ever get the two or more acres my heart dreams of, I may just plant an eighth of an acre in wheat.

This would give me four bushels of wheat kernels, which could be milled into over 160 pounds of flour, which would make 240 loaves of bread.

Except… threshing and winnowing look like some mighty hard work. Maybe I should plant far less and just enjoy the experience and a loaf or two of bread.

Easier for sure to focus on potatoes, about which there’s a lot of information in this issue, from how to grow to the history of this nutrient powerhouse. I planted three in my tiny vegetable plot and thought they were disintegrated for sure after showing nothing for two weeks, but now they’ve poked their heads above the soil and are growing like gangbusters.

One plant I’ve never tried before is begonias, but Dorothy (my mother) has some good information on them, making me wonder if it’s too late to add some in pots. Or do I dare to try one inside, like the polka dot begonia also covered herein?

Greg Auton gives us the rundown on the many different ways you can store your produce once it’s ready. Freezing it, canning it, pickling it, or just leaving it in a cool, dark place are some of the things you can do. Greg will walk you through these and a few more besides.

We also have how to build a labyrinth garden, propagating shrubs, collecting seeds, and a story from Dan Rubin about how they’re building greenhouses on the south side of a hill in Newfoundland. Makes good sense!

We have three gardens for you to peruse: the Spirit Garden in South Surrey, BC; Olivia Warrington’s Mediterranean-inspired garden in Winnipeg; and the home garden of expert plantsman Larry Hodgson of Quebec City.

It’s been a busy time, not only with all these articles but with our bi-weekly podcast. My mom and I gab with someone from the gardening community about some aspect of gardening for about an hour. It’s relaxed and chatty and fun. Have a listen by going to our website, using the QR code, or looking for Canada’s Local Gardener Podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

I hope to leave in two weeks to visit gardens throughout the summer, meeting the people who make them happen and taking pictures, with all the COVID-19 preparations you can imagine.

It will be glorious!

Check out the growing library of See you in the fall!

Canada’s Local Gardener Podcasts!

Shauna Dobbie Editor shauna@pegasuspublications.net 4 • 2021

https://www.localgardener.net/ canadas-local-gardener-podcast/ Issue 4

Canada’s

Local Gardener Follow us online https://www.localgardener.net Facebook: @CanadasLocalGardener Twitter: @CanadaGardener Instagram: @local_gardener Published by Pegasus Publications Inc. President/Publisher Dorothy Dobbie dorothy@pegasuspublications.net Design Cottonwood Publishing Services Editor Shauna Dobbie shauna@pegasuspublications.net Art Direction & Layout Karl Thomsen karl@pegasuspublications.net General Manager Ian Leatt ian.leatt@pegasuspublications.net Contributors Greg Auton, Dorothy Dobbie, Shauna Dobbie, Larry Hodgson, Ian Leatt, Joan Mara, Mike Rosen, Dan Rubin.

Editorial Advisory Board Greg Auton, John Barrett, Todd Boland, Darryl Cheng, Ben Cullen, Mario Doiron, Michel Gauthier, Larry Hodgson, Jan Pedersen, Stephanie Rose, Michael Rosen and Aldona Satterthwaite.

Advertising Sales 1.888.680.2008 Subscriptions Write, email or call Canada’s Local Gardener, 138 Swan Lake Bay, Winnipeg, MB R3T 4T8 Phone (204) 940-2700 Fax (204) 940-2727 Toll Free 1 (888) 680-2008 subscribe@localgardener.net One year (four issues): $35.85 Two years (eight issues): $71.70 Three years (twelve issues): $107.55 Single copy: $10.95; Beautiful Gardens: $14.95 150 years of Gardening in Canada copy: $12.95 Plus applicable taxes.

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Canada’s Local Gardener is published four times annually by Pegasus Publications Inc. It is regularly available to purchase at newsstands and retail locations throughout Canada or by subscription. Visa, MasterCard and American Express accepted. Publisher buys all editorial rights and reserves the right to republish any material purchased. Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited without permission in writing from the publisher.

Copyright Pegasus Publications Inc. localgardener.net

Letters to the editor

I

just read your Volume 2, Issue 3 and I have to say it’s really interesting.

I’ve been growing peanuts for years in Southern Ontario. I never get a huge crop but I always get a few I can roast and eat. There’s nothing like peanuts fresh out of the oven. Yum yum.

Also I never knew about so many different kinds of woodpeckers. I think I’ve seen the northern flicker and I thought it was a dove.

The magazine looks really nice. I was wondering one thing though, and that is, what’s on the cover?

Betty Love, Southern Ontario Thank you for your kind words! The picture on the cover of Volume 2 Issue 3 has rosy and yellow begonias and a yellow gladiolus, peeking out from behind.

I

I

’ve been reading this magazine for just over a year now. You’ve told me to grow blueberries (not a problem), pineapple (makes a nice houseplant) and now peanuts? I have a question for you.

Do you grow all these plants?

But keep up the good work. I enjoy a challenge.

William Malton, email Haha! These “Have you ever tried…” articles are all research pieces. I am always inspired to try the hard-to-grow item, but I’m waiting until I’ve moved to a place with more land. V

F

rom the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association on Canada’s Local Gardener, nominated for Manitoba Magazine of the Year: “With a friendly and engaging tone, the jury found Canada’s Local Gardener demonstrates an intimate knowledge of the reader and subject. This publication is easy to dig into thanks to tight editorial and a thoughtful breadth of topics and ideas. This is solid publishing in action.”

Thanks, AMPA!

Edmonton Horticultural Society Inspire, support and celebrate: more gardeners; more gardens; more gardening for all.

www.localgardener.net

From beginners to expert gardeners, our members benefit through:

G r o wi

 informative newsletters  discounts on plants and services  exclusive open gardens  plant exchanges and sales  year-round speaker series  volunteer opportunities ng tog  special events

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er sin

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Thank you, Janet! Volume 1 of Canada’s Local Gardener was dedicated to Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario; we went from three stand-alone magazines to one. For the first issue of Volume 2, we decided to make the magazine national. And yes, we intend to continue. People love it!

eth

Get social with Canada’s Local Gardener

’m so excited to find a national magazine for gardening! The issue I have says Volume 2, Issue 2 on it. So where can I find the first year of copies?

And will you be doing more?

I really miss Canadian Gardening and Gardening Life. I used to subscribe to both. And I’ll be subscribing to you too

once I’ve finished reading the magazine.

Congratulations!

Janet Morgan, Surrey, BC

Join us today!

Call 780-456-3324 or visit edmontonhort.com

Issue 4

2021 • 5

Beguiling begonias!

O

nce upon a time, begonias were what your granny planted in tidy rows along the shady garden walk. They had big, soft leaves and huge, blowsy flowers of a particularly fluorescent hue in red, yellow, orange or maybe pink, sometimes even white. They might have had ruffled petals edged in brilliant contrasting colours or blossoms that could be six inches in diameter, and they were spectacular! These rewarding tuberous begonias also occurred in a pendulous or cascading form that can be relied on to pleasingly fill and spill over a shaded pot. They came in several varieties; ‘Illumination’ was widely sold (and still is).

The Non-stop tuberous hybrids were all the rage a few years ago because as long as they were faithfully deadheaded, they would put forth copious numbers of small but double blooms in many shades of pink and rose.

The begonias bloomed from mid summer to late fall. You carefully preserved the tubers and overwintered them in a cool dry space in the basement.

Those paragons of yesteryear are still here, but they have amazing rivals. And I am not talking about the fibrous, well-behaved wax begonias with their single flowers and uninspiring habits. I am speaking of the begonia revolution, much of it occurring in the fibrous category which includes those waxy ones but have eclipsed them. These begonias can be grown from seeds rather than tubers and have fine, fibrous roots. They have been bred to explode into bloom in sunny spots or in shade, depending on the variety.

Dragon wing Let’s look at the wonderful dragon wings, so called for their shiny, wingshaped leaves. They are perfectly happy in shade and they simply never stop. The flowers are not that showy alone, but when you put hundreds together, they put on quite a display with their bell-shaped red flowers and dark green leaves. They are easy care, not fussy about watering habits (watering on the light side is better than overwatering) and grow in a 6 • 2021

By Dorothy Dobbie

The fabulous, reliable dragon wing begonia.

pleasing bushy mound perfect for a hanging basket. They don’t mind heat or humidity.

Dragon wings can handle sun or shade, but light shade is preferable, and they do well in full shade. If you fall in love, take it inside and overwinter it. It will continue to bloom in bright indirect sunlight. They need no deadheading or pruning and don’t drop branches.

If you don’t want to take a big, oversized plant indoors, you can propagate from stem cuttings. Dragon Issue 4

wing begonias are truly one of the container garden workhorses.

‘Sunsation’ Sexier and just about as reliable are the new sun-loving begonias, particularly ‘Sunsation’, absolutely amazing double-flowered begonias with smaller rose-shaped blossoms that just keep on giving. A small plant will be smothered in blooms and happy as a lark in the brightest sunshine. They bloom all summer until freeze up.

The famous fluorescence is still there in stunning shades of pink and coral localgardener.net

Tuberous begonia.

One of the sun-loving begonias.

Begonia boliviensis.

Photo by Veronica Sliva.

Illumination begonia.

Begonia quick list Fibrous. The roots are stringy.

Fibrous begonias include wax, angel wing, dragon wing and cane. They bloom all year round in their native habitat and you can bring them indoors as a houseplant in winter.

Rhizomatous. They have fleshy roots and stems along the surface of the soil. Rex begonias are rhizomatous. Usually grown as houseplants.

Tuberous. These grow from tubers localgardener.net

like small sweet potatoes. They go dormant in the winter so are no good as houseplants. If you want, dig the tubers before the last frost and overwinter in a cool dark place indoors.

Tuberous begonias have the most spectacular flowers and bloom from late summer until fall.

Wax. Useful as a groundcover in shady areas, wax begonias have fibrous roots, shiny leaves and they continue Issue 4

to bloom throughout the season.

Cane. Cane begonias have tough, bamboo-like stems. They include angel wing and dragon wing begonias. They’ll grow to 10 feet high in their native lands.

Angel wing and dragon wing.

These two cane begonias are both hybrids. To see the difference, angel wings are typically spotted and dragon wings aren’t.

2021 • 7

Some rex begonias have maple leaf shaped leaves.

and yellow that will knock your eyes out. And they are just as reliable as the dragon wings, even thought they don’t resemble one another at all.

Rex But it is not all about flowers, because begonias have other talents, and a key one of those is the production of stunning leaves, including variation in shape, colour, texture and variegation. This is the rex begonia (although there is a cane begonia with

Begonia rex ‘Escargot’.

spotted dragon wing-shaped leaves that are irresistible in a house plant; more on the polka dot begonia in this issue).

The rex begonias do flower, but you won’t care, because you will be mesmerized by the leaves alone. Look for shapes that vary from maple leaf to round, to scalloped, to oval, pointed, ruffled to even snail-shaped!

Colours and variegations are endless in hues of pink to purple to silver to

every shade of green, sometimes all in one leaf. You can grow them outside or take them indoors. Some get quite large, others are small. These are softstemmed succulents with hairy stems so watering needs care: be sure not to overwater, letting the pot get light before rewatering. They are also quite tender and will need to be brought in well before frost. Shade outside and indirect or filtered sunlight indoors are preferred. V

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2021 • 9

Potted, spotted begonia

By Dorothy Dobbie

Polka dot plant (Begonia maculata).

10 • 2021

H

ouse plants have surged back into popularity during the year of COVID-19 with more varieties than ever now commonly available. One of my favourites is the polka dot begonia, Begonia maculatea ‘Wightii’. This is a cane of the cane varieties.

This is a difficult plant to grow indoors because indoor climates are often very dry, and this begonia needs lots of humidity. If it does not get enough humidity, the leaves become brittle and fall off. One idea is to run a diffuser nearby. This seems to keep it happy.

It likes damp, but not wet, soil. If the soil is too moist, the plant may develop root rot. Water from the top, not the bottom, and fertilize with a balanced feed at half strength every two weeks during the growing season.

Let the water run through when you do water, then leave the plant until the top becomes dry. Try to avoid splashing the leaves. You do not need to deadhead but doing so will encourage the growth of additional stems.

Like all begonias, this plant is extremely sensitive to cold, so if you take it outside, and it is a good idea to do so, be sure to bring it in well before frost threatens. It does not like to be in temperatures below 15 degrees Celsius.

Keep nighttime temperatures in mind before taking your baby outdoors for its summer holiday.

Place it in a well-shaded spot; it has little tolerance for direct sunlight.

Indoors, polka dot begonia does not mind being away from direct light and will be quite happy out of the sun in a bright room. Sun scorch causes leaves to dry out and become brittle just as in the case of dry air; however, too little light and the leaves will fade and turn yellow.

Leaves are wing-shaped, covered in silvery polka dots on an olive or clear green field. The undersides of the leaves are a deep burgundy. It will reward with pale pink to almost white flowers up to three times a year.

The potting soil can be mixed with a bit of sand or additional perlite—it needs good drainage.

Polka dot begonia can grow to four feet in length, so you will want to keep

Issue 4

localgardener.net

This is what happens when a leaf doesn’t get enough humidity.

it pruned. The best time for pruning is in fall before bringing it back inside, which will encourage bushiness. Prunings can be easily rooted in water, provided they have at least two nodes.

Insects are less of threat than powdery mildew and fungal diseases which is why you will want to avoid wetting the leaves indoors. They are occasionally attacked by mealy bugs which look like bits of white fluff at stem junctions.

Begonia maculata can be toxic to pets, causing them to vomit or drool excessively.

This plant is well worth having for the indoor plant lover. It is not only a showstopper, it is a responsive plant that will reward you with flowers and a perky attitude when happy. V

localgardener.net

Polka dot plants need high humidity. Grouping plants near a diffuser keeps them very happy.

Issue 4

2021 • 11

Notebook

ees and other pollinators are essential for growing a great deal of nature’s finest foods.

These include many fruits like apples, blueberries, cherries and peaches, and vegetables such as cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts, just to name a few. Most Canadian-grown crops, except for cereals, rely on pollinators.

