When Gabriola’s foxgloves set seeds in late summer, I collect some, bring them home, and scatter them all over the place. Now we have lots and lots of foxgloves, which suits me fine. Foxglove flowers usually hang down. But here we have an aberrant foxglove, with flowers facing upward. I like aberrations. This is not [...]
Filed in Gabriola Island,gardening 14 Comments so far
The Gabriola Home and Garden Tour is today, so these signs are up all over the island. Did you (or will you) go on the tour? Is your house or garden featured on the tour list this year? I did get a tour of a lovely under-construction house today, and saw an interesting garden, too. [...]
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Have you noticed the new greenhouse at the Gabriola Commons? It’s in the upper community garden – the one nearest North Road.
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File this one under grow yer own: sprout a couch.
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Look what’s appeared at the Gabriola Commons, in the garden nearest the house! Looks like a greenhouse to me, and I imagine the allotment gardeners will be extremely pleased about this.
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Shipping food to Gabriola seems silly when you consider that we could grow much of our food right here on the island. And what if growing food could be way easier than we think? With that in mind, I followed a recommendation and bought a copy of a book called Perennial Vegetables. Here’s part of [...]
Filed in Gabriola Island,gardening 4 Comments so far
Did you go to Seedy Saturday at the Gabriola Commons yesterday? We did, and we came away with packages of free bean seeds. The deal is this: we grow the beans, and return ten percent of the beans we grow to the Commons in the fall. Brilliant scheme. There was a Seeds of Diversity display, [...]
Filed in events,Gabriola Island,gardening 3 Comments so far
I’ve found a treasure on the internet: a site called journeytoforever.org has a small farms library with the full texts of hundreds of fascinating, mostly vintage, books about organic farming, homemade alternative energy, and all kinds of related subjects. So much interesting material! Be warned, I’ll probably use this collection as the basis of a [...]
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With the warm weather and peak gardening season coming up soon, my thoughts turned to slug control (as one does at this time of year, you know). Long-term readers of this blog already know I am not a big fan of slugs. But I would gladly coexist with them, if they didn’t trash my vegetable [...]
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Are you one of the many Gabriola gardeners who spend cold months planning your garden? This could be fun: Hydroponic gardens float you to a leafy salad. The system is basically a piece of Styrofoam floated in a container filled with water and soluble fertilizer. Holes punched in the Styrofoam hold slotted cups, and each [...]
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Last spring I blogged about potato boxes, which seemed like the coolest idea ever. Some of you built potato boxes of your own and tried growing various kinds of potatoes in them. So, how’d that work out for you? Did you get a huge and lovely crop of potatoes? Or was the experiment a failure? [...]
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It’s never too early to make plans for next year’s garden, and if you have a window that catches the summer sun and heats up the house, green curtains might be just the ticket.
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One of the good things about living on Gabriola is that I have a garden here. I’m a Very Serious Gardener, I’ll have you know. But I’m no expert, and am always happy to find useful information. So this was a fine discovery: the winter soil management post at Gabriola’s Sweet Rock Farm blog. Worth [...]
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One of the things I like about the gas station on Gabriola (the co-op) is that they grow foxgloves in their planter boxes. Very sensible – deer don’t usually eat foxgloves, and these flowers are so easy to grow. But they’re supposed to flower in summertime. It’s the end of November, it’s about to snow [...]
Filed in Gabriola Island,gardening 2 Comments so far
If you’re a gardener, I bet you’ve seen a heuchera plant or two. (More images here.) You’ll see them in people’s gardens, and in garden centres – they’re beautiful things. I’ve got one that has fine orange leaves right now. Did you know that we have a native heuchera growing on Gabriola? I found one [...]
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Dear Royal Canadian Legion, The plastic backed-poppies shown here have been left on the Gabriola Island Memorial Cairn, where they were placed after today’s Remembrance Day service. What will happen to these poppies? They’ll go to landfill, I suppose. What a shame. I’ve been reading about the poppies made by some designers in Nova Scotia. [...]
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Sal from Gabriola’s Sweet Rock Farm has started the Sweet Rock Farm blog. If you wonder just how much you can grow on an acre, this is your chance to find out!
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If the people who built our house had left the whole lot un-cleared (well, except for the space immediately under the house), life would be easier. I like Gabriola’s native plants, and wouldn’t have had the heart to rip out salal, salmonberries, huckleberries, and other fine native specimens. Having all that in place would mean [...]
Filed in Gabriola Island,gardening 2 Comments so far
