Beth's Gutter Garden

Just so you understand, handiness is not my forte. Fortunately, I’m also not a perfectionist, extra holes in the wall are covered with pictures and mitered corners that are not well mitered are crammed with putty and layered with paint.

During the renovation, much to the chagrin of the workers, I rummaged through left over pieces of wood, piping and paraphernalia picking out what I thought could be used for raised beds, window boxes, etc. including an 8’ x 1’ piece of water piping, a stack of 2 x 4 and 4 x 4 ends and our old gutters.

The latter joined the pile of junk/treasures stored to the side of the garden. I knew that one day I would figure out what to do with them. Well, yesterday was the day that figuring produced something substantial and I might add I don’t think it looks too bad either.

This was not my idea. I’m not that original. Some impressive innovative and ardent gardener created it several years ago. I saw a picture of it somewhere, sometime, as part of a vertical garden.

Gutter Garden, Raspberries and Blueberries

Thus my new Gutter Garden.

Yesterday I nailed the gutter to the top of my fence where the sun hits first thing in the spring and first thing in the morning. I’ll be filling it with lettuce and perhaps radish.

Lettuce Seedlings

Voila, you don’t need to be handy…just passionate and determined!

Remember that large pipe I mentioned….stay tuned for pictures of my Strawberry Stack!

If you like my Gutter Garden please ‘like’ me! Please ‘like’ me anyways, just because you are a fellow gardener!

Bonus? I got four beds of potatoes planted too. The soil was easy to dig with only a few bits of straw not yet decomposed. Nice rich soil made from chicken poop, kitchen waste and last years seaweed.

After getting both the beans and the tatties in the ground, I covered them up with a nice layer of fresh straw, blessed the divas of young plants, and added a wish that the forecasters be right and spring has arrived.

This weekend it’ll be peas going in and on Monday I’m heading over to Vancouver to visit mum and dad. In between mom’s house and the home where dad lives I’ll be taking a wee bit of a detour. West Coast Seed Store isn’t too far down the road. I’ve made my list, my friends made hers and I’ll have the car with me. Shivers of anticipation trickle down my spine! I feel wickedly dirty already.

Garden Pre Sirens

It could be that the days are getting longer, the light stimulating new growth and awakenings. It could be that renewing energy sifts through the ether and wafts around me like a seductive cloud of sensual oils. It could be that I’m getting older and confusing ringing in my ears with the gentle whisper, “Broad Beans should be in the ground, peas need planting. Another layer of Sea Soil should cover all the beds!”

I braved the cold and rain this morning, bundled up in my t-shirt and nor’easter hat. The house had a nip to it as the fire died in the night. We needed kindling and the chickens needed checking. When it’s windy their gate swings open. The girls don’t wait for freedom’s call, they run and if a particularly strong gust hits them as they’re running for freedom it picks them up and hurls them around the yard.

After securing them in their run, with the dogs happily gamboling about my feet, I walked past the raised beds. And a siren song captivated me, it sang of bright green vines arching around notched bamboo poles, of velvety pods plump with seed, of the air redolent with the scent of crushed fennel and oregano and of bursting moist flavors.

Retrieving the hoe from my new Lee Valley tool organizer I felt a familiar rush of anticipation for the ancient symbiotic relationship humans have with dirt. With tool in hand, boots on my feet I waded through the few remaining patches of snow towards the garden bed.

I tapped the soil lightly with the tip of the hoe. Nothing gave. I tapped a bit harder, not even a speck of dirt broke from a tightly encased icy layer of top soil. Raising the hoe high above my head, visualizing the breaking of soil and the feel of the tool sinking deep in rich, soft earth, I heard the siren song crack a little and I hesitated. Maybe it isn’t time yet, maybe the soil needs to warm up. But the momentum started was hard to stop and I brought the hoe down with all the hope, earnestness and passion of a frustrated gardener.

Nike barked her encouragement and support. Willie flipped the Frisbee at me in a salute of praise and honor for ignoring the elements and reveling in work outdoors in pouring rain and snow. And the hoe hit solid earth sending painful vibrations through metal and wood to tender flesh and nerves.