Small birds and animals also depend on a variety of pollinated wild fruits and seeds to survive.

Unfortunately, the populations of bees and other pollinators, including hummingbirds, butterflies, moths and flies, have been drastically declining due in part to exposure to insecticides, but also to loss of natural habitat including grasslands, meadows and woodlands lost to human development.

Turning your own lawn into a pollinator or bee lawn can help restore the kinds of natural habitat no longer available to pollinators. Typical manicured lawns, which require a great deal of water, gas for mowing and weed killer, are also a virtual desert environment for bees and other pollinators.

In contrast, bee lawns consist of a mix of grasses and shorter flowers that can provide vital nutrition to pollinators.

Fine fescue grass, for example, has thin blades that give flowers the best

Rewards

Dutch white clover.

Photo by Ivar Leidus.

B

Grow a pollinator lawn

Creeping thyme.

Self-heal.

chance to grow, and shorter perennial flowers such as Dutch white clover, creeping thyme and self-heal cater to a variety of bees with diverse pollen and nectar needs. Dutch white clover flowers also take nitrogen from the air and add it back into soil, reducing the need for fertilizer. It’s recommended that bee lawns be kept at least three inches tall to provide a shaded, moist environment for flowers to bloom and seeds to form.

Furthermore, incorporating a very simple bee water garden into a bee

lawn can provide pollinators with a shallow water source that can be otherwise difficult to find. Because bees are small and can easily drown, bee water gardens consist of wide, shallow bowls of water that have rocks rising above the water surface for bees to stand on. And for anyone worried about being stung on their bee lawn, it’s good to know that wild bees do not sting when foraging for flower nectar or pollen—in fact, you can safely get within inches of bees visiting flowers and not get stung. People usually tend to get stung only when bees are harassed at their nest, stepped on or entangled in pieces of clothing.

Thankfully, the importance of bee lawns has been gaining momentum, so much so that, in 2019 in the United States, Minnesota launched the $900,000 US Lawns to Legumes project to help homeowners across the state make their lawns bee friendly.

The program particularly emphasizes hope for providing protection for the at-risk rusty patched bumblebee, Minnesota’s state bee. At one time abundant, the rusty patched bumblebee has suffered an 87 percent decline in population in the last 20 years and was formally listed as federally endangered in March 2017, marking the first bee in the continental US to make the endangered species list. V From EarthTalk, produced by Roddy Scheer & Doug Moss. To donate, visit https//earthtalk.org.

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12 • 2021 CHCA22_Canada Local Gardener_4.6x3.4.indd 1

Issue 4

localgardener.net 28/04/2021 2:07:32 PM

Notebook

Dog-friendly garden plants

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spring, when little else is in flower in the garden. There are thousands of varieties to choose from, with white, pink or red flowers. When they are not flowering, their shiny evergreen leaves look great all year round. They aren’t hardy through most of Canada, but you can bring them inside when the weather cools down.

Soil conditions are the utmost important factor when planting camellias.

They need to grow in acidic soil. Grow them in plant pots even if you can leave them out for the winter.

Camellias do best in a partially shaded spot in your garden, sheltered from the wind.

• STOP ES T CI

T

he folks at tails.com have a reminder for dog owners. When shopping for plants, remember to consider whether the new garden addition will be pet friendly. Some plants contain toxins that can cause several problems for dogs, such as diarrhoea or vomiting.

Thankfully there’s still plenty of beautiful greenery to choose from. Here are the most pup-friendly plants.

Snapdragons Snapdragons are cheerful annual plants guaranteed to brighten up your garden with their wide range of colours and heights. As old-fashioned cottage garden plants, they are beloved by children and bees.

Attractive to wildlife, they have a long flowering period, from June until FOREST IN in Fsnapdragons October. If you have tall O your garden, they can be brought into your home. Simply cut and pop them in a vase with water; they last well over a week in water.

Michaelmas daisies There are Michaelmas daisies, also known as asters, to suit every garden: they come in shades of white, blue, purple and pink. They’re Fextremely OREST I F popular with bees and butterflies, too. N O ’T When adding this gorgeous DONaddition to your garden, grow Michaelmas MOVEOD Oin R daisies in moist but well-drained soil FI EW full sun to partial shade and cut back after flowering.

Camellias Camellias are a popular evergreen shrub that produces a beautiful display of flowers during late winter and early

Sunflowers Sunflowers are one of the nation's most popular flowers. Did you know, sunflowers also come in rusty red, green and white flowering forms and not just the iconic yellow?

Depending on the sunflower, they can take 11 to 18 weeks to flower from seed sowing. So when sowing sunflower seeds, sow some every couple of weeks, which will mean you’ll have a constant supply of cheerful sunflowers throughout summer.

Top tip If your pup is known for misbehaving in the garden and digging holes where they shouldn’t be, why not create different routes through the garden. By adding clearly defined routes through the garden, it will keep your four-legged friend away from your lovely new plants.

If your pooch thinks they are a professional digger, create a designated digging or play area to keep your dog stimulated.

Try adding different textures that can be stimulating underfoot, and plants such as ornamental grasses to dance and sway, providing entertainment.

If the plants mentioned above don’t take your fancy, other dog-friendly plants include fuchsias, coral bells, impatiens, cornflowers, nasturtiums and calendulas. There are many more as well. V

HE STOP T

Invasive species threaten Manitoba’s trees.

The emerald ash borer and other insects live in firewood. When firewood is moved between locations, so are the insects.

One log can kill a million trees.

Learn more at: Manitoba.ca/stopthespread

D OF SPREA

MOVE DON’TWOOD E FIR E VA S IV T IN F O R E SP E C IE S S

Issue 4

2021 • 13

Notebook

Photo by Luiz Cent.

What plants do the royals favour?

Dragon tree.

Fiddle leaf fig.

14 • 2021

Photo by Pluume.

Photo by Martin Olsson.

Snake plant.

The tree has a long stem and a bright burst of long green leaves edged with red.

5. Fiddle leaf fig (Ficus lyrata).

Finally, you might have spotted Meghan and Harry's huge fiddle leaf fig in their Santa Barbara home. It often features in video calls, adding a burst of colour to their pale interior style.

Linda Dodge from SaveOnEnergy. com/uk said: "Plants are all over social media at the moment, and trends in really expensive houseplants are on the rise, so seeing some more basic plants that you could pick up at any nursery is really positive.”

We know that plants are good for boosting mental health, as well as improving our air quality and removing pollutants on a small scale. We recently studied which plants are best at removing CO2 from the air, with prayer plants, rubber plants, and bird's nest ferns coming out on top. V

Photo by Karl Fonza.

O

2. Rubber plant (Ficus elastica).

The rubber plant, with its thick, statement leaves, has been spotted on @sussexroyal's Instagram. Although slightly harder to care for, the rubber plant comes in a variety of colours to compliment any room.

Rubber plants are also great at absorbing CO2 and came second in SaveOnEnergy's study on the best houseplants for offsetting emissions.

3. Snake plant (Dracaena trifasciata; formerly Sansevieria). One of the easiest plants to care for—a small green and yellow snake plant was snapped in the back of @sussexroyal's Instagram post from their visit to Cape Town. Snake plants are native to warmer countries, including Africa, but are now common around the world and come in different shapes, sizes and colours.

4. Dragon tree (Dracaena marginata). A dragon tree was spotted in the background of a video call on the @theroyalfamily Instagram account.

ver the past year, we've been getting used to seeing snapshots of people’s houses on video calls, and the Royal Family has been no exception. The public has been intrigued to learn what goes on in the background of their various estates, from Camilla's floral arrangements to Charles' endless bookshelves.

With this in mind, SaveOnEnergy. com/uk wanted to find out which houseplants feature most in the backgrounds of the Royal Family's Instagram posts. They analyzed photos from the family's social media channels to find out which houseplants are favoured by the Royal Family.

1. Parlour palm (Chamaedorea elegans). Featuring on both @dukeandduchessofcambridge and @sussexroyal's Instagram accounts is the parlour palm. Parlour palms are elegant and tall, and easy to care for. You might have seen William and Kate's one in the background of their video calls.

Rubber plant.

Parlour palm.

Issue 4

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Notebook

Wise words We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses. – Abraham Lincoln

Life begins the day you start a garden.

– Chinese proverb Gardening is how I relax. It’s another form of creating and playing with colors. – Oscar de la Renta

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Issue 4

2021 • 15

Making new shrubs

16 • 2021

Photo by Andre Abrahami.

Y

ears ago, when my nephew was very young, he went on a nature walk with my parents.

He collected a stick along the way, as young boys do, and when they got to my parents’ place, he stuck it in the ground. The stick was from a willow, and without any coaxing it turned into a tree. Willows will root very easily. Graeme didn’t know that and thought it was a magic tree.

If only our hydrangeas and lilacs were magic trees. But they aren’t so difficult to propagate if you know what to do. In fact, you can increase your stock of many shrubs in reasonably short order.

The trick is rooting hormone.

Willows already have it in abundance, which is fine for rooting willows, what about other plants? Fortunately, you can buy it.

To propagate most deciduous (no leaves in winter) shrubs: 1. Take a cutting.

2. Trim it down.

3. Dip the bottom in rooting hormone.

4. Plant in a pot.

5. Cover with a clear plastic bag, not touching the plant.

6. Take the bag off every couple of weeks to see if the plant has rooted.

7. When it’s rooted, take the bag off completely. Continue with the potted plant until it’s big enough to plant in the ground. This could be a few years.

Sounds simple. Actually doing it, though, you’ll have questions, which are hopefully answered in the rest of this article.

Take cuttings Cuttings should be made early in the day. Cut just behind the leaf node in the softwood of the shrub. Softwood is neither brand-new growth nor truly woody growth; it’s in between. The growth is too new if it just bends. It’s too old if it won’t bend at all. If it bends a little, that’s about right. (Check out the video through the QR code above.)

Take a few cuttings. Even if you do everything right, don’t expect more than 70 per cent success. Some species of shrubs do better, some worse, others won’t be propagated from softwood cuttings at all.

By Shauna Dobbie

The steps to propagate rose cuttings with a plastic bottle greenhouse.

Scan me A video about softwood cuttings versus hardwood cuttings and when to collect them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPk2C3b2R5Q

Wrap the cut end in damp paper towel and keep the sun off of them.

Trim them Make sure the cut is about one centimetre behind the leaf node; in other words, the leaf node is still on the stem. You can lightly peel off a couple of strips of bark from below the node with your secateurs, but you don’t have to.

Strip off the leaves from the bottom node. Then go up to the next set of leaves and cut just beyond them.

Remove all but one leaf.

Dip in rooting hormone Put a bit of rooting hormone into a Issue 4

small bowl. If the plant turns out to be diseased, you don’t want the rooting hormone to pass it on to future plants, so don’t dip the cutting into your whole container of rooting hormone.

Dip the bottom of the cutting into rooting hormone up to and including the bumps of the leaf node. Tap the cutting to release any excess. You don’t want too much and you don’t want too little; either will prevent development of roots.

Plant in a pot Use a light mixture appropriate for starting seeds. You can plant the cuttings into cell packs, one per cell, or you can plant about three into a four-inch pot. Plant the cuttings so that the leaf is just above the soil.

Then water the pot or pots.

Cover Cover the pot with clear plastic but without touching the cuttings.

Put the pot into a spot with indirect sunlight, in a place where you won’t need to move it often. localgardener.net

Hydrangeas.

Forsythia.

Check Every two or three weeks, take the bag off and inspect the cuttings. If they’ve gone brown or mouldy, they might be done for. Check for roots; it may be that the plant has rooted already. If they are mouldy and there are no roots, try again with new cuttings.

If they show new growth above the soil, they might not grow roots. The cutting is a plant under stress and it probably can’t grow new leaves and put out roots at the same time. If it’s early in the process, remove the new growth and check for roots. Later in the process, it might have already rooted well and is putting forth new growth. (Check for roots.)

Rooting hormones

localgardener.net

To check for roots, lightly tug on the cutting. If it comes right out, look for any signs of roots growing from the leaf node. Don’t be discouraged if there are none; this process can take three or more months, depending on the species.

If you meet some resistance when you tug the cutting, there are probably roots. If you want to be sure, dump the contents of the pot out and have a closer look.

If there are no roots, put the cutting back. If the planting medium needs water, water it. Put the bag back for a couple more weeks.

If you do have roots? Command your family to refer to you hence-

T

he two natural rooting hormones are Indole-3-acetic acid (IAA) and Indole-3-butyric acid (IBA). There is also a human made hormone, alpha-Napthalene acetic acid (NAA) that plants cannot distinguish from IAA. When you buy rooting hormones, look for either IBA or NAA in the list of ingredients. IAA isn’t used because it breaks down rapidly when exposed to light.

There are many sources on the Internet that claim you can make your Issue 4

forth as the propagation god, for you have succeeded. Take the bag off and continue to care for the plant.

Other cuttings The directions here are for softwood and semi-hardwood cuttings.

It works well on non-woody perennials too. It is also possible to propagate from hardwood cuttings, though it is a little more involved.

Most flowering shrubs can be propagated this way, including hydrangeas, roses, lilacs, forsythias, viburnums and spireas. If you aren’t sure about the ease of propagating your shrub through cuttings, you can either give it a try or look it up on the Internet.

Good luck! V

own rooting hormone out of honey or apple cider vinegar or cinnamon.

These items are antibacterial and can help prevent pathogens from growing on a cutting, but they won’t promote root growth.

There are also claims that aspirin or willow water will stimulate rooting.

Either might help a tiny bit, but not to the extent that rooting hormone will.

If you are serious about propagating shrubs, a little jar of rooting hormone is not expensive and will last for years; just buy it.

2021 • 17

How to build a labyrinth

A labyrinth set in the garden offers a chance for a meditational journey and quiet reflection.

I

f you’re looking for something new to challenge your horticultural leanings, why not build a labyrinth.

Now, either you are saying, “Yes! That’s what we need to be mindful!” or, “Pfft. What’s the next article?”

Hear me out, though. A labyrinth is a good way to create a walking space in your garden among your plants, be they flowers or vegetables. And if it happens to be spiritually uplifting to walk through a labyrinth as you check on your plants, so be it.

