Category Archives: Cogno’s Garden

Time for Another Seed Exchange (and mice suck!)

Posted on January 9, 2013 | 1 comment

It’s the time of year, again, when a gardener’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of seed. Countless catalogs arrive daily with fruit, veggie and herb seeds aplenty, in every colour, shape, size and disposition imaginable. Wonder at the beets that looks like bulls-eyes inside, marvel at the bright purple carrots, and be amazed at sunflowers so large you wonder if they might whisper “Feed me, Seymour!” each night.

As always, leafing through these catalogs for the perfectly hearty, delicious, and ethical variety leaves me feeling breathless and lusty. Yes, friends, there’s seed porn in the house again, much to my wife’s chagrin. These are lofty and inspirational times, without a doubt. There’s plans to be drawn, seeds to be started in the next few weeks, and garden beds to be prepared. It’s all so exciting.

Alas, my collection of seeds from the last few years was discovered, a couple weeks ago, by a hoard of hungry mice. They ripped all the packets to shreds and ate the big seeds, while pooping and peeing all over the rest. The carnage was pretty nasty, and I had to dispose of the seeds that survived the feeding frenzy. It’s disheartening to be without seeds at the start of a garden season and with the recent addition to our family, there’s no way I could afford to replace all those wonderful seeds.

To address this, I’m going to be opening up my home (and yard) again this year for a seed swap in a couple weeks, inviting my friends and acquaintances (and their friends and acquaintances) to come over, bring their spare veggie seeds and share in a little coffee, tea and garden-nerd conversation. Even if you’ve never gardened before and don’t have your own seeds, come anyway and get inspired. I hope you’ll be willing to put your left-over 2012 seeds up for trading and that lots of others do the same.

This isn’t meant to be a particularly formal event, but I’d like to suggest a few guidelines in case you’ve not been part of a seed swap before:

Please provide your own baggies or envelopes to manage/track the seeds you receive.
If a particular kind of seed failed miserably for you, please be honest; don’t pawn off your seeds because they sucked… instead, share the awesomeness. (An extension to this guideline is: please don’t bring really old seeds; most seeds lose their viability after a couple of years. If you’re not sure if they’re still good, don’t bring them.)
Bring a notepad. If you’re anything like me, you’ll want to learn from others insights. (Who *knew* that epsom salts can help make tomatoes AWESOME?)
If you’re a first-time veggie gardener and don’t have seeds to trade with, consider baking some cookies, or bring some of your canned goods or whatever else you have that might be of interest. I’m sure you’ll walk away with some seeds and some great advice on how to get started.

If you’re interesting in joining us, please RSVP on the Facebook Event so that I know how many people to plan for. For more info: https://www.facebook.com/events/513246398715696/

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Posted in Cogno's Garden

Garden Diary – March 15, 2012

Posted on March 15, 2012 | 3 comments

Yeah, so I discovered this morning that I’d left the fan on my plants overnight, which had done a pretty spectacular job of drying them out. Fortunately, after a good watering, they sprang right back. I must be more careful to only leave the fan on for an hour here and there. Perhaps I should invest in another timer.

(Why a fan, you might ask? Plants that grow in unmoving air don’t tend to be nearly as sturdy as ones that have to deal with a little push from the wind every now and again. it also helps circulate the warm air, which pools at the top of my vertical “greenhouse”.)

The bigger task, yesterday, was getting started another batch of seeds in the “grow-op”, including all the following:

March 14, 2012
Cabbage	Super Red 80
Eggplant	(Unknown variety)*
Leeks	Mammoth Pot*
Onion	Ramrod
Peppers	Orange Sun
Peppers	Red*
Peppers	Pepperocini
Tomatillos	Toma Verde
Tomatillos	Aunt Molly’s Ground Cherry
Tomatoes	Jumbo Jim Orange*
Tomatoes	Strawberry*
Tomatoes	TN Britches*
Tomatoes	Sweetie*
Tomatoes	Mishca*
Chinese	Gai Lan*
Chinese	Pac Choi

All the unmarked items are from West Coast Seeds; the ones marked with stars are seeds that came to me from the fantastic Beth Breisnes in hand-folded seed packets made from newspaper. (Click here to learn how to make them yourself!) She received the seeds at a seed swap but unfortunately lost her photos of the original packets.

Today and tomorrow are busy days, so won’t have time to do anything but tend to the seeds I’ve started in the greenhouse. Hopefully I’ll have time this weekend to finish mixing the sand into my garden beds and then get to planting my peas and a couple other early outdoor crops.

