28 May 2007 by pat.

Saturday afternoon I did indeed go down to the spit, to clear out some weeds and plant my tomatoes and basil. No bike this time: would have been too much jostling of the plants. I took a cab.

I walked past my garden the first time. I didn’t recognize it! Two things happened since I last went there on September 10th last year:

• The weeds kept growing. Oh my, how they kept growing. They’re mostly at ankle height or slightly taller, but they are abundant.
• My garden was full of these bleached-gray hollow sticks, all about knee height, all with a slight angle to the east.

I asked one of my gardening neighbours what the heck it was that came up, and she replied that it was the soybeans I had planted. They hadn’t died when all their leaves were cropped off by rabbits! They grew more leaves, and goodness knows how long they lived. I expect they didn’t produce any beans, because I didn’t see anything that looked like bean pods around. I just hope they added some nitrogen to the soil.

I need to go back several times this week to clear out the raspberry canes and the rest of the weeds. I have some seeds to plant (some decorative gourds, squash, asparagus peas, and more).Somewhere, over the winter, I have misplaced my two weeding tools. I need to take another look around for them. The garden claw will do the trick for tonight.I’ll have to see if my tomato plants survived the heavy rain that fell yesterday. I’m wishing the Canadian Tire at the corner of Lakeshore and Leslie would hurry up and be finished… it’s a mch closer place to buy tomato cages than anywhere else. Alas, if it doesn’t hurry up, I’ll be carting cages from up on the Danforth, likely.That’s it for today. Happy gardening!

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26 May 2007 by pat.

Withrow Park, a breezy walk from home, is starting an organic farmers’ market today. It will be held weekly throughout the summer.

I went first thing this morning (hmm… I thought they might open before the advertised time of 10am… nope).I could have made some purchases there that I made at the St. Lawrence market on Friday. There were beautiful bunches of basil, fresh local organic lettuce, and fresh local organic asparagus from Kerr Farms.I bought some rhubarb to stew up, and a spicy sundried tomato pesto made with hemp seed instead of pine nuts (it tasted good on a little piece of cornbread). Also got some organic green tea (can’t believe that was locally grown, somehow).There was lots of other produce, fresh bread from several sources, and fruit and veggie and herb plants, and some flowering annuals, too.I bought 4 different types of tomatoes, since I didn’t get seeds started this year:

• two San Marzano plants (it’s a paste-type tomato, used for sauces)
• two Roma (another sauce-type tomato)
• two Black Cherry
• two Caspian Pink

and I got two basil plants. So this afternoon (after 3pm) I’ll grab a cab down to the spit with some tools, my plants, and some seeds, and get things in the ground.

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