malissa posts

It's hot this weekend - after a brief first Spring we are skipping second Spring and going straight to Summer. It's beautiful, blue and hot and today, at least, the poison wind seems to have died down. I've spent the morning ripping up all the weeds that appear to have exploded in the last week. …

I have dodged my garden for a year. The sorrel and kale have survived being completely ignored and unwatered over winter but for rain. One little spring onion has hung on in the tiniest form. Bless. The flat leaf parsley went to seed productively. The passionfruit vine tried to grow into the tree…

The invasive, sunlight blocking, and previously thought by me to be a fruitless wonder of a passionflower vine that my neighbours have inflicted on the fence and my tiny garden, turns out to be Passiflora caerulea. I was going to write to next…

It's amazing how much less squeamish you get about squashing little green caterpillars with your fingers the more of your precious leaves they eat.

I pulled some of the leaves off the brussels sprouts branch today so the little sprouts can grow. Come along, little sprouts.

Something, I su…

A colleague bought me a tray of 6 of her mature tomato seedlings today. What a score!

I may never get over the way you can make food from dirt. Harvested lovely handfuls of sorrel and baby kale on the weekend, making a delicious accompaniment to salmon. The radish and turnip seedlings have shot up, the carrots, beetroot and spring onions are peeking out a little more shyly. Can yo…

Got some garden time in today, engaging in the usual jobs of slaughtering slugs, twisting the bok choy and watercress back into their pots so they reseed rather than drop seeds on the paving, tying up the sugar snap peas a bit more, watering and, at last, planting some things. I've planted little…

Slowly, slowly the sun line is moving down the fence. It shouldn't be too long before my garden gets some direct sunshine and springs into life.

I picked up some seedlings from the Slow Food Market at Abbotsford Convent today: dwarf kale, bok choy, chervil and Tom Thumb lettuce, and planted t…

Last year my potted hyacinths were a bit sad and not at all the lovely blue they should have been. No flowers at all! So I separated the bulbs and dug them in under the tree. Today two little shoots are peeking up out of the dirt. Hopefully all four have survived and there'll be some pretty flowe…

(Originally posted December 18, 2012 at 07:40)

One of my borage plants is limp. I've tried: tying it up, not watering it, watering it. The other, which gets the same sun, water and tying up is as tall and straight as you could hope for. Challenge. The parsley keeps wanting to bolt. It might ne…

(Originally posted December 10, 2012 at 11:07)

This afternoon E, earning her gin and tonic with borage flower ice cubes like a boss, identified a tiny rosemary seedling growing in a paving crack in my courtyard. I'm being careful to step around it until I have time to get more dirt to pot it. …

(Originally posted December 09, 2012 at 01:28)

Pot gardening needs a little extra planning when you've only you and a non-cargo bike to haul large pots and potting mix. The second nearest hardware will deliver, but only once a week and at farmer's market time, which is a bit of a cow. Still, t…