A labyrinth can be made of anything; there are groups who make them out of canvas so they can be moved 18 • 2021

around and installed temporarily in a place. Others use stones to demarcate paths or simply mow the areas, leaving the rest to grow. But we are concerned with making one using plants as the lines separating the pathways.

Think about the garden shapes. In your imaginings, start with a plot of, say, 30 feet by 30 feet. If you planted the full 30 feet, you couldn’t easily get to all the plants, either to see them or to tend to them. You’d need walkways.

You could make the walkways in parallel rows. You could make a kind of checkerboard, as Marjorie Harris, the editor at the now defunct Gardening Life quite famously did. You Issue 4

could make a spiral. A labyrinth is just another design choice, possibly the most elegant.

You could make the labyrinth your herb garden, keeping things mostly low to the ground. Or you could plant roses or make it a perennial bed. For a little French glamour, you could make a parterre, with low, neatly clipped boxwoods or yews.

To keep the directions as simple as possible, we’re going to describe how to do a pretty easy square, one with two-foot wide paths and twofoot wide “walls” or beds. If you’re a geometry wiz, you can make something more complex. localgardener.net

Scan me How to use the Pythagorean theorem to layout right angles. https://todayshomeowner.com/video/ how-to-layout-right-angles-accurately/

Marking out the labyrinth Start with a 30-foot by 30-foot square of land. Note: this design isn’t quite square. There is a two-foot margin at the bottom, where you enter the labyrinth. But the centre of the labyrinth is the centre of the 30-foot square.

Mark out the perimeter with string and stakes. Make certain it is square by using the Pythagorean theorem. If your geometry is a little rusty, go to the link provided.

Make an X over the square by stringing diagonally opposite corners.

Measure one foot on each side of the cross point and make another, smaller square, two feet by two feet; you can use a carpenter square if you like.

This is the centre of your labyrinth.

Measure out two feet from three sides of the centre square. The space between your newly measured distances and the centre square becomes the first three parts of the planting bed.

From here, it’s a matter of following the diagram, measuring carefully and keeping right angles all the way through. Use the Pythagorean theorem to get perfectly right angles on at least some of the corners to keep your angles straight.

Planting the labyrinth Now you can see the areas where you need to remove sod to plant your beds. You can leave the walking area of the labyrinth with sod, provided you mow it and edge it (or install edgers); a typical mower cuts a swath of around 20 inches, so you will be good with a 24-inch path. Or you can remove all the sod and put pavers in the walking parts.

In the centre square, you may want to put a birdbath or a tree. You may want to make the centre area bigger and have seating.

With the bedding area uncovered, amend it with compost and start planting.

There you go; you now have a labyrinth! V localgardener.net

Here is a sample plan for a labyrinth to give you an idea of how simple it can be.

People make labyrinths anywhere, in all sorts of settings. Above: a labyrinth created on the beach out of loose stones; below left: in an open field created simply by mowing grass; below right: using stones and gravel set in a forest clearing.

Issue 4

2021 • 19

Wildflowers and weeds

Toadflax

Photo by Ivar Leidus.

By Shauna Dobbie

20 • 2021

Issue 4

localgardener.net

Photo by Alistair Rae. Photo by Aaron Carlson.

Bumblebees (above), bog fritillaries (right top) and gorgone checkerspots (right bottom) all feed on yellow toadflax.

T

his lovely little flower looks just like small yellow snapdragons and it blooms through the summer across Canada. It is extraordinarily hardy, surviving to the 65th parallel north. If you’re a farmer, you might not like it, though, and it’s considered invasive in Alberta.

Linaria vulgaris is the Latin name for the plant. It hales from central Asia and Europe, including the British Isles, being one of the first plants to crop up when an area is disturbed. You’ll often find it on roadsides and on tilled land. It’s been found in Canada at least since 1820.

Toadflax probably came to Canada through cultivation, since it has been used medicinally throughout history.

It has been used as a diuretic in treating dropsy (an oldfashioned name for edema). Modern studies show that it mainly affects the liver and it has strong laxative abilities.

This makes sense because, apparently, it is a little bit toxic.

Still, the juice of the plant is used as a remedy for inflamed eyes. You can also get a yellow dye from it.

The creatures who most appreciate toadflax are the insects who use it for food. Native insects who enjoy toadflax include the gorgone checkerspot and the bog fritillary, two pretty little butterflies. They are not obligate feeders, though, and are probably attracted to the yellow flowers.

Bumblebees are also devotees.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about toadflax is the number of aliases it goes by. In different areas it is known as: brideweed, bridewort, butter and eggs, butter haycocks, bread and butter, bunny haycocks, bunny mouths, calf’s snout, continental weed, dead men’s bones, devil’s flax, devil’s flower, doggies, dragon bushes, eggs and bacon, false flax, fluellen, gallweed, gallwart, impudent lawyer, lion’s mouth, North American ramsted, rabbit flower, rancid, ransted, wild flax, wild snapdragon and yellow rod.

When I hear alternative names for the flowers, I always think of using them while driving down the highway: “Pull over, Mother! I see a nice stand of impudent lawyers!” V

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204.790.5234 trees@greendrop.com 2021 • 21

Mosquitoes

By Dorothy Dobbie

The silhouette of summer’s most dreaded predator.

H

ave you ever been in a fog of mosquitoes, where the air is so thick with them you can barely see?

At certain times of the year around wet areas of Canada, this is a not unheard-of event. However, it is likely that the biggest annoyance will be having them fly up your nose rather than biting you because chances are they are engaged in a mating swarm.

When the editor of this magazine, Shauna, was a baby, we happened to be camping at a place called Beaver Creek halfway up Lake Winnipeg. It was the night Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon. At the campsite, there was an old caretaker who came and asked us if we would like to watch the moon walk with him on the television that he had hooked up using a generator from an old washing machine. We declined as Shauna was fussy.

Instead, as dusk descended, we climbed into our station wagon with Shauna and her three-year older sister, Lori, and listened to the moon walk on the car radio. As we sat there, hearing those famous words, “One small step for man, one giant step for mankind”, a cloud of mosquitoes descended from the lake—we could barely see the moon rising over the water. Then, just as suddenly, from behind us in the forest, an air force of dragonflies came swooping in. For a magical half hour, we listened to history being made in space while we watched a very real-life aerial battle waged on earth.

Male mosquitoes, which do not bite, hatch first in spring, followed by females which do bite after mating

22 • 2021

when they need a blood meal of protein to develop their eggs. Males live anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks, during which time they and the females live on nectar gathered from flowers. Females live up to 10 to 18 days under ideal conditions.

You have probably been with people who are seldom bothered by mosquitoes and it is true that these flying pests have preferences. If you are the favoured one, it may have to do with your body chemistry: do you smell good to a mosquito? Do you have a hot body? The lactic acid in your sweat is nectar to a hungry female! Heavy breathers are probably putting out a lot of carbon dioxide which mosquitoes use to pinpoint the blood donors. They also have darned good eyesight. They can spot you from 150 feet away.

It has long been said that a full moon brings out the biting mosquitoes and it is thought that this may be due to the better light for hunting their next meal. That said, they are not hot weather lovers and will retire to a cool and shady spot in the garden when the sun is at its zenith.

They hide from wind and do not like the rain, although if a rain drop falls on them, which it does 25 percent of the time, the drop, which is 50 times heavier that the mosquito, absorbs the mosquito and carries it downward.

But the intrepid insect manages to pull away just before the drop hits the ground due to the shape of its body, its wings, and its long legs. Still, it would rather not make the effort. But they love the residue of rain which is lots Issue 4

localgardener.net

Beware the mosquito fog of summer!

of standing water, and it does not have to be much. A teaspoonful would be enough for an egg deposit.

So, what to do? Keep your yard free of still water. Birdbaths and still ponds can be treated with Bti (Bacillus thuringiensis spp. Israelensis) which interrupts the development of the larvae but does not affect birds or other animals. You can also add a fountain or other device to keep the water moving. However, that only deals with 60 percent of the little devils because some members of the common Culex family lay their eggs on vegetation on or near water, including boggy, swampy areas. If your pond has a lot of marginal plants, the moving water may not deter them all.

For your own protection, wear light-coloured clothes.

Stay calm. Do not perfume your body. Wash your feet.

Use a product containing at least 50 per cent DEET, or picaridin if you are allergic to DEET. While DEET is recommended by the World Health Organization and has been in use since 1946, it is known to dissolve plas-

Be sure to keep your yard free of still water.

tics and some synthetic materials. It is smelly and greasy.

Picaridin, a synthetic developed by Bayer in the 1980s, does not have an odour (to us) and is not greasy nor does it dissolve plastic. It is now available in Canada. Effective for up to 12 hours against ticks as well. V

What to do about mosquito bites

By Shauna Dobbie

1. Corticosteroids. Hydrocortisone is one treatment for the itch of mosquito bites and should provide relief.

2. Heat. Use a Therapik, which is a hand-held, battery-operated device that will pinpoint heat on the bite to relieve the itch. You can also use a teaspoon heated with water (or after stirring tea) applied to the bite but be careful not to burn yourself.

3. Cold. A cold pack applied to the bite will help. localgardener.net

4. Aloe vera. Gel from the allhealing plant can ease the effect of a mosquito bite.

5. Baking soda paste. Mix a paste of baking soda and just a touch of water and apply it to the bump.

6. Vinegar. This is one my sister and I used to use all the time. Use a cotton ball to dab some vinegar onto a bite. It helps if the vinegar was kept in the fridge. Dr. Google says to use apple cider vinegar, but Issue 4

we just used plain old white vinegar and found that it worked.

7. Witch hazel. Use the same directions as for vinegar.

8. Oatmeal. Just like it works for chicken pox, it works for mosquito bites. Spoon some prepared oatmeal onto a washcloth and hold it against the bite for about 10 minutes.

In all cases, the sooner you can treat the bite the more success you’ll have. And, of course, do your best not to scratch the bite!

2021 • 23

Have you ever grown wheat?

Like many grains, you can grow wheat in your garden!

H

ere’s a chance to take your gardening prowess one step closer to farming: grow your own wheat.

Wheat is surprisingly easy to grow and not too difficult for the novice to harvest and get ready to store. Read that again: not too difficult. You will have to learn a couple of new skills.

Wheat is also beautiful. If you like ornamental grasses, you’ll love wheat.

And you can grow just a few for ornamentation in your perennial bed. Or you can grow it in pots. The reason it’s not normally grown in pots is that it’s farmed in huge fields, but the

24 • 2021

roots don’t go very deep and it will be happy in a container.

If you’d like to grow wheat for milling into flour, you won’t need to grow as much as you might think. A couple of 15-foot rows will get you two or three pounds of flour, which is enough to bake three to five loaves of bread. That’s not enough to give up your Costco membership, but it’s enough to give you bragging rights.

If you find you enjoy growing wheat and you have the space, a 1,000-square-foot space will yield about 60 pounds of grain, which would give you 90 loaves of bread.

Issue 4

But if you’ve never done it before, start out small and see if you like it. Growing wheat gets easier after you’ve done it.

Your first choice is between two types of wheat: winter and spring.

Winter wheat is sown in the fall and the seedlings survive under the snow, which gives it a head start. If you look online, sources will tell you that winter wheat cannot be grown below Zone 3, which is just not true. Those sources are mostly American. You can sow winter wheat in stubble, which will hold onto snow and keep your winter seedlings toasty. As a home localgardener.net

localgardener.net

Photo by Dominique Jacquan.

gardener, you probably aren’t planting wheat into a field of stubble, so we recommend growing spring wheat.

Seeds You can buy seeds to plant at a number of seed catalogues in Canada.

Salt Spring Seeds, West Coast Seeds and Richters Herbs are three places I found after a brief search. Consider asking at a farm store near you to get a variety that is good for your locale.

Don’t worry about buying too much; store what you don’t plant in an airtight container in the fridge and it will keep for a long time.

Planting Plant wheat when the ground can be worked. You can rake and broadcast the seeds, then rake them in some more, in an attempt to get the seed 1.5 to 3 inches down. Or you can mimic no-till seed drilling by using a garden fork to poke holes in the ground and place seeds in the holes, then cover the holes with soil. Water the area well.

Consider putting a row cover over the area if birds show interest in the newly planted seeds. You should see the seedlings coming up within 10 days.

Weeding Wheat is a grass. It was born to outcompete weeds. You have to give it a start, though, and that means pulling out weeds that emerge before the wheat is growing strong. You can disrupt the weedlings with a long-handled hoe if you don’t mind disrupting the soil. If you’d rather not disrupt the soil, you’ll have to get into your wheat crop and bend down to pull the little invaders. Or you can leave the weeds and expect a smaller—and possibly no—harvest.

Feeding and watering Don’t feed your wheat. It doesn’t need it. Overfeeding wheat and overwatering lead to lodging, where the wheat doesn’t stand up straight. If it’s bent low to the ground it will be hard to harvest and it can contract diseases from the soil.

Pests and diseases There is one very serious disease that sometimes affects wheat: ergot.

Ergot is a fungus that turns some of the grains black and elongates them. Poisoning from this is serious and any grain infected should not be consumed by people or animals.

One grain in this head has ergot, which can be deadly.

Harvesting Now the hard work comes.

Your wheat has grown all summer and the green stalks have turned golden. One sign that it’s time to harvest is the grain heads nodding down. Pull off a grain or two and bite into it. If you’ve broken a tooth, it’s time to cut them down. If the grain is chewy, they aren’t ready yet.

How do you cut the wheat down?

If you have a scythe or a sickle and a strong back, that is one way. A gaspowered or electric weed snipper is another way. Still another way is a sharp pair of scissors and a lot of time.

Most people cut the stalks down near the bottom and tie them together in stooks to dry them out in a garage, attic or barn. A few cut just the heads off and lay them out to dry, dealing with the straw separately. Either way, let them dry for about two weeks.

Threshing Threshing is getting the wheatberries off of the stalks. There are a few Issue 4

ways to do this. Try them all.