Okay, so the sirens were just voices in my head. Cradling my aching arm I put the hoe back in my lovely Lee Valley tool organizer and stomped into the house. Next week sirens, next week!

There is nowhere in my yard that chickens have not left impressive piles of waste. We use a poop scooper to collect it, compost it and then add it to the soil in our vegetable garden. The dogs keep deer out and 90% of the plants are edible or medicinal.

Although my husband is not an enthusiastic urban farmer, I am. Periodically, I interrupt writing to gaze out my study window at the garden boxes, herbs and netting that make up my veggie and berry patch. It isn’t overly pretty, but the box on the far left produced over fifty pounds of red potatoes last year. The next box, John carefully made from untreated landscape ties and metal brackets, gave us over 40 pounds of broad beans. The center box grew peas I would gather every morning, that never made it in the house. And the blueberries and raspberries delivered delicious, sweet fruit for almost two months.

I dream of constructing a greenhouse between the wood pile and the raspberries. The spot gets sun for two hours starting in February growing into eight in the summer. A green plastic lawn chair gathers rain in the winter months but in the spring gets cleaned off and used to enjoy the warm spring sun.

The yard borders the east side of the large soccer fields of Rutherford School. People in the neighbourhood walk and exercise their dogs in the large grassy field or play pick up games of baseball. As they walk along the fence line their curiosity draws them to watch the activity of our urban farm: chickens scratching through leaves and detritus, dogs saying hello, vegetables growing bigger every day and fruit trees cycling through bareness, blossom and color.

When the 200 year old Cedar tree came down two years ago, people noticed. More than the yard opened up, people did too. The tree hid our house, gave us privacy, but it also created a barrier. When I’m working in the garden now, I also get conversation. The dog walkers stop by to comment on how things are growing, bemoan their lack of garden acumen and admire my handiwork. I thought dogs bring people together, but growing food does to.

I never thought too much about growing food. It was something you did, like washing your windows or putting gas in your car. I didn’t grow anything exotic or challenging; just regular run of the mill grazing food like peas, onions, beans, beets, and lettuce. They weren’t even in well defined rows.

Times have changed though, so have I. Call it age, activism, empty nest or pleasure it doesn’t matter, they’ve all played a hand in my gardening evolution. I have neatly built raised bed boxes forming evenly spaced and straight rows. I plan in the winter to rotate crops and build soil, and every year more grass disappears. Most importantly, I now produce enough food to preserve and enjoy through the fall, winter and spring.
I’m not reliant on the grocery stores to ship in jam from Australia or frozen vegetables from China. I have a freezer full of my own. That independence feels good, almost like rebellion!

With supermarkets less than one mile apart we’ve been trained to pick our food from perfectly chilled and moistened bins, stock our larders with ready to eat meals in a can or box or choose from an array of flash frozen items.

Food found on these shelves is mass produced and cheap. The work involved with growing and producing it is automated with machines doing the majority of labour. Humans no longer have to muck about in the dirt or risk a sore back and knees weeding around small seedlings. Chemicals are added to the soil for enrichment and chemicals are used to destroy pests, like weeds.

In my urban garden I’m putting myself back in the food equation with more than rich compost and sweat. I’m adding my energy. Not my ability to work long hours without rest. But the essence of who I am: my love for my family, my passion for good quality food, my belief in hard work and the satisfaction of consuming a beet or potato or pea that I nurtured from a seed.

That kind of good, positive energy grows into my blueberries and apples, in ways we can’t measure or quantify. But when it’s consumed by family and friends, its there, in every bean, pea, tomato, zucchini, potato, and fruit I grow. Served up with a good helping of Pride!

Yesterday I watched a show from Britain about a farmer who wanted to compare an old fashioned Christmas dinner with its modern counterpart. He found heirloom plants and animals, made Christmas pudding with beef suet in the summer and hung it to cure for several months and made old fashioned cider to toast with instead of champagne.

