Year-Round Urban Greens Farm, Arts and Sustainability Youth Hub, Protected Culture Garden Installatio
Diverse frozen greens from fall 2022 for sale by donation. Blanched fresh, finely chopped and ready to go. Free of plant diseases, tunneling larvae, pesticides and fungicides. Stored in Zip Zag bags, which are air tight, prolong the life and exclude freezer odours.
The foggy polytunnel this morning, featuring tree collards along the back wall. It's currently 43 degrees in there but not in direct sun, as there are so many plants that they shade each other. Everything is doing ok, even the peas! I'm also growing sweet potatoes (for leaf production), okra, Armenian cucumbers, Mercury hybrid cucumbers, Emerald Everleaf Basil, Blue Lake pole bean, Contender bush bean, New Zealand spinach, cow pea, Welsh onion and flowering cilantro and dill. A veritable jungle!
I saw an aphid for the first time yesterday on my operation. Where? In a mesh tent where I am growing chard to prevent leaf miner feeding. I have inspected every leaf I have harvested from cole crops before bringing them in and looked and looked but otherwise they are absent. I also have not seen flea beatles. My theory is that due to the protected growing, all the early claytonia and cilantro flowered earlier than anywhere in the area and attracted swarms of beneficials.
Just doing a wee harvest before the groundhog does again after composting countless mature and healthy but ruined plants. Groundhog are on a whole other level than bunnies. Basil is not a favourite but also not an effective deterrent. They just plough it down, flattening the bed to reach the kale, beans and lettuce, beheading them all. They can climb, jump and dig. The poor creatures have been displaced from construction along the Spurline trail and the removal of vegetation.
Sometimes acceptance is the necessary step to take. My ancestors would have starved in this scenario so there are a lot of emotions right now. The next step is building enclosures, burying fencer wire 4 feet vertically underground around the polytunnel (though it's already 4 feet out horizontally) and planting onions, fennel and basil in open areas. My youngest loves fennel and calls it nature's candy. Too bad it kills everything it's planted next to! Perhaps I will have less w**ding. Thank you to all who supported Granskou Greens for a successful year. Next year will look VERY different.
First blog since winter, thanks to the rain. I aim to post specifically about growing various greens and purples. Felix, this is for you.
The only reason I can post this is we finally got rain for the first time in 6-7 weeks and I have no irrigation system. I'll be posting in gratitude of 4 plants that served me well this spring, as I am gradually ripping them out: Claytonia, Choho, Purple Mizuna and Mâche (a,k,a, corn salad, lamb's ...
Before I pitch a bag of organic wheatgrass powder and spirulina in the worm bin (they are hungry), does anyone want it? For obvious reasons, I am not craving it/needing it these days.
I am offering a deal on 8mm TWINWALL POLYCARBONATE, as I am ordering large quantities to work with a school and renovate my front yard. The shipping is the same for 10 sheets as it is for 30 or 50. If you buy a small amount for a cold frame or 2 you will spend more on shipping than the product. Please contact me for more info should you be interested. They will be delivered in September and would need to be picked up in a timely manner.
Has anyone seen any aphids this year yet? I have not seen one which is really surprising. Last year I had an infestation in my indoor seedlings which got under control when they went outside. I have a theory but just checking in with other gardeners first.
Aphids are small sap-sucking insects and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Common names include greenfly and blackfly,[a] although individuals within a species can vary widely in color. The group includes the fluffy white woolly aphids. A typical life cycle involves flightless females giving li...
Bye bye spinach. You'd only just begun and now you are done. The leaf miner is active and loving this heat. Such is farming. Many clients request spinach but it is one of my trickiest crops and the window of success is so small. Move over spinach, come on basil.
The last month has been abundant at Granskou Greens and with great pleasure I have shared this with my 17 dedicated clients (and their friends). I have pushed the limit on what my beds and pots can deliver, as the polytunnel took a break due to hot days and cold nights and is now a refuge for Armenian cucumber, okra and Lima beans. I have developed an effective, rodent deterred and varied composting system for all our waste and those of apartment dwellers. The learning curve has been long, creative, fulfilling, frustrating and expensive but well worth it. Here are some pics of April and May.
