So you already know that I’m thinking about fruit trees and mostly thinking about a peach. I’d love more actually, like a plum and a pear (I think pear trees are so gorgeous I could learn to love pears) and an apple would be wonderful. Actually, I saw an ad somewhere for a nut tree of some kind – I think I might hunt that down.

With the technique known as espalier and time, I think anything might be possible – in fact, I might even be able to protect a cherry from the birds and get to eat one of two of them myself!

Espalier is much more frequently practiced in Europe than in North America (at least I can’t say I’ve seen many around Toronto) except look at this wonderful picture I found of an espaliered pear tree.

Joe Boles of the SHS grew this beautiful tree

Here’s another lovely tree. In this case an apple just after it’s been pruned as seen in the Hillwards blog

Espalier can be trained against a wall, where the extra warmth and shelter can create a microclimate and enable you to push the climate a zone or more. Espaliered trees can be trained to a wall 9 often along a sturdy wire or against a fence. When they’re fence trained away from a wall, they’re correctly referred to as espalier-aere or contre-espalier.

Even in the winter they’re striking. Like this apple from the UBC Food Garden

One more wonderful thing to occupy my daydreams.

I go to yoga classes and enjoy them very much. In a life that is occasionally subjected to too much stress, my yoga classes never fail to soothe something in me. One thing I’m going to miss terribly once I move are these classes because I think the instructor is very important and the lady who teaches us yoga is simply wonderful. (Thank you Kelly) I credit her with fixing my back which was a source of periodic misery to me for about 20 years. No wonder I love this woman.

As soon as I realized that my attendance might be terminated by moving, I started to think about a place to continue my practice and while I need a spot inside, the simple truth is that my happy place will always be somewhere surrounded by plants and trees, complete with weeds and bugs. And so a part of my new garden will be my yoga garden. It will be built to surround a small patch of grass sized for one person lying down, but able to accomodate two sitting up. It will be, to some extent my secret corner. I’ll use shrubs and maybe a small tree to separate it from the rest of the yard and it’s occupants.

My first vision, given the idea of yoga, which says calm and quiet was a shaded retreat in mutued tones with lots of foliage, probably an oriental influence – which will work well because I can also integrate some of my bonsai into the space. Then I realized that the shady idea might not be the best. If I’m going to lie on the ground and practice my breathing, I’d rather be warm than cold.

As I understood that sun and warmth would be important – for at least part of the day, I realized that the muted Vita Sackville-West “white garden” appeal was really more of my intellectual concept of yoga and was not necessarily what I would choose in a retreat to make me feel deliciously happy. And that’s what I really want.

I’m going to hope for morning sun and afternoon shade. I still want my shrubs to help define the space and give me some privacy. It wont be a slam the door in your face, no one can see in and I can’t see out type of privacy. Afterall, this is going into my back yard and not the middle of a school yard. It will just be the kind of privacy that says to anyone who can see me “she wants to be alone”. Very Greta Garbo.

I’m going to add some colour for sure. I’ve no idea which plants will make the cut and much of that will depend on just how the sun will hit the space and if I can put some of the garden in enough light to support a few annuals, which pack the biggest bang for the flowering buck. That means I can look at some different salvias, some calendulas or zinnias and perhaps some of the newer gazania hybrids ( I might have spelled that wrong) I can run a rose or more likely a clematis over an arbour to create an entrance. Siberian irises, peonies and lavender might show up- just because they are among my favorite plants. I feel the arrival of a big blue hydrangea. Something that might attract hummingbirds would be cool too. If I can’t figure out the plant, I might just cheat and put in a feeder.

But it won’t be the cool, shady and sophisticated retreat I had first imagined. No. first I think I’d better make it honest.