1. Beat the stalks with a stick.

2. Put the stalks into a bag and bang it against the wall.

3. Rub the stalks over a metal screen.

Winnowing Now you have wheatberries and a bunch of chaff. Fortunately, chaff is light and wheat is heavy. You get rid of the chaff by pouring it from one bowl, at a height, to another in the cross draft of wind. You can do it outside on a breezy day or inside in front of a fan. Do it again and again and again and eventually… you have clean wheatberries. Huzzah!

Milling If you want flour from your wheat, you’ll have to grind it. There are several devices on the retail market for grinding wheat either by hand cranking or by electricity. If you don’t have access to one, you can mill wheat in a high-powered blender like a Vitamix, Foodtec or Ninja. V 2021 • 25

Two Olde Dawgs

Planting the Vegepod I

t’s the beginning of May and I hear a little knocking at the door.

I was sitting enjoying one of life’s little treasures: a nice hot cup of morning coffee, cogitating as to what I was going to complete in the garden.

Rising and opening the door, I am greeted by a smiling face.

“Morning,” says Gord. “Nice day to plant the Vegepod.” He’s referring to the raised container we built in the fall for growing vegetables in.

“Sure is,” I reply, “I have everything we need to make it nice and easy. Do you want a fresh cup of coffee before we go outside?” I ask Gord, seems rude not to.

We venture outside after a little chat and set about the task at hand.

First off, the soil that had been placed in the Vegepod. It was extremely dry.

Using a regular garden hose, we water the soil. Having watered for a little while, we turn the soil using a small-handled rake, bringing dry soil back up from the bottom. Once again, we water the soil for a time, then turn through, leaving a damp soil ready for planting.

Let the fun begin.

A large piece of wooden dowel is used to make the holes large enough to plant the celery plugs to a depth of 3 inches. We place the plug in and pack the soil firmly around the base. Two rows of celery should do it.

Celery needs good clean rich soil. It is a heavy drinker so always ensure it is kept well-watered.

Next up, spring onions. Using a piece of 2-by-1 some 36 inches in length, pressing down on the soft soil we trace a row parallel to the celery, ensuring enough space between rows. At a depth of 2 inches, gently drop the seeds in the open row. Then gently collapse the soil back in atop the seeds. Spring onions require good humus rich soil and full sun.

"Rich in humus" means the material contains some organic matter, but maybe a lot of inert filler too.

Next up, radish, using our 2-by1. Pressing down on the soft soil we trace a row parallel to the green onions, ensuring enough space

26 • 2021

By Ian Leatt

Scan me Click here for to see what the Two Olde Dawgs are up to with their new Vegepod! https://www.localgardener.net/planting-the-vegepod/

between rows. At a depth of 2 inches, gently drop the seeds in the open row.

Then gently collapse the soil back in atop the seeds. We did this for two rows. Remember, radish grows rapidly, there are many seeds, and this will need to be thinned out once the plants are at a good enough size.

Radish requires good rich soil and full sun.

Next up, onion sets. For this one all you need do is press the onion firmly into the loose soil, leave a space of Issue 4

around 4 or 5 inches between plants as they do grow and spread their root base. We put in four rows of onions.

Onions require good rich welldrained soil and full sun.

Next up, carrots, using the 2-by-1.

Pressing down on the soft soil, we trace a row parallel to the onions, ensuring enough space between rows.

This time the seeds came encased in bio-degradable paper strips. At a depth of 2 inches, lay the paper strips down inside the row, gently water the paper then collapse the soil over the paper. Once the carrot seeds have taken, the plants tend to grow rapidly. Carrots requires good rich soil and full sun.

Having planted two rows of carrots, the Vegepod is full. It may not have looked it at the time, but in four weeks I am convinced it will look very different. Having planted everything, we made up a mix of Sea Magic, a complete fertilizer, ensuring the plants have a good start in life.

Ah, only to be eaten… Sorry.

Gord enjoyed the experience and left a little later. Now, time for another coffee. V localgardener.net

Get growing with us!

Available for free at localgardener.net localgardener.net

Issue 4

2021 • 27

Seed saving

K

eeping seeds has been done by humans since prehistoric times. At one time based on the necessity of staying alive, what has been learned through millennia has been passed down to us, and today seed collection in Canada is more of a challenge or interest than anything else. Here’s how you can satisfy the challenge for your own garden.

Most seeds are collected from annuals, which includes most vegetables and a number of flowers, but you can also collect seed from biennials (like carrots) and perennials as well.

Heirloom, open pollinated and F1 All heirloom varieties are open pollinated, but not all open pollinated varieties are heirloom. In some countries, heirloom has a particular definition of how old an open-pollinated plant is, but in Canada there isn’t any such definition. Fifty years is a popular cutoff point.

Open-pollinated seeds tend to “come true” to the parents. F1 seeds are unlikely to do so, and they may not be capable of growing a plant at all. You shouldn’t bother collecting seeds from F1 plants; if you do, be prepared for whatever surprise greets you when the seeds grow.

Dry collection Let’s start out easy with dry collection of seeds. These are seeds you 28 • 2021

Once these poppy seed heads are a little drier you can break them to get the seeds out.

Photo by Dominicus Johannes Bergsma.

Allium tuberosum seeds are easy to collect when they dry out.

Photo by Tony Hisgett

Photo by Agnieszka Kwiecie

By Shauna Dobbie

Echinacea seeds can be pulled from the dry seed heads but use gloves!

collect from plants at the end of their season, when the flowers and fruits are dried.

You can cut or snap off the seed heads of these plants and put them into a paper bag. For some plants, like calendula, it will be easier to just pull off the seeds. Make sure you write on the bag which exact plant you have collected the seed from.

With a bag of dried seed heads, give them a good shake to get the seeds separated. You can throw out the chaff that Issue 4

was around the seeds. If you don’t, it doesn’t really matter. Some chaff won’t stop the seeds from growing next year.

You can dry seeds further indoors on mesh or newspaper. When they are completely dry, put them into your preferred storage container: envelopes, jars or zippered baggies. Write on the container what kind of seed it is.

Collect seeds on a dry day after a couple of days without rain.

You can collect seeds as long as they are still on the plant, but for best success you should do it as soon as they’re ready, so the plant doesn’t release them. Some plants, like impatiens, explode the seed head with a bit of force; if you’re too late, the seeds could be all over your garden.

Collect seeds throughout the growing season.

Wet method You can collect the seeds from some fruits and vegetables while still in a wet state. Tomatoes, eggplants, cucumbers, zucchini and strawberries are all collected this way.

Let the plant become over-ripe on the vine. Pick it, cut open the fruit and scoop the seeds and flesh out. (With strawberries, slice the seeds off the fruit.)

With some vegetables, like eggplants and pumpkins, you can just wash the sticky stuff off the seeds and spread them out on a screen or some newspalocalgardener.net

Photo by Mykhal.

Pumpkin seed: You need to wash the pulp off of these pumpkin seeds before you can keep them.

Slice the seeds off of strawberries and let the flesh dry off.

per to dry. With others, like tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchini, you’ll need to ferment them a bit to get the mucilaginous goo off. If you don’t get that stuff off, chances are the seeds will not dry out to store.

To ferment seeds like tomatoes and cucumbers, put the wet seeds in a

Occasionally people will notice seeds germinating inside of a tomato.

This usually happens to tomatoes that are very ripe and have been kept in a warm room. They’re safe to eat.

bowl and cover them with water and then with plastic wrap. Leave that in a spot where it won’t be disturbed for two or three days. Mould will likely grow in that time. Throw out the mould at the top and rinse the seeds that have sunk to the bottom of the mix—these are the viable seeds.

Spread these viable seeds out on a paper plate or a screen, turning them over once or twice per day, until they are completely dry. This can take one to two weeks.

Store your dry seeds in envelopes or zippered baggies, labeled with the type. V

Where do seedless plants come from?

S

Photo by Scott Ehardt.

eedless fruit doesn’t come from Franken-plants. In general, the plant that produces seedless offspring is either cloned (as in the Cavendish bananas we enjoy) or pollinated by a particular strain of the plant whose offspring will be seedless, as in the seedless watermelon varieties.

Genetically, most seedless plants Seedless watermelons aren’t genetically modified. are triploid, which means they have localgardener.net

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sets of three genes, which isn’t generally normal. It’s the result of a normal diploid plant (sets of two genes) crossed with a normal tetraploid plant (sets of four genes). Triploid plants are usually sterile.

Triploidy can and does happen in nature. For seedless fruits, the mechanism is usually just the breeder controlling which plants pollinate other plants.

2021 • 29

Storing and preserving garden produce I

t's the height of growing season and your garden is beautiful.

Everything is green and growing, and all your hard work has paid off with an abundance of produce. But now what is to be done with all that food?

Learning how to store and preserve food is a key step toward getting more out of your garden, and while we tend to associate food preservation with labour-intensive tasks like canning, sometimes it can be as easy as leaving things in the ground.

I keep a 2,500-square-foot vegetable garden in my backyard, and usually at some point in late June or early July I start getting more food than I can eat.

It starts with garlic. I grow over 250 heads of garlic, and typically each year, just after the summer solstice, all of them start producing garlic scapes, which are edible stalks that shoot up rapidly to form flower-like bulbils.

The scapes have to be removed to ensure that the garlic bulbs achieve a good size, but they are also edible if harvested at the right time. They have a mild garlic flavour and are very nice when added to stir-fries, pastas, or any other dish that goes well with garlic. Unfortunately, all 250 scapes have to be harvested within a twoweek window of time, so the excess needs to be preserved in some way.

At about the same time, my peas start producing more than my family can eat, and then I have too much kale, and then beans, then zucchini, then potatoes, then carrots, and so forth.

This continues right until the winter solstice when the ground is freezing up and I am using a pickaxe to get parsnips out of the ground before they are frozen in place for months.

I suppose I could just grow less, but for me, the land is just begging to provide, and it will not be denied!

Also, I have found over the years that there are many ways to save food for later, and some are very easy, so let us review all the techniques that I use, 30 • 2021

Story and photos by Greg Auton

Are you drowning in beans? Not a problem if you blanch and freeze them for later.

Pumpkins and winter squash are ready-made for storage. They keep for months as long as they are kept near 10 degrees Celsius.

from the easiest to the most laborintensive.

Leave it in the ground Some root vegetables are tough, and as long as you can keep the ground from freezing, you can simply Issue 4

leave them in the ground. I do this with carrots, parsnips and sunchokes (or Jerusalem artichokes). One way to do this is to place bales of hay over the ground where the root vegetables are located. localgardener.net

While we often think of canned vegetables when contemplating options for food storage, this is just one of many options and not always the best.

Another way (the method I prefer) is to place transparent plastic domes over the garden beds. The soil freezes a bit every night, then thaws during the day, never freezing so deep that I can't get the vegetables out when I want them. This may not work in every growing zone. The great side benefit of using a dome is that the garden bed is ready for planting tough greens like spinach and lettuce in March, when everything else is frozen solid.

Cold storage As long as you have a space of some kind that can be kept above freezing but below 10 degrees Celsius, you can store a wide range of vegetables by simply keeping them cool. I store most of my harvest, including winter squash, pumpkins, garlic, beets, onions, potatoes, carrots and parsnips in this way.

Ideal conditions vary in terms of temperature and humidity for each vegetable, so there is no way that could all be covered here. A comprehensive document on the subject of vegetable storage is the United States Departlocalgardener.net

Scan me The Commercial Storage of Fruits, Vegetables, and Florist and Nursery Stocks pdf report, courtesy of the United States Department of Agriculture. https://www.ars.usda.gov/arsuserfiles/oc/np/ commercialstorage/commercialstorage.pdf

ment of Agriculture's document The Commercial Storage of Fruits, Vegetables, and Florist and Nursery Stocks (link above) which can be downloaded for free.

Suffice it to say, achieving the optimal storage time for a given vegetable takes research, trial and error. Most vegetables that are suitable for cold storage are quite forgiving, though, so even if you only get two months of storage without degradation out of a vegetable that can store for four months under ideal conditions, it's still a win because you are eating food from your garden in January.

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Many older homes have dedicated cold rooms for this very purpose, harkening back to a bygone age when people were more frugal and pragmatic. With a cold room, even if you don't grow your own vegetables, you can buy in bulk to save money, and then use the produce as you need it. Sadly, most modern homes do not have cold rooms, so a little creativity is needed.

In my case, I use my garage, which is attached to the house. The garage has an electric baseboard heater set to 0 degrees Celsius. By some point in November, the garage gets down to about 5 degrees Celsius, and it stays near that temperature until late March, which is perfect for storing root vegetables, onions, garlic and winter squash.

If neither of these options are available, digging in to the ground and creating a root cellar is another option if you have the time, skills and inclination. Buying a second fridge can also work if you don't mind adding from $10 to $15 to your electric bill each year.

2021 • 31

Some produce dries very well, like tomatoes and apples and some herbs.

Drying Drying is simply a process of dehydration. The basic requirement is some combination of heat, airflow and decreased humidity. The only thing I dry is my herbs. I have found that hanging them in my gardening shed in August (arguably the driest month of the year in Nova Scotia) works great.

After about three weeks, all the herbs are dry, and I remove the leaves from the stems and store them in jars for use in the kitchen.

Of course, many more things than herbs can be dried. There are many options for storing fruits and vegetables. These typically require the use of either a food dehydrator, or an oven, set to somewhere between 140 and 150 degrees Fahrenheit (60 to 66 degrees Celsius) with the door left open a crack for airflow. The sun can also be used to dry things like tomatoes if you can devise a means to keep the flies away.

Frozen soup supplies Simply chopping things up and putting them in the freezer is very easy, but due to loss of texture, colour and flavour, produce stored in this way is best added to soups and stews. Still it is easy and expedient, and is a great solution for when you have more lettuce than you can possibly eat and it is all about to bolt and go to seed (which makes it bitter). Just harvest it all, chop it up and pack it in a container. No one will ever know that they are eating lettuce in their soup!

Blanching and freezing Blanching involves immersing vegetables in salted boiling water for 32 • 2021

a minute or two then quickly removing the vegetables from the heat and cooling them down. If you have ever bought frozen peas or beans, they were blanched. Blanching prior to freezing is recommended to preserve the colour, texture and flavour of vegetables that can be stored in this way. It's great for freezing vegetables like peas, beans, broccoli, asparagus and leafy greens like kale, spinach and Swiss chard.

