Posted on May 5th, 2011 by Joel Russ
With much satisfaction, and eagerness for the eventual tomato crop, a couple days ago we potted-up our Bonnie Bests and our San Marzanos from their 4-inch pots to gallon ones. These varieties are round-type and paste-type, respectively. They are both indeterminate (vine-type) varieties, which are well-suited to greenhouse nurturance. And that’s where we’ve put them [...]
Filed under: Decorative Gardening, Food, General Practices, Organic Gardening, Soil Management, Tips & Tricks, Vegetable Gardening | No Comments »
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 [...]
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Posted on April 4th, 2011 by Joel Russ
Brian Minter – a media celeb and one of BC’s great gardening gurus – said recently on CBC Radio that gardening conditions in the province as a whole are running three weeks late. (And his impressions may be skewed by the conditions of the BC Coast!) A lot of Kootenay people are lookin’ hang-dog over [...]
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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 [...]
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Posted on March 10th, 2011 by Joel Russ
It’s a fine time of the year when – despite crusty snow and winter’s heavy skies hanging on – I can feel the approach of the upcoming gardening season. What makes feeling this approach all the more vivid is that I’m now involved with propagating the seedlings that we’ll be using for plants we’ll grow [...]
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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 16th, 2011 by Joel Russ
Now is about the time when Kootenay food gardeners start thinking seriously about seeds – about acquiring them, and maybe getting ready to plant seedling “starts” indoors. When planning a garden for annual food crops, you need to decide what veggies you want to grow – cabbage, radishes, lettuce, peas, carrots, kale? Particularly for newer [...]
Filed under: General Practices, Organic Gardening, Tips & Tricks, Vegetable Gardening | 3 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 »
Posted on September 5th, 2010 by Joel Russ
It was at a couple of dinners at friends’ places last year that we really became aware of “fingerling” or “banana” potatoes. Good flavour, buttery smooth texture, a thin nicely edible skin – a complete delight to eat. I know we’d previously had them, but didn’t really know what they were. But when you’re eating [...]
Filed under: Food, Harvest Lessons, Vegetable Gardening | 7 Comments »