I don’t know if I can have a fruit tree. I need to first look at the yard and work out the exact placement of my vegetable garden, bonsai beds and greenhouse and then I can figure out if a fruit tree can even fit into the mix. Fruit trees raise other questions as well, because they’re a bit of a pain in a lot of ways.
They need to be sprayed and even though I am an organic gardener and there are a lot of things I refuse to touch, that spring hit of dormant oil is not one of my favourite jobs. A lot of fruit will not set and will instead drop to the ground and I really hate stepping on it and I’m not too nuts about constantly picking it up either. It’s not as if there is nothing else I need to do- I already have my work cut out for me.

I need to keep a fruit tree away from my eating area because it will attract those pain in the neck yellow jackets. Fruit trees also attract birds and squirrels (at least) who are intent and usually very successful at stealing the fruit that survives the early summer drop. And finally, when all goes well a fruit tree can be like having too many zucchini plants (that would be two zucchini vines) because it pretty much all comes ripe at around the same time.

But if I do have a fruit tree it will be a peach. They’re good looking and the size is easy to control and I can think of lots of things to do with peaches . One of my favorites involves a hefty amount of brandy. I can freeze them for smoothies all winter and I know of a great peach marmalade I can add to the Christmas baskets (OMG that makes me sound like such a perfect little Martha Stewart, but the real truth is I’m just cheap!)

But that leads me to start thinking about all the other food producing plants I plan to grow. At the moment the plans are pretty fuzzy, but nothing will make the cut into the final planning until I am satisfied that I’m growing something I like to eat and I know what to do with. That might sound like a silly thing to say, but bouncing back to the subject of the much maligned zucchini, how many people do you know who grew it and then had no idea what to do with it – besides try to pawn it off on their friends?

People get sucked in by seed catalogues and garden centers and end up growing vegetables that they either don’t like or don’t know what to do with. And a lot of home gardeners grow plants that just don’t fit their space. Take corn for example. I know a few people who’ve tried to grow corn and met with dismal failure because they couldn’t grow a big enough patch of it to get any real pollination going and for all the space and the plants, the actual yield of corn was pitiful. I nearly get seduced every year by Brussel sprouts. Have you ever seen them growing? They are so cool looking the way the sprouts grow up and around the stem and the leaves pop out the top, they remind me of a palm tree and I love the way they look, but I don’t like to eat them.

So really the point is that if you want to grow something to eat, you’re definitely thinking in the right direction, but like everything else you also need to think it through. For the last few years I’ve had very, very little space to devote to vegetables and the ones I’ve grown have been raised in hydroponic containers where space was at a super premium. Planting them into the ground offers me the luxury of more space than I’ve imagined in a long while and I plan to use it well.

Have I abandoned hydroponic vegetables in containers? Heck no! I’ve just moved them to my greenhouse for the winter.

January 16 -2011

I’m moving in six months. When I do that, I will have something I want very much. Actually, I’ll have a lot of things that I want very much. In some ways I am truly blessed, although it doesn’t always feel like it. But what I’m here to talk about is the garden I’m getting. I like to grow things. In fact, I love to and more accurately, I think I need to. It keeps me sane. Sort of. What I am getting is more than just another garden to take over and make my own. I’m getting something much better than that. I’m getting an open yard.

That’s right. My new backyard-to-be has virtually nothing in it. The current owners have two large dogs who I guess needed somewhere to hang around outside. I could learn to love those dogs.

The front has been well taken care of. There is at least one decent sized tree – I don’t remember what. There are some perennial beds and a rose – a floribunda, I think. It’s seriously overgrown and close to a path and I can’t wait to get up close and personal with my trusty Fiskars in my hand. Unfortunately, by June it might be a little late to do a lot to it and I’m not certain what kind of rose it is and without knowing that – Thou Shalt Not Cut. But I’ll check into it.

My new backyard isn’t huge, but it’s a good enough size for me – fairly wide – maybe 65 feet across the back, which I’ll guess is about 25 feet deep . Both side yards are opened to the backyard but closed off from the front of the house. The back of the house faces west. There are a few trees in the neighboring yards, but I get a seriously good shot of western light. One side yard is a south and a west exposure. The vegetable garden will have to go there. It is a perfect spot and I’m pretty sure there is enough room.

