Jon's Yard: June 2007

Friday, June 22, 2007

The Dirty Hoe

This is a quick one, as I have been working on a huge post about rain water capture and it has gotten away from me a bit. Just wanted to share a favorite Podcast called "The Dirty Hoe"

Your weekly guide to organic gardening and living in Edmonton heard Friday at 12:05pm and Monday at 2pm on CJSR FM88.
It's worth a listen and helps pass the time while you are on the train or biking to work in the mornings. Enjoy!

Sunday, June 10, 2007

A Couple of "Winged" Tools I Can't Live Without

Over the last little while, I have been using a couple of new tools in the yard. One little fantastic tool called the Winged Weeder and another called the Wingdigger. I have a lot of the other standard gardening tools, and none have made my life easier than these two purchases.

I stumbled across the Winged Weeder at the Calgary Horticultural Society Garden Show in April. There were a lot of interesting products there, but this one caught my eye. Interestingly, my initial reaction was to just walk right by because the guy working the booth was making it a little too infomercial for my liking. However, I was drawn back to the booth on the way out and decided to pick one up.

As I am doing a little bit of everything including rock garden plants and raised veggie beds with tight spacing, I went for the compact version called the Winged Weeder Junior. Now I can't recall all of the fantastic things that the demo jockey did with this at the show, but I just like it for my everyday puttering and weeding around the yard. You can see all the tricks on the official corporate video from Creative Enterprises.

It has a hardwood (I think ash) handle that is long enough to reach a wide range wihout moving around a lot. Despite that I find the tool to be light in comparison to others in the shed. The blade itself is tempered spring steel so it doesn't need sharpening and withstands quite a beating. I highly recommend picking one up if you have the means.

The other fantastic little tool I picked up was the Wingdigger from the Clean Calgary Association. This handy little tool is dirt cheap and saves much back-breaking effort turning

your compost over. The little wings on the side of the steel rod flip in as it is pushed into the compost pile. When you do a 90 degree turn and pull it back out, the wings engage like a fish hook grabbing wads of rotting veggie matter and dragging it to the surface. This is great for aerating your compost and ensuring a good mix of your browns and greens for optimal heat generation. Those little aerobic bacteria will thank you.

Friday, June 08, 2007

Better Late Than Never - A Review of the Spring Plant Exchange

As I mentioned before, I attended the City of Calgary's Natural Areas Adopt-A-Park Program 2007 Plant exchange (on May 12). This exchange is much more casual and laid-back then what I have read about the Calgary Horticultural Society exchange. The folks attending were limited to City of Calgary employees, volunteers, and Healthy Yards participants. The selection was good, I went there with a dozen Tiny Tim tomatoes that I started from seed and came home with a whole tray of established perrenials. What a great deal!

It was held at the city of Calgary offices located at 111 17th st SE Calgary. Kind of out of the way, but worth the trek. I can say that since I left home late, blew a tire, changed it, ripped down the deerfoot and got to the exchange at about 10AM. I was happy with my finds, but I did get the distinct impression that everything was pretty picked over by the time I got there. So, my suggestion would be to get there on time (about 9:15) for the trading frenzy at 9:30.

Here's what I grabbed:

2 Tall Blue Campanula

6 yellow sedum - as far as I am concerned, you can never have enough of this stuff.

6 Shasta Daisies (I don't remember grabbing these, but that's what my notes say. I wonder where I put them?

1 Large Sedum (I need to id this one... a later post perhaps

6 red potato sets

1 Achillea millefolium Cerise Queen (Pink Yarrow)

1 Pairie Mallow

1 Other suspicious yarrow like plant.

a handful of hens and chickens

1 seed pack of native Alberta wild flowers

I know, there are those folks out there that would warn me about Yarrow and the Mallow, but my yard is pretty new, so I should be able to get away with it... right?

So far, all are thriving, I'll post photos when they are in full bloom. Keep your eyes peeled for an email note from Sue Horne, there is usually another exchange in September!