When we moved to Gabriola, we had a bare patch of earth where the soil had been disturbed in order to put in the septic system. It was pretty ugly. Since then it’s been returning to a managed bit of wild. I yank up trees that won’t work there, but encourage native ferns and flowers. [...]
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Last spring a mystery plant appeared in my garden. It grew some leaves, then sets of delicate white flowers, and then dark berries. I knew it wasn’t any of the berry plants native to Gabriola, but what could it be? I meant to find out, especially because I thought about eating those berries. But I [...]
Filed in Gabriola Island,gardening 2 Comments so far
This thing appeared in my garden, and I haven’t a clue what it is. Do you know?
Filed in Gabriola Island,gardening 3 Comments so far
There are an awful lot of daffodils around Gabriola, thanks to a plant them everywhere scheme a few years ago. We’ve got daffodils along the roadside, daffodils overlooking beaches, and on and on. The ordinary daffs don’t do much for me – I like the unusual ones. I’ve got fragrant daffs, summer-blooming daffs, daffodils that [...]
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This scarecrow was the only one around when I stopped by the community garden at the Gabriola Commons the other day. Most days I see a variety of gardeners here, planting and tending their crops. If you live on Gabriola and want to garden at the Commons, stop by the gardens and look for the [...]
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Well! I didn’t think anybody was using fire for meadow management anymore, but look at this from the Bella Coola blog: Burnt. One of the seasonal annual rites of passage in the Bella Coola Valley is the ‘burning of the grass’. I’m not sure which culture brought this long practiced tradition, but it’s been practiced [...]
Filed in environment,gardening 8 Comments so far
So many of you are gardeners or would-be gardeners, so I thought you might like to see the shipping pallet garden. Inhabitat describes it: b sq. Design Studio Inc blew the crowd at the Canada Blooms Garden Festival away with their colorful garden display built completely out of shipping pallets. Plug and Play – the [...]
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I have an awful lot of this stuff in my garden, and haven’t a clue what it is. Do you know?
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I was reminded about haskaps today when I saw this at the Slow Food Canada site: All about haskups, with recipe. Haskaps, also known as the edible blue honeysuckle, are a relatively new orchard berry in Canada. They are dusty purple in colour and are the shape of a lima bean. The University of Saskatchewan [...]
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Iris reticulata, though not in bloom, is several inches tall already. Chromocolor daffodils are pushing through the soil. Things like alyssum that are supposed to die off in the fall are still flowering. And this is January? I hope it doesn’t snow now, because snow would squish this stuff.
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For those who enjoyed the green curtain, what about a green wall? We spent a mini-vacation in Vancouver on the August long weekend, and visited the Vancouver Aquarium for the first time in far too long. The green wall outside the Aquarium entrance is not new, so perhaps some of you have already seen it, [...]
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Think you have no room for a garden? Read about Suzanne Forsling, who lives in Alaska and grows salad in rain gutters. Would this work for you?
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I thought raspberries were supposed to be a summer fruit, but apparently not. Our raspberries ripen in September and October, and we’ve picked raspberries here during snowstorms. I’ve no idea what kind of raspberries these are. A generous Gabriola gardener gave the plants to us years ago, and they’re now trying to take over the [...]
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You know how sometimes on this blog we get into discussions about identifying various fauna and flora, often something Gabriolan has discovered on jaunts through the woods, or something from the garden? Well, if that ‘something’ happens to be a plant pest, here’s a neat website resource that I just found out about. ID Source [...]
You can eat these curtains, Anon E Mouse blogged back in January. I was taken with the idea, and decided to grow some curtains on Gabriola this summer. The One Who Builds made frames, got netting arranged and affixed just so upon those frames, and mounted the frames outside two of our windows. (One frame [...]
Filed in Gabriola Island,gardening 4 Comments so far
These are blooming right now in my Gabriola garden. Now, daffodils are usually deer-proof, right? I wonder if these daffs would be.
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Last year we, like many of our Gabriola friends, tried growing potatoes in potato boxes. That didn’t work very well, so now we’re trying another approach. It all looks great so far, but who knows what we’ll see when we dig up the potatoes at the end of the season. Anyway, here are two things [...]
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Hey, Gabriola gardeners and farmers. Do you grow corn? If so, you might be interested in this Science Daily article: Corn Yields With Perennial Cover Crop Are Equal to Traditional Farming. Soil quality, water quality, and possibly even farm profits will all benefit by using a perennial cover crop on corn fields that allows for [...]
