A Pretty Good Summer for Gardening, Too

Usually by August things are very dry in Toronto, and the garden is fried crisp around the edges. That's a nice way to eat your green tomatoes, but not a fun way to grow them. This year we have had a rainy summer, but there's also been enough sun and warmth that we have had a terrific garden.


Last summer was heartbreaking as far as my little vegetable patch was concerned. Kelly had built me a beautiful vegetable planter, and I went crazy with heirloom tomato plants, which the squirrels quite enjoyed. So this year, Kelly built me some tomato cages.

Notice that we also have a little guard cat in the doorway. Anyway, they've done the trick and we are well into a delicious crop of baby heirloom tomatoes: Pearly Pink, Golden Sunrise, Black Cherry, and a common little red grape. All from the Tiessen family vegetable farm in Niagara, which sells seedlings at the Farmers' Market near Kelly's library. During the growing season, we also buy full-size heirloom tomatoes from the Tiessens. There's a bowlful in the kitchen even as we speak, including my favorite, Green Zebra.

Tonight, I'm going to combine one with some of our own Thai chilis and basil in a fresh salsa to go with the churrasco pork tenderloin that's marinating in the fridge. Marinating in our very own thyme and rosemary, along with some local garlic. So much better that Chinese or even Mexican garlic