Every fall about half of my freezer space gets filled up with blanched and frozen produce from the garden. I often find that my blanched, frozen and thawed vegetables taste better than the "fresh" ones I can buy at the store in the winter months.

Pesto Classic pesto involves creating a mashed-up combination of basil, garlic, olive oil, grated hard cheese and pine nuts, but I have found that by broadening that definition to mean any paste involving herbs, garlic and oil it's a really easy way to store herbs and a great way to use up my excess garlic scapes. This may offend your "foodie" friends but it works and allows a lot of flavourful ingredients to be preserved for later.

I make two kinds of garlic scape pesto, one that is meant for pasta dishes (with herbs, olive oil, lemon), and one that is meant for stir fries (with soy sauce, sesame seed oil and black vinegar). These get put into small one-cup containers that are stored in the freezer.

When a container is taken out of the freezer, we try to use it up in about two weeks to be sure it doesn't go bad.

Because I have so much garlic, and so Issue 4

many garlic scapes, a lot of it gets stored in this way. Even as late as May I still usually have a few jars in the freezer from the previous year. An alternative to small jars would be freezing everything into ice cube tray portions.

Freezer jam Imagine making jam without having to do any of the tedious and technical aspects of making proper jam. Simply mash up the fruit, add some pectin and sugar, follow the directions, put it and jars, leave them on the counter overnight, and then place them in the freezer.

Now, imagine how much better that jam tastes because the fruit in it wasn't boiled. That's freezer jam! Every year, in late June, over a dozen jars of freezer jam gets made from my strawberries.

That's at least one jar for every month of the year, which is an essential ingredient for maintaining peace and harmony in my home.

Lacto-fermentation Lacto-fermentation is a method of preserving vegetables that predates modern pickling techniques that employ the use of vinegar. Lactofermentation uses natural lactic acid bacteria and yeasts that are present in vegetables to create an acidic environment that preserves the vegetables, is probiotic, and results in some really tasty treats.

While we tend to associate this approach with dill pickles, there are many vegetables that can be stored in this way, and cultures around the world all have traditional delicacies that involve lacto-fermentation. Kimchi, localgardener.net

kombucha, sauerkraut and miso are just a few examples of the marvelous foods that can result from fermentation.

No cooking is required for lactofermentation. The vegetables are cleaned, cut up, and then combined with salt and sometimes water, then left to ferment, usually at room temperature, for a specified amount of time.

Once the fermentation process is complete, the lids are sealed and the jars are placed in cold storage (above freezing but below 10 degrees Celsius) or in the fridge.

I store a lot of vegetables this way— such as the 13 quarts of dill pickles I make each year—and find it easier to do than canning. When done properly the vegetables remain crunchy for at least six months and taste wonderful. If you try it and are successful, you will, most likely, never be satisfied with any pickle bought from a store again.

Canning Canning is arguably the most labour intensive and costly way to store produce when you consider the time it takes, the equipment needed, and the cost of the heat energy required. With canning, the vegetables are sterilized with heat, and then placed in jars that are sterilized and vacuum sealed with heat. Done properly you get vegetables that will store a long time that taste like they have been boiled. Aside from some jams, relishes and pickles that I make, I don't can anything because I don't find that the taste and texture justify the time, effort and expense. The difference between blanched and frozen green beans and canned green beans, for instance, is night and day.

Cooked jams and jellies Cooked jam takes more work than freezer jam, but some berries simply cannot be made into freezer jam due to their physical properties, and some berries have seeds that need to be strained out, and can only be made into jellies, such as grapes and blackberries.

An advantage of cooked jams is that they are canned and stored in vacuum sealed jars, so do not need to be frozen and free up your precious freezer space for frozen produce.

My favorite cooked jam is partridgeberry (or lingonberry) jam. These hard, cranberry-like fruits need heat to become soft enough to work as a jam.

Regardless of the fruit in question, cooked jams are a great way to store away some summer sweetness for the cold winter months. localgardener.net

Relishes make a fantastic condiment that can add a little zip and sweetness to any meal.

If you’ve never tried strawberry freezer jam you are missing out on one of life’s simple pleasures!

Pickling with vinegar Pickling with vinegar involves processing and boiling vegetables, and then canning them in a jar with some combination of vinegar, water, salt, and sometimes sugar and spices.

As with all canned foods, care must be taken to keep everything sterile from beginning to end, but when done right, excellent storage times can be achieved. I make at least eight quarts of pickled beets every year.

Relish A relish is very similar to a cooked jam insofar as it is cooked with sugar and canned in a sterile, vacuum sealed jar. What makes relish different from jam is the addition of salt and vinegar, as well as spices. The vinegar and salt makes relish very reliable as a stored food because both of these ingredients inhibit microbial growth. This is a great way to store excess zucchini and cucumbers. I probably make 12 quarts of zucchini relish every year. Green Issue 4

tomato chow is also a highly prized delicacy.

Final thoughts I use all 12 of the methods discussed above to store food from my garden, but I tend to use the easier methods for the vast majority of the food that I set aside for the winter because it's easier.

Potatoes taken out of a cardboard box stored on the floor of my garage in February taste as good as the day they were picked, so why work hard?

For that matter, I really enjoy going out in the back yard in February and coming back in with fresh, crunchy carrots. What a great reward for simply leaving them in the ground!

This summer, if you are lucky enough to find yourself overwhelmed with too much bounty from your soil, think of ways to set that excess aside for later.

You'll be glad you did when the smell of roasted root vegetables warms your soul as you stare out the window into the frozen, snowy white of winter. V 2021 • 33

Earth sheltered greenhouse A year-round grow space for northern gardeners

By Dan Rubin

Winter weather here in the north requires protected grow space.

T

he basic principle is simple: if you live north of the 40th parallel, building a greenhouse with clear walls on all sides makes absolutely no sense. Since sunlight will never enter through the north side of the building, that side should be insulated rather than transparent, to retain heat.

This simple concept was brought home to me by Elke Dettmer, my nextdoor neighbour, here in the outport town of Pouch Cove, Newfoundland. Elke needed a greenhouse. She mentioned she was thinking of building one into the side of the hill, facing south toward the open Atlantic.

As soon as the earth sheltered concept crystallized in my mind, I began to wonder how it would work.

What would it take to build one? How much would it cost to heat?

I just couldn’t shake the idea of 34 • 2021

the greenhouse “with its arse in the earth.”

Memorial University gets involved When I met Marc Kielley, a project director at Memorial University, at a greenhouse conference in St. John’s, he suggested I should contact Andrew Fisher, vice-dean of engineering.

Andy was able to offer the services of two co-op students to turn the basic idea into a design. So my quest continued.

Within a year, a third student had pitched in, and then we had the design down on paper: the Earth Sheltered Greenhouse would be a year-round grow space for vegetables, flowers and fruit.

Once we evaluated cost of construction materials and heating, we knew we had something special. For a 12-by-20-foot building, cost of materials was less than $10,000 and baseIssue 4

board electrical heat would add less than $400 per year. So this was more than just a greenhouse; it was a game changer! The Earth Sheltered Greenhouse would allow people in a rural town to grow healthy food for their community at low cost.

When I brought this design to a meeting with the staff of the Memorial University Botanical Garden a year later, things began to move fast.

I presented our plan hoping for some mild interest. But Kim Shipp, director of the Garden, was more than interested: she immediately committed to help build it. She also shared some sage advice: in order to get in line for funding from the university and make sure our design was solid, we would first apply for a start-up grant to thoroughly evaluate the design, by bringing together the best local stakeholders we could identify. localgardener.net

Farmers and food policy experts So we convened a focus group made up of members of the local farming and food policy community: a bunch of hand-picked heavy hitters. With their help we plowed through a rigorous series of topics: structural design, team needed to operate the greenhouse, cost of inputs, crops and products to be produced and most importantly how to get the local community onboard and in support of the project.

I also wanted this group to examine policies at the provincial and municipal level that are keeping people from producing their own food.

The consultation was amazing. We produced 270 recommendations for greenhouse design and operation!

And then we were ready to build.

Once again, amazing luck and synchronicity were with us, because we found the perfect place for our demonstration greenhouse. In the middle of St. John’s, the last scrap of working farmland, the O’Brien Farm, was being turned into a training centre for education in sustainable agriculture, with the support of a high-powered non-profit board.

In partnership with the O’Brien Farm Foundation and supported by a second round of funding from Memorial’s Office of Public Engagement, we are currently about halfway to completing the building.

We also founded a non-profit society to reach out across the province and connect community food producers. Food Producers Forum (www. foodproducersforum.com) has built a website with 170 pages of solid information about gardening, farming, fishing, hunting and foraging. We are weaving together a solid network to help rebuild provincial food security.

About the greenhouse So, what is an earth sheltered greenhouse, and how does it work?

The structure we are building is a 14-by-24-foot building with a concrete back wall, insulated by two inches of rigid foam and protected by concrete board, then buried in the hillside. The end walls are also earth insulated, but the front roof and wall are polycarbonate panels to let the sun in. The concrete acts as thermal mass, so even in winter, with day length shortened to only six hours and sun low in the sky, the interior can still localgardener.net

The concrete foundation for the earth sheltered greenhouse.

Concrete walls for structural support and thermal mass topped by the lumber structure.

Dan with the greenhouse.

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2021 • 35

Photo by Rich Blenkinsopp, courtesy of Memorial University Gazette.

David Goodyear’s finished four season greenhouse in Flatrock.

The Earth Sheltered Greenhouse Team, from left to right: Engineer Etienne Chaytor, Project Facilitator Dan Rubin, director of the Memorial University Botanical Garden Kim Shipp, MUN Faculty of Medicine Dr. Atanu Sarkar and O’Brien Farm Manager Aaron Rodgers.

36 • 2021

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be kept above 5 degrees Celsius, with little or no added heat.

The building is a simple framed structure with a central ridge beam, supported by laminated posts.

The overall cost of building the larger building has now passed $20,000 but we have also received additional federal funding to allow us to equip our greenhouse with solar panels (for net metering), lighting, fans, an irrigation system and a complete digital monitoring and control system.

The well-insulated metal back roof will act as water catchment, with rainwater and snow collected in a gutter and funneled through a filter to fill one or more 1000-litre water tanks inside the building. In addition to providing added thermal mass, the water will be used for irrigation or it can be heated and circulated underground to warm the raised beds inside the greenhouse.

Other greenhouses in action We know that this will work because we already have a working example in the nearby town of Flatrock, where localgardener.net

Early seed starting is a primary function of the greenhouse.

Dan’s home greenhouse, built against the side of a shed.

David Jason Goodyear has had his Four Season Greenhouse up and running for two winters already.

David has found that with the low temperatures and gray skies of winter, enough sun energy enters the building that he has turned his electrical heaters off and can rely on an occasional boost from the GAHT (ground air heat transfer) system installed under his greenhouse. The GAHT system stores solar energy in the soil, to be retrieved when needed, rather than being lost from the building.

With this type of design, only a tiny bit of additional energy is needed to maintain growing conditions, even in the coldest months, here on the coast of Newfoundland. Further north or in the interior of Canada, where it can get a lot colder, you can apply the same principles, as demonstrated by Jianyi Dong, the immigrant farmer who is growing vegetables in Alberta using a passive solar design that he brought with him from China.

In David Goodyear’s structure here in Flatrock, he has grown four cycles of cold tolerant greens through the worst winter weather in memory, with a cost in electrical energy of $5 per month for lighting and air circulation. As the weather warms up, his building will transition to grow warmth-loving vegetables like tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers, as well as perennial fruits like strawberries, localgardener.net

Dan’s home greenhouse grows cucumbers, peppers, tomatoes and basil.

grapes and figs.

All across the north, people are experimenting with similar systems.

A grower in Quebec is raising kiwis, apricots and table grapes in a converted barn turned into a greenhouse, using only passive solar heat. Designs developed in the Yukon also offer examples of what is possible.

Here in Newfoundland, the adventure continues as we prepare to reach out to seven rural communities to help them design and build their own Earth Sheltered Greenhouse. We Issue 4

know that by creating local food they can generate community health, pride and local economic opportunities.

We welcome interest from anyone across the country. We will be sharing details of our projects and progress on our website. We know that earth-sheltered is the way to go for year-round food production in our cold northern climate. V Dan Rubin is the owner/operator of Perfectly Perennial Herbs and Seeds, and Project Facilitator for the Earth Sheltered Greenhouse Project.

2021 • 37

Photo by Chiloe Avodrocc.

Potatoes

Commonly grown potatoes come in a range of colours, shapes and sizes.

W

hat is there to learn about potatoes? They are the old fill-up food bought in 10or 20-pound bags and peeled and boiled for every supper, if you’re from a northern European family. With a little know-how and a bit of effort, you can grow bushels and bushels.

That may be true, but this lowly vegetable is uniquely fascinating and well deserving of a few pages.

Growing from seed potatoes Seed potatoes are potatoes that have been inspected and certified to prevent diseases from being passed along. Theoretically, you could use potatoes from the grocery store as seed potatoes, but many have been sprayed with growth inhibitor and others may bring diseases, such as fusarium rot, into your garden. Better to buy seed potatoes for planting.

Second best is to plant from potatoes you saved last year.

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If you want, you can chit potatoes before planting them out. Put the uncut seed potatoes in bright light for two to four weeks—a window sill is perfect. You will see green shoots coming out of the eyes.

If you want, cut the seed potatoes into equal-sized pieces, each with about two eyes on it. Some people prefer three eyes, some prefer one. If the seed potatoes are small, less than the size of a small chicken egg, you don’t need to cut them at all. The difference will be this: more eyes on a seed will yield more but smaller potatoes. Two sprouts is a good compromise.

You can shake the cut potatoes in a bag of sulfur powder if you like; it helps to prevent disease. Leave the cut potatoes out to callous over before planting for two to four days.

Trench and hill method Dig a trench about six inches deep in a moist but not wet garden.

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Sprinkle about a quarter cup of bone meal where each potato plant will go: about every foot for full-size potatoes or every eight inches if you plan to harvest only new potatoes. Lay your seed potatoes in the trench. Cover them over with about four inches of dirt. Do not water them until you see growth. Water regularly from this point until the potatoes are fully grown. How much water? About one to two inches per week.

