My Winter Garden

This is my "winter" garden. It is indoors under a sunlight LED light that has a pink colour. The light is brilliantly pink. I have toned it down in the photos. The geraniums in the background are in full bloom all winter long, if I remember to feed them. I love geraniums indoors in the winter. They don't need much light and will get very large and bloom all winter, with a little regular feeding. 

The plants look a bit rough. I have two kittens, 5.5 mos old now, and they seem to like the plants. Some they even eat, like the spider plant I got from a special friend. They loved it. I had to protect it with small canvases I had on hand to paint. They don't eat the others, they just walk on them. I don't worry about it. I love my cats and they live here too. I'm just happy to keep the plants alive until they can go outside (the plants, not the kitties).

I keep small pieces of  important herbs growing here over the winter, in case the ones outdoors don't make it  until spring. I have chocolate mint, lavender, sage, purslane, feverfew, rosemary and probably a few others I have forgotten about. I use the feverfew for migraines. The tea works very well! I dry the leaves all summer and use it for headache tea all winter too. It works as well as the fresh leaves to lift the weight and relieve headaches. 

I grow the purslane because it is a killer bug bite relief! Really, its amazing! It grows as a rampant weed all over in Ontario and in Kelowna, just not up here, sadly. I used to be able to just pick a leaf anywhere, rub it on a bite of any kind and the swelling and itching would be gone in just a couple of minutes, never to return. I can't do that up here, but I do make a bug bite salve with it, as well as the plantago and yarrow that do grow wild up here. I sell it occasionally, when I make a large amount. I sell small samples for $2 and 120g large containers of it for $20, as long as I have enough for us to use all summer. We like it because its all natural. I do use the deet spray occasionally, when hiking in the woods but I try to avoid it if possible. 

Purslane & Feverfew

I also start veggies from the grocery store under this light. These are green onions I started from the onion bottoms. They will go outside soon. They get huge in the garden and reseed everywhere. I love garden volunteers! Again, they would look a lot better if Shadow and Abby didn't walk on them...

Under this winter light is also a container of seeds that were outside all winter until yesterday. I brought them in under the light to sprout. They are seeds that need stratification (a winter to germinate) so I am hoping they will start to sprout soon! I planted them in December in a large, round plastic container with a lid. I put it outside in Dec to spend a couple of months in the winter temps. This is called "winter sowing". In the big snowfall, I shoveled them off the deck, forgetting they were there and I just found them yesterday, intact! (I'm thrilled. I had some valuable seeds in there. It was upside down, so I'm hoping the seeds didn't fall out.) Now I wait to see if they come up. I have had winter sowing success in the past.

winter sowing in previous years

One of the special herbs I grow indoors is chocolate mint. To the right of the geraniums in this picture. I love it! it really does smell and taste like chocolate mint. I cut and dry it all summer and use it in tea, put it in my coffee, grind it and bake with it. I made a gallon of chocolate mint wine a few years ago and loved it! I plan to do that again this year. It grows like a weed, just like every other mint. (See previous post "Using All That Mint" for ideas.)

I gave many small rooted chocolate mint cuttings away this winter and warned everyone to keep it in a container. You can see runners spreading out of the pot in the picture left.  

It's not all practical. I do have a few ornamental houseplants in there too - just little ones. I have a Christmas cactus, lipstick plant, begonia, pothos and what remains of the spider plant. They don't look that well, like I said, the cats walk on them...As soon as the others are out of there, and I have time, I plan to repot these and take better care of them. 

This pink light shines very brightly outside my window at night. I'm sure my neighbors think I'm growing something ELSE in there! lol! 

Growing Tomatoes

I like heirloom tomatoes, so I usually grow them from seed. This is my tomato garden a few years ago in Ontario (left). These are massive beefheart heirloom Portugal tomatoes. They take such a long time to grow and ripen that I don't believe I'm going to try them up here. I do have other, smaller tomatoes that I will plant here, however.


SOLVING A FEW COMMON PROBLEMS: 

Blossom End Rot:
The first year I grew tomatoes in a new garden, years ago, I lost a lot to blossom end rot, often referred to as BER. Its when the bottom of the tomato, the blossom end, rots on the vine. I spent a winter that year, researching this online and asking at all the gardening forums I belonged to at that time. This is what I learned:

Blossom end rot is caused by a lack of calcium. This doesn't mean there is not enough calcium in the soil. If the ph is too low, the tomato can't use the calcium, thereby causing Blossom End Rot. 