He filmed mass produced Brussel sprouts, and the crowded pens of genetically modified turkey and contrasted it with planting and tending his own sprouts and removing caterpillars by hand, and free range turkeys eating a natural diet of bugs, greens and grains.
His guests, including Jamie Oliver, overwhelmingly enjoyed the homegrown, heirloom foods better. The cost of growing and producing it at home however, was more than triple the price of the mass produced, factory grown foods.

A turkey farmer who raises over 3000 birds a year made this comment: “If we went back to raising the heirloom breeds of turkey, it’d be like back in King Henry’s time when no one but the aristocracy could afford a turkey dinner for Christmas.” You can’t argue with that. But you can solve the problem…..get out in the dirt, muck about a bit, dig some holes, throw in some seeds, build a pen for a chicken or two, bring the mother-in-law in to do the mucky deedt and voila…homegrown heaven!
Interesting side note: After watching the film, I decided to emulate Jimmy (the farmer), grow my own brussel sprouts and heirloom carrots and grow my own gobblers. Yep, we’re going to have a couple of turkeys in our backyard. Anyone know where I can get some turkey poults?

Lorraine and I met him at the Frog and Puddle, a brave new restaurant that sits next to the Cassidy Inn on the Island Highway. His name is Murray McNabb and with his five siblings he lives on and works McNabbs Farm and Corn Maze in Cedar. His parents bought the farm in the 60’s to much scorn and criticism. The soil wasn’t the best and there were too many trees and rocks. But Senior McNabb had a hunch. Where others recognized swamp, he saw good irrigation and fields of peat loving potatoes. Where others pictured back breaking labour, he saw opportunity for character building and a future for his children.

The McNabb kids have done their parents proud. The farm has been transformed. No longer do they travel to Tofino to sell excess potatoes. They now have an on- your- honour farm stand, a steady clientele in a local health food store, neighbours and the odd larger grocery store and a destination event, the corn maze, that draws 1000 visitors a year from up and down the mid island.

I arrived early to the restaurant. It wasn’t packed. Two men with fly away grey hair, flannel shirts and grease tattooed into their hands sat to the left of the door. They were drinking coffee, arms draped over the backs of their chair. Another man sat in a far corner reading a paper. He had a John Deere cap on and didn’t lift his head from the paper the whole time I was there.

The waitress, with auburn hair pulled back in a ponytail cheerfully went about her business, periodically stopping by to chat up the two men or to see if my water needed refilling.

A radio plays in the background, not loud enough to hear the words, but enough to catch the melody. When a recognizable song plays the waitress turns songster and sings, filling salt and pepper shakers, wiping down menus, delivering orders and belting out renditions of popular tunes. Simon Cowel should have been there.

When Murray walked in to the restaurant it was hard not to recognize him. He moved carefully and slowly, like his upper body was immobile and he had to place his feet gently. Just last week on the Cassidy bridge, north of the Frog and Puddle a woman driving south slipped on black ice and plowed into the centre concrete divider. It pushed the massive piece of concrete into Murray’s path. He hit it going 90 km/hr, flipping the truck. When his vehicle came to rest it was upside down and he was on the roof protected for the most part by all the deployed air bags.

Unfortunately, the impact broke his back, compression fractures of the 1st and 2nd lumbar vertebrae. The body can only take so much. After we sat down at the table he popped a couple of Motrin.

“Pain isn’t too bad.” He said. “I take two pills in the morning and evening and then just a couple of Motrin during the day.”

‘Tough as nails’ comes to mind. Other farmers I’ve interviewed are the same. It’s a prerequisite to working the land.

During lunch, while he munches on home made fries, he explains how in years past most farmers in the area grew potatoes. There’s a lot of low swampy ground in Cedar, farms usually had a strip somewhere on their property, perfect for potatoes. The soil provided lots of water and the potato did the rest.

“Most farms grew potatoes. Not just for themselves, but to sell. A local distributor would buy the excess. Sometimes, if we wanted to make some extra money, we’d drive up to Tofino and sell them there. Not too much on the West Coast.”