When the plants are a foot high, pile on another six inches of soil. You will cover the stems and a few leaves but that is okay. You should have a small hill around each potato plant.

When the flowers appear, you can harvest some new potatoes from the edges of the hill and leave the rest to grow, or you can harvest them all from the plant at this point, but they won’t store well. The soil should be loose enough to go digging with your localgardener.net

Photo by Ruth Hartnup.

Photo by Matthias Karlsson.

Look for sprouts growing out of the eyes. These will grow into potato plants.

This vegetable will readily adapt to container gardening.

hand, but if not, used a fork very carefully to loosen it.

The potatoes will be fully mature when the leaves die back a bit. Cut off the plants. The leaves of longerseason varieties won’t die back in cooler areas, so when the potatoes reach the size you’re looking for, cut off the plant. Leave the potatoes in the ground for two weeks after the plants are gone to let the skins harden up a bit, which is good for storing the potatoes. Do not water at all during these two weeks. Then dig them all up.

Brush off the dirt and leave potatoes in a shady area for a few hours.

Do not wash them. Store them in a dark, cool area.

A variation to this is to hill up the potatoes with straw instead of soil. It makes it easier to harvest them and they come out cleaner. Plus, the straw can go in the compost or directly onto the garden after the potatoes are harvested.

Scatter method Instead of digging trenches, place the seed potatoes on top of a bed of well-nourished soil. Alternatively, you can spread out 6 to 10 layers of newspapers on the ground and place seed potatoes on that. Then you put about four inches of mulch on top. Continue to hill up with mulch as the potatoes grow. Or you can mow a previously unused area and put the seed potatoes down, then top it with about 12 inches of straw or other mulch. No

including bags, boxes and large pots.

Some people use garbage cans or old tires. Just make sure whatever you use has drainage in the bottom.

Start with about six inches of potting soil in the bottom. You can amend the soil with up to one-third rotted manure. Place the seed potato pieces on the soil; these won’t likely be planted one foot apart but aim for roughly three plants in a garbage can.

Don’t overplant because you may not get any potatoes at all, and any you do get will be very small. Add four inches of soil on top of the seed potatoes and water well.

Add more soil as the plants grow: when they’re up about eight inches, add four inches of soil, until you get to the top of the container. Make sure you keep containers watered well; they get dry faster than the ground.

The soil should be relatively loose when growing in containers, so you can harvest new potatoes by simply digging into the dirt with your hand.

When it’s time to harvest the entire crop, it’s probably easiest to tip the whole container over and dump it out.

Some of the potato-specific containers have drawers in the bottom you can open to get at potatoes. If that works for you, go ahead.

Let us know if you get more growing potatoes this way than by just hilling once.

What can go wrong Late blight Phytopthera infestans, the disease that wiped out acres of crops

localgardener.net

Scan me DIY Organic Potato Tower Experiment Final Part Grow Potatoes like you have never seen before. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcCRYm4kCUs

need to hill up; just let ‘em grow and harvest in late summer.

To hill or not to hill The rationale for hilling potatoes is to prevent the tubers from seeing sunlight. Tubers grow very close to the surface and will push above the soil as they get bigger. Above the soil they will turn green, which renders them bad to eat. One solution is to pile soil around the potato plant after a few weeks of growing.

There is also an idea that potatoes will continue to put out roots from the stem as it is buried. Tomatoes do, and they’re the same genus. We haven’t found any scientific studies of this theory, but we have found some independent observation that potatoes only grow at the bottom of the plant; no roots grow out of the stem as it’s buried and no tubers. See the video above.

Container method If you’d like to practice extreme hilling in hopes of getting more potatoes, use a container. There are many potato-growing containers on the market, Issue 4

2021 • 39

Do: Keep potatoes moist but not wet and not dry Feed potatoes regularly Keep ground-level surface potatoes covered at all times Grow in full sun, or at least part sun Don’t: Eat any green part of a potato Eat potato flowers or fruit

Potato blooms come in purple or white.

and about a million Irish people is still around. The plant may look alright above ground, but the potatoes get black, rotting areas under the skin. If the plant is showing ill health above the ground, look for watery grey, black or brown spots on leaf margins and stems. Some strains of P. infestans infect the tuber without showing on the leaves. There is no surefire way to prevent infection of your crop, but it will help to rotate crops and grow resistant varieties of potatoes.

Wireworm larvae of Agriotes or click beetle live in the soil for two to six years, overwintering there and eating live vegetable matter, including potatoes. These will be apparent when you dig up potatoes and find the worms in them. At this point, complete your harvest and rotate the crop for the following year. Wireworm won’t eat lettuce and onions. Till over the ground and kill any worms you see, or, if you have chickens, let them roam the area and eat the wireworms.

Beneficial nematodes might work; it depends on what species of wireworm you have—and you may have more than one.

Colorado potato beetle Leptinotarsa decemlineata (CPB) eats leaves of potato plants in both its larval and adult forms. Inspect your plants regularly for adults and eggs, laid on the underside of leaves as small yellow ovals; unfortunately, ladybug eggs are similar, and ladybugs eat CPB. The best control is picking the bugs as you find them. A potato plant can lose up to 30 per cent of its leaves before harvest is reduced, so unless you have 40 • 2021

a big infestation, you’re okay. Chances are by next year beneficial insects will find your garden and have a feast before the Colorado potato beetle gets much work done.

Recommended varieties ‘Alta Blush’. Developed in Wetaskawin, Alberta, this variety is yellow, early season, and tastes great. Good for boiling and roasting.

‘Bellanita’. Yellow fingerling, small size, early season. High yield. Great for salads.

‘Chieftain’. Red skin, white flesh, mid to late season. Good for boiling, baking and fries. Resistant to scab.

‘French Fingerling’. Red skinned fingerling with yellow flesh. Late season, waxy, good for boiling and salads.

‘Gold Rush’. Early maturing alternative to ‘Russet Burbank’. Good for boiling or baking. Matures mid season.

‘Linzer Delikatess’. Yellow fingerling, waxy potato. Early season. Good for boiling and salads.

‘Milva’. Yellow flesh variety with

great disease resistance. Good for organic growers. Resistant to late blight. Waxy texture makes them good for salads, boiling or roasting.

‘Norland’. Red skin, white flesh, early to mid season, good for boiling or baking. Medium large size, slightly oblong. Good disease resistance.

Good for storing.

‘Russet Burbank’. One of the best since 1874. Heavily netted skin, suitable for baking and fries. Late season.

Oblong. Good for storage.

‘Purple Chieftain’. Purple skin and white flesh. Dry potato, good for boiling and mashing. Mid to late season.

‘Viking’. Red skin, white flesh, mid season. Good resistance to drought and scab.

‘Yukon Gem’. Yellow flesh, mid season, good for salads. High yield, great resistance to scab and less susceptibility to late blight.

‘Yukon Gold’. Yellow flesh, mid season, good all-purpose potato.

High yield. Gets big and stores well. V

Nutrition

A

re potatoes good for you or bad for you? You can paint it either way.

On one hand, they contain vitamin B6, fibre, vitamin C, potassium and zero fat, which is good.

On the other hand, they have a high glycemic index, which is not good. On the third hand, the vitamin B6 in them is good for heart Issue 4

health, and scientists have discovered kukoamines in potatoes, which lowers blood pressure. On the fourth hand, they don’t contain that much fibre and it turns out some fat is good for you.

It’s best to say that potatoes are fine in moderation. And probably not deep fried. Well… not very often deep fried! localgardener.net

O

A brief history of potatoes to rent a bit of land from a wealthy owner, they found that an acre of potatoes could feed a family for a year. By 1835, potatoes were grown on a third of farmed land in Ireland.

They provided the only solid food eaten by 40 per cent of Irish peasants. It might not be an interesting diet, but potatoes kept people fed, effectively doubling the available calories across northern Europe.

Famines, which occurred at a rate of just over once per decade before the tuber, seemed to be a thing of the past.

Seemed to be.

Phytopthora infestans means “vexing plant destroyer”. It is the technical name for potato blight. It seems to have originated in Peru and was brought across the Atlantic in a shipment of guano, used as a fertilizer. In the early summer of 1845, the first plants in Flanders were dying from infection. Potato plants in Europe were from a limited gene pool, planted by seed potatoes, which produce clones of the parent. By fall that year, blight had reached France, England, Denmark and Ireland. In Ireland, the disease killed off at least a quarter of the crops, and more the following year. The blight didn’t die down until 1852. A million people in Ireland had died and two million had emigrated.

In 1859, the Colorado potato beetle found its way into potato crops in the US. The insect isn’t from Colorado and it didn’t originally feed on potato plants. It’s from

Mexico and originally ate buffalo bur, Solanum rostrum, a relative of potato. It seems to have made its way north on horses and cows moved by the Spanish and indigenous Americans. When the beetle found the potato growing in fields, it increased dramatically. Starting in Colorado in 1859, it made it to the Atlantic coast by 1874, and by that time it was blanketing beaches and completely covering railroad tracks, making them impassable. And of course, it killed potatoes too, eating the leaves before the tubers could mature.

The beetle leapt from North America to Europe in the twentieth century. There was an embargo on American potatoes but the beetle made it anyhow. It has been eradicated from the British Isles 163 times. Non-island parts of Europe and Asia haven’t been so lucky and it has become established around the northern hemisphere. The insect is susceptible to various insecticides, but it also quickly develops a resistance to them.

Despite these two major problems occurring with potatoes, they continue to be grown worldwide.

They’ve been adopted by Chinese and Indian cooking and farming— in fact, China is the biggest producer of potatoes and India is in the top five, along with the US, Russia and the Ukraine. Potatoes have even slipped the confines of Earth; in 1995, potatoes were the first vegetable to be grown in outer space.

Photto by Jerzy Opiola.

riginating in Peru and under cultivation at least as long ago as 2500 BCE, perhaps as long ago as 8000 BCE, the potato provided the calories needed to build the Altiplano Incan civilization.

They ate potatoes baked, mashed, boiled and stewed, in addition to turning them into chuño, a kind of dehydrated potato that is light and keeps for years.

When the Spanish decimated South America, they brought back to Europe silver, maize and potatoes. In the late 1500s, the first mentions of potatoes started to occur in Europe and spread quickly from the Canary Islands through to northern Italy and northern Europe.

Carolus Clusius, a French botanist, wrote in 1601 that northern Italians used potatoes to feed animals and humans.

It took some time for potatoes to be accepted as food in Europe. All parts of the plant except the tubers contain solanine, a toxic compound, though that isn’t considered the reason for the slow acceptance of potatoes for eating. It was fed to members of the Spanish army and along the way was adopted by peasants across Europe, where Spain had interests. It was only in small-scale personal cultivation, though, until governments and landowners started to promote it as a crop. Growing underground, potatoes didn’t fail as often due to weather as wheat and barley crops.

In Ireland, where peasants had

Phytophthora infaestans: A potato badly infected with late blight. It was responsible for the Irish potato famine in 1845-49.

localgardener.net

Although originally from Mexico, the Colorado potato beetle has come to love potatoes as much as humans have.

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2021 • 41

Tree canopy cover in Canadian communities

By Mike Rosen

Urban forests—it’s personal “Canopy cover”, a conventional standard of measurement of an urban forest is defined by the National Capital Commission as “the layer of tree leaves, branches and stems that provide tree coverage of the ground when viewed from above”. Several techniques are used to measure it with a generally accepted opinion that 40 percent represents an “optimal” amount (according to city planning expert Jennifer Keesmat, for instance). Many factors constrain canopy cover including urban development, land use patterns (such as commercial versus residential), tree regulations, and climate—for instance, canopy cover in prairie cities tends to be less than in those which have surrounding forests.

My own life has paralleled fluctuations of canopy cover. I grew up in Toronto in the 1960s where I learned to downhill ski at the now-defunct Don Valley Ski Centre—Whistler Mountain, it was not. Today, trying to find that hill is impossible. The Don Valley is now an amazing, closed canopy urban forest.

The 70s was the start of my career in forestry. Armed with a Pioneer P26 chainsaw I cut firewood near Peterborough, Ontario, mostly dead American elms, killed by Dutch elm disease. I was unaware at the time that the landscape of North America was going through a tremendous change due to the muchvaunted role of elm in our communities. In 2018 my parents’ condominium in Toronto needed to replace the deteriorating 40-year-old membrane protecting its extensive, underground parking garage. This meant the removal of a row of impeccably managed 16-inch diameter hackberries. These personal stories all heralded historic changes in the urban forests of Ontario (and Canada).

In the beginning The need to provide parks coincided with the industrial revolution, creating Canada’s great municipal parks (High Park, Parc du Mont-Royal, Stanley Park and so forth). Although the priorities were more around family amuse42 • 2021

Many people treasure the canopy cover that is a part of many cities.

ment, their creation coincided with the provincial and national park systems, which were created with more conservation-related themes. At the turn of the 20th century, roadside plantings began in many communities across Canada featuring various species: silver maple, little-leaf linden, Japanese cherry, crab apples and (the dreaded) Norway maple, often directed by those with little formal training.

It was in the 20th century that communities in Canada began to urbanize and commercialize and hence take their trees honestly. The population of Toronto went from 208,000 in 1901 to over 522,000 by 1921. This same jump was seen in all the other cities of Canada.

In the 1960s the pressures on urban trees continued with the introduction of Dutch elm disease. Erik Jorgensen, the University of Toronto professor, who coined and marketed the term “urban forest”, had a long-term effect on the management of trees in cities and towns. His leadership was sought to help manage the native elm population which was virtually eliminated from the landscape of urban (and rural) Ontario in a matter of about 20 years.

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After arriving from Denmark as a forest pathologist for the federal government, he joined the University of Toronto in 1959 and began a concerted program to study and combat DED. This led to the teaching of the first urban forestry course in Canada (1969) and the eventual development of treatments for DED. He was supposed to lead a national urban forestry program in Ottawa, but the government and academic priorities had him finish his career at the University of Guelph. This coincided with the training of urban foresters by Jorgensen and the explosive growth of the arboricultural trade and the International Society of Arboriculture. Foresters trained by Jorgensen included Bob Perkins (Oakville, Ontario), Mike Allen (Winnipeg), Bill Granger (Vancouver) and Lloyd Burridge (Windsor, Ontario). The onslaught of DED changed Canadian cities and towns dramatically.