It might be six months before I can even get a good look at it again, but I love to think about my plan for that back garden. I’m getting a greenhouse, which in itself is a 30 year old wish. Can you imagine getting something you’ve wanted for thirty years? Maybe something good about getting older is that you can understand what that actually means. But, I know it will mean a few headaches, a nasty surprise or two, extra work and more than a touch of fear that I’ll make a mess of it. But I know I can do this. It will probably sit empty in the summer, but in the winter I will grow vegetables and indoor bonsai trees and I’ll have a small lemon and key lime tree. I’ll keep a chair and a very small desk area in there and it will be my bolt hole. One of them.

Before I sign off for the night, here’s a real quick overview of what I will have in this garden of mine.
I’ll have a vegetable garden and perennial herbs and rhubarb.
I’ll add herbs and blueberries into the perennial and foundation gardens that I think will be stretched out along an interlock or possibly flagstone path and around the patio.
I’ll have some growing beds for outdoor pre-bonsai and bonsai in training.
I will have a greenhouse> It won’t be huge and could easily be as small as 8×12, but I’m a little more excited when I think about 8 or 10 by fourteen.
I’ll probably need some cold frames. Normally, I picture them around a greenhouse, but I’m not sure that giving up the extra insulation from the ground is a good idea.
I am making what I call a Yoga garden . It will be a peaceful, secluded spot – probably close to the greenhouse and the vegetable garden. It will be a warm and sunny place to lie on the ground and breathe.
My patio will get sun – I’m thinking- up to about 2 in the afternoon and then it will get some shade from a very impressive wall of cedar hedge.
The north side will be a shade garden- but I’m really fuzzy about this area so far because I also need a good spot for the barbeque and it sure would be nice to have it close to the door and in some kind of shelter. And I need a good light. That one needs to percolate for a while yet.
I’ll need some outdoor benches in a spot that has shade in the hottest part of the afternoon for my potted bonsai.
So, I think that pretty much covers it – vegetables, herbs, shrubs, perennials, a shade garden, a bonsai nursery and yoga garden, patio and barbeque area. And I’ll need a spot to hide the compost bin.( I think I know where that will be – around the side near the vegetables.)

Wow- I’ve been gone a long time. Funny how the things I love to do and the things I need to do don’t often appear on the same list. I’d like to change that.

This year is going to be so brilliantly exciting for me. I’m moving in the spring and as much as I love vegetable container gardening and think its a very important trend for the future of cities and city livers (not to be confused with chicken livers) I’m thrilled that I’ll be able to have an inground vegetable garden again. And I’ll be adding a few small nursery beds to fatten up some of my beloved outdoor bonsai trees including hornbeams (if they make it through their first winter) Amur Maples, Japanese black and white pines, Sargent’s crabapples and some lovely larches.

Late in the summer, if all goes well, I’ll get my greenhouse. It won’t be a big honkin’commercial size, but I’m looking at something between 8×12 and 10×14- I just need to fit it to my site and my budget.

The yard that will house these wonderful things belongs to a house whose current owners have two large dogs and so the back yard, which isn’t immense but is a more than reasonable size has never had anything done with it. It’s a blank slate and to be able to plan from scratch is just a delight to me.. I’ll be adding a small private yoga garden and of course a patio for outside eating and entertaining and some perennial and annual flowers.

I’ll be incorporating as many food bearing shrubs and plants and trees- so I already know that blueberries will feature in the foundation shrubs and a hardy kiwi vine will make an appearance along with rhubarb and maybe a peach tree.

As a rental gardener I handed out pieces of favourite plants every time I moved so there are some daylillies and a peony or two whose offspring will return to my garden in the next year or so.

Happy New Year to one and all. I’ve been waiting for this one all my life.