Today's indoor greens and purples in a bowl by my partner, Trevor Ewert, of https://onceuponatree.ca/ We will fill your new bowl with every purchase.
Outdoor greens waiting for me to do some ice picking...or grow a really long arm.
If you're out shoveling your driveway at midnight, I'm also out but instead I am shoveling snow from the roof of the polytunnel ONTO my driveway. I don't drive anyway. I'd still much rather do this than water in the noon sun during a heat wave. Good thing my teenager kept me up tonight! This snow in unreal!
What fun. My first speaking gig. Thank you, Waterloo Gardeners.
Finally some sun. Things will warm up and grow more but it also is more work in certain ways because I have to vent in the morning and close up the tunnels in the late afternoon so the plants don't cook. Today was the 2nd time all winter I have had to vent! Not that I'm venting about it. This weather is glorious.
I don't take selfies as I don't even have a cell phone but this is where I sit at the edge of a cliff, taking pics on a night that is currently at -19 degrees Celsius and plummeting, to gloat over the risks that I am taking. Passersby inquire and some even shake their heads at my insanity. But seriously, with the right infrastructure and with some experience, I have found that there are simply different risks and efforts than summer growing. The coldest nights of the year are euphoric and ceremonial, going outside in the crisp air with bags of my mother's plentiful woollen knitting to pile around the 4x4 worm composters and sheets of hand made felt from my workshop to add yet another layer on the low tunnels. The wool moths with meet their fate and the added insulation will retain the gentle heat from the led lights and in-ground vermicomposters to keep most areas around freezing and just on the cusp of frost, as seen here. Thank you mother nature, for the best and most beautiful insulation: snow. I aim for outdoor winter growing to be as common place as flying (though I still prefer to keep my feet on the ground!) The clients I have gotten going with this are hooked. They have a whole new view.
17 degrees Celsius in the polytunnel currently, as it's been the first time since November with consistent sun on it, so I am venting the inside tunnels for a few hours before closing them to collect heat. 4 degrees in the main space of the tunnel overnight and surely warmer in the interior tunnels with weak grow lights and thinsulate covers. This is thanks to the snow piled along the sides and the grow lights inside. All this lettuce has been planted right in the pot 2 weeks ago to hold foliage off the ground and prevent transplant shock. I can then remove the root ball and hot compost it, as fallowing fields and crop rotation are generally not a reality on a small urban farm. To the left, the claytonia has taken over by self seeding along with spinach I seeded in November where the lettuce died from fungal diseases in late fall/early winter. Under the cardboard is a deep in ground vermicomposter in a plastic garbage can with holes drilled. Only bokashi prefermented kitchen scraps and pea microgreen roots are included to prevent attracting rodents. Rosemary plants are placed as a deterrent.
Supplying about a dozen weekly clients and our own family of 5, I have not been blogging since June. Here, I give a peek into a pre-fab low tunnel with my experiments on getting the heat and light just right. Of course, first everything went very wrong.
https://www.granskougreens.com/post/goldilocks-and-winter-growing-the-sweet-spot-with-the-heat
My big lantern on the winter solstice. Putting the plants to sleep. They won't really grow on these cold nights but the LED grow lights kept on until our bedtime help to create some warmth and to reduce the activity of the feasting invasive winter cutworm.
Many ask what my favourite tasks are at Granskou Greens. Harvesting? Wrong. Planting? Sometimes. My most prevalent task is constructing, renovating and rodent proofing grow spaces. My all time favourite aspects are cultivating COMPOST and CLIENTS. I am happiest with my elbows in pickled food waste or knocking on a neighbour's door to deliver. How do they relate?