Elms were eventually replaced with other trees, notably green ash which, at the time, seemed to be resistant to the increasingly harsh reality of the environment of cities. Although no formal study was ever commissioned, from about 1970 to the early 1990s urban localgardener.net

Protecting and maintaining the urban forest is a challenge that all municipalities are struggling with.

forest cover was again on the rise with an upsurge in planting and to a lesser extent, the maintenance of trees.

When emerald ash borer, an invasive insect from Asia was detected in Windsor, Ontario in 2002, it marked the beginning of another decline of urban forest cover. What an irony it was that after all the recent emphasis on education, on staffing positions with qualified staff and with a greater appreciation of trees by the urban public, that monocultural practices were once again leading to the urban forest’s decline.

How smart is smart growth?

Urban planners were at the same time now advocating “smart growth” (or “densification” or “intensification”).

Provincial policy statements were asking municipalities to abandon the suburban sprawl model of the postwar period in favour of building up, maximizing the use of infrastructure (water, sewer, transit). Vacant spaces and larger lots were now being subdivided as never before, complete with an increase in impervious surfaces, all of which took place at the expense of—you guessed it—trees.

Although techniques to preserve trees within the hard surface matrix were quickly developing (products such as root barriers, CU-Structural Soil and Silva Cells) these were only being used in an exceedingly small percentage of projects, as it was expensive and difficult to retrofit into hard surface landscapes. Coupled with this was the growing trend to convey infrastructure underground: electricity, natural gas, cable, water, sewer, fibre optic cable and parking. Ongoing maintenance of these services played havoc with tree roots localgardener.net

and urban forest survival. Trees often took a secondary role and were replaced repeatedly. Adding to this scenario, climate change was and continues to be a negative factor in canopy cover, mostly because of the violent and unpredictable storms that present themselves as hurricanes, ice storms, tornadoes and other catastrophic events as well as the warming trends which favour the proliferation of exotic and invasive plants, diseases, and insects.

And unfortunately, in too many cases, tree replacement is a numbers game. That is, if 10 trees are destroyed for whatever reason (a membrane failure over a parking lot, vandalism, a “mistake” by a developer) they are all too often ordered replaced with an equivalent number (or if incredibly lucky, double the number). The problem is that the environmental benefits of a large tree are exponentially greater than a small one so that the canopy cover is still greatly reduced and will be for many years after.

Most cities in Canada reported a drop in canopy cover from the 1980s to the 2000s. A a good example of this is found in Vancouver, which went from 22.5-percent canopy cover in 1995 to 18 percent in 2013. This trend seems to have stabilized or in some cases even reversed as cities have moved to more planting and maintenance programs.

Good news story Urban foresters always marvel at the urban forests of Winnipeg, and with good reason. A prairie city, Winnipeg probably has a naturally extremely limited canopy cover. But through citizen will, professional management and key Issue 4

municipal-provincial-NGO co-operation the canopy cover of the city is relatively healthy. Indeed, Manitoba stands out as the sole Canadian province with a provincially driven urban forest program, in this case the minimization of destruction of its magnificent elms due to Dutch elm disease.

However, in 2017 another infestation of emerald ash borer threatened its second most common tree. At 350,000 trees, green ash makes up 30 percent of the entire urban forest canopy in Winnipeg. Again, the city ash borer program includes monitoring, ash tree removals and injecting some on municipal land with TreeAzin or IMA-jet, solutions meant to kill ash borer larvae that might be burrowed beneath the bark. Together (along with Winnipeg’s well known “Winterpeg” climate) these seemed to have helped stem the losses due to this invasive insect.

In conclusion The seemingly up and down trend of urban forest cover is complicated by the fact that the methods of analysis change over time, and that there does not exist a municipality with a system of permanent sample plots to observe these changes. Therefore, several factors must be in place for municipalities to keep growing their canopy. This would include: • Elevating the discussion of the important environmental and social role of trees in the city (as something more than aesthetics).

• Incentives to retain trees on private land through reduced taxation or other mechanisms—we know that most of the urban forest is privately owned (to the tune of 60 to 90 percent!) and that those private trees offer very public benefits; shouldn’t owners be compensated for their stewardship?

• Enacting and enforcing tree protection in law and in policy on public and private land.

• Maintaining viable growing space for trees because once it is gone, it is really gone forever.

• An increase in planting trees so that a diverse canopy can be promoted with species that would be resistant to extreme storms and the maintenance of those trees.

• Better integration with the engineering side of urban management so that the installation of hard infrastructure is in concert with prolonging the life of trees as much as possible. V Mike Rosen is the former president of Tree Canada.

2021 • 43

The house seen from street.

Deck showing container plants, with the cold frame to the left.

Beautiful Gardens

Container vegetable garden in early spring.

Larry Hodgson Quebec City

Story by Dorothy Dobbie, photos by Larry Hodgson 44 • 2021

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“P

lants are alive, they are always changing, always different. I am fascinated by plants.”

That sums up why Larry Hodgson, gardener, author, broadcaster, and blogger has spent his entire life writing about things in the garden.

“It took a while to make some money at it,” he says, but now his blog alone brings in thousands of dollars a month; he had over 100,000 hits the Sunday before our interview. Strangely enough, his biggest successes come from writing in French, both online and in print. He has published 65 books, only about localgardener.net

Fountain in front of house, by street.

20 of them in English. He deserves huge kudos for becoming so proficient in a language he learned as an adult, but now he says that he lives in and easily slips between the two worlds.

His other world is the world of plants, a world he was born into with a gardening father who was willing to let his son experiment, perhaps because, as one of four children, Larry was the one most interested, right from the time he was a baby.

“He allowed me to plant an arboretum in the backyard,” laughs Larry.

“It wasn’t very good; the trees were too close together.” His gardening love was further nurtured in high school which, serendipitously, had a green house. It did not take Larry long to become the greenhouse manager. It was here that he discovered some of the other wonders of plants, including those that were then legally frowned upon, but that is another story, Larry chuckles.

As do most young people, he took some time off to do other, then seemingly cooler things. An Anglophone in Quebec, he went to university to study languages, but after a time stuck in an apartment there his longing for plants led to a balcony garden. It helped him decide that what he really wanted to do was write about gardening and plants.

And so, he did.

Now, he is immersed in the plant and plant-writing world in a way few can take the time to enjoy. His home of 27 years, where he lives with his wife Marie (he heard her localgardener.net

A look inside the greenhouse.

The cold frame on the side of the house at end of winter.

Look inside cold frame in spring.

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2021 • 45

The first spring bulbs at snowmelt are winter aconite, or Eranthis hyemalis.

laugh, found it a delightful sound, and tracked her down), is filled with plants. “I have about a hundred house plants,” he says. “I am a collector of plants.”

Indoors, they are tucked away in both traditional and not so traditional places. He does have a sunroom that is really a greenhouse facing directly south where the old dining room used to be. It is a large room, 10 feet by 18 feet and is part of the home, housing a large assortment of tropical plants that get a holiday outdoors each summer. That space is bolstered by a living wall in the bath-

room. “When the kids moved out, we expanded the bathroom, put in a double tub, and filled the wall with plants,” he says.

Larry’s office is downstairs. Here he has created a little winter paradise. He converted the basement windows into a cold frame, with an expanded bank of windows that can be opened from the inside in winter and the outside in spring. Here, he overwinters such interesting things as agapanthus and rosemary as well as bulbs and other plants that need a cold period. The temperature is maintained at -7 degrees Celsius. In

springtime, he sets out well-started seedlings to harden off and he has rigged up a hydraulic window opening system from Lee Valley which vents the space automatically during the daytime.

But the most interesting plant space is Larry’s fireplace. Instead of burning wood, he grows things in the firebox. He has hidden two fluorescent bulbs behind the damper where they shine down with a benign white light like sunlight from the heavens.

In the winter, when he writes, Larry can swivel his chair to get a dose of green cheer whenever he wants, and

Chionodoxa bulbs in the lawn.

Hacquetia epipactis.

46 • 2021

Carpet of Corydalis solida. The naturalized flowers just

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keep on blooming all spring.

Hardy azalea (Rhododendron mucronulatum ‘Cornel’).

he says this is often. He has created a whimsical paradise complete with a fairy garden, a fake forest comprised of a piece of cork bark setup to look like a tree with leaves made of Ficus pumila, which grows all around the walls. He has only about a three-inch depth of growing medium at the base of the firebox, but it is enough to support sundry ferns and other little plants and ground covers. At the base of this interesting garden is a stone that says, “Turn me over.”

When you do, it says, “You just took orders from a rock! Are you stoned?”

Outside, the garden starts at curb-

side. When they bought the house, which was built into the side of a hill, the front yard was so steep that the previous owners and their neighbours all tethered their mowers with a rope to mow the lawn. One look at that was enough for Larry, who built a retaining wall and got rid of the grass. The yard is very shady so what grows here must survive in minimal light and be tough. That is fine with Larry who likes native plants and delights in discovering mysterious specimens planted by who or what, who knows. He did catch one culprit, though, after finding myriad walnut

trees sprouting in the yard when there were no walnuts in sight. One day, he saw a squirrel busily caching his winter store in the loose soil that was ready for planting. The nearest walnut tree was three blocks away!

A feature of the front yard is a stone fountain that Larry had built to order. True to his quirky nature, he saw a similar structure and had to have one of his own. It is basically two boulders with a hole drilled through their centres. They sit stacked atop a basin filled with water and a pump so that the fountain appears to bubble from a hidden underground spring.

Self-sown Tulipa tarda. localgardener.net

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2021 • 47

Birds love this burbling spout. The boulders are now becoming moss covered and blend with the retaining wall where he has encouraged Cymbalaria muralis (ivy-leafed toadflax) to grow. Not normally hardy in Quebec, there is enough snow cover to keep it alive, says Larry. Considered invasive where it grows naturally, the plant propagates in an interesting way. The unfertilized flower stalk seeks out the sunlight, but after fertilization it recedes from the light seeking out dark crevices in the rock where it can germinate.

The backyard is the only place for a lawn, but that lawn is a carpet of colour all spring long as the naturalized miniature bulbs bloom one after another. Raised vegetable gardens flank the deck where more raised planters support the indoor plants in summer. Things grow where they like, so the wooded areas are crowded with bulbs. Some of the plants rare in Quebec such as the pretty little yellow Eranthis hyemalis, or winter aconite, that pop up even before the crocuses.

In another spot, more early yellow is offered by Waldsteinia geoides (barren strawberry), a well-behaved groundcover that blooms in May and June, then settles down into a patch of lovely lobed, clear green leaves.

The spring garden is also graced with a pink azalea, which has offered Larry a white sport (a mutated offspring), that in his younger years he might have had some fun with.

Now he lets it alone to do its thing.

Soon the crabapple will be in bloom, calling Larry from his basement lair where he happily writes about his multi-hued friends, while Marie luxuriates in the hot tub among the summering tropicals.

Larry is still as busy as ever, writing, doing television and radio and judiciously choosing the odd commission for his skills.

If he thinks about it, and he is probably too busy to do so, he will leave a wonderful legacy, not just in the fruits of all his creative labours but in a son who is a very unusual man: he is a landscape architect who actually knows and cares about plants.

When you stop and think about it, what more could a man want? V 48 • 2021

A Green Wall that has been added to the bathroom.

The garden in the fireplace.

Pepper brought into the cold frame in the fall.

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Olivia and Pam.

C

Culver’s root in the front garden and an ornate fountain, backed by the Mediterranean yellow walls of the house.

Beautiful Gardens Olivia Warrington Winnipeg Story and photos by Dorothy Dobbie

localgardener.net

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harleswood, a beautiful suburb in Winnipeg, is home to some of the most adventurous gardeners in Canada. The yards are large, some as much as two acres, and they are often backed by wilderness, adding a touch of the English ideal to the gardeners’ efforts. The gardeners dream big and they dream beautiful.

Such is the case with Olivia Warrington, who has imagined a space of many moods and temperaments in and around and under the giant ash trees that are now threatened by the dreaded emerald ash borer. She has to contend with dogs and deer and all the wild critters that inhabit such spaces, animating them with life and beauty. To deal with each of these challenges, she has built fenced-off rooms and hired a gardener to keep up with the endless weeding and watering and the ongoing ideas for new spaces dreamed of in Olivia’s overwintering mind.

The mood here is one of discovery and wonder. Gardener Pam, who joined Olivia as her garden helper three years ago, has fallen heavily in love with the job. “I came for the interview thinking, ‘Who wants to water and weed? It’s boring.’ But now this is my second home and I can’t wait to come to work each day.”

2021 • 49

Looking back at the house from the beginning of the garden.

Coleus bring heat to the shade.

For her part, Olivia has been a lifelong gardener, much of that time spent in more moderate climes, although she was born here. She learned to garden in sub-tropical Palm Beach County, where she was a library manager for 13 years.

Following that, she spent a further 10 years in coastal Seattle. Returning to Winnipeg in 2002, she has worked as administrative assistant with her allergist husband’s medical corporation and as editorial assistant to him in his capacity as the editor-in-chief of a medical journal.

In her meagre spare time, Olivia has spent the past 17 years carving out this lovely garden, revelling in what she calls “the intensity of northern gardening”. It was slow going, but bringing Pam on has accelerated the pace and growth of her plan.

When you arrive at the Warrington home, you don’t need to see the house number to know that this is the place. The house has been modified to appear Mediterranean, painted bright yellow with cast iron features set off by stone and clay. An ornamental fountain takes center stage in the front yard, adding to the illusion of a warmer place.

Big metal bird.

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A corner border basking in the sun.

A graceful crane preens among the flower beds.

Olivia has spent the past 17 years carving out this lovely garden, revelling in what she calls “the intensity of northern gardening”.

No bathing here, birdies! This bird bath is taken over by petunias. localgardener.net

Trees and shrubs with stone edging.