Have you started any part of your garden yet? What are your plans this year?

3 Comments

Posted in Garden Diary

Tagged garden, veggie gardener, seeds, grow-op, indoor gardening, West Coast Seeds

Garden Diary – March 13, 2012

Posted on March 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

This year, a new strategy for blogging my garden. I’ll post what I’m doing, when(ish) I’m doing it. The “why” I’ll get to if I’ve got the time and/or if you ask questions of me on Twitter, Facebook or in the comments.

When I started blogging about my garden last spring, my intention was to document my thought process on why I’d made all the little decisions I was making on a regular basis. Additionally, I wanted to add a little bit of explanation, in the hopes others might find it useful. Unfortunately, as the garden project got busier, I spent less and less time writing about it. So, time to turn over a new leaf…

To bring this up to date, so far I’ve:

1) Bought a wire rack from Costco, some fluorescent shop light fixtures (4 feet long), “daylight” fluorescent bulbs, a few feet of small-link chain and a roll of plastic. Used it all to build a little greenhouse in the basement. (Photos of the set-up coming soon! In the meantime, here are some newly germinated cauliflower:)

2) Bought “Jiffy” peat pellets and used them to start a bunch of seeds. All these varieties are from West Coast Seeds, except as noted. I’ve started the following so far:

February 23, 2012
Broccoli	Hybrid Broccoli Blend
Cabbage	Early Jersey Wakefield
Cauliflower	White Cauliflower Blend
Celery	Tall Utah
Leeks	Varna
Lettuce	Super Gourmet Blend
Lettuce	Conquistador
Lettuce	Looseleaf Buttercrunch
Onion	Copra
Onion	Walla Walla
February 28, 2012
Peppers	Jalapeno M
Peppers	Purple Beauty
Peppers	Ancho
Peppers	Red Habenaro
Peppers	Red Cherry Hot
Tomatoes	Tumbler
Tomatoes	Green Zebra
Tomatoes	Black Krim
Tomatoes	Oregon Spring
Tomatoes	Yellow Brandywine

3) Last week, my father came over and we pruned the bottom branches off the giant cedar tree in our backyard. Mostly, it was for safety, as the branches were growing between the power and other utility wires. The added benefit, though, is that it’ll give most of the garden an extra hour or two of daylight each day. We’re just using our Yard Waste bin (and those from the neighbours) to get rid of the cedar branches a bit at a time.

4) Picked up a pickup truck-load of construction sand from Mainland Sand and Gravel in Richmond. Brought it back and combined it with my fresh compost to add to my garden beds. My beds were almost 100% compost last year and were pretty soggy, since the compost sucks up the posture like a sponge. I hope the sand helps improve the drainage somewhat; and I’ll add extra wherever I plant my root veggies (carrots, parsnips, etc.) this year.

I think that pretty much brings us up to today. In the next few days, I’ll finish adding the compost/sand to my beds and lightly tilling it in. I’ve got to do a couple of soil tests to make sure the right nutrients are available. Then, it’ll be time to start planting peas, beans and a bunch of other wonderful things. Also, the grass needs some love; it needs some sand and maybe some lime, as well as reseeding in a few places.

So, that’s my garden; how’s yours coming along so far?

Insider Trading (or: “It’s Time to Swap Seeds”)

Posted on February 13, 2012 | 1 comment

This is the first post since I seriously upgraded my blog and switched web hosts. Let me know if you have any problems.

The snowdrops and crocuses are starting to bloom and the seed catalogs are shooting through the mail slot at a furious rate. Spring is creeping up quickly, along with all sorts of important decisions about what to plant and where to plant it. Although the offerings in those catalogs are tempting (we call it “seed porn” around here), I’ve got a wedding to pay for this summer and can’t really afford my lust for awesome (and sometimes expensive) seeds.

To address this, I’m going to be opening up my home (and yard) for a seed swap in a couple weeks, inviting my friends and acquaintances to come over, bring their spare veggie seeds and share in a little coffee, tea and garden-nerd conversation. Even if you’ve never gardened before and don’t have your own seeds, come anyway and get inspired. I’ll be putting my left-over 2011 seeds up for trading and hope lots of others do the same.