I am currently in the throws of various experiments and composting endeavours to create coir based disease free potting soil at accessible prices for growers who supply their own food. While I have reached capacity in terms of my weekly produce clients, I aim to expand in this direction. Read here how heavy metals and other contaminants end up in potting soil and fertilizers in addition to non-renewable peat moss. It may surprise you. I am too busy with my hands in the muck to post it all on FB so book a tour to find out more!
https://www.essentialstuff.org/2015/12/05/cat/toxic-industrial-waste-in-chemical-fertilizers-compost-potting-soil/
A vast majority of commercial farms use chemical fertilizers rather than Organic methods to grow large-scale commercial crops such as potatoes, peas, wheat corn and soy. Most of these chemical fertilizers contain ‘biosolids,’ another name for “treated sewage sludge … intended for agricultura...
FLASH SALE! Pea shoots: $5/100grams until December 17.
Limited quantities.
Email [email protected]
Running and expanding an all season urban farm without a car. Returning from the hardware store with supplies in a sleeping bag or hiring the youth in my neighbourhood to help haul a load of lumber. It can be done. Disclaimer: It also helps to have a partner who drives for those really big or distant loads.
The polytunnel today. A big shout out to Trevor Ewert, Rachael Ward and Yen Evers for helping me finally deliver this big baby!
Some are wondering if I am still in business. In fact I have been putting my energies into harvesting and delivering, blanching and freezing, expanding operations and renovating the property with water management and composting in mind. Here are a few pics of my back yard from a few weeks ago before any covers went on. Doing this with 3 kids in 3 different schools who bring home various illnesses has taken all my resources.
My new free indoor beneficial. That's right folks, earwigs. I was getting another aphid infestation in my fall seedlings and there was one tray that was spared. Turns out I had a friend coming out between the soil blocks at night to snack. When the aphids were gone from the tray it started to eat the seedlings a bit, so perhaps something to monitor. I spent hundreds of dollars on lacewings in the spring and find that earwigs work pretty good. Plus, they can fend off the ants. When they have done eating the aphids, I release them or move them.
If you walk past kale without adding it to your cart in the grocery section and have a bit of a bad conscience...don't. Especially if it is from abroad, I would advise not to put it in the cart and don't feel badly for walking past. Read this article to find out more. I can only now grow it from fall to spring because of pest and disease pressure. See the photo of my Siberian kale in July. The demand and changing climate has seen a rise of such pressure in the commercial growing industry too and the solutions are largely chemical. https://time.com/5554573/kale-dirty-dozen-list-pesticides/
The power of a landshare. Planted 300 heads of garlic bulbs on a large heritage plot near downtown Waterloo with a man who grew potatoes in Ireland in the 1930's and wants to learn about growing his own food in retirement. This is one of 3 gardens and it was far away from the house so I felt confident that there were not heavy metal residues from old paint etc. There were black walnuts here so he wasn't successful in the past and was thrilled with the result. He has been having so much fun gifting a lot of his half. Best of all, we cultivated a friendship. If you know someone with land and they are interested in what you are doing there is no harm in asking/offering. Thank you Phelim Boyle!
Look at how much is wasted when we purchase grocey store celery! We cook with the tops. Not to mention that it is highly sprayed and the nutrient content is reduced because it is blanched in the field (wrapping something around it and hilling dirt to prevent sunlight from getting to the stalks). My kids love the crunch even though it tastes a bit strong. That's all they know and have few grocery store references. To me, blanching veggies in the field is like putting them in tight ill fitting jeans, covering grey hairs and lightening skin. Each to their own if this is your preference but celery, we love you as you are.
With a shoulder injury, these concrete blocks were hard to move. So they became a garden bed! Tricolour Amaranth in the middle.
5 heads of broccoli tonight. One for each of us and the biggest oen for little Espen. The leaves are marvelous too so the plant will keep on giving. Part of the success is that this is Arcadia, a cold tolerant hybrid variety, planted out early without protection and resistant to downy mildew. I lost hundreds of seedlings to dowy mildew last spring.
Greens up for grabs at Granskou Greens in central Kitchener. Though I picked 22 bags for clients and a local co-op today I still need to make some breathing room for slug/disease control and to open up space for summer greens. If you want a big bag for a little donation and want to check out my all season urban greens farm, come on by. Message for location and to arrange.
$10/300g pick/wash-your-own. Minimum order of $15/600g picked, washed and delivered (where possible).
