Friends in high places

The title of this post was a lot funnier in my head. I am making references to "herbs" so I thought "high" was a bit cheeky. But the fact that I have had to explain it just makes me lame.

Anyway, I've thrown the idea out to a friend that a bunch of us should get together and sow our herbs seeds together one day - you know, safety in numbers and all that. We can make it into something fun and social but also productive. I just have no idea if this is the right time of year to be planting herb seeds. Gotta check into that.....

Now that I think about it, "high places" could refer to gardening on the roof top too. I'll have to keep this line in my back pocket for future use.

A seed is planted...

Not a literal seed, but a thought. I have decided to make this year the one where I finally start some sort of gardening. Until this point in my life, my "gardening" experience has included trying to keep my few indoor plants alive and perhaps the odd attempt at buy a plant that is already grown and seeing how long it lasts. About 5 years ago I bought a book, "Flower Gardening for Dummies." Flower gardening has yet to happen, but I'll agree to the dummy bit.

My goals this year are to: 1) have a few flowers blossoming on my balcony, 2) grow some herbs growing on my balcony or indoors, wherever they are supposed to be, and 3) have some fresh vegetables growing on my building's rooftop.

But why? Couldn't I fulfill myself by buying myself a bouquet every week or so, using up the dried herbs in my store-bought spice rack, and getting my vegetables from the local grocery store? Well, that's what I have been doing. However, I've been spurred on by a variety of experiences: reading books like "100 mile diet"; staying and eating in Peru and Costa Rica at guesthouses that offered homemade meals of ingredients directly from the land (call it a "100 metre diet"); becoming more and more conscious of the carbon footprint of so many things I eat - whether grown 4000km away and shipped here or grown 100km away in greenhouses; and finally, can it really be that hard?

Resources

Vancouver's City Farmer
Information from the city farm and compost demonstration garden near 6th and Maple (I think). The webpage is pretty awful (they won many awards for it back in 1997-1999, but I don't think the format has changed since then) but the information is good. They have a new "blog" for new gardening news, which is MUCH better. I took a worm compost workshop here last year, and highly recommend it. The wormshop is $25 and includes everything you need to start your worm compost (HUGE value). They usually happen March/April-ish.

UBC Botanical Garden - A Beginner's Guide to Vegetable Gardening
Exactly that. Getting started, sowing seeds, planting, maintenance. Basically makes makes this blog redundant, really.