Song for Jasmine

It rained on Sunday, cold and wet. So of course, my mind turns to the garden, and the plants I shall be growing this year.

I was well satisfied with my crops last year, having managed to keep myself, Dweezeljazz, and the local birds well supplied. That said, I kept my sights somewhat low, sticking with plants that had a high chance of success and growing lots of them. This year, I’m going to be more ambitious. I’ve got a lot more tubs, a lot more seed varieties, and even a couple of cheap and cheerful coldframes to help things along.

You can see some of the seeds I bought in the photo at the top. Simple plain packets, these all came from the Organic Catalogue site, based in England. They specialise in organic seeds, which I think is just great. Not everything they offer is organic, but they have a wide selection that is, and it’s all clearly labelled, so you don’t get confused. Ordering from them was easy, and everything arrived promptly.

They provide a number of other interesting products too. My mum now has one of their window-mounted bird-feeders, as a mothers’ day gift.

Looking around on their site, I see they work with the Ferme de Sainte Marthe in France. They also sell organic seeds online, so for my francophone visitors, you may find that a more convenient place to shop. You can download their catalogue directly from their site. The Organic Catalogue site doesn’t have a downloadable catalogue (shame on them!), but you can order one delivered free by post if you’re interested.

So what am I going to plant this year? Lots! By popular request, I’m going to grow tomatoes this year. Dweezeljazz wanted me to grow some last year, but I was concerned about the occasional high winds we get here which might harm them. This year, I’m going to try three varieties, and see how it goes. I have ‘Gardeners Delight’ from the Organic Catalogue, and ‘Silvery Fir Tree’ and ‘Sugar Sweetie’, sent to us by our good friend, Shannon Ryan. These last two have absolutely the prettiest seed packets I’ve ever seen, take a look at them! Three varieties are enough for me, but not for some people. Anne Tanne is growing 19 varieties of tomato this year. Good luck Anne!

I’m also going to try my hand at growing aubergines. I’ve never grown them before, so I picked a small variety, ‘mini Bambino‘. Hopefully there’s less that can go wrong with them, though I gather they can be quite tricky. I’ve got two varieties of peppers, ‘Golden California Wonder’ (a sweet pepper) and ‘Early Jalapeno’, nice and hot. I’ve grown cayenne and other hot peppers before, and I know that a few plants can yield enough peppers to freeze and keep for the year, so I have high hopes for the jalapenos.

Parsley, spinach, coriander and radish should be easy enough to grow. I’m going to try celery, though from what I have read on the web that can be quite difficult. The few peas I grew last year worked well, so I’ll be growing a lot more this year. Rather than staking them up, I’ll let them trail over the side of the tubs, so they don’t compete with other plants for vertical space.

The other new vegetable for me will be parsnips. I’ve no idea how they will grow in tubs, but thanks to the guide to parnips by Veg Plotting, I have a few pointers. My compost may be too fresh for them, having only had one season of growth, so I’m anticipating a few split roots. As long as they taste OK, I don’t mind.

Lettuce, chard, and beetroot will also be there again. I have a few pots of seedlings coming along already, along with some tomato seedlings. They spend the evenings indoors and the days outside, in the coldframes in the sun (if there is any!). I planted them a while ago, a little too early perhaps. They sufferred a bit from the lack of light at that time, but they’re going strong now. We’re due for another week of cold nights, but after that I hope they will be able to stay outdoors permanently.

I don’t intend to do much in the flower department, my garden is primarily for eating. Sunflowers and marigolds again, yes, definitely. This year I will add sweet peas, having – err – found some seeds on a plant hanging over a garden wall last year. They would have fallen onto the road and been washed down the drain, so I’m sure the owner wouldn’t mind me rescuing them.

I’m also diversifying into fruit. I’ve grown ‘normal’ strawberries before, but this year I’m going to try ‘alpine strawberries‘. I know how readily strawberries get damaged, or eaten by almost anything that finds them, hence the choice of something that will, I expect, mature quicker due to its smaller fruit. I don’t mind sharing with the birds, but I do want to make sure I get enough for myself.

