Squashes are great for easy storage; they keep well into February/March in a spare room around 16 C for me. I love making soups or roasting squash in the oven. Growing squash has been rather challenging in the last few years due to increased wind and cold persisting into June.

Protecting the seedlings early in the season is really important. I use plastic domes with a vent hole from the dollar store until they get too large. By then it has hopefully warmed up and the winds eased. In the city, this is often the case, but in more exposed areas, wind protection is required. My gardening buddy lent me a heavy duty plastic ring – the top of a food grade plastic barrel converted to a rainbarrel (see image above). The ring is almost 2 feet in diameter and open at the top, blocking lots of wind but allowing the sun to warm the growing squash seedling.

The next challenge is nutrients (and some hot days!). In my community garden, the rich clay soil provides all the minerals for good fruit development. In my home garden, I planted two squashes into an 8-month old compost pile. While the plants were super happy in the protected yard and vines and leaves grew many feet, most of the baby squashes shriveled up and fell off. There have been many bumblebees around, so I don’t think it’s a problem with pollination. While I don’t have any data, my feeling is that the partially cured compost is not rich enough in calcium and other minerals, plus the summer has been very cool. I added a calcium/magnesium supplement to the watering can a couple of weeks apart. After some wonderfully hot days, 2-4 small squashes developed properly. It’s possible that with time, the roots also travelled far enough into the clay below the compost pile to find what they needed.

Keeping squashes from strangling other plants is another job. In my small home garden, I created wire tunnels, a sort of bridge for the squash vines, leading them over and between other plants. Squash tendrils are very strong and grab onto any flowers or shrubs. My gardening buddy sent a photo of a great vertical trellis created with 6”x6” wire mesh (used to strengthen concrete; available from Home Depot for example). At my windy community garden, keeping the squashes low to the ground is better. So I place straw under the vines and try to keep them in the beds to avoid stepping on them.

As we creep towards shorter days and cooler nights, mildew inevitably makes an appearance. It’s best to keep the squashes well watered and fed. I give them a little bit of liquid fertilizer or seaweed fertilizer about once a week. Also, it’s best to avoid splashing soil onto the leaves. Some research suggests that spraying a mix of milk and water onto the leaves provides some protection. I use a mix of 25-30% milk into water and spray the leaves every few days. For more info, visit this site.

My favorite squashes to grow have been Red Kuri (long vines, large sweet fruit), Gold Nugget (compact plant, small orange fruit), and Gem squash (very vigorous, small green fruit). Maybe next year I’ll try out a new one. Let me know if you have a favorite that grows well in our area.

When you’re itching to plant and the weather doesn’t cooperate, growing leafy greens in containers is a great project, especially if you have a part shade location. Here are some crops that are doing well for me so far this year.

In early May, I seeded a Lettuce blend and Arugula in a shallow plastic planter filled with potting mix and a bit of compost (see tips below). Flea beetles are often a problem, attacking arugula and other plants in the mustard and cabbage family, so I kept the bowl inside while these pests were active. Once the cooler weather returned, I moved it outside to the shadier part of our deck. The arugula keeps growing even after a couple of cuttings. The arugula seeds I used are from Mumm’s Seeds, technically a package of seeds for growing indoors as microgreens. I was so thrilled with the success, I recently seeded more arugula into a pot that earlier produced a nice crop of spinach (see more info on this container below).

Another wonderful crop is Kale. This fast grower likes a good amount of soil depth. I grew a “baby kale” crop in a very shallow dish in March/April. It was nice to have something green but the growth was meager compared to the Curly Kale enjoying the extra space and proper daylight in part shade on the deck. Cabbage Butterflies will visit, so you either have to cover the kale or scout for eggs and caterpillars. BTK is an insecticide approved for organic food growing, available in garden centres or Canadian Tire. I use this bacteria-based product only for cabbage crops that are not easy to cover with fabric because it will kill all caterpillars, including those of butterflies we enjoy seeing around.

