Our latest mosaic project is one of the friendliest birds around, the black-capped chickadee. We made this one with a combination of broken crockery and smalti tiles. You can see more of our mosaic work at the Long Branch Mosaics site. We do all kinds of custom mosaics for home and garden.
We used to have raised veggie gardens out back. That was fine for lettuce and onions and peas and a few other things, but it just doesn’t get enough sun for a lot of veggies. When the house to the south of us was rebuilt, they took down a larch and a white spruce which were growing near the north edge of their property. Later, another spruce next door became uprooted in a windstorm and it had to come down for safety. I don’t like to see any loss of mature trees in the community, but I’m taking advantage of the resulting sunny area. I decided a couple years ago to experiment with a few veggies out front in containers.
The experiment was a huge success and now I have many large containers along that strip. I have Swiss chard, kale, zucchini, cucumbers, loads of herbs, bok choi, lettuce, onions, lots of garlic, hot chilies – and tomatoes galore.
Our friend Jennifer starts most of our tomato plants for us. She’s very good at it and grows excellent heirloom tomatoes from seed. It may look in the photo as if I’ve gone overboard with my tomato stakes, but these are indeterminate tomatoes, and even well pruned they grow big and enjoy excellent yields. This year my tomato varieties include a Mortgage Lifter, Mennonite Orange, Green Zebra and the amazing Sungold, the best and highest yielding cherry-type tomatoes I’ve ever seen.
Not everything is in containers. I have a few hot peppers and lots of garlic planted in the ground. Last year I visited my friend East Texas Red, who lives near Perth. They have a garlic festival there, which we visited, and I bought several varieties of garlic to try. My neighbour to the north also just gave us what I can only describe as a clump of garlic. He does not grow his garlic for larg bulbs. Instead he grows it in crowded clumps and primarily harvests young shoots and scapes. He makes garlic butter which is out of this world.
By the time the Long Branch Garden Tour happens, on June 22, the veggies and everything else in the garden will be in full swing. Our garden tour has grown to over 40 gardens. We knew it was Toronto’s biggest free garden tour, but we haven’t been able to find a bigger one anywhere in the country. It’s going to be a fantastic day for garden lovers.
I just came across this on YouTube. Here’s John Herrmann and Bruce Molsky playing Black-eyed Suzie at Banjo Camp North. I love this performance!
I trundled out in the rain this morning to pick up my free trees, courtesy of the Long Branch Neighbourhood Association and the Tree for Me program. Kudos to the LBNA for picking up on Tree for Me and providing free trees to the community.
Our excellent tree canopy is one of the first things I noticed when we came to Long Branch a decade ago to look at what became our home. There has been a lot of development in Long Branch though, with a lot of pressure from developers to sever lots and build large “soldier homes” at the expense of green space and tree canopy. Tree for me is a great way to encourage homeowners in the area to plant native trees around their homes, and help make up for trees lost to development.
I was able to register online for Tree for Me. I had a choice of big trees – bur oak or red maple; small trees – northern hackberry or white birch; or shrubs – serviceberry, white cedar, red osier dogwood, or black chokeberry. Everyone is allowed 2 trees. I chose a serviceberry and a black chokeberry. We already have serviceberries here, and they’re in full bloom. We should have a bumper crop of serviceberries (Saskatoons) this season.
This will be our first black chokeberry (Aronia). They are deciduous shrubs in the rose family. The black chokeberry is a fairly short shrub, which spreads by root sprouts. Where I’m planting ours, it can spread to its heart’s content. They’re often found in wet woods or swamps. Perfect – we have a wet area at the back of our property along the north edge. Chokeberries are edible. They’re usually used in baking or preserving, as they are quite sour and astringent eaten raw. They are not to be confused with the distantly related chokecherries.
I understand Tree for Me has been highly successful in Long Branch, with loads of residents taking advantage of the program and planting native trees and shrubs.
Meredith Axelrod and Frank Fairfield
Jerron Paxton…
Here’s the fabulous Earl White Stringband performing Down South Blues
I was surfing around the YouTube machine tonight and came across these words of wisdom from the late Bruce “Utah” Phillips, the Golden Voice of the Great Southwest.
Daddy what’s a train….
Today’s nature walk with Miles Hearn took place close to home at Sam Smith Park, a local hotspot for birdwatchers. The birds did not disappoint. Miles counted 42 species in all. I’ve been keeping a list of all the species identified in 2019, either on these walks or on my own. So far, I’m at 92 species.
Next week: Scarborough Bluffs
Tuffy P broke a pair of reading glasses. The little screw worked itself out and became lost in the ether, leaving the arm of the glasses to fall off. No problem, right? Our local drugstore has these little kits, with a tiny screwdriver and several tiny screws, each of which sits in a soft plastic sleeve to facilitate getting that puppy into the tiny hole.
Silly me, I thought my job was over once I brought home the kit. However, I discovered this morning that my mission also included the repair. OK, no problem. I opened the back end of the wee screwdriver and dumped the screws out onto the table. Then I started the 3-bears routine, looking for the screw which fits just right.
By this point, I suspect you’ve guessed – none of the screws fit. All but one were obviously too small. One almost fits. Almost? Yes, it’s just a tidge big. It looks like maybe it should fit but only doesn’t because I have hands the size of hams. Tuffy P tried too, but no love.
Then it occurred to me that this kit might just contain screws that won’t fit in any glasses, ever, and somewhere, somebody is laughing at us.
27th Street 