Who says miracles don’t happen? Take some earth, water, sun and seed or tiny roots, and… you get a strawberry. Think about it—a strawberry (or tomato, lettuce, sweet peppers, whatever) coming from nothing but earth, water, sun and a seed or slip of green stuff.
You can perform the miracle yourself, in your own backyard or wherever you have a spot of sun.
If you need a nudge, two new books by local author/gardeners can help: Incredible Edibles: 43 Fun Things to Grow in the City, by Sonia Day, and Grow Great Grub, by Gayla Trail.
Plant a little of what you like
Beginners short of time and in a hurry to get started will find lots to suit them in Incredible Edibles. Day’s how-to’s, or “10 commandments,” for growing food are simple and easy to remember: lots of light, good soil, right place/pot, choose the right type of plants, avoid troublemakers like corn and the cabbage family, plant things carefully, keep critters away, watch the weather, plant just a few things and don’t expect picture-perfect produce.
The small garden is the book’s big message. “Just grow a few things you like, don’t plant things in rows,” Day told Vaughan Today in a recent interview.
“Put in one tomato, two or three beet plants, some chives, a little bit of lettuce and maybe one zucchini, if you have a square metre of space, just because it’s fun to watch it grow.”
She also warned against jamming too many things in a small space. “I’m a great fan of ventilation and space around plants. Planting things too closely brings disease and bugs.”
An organic gardener, Day doesn’t fuss with fertilizing her food plants. Instead, she gets them off to a good start by enriching the soil ahead of time, working in bagged, composted sheep manure. Container gardeners should look for soil mixes marked “suitable for vegetable growing,” she advises.
Day likes a garden to be productive, which is how she got into growing veggies in the first place, so you’ll find many of her favourite recipes in the book, too.
Work with what you have
If you have a real passion for food growing, dig into Grow Great Grub. Like many gardeners, author Gayla Trail didn’t start out as a veggie specialist.
“I’m an equal-opportunity gardener,” she told Vaughan Today. “I like everything, but food is definitely a focus for me.”
Take her rooftop garden. A lot of folks pretty up their roofs with trees and vines and dainty flowers in containers. Trail has some of that, but the stars of the show are her crops: tomatoes, beans, squash, a herd of herbs and lots more.
It’s all the more impressive since she doesn’t have a water supply out there. The wet stuff has to fall from the sky or be toted by hand. No wonder one of the many do-it-yourself projects in her book is making a self-watering container.
Working with what you have—space, knowledge, soil, containers—is a theme that runs throughout the book.
“The focus is on small spaces, especially unusual, difficult sites,” Trail said. “One of the myths about growing food is that you need a particular type of space for it. I wanted to encourage people to use the space they have.”
Of course, she writes for everyone who wants to grow vegetables, providing plenty of useful details like the marvels of mulch, how to re-use container soil, do-it-yourself organic fertilizers and specific how-to’s for dozens of lovely edibles.
And Trail truly believes veggies are lovely. “That’s another myth, that vegetable plants are ugly. You can even get a variegated-leaf tomato that’s beautiful, though not the tastiest. And lettuces are wonderful to look at. I grow lots of varieties with different leaves, different colours. They’re very architectural when they bolt [go to seed], and then I have seeds for next year.”
One last memorable message from Trail: Grant yourself permission to learn by messing up. “Failure is a big part of the experience. Everyone kills plants sometimes. Gardening isn’t about controlling; it’s about observing and adapting.”
Enjoy cheesy chard
Chard à la Aldona
Sonia attributes this recipe to Aldona Satterthwaite, former editor of Canadian Gardening, now executive director of the Toronto Botanical Garden.
Finely chop 3 or 4 cloves garlic. Sauté in about 2 tbsp/25 mL of olive oil until just tender. Do not brown. Cut a big bunch of chard, rinse well, but don’t whir in salad spinner. Trim off coarse ends and chop leaves and tender stems into smallish pieces (about 1.25 cm). Add to pan, sauté on gentle heat, covered, until leaves are tender, stirring occasionally—about 10 minutes.
The chard leaves will yield up water, which is good, because next you will whomp in as much blue cheese as you dare. Stir it in until a yummy sauce forms and coats the garlic and chard leaves. Taste for salt (likely unnecessary). Serve on cooked pasta with a generous grinding of pepper. Optional: add a splash of colour with a handful of grape tomatoes on top, or maybe a little parsley.
(Used with permission from Incredible Edibles: 43 Fun Things to Grow in the City, by Sonia Day, photograph below by Barrie Murdock (Firefly Books, 2010)