There is no distribution centre or co-op anymore. The big agribusiness farms that focus on one product take care of their own distribution. The small scale farmer has to make do with finding his own customers.

“We can’t be delivering a few pounds of potatoes to small stores or to people’s houses anymore.” He said. “Gas costs alone don’t make it worthwhile. And then there’s the time it takes. I have another job, the one that supports the farm.”

In the last five years several established farms have either stopped production or sold off property.

“We can’t compete with the large agribusinesses.” Murray says. “It’s hard work with little financial reward. Why would a young person, even though the farm has been in the family for years, invest in that lifestyle? Five years ago there were several dairy farms in this area. Today there’s only two.”

“The problem is the quotas for dairy cows are worth more than what the cows bring in. One place shut down operation this year after selling his quota to the interior for a million. The business itself was only worth ½ a million. What would you have chosen?”

Two hours passed quickly as Murray regaled us with the stories of growing up in a small farming community. The changes he’d been witness to, the satisfaction of growing food, the frustration with government regulations, growing his first corn crop at 12 years old and the enjoyment of watching young families come back year after year for the annual corn maze.

He’s an ordinary man, surprised at two women eager to hear and write about his stories. But his stories, his ideas, his experiences are indicators of how things worked in the past and how they need to work in the present. Our most basic human right involves access to good food. Murray and his family of brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces are ensuring we have it.

Hothouse at CuisinArt Resort, Anguilla

I’ve been researching the differences in diet between early man and his more ‘progressive’ farming cousin. Who do you think was healthier? If you said the guy who grows his own food….you’d be wrong. Early man won that race. He had better teeth, stronger bones and probably would have lived longer if he didn’t have all those larger predators after him. Why? Major question with many differing theoretical answers.

The current winning theory on our healthy Paleo man is that he had variety in his diet. Lots of variety. But his plate didn’t have the requisite protein, carbohydrate and three vegetables, followed by dessert. He ate what ever was available at any given time and in any given place. That meant nuts that grew at higher altitudes, berries on the lowlands and anything and everything he could find from foraging. Look at a book of wild, edible plants and you’ll find a lot of pages. Variety abounds.

Diversity makes for a successful ecosystem. Everything living in that system gets well fed encouraging growth and expansion.

On Anguilla, a small island in the Carribbean, there is a hydroponic farm, an incredible set up that any gardener, including myself, would envy. Within its hurricane proof glass and metal walls is a well controlled ecosystem. With little diversity. Most greenhouses are like that. They focus on the popular hot house vegetables like tomatoes, cucumber, peppers and eggplant. It tells us a little bit about 21th century man’s diet. Not much variety! Were any of those vegetables on your dinner or lunch plate?

Back to my initial question. What vegetables have you eaten over the past few days? How many were the same ones? How about other foods? Were they the same basic ingredients you consume every day?

Though the greenhouse is a much needed, life saving enterprise on a small

Growing Local Food Anguilla

Our body functions better, more efficiently, when it is fuelled by a variety of foods. Metabolic wastes build up in the body. When the same food is eaten every day the wastes created by that food don’t get a chance to completely flush from the body. With variety there isn’t the same build up of toxins. This could be one of the reasons why Paleo man did so well. He was one detoxed human.

But large agribusinesses, needing to reap large profits from cash crops focus on a handful of food items. It’s easier and more profitable that way, especially if they have contracts to supply millions of dollars worth of product to large companies who process and sell that single crop.

The point I’m trying to make here is that we are losing biodiversity, not just in our environment, but also in the food we eat. Diversity in nature means a successful food chain. Diversity in our diet means better health. We seem to be losing ground on both.

Fortunately, the earth has several alternative plans in her back pocket. The most important involving her incredible ability to heal and adapt. Given the right resources she can and will repair herself and quite nicely, without any human intervention. I just happen to want to stay apart of the process.

Solution? Eat more variety. Instead of having wheat in some form every day, try millet or amaranth. Instead of eating tomatoes, in some form, every day, change it up and try something different, like cauliflower or okra.