If you’ve never had a garden and if you’ve never grown vegetables it not fair to take anything for granted. There are a lot of things you’ll need to learn and one of them is how much room some plants demand. Now, when you’re growing in containers and certainly if you use my hydroponic planter system, you can reduce the space that any plant will take up but some choices – frankly are beyond hope.

When you’re considering what to grow, a good place to learn about their needs is from seed catalogues and another – even better source – is from other gardeners, but there just never seems to be a master gardener handy when you want one!
Some plants like cucumbers, and tomatoes can be trained to a trellis and indeed so can some melons and squashes – but not all of them.

Pumpkins and watermelons for example, turned loose on your balcony would not only take it over completely- they could probably take possession of your neighbor’s balcony and your living room too. Corn is another example of a plant that’s entirely unsuitable for a balcony. For one thing it’s tall but you don’t grow it to a trellis which means that on your balcony the wind would easily break it but more to the point, you need to have a fairly large patch of corn growing to be assured that it will pollinate properly and therefore actually produce any corn.
As you’re making your list, keep the really large plants off.

Actually, for what it’s worth – here are the plants that I think are best suited to balcony vegetable gardens:
Beans, peas, some cucumbers, some sweet peppers, hot peppers, tomatoes, some eggplants, salad greens but not many cabbages and most annual herbs.

Asparagus and rhubarb are not suitable since they’re perennials.

Living in Toronto, it’s easy to be jealous of someone in the south with a growing season that seems to me to last all year. But you live where you live and if you want to enjoy the fruits of success it’s necessary to respect the limitations of your growing season.

Although I successfully grew hot peppers last year, some of them came in just under the wire and I tend to favour short season tomatoes. Crops (although “crops” seems like a bit of an exageration when describing the amount to be grown in containers) that I will probably never try include such long season goodies like cantalopes and honeydew melons.

Respecting your growing season and what you would like to grow also means that some vegetables like spinach will grow early and late in the season, but not during the “dog days”of summer – although last summer in Toronto we didn’t have anything like that.

Look, if I talk too long here, all that will happen is that I’ll make a very simple idea much too complex and instead of helping you grow something great to eat on your balconies or decks or patios, I’ll just scare you off.

That is NOT my plan. So I’ll wrap up with this. Do just a little bit of research on the length of your growing season and get a feeling forthe things that just need more time to grow than your summer will allow.

Balcony gardens are special. Because space is at such a premium, the vegetables or herbs you grow on your balcony garden really should be chosen with a lot of care. After all, when you only have a little bit of room, it’s best to get the most possible bang for your buck!.
Over a series of 5 posts I’ll review what I think are the five most important considerations when selecting the vegetables or herbs that you grow on your balcony. They won’t be presented in any particular order – because frankly I think they’re all pretty much indespensible.

The first principle I’d like to present you with is the idea that you need to grow something your already know and already like. This might sound very simplistic, but seed catalogues and nurseries can make even a vegetable you don’t care for sound irresistable! (Heaven only knows I’ve fallen for it more than once.)

If you have a 20×20 foot plot in the ground you can afford to take a chance, but when you only have a small amount of room, go with a proven winner that you know you’re going to enjoy.

Also, you need to adopt a very Stephen Covey idea and begin with the end in mind. By that I mean only grow vegetables or herbs that you not only like but you actually know exactly what you’re going to do with. to make my point, just think of zucchini. Every year at the end of the gardening season when abundant harvests are generously distributed to friends, family and neighbors – what gets handed out more than anything else? Zucchini! Why? Well, because almost everyone plants too much of it and almost no one knows what to do with it! Do you?

Vegetable gardening on your balcony deserves a bigger reward than harvesting your crop and then watching it go bad when you realize you really don’t know exactly how to cook or preserve it or what to eat it with. I did that the first time I grew Thai Basil – which I love and NOW know what to do with.

Think it through!

