Posted on April 26th, 2011 by Joel Russ
Pear buds are quite swollen, and apple buds just a bit behind. I’m glad I’ve got my pruning done. Actually, today I spent time pruning our grape vine – which is not budded-out yet, though in cutting any of the larger vine branchings the vine will bleed a fair bit. No matter, it seems. I’ve [...]
Filed under: Food, General Practices, Organic Gardening, Rural Living, Tips & Tricks, Vegetable Gardening | 6 Comments »
Posted on April 11th, 2011 by Joel Russ
Sunday, the 10th. Today began with me chainsawing a lot of 36-inch sections from 6×6 timbers, toward a set of outdoor steps for the slope down to our pond. While I was doing that, Lou (my partner) worked over in the greenhouse, where she transplanted about six dozen of my green-onion starts into the edges [...]
Filed under: Food, Rural Living, Tips & Tricks, Vegetable Gardening | No Comments »
Posted on March 23rd, 2011 by Joel Russ
Not sure which is the more exciting facet of spring here at the moment… I’ve got young ‘plant starts’ showing themselves, and I’ve also tapped a maple tree and am boiling-down some maple sap as I write this. Well, first of all, very satisfying to see the little sprouts and leaves in our seedling-start trays [...]
Filed under: Food, General Practices, Organic Gardening, Rural Living, Vegetable Gardening | No Comments »
Posted on February 26th, 2011 by Joel Russ
Our late-winter seed organization has come along nicely. Seed selection proceeds from the point of knowing which vegetables you want your garden to provide for you, to the selection of actual varieties – based on considerations of how many frost-free growing days you’ll likely have, the general temperature regime of your site, the garden’s soil [...]
Filed under: Food, General Practices, Organic Gardening, Tips & Tricks, Vegetable Gardening | 2 Comments »
Posted on February 3rd, 2011 by Joel Russ
Seems to me that borscht is a Kootenay food-gardener’s dream. This very nourishing soup can be made entirely from ingredients available from local producers – mostly from vegetables that grow very well in our climate. Years ago my partner, Lou, got a borscht recipe from a generous Doukhobor woman. The soup was scrumptious! Actually, we [...]
Filed under: Food | 4 Comments »
Posted on January 27th, 2011 by Joel Russ
Today I had the radio on in the background while making my lunch. CBC’s news and phone-in noon show, BC Almanac, hosted a man named Will Allen, who will be speaking this evening in Vancouver. Mr. Allen’s topic (on the radio and in his evening presentation) is growing food in the city. Not too likely [...]
Filed under: Food | 6 Comments »
Posted on December 20th, 2010 by Joel Russ
This being that time of year (Solstice, Christmas, New Years – however you may think of it), I received a letter from a Saskatchewan-based friend who is about 30. She (Nikko) and her partner were in Regina last winter, where she’d previously bought her first house, and they had been pursuing their careers. For quite [...]
Filed under: Food, Rural Living | 8 Comments »
Posted on October 7th, 2010 by Joel Russ
Yesterday I dug out the remainder of the carrots. These were the ones we hadn’t pulled over the recent months. There’s a bear in the immediate neighbourhood, and carrots are known to be quite high on his/her list of faves. I washed the carrots off, dried them in the shade for about 24 hours, and [...]
Filed under: Food, Harvest Lessons | No Comments »
Posted on October 5th, 2010 by Joel Russ
Raspberries are a much awaited and enjoyed berry crop. They’re great to eat just-picked off the bushy rows or within a day or two, out of the fridge (say, in frozen yogurt). Raspberries are easy to cultivate but require some thought to plan into the garden scheme. Plus, you need to make sure the plants [...]
Filed under: Food, General Practices, Natural Resources, Nature | 7 Comments »
Posted on September 14th, 2010 by Joel Russ
At friends’ place for dinner this summer, we discovered a scrumptious hors d’oeuvre or snack that we hadn’t dreamed existed: kale chips. Maybe the first thing that struck us was how what we’d thought of as a hardy, easy-to-grow, nutritious but unversatile leafy veggie could be eaten in another way – previously, we’d felt it [...]
Filed under: Food, Vegetable Gardening | 10 Comments »