We value humanity for its individual uniqueness, for its biodiversity of personality and looks. We celebrate it in words, anthems, poetry and stories. Lets embrace all diversity not just in humanity but in every aspect of living that includes what we put on our plate.

Today, I’m making a rye congee. I have some broccoli leaves left from the garden, fennel seed collected from one of my plants and some dried cauliflower fungus from last year. Tomorrow we may have lamb congee made creamy with potatoes and parsnips. Change it up people, change it up!

Butternut Squash Congee
Good for building immunity or for anyone feeling under the weather from a chesty cold.

8 cups water
1 chicken thigh and drumstick
1 chicken wing
1 cup basmati brown rice
¼ cup wild rice
¼ cup dried shitake mushrooms
½ chopped onion
4 cups coarsely chopped butternut squash
½ tablespoon dried and powdered ginger
1-2 teaspoons Herbamare or Himalayan Salt

In a slow cooker turned to high add water and chicken. Let cook on high for two hours. Add the rest of the ingredients and let simmer on high for about 5 hours or until the water has completely gone. If the dish is getting too thick just add ¼ cup water at a time.

Stir it whenever you think about it, bringing the rice from the bottom to the top. When it’s reached the desired creamy consistency remove bones and serve hot.

Anguilla Flower

We’ve just sat down to lunch on Anguilla, one of the smaller Leeward Islands. We’ve been listening to presentations about web building all morning and though we’ve been totally inactive, our appetites are ready to be sated. The lunch is simple plain food the vegetarians, vegans and omnivores can all enjoy. Darlene is one of my lunch companions as well as Susan and Brenda. She comes from one of the Leeward Islands, St. Eustacias or Statia as the locals call her. Only slightly larger than Anguilla, it’s only a twenty minute flight away. Somehow the conversation turns to eating local food and farming. It could have been me that brought it up. It was one of those conversations that ebbs and flows, moving seamlessly from one topic to the other. I can’t remember how it started.

“My father gardens.” she said. “He grows lots of fruit and will take any opportunity to show you what he’s grown.” She smiles, as any indulgent daughter would. “He is very proud that he grows his own food and is always tellin’ others to do the same.”

Susan piped up. “We picked up some fruit on the way back from shopping yesterday. It came from the Dominican Republic but didn’t have much taste. And we got mangos from Puerto Rico that weren’t even ripe.”

“Our food, including the fruit,” Darlene explains, “comes from all over, but it’s shipped from Florida. When Hurricane Irene came through in August, and we saw the images moving towards that state, we were very concerned. If Florida gets hit, we don’t get food and we don’t have enough to last us very long.”
On these islands the locals have become accustomed to getting food from the grocery store. Signs promote it, TV makes it cool and variety makes it exciting. The grocery store maintains this mentality by carrying name brands ‘as seen on TV’. It’s a consistent supply brought in from reliable distributors. Those distributors, in turn, buy food in quantity and from growers who can fill demand. That usually means from large plantations, not from small entrepreneurial small scale farmers.

On Vancouver Island one of our berry growers expressed his frustration over this centralized distribution system that favours large agribusiness.

“Last week at the farmer’s market a friend of mine told me she had cucumbers all come ready at the same time, over 200.” He explained. “With no distribution center for local farmers, there was no way of accessing a larger market. If we could pool our produce we could reach a larger customer base.”
Support for small scale farmers is slow to come, if at all. Agribusinesses have more financial investment and therefore stronger motivation to get and keep consumer dollar, and significant resources dedicated to ensuring the stability of this market.

“The government recently created incentives for local people to learn how to grow their own food.” Darlene explains. “But that doesn’t help us now with Hurricane’s threatenin’ to stop our supply lines.”
Later that day I walked 10 minutes down the road to the beach. Lilies, bouganvillea, yucca and bamboo line the road, adding splashes of purple, pink, green and yellow. A sign sits to the left of the road,

Tsunami Warning Sign Cove Beach, Anguilla

Paradise Cove Resort

I also must add that I like getting massages. I’ve been saving my pennies over the past year to treat myself. In fact, it’s been a year and a half of saving egg money for just such a treat. Thank you, Lloyd and Roxanne for financing this wonderful experience. I wasn’t disappointed. Yvette blessed me with the second best massage I have ever had. Second to John’s of course, my husband and ex massage therapist. I had been sitting too long in planes and airports and then slept on a bed that was too hard (just call me Goldilocks). My back was stiff and achy. I went for a good walk and that loosened it up a bit, but nothing works like a good massage, especially if the conversation is good and serves to distract from elbows working out knots.