Watermelon Seedlings: peat free and plastic free. $4 each or $3 each for 5 or more. Crimson Sweet. Grown in coir (coconut fibre) and biodegradable bags to prevent disturbance to their roots, transplant shock and damage from diggers. We make cages out of fencer wire to protect them once ripening. Available for $10 or to rent for $5 each. Get them while they are hot!
The perfect pairing of organic fresh greens and purples and salad bowls turned by my partner, Trevor, from local wood.
Spring offer:
With every purchase of a Once Upon a Tree Salad bowl, fill it with 10% the value of the bowl either with leafy things from our urban farm or seedlings to grow your own. The same deal applies to a cutting board for preparing them. Please share. Thanks.
I just can't resist promoting the competition here. An 11-year-old. I sold some lights to her parents and this is what she is doing. Great to see!https://sites.google.com/view/miyaya?fbclid=IwAR2h1UdJUcYAZXMgHxnq5-g3xaSnO7GmnFdCC3IVpuUOYeM7lx7UjQTWbz0
Seedlings
Herbs currently available. Rosemary plugs. $4 each, 3 for $10. Dolly Basil plugs. $3.00. More tolerant of cool nights than other types. Disease resistant types available in June. Curly and flat leaf parsley, German winter thyme, creeping thyme and oregano: $2.00 - $4.00
For anyone who is growing in pots, soil blocks, raised beds or bags. If you are passionate about saving our peat bogs from distruction (an important carbon sink), I have 5kg bricks of compressed coir for sale. $22 each taxes included. Coir is a coconut husk and a byproduct of the industry. I have had great success with this brand and use it for all of my seedlings, microgreens and potted plants. It is ph neutral (unlike peat, which requires the addition of lime), holds water well and has excellent drainage, resisting compression. One can grow exclusively in coir and use liquid nutrients or add compost. Vermicompost also available.
https://www.vgrove.com/products/5kg-cu-ft-individually-wrapped
Excellent for home use or retail use where applications such as garden beds, large pots, etc., or anywhere that larger amounts are needed.
Success with beneficial insects: Lacewings. I had quite the aphid infestation, which I noticed a few months ago and traced it back to one potted plant I took in back in November or December. Since I sell seedlings and grow a lot, spraying with insecticidal soap and horticultural oil wasn't sustainable if I was to sleep. Plus it was damaging and cracking the leaves, even when used properly. So I ordered lacewing eggs and aphid midges. The aphid midges need to mate first (in spider webs) and lay eggs and I have only seen a few larvae after 2 tries. But the lacewing larvae came as eggs on jute strings and have been a huge success. They hatched a little slowly with less emergence because our house is cool but are now large and moving very fast on the plants. I still have some aphids and rinse them off periodically, making sure not to flush the larvae down the sink but there are entire trays that I have not had to touch. And my seedlings are all healthy (though my tomatoes need their feet in soil). For the kids and I, looking for them is like a game of finding Waldo. I have also had great success with predatory soil mites for fungus gnats. They worked much better than nematodes for me. Message me if you are interested in ordering some.
Seedlings, seedlings, seedlings folks. I finally have a somewhat complete list up on my website with varieties in various sizes from now until fall. Herbs, greens and fruiting veggies. There are 3 sizes so if you don't see what you want in one size, check another. Bulk prices and delivery available. Please contact me to check for availability before purchasing on the website. https://www.granskougreens.com/shop
When planning your summer garden don't forget the leafy green that has more omega 3 than any other leafy green. Any ideas?
Hint: it's relatives are a "w**d".
Though I am planting seeds all year round, 'tis the season for many of you.
Sunblaster LED prismatic lights in stock for cheaper than anywhere around. Come see my set up and figure out how to maximize your lighting and space to grow microgreens or get your garden going. 18", 24" and 36" options.
36": $95 (taxes included)
24": $71 (taxes included)
18" $60 (taxes included)
Link cords and hangers also available.
Coir bricks coming soon.
https://www.sunblasterlighting.com/our-products/new-prismatic-led/
48, Dekay Street
Kitchener, ON
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