This isn’t meant to be a particularly formal event, but I’d like to suggest a few guidelines in case you’ve not been part of a seed swap before:

Please provide your own baggies or envelopes to manage/track the seeds you receive.
If a particular kind of seed failed miserably for you, please be honest; don’t pawn off your seeds because they sucked… instead, share the awesomeness. (An extension to this guideline is: please don’t bring really old seeds; most seeds lose their viability after a couple of years. If you’re not sure if they’re still good, don’t bring them.)
Bring a notepad. If you’re anything like me, you’ll want to learn from others insights. (Who *knew* that epsom salts can help make tomatoes AWESOME?)
If you’re a first-time veggie gardener and don’t have seeds to trade with, consider baking some cookies, or bring some of your canned goods or whatever else you have that might be of interest. I’m sure you’ll walk away with some seeds and some great advice on how to get started.

If you’re interesting in joining us, please RSVP on the Facebook Event so that I know how many people to expect. I look forward to seeing many of you soon!

1 Comment

Posted in Cogno's Garden

Tagged Seed swap, veggie gardener

Should I dig these things up?

Posted on March 6, 2011 | 8 comments

What an incredible day to be out in the garden! We started taking up sod today to make room for the raised beds I hope to start building soon. Before we get too far in, though, we need to figure out what a few things are in our existing garden so that we know whether to save them or not.

Can you identify any of these plants?

Suspect one:

Suspect two:

Suspect three:

Suspect four:

Suspect five:

Suspect six:

Suspect seven:

Please comment below if you know what these are; the more info you can give, the better decisions we can make on whether to leave as-is, transplant or remove mercilessly.

8 Comments

Posted in Cogno's Garden

Tagged garden, weeds

Getting to Know My Dirt

Posted on February 28, 2011 | 1 comment

The damned stuff is cheap until you start testing it, amending it, taking it out for meals.

I picked up a soil testing kit at the store a few weeks ago and and started to use it before the weather turned cold. I wanted to get a snapshot for what the existing soil in my yard is like, so that I know how much I have to play around with it make it perfect for my little veggies. What I wasn’t expecting to discover was just how tedious it is to collect tiny samples of soil and administer a handful of tests to each one. Dirt… water… mystery powder… wait patiently… Eureka! This soil doesn’t suck, so on to the next sample… lather, rinse, repeat.

What have I learned, apart from the fact that testing soil is incredibly boring? I’ve learned that my back yard is topsy-turvy when it comes to soil acidity, for one. From everything I’ve read, conifers tend to make the soil beneath them acidic so I expected to find that the dirt under our giant cedar tree was so acidic it’d melt my fingertips off. Sadly, it tested out as almost neutral (6.5-7.0) so all my frantic warnings to my partner to stay clear were for naught. Pity, it’s much more romantic to protect your loved ones from pits of hydrochloric acid than tap water…

The testing kit I bought. Apparently all the hydroponic stores <cough cough> sell it.

Meanwhile, the part of the yard where I hope to put the garden is definitely acidic, somewhere around 5.5-6.0. A standard way to bring acidic soil towards neutral is to add lime, so I picked up a couple bags from the store. I then made the mistake of mentioning this purchase to a few friends, who’ve been asking me ever since about who I intend to dispose of. (Just because I work in a building that was once the city morgue… bunch of wiseguys… <sigh>)

The tests for nutrients in the soil are a little more complicated and time-consuming. I have to gather larger samples of soil and mix them with a larger amount of water and let my “dirt soup” sit for a few hours, until settled. It’s the water that then gets tested. I’ve not managed to accomplish that part yet, thanks to that little blast of winter we had over the weekend. Maybe next weekend I can practice a little more backyard chemistry of the non-illicit kind.

1 Comment

Posted in Cogno's Garden

Tagged Organic gardening, Soil test, Soil pH, Soil

It’s Decision Time

Posted on February 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

Yesterday, we worked our butt off in the backyard, moving giant rocks and plants and otherwise getting one side ready to accept all the sod we’re going to have to move when we put the vegetable beds in. it was hard work and we’re both sore today, but the feeling of seeing progress is amazing!

One of the things I really enjoy about doing this sort of hard, physical work (which I don’t do nearly as often as I should) is that it gives you the chance to daydream, think deeply or just zone out. Yesterday, I used a bunch of that time to make some decisions about our garden. I’m like George W. Bush; I’m the DECIDER.