As soon as the evenings get a little warmer I’ll be planting everything I can, but for now I have only a few plants getting a headstart. Hopefully it won’t be long before I can get more on the go. I’ve got all my tubs lined up waiting for plants, and I’m looking forward to filling them. I got a great deal of satisfaction from my garden last year, and it’s bigger and better this year, so I should have even more fun playing in it.

For the eco-minded individual, March is a good month. There are events of all shapes and sizes that you can take part in. Here are a few of them.

The biggest event this month will undoubtedly be Earth Hour. It takes place at 8:30 pm local-time on Saturday 27th, wherever you are in the world. Participating is simple, sign up on the website (so they can know how many people take part) and then, when the time comes, just turn off your lights for an hour. The idea is not to save electricity, one hour of lighting won’t make that much difference to anything. No, the idea is to show your support for solid action in favour of tackling climate change. There’s more information on the Earth Hour FAQ, if you’re interested.

Last year, hundreds of millions of people worldwide took part. Towns, cities, and major landmarks across the globe darkened to show their support for action to tackle climate-change. The fact that world leaders let us down in Copenhagen in December only makes it all the more important that we send the message loud and clear once more. So go on, sign up, switch off, and do something different in the dark for an hour!

If you’re in Canada, there’s another event that might interest you. March 11th has been declared Bottled Water Free Day.

This has been organised by the Canadian Federation of Students, the Sierra Youth Coalition and the Polaris Institute. Their aim is simple, they want to encourage people to pledge to stop drinking bottled water.

Why? Because bottled water represents a great deal of plastic and fuel used to transport water that is no better than tap water – and often is tap water – so that people can pay 1000 times as much as it would cost them to take it from the tap. The bottles leach chemicals into the water, which is not good, and then they often end up in landfill instead of being recycled, which is also not good.

If you’d like to know more, take a look at the video, or click on the logo above to go to the Bottled Water Free Day site.

On this side of the pond, there’s the next edition of Semaine sans pesticides (Week without pesticides) coming up, March 20-30. Pesticides are used so heavily these days that people in developed countries are contaminated from birth, which can’t be good. Take a look at the protective gear this guy is wearing in order to spray that stuff on your food!

There are ever-growing numbers of organic farmers out there, so healthier food is becoming more and more available, which is a good thing. For that matter, you can grow your own vegetables organically with little effort, so it’s quite possible to get off the pesticides. It would be great if more farmers took the organic route!

Semaine sans pesticides is a growing event, with participation from all over the world, though most of the events are in France. Why not check out their map and see if there’s something of interest near you. You can turn up and show your support, or simply find out more about the pesticides on your plate.

On a smaller scale, if you’re in Ferney-Voltaire on Monday 29th, drop in to the Cafe du Soleil (14 Grand Rue) at 8pm. The association Eco-pratique will be meeting to discuss reducing electricity consumption, swapping personal experience and ideas. If you’re in the area, drop in and join the fun!

The garden is finished for the year, which is a shame because it’s been a lot of fun. We had the last of our lettuce just a few days ago. It was surviving nicely due to the lack of frost, though it was hardly growing anymore, it’s too cold now. I’m surprised it has lasted so well, I wish I’d planted more towards the end of the summer!

Today I ‘officially’ closed the garden by covering the big plant tubs with their water-trays, to avoid having the winter rains leech out all the nutrients before the next growing season. I’d never really paid much attention to how soil in pots gets depleted of its nutrients before, but that was brought home to me this year. The white tub that I have had for many years grew tiny sunflowers compared to those with new soil, which were three or four times bigger. Shame on me, I should have known better.

I don’t want to use chemical fertilisers, I don’t want to replace the soil in the pots, and I don’t think I can realistically put a compost heap on my terrace, so I’m trying something different. I’m digging small, deep holes in the soil, and burying vegetable peelings in them. Hopefully, over winter, they will rot down enough to feed the soil without also rotting next years plants. Maybe it will work, maybe not, we’ll see!

Our garden has been quite productive, and we’ve enjoyed the produce from it. A recent study claims that organic food is no healthier than normal food, but that study completely ignored the use of pesticides in conventional agriculture. I’ve read enough to convince me that pesticide-free veggies are a good thing. Of course, there are other benefits to growing your own vegetables, such as reducing food-miles.