The best way to raise the ph in the garden is to use dolomite lime. You can add ashes in small amounts and that does help but be careful not to add it to acid loving plants like berries or to add too much. Without actually testing the soil when adding ashes, you have no way to know if its "too much". Dolomite lime raises the ph and stabilizes it so it doesn't spike. I would never add straight lime to the garden, the stuff you would use in a pit toilet. Its much too strong and harsh. Dolomite lime can be bought in a box from the hardware store, usually, and may seem expensive but a box of it has lasted me 5 years with a huge garden. A little goes a long way and it doesn't take much.

Adding calcium is also a good idea and never amiss, but ground egg shells won't do it. They take a couple of years to break down enough to release the calcium into a usable form in the soil, although they are still good to use in a garden and will improve the soil. The best way I have found to add a quickly dissolving and immediately usable calcium for tomatoes is to add TUMS. When I plant that small hole for a baby tomato plant, I sprinkle a pinch of dolomite lime in the hole and drop in half a TUMS tablet, fill the hole with water and insert the plant. I have never again had any BER, ever, through many years and a lot of tomatoes.

Staking and Pruning:

To prune or not to prune, that is the question. Some people throw a cage on their tomato plants and just let nature take it's course. This means that their tomato plants will grow into a bush with a dozen separate branches. I have a separate post with various ideas for Staking Tomatoes. 

I prefer to prune off the suckers and secondary branches, most of the time. If it is still early in the season, I will let a tomato plant split into two and sometimes three, if it gets ahead of me and I miss one, but I try to take off any suckers that grow. This is my Gordon Graham tomato plant. I have let it split into three stems only because it got ahead of me when I wasn't watching.


Pruning makes the tomato plants grow taller, so most of my tomato plants are staked instead of caged. I have tried caging them but they just grow over the top of the commercial cages and fall over. I have seen tall homemade tomato cages that will do the job well but I still prefer to stake them, prune off the suckers and cut off the tops when they are tall enough. I find that this makes the tomatoes larger, with less per plant, and easier to see and harvest. These are my Portugal tomatoes, staked and producing wonderful, large tomatoes!


We were blessed with a pile of strong metal fence posts that I have used in the garden. I have hammered these into the ground and strung heavy coated wire between them. This is where I am growing the tomatoes this year. I just tie the plants to the wire as they grow up. Since I rotate the plants every year, I won't be growing tomatoes on this wire next year. I will probably grow cukes and pole beans on it. There is always something I grow that has to go vertical.


Suckers are little stems that grow in the leaf nodes. If left alone, they will split the plant into separate stalks, each growing tall, making a bush. About twice a week, I play in the tomatoes and nip off the suckers and tie up the stalks. It's an enjoyable activity and gives me a chance to keep a close eye on them. I also cut the tops when they are tall enough. Since the season is short here, I do this early since the additional tomatoes grown at the top of the vine later in the season are not going to ripen anyway. I love the smell of tomato plants!

I prune the leaves on my tomato plants. I don't cut them all off, just a few. I trim off the ones that touch the ground. I think this might help to keep slugs, virus, rust and other diseases and bugs off the plants. I also cut off any that interfere with the development of growing baby tomatoes and I prune leaves to open up the plant and let light and air circulation into the fruit. I do think it is important to leave a few big leaves on the plants to make food.

Paste tomatoes often grow huge leaves that cover the entire plant and the growing tomatoes. They have to be cut back some.

SAVING TOMATO SEED: 

Tomato seeds are self pollinating, meaning they will cross pollinate if planted close together but not if there is some space between the plants. If you want to keep the tomato seed pure and still plant a few varieties, I would put each variety on a different side of the garden or in various other spots around the yard. I put about 10' - 15' between varieties and didn't have a problem with crossed seed. 