Swiss Chard takes a while to grow and now I’m finding some damage from Leaf Miners. The larvae feed and defecate between leaf layers, making the leaves rather unappetizing. Leaf miner adults are in the fly family and burrow into the soil. You can mulch the soil around your plants with newspaper to reduce the chance the flies can lay eggs and to prevent the pupae from emerging. You can also cover the crop with floating row cover. Inspect your leaves and crush any clusters of tiny white eggs.

Pak Choi and Napa Cabbage are quite easy to start from seed as well. I grew them in a plastic 6-pack of potting mix under a Sunblaster T5 light, then transplanted them into containers. Both crops are favorite snacks of Flea Beetles. I covered the Pak Choi with floating row cover and kept the Napa Cabbage in a sunny window until the Flea Beetles disappeared (maybe they found tastier Canola crops?). The Pak Choi is ready for harvest while the Napa Cabbage will need another couple of weeks to fill out.

Herbs like basil, dill and parsley work well from seed in containers but thyme, sage, oregano, rosemary and mint take a long time and are easier by purchasing a plant. Cilantro is ok, but seems to flower very quickly – it prefers a cool and moist spot in the garden.

Ideal Pot Size: Larger containers remain damp longer, so use the lightest, largest pot you can afford and still move if necessary. You generally need 12-18 inches of soil depth. Very tall, narrow pots dry out and drain fast. For non-edibles, I bottom fill deep pots with chunks of Styrofoam or empty pop bottles, then top that with landscape fabric and potting mix.

Container Materials: Clay is beautiful but can be heavy. Glazed pots do not dry out as fast in our climate and work well as long as you empty or cover them after the soil is dry in the fall. Wet soil expands when it freezes and could crack your pot. I love using glazed clay pots to complement beautiful flowers or herbs.
Plastic is light and available in many sizes and colours. Plastic works well for vegetables, as you can easily move the pots from sun to shelter. It can be relatively easy to clip on covers to protect your crops from pests or cold. Black plastic pots heat up, which is useful for growing peppers and sweet potatoes. Self-watering bucket planters are really great for a single tomato plant, whereas a self-watering Earthbox can accommodate 2 small tomatoes or a row of 4 small Pak Choi plants (and it’s not too difficult to cover this crop to protect them from flea beetles). Earthboxes have a staking kit option that works great for cucumbers. The relatively higher investment cost of an Earthbox with wheels is worth it for folks with limited space and a need to move the containers around with ease.

Plastic containers are great for a children’s project. The containers in my photo above were painted last spring by a group of garden club kids at Windsor Park School. I brush off flaky paint, then put on a new coat of white or beige paint. Once dry, I let the children decorate the container with child safe craft paint before we plant flowers. This spring, garden club was of course cancelled, so I planted some spinach in one of the pots and transplanted wild strawberries into the other. It reminds me of the wonderful garden club hours we can hopefully enjoy again in 2021.

Potting Mix (“soil”): Containers need to be filled with potting mix, not soil or “dirt”. Potting mix is a blend of peat moss (and may contain coconut choir), perlite and vermiculite. These materials help plant roots anchor and grow, but it does not become hard and heavy. For nutrition, you can add about 25% compost by volume, plus some worm castings and you will need to add fertilizer. I use an organic, granular veggie fertilizer when I plant and then water with some fish or seaweed fertilizer once in a while. This provides a little bit of a faster boost and adds nutrients that may not be present in the granular fertilizer.
(Click on photos to see larger image)

How to Store Seeds
Any seeds, whether store bought or saved from your garden, should be stored in a cool, dark, dry place. Keeping them in the freezer is not required and may do more harm than good.
Before storing seeds that you harvested from your garden, they need to be completely dry. You may want to keep them in airtight containers, but paper envelopes work fine as well.

How long can you store seeds?
Vegetable seeds have different viability. You can keep seeds longer than the suggested seed viability time, but you will need to plant more, as many of the seeds will no longer germinate. Here is a table with the seed viability of some common vegetables seeds. This info is from Edible Plants for Prairie Gardens by June Flanagan.