Food-miles are a measure of the amount of fuel needed to transport food from the farm to your plate. That fuel all contributes to climate-change by emitting greenhouse-gasses, so getting your food locally means less global warming. You can’t get more local than your own garden, so growing your own food is good for the planet too!

On a larger scale, organic farming is also beneficial in the fight against climate change in other ways. Organic farming feeds the soil, not the plant, and doing so means that the soil will absorb and hold more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than chemical-intensive methods. The Carbon Farmers of America have taken this one step further, deliberately adopting farming techniques to optimise carbon sequestration, and making farms more productive in the process. The story of the farms of “Yobarnie” and “Nevallan”, in Australia, is quite an eye-opening account of how well such techniques work.

So your organic garden may be good for the climate, as well as providing good food. I could have squeezed a few more vegetables out of our garden this year, but I’m glad I left some space for sunflowers instead. Apart from being pretty in their own right, they’ve been feeding the bees all summer, and now feed the birds, long after nearly everything else out there has finished. If you look closely at the photo below you’ll see there are 6 goldfinches, quite a sight!

Nor is it just goldfinches, we’ve had great-tits too. As you can see, they’re not timid about getting their share, this one was quite happy to push in while the goldfinches were feeding. He’s more agile than the goldfinches, so manages to get his way.

Other birds have benefited from both the goldfinches and the great tits dropping seeds on the ground. Black Redstarts and sparrows often forage around the pots while the other birds are doing their stuff. Sparrows may be plain compared to other birds, but they’re still fun to watch. Here’s 3 of them looking on while a fourth is dipping into the bowl of water we put out for them. You can’t easily tell, but he was taking a bath at the time.

Finally, although the garden outdoors is finished for the year, we’re still growing something! Dweezeljazz has got the bug now, and is growing fresh shoots of all sorts for our salads. They’re very easy to grow, using a neat little gadget from Satoriz, and make a welcome addition to our meals. Thank you, Dweezeljazz.

Although we’ve had a heatwave recently here in France, the dominant theme for this summer has been rain. Lots of rain. And yet more rain. With all this rain, I’ve not had to water my terrace-garden very often. I was initially concerned that my plants, being on a west-facing terrace, would get too hot. That has not been a problem! Despite this, I’ve had a fair bit of success in the garden so far. We’ve had lettuce and chard in good quantities since the middle of June, and will still have plenty for some time to come. I planted a second crop of both a while ago, and that is giving me a good succession. We’ve also had our first beetroot, as you can see from the pictures here. They weren’t quite the cricket-balls you can get in the supermarkets, but they were certainly big enough for us. As with everything that comes straight from the garden into the kitchen, they tasted great! There are still plenty more out there, so they’re not done yet!

The beetroot leaves have been supplementing the chard whenever we want fresh greens. I deliberately planted many of my plants closer together than they say you should on the packet, with the intention of taking a leaf off here and there to keep them from getting overcrowded. This has worked well, more or less, and has allowed me to make good use of the few tubs I have available. Lettuce, chard, and beetroot have rubbed shoulders – or roots – and kept us well supplied. That said, I have to admit that some of the plants were just too close, and I should have left them more room. I’ll know better next year!

Not everything has been entirely successful. The herbs I planted have not grown as fast or well as I had hoped. The thyme has not flowered, which has disappointed me because I was hoping it would attract bees. I think it may have been too cold and wet for it, and it has also been crowded by some of the leafier plants. The rosemary never came up, which is also disappointing because it can provide useful food for bees in winter.

I lost a number of seedlings, plucked by birds looking for something to eat. I’m guessing that they may have been younger birds, perhaps recent fledglings learning how to forage, because the damage all happened in a short period of time around the end of June. I’ve not lost any later seedlings this way. If they were adults that pull up seedlings regularly, I would expect to have lost some of my later sowings too.

I also had an attack of powdery mildew on the beetroot leaves. Looking around, it seems that one way to deal with that is to spray the plants with milk! Incidentally, if you go looking for the article referenced on that page, the link they give is incorrect. The original paper was in the journal of Crop Protection, not Crop Science. If your Portugese is any good, you can also take a look at a technical note by the same author, which you can get without paying for it!

