Thursday, September 17, 2009

The rooftop is getting greener...

It has been three weeks since we planted the kale, lettuce, peas and radishes on the rooftop and we have seen some good progress so far and some interesting things as well.

All of the crops have sprouted to some degree.

Our lettuce (C.V darkness) was the slowest to germinate. Around the two week mark there were tiny red leaflets showing and since then progress has been minimal. A few of the pots are definitely growing but many of the lettuces are still very small seedlings.

The radish (C.V altaglobe) has certainly flourished. The bright green stalks are a few inches high already and most of the seeds in each pot seem to have germinated (around 5-12 per pot).
Both the kale (C.V red russian) and the peas (C.V little marvel) are growing well. However, something has been eating most of our peas! We think it could be the crows that often hang around the roof top. The peas on the south end of the roof received the most damage; there are still a number of healthy looking peas that escaped being eaten... so far!

We thinned the plants on Sunday to densities more suitable to the size of the pot. We thinned the radishes to three per pot, the kale and the pea to two per pot each, and for now we left the lettuce as is.




Now we wait!
Each week we will document our observations of growth to check for observable treatment effects

Sunday, September 13, 2009

featured blog

our blog was featured on Garden Planters - a site listing over 30,000 gardening blogs from around the world - check it out!

!Yes I can!

Caitlin and I gave our first Yes I Can! workshop yesterday at False Creek Community Center. I think it turned out well. Definitely a learning process for everyone. We used plums from Osoyoos, BC (399 km distance) to make Plum Jam.

Betsy and I biked around town picking up the supplies.
The stroller serves as a great 'workshop on wheels'.

There were 8 participants all with different levels of experience.
Some definitely more eperienced than me.

Plum-preppers.

We used No-Sugar Pectin for our Jam. We did three separate batches using low (1/2 cup), medium (1 cup) and high (2 cups) levels of sugar. After some taste tests, most people preferred the medium-sugar jam over the high-sugar jam.

Looking for the 'rolling boil'.
I learned a great trick from reading Diane's blog (http://communitykitchens.wordpress.com/category/canning-diary/).
Wrap warm jars in newspaper after they are done. That way they are easy to trasport.

That's all for now!
Cheers,
Tara