Self-Seeding Veggies, Herbs and Flowers
Instead of saving seed and controlling where plants grow, some people allow some plants to self-seed. The seeds fall on the ground or are carried to a new location by wind or birds. These can take over a garden if you do not pull some, although they only reproduce by seed.

Some of these may include:

• Cilantro
  
• Parsley
  
• Dill
  
• Lettuce
  
• Arugula
  
• Borage (see image)
  
• Buckwheat
  
• Sunflowers
  
• Sunberries (black berries related to tomato) – very prolific and rather invasive
  
• Pot Marigold (Calendula)
  

Which seeds can you save?
You can save seeds from heritage or open-pollinated vegetables. Seeds from Hybrids may grow but the plant will likely not produce fruit with the same characteristics you had in the first year.

Easy Seeds to Save
•    Legumes – beans, runner beans, peas, fava beans, chick peas, soy beans, lentils
The plants naturally lose their leaves until only the pods are left. The beans may even rattle in the pods, but may also pop open. Pick the dry pods and dry them out in your house for a few days. Then pop them open to remove the seeds or gently step on them to release the seeds. Place them in paper bags or small, labeled envelopes. Store in a cool, dry and dark place.

•    Lettuce and Arugula
Allow the plant to ‘bolt’ and grow upwards. It will produce a flowering stalk with tiny yellow flowers. The seeds develop a small parachute similar to dandelions. Pick off some of the fluffy seeds and drop them in a paper bag. Then shake or rub the seed heads to separate the white or black seeds from the fluff. Label and store.

•    Tomato and Cucumber
Pick a very ripe tomato (or an over-ripe, yellow cucumber) and cut or squirt the seeds into a glass. Add a little bit of water and let this ferment for about 3 days until the water is a bit bubbly. Rinse the seeds into a sieve and wash off the gelatinous covering. Place them on a screen or on a towel for drying. Make sure they are very dry before storing.

•    Pepper, Eggplant, Melons and Squash
Scoop the seeds onto a drying screen or towel to dry. Wash first if necessary. Make sure they are very dry before storing. Note: Melons and Squash may cross-pollinate with other types and produce unexpected results.

More Challenging Seeds to Save
Seeds from vegetables such as carrots and beets are more challenging, as the plant needs to be kept over winter and replanted to get seed in the second season. In small yards and with our very cold winters, most casual gardeners will leave saving these seeds to the experts.

More Information
For detailed information on saving specific seeds and important reasons for saving your own seed, you can find good information on the website by Dan Jason from Salt Spring Seeds.

You can also visit The Seed Savers Exchange website. Another website to check out is: http://www.seedsave.org

Paleo, Keto, Plant Paradox, Traditional – what’s the best “diet” for your health, both short-term and over a lifetime? Are you a little confused and frustrated with information that often seems contradictive? I’m with you. It’s a jungle out there, and difficult to navigate.

This past winter, I have been trying to make sense of some food and diet related trends, from books I happened to notice at the public library. Below are a few notes about what I read. I tried to look for common threads. I then attempted to figure out how these concepts might shape my personal food choices and what I will be growing in my gardens in the coming season.
 
My family eats mostly organic and locally produced food, and we try to avoid processed or fast food. We enjoy good health overall, though lately, I have made some observations in our well-being that has me wonder about our diet – nutritional choices I thought were reasonable and sound for the long term. Niggling issues such as mild inflammation, low thyroid, and digestive discomfort make me wonder if there is a connection to what I put on the table. Right now, our issues are all manageable and relatively mild, compared to the “pandemic” of diabetes, obesity and auto-immune diseases in the news.
 
So when I stumbled on food books that promise to heal body and mind, I started reading, thinking and planning. This topic is important to me as I love growing food, cooking tasty meals and baking!
 
