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Popped into my garden for a last look before the trip. The tomatoes planted last week have settled in nicely. The heirloom variety I couldn't remember is Old Brook. The basil planted a few days earlier does not look happy; it must have taken a little frost burn.

But the basil in Toronto is doing well. I checked there yesterday afternoon, hacked ( Read more... )

I took the day off work for a doctor's appointment and to take the car for a day at the spa, a $500 treatment as it turns out, but I hold no grudge. I owe the Sunfire big time. It has run well for the past two years with practically no maintenance except new tires. Now it gets brake work and a transmission flush in preparation for the 4,000 km trip ( Read more... )

Spring is far advanced. The lilacs are in full bloom three weeks ahead of time. Warm, dry April was lovely but vaguely alarming, particularly to a vegetable gardener. We need rain.

A little fell in Toronto over the weekend and snow peas immediately began popping up along the fence where I sowed them in bitterlawngnome's garden two weeks ago. marian_w and I planted some ( Read more... )

bitterlawngnome has essentially given me the run of his garden while he travels this spring. Since last fall, when I tore down the ricketty grape arbour and cleared some brush, there is a lot of bare soil. It's an empty palette.

It occurred to me yesterday as I began pulling up tree seedlings: I'm seldom happier than when my hands are in dirt. I ought to ( Read more... )

Having set up a financial plan and resolved the major questions, I decided to take this evening off.

Jaye and Christine, the friends who lived in this apartment before me, established a vegetable garden in the little yard behind the building, so I inherited it, too. I don't expect much spare time to work there this spring, but after work I went ( Read more... )

This photo appears as sidebar to a recent post in The Yarn about this wildflower. I thought the blue-eyed grass in my rock garden had finished flowering, but today is a new sunny day, and a fresh ring of flowers opened this morning, so I wasted no time in recording it. The plant has bloomed steadily since I brought it from a garden centre a month ( Read more... )

dakoopst wanted to know which of my list of fifty activities I love I chose to do today.

Some of my favourite things just happen, like seeing sunshine through my bedroom curtains this morning.

Others might be part of my routine. I didn't make jam or chutney today, but this morning I put a special treat in the slow cooker, chicken curry (using a homemade ( Read more... )

Times are sad when the Canadian Martha Stewart of gardening, editor of recently defunct Gardening Life, can't find a job and has nothing better to do than blog. I have two or three of her books. They're lovely, but I never liked her scattered, punchy writing, offering no hothouse of insight and reflection that I love in a book like Cultivating ( Read more... )

On November 4, 2006, I installed iTunes on my computer. I don't own a portable media player other than the car stereo, but these past two years have changed the way I listen to music at home and on the road. Here is my "Top 25 Most Played" list. Compared with last time I posted this in February 2007, red titles are new to the list and purple ones ( Read more... )