Attention frustrated gardeners. Do you work out of your home for too many hours every day? Do you live in an urban condo, apartment or townhouse with no place to dig a garden? Are you waiting for the chance to grow a garden? Well, you don’t need to wait any longer.

If you have a balcony or a patio or deck or even a postage stamp sized backyard there is only one non-negotiable requirement to grow your own vegetables. What you need is light. You need a spot with at least 5 hours of direct sunlight every day – unless you want to bring it all indoors and grow them under lights – and come to think of it – if you want – I can show you how to do that.

There is nothing you can do that is more in keeping with a long list of “it’s about time” trends than sweep off your deck or balcony take out some containers and use them to grow organic produce for your own table. Not only is it tastier than what you’ll buy in the store, it’s waiting for you, literally on your doorstep. Besides, when you release your hidden gardener, you might also find out why gardening is such a hugely popular hobby. It’s a calming, infinitely rewarding pastime that you might fall in love with. I did.

I started my first garden when I was about 7 or 8 years old. Everything died, from a combination of ignorance, neglect and the simple fact that my dad, anticipating my possible shortfalls as a beginner gardener allotted me a corner of the yard that were missing both rain and sun. I didn’t really care and over the years kept trying.

Right now I’m living in rental accommodations and don’t have any ground to call my own. I stopped putting gardens into my landlord’s yard because every time I moved I got to watch the next tenant kill my labor of love and I swore I’d never do it again. But, recently my interest in vegetable gardening was rekindled when I discovered an awesome technique for growing vegetables in containers. Using a gravity-fed, hydroponic system that is almost criminally easy to maintain, I harvested a wealth of peppers, tomatoes and simply the best salad greens that I’ve ever enjoyed and it was 100% organic.

If you’re still reading, I’m gathering that the idea interests you. So stay with me and I’ll tell you exactly how to do it…..although it’s going to take a few articles.

Step 1

How to Choose What to Grow

While there are a lot of things that can easily be grown in containers, some plants don’t do nearly so well. Luckily, the most popular vegetables including tomatoes, peppers and salad greens are excellent choices. I’m devoted to indeterminate tomatoes – that’s the kind that grow as a vine, as opposed to a bush. Yes you need to tie them up but having grown the special patio tomatoes in the past; I will personally never waste my time or my very precious space on them again.

I’ve also had decent luck with cucumbers although not such great results with squash. I don’t think they cared much for getting their roots cramped and any plant that needs a root run the size of Oklahoma will not be a great choice for containers.

Peas will do well, although they are a fairly short season crop and even more so given the extra warmth they’re experience in a container. If you’re going to grow beans – I’d suggest going with the pole beans even though I’m not sure they’re quite as tender as the bush variety, but the simple truth is that the bush beans just don’t give you the return on your space and seeding progressive crops is not as practical in a container garden as when you have lots of room in the ground.

Corn is a non starter and similarly I would also stay away from broccoli, cauliflower, and sprouts – something for which my son is eternally grateful. You also don’t want to try anything that has serious rambling issues like watermelon and I don’t recommend root crops either – meaning carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes, beets, turnips, radishes or parsnips. You can’t grow asparagus in containers either.

If you don’t know anything about growing vegetables and you’ve never done it before, advice like “vines are good” isn’t going to be much help. So maybe I should step back for a minute and approach this question from a different perspective. Try this on for size, “grow what you can’t easily buy”.

Yes, you can buy tomatoes – but the tomatoes you can buy in the stores have been selected for qualities which appeal to agri-business. For example – tomatoes that are going to be trucked across half a continent – or more- need to have fairly tough skins so they don’t get mashed to a pulp – yummmmmmy. They need to be picked when they’re green and ripen in a truck. They need to stand up well to refrigeration. They need to be uniformly sized so that they pack well and display easily in a grocery store. If you’re growing your own tomatoes – none of these things matter!