Just Missing The Sunset at Paradise Cove

Once the door to a conversation about farming had been opened, I walked through! The government, she explained, has started new initiatives to encourage people to grow their own food, so small farms, plots really, are cropping up all around the 35 square foot island. Unfortunately, as Sylvan tells me, shaking her head, people plant and harvest at the same time.

“I walk by fields and the tomatoes are rottin’ on the vine. The government needs to teach the people to farm all year. Everyone’s vegetables come ready at the same time. What do we do with the left over? Throw it away!”

I asked her if there were ways of preserving the food. “No, people don’t know how to preserve or they don’t have the right tools. I get tomatoes goin’ bad and put them in my freezer. I use them when I make pasta. I was thinkin’ about getting’ one of those boxes to dry them. ”

Many societies have depended heavily on preserved food especially those with distinct seasons. In order to avoid starvation people needed to ensure sufficient quantities of food during the non-growing seasons. With ocean travel taking explorers to far countries the need for preserved food became even more important, if the sailors were to survive. Drying, canning, salting, pickling and fermenting were forms of preserving food learned out of necessity.

In the Caribbean, seasonal fluctuations are minimal. Rain comes in January and February, the rest of the time is sunny, making food available year round. Fruits, nuts, and seafood on the islands experience no dramatic seasonal changes. But in the past several decades, tourists have come to the islands, demanding and getting the best fruits the forest has to offer or the best product made from the forest bounty. The forest cannot sustain both the residents and visitors or supply the variety.

“The government needs to teach people how to alternate the crops.” Sylvan says. She has strong ideas about this. “We don’t have great soil. People who want to grow food need to learn how to make good soil to grow good food. It costs too much to bring food in from other places.”

On our visit to this small oasis I was looking forward to finding a farm or two. I even formulated questions to ask the farmers as we flew over the patchwork fields of the Midwest, even imagined the responses while flying over the Pacific Ocean. But I’m out of season. Even the papaya aren’t ripe, the fruit barely formed on trees leaning over our back porch. The mangos we were so excited to eat are from Brazil and so green they may not ripen by the time we are ready to head back home. The bananas are from Ecuador, another disappointment. But I did find some hot sauce made on Anguilla. I’m taking it home for the boys. I’m a tourist after all. I want my bit of paradise too.

In the Caribbean, on small islands made of volcanic ash and dead leaves, there is no soil on which to grow select vegetables. Of course, there is fruit, lots of fruit. Ones that have adapted to little and poor soil and lots of water and sun. What soil there is, is sand and the base to that sand is volcanic rock.

All that beach lovers’ delight and hard, porous rock makes it difficult to cultivate soil, choose what is being planted and have it develop into a healthy, productive plant. Patches of dirt are few and far between. And what nutrients there are, fruit trees and flowers muscle in on, taking what nutrients they can absorb and leaving leaves and rotting fruit in thanks.

Soil can be built of course, but every rainy season that soil, on a bed of rock, washes away. Every year you’d have to start over. And good soil needs constant amending. Compost takes time. It would take a committed, inventive gardener to grow soil and significant amounts of vegetable crops.

I asked our taxi driver if there were any farms on the island. “No” he said. “No soil. But they do grow chickens and eggs.” He spoke slowly, so I would understand. Their usual conversation is so fast and filled with slang it’s become an English language difficult for my ears to comprehend. “My mother grows tomatoes and peppers in her backyard. But that is rare. Not many people do that.” He added.

Looking at the price of our two hard tomatoes I wonder how the locals can afford to eat any vegetables. Four dollars a piece, and probably shipped from the States.