Saving tomato seed for the following year takes some knowledge and special treatment. Tomato and cucumber seeds need to ferment to grow the following year. The tomato has to get very, very ripe, usually riper than you like to eat, in order for the seeds to be viable. I usually let a few tomatoes ripen to the rotten stage on the vine, hoping no well meaning friend will pick them while "doing me a favour". I squeeze these rotten tomatoes into a container, and leave it to ferment further. After a few more days with this rotten, stinky mix (sitting outside), the seeds are ready to harvest. I rinse the seeds off and remove anything that's not clean, pure seed. I have read that using Comet cleaner on the seeds will help remove any remaining fruit juices and clean the seeds well. It's not an "organic" way to clean seeds but I have used it and found it helpful. I wash the seeds clean, always in cold water, and spread them out on a paper towel to dry. When they are completely dry, they go into a paper envelope labeled with all the information on that seed that I have.

Properly saved and stored tomato seeds (stored cool and dry) do not need a cold spell to germinate. Just plant a couple in a small pot, water and keep warm. They will grow. 

Up here they have to be started early. I usually start them about a month before the last frost, unless you have a method to keep them covered in the garden when frost threatens or you have a greenhouse or cold frame. I have a large, sunny window and indoor lights where I can let them grow until I put them outside. Planting them early in the cold ground will slow them down. You will get faster growth with a raised garden bed that warms up faster. You can warm the soil in the sun quicker by covering it with black plastic, as well. 

You can grow tomatoes anywhere there is full sun, even against the wall in the bed in front of your house. Why use good gardening space just for flowers. Grow some food among the flowers. Those plants can look good too and you can't eat flowers! Well...you can eat some flowers...

Bringing In Your Plants

Autumn is just around the corner! It's September now. The days are getting shorter and the nights cooler. It's time to bring the houseplants back inside.

Trays for the plants have always been a concern for me. I bring in a lot of geraniums and so forth from the garden and start many plants indoors early in the spring. This year I am going to use boot trays under the plants! It's an idea that just came to me while shopping at Home Depot today. It's the only thing I could find that is big enough for this pot but it works perfectly. I can add other pots to the tray as well and use them in front of the patio doors too! I love the idea!

I planted most of my plants directly into the garden in June this year, so will have those to dig up and plant into pots with fresh soil shortly. I will have to look carefully to make sure there are no earthworms, earwigs or other insects coming in with them.

I'm buying more boot trays today!

Wildcrafting In The North

We moved from Ontario and now live in the Northern Rockies of British Columbia, Canada. Short growing season, super long days in summer and short days in winter, but we love it here! The days we get in the winter are short but very sunny. The more southern warm regions of BC are usually rainy and rarely sunny in the winter.

We live in a very small town in the wilderness, the "bush" as it's called. There is little up here but wilderness and this gives us a great deal of access to the wild things.

Bearberry (Uva-Ursi) leaves drying under a tarp outside 

I am constantly amazed at the number of medicinal herbs and berries that grow up here! I spend much of my summer time gardening and collecting plants from the surrounding wilderness. I gather as many herbs as I can and hang them to dry out of the sun and rain. Sometimes in the house, sometimes in the shed and some on the porch. I make herbal salves in the winter. 

I recently lost a large amount of yarrow to a bunny rabbit who lives nearby. We occasionally leave things out for him, but this time I didn't leave the yarrow out on purpose. I just didn't think about it and left it outside on a rack to dry under a cover, out of the rain, just until I could get it properly hung to dry. The next morning it was all gone, every last piece! He ate all the fireweed (willow herb) flowers too, not the leaves, just the flowers. I guess he likes fireweed flowers and yarrow. He likes spinach too...

Yarrow drying in the shed

I have learned a lesson here and put all my herb bunches up out of the rabbit's reach, if I don't hang them right away. I don't bother with the feverfew, as I know he won't eat it. Nothing eats feverfew! lol! It's fabulous for headaches, even migraines, but it's the most awful tasting stuff growing. I have gotten used to the taste and am thankful for it, if I have a migraine. If you have migraines, you know what you will go through to get relief! Feverfew doesn't grow wild up here. I plant it on purpose. 

I love yarrow! It's one of my favourite herbs and is good for just about anything. It's particularly good at healing and preventing infection in wounds. It also makes a good herbal tea base. We use a lot of it. 

