I had an awesome afternoon playing in the garden despite the snow that blessed us all afternoon. Thanks to the help of some outstanding volunteers, the garden expansion plans have been moving right along. Matt and I got all the compost turned in so it can fester slowly for the rest of the winter and one new raised bed got filled with soil. We have almost enough garden capacity to plant the rest of our 500 garlic plants.
The folks from Rocky Mountain Flatbread came down today to help build some community compost bins. We’ve been talking about it forever and now they are well on their way to finished. We used old lumber that we scrounged from an abandoned lumber yard so no new trees were harmed! Rocky Mountain will be able to dispose of all their restaurant waste in their own neighbourhood and we will have an endless supply of organic compost! They have been actively working to reduce their carbon footprint and this will help significantly.
I just finished a week long vacation with my dad. I wanted to keep the footprint of my holiday as small as possible without limiting myself to sitting at home with the heat and lights off, reading by candle light under a pile of blankets. My dad made the three day journey from Ontario with VIA Rail to join me for some almost carbon neutral fun.
Successes
- The train trip was less carbon intensive that air travel. (approx 0.6 tonnes vs 0.8 tonnes)
- We only made four car trips, including the taxi to and from the train station.
- We made numerous trips to Home Depot with Bob trailers to fetch odds and ends (including concrete blocks & a shop trolley!) for the house and garden.
- We made it up to Grouse Mountain to go skiing and boarding using public transit alone (see pics below).
- We built the cedar fence I had been hoping to create for the last year from locally harvested wood.
- We assembled the fence using the Stil electric chainsaw (no smelly 2 stroke engine) Lisa got me for Christmas.
- I found 7 of the 10 concrete blocks I needed for the fence in the blackberry bushes accross the street. Free and recycled!
- I learned how to get around the lower mainland via transit much more efficiently.
- Lisa tested and purchased a new three wheel recumbant for our almost carbon neutral honeymoon bike tour of BC.
- We turned all compost into the garden, planted peas, lettuce and spinach.
- I offset 2 tonnes of CO2 with offsetters.ca for $40 CDN
Failures
- We made four car trips, I had hoped for zero.
- It’s really difficult to not make any garbage when you take a holiday to fix everything around the house and garden.
Photo journey to Grouse Mountain using Public Transit
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| Total trip time each was about 2 hours each way. Take the #50, to sea bus, to #136 to Grouse Mountain gondala. |
Chris with our gear trolley
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Chris on 50 bus to Waterfront Station
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Chris & I on the Seabus
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Chris on the Gondola Skyride up to Grouse
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Broken Wheelchair Lift on the Bus on the way Home.
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[tags]Carbon Neutral Vacation[/tags]
| Lettuce |
Black Prince Tomates |
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I started these plants about a week ago. The lettuce germinated within two or three days and the tomatoes broke ground yesterday. I didn’t grow 1/10th of the lettuce I needed last year so I am starting much earlier this round and have it worked into several places in the garden.
Last year was the first year I had ever grown or eaten Black Prince tomatoes. They were one of many that I picked up from the nursury and were by far the best. I had many go wrotten because I was waiting for them to turn red, which they never did. I finally figured out that they only turn a tinge of dirty red on the outside and are then ready to eat. They are brilliant red and green on inside, with a sweet, full flavour. I don’t think you will ever see them in a store because they are tender and wouldn’t tollerate transport. They were almost totally resistant to bottom rot too.
My friend Genèvieve and I got started planting outside today as well. Her companion planting book “Carrots Love Tomatoes” suggests that radishes will be more tender if planted alongside leaf lettuce so we sowed a couple rows of each directly in the cool spring soil. I thought it would be too early for lettuce but her package of mesculine mix seeds indicated that they could be planted two to three weeks before the last frost of the season. Radishes are eager in the cool spring too.
Lisa and I ate some rogue spinach last week that had laid dormant over the winter and made an early dash to life in February. It was amazingly crisp and fresh so I wanted to get more seeds in the ground as soon as possible. Genèvieve and I transplanted a couple chard plants that survived the winter into plot two and then weaved an infinity sign of spinach seeds around the two plants. Hopefully we’ll see some small plants poking their heads above ground shortly.
Greens need to be staggered and planted at least weekly to keep a steady supply available throughout the season.
[tags]Urban Agriculture[/tags]
Praise for Google Maps and a little creative use of their free API! This excellent website visually displays people in Vancouver with yards who would like a garden alongside those who want to garden but don’t have a yard.
References
[tags]Urban Agriculture, Yard Sharing, Vancouver[/tags]
I have organized a meeting with the head of Urban Agriculture from the city of Vancouver to discuss their 2010 new urban plots by 2010 initiative on February 24th 2007 at 3:00PM.
Details here: http://commgardens.meetup.com/56/calendar/5478296/
What an excellent weekend. I met David Tracey who is master landscape architect, apple tree expert, founder of Tree City Canada and community activist in the urban agriculture scene. I was planning to put my apple trees into planters but he suggested that a berm of soil would be sufficient for the dwarf trees that I purchased last fall at the UBC Apple Festival. It’s so nice when someone who knows comes along and gives you exactly what you need to know! His suggestion has saved me soo much time and hassle. My planter idea would have taken aleast 20 hours of work to build the plus the hassle of filling them with soil and maintaining them as the wood rots. The berm will be finished next weekend with a few hours of wheelbarrowing soil from the stash by Burrard Bridge.
I had an awesome afternoon playing in the garden despite the snow that blessed us all afternoon. Thanks to the help of some outstanding volunteers, the garden expansion plans have been moving right along. Matt and I got all the compost turned in so it can fester slowly for the rest of the winter and one new raised bed got filled with soil. We have almost enough garden capacity to plant the rest of our 500 garlic plants.
The folks from Rocky Mountain Flatbread came down today to help build some community compost bins. We’ve been talking about it forever and now they are well on their way to finished. We used old lumber that we scrounged from an abandoned lumber yard so no new trees were harmed! Rocky Mountain will be able to dispose of all their restaurant waste in their own neighbourhood and we will have an endless supply of organic compost! They have been actively working to reduce their carbon footprint and this will help significantly.