Here’s what’s what, so far:

I’ll be using raised beds. Although more work to set-up, and more expensive to get additional soil to fill, they warm up much sooner in the season, meaning you can plant earlier and reap the benefits much sooner. Since one of our goals with this project is to be completely self-sustaining veggie-wise over the summer, we felt it was important to get an early start. [More info on raised beds]
Instead of rows, I’ll do block planting, where different veggies are assigned to specific square foot blocks. Reading up on “square foot gardening” gave me the inspiration to try this. The challenge will be to put the right number of seeds in each block so they don’t crowd each other out.
I’ll be filling my raised beds with a mix of my own soil and City of Vancouver compost. We’ve been cleaning up our yard through the fall and packing that “Yard Trimmings” bin the city picks up; I’ll be getting a large delivery of it back as compost. If I waited until May, I could go pick up some free compost but I need almost 6 cubic meters for my beds long before then. Fortunately, it’s only $10/cubic meter if you pick it up yourself. It might not be the perfect compost, but I need a significant amount pretty quickly.

I’ve also made a number of smaller decisions, like how I’m going to handle the aggressive cedar roots and bamboo rhizomes that want to invade my garden from all directions. (The short-term solution is cardboard. I’ll explain later.)

By the way… don’t get me started on my neighbours damned bamboo… it might look nice, but it’ll burrow long distances under the ground and those shoots can get almost two inches wide. I can’t tell you how ticked off it makes me to have to dig out yet another one of those. If you see me failing in the backyard with an axe you’ll know I’ve finally flipped.

Anyway, it feels good to have some decisions made. The next step is to start picking seeds and keeping working on transforming the garden. Wish us luck!

And Where, Exactly, Am I Supposed to Start?

Posted on February 10, 2011 | 1 comment

Let’s get started, shall we?

Planning a garden of any size is an intimidating endeavor; even last year when I put together my patio container garden I was so worried about having the wrong soil conditions, picking the wrong seeds, planting them at the wrong time, over- or under-watering, over or under-feeding, losing the battle against weeds and whatever sorts of evil bugs might come and decimate my (tiny) crop. The situation seemed grave: one misstep and my tiny garden empire would come crashing down around me.

I’m still nervous about what might go wrong; growing a garden in the ground is very different than growing on a third-floor patio; despite my best efforts, I will see weeds and pests in my garden this year—they’ve still not invented affordable garden force fields. That said, if I get everything off to a good and thoughtful start, I’ll be giving my garden a fighting chance.

Before I select my seeds, I’ve got a few important things to consider:

Location. This was decided in December; one side of our back yard is significantly less shaded than the other and also had fewer well-established shrubs and plants. We’re still going to have to lift up some sod and do a ton of work, but it seems manageable.

Garden style. How are we going to plant everything? There are so many options out there; container gardening, classic in-ground beds, raised beds, hydroponics, growing in rows, in square foot blocks, growing ornamental veggies in regular flower beds.

Soil conditions. How sandy (or loamy, whatever that means…) should my soil be? How much fertilizer should I add? Is the PH in the right range? How’s the drainage of the soil? Are there enough earthworms?

Planting plan. Where am I going to put the tall things, like peas, pole beans and sunflowers, so they don’t shade the other plants? Where should the cucumbers, squash and other ground vines go so they can spread out without suffocating the other plants? What plants should get put together to benefit each other?

Speaking of “companion planting”, the American Indians used to plant corn (maize), squash and beans together because of the many ways they compliment each other.

The maize provides a structure for the beans to climb, eliminating the need for poles. The beans provide the nitrogen to the soil that the other plants utilize and the squash spreads along the ground, blocking the sunlight, which helps prevent weeds. The squash leaves act as a “living mulch“, creating a microclimate to retain moisture in the soil, and the prickly hairs of the vine deter pests. Maize lacks the amino acids lysine and tryptophan, which the body needs to make proteins and niacin, but beans contain both and therefore together they provide a balanced diet.
From Wikipedia

So, time to do a little research and make some decisions; there’s also a time to do undertake some serious work in the back yard to reconfigure things. Both my partner and I have tomorrow off, so perhaps we’ll get to it then.

Got any thoughts on any of the choices mentioned above? Please share!

1 Comment

Posted in Cogno's Garden

Tagged garden, Companion planting, Raised bed gardening, Organic gardening

Why start Cogno’s Garden?

Posted on February 8, 2011 | 2 comments

Although I didn’t catch it when it was first published in 2005, I’ve been familiar with the concept of the “100 Mile Diet” for a number of years now; I even had a chance to participate in a 100 Mile Dinner while visiting my parents on Mayne Island a couple years ago. What is the 100 Mile Diet? It’s an attempt to only eat foods with ingredients that come from less than 100 miles away. (Check out this list of reasons why it’s worth trying to “eat local”)

I might never want to give up my bananas and other high food-mile foods, but I do have a particular admiration of those who enthusiastically support local producers and understand, on some level anyway, why it’s so important for people to be physically and emotionally close to their food sources.