I guess I will have to collect more fireweed flowers too. They make excellent tea and jam! Fireweed is also called "willow herb" and has some good properties. We may sell the dried fireweed leaves, and the flowers, if I have enough to sell, after the rabbit's visit.

Another herb that grows up here in plenty is usnea, sometimes called "old man's beard". It's not really an herb. It's a lichen that grows on the trees. It is a seroius anti-fungal agent and an antimicrobial dressing for wounds. It goes into the healing salve, along with the yarrow and several other healing herbs. 

We hope to have our herb and seed store up and running this winter. When we lived in Ontario, we had a successful online seed store and we hope to start it again, selling the seeds along with the dried leaves and salves. 

Garden Reseeds - Volunteers

Does your garden reseed itself? Mine does, all over the place, but I like that! It gives me a second crop of everything, naturally. It's not in neat little rows, of course, it's in patches. Larges patches of spinach, green onions, chives, cilantro, thyme, oregano and anything else I leave to go to seed. I let everything go to seed because I have a seed store. 

Much of it escapes before I harvest it and I always lose some in the harvesting anyway, so I get a lot of volunteers. I love them! I am still cutting from a large, reseeded patch of spinach resulting from just one plant left to go to seed. I have a lot of cilantro growing all over the garden. That stuff really grows wild! I have baby chives coming up all over, baby dandelions, baby purslane, baby thyme and baby oregano.

I'm sure I would also have baby catnip, mint and choc mint, if I let those go to seed too. I will probably let them go that long next year so I have seed for the seed store but this year I cut them back and dried them.If you keep your garden spotlessly clean, weed regularly or mulch heavily you will never know the joy of harvesting volunteers. I like my garden the way it is. Everything grows well and is green and healthy, shown by the ability of the plants to reproduce themselves all over the place. I do pull some weeds, but the useful things get left to grow.

Community Shared Agriculture (CSA)

Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) is becoming the new age way to farm. It is the only way for a small family farm to stay in business these days. It is the "farm share" concept put into practice. It works the same way as "cow shares", so much in the news lately. Also available are egg share farms and shares for anything else that the government and marketing boards have such a tight hold on.

Basically, the consumer is buying shares of ownership in the farm and are, therefore, part owners rather than simple customers. They can then partake of anything the farm produces for the amount of time that they pay their share of the cost in partnership fees.

This allows a lot more freedom of choice for the consumer and organically grown, fresh produce for much less than it would cost in the supermarket. Depending on the farm and type of partnership shares offered, consumers can have their portion of all vegetables, fruits, fresh herbs, cut flowers, eggs, baked goods, farm soap, dairy products, meats, honey and other things not available to the general public due to legal restrictions and marketing boards. It also gives them access to things they would otherwise no be able to afford in the supermarket.

Although many CSA farms offer only vegetables, some offer egg shares, dairy shares and meat shares sold separately. You usually pay a separate fee for each one. Occasionally, a really good farm will combine everything offered with occasional home baked cookies, pies, jams and pickles processed on the farm. Especially in the months when grown vegetables are more scarce, i.e. early season May and late season October.

It benefits the farmer by allowing him to sell everything he has available, directly from the farm without added costs for sales or transportation. Many of the seasons costs are covered ahead of time by the CSA partnership fees. Most farm shares are paid for up front each year in the spring or the season is divided in half and two payments are made. Either way is good for both the farmer and the consumer.

Ownership in a farm can have a downside. The consumer also takes the same risks as the farmer. Bad weather, drought, insects and other uncontrollable circumstances can reduce the vegetables by quite a bit and destroy some altogether. There is no refund for a poor season, you take the bad with the good, just like any other farm owner does.

Vegetable farm shares usually come in two choices:
One bushel basket per week for a family of four, called "a full share", half a bushel per week for a childless couple or single person, called a "half share". If you have a large family of six or eight adults and nearly adults, you can buy a share and a half, which is a combination of the two, or two full shares. These are just what I have seen this year, in this area. Farms can arrange this any way that is convenient for them and the customers. 

Delivery is not usually included in the price, if it is offered. Some farms deliver and some require you to pick up your shares, some with substitutes offered on hand. Many folks like coming to the farm to pick up their baskets. This gives them the opportunity to see what is produced first hand and to chat with the farmer and other partners. Some farms have other items for sale to the public that can be bought when farm shares are picked up.