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2021 • 51

Yellow glads to gladden the heart.

Notice the interesting curvature of the wrought iron bench.

52 • 2021

The speckled throats of foxglove.

Yellow lilies poke out from below the rodgersia.

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Hello, heliopsis! localgardener.net

The character of the garden really begins to take shape once you enter the side garden, walk past an unused potting bench, and over the gravel pathway to reveal an avenue of potted tropicals and coleus.

A long, raised bed filled with exotics and shade lovers is edged by benched seating that invites visitors and conjures up ideas of fun evening garden parties under the spreading shade of an old ash tree. In the distance, the second gate beckons the visitor to leave the gravel path and emerge into the sunny green space beyond.

The garden is divided into three more distinct spaces.

This first area is a meadow, punctuated by flower beds. There are seated viewing spaces and little destinations. Another protected space contains young trees planted to replace their older and wilder cousins that are under threat, not only from bugs, but from water.

Since the garden was started, neighbouring yards have been built up, meaning that the Warrington land is the recipient of all the drainage in springtime and flooding occurs frequently.

The third area is more shaded, home to hydrangea and other plants that prefer some protection from the direct glare of the sun.

Sun and shade play together everywhere in this garden of many moods. Some areas are very bright and cheerful, the scene of brilliant colours provided by both perennials and annuals. Other areas are more muted, many local varieties growing in the cooler spaces. As we wander through, we encounter a lovely little hummingbird moth flitting among the monarda.

Olivia has planned the garden so that it blooms throughout the season. There are beds that burst with springtime excitement provided by a variety of bulbs. There are blooming vines such as clematis, Englemann’s ivy and wild grape that are allowed to seek out fences for climbing.

She loves native plants, especially the big ones. Tall heliopsis crowd a corner offering their weeks of sunny yellow. Culver’s root, irresistible to localgardener.net

Chaise longue and pots of zinnias.

bees and butterflies, flings its spikes of white six feet into the sunny air.

Filipendula hovers over martagon lilies.

Old fashioned plants such as hollyhocks and delphinium stand tall. Golden gladiola blaze in the sun near speckle-throated Canterbury bells. Faithful phlox and dutiful daylily do their part in keeping the August garden warm with colour.

There are few plants that don’t grow here. An immature fleece flower pokes its head up beside the wooden fence it will soon tower over. There are ferns and sedum and moss and veronica—Olivia has never met a plant she can resist. V Issue 4

The lacy cap of a hydrangea overlooks the grass path that separates two of the distinct gardens.

2021 • 53

Beautiful Gardens

Spirit Garden South Surrey Surrey, BC

Story by Shauna Dobbie, photos by Joan Mara 54 • 2021

Water trickles past marsh marigolds and stands of iris.

J

oan and Jon’s home in Surrey, BC, is next to a half-acre lot with a couple of retention ponds. The ponds were built by an engineer who wanted something a little different for the storm water basin in the neighbourhood.

(Most are just a grassy depression that fills up when it rains or in the spring.) Several years ago, Joan was looking at the area, then wildly grown over, and thought: this could be a beautiful garden.

She thought about it a lot, and eventually got permission to turn it into a garden. Fortunately, the two-pond engineer works for the city and was able to fund the material costs for a bit of infrastructure, so Joan and Jon just set about clearing the area in 2009.

Removing the old stuff took a year. There were bram-

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Pink dianthus, the green foliage of Lady’s mantle and clean white cerastium.

Jon and Joan.

bles and weed grasses, dandelions and self-elected trees growing. It turned out there were some hidden treasures as well—rhododendrons and hydrangeas that were planted before the area was left to go wild. They saved these treasures and mowed the rest down. “I tried to help the grass come back to life. It looked brown, but I just treated it like grass. I watered it, I raked it, I cut it. And I just kept saying to it, look! You’re grass! You’re supposed to be green!”

It worked. A year later the grass was green.

They started building flower beds. There was already an asphalt pathway Joan named Fairie Tale Lane. They laid river rock on the grass for where the retention ponds were, two bowls in the earth which fed out to a culvert and underground to a creek. Over the years they installed localgardener.net

This is from the area before Joan and Jon got to work.

trellises and a second walkway of crushed stone, relying on city funds and grants. Last year they installed a primeval granite bench; this was a gift to the garden from the Maras.

They called it the Secret Garden at first. It wasn’t until a few years later (2013) that it became the Spirit Garden.

At the time Joan was suddenly struck by a notion, it was like the garden was telling her what it wanted to be, what it needed to be: a garden to honour the people in our lives who have died.

I need to be careful here. It isn’t exactly a memorial garden. There are no plaques or names on site. The people honouring a lost loved one often have an informal ceremony at the planting of their tree or perennial, but the Issue 4

2021 • 55

Flowers and foliage tumble over the rockery.

Single marigolds and tickseeds reach out from behind big boulders.

Peony kissed with rainwater.

56 • 2021

ultimate intention is that it is a garden for the neighbourhood, where you can wander and look and smell and feel the beautiful things around you, and one thing that makes them more beautiful is that they were placed in memory of people who were loved. “It’s not so much a place to remember someone. It’s a place to come and find it easy to connect with them there,” Joan explains.

Sometime around the summer solstice they have an evening in the garden when candles are put in front of all the trees and plants that were placed in someone’s honour.

The candles look magnificent as the sun sets around them and the garden is eventually lit by them. It sounds magical.

Everyone can come and feel what they feel, whether it’s someone walking their dog or someone checking how the peonies are blooming or someone with a special tree they planted for a loved one. “There’s an amazing, wonderful mash-up of people in the garden,” Joan says. Followers from around the world have joined the Facebook group,

The rough-hewn bench the Maras donated to the garden.

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Pink phlox draws the eye.

Sea Serpent rising from the marshy bowl.

A flag behind all the flowers to celebrate Canada Day. localgardener.net

Candles at dusk during the solstice.

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Ferns and bergenia cool off in the shade.

“It’s not so much a place to remember someone. It’s a place to come and find it easy to connect with them there,” Joan explains.

Pink hydrangeas spill over neatly trimmed lawn.

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Phlox.

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Dianthus in pink, white and red.

Scan me Check out the Facebook page for the Spirit Garden South Surrey community garden in Surrey, BC. https://www.facebook.com/ SpiritGardenSouthSurrey/

from Asia, Central America, Europe and the US, and Canada, of course.

The garden is maintained by Jon and Joan and the occasional volunteer. Joan is the one who mows the grass weekly. She and Jon have placed every stone personally. So, what happens when they stop doing it?

“I don’t really worry about that,” she says. “The odd person has come through the garden and been very anxious about that.” People who are very concerned that the city should be supporting her more, or that Joan is being taken advantage of. She thinks, “Look! Find some joy!” And she laughs about it. If the garden should go back to nature some day after she’s gone, well, everything does eventually.

As for Surrey not giving the garden what it needs, Joan says she loves the city. They allow her to create this beautiful garden on this plot of land.

If you’re in the area, you can find the Spirit Garden South Surrey at 2860-140 Street. You can also visit the garden from anywhere on Facebook or by following the QR code. V localgardener.net

High in the picture, chocolate purple hellebores overlook white candytuft.

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Looking to grow your gardening skills?

Canada’s Local Gardener magazine puts what you need to know right at your fingertips!

Download Canada’s Local Gardener app on your mobile device and discover other digital editions of the Gardener safely and quickly!

60 • 2021 Issue 4 For more details go to localgardener.net • Connect with us

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How to get started

A

re you starting your very first garden? Congratulations!

There are several little details to take you from the idea to your first year of blooms or food. Here is a primer that will get you through with most plants. This guide will be printed at the back of every issue of Canada’s Local Gardener.

May you have a long future as a gardener, during which you add techniques from others and elements you discover that work for you.

Happy gardening!

How to start a garden 1. Make it smaller than you think you’ll need.

2. Mow the area, then lay down 7 to 10 sheets of newspaper over the grass or weeds.

3. Water the newspaper.

4. Pile on four to six inches of triple mix soil 5. If you want, pile on four inches of cedar mulch.

6. Plant bedding plants.

Containers 1. Outdoor containers should be larger; smaller ones will dry out too quickly.

2. Hanging containers will dry out faster than those on the ground.

3. Drainage is important. If there are no holes in the container and you can’t put holes in it, put plants in a plastic liner pot and into the container.

4. Use potting soil for containers, not triple mix. localgardener.net

5. Feed container plants something like liquid kelp or Miracle Gro. They’re different from in-ground plants.

Bedding plants 1. Water bedding plants the day before you plant them.

2. Dig a hole a little bigger than the pot the plant is in.

3. Remove the bedding plant from the pot. Squish the pot to get it out.

4. Gently spread out the root ball on the plant, put it into the hole and backfill around the root ball with soil.

5. Fibre pots: remove the plant and compost the pot.

6. Cell packs: if a plant comes in four or six attached plastic containers, they are four or six small plants, not one big one.

7. When you are done planting in a bed, water it well.

Fall bulbs 1. Fall bulbs bloom in spring. They include tulips, crocuses and daffodils.

You can plant them until the ground is frozen.

2. Plant bulbs in a hole that is three times the depth of the bulb. If a bulb is one inch high, plant it three inches deep. If it’s three inches high, plant it nine inches deep.

3. You can plant each bulb in one hole or plant more bulbs in a wider hole. Leave one to two bulb-widths between them.

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4. If you have chipmunks or other animals that will disturb bulbs, put chicken wire over the bulbs before filling in the hole with soil.

Direct-sowing seeds 1. Prepare an existing bed by removing weeds and mixing in compost or topping with triple mix.

2. Either follow the directions on the seed packets, ask the person you got the seeds from, or follow the suggestions below.

3. Some seeds need light to germinate: ageratum, balloon flower, browallia, columbine, gaillardia, geranium, impatiens, lettuce, lobelia, nicotiana, osteospermum, petunias, poppies, savory, snapdragons.

4. Other seeds should be covered lightly with soil: alyssum, aster, balsam, beans, broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, celosia, corn, cosmos, cucumbers, dianthus, eggplant, marigold, melons, morning glory, nasturtium, peas, pepper, radish, spinach, squash, tomato, zinnia.

5. Plant seeds about as far apart as you imagine the grown plant will need. Or plant them less far apart then thin them when they are too close together. Thin seedlings by snipping them off so you don’t disturb the roots of neighbouring plants.

6. Water new seeds with the mister on your hose nozzle so they don’t wash 2021 • 61

away, but water them thoroughly.

7. Keep seedlings in a damp bed until they are one to two inches high.

Weeding 1. Weed the day after it rains or the day after you water. It is easier to pull weeds from damp soil than from dry soil.

2. Hoe tiny weedlings in the spring.

3. If you don’t know what it is, wait until you do know before pulling it.

4. If you can’t pull a weed out, cut it off at ground level. Do this as often as needed, which could be daily. Eventually it should die from lack of sunlight.

5. Mulching can control weeds and make weeding easier.

Watering 1. Always water new plants gently but well.

2. Water more deeply and less often.

3. Water the soil, not the plant, but don’t worry about plants getting wet.

4. Watering in the morning is best, but time of day doesn’t matter that much.

5. Outdoor pots need water frequently, possibly every day.

Pests 1. Don’t treat for pests unless they are truly decimating your garden.

2. Many insects are beneficial to the garden. Several non-beneficial insects will attract beneficial insects to your garden.

3. Funguses and insect-eating plants will usually go away if treated with neem oil.

4. Aphids can be kept under control by spraying them off with water. It won’t kill them, but it will slow them down.

Sun 1. Six or more hours per day of 62 • 2021

Scan me Explore Canada’s plant hardiness site. http://www.planthardiness.gc.ca/

direct sun qualifies as full sun.

2. Three to six hours qualifies as part sun.

3. Less than three hours qualifies as shade.

4. Dappled shade can be any of these, depending on how dappled the shade is and for how much of the day.

5. Full sun is necessary for most vegetables. Part sun is acceptable for leafy vegetables.

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6. Pay attention to the tags on plants at the nursery. You can experiment with plants outside the recommended sun requirements, but be prepared for whatever the result is.

Zones 1. Hardiness Zone is a number given to your geographical area to indicate whether a plant will survive the winter. You can find the hardiness Zone for your area online at planthardiness.gc.ca. Or you can ask at your local garden centre what Zone you are in.

2. Zones don’t matter for annuals.

For perennials, they will give you an idea of what survives. For trees and shrubs, they are pretty accurate.

3. Canadian hardiness Zones and USDA hardiness Zones are different. A rule of thumb is to subtract one from the USDA Zone to get the Canadian Zone.

4. There are microclimates in every yard. Proximity to the house or a fence or position on a hill will change the climate.

5. Your local garden centre will not sell you plants that won’t thrive in your area. Or, if they do, they will issue a warning.

Fall clean-up 1. Rake leaves off lawns and into flower beds.

2. Remove very diseased plants.

Throw them out.

3. Everything else can be left for birds, insects and other animals.

Much of it will compost in the garden over the winter. V

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WEST NILE VIRUS

What you need to know to protect yourself and your family What are the symptoms?

When is the risk highest?

• A severe case of West Nile virus (WNV) can be life-threatening and may result in long-term disability.

• The risk of WNV infection is highest during late June, July, August and early September.

• Some people develop an illness with symptoms such as fever, rash, headache, fatigue and body aches.

• Most people infected with WNV have no symptoms and do not become ill.

Who is at risk?

• Everyone is at risk of coming into contact with the virus.

• Severe illness most often occurs among older adults or people with chronic health conditions or weakened immune systems. However, severe illness has occurred in all age groups.

• The risk varies from year to year based on temperature, precipitation, mosquito population and other factors.

How do I protect against WNV? • Reduce the time you spend outside between dusk and dawn.

• Apply an appropriate mosquito repellent.

• Wear light-coloured, loose-fitting clothing with long sleeves and pant legs.

• Get rid of standing water around your home.

• Make sure your door and window screens fit tightly and are free of holes.

For more information, visit our website at manitoba.ca/health/wnv. For questions about WNV health concerns, contact your doctor or call Health Links – Info Santé at 204-788-8200 (in Winnipeg); toll-free 1-888-315-9257.