It’s not as though I’m a fervent environmentalist, although I recycle most of the things that I’m supposed to. I’m also not a vegetarian, but I understand why eating lower down the food chain is a smart thing to do… it’s just too bad that the top of the food chain is just so damned tasty! Don’t get the mistaken impression that I’m somehow environmentally virtuous, though; I have been known to take showers that get complaint letters from the fish in the local reservoirs.

So if my reasons don’t involve saving the planet, why do this? The real reasons for deciding to grow a large vegetable garden this summer are several:

1) I love trying new things, but that enthusiasm is generally short-lived; I’m in dire need of a hobby that I can’t/won’t flake out on shortly after I start it. There’s something about the idea of putting together and maintaining a vegetable garden that makes me think I can stick with it; possibly because you see the effects of your hard work. Effort is connected directly with reward.

2) I had some success at gardening (on a smaller scale) last year. I put together a small container garden on my apartment patio and it was an unexpected success. (See photos of that garden and it’s bounty here.)

3) I love fresh food and appreciate feeling connected to its source. I didn’t realize how important that was until my friends, Sonia and Shaun Strobel, recently launched a Community Supported Fishery, a novel business model that lets community members pay up-front for a share in the boat’s catch each year.You can’t get much fresher than that unless you catch it yourself; it tasted infinitely better than store-bought fish, and I was proud to know exactly where it had come from.

4) I’ve seen the power that a well-prepared meal has to bring friends and families closer together. I find it pretty exciting to know that I’ll be contributing many of my own ingredients this summer; I won’t be the only one to benefit from this project… so will my friends and family.

5) Dumb luck has provided me with a real back yard. When we moved in together in October, my partner and I lucked into the most incredible place with a yard just begging for a large garden plot. It’s a rental property, so we don’t want to put a ton of effort in so we figured we’d get more (in a practical sense) out of a veggie garden than maintaining the semi-wild flower beds.

This is an exciting project to undertake, but if you’re reading these posts, I’m going to need your help. As my partner and I go through the process of designing a layout, picking supplies and seeds, tending and harvesting the garden, fighting off pests, diseases and nutrient imbalances, I hope you’ll weigh in with your opinions, suggestions and encouragement. If you do, and you live locally, I promise that you’ll get to enjoy some of the bounty Cogno’s Garden will provide.

2 Comments

Posted in Cogno's Garden

Tagged garden, fresh food, food sources

The Beginning of a Diary for Cogno’s Garden

Posted on February 6, 2011 | 2 comments

The fruits... errr.... veggies of my labour!

…and so it begins.

One of the classic mistakes a new gardener makes is to take on too much–planting too much of too many kinds of vegetable, then getting overwhelmed when the bugs and blight and weeds invade in earnest and the bounty far exceeds the gardener’s ability to eat, store and enjoy. Frustration takes over, the garden gets neglected and the poor gardener gives up and looks for a few hobby.

(One of the other classic blunders? Getting involved in a land war in Asia…)

I’ve seen this advice in so many different places and yet I’m willfully ignoring it; not only do I have grand plans for my veggie garden (over 200 square feet!), but I’m also going to try and keep a regular blog of my experience in the hopes of inspiring others to follow my lead and grow some of their own food. I’m not sure which is more intimidating… the project, or documenting it coram publico, mistakes and all.

Why am I undertaking this (potentially) foolish project? It’s a long story that I hope to write about over the next few weeks but it certainly has something to do with the small, but unexpectedly successful, container garden I had on my tiny apartment patio last summer (see pictures) and the fact that my partner and I lucked into a rental with a full back yard.

In the meantime, I’m going to grab my seed catalogs (referred to in my house as “seed porn”) and start planning out this massive project. Wish me luck!

(Are you planning to do some of your own gardening this year, either in containers or in an honest-to-goodness garden plot? If so, I’d love to hear from you… what are your plans for 2011?)

2 Comments

Posted in Cogno's Garden

Tagged food, garden

Category Archives: Cogno’s Garden

Time for Another Seed Exchange (and mice suck!)

Garden Diary – March 15, 2012

Garden Diary – March 13, 2012

Insider Trading (or: “It’s Time to Swap Seeds”)

Should I dig these things up?

Getting to Know My Dirt

It’s Decision Time

And Where, Exactly, Am I Supposed to Start?

Why start Cogno’s Garden?

The Beginning of a Diary for Cogno’s Garden

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