Blog
Are you wanting to create a new garden bed this weekend? Here is Jules Carney's second installment in her writing about lasagna gardening:
Some books suggest that if you build a lasagna garden in the fall or early spring it can break down into workable soil by planting time, but in my experience it may take longer in this cool climate, so I either use fairly well-rotted compost or manure as a green layer, or cut right down through the cardboard and plant into the soil below.
Are you starting a new garden bed this year or sprucing up last year's? Two years ago I wanted to start a vegetable patch to expand on our family’s cottage garden, but there were two problems: my chosen plot was covered in three foot tall grass, and I hate seeing bare soil.
Sunflowers... or tournesols as I first came to know them. While I like the idea that the sun seeds its own flowers, I feel more taken by the French name, tournesol (turns-towards-the-sun). With the presence of a verb, the word comes to life. It evokes a deliberate movement in a particular direction. This intention speaks to me. The capacity to oscillate in the direction of the sun is a characteristic that is known as heliotropism. It usually refers to plants. Clearly, however, they are not the only heliotropic species. Humans can fall in that category as well.
Tomorrow is May 1st. Labour Day, where I am from. I have memories of having no school that day so we could participate in political marches and/or festive outings. One lesser known tradition, the one I remember most fondly, was the practice of offering a sprig of lily-of-the-valley to friends and loved ones, as a good luck omen for the year. Something in season, something local that expresses our best wishes for hope and happiness.