I’ve mentioned the ants on my sunflowers, they were farming aphids. I read in several places that mint deters ants. Not having any mint to hand at the time, I put down the contents of a few mint tea-bags, and that seemed to do the trick! That same link actually advocates planting sunflowers so the ants will herd aphids onto them, taking them away from other plants. I didn’t read that bit first time round, it seems there’s more to companion-planting than meets the eye!

The peas I planted actually produced some decent pods. I think I will try a few more next year, cascading out of the pots where they will not compete with other plants. The spring-onions are doing well too, as is the basil, of course. We have been having some very good salads lately!

We have 6 large tubs for our terrace garden, plus a number of smaller pots, which provide a good deal of growing space. We shall add more tubs next year. We paid more for the pots and soil than we have saved on the food we have grown so far, but I think that it will only take 3 or 4 years to pay back the initial investment. Meanwhile, we’ve been able to go shopping less often, saving us time, and money on petrol, and we have been able to supplement our table regularly, with good-tasting, pesticide-free produce. All things considered, our first summer of organic terrace gardening has gone very well so far, and it’s not over yet!

Back in April, I described my gardening plans for this year. Time for an update! It’s been seven weeks since then, so I ought really to be well advanced with my plants. Unfortunately, we have not had access to our terrace all that time because of work that needed doing on it, so I’m rather behind with the schedule. Still, there is progress to show, and here it is.

I bought the seeds, here they are, most of them. I was interested to see that some of the seeds on offer were ‘certified organic’, like the beetroot here on the left. I’d never heard of organic seeds before, but if that means they don’t use pesticide or fertilisers to raise the stock, that gets my vote.

I also got some big pots. I have had the white one you see here for some time, and I recall it was expensive when I got it. It seems pots still are expensive, which is why I’m not getting more until I am convinced I can produce something in them. The brown pots are huge, they hold 120 litres of compost each, that’s over four cubic feet. I would have preferred white pots that would absorb less heat, but despite the number of garden centres in our area it’s not easy to find something suitable. Large pots will hold a lot of water, so plants will survive better in the summer heat. Our balcony takes the full force of the summer sun, so that’s an important consideration!

Our local organic store, Satoriz, now sells organic compost, which is a great idea. It’s good stuff, but it can’t be used on its own because it needs something mixed with it to help it drain well. On its own, it tends to pack solid when its wet, forming a solid layer like a dried-up river bed. That’s not good because the soil doesn’t breath or absorb water properly when it’s like that, it needs to be open and porous. Still, it’s good to know that ‘organic’ is really entering every part of the home-food-growers’ domain, and I will definitely be using this compost as a regular part of my gardening.

When you fill a pot as big as these with new soil, it’s a good idea to make sure the soil is thoroughly wet before you plant anything. The compost sold by garden centres is normally very dry so it weighs less, people are more likely to buy it if they can carry it. When it’s that dry it can take a lot of water to soak it thoroughly, these big pots actually took 30 litres of water before anything drained out the bottom, that’s one quarter of their volume in soil! I watered them 3 or 4 times over a day or so before I was happy enough to plant in them.

The lettuce is growing strongly, as are the chard and beetroot. I’ve already thinned them out, but I may still have to thin the lettuce some more, they’re growing very vigorously. The spring onions have sprung, as you can see at the top of the post. You can see a sunflower growing well in the white pot above, but I can’t take the credit for that one, it’s a seed that found its way into the pot somehow and sprouted without asking permission. The sunflowers I planted are a dwarf variety, they shouldn’t grow to more than about 18 inches/45 cm high, and you can’t see them over the edge of the pot yet.

I also have some peas coming through. I had not intended to plant peas, but we bought some for eating and there were a few that were sprouting, so we thought we’d give them a try. They’re doing very well, in fact they’re currently the biggest plants I have out there.

The french marigolds are doing well, and I did plant nasturtiums, which have also come up. The thyme, sage, rosemary, and basil have sprouted too, but they have been a bit disappointing with their germination, slow to come through and slow to get on with the job. The mint hasn’t come up at all, but that’s my only no-show this year, so I can’t really complain.