First, I picked up “The Plant Paradox: The Hidden Dangers in Healthy Foods That Cause Disease and Weight Gain” by Steven R. Gundry.
The book focuses on the idea that plants protect themselves against predation and therefore, some veggies we eat contain lectins, a type of gluten that causes inflammation and stress, leading to disease and excessive weight. This was a bit of a shocker, as some of my favorite foods, including some that I love to grow in the garden, are on the hit list. Potatoes and tomatoes are in the nightshade family (along with peppers and eggplant), are high in lectins and should be avoided. Plants with seeds, such as cucumbers and squashes are also a no-no. Whaaat....I always store squashes for yummy winter soups! Then there are the grains, legumes and dairy. Foods we’ve consumed for decades.
 
Another book that caught my eye is called “Eat Dirt” by Dr. Josh Axe.
Here the focus is very much on restoring the biodiversity of beneficial bacteria in our gut. The author recommends avoiding antibiotic medication, foods containing artificial ingredients such as preservatives and additives, excessive sugar, hydrogenated oils, dairy and grains. In a nutshell, we are healthiest when we eat unprocessed food produced in healthy soils and when we have regular contact with a variety of beneficial microorganisms, rather than trying to sanitize the world around us. The ideas in this book are similar to previous reading I’ve been exposed to, and feel a bit less daunting. It’s encouraging that spending time in an organic garden has many benefits beyond the healthy food, such as reducing stress, exercise, aromatherapy, and contact with healing gut bacteria.
 
I have never felt compelled to follow a popular diet, but both the Paleo and Keto diets have been receiving lots of attention. I can’t claim that I have read a lot about these.

However, the “The Paleo Cure” by Chris Kresser also has some very good arguments for avoiding toxins and processed foods that often cause inflammation and damage the gut flora, such as sugar, gluten, and seed oils (soy, corn, canola, etc). The book is big on nutrient density, including naturally raised meats, organic veggies, and limited amounts of seasonal fruit.
 
Both “Eat Dirt” and “The Paleo Diet” remind me of a cookbook I’ve used once in a while called “Traditional Diets” by Sally Fallon.
Careful preparation of food, including soaking seeds, fermenting veggies, dairy and grains, and using all parts of an animal, are common themes. The idea of supporting locally produced food that honours the integrity of the natural ecosystem also appeals to me.
 
Finally, I read sections of “The End of Alzheimers” by Dale E. Breseden.
This book offers a very good explanation of the changes that happen to a person’s brain showing cognitive decline leading to Alzheimer’s. There appears to be a strong link between this disease and nutrition, as well as the importance of healing a “leaky gut”, regular exercise, proper sleep, reduced stress and elimination of mould and toxins in our work and home environment. There is also a strong genetic risk, but the book provides hope that the holistic program described in the book can improve symptoms.
 
Common Threads in these Books
The most important foods and ingredients to avoid are:

• gluten-containing grains, refined sugar, soda beverages, and refined vegetable and seed oils

In contrast, the highest priority is:

• a diet rich in vegetables, naturally fermented veggies, eggs, and wild-caught fish
• consume naturally fermented unprocessed foods such as sauerkraut, kimchi, kefir or kombucha

Finally, the recommendations are for a more limited intake of:

• legumes, nightshades, fruit, meat (especially from animals on a grain/corn/soy diet) and occasional dairy

What – no Bread??
One of the most difficult recommendations is to reduce or even give up products with gluten containing grains. In our family, we love fresh bread and home-made, low sugar muffins and pancakes. One way to reduce the impact of gluten is to let lactic acid bacteria and yeasts ferment the flour, as when baking with Sourdough. I am the happy recipient of a sourdough starter and have been experimenting with sourdough breads, muffins, crackers, pancakes and waffles for a few months. It requires some planning skills and takes a bit more time, but I enjoy the challenge.

Last winter, I had some small Georgia Jet sweet potatoes left over and they started sprouting in January (see blog post below). I pulled off the small plants ("slips"), and potted them up in containers filled with potting mix. I managed to overwinter them until spring, placing them under fluorescent lights in March.

In the summer of 2018, I decided to compare the growth of sweet potatoes both in a very large container on our deck, and some in my community garden plot. What a difference! I had “huge” sweet potatoes in the containers filled with 75% potting mix and 25% compost, with an addition of some organic veggie fertilizer. Two plants yielded about 8 beautiful potatoes. It was certainly not a bumper crop, but really enjoyable.

