Other Entries: August 2007 September 2007 January 2008 March 2008 April 2008 May 2008 June 2008 July 2008 August 2008 September 2008 October 2008 November 2008 February 2009 March 2009 April 2009 May 2009 June 2009 July 2009 August 2009 September 2009

Everything is changing very quickly. Jessica and I are currently packing up our things in preparation for our departure from our beloved basement suite at 377 Tempe Crescent. I always knew that, at some point, I'd have to leave this place, and I feel a slight sadness when thinking about walking through the gardens for the last time. Sadness because I know that a vegetable garden without guiding hands and plenty of love tends to turn into a mess of weeds pretty quickly. Several weeks ago, Jessica and I spent a warm, unseasonably warm day in and around the house, doing, for the first time in four years, exactly what our landlords wished we do with the yard. After we leave, they intend to turn the deep, fertile soil of our vegetable beds back into lawn. This is certainly not a surprise, but is nonetheless a tremendous waste, considering the love I have put into the soil over the past four years. This land is, however, not our land, and we are fond of our landlords, so we obliged their requests, and scraped off all the mulch, yanked out (almost) all of the crops, and spread out the soil, obscuring the paths. It was a bittersweet day, undoing our hard work, basking in the sweet memories of all the beautiful plants we raised here.

In early October, shortly after Jessica and I decided that our departure from north North Vancouver is drawing near, a wonderful coincidence led me to meet a young woman interested in tending the roadside demonstration garden I have been maintaining across the street from my current residence. Her name is Carmen, and she is smart and enthusiastic. I am confident that she will give the garden the love it deserves, and that, under her care and guidance, the roadside will continue to produce lush, beautiful crops. In late October, Carmen and I spent an afternoon planting garlic and spreading mulch, and by the time the day's work was done, I knew for sure that I am passing the garden on to caring, capable hands.

I have been experimenting with cover crops for the past four years, and each year I grow more and more enthusiastic about their benefits. This fall, I began growing a new type, which has so far proven itself to be both fascinating and useful. It quickly forms a thick cover, and is tremendously pleasing to the eye. My sweet sugar pumpkin, Jessica, is particularly fond of it, and loves to run her fingers through it. I am, of course, referring to my new beard. While my intention is to shave it off prior to the beginning of my winter holiday at the end of November, I will re-sow it immediately upon my return to Canada. Watch for beard growth updates on this blog starting in 2010.

This October and November I harvested and consumed my most successful bed of beets yet. I sowed them during first week of July, into a bed from which I had just cut-out the spent vines of a March sowing of Laxton Progress #9 shelling peas. I left the pea roots intact, weeded the bed, and gently mixed some finely-sifted compost into the top couple inches of soil. I sowed the beets slightly deeper than usual, to ensure they had enough moisture to begin growing in the warmth of summer. I gently watered the bed every morning until germination occurred, and began to drool in anticipation of the deliciousness to come upon first sight of the seedlings. I find Beets to be tremendously delicious. I gave each beet more space than usual, to ensure they all had enough room to stretch out and imbibe as much precious moisture and nutrients as they wished. About two weeks after sowing I thinned them to stand at approximately eight inches on centres. After thinning, they received no special attention, aside from occasional irrigation during dry spells. I didn't even get around to mulching them, though I certainly did get around to feeling bad about not mulching them. In just over three months, they grew to a perfect size, and were tender and sweet, juicy and neat. Nothing can beat the sugary treat of a well cared-for beet.

In April of this year my friend Steve mailed me some oca (Oxalis tuberosa) tubers, and I planted them here and there throughout the gardens. Almost all of them grew very well, and formed cute little mounds of delicate, soft foliage. The plants didn't get very big, and I didn't pay all that much attention to them through the summer. They blended in quite well with the general chaos of the summertime vegetable garden, most human attention drawn away from them by their more exuberant botanical neighbours. In the fall, as the various vegetables surrounding them were cut back and consumed, I began to pay more attention to the little oca plants. As the autumn rains and cool temperatures descended upon my gardens, the oca all seemed to grow happier and healthier, as if the onset of winter was somehow exciting them. By early November, they looked positively thrilled to be alive. I have read in a number of places that oca doesn't start forming it's edible tubers until autumn at our latitude, as tuber-formation is triggered by decreasing daylength. I have heard that the tubers are best harvested in early winter here at 49 degrees north latitude. As I am leaving North Vancouver before early winter, I dug mine on the 20th of November. While they didn't produce a bumper, each plant did form between six and twelve knobbly pink tubers. Upon examination of the plants' root systems, It became clear that they were far from finished their tuber production for the season: Many of the thick roots ended with little baby tubers. Next year I will have the luxury of time, and will see what effect a delayed harvest has on tuber size and yield. I also intend to try mounding up some plants, as I have read that this has a yield-increasing effect, similar to that seen from mounding potatoes. I quite enjoy the tangy taste of oca, and look forward to enjoying it in much greater quantities in the coming years.

Toward the end of July I sowed Corn Salad (aka Mache, Valerianella locusta) into fertile beds in a relatively cool, protected part of the backyard garden. The seeds remained dormant until late August, at which point they began to grow with great vigor. By late October, the plants were ready to harvest, and I have incorporated them into a number of delicious salads and green smoothies. This is not at all a strong-flavoured green, but I find the texture is delightful, and it is completely lacking in the bitterness sometimes found in fall lettuce grown under less than ideal conditions. Were I not imminently leaving my North Vancouver gardens, I would have held off harvesting, as Corn Salad is renowned as being extremely winter hardy, and is said to be capable of surviving temperatures well below freezing. I see great value in growing this plant underneath and between other crops, particularly those that are harvested or enter dormancy by the onset of autumn and winter. In one bed, I sowed a mixture of corn salad and lettuce seed. The lettuce germinated within a couple of days, and the corn salad lay dormant for a month. I harvested the lettuce two months later, and the corn salad continued to grow happily in amongst the lettuce stumps.

Scorzonera (Scorzonera hispanica) and burdock (Arctium lappa) were two new crops for me this year, and I began harvesting both of them in November. These are both hardy biennials, and again, were I not leaving my gardens soon, I would have waited a few months longer before pulling them. Scorzonera appears unremarkable above-ground, with light-green strap-like leaves. Below ground it produces a long, black, brittle taproot, similar shape to a very slender carrot. Burdock is regarded by many as little more than a troublesome weed, though I believe is has great potential in mixed food gardens, and has a pleasant flavour. It is commonly eaten in Japan, where it is known as Gobo, and is generally regarded as being a particularly healthy root. I find myself drawn to experiments involving mixed sowings of shallow- and deep-rooted plants, and I suspect that crops such as burdock and scorzonera will make good companions to some shallow rooted crops, such as onions and potatoes. I found neither scorzonera nor burdock to be at all difficult to grow: Both were sown into a bed of medium fertility in late April, and lightly mulched with chopped straw in June. Germination was quick, and neither appeared to have been bothered by any pests.

I am leaving for Asia at the end of November, and will not be living in North Vancouver upon my return to Canada in early February. Jessica and I intend to settle on Quadra Island. I plan to continue writing this log, so do please check back. There is a very real possibility that I will modernize the log's format somewhat in the new year, adding a comments section, RSS feed, and integrating the images into the text. I am not happy with the old fashioned format of the current log, and look forward to creating a more reader-friendly interface. With a little bit of work, I am confident that I will finally be able to add a much-deserved "b" to my log. Thanks for reading, dear readers, and have a healthy, happy, grateful winter.