Since the herbs were supposed to be our organic pest-deterrent, that leaves the other plants a bit vulnerable at the moment. The sunflower that that seeded itself is harbouring aphids, which are being looked after by ants. That’s not good, so I need to do something about them, and would welcome any suggestions for dealing with them. I’m pretty certain the ants aren’t nesting in the pot, there are only a few of them, so I don’t have a nest to eradicate, just a few visitors.

Fortunately, other characters, such as this enormous slug, have not found their way into my little garden. That’s one advantage of an exposed, hot terrace, it forms a natural barrier to some pests. I don’t think my lettuce would last long if this guy found them!

So I’m not competing with the local farmers yet, but even since I took these photos a couple of days ago the plants have grown quite a bit. It won’t be long before I’m getting a few lettuce leaves at least. I know other people out there who are blogging about their organic gardens, The Natural Patriot has already started harvesting goodies from his. The Earth Home Dwellers are having a go too, but I don’t know how they’re getting on. C’mon guys, tell us, I’m curious!

If anyone else is growing their own organic vegetables out there I’d love to know how you’re doing?

Easter has come and gone, and those of you lucky enough to have a garden may well have been out in it planting things. I don’t have a garden, and my mum is probably raising her eyebrows right now because I didn’t get that much done in hers over Easter, but I do have a terrace, and I am looking forward to trying my hand at growing a few plants this year.

I’ve grown vegetables in pots before, but not without pesticides and fertilisers. This year will be different, I intend to follow the growing trend and see how well I manage without chemical assistance. If it’s good enough for Michelle Obama, it’s good enough for me!

Michelle Obama wants to plant an organic garden in the white house lawn, and apparently this is upsetting the agricultural chemicals industry in the US. They are concerned that it sends the wrong message because it is organic. This despite the fact that more and more people out there are moving away from pesticide use. The fourth Semaine sans Pesticides (‘week without pesticides’), just last month, was twice the size of the one last year.

14 countries participated, from Canada, South America, Europe, and Africa (a summary is available online). Pesticides are nasty chemicals, and it seems a lot of people, the world over, think we can do without using so much or so many of them. But how?

Fortunately for the small gardener, there’s a lot of good information out there about natural pest control, such as using coffee to repel slugs and snails, using neem oil as an environmentally-friendly pesticide, companion planting, for mutual pest-resistance, selecting plants to attract useful insects, and growing vegetables in pots. I’ve even read some of it, and have decided what I want to grow this year.

I want to grow lettuce, beetroot, chard, and spring onions. Beetroot leaves are good in salads, so they’re not just for the roots. I also want to plant a few herbs (basil, thyme, rosemary, mint), as much for the smell as anything. I’ve chosen these plants for a variety of reasons:

• they’re easy and fast to grow, so I can hope to get something quickly
• for the most part, they’re cut-and-come-again, so I can hope for a long season
• lettuce and chard, in particular, don’t keep too well in the fridge. By growing my own, I hope to have them fresh whenever I want them.
• they don’t need staking, so occasional high winds and storms won’t damage them (I hope)
• in the event of a disaster (hailstorm, heatwave, locusts, whatever) I should be able to replace them rapidly

Incidentally, if your parrot likes beetroot, do bear in mind that it retains its colour as it passes through the digestive system of your feathered friend. Jasmine liked beetroot, but the first few times we gave it to her we were a little concerned about the red droppings at the bottom of the cage a few hours later!

I also want to grow some flowers, partly for the colour but also for the local birds and insects – some of them anyway. The local bees will probably like the thyme, and I’m sure they’ll go for sunflowers too. The sunflower heads will be kept for feeding the birds later in the autumn and winter.

The minimal research I’ve done so far suggests that french marigolds are good at deterring aphids, so they’ll be very much in evidence, in and around the other plants. Nasturtiums are easy and, if I am to believe what I hear, edible too, but I’m not convinced. Maybe I’ll try them, maybe not.

I don’t intend to be too ambitous with my gardening this year. I won’t have a great deal of time for it and I’m not expecting to save a lot of money. I do expect to grow some tasty food, and to have a lot of fun in the process. I’ll let you know how it goes!