You can have plum tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, beefsteak sized tomatoes, grape tomatoes in a range of colors and sweetness levels that will simply amaze you. If you’re not a gardener already, then you’re probably not familiar with the craze that is heirloom vegetables. Oh what a wonderful surprise you have in store. I grow lots of tomatoes – surprisingly I’m not a huge fan of big chunks of tomato. But I love little grape tomatoes in Greek salads and I’ve found that oven dried cherry tomatoes packed in olive oil with basil are like eating candy.

Peppers are terrific – because there are so many different kinds of them – especially if you like hot peppers.

Salad greens – Mesclun mix – Baby salad greens – you know the ones I mean. They cost about 16 bucks a kilo and 9 times out of 10 the ones in the grocery store have already started to wilt. I don’t know about man – but woman cannot live on iceberg alone!

Other great small space crops include Chinese greens, eggplant, kale, spinach and Swiss chard. And then of course a simply wonderful idea is to also grow herbs – some of which – like parsley and cilantro also make great salad greens.  Basil is another example of a crop available in a mind numbing variety. I love Thai basil.

Oregano, thyme, chives, tarragon, marjoram and sage are all perennial herbs, which mean that they will live from year to year. Sadly, that makes them a not too good choice for a container garden since plants which can survive the (Toronto) winters in the ground will not necessarily do so in a container on a balcony. Ironically, rosemary, which is also perennial but one too tender to survive the Toronto winters in the ground can easily spend those winters on a windowsill and go back out next spring.

But what I’ll say right now is, “if you really want a perennial herb, and it’s easy for you to find the plants, give them a try and we’ll touch back on the subject before the fall of 2010 and talk about how you can get them through the winter. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

To help you begin to make your decision about what you might want to grow, here is a list of websites that offer herb and vegetable seeds. Take a look at what they have to offer and make some choices – you’ll probably choose too many, but that’s ok. You haven’t ordered them yet.

http://www.heirloomtomatoes.bizland.com/

http://eternalseed.ca/index.php?ID=1&Lang=En Canada only

http://victoryseeds.com/

http://www.seedsavers.org/

http://www.sandhillpreservation.com/catalog/seed_menu.html

http://www.heritageharvestseed.com/

http://www.uharvest.ca/zenstore/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=21

http://www.richters.com/

http://www.stokeseeds.com/cgi-bin/StokesSeeds.storefront

http://www.dominion-seed-house.com/en-CA

Now, if you’re thinking that come spring, almost every grocery store in the city will be offering trays of little vegetable plants that you can grow, you’re absolutely right. Some of them will have a simply excellent range of choices too and if you want to go that route, you certainly can. But at some point you’ll probably want to grow something that you can’t find unless you start it yourself. So for now, you don’t need to make an absolute decision, check out the seeds and if you’re just not ready to make this leap yet, you can always start with pre-started plants.

There is a famous marketing saying, the gist of which is that it can be difficult to see  beyond the end of your nose – particularly if your head is stuffed up your …….. Oh, you’ve never heard of it?  Well, repeat it to enough people and you’ll hear of it.  That’s called viral marketing.

I Love to Garden.  Always have.  I planted my first vegetables when I was about 8.  They all died, but that’s hardly the point.

I’ve tried to do lots of different businesses on my own but in spite of wanting to be objective about what business I’ll go into and evaluating the opportunities based on research, somehow I keep ending up growing something.  But looking at my ideas for outdoor-hydroponic- container-vegetable gardens, that truly are effortless and idiot proof, I’m wondering if there will be any appeal beyond pure gardeners.

And if so, who are my buyers?  Are they organic and natural health types?  I can certainly understand why this group would want to grow their own vegetables, but do they live in high rises? and if so will they pay about $80.00 for a planter that will grow a few tomatoes a herb and some peppers?

This is not about the price of the food or even the quality.  It’s about choice.  Its about going out to a balcony in the middle of Manhattan and being able to pick organic produce for your dinner.  Its about a feeling and bragging rights.

But I just don’t know if anyone will care.