By comparison, the sweet potatoes in my community garden plot were skinny and small. The soil is rich clay soil that produces many great veggies suitable for our short season. For sweet potatoes, it is too heavy and takes too much time to warm up in the spring and after rain. 
Therefore, I will grow sweet potatoes again in large containers in the sunniest area of my yard.

After the tuber harvest and a frost that killed my sweet potato foliage, I decided to plant one of the fibrous roots into a pot. Sure enough, it eventually leafed out again. I took some "slips" and planted them in 4 inch pots. The plants grew very nicely, but I realized that keeping these plants alive from December to May is not realistic. I gave them to a Little Green Thumbs teacher, and she planted them with her students into earthboxes in her indoor garden. A recent photo shows the growing very nicely!

Want to try your own sweet potatoes? A friend has already put in our order for slips from Mapple Farm (NB) as they sell out fairly quickly. Other sources:
Burts Greenhouses (ON)
Gelert Garden Farm (ON)
Sage Garden Greenhouses (MN)
Veseys (PEI)

An unexpected winner was Selma Fino Bulb Fennel. I purchased the seeds from West Coast Seeds and planted a handful of seeds in potting mix on March 23. I placed the seedlings under fluorescent lights until hardening off time and eventually they went out into the garden bed May 26. I also seeded some fennel seeds between the transplants for a later crop. In early August, we had some very large bulbs to harvest.
The seeds I had planted in May developed into nice seedlings which I transplanted into an empty bed on June 21. The plants did really well and produced beautiful, tasty bulbs that kept well into September in the garden. I used the bulbs fresh in salads, lightly sauteed in omelettes, and I dried many of the fronds for later use in soups.

I was very pleased with many food plants I tried last year. So as I’m planning my garden for this spring, here are plants I want to grow again.
 
Lemon Cucumbers are a bit unusual yet very tasty. I bought new seeds last and with fairly regular rain, they produced heavily. These cucumbers are lemon yellow, roundish like an apple and taste very similar to a regular cucumber, but rarely turn bitter. Westcoast Seeds has another ‘white’ Australian cuke, an old heirloom called Crystal Apple. Apparently it’s “less scrambly”, so I’m going to compare the two.

Melons: In 2017 I purchased a Sugar Baby Watermelon (75 days to maturity) at Kuhlman’s and it produced only 2 melons, but they were very delicious. So in 2018, I’m going to try my own watermelon seedling, a variety called Diana (75 days) with a yellow skin and dark pink flesh.
A very prolific producer last year was a musk melon plant I bought from Kuhlman’s and another one I received from a friend. Both musk melons were not super sweet, but it was a nice treat to pick one from the basked almost every day for a couple of weeks. I saved some seeds and will be growing them again.

Squash: I grow some varieties of squash every year because they store right into March or April. I really like Red Kuri squash or Gold Nugget. For 2018, I am very excited to try out Styrian Hullless Pumpkin from Heritage Harvest Seed, because the seeds are “naked” and can be harvested and used directly! This pumpkin takes around 95 days to maturity, so it is a bit of a gamble and will be race against time before next winter.

Sweet Potatoes: A friend ordered Georgia Jet Sweet Potato slips from Mapple Farm for me and I grew them in 4 inch pots inside until they were ready to be transplanted in early June last year. My deeper bed at home with lots of compost produced slightly fewer but larger tubers compared to my community garden patch. There the soil has more clay (and more sun) and the tubers were thinner and longer.

While we enjoyed many of the small roots that traveled quite far and wide in my raised garden bed, I was not sure I would repeat my efforts. Until some of the smaller roots started sprouting in January... So I've decided to give it another try and pot them up. I will plant the slips into a very large black planter in late May. I'm hoping the extra heat might produce larger roots. Below, I have listed some companies that ship sweet potato slips - you will need to decide very soon as they will sell out!

Burts Greenhouses (ON)
Gelert Garden Farm (ON)
Sage Garden Greenhouses (MN)
Mapple Farm (NB)
Veseys (PEI)