Compost Your Christmas Trees

Tofitians! Louise Rodgers will be chipping and creating compost from your Christmas trees this coming weekend. You can drop off trees this weekend, on the empty lot at the end of Pfeiffer (next for 590 Pfeiffer) or, for a toonie, Louise will pick yours up. Call her at 5-2675.

West Coast Compost: Kelp!

Here's a great post from a west coast gardener on the benefits of composting your garden with kelp. Thanks, Sarah!

Gardening as a Subversive Act

Check out this TED Talk by Roger Doiron: My Subversive (Garden) Plot. Inspiration for the coming growing season. (Thanks for Chris L. for the link.)

Kelp Pickles for Gardens

The Tofino Community Food Initiative has been hard at work making kelp pickles. They are a hot item in town and we only make them a few times a year, so get yourself over to the Weigh West Marina today, from 11 to 7, to pick up a jar and other goodies from local artisans and foodies.

Gardening with Pallets

This winter, I am determined to get the "bones" of my garden in order. (That, and doing some serious mulching. I've been piliching leaves from all over town.) But, I don't have bags of cash so I've been thinking of how to re-purpose items like pallets. At the moment I'm thinking a 3-bin composter system for my yard waste, plus some smaller raised beds, but I also saw this, which is pretty clever if you have a small space.

What do you do with pallets?

Organic Gardener Course - in Tofino and on-line!

This spring, Gaia College is again offering its Organic Master Gardener Course in Tofino. This is a great opportunity for anyone interested in gardening. Much as I'd love to go, I don't think I can swing two weeks off work, so I was excited to find - after snooping around Gaia's website - that you can also take the course on-line. Hmmmm, perhaps the beginnings of my birthday/Christmas gift?

Plant Your Garlic

I am probably about a month late for this, but I finally got my garlic in the garden two days ago during a brief respite in the storms that have been pummelling the coast. (Thanks to Josie O. for the fabulous Red Russian garlic bulbs!) I had added some well-rotted compost to the bed a couple of weeks ago and gave it a little fluff with the pitchfork. Even though the bed is in one of the lowest parts of the yard (read, wettest), the 12" high raised bed meant the soil had good texture and wasn't waterlogged. As per Ms. O's instructions, I planted the cloves about 3" deep, 8" apart and then covered the bed in a nice mulch quilt of alder leaves. In the back of my mind I had this niggling thought about New Moon and planting garlic. I was just updating my journal and, smarty-pants me, I planted on the New Moon!

Not so fast smarty-pants. It turns out you should not, actually plant on the New Moon, rather in the lead up to the New Moon. I've no idea why and whether it really does matter. I'm just glad I got the bulbs in the ground at all. (Small victories you know.)

Google New Moon + garlic and you'll find lots of posts. Here's one.