Farm shares usually start in late May or early June and continue through until late September or early October with a basket every week of whatever the farm is producing at that time. Usually 18-19 weeks are offered, with extensions on either end if growing conditions are favourable. Obviously you won't get everything offered every week, as it is all locally grown and seasonal for your area. Farms that sell shares usually have a greenhouse or cold frame(s) to start early and end late, thereby giving their farming partners the fresh vegetables as long as possible.

I have considered starting a CSA farm. I would include more than just vegetables, hoping to compensate for the occasional poor vegetable selection with other things, like handmade soap, candles, baked goods, jam, pickles, etc. 

Planning would be a large part of the work. Planning and planting for a specific number of weekly boxes and limiting the customer base to just what we are able to supply. Making sure there is something growing and ready for each week of the season and preparing to fill out the boxes with everything the farm produces, i.e. soap, candles, herbs, fresh flowers, farm crafts, etc. 

I think Fort Nelson would benefit a lot from a CSA farm in the area. At this point in time, however, I am planning on using all of my available gardening space to grow food for the Food Bank. 

Painting A Farm Mural

With the onset of the huge farming conglomerates, the farm mural is becoming a thing of the past. Gone are the cows commonly seen painted on the side of a barn. Farmers used to take pride in their farms. It was their home as well as their livelihood.

Now that small farms are springing back to life, we are hoping to see more artwork and pride in the family farm and home. We have personalized our small farm with a colourful rooster mural on the side of the big chicken house.

Are you interested in painting a cow, chicken or pig on your barn or buildings? Maybe this post will help you to get started.The first thing you need to do is decide exactly what it is that you want and where you want to put it. Location is a big decision. Why hide a beautiful painting where only the cows can see it. You also need to keep it out of direct sun all day as this will fade the colours. You can use new paints specifically made to resist fading from the sun but they are more expensive and still only last a short time in direct sun. Our rooster mural is on the north side of the building and protected from direct rain by a small overhang, yet it faces the road - a perfect spot.

To help you decide what you want, try looking at the hundreds of murals on the interent. Just use Google Images and type in "barn mural". Study them, what it is about them that you like and so forth. Put together an image from these pictures that you would like on your building. It is much easier to use a mural already done by someone else as a general reference guide than it is to make one up from your own photographs.

Once you have the picture put together that you want, decide how you are going to transfer that outline to the building. All you need to start with is the general outline of the pictures.Here is the rooster outline that started our mural. It was originally drawn in charcoal. When we were happy with it we used black paint to make it permanent. Needless to say, this has to be done on a dry day when you have time to draw the entire thing and make the drawing permanent before any rain falls. Even a heavy dew or wind will 
erase charcoal.

There are a few ways to transfer this outline to the building. An overhead projector makes is easy, if you have access to one. What I like to use is a grid. Draw a measured grid on the building and a corresponding one on the picture. Then draw only the lines that you see in each square of the grid. Ignoring the rest of the picture, draw only one grid at a time. Then erase the grid and and stand back to look at the drawing. Adjust it a little here and there until it is right.

Colour is the next consideration. What colours do you like? Do you want it to be bright and cheerful or soft? Do you want realistic or playful cartoon like? Colour theory can be a complicated subject but here are a few simple things to consider:

- Cool colours such as pastel purple and blue are better in the background and cause things to look like they recede.

- Using complimentary colours together will make the object stand out and the colour really "pop". Complimentary colours are opposite on the colour wheel. Examples are: blue and orange, purple and yellow or red and green. It is mostly the basic blue and orange combination in our rooster that make the colours stand out so.

- Use black and white to shadow and highlight. Mix each with a little of the colour you are using, to blend it in smoothly. After drawing the animals and deciding on the colour, you then need to collect your paint. Latex or oil? - good question. Both have pros and cons. Oil has more durability outdoors and the colours stay brighter when dry. Latex colour tends to darken and soften just a little when it dries. Some new latex paints can be very durable, as well, and latex washes up with water. Oil takes much longer to dry. Since you will be painting in layers, that will mean that it can take days longer to complete than it would if you are using latex paint. If you decide to go with oil, don't invest in various expensive artist extenders, conditioners, etc. You won't need those for this project. We used mostly latex with bright colour highliting in oil. If the latex is very dry, you can put oil paint on top of it without a problem. You just cannot mix the two types of wet paint together.

Make sure you have every colour you will need on hand when you begin. Some shades you can mix yourself as you go. Any colour can be made from red, yellow and blue with black and white to lighten or darken. Small variations can be mixed as you go but you will need to buy at least a small can of the bright, single important shades. I like to put used paint into plastic jars or margine/yogurt type containers for storage after use. They don't keep well in the can. Large plastic mayo jars are perfect and have a large mouth for use with bigger brushes.

You don't need expensive artists brushes for a mural. You aren't going to be doing that much detail and the rough surface will ruin whatever brush you decide to use. I bought a few small, med and large brushes at the dollar store for this purpose. Use real brushes, not foam. Foam brushes just won't last long enough on a rough outdoor surface.

So, now you are all ready to start painting. All I can do is give you some general direction here. You will have to work out the details as you go along. To start off, keep it simple. You can fill in more and more details as you go, if you think it needs it. Don't expect to finish it all at once.

You are going to paint this mural in layers. If you have a background planned for your animals, paint it first. Then paint the animal on top of the background where it goes in the picture. To keep it from looking "pasted on" draw something from the picture, like blades of grass, over part of the animal, such as the feet. Another trick to keep it from looking pasted onto the background is to make part of the outline of the animal `blend completely into the background, such as an outside line of an ear or part of a leg.

The entire animal needs a base coat of paint, each section painted in its single base colour. This should be the colour that you want to shade the whole animal when it is done, as it will show through, just a little, in the overall picture, especially on a rough surface. Here is our rooster with the base colours painted on. You can see the slight rusty look in the finished painting. I have already filled in some detail and highlighting on the head and tail feathers because I knew what I was doing and was up there on the stool anyway. (Climbing up and down is hard on the knees.) It also helps to put your paint on a table or raised surface so you don't have to keep squatting to dip your brush each time.

So you fill in the base colour on each section of the figure, just like a child does in a colouring book. When that base colour is dry, you will then begin to shade it with the dark shadow colour. Go over the entire figure and shade it with the dark wherever there is shadow and darkness in the picture. Then use the light highlighting colour to do the highlights. Don't be afraid to paint the light. All lighted surfaces need to be highlighted.

After you have done this basic work, you can begin to narrow your focus and fill in the details. So far you have been looking at the animal as a whole. Now you need to concentrate you efforts on one small part only and fill in the details of that one spot. Eyes are very important and a great deal of time should be spent in getting the details and highlighting done right. Concentrate on the reflection of light in the eye.

As you move over the various smaller sections of the animal, filling in the details of each, it will begin to take on life and look real. You don't need to do a great deal of tiny detailed work for a mural. This is not a portrait, it is just a mural, to be seen from afar.

When you have finished it and are happy with the result, take a picture of it and post it on the internet for your friends to see.

I love Chocolate Mint

I love having the chocolate mint for tea, coffee and wine. I have made a gallon of chocolate mint wine in years past and loved it! I put it in coffee and use it in herbal tea. However, It has its good side and its bad side.

Today I released my chocolate mint into the ground in the back yard for the winter. I wasn't sure it would survive our winter in a pot and just didn't want to use the space to grow it indoors all winter. I know it will survive here in the ground. Its very hardy! 

Its also very invasive. As a matter of fact, it had runners growing around and around the root ball inside the big pot. Scary! If it had been in the ground all summer, it would have spread over a large area. I have had that happen with chocolate mint before. One summer I nearly lost my entire large herb garden! 

So, I kept it in a pot all summer. I feel bad for the poor thing now that I see all those runners. I am considering letting it go wild in my wild woodland back yard next summer, but I think I might regret it in years to come, as I pull out pieces of it everywhere, so...maybe not. 

I did take some cuttings and brought them inside to start new plants, just in case. I think I will always grow it in a container, but maybe a larger one next year.


I'll make up my mind before spring comes next year but I think its going into a large planter or a tall and deep container garden. I could plant lemon balm with it and just let them battle it out. That might be interesting. I don't usually grow lemon balm as I prefer to grow lemon verbena for my "lemon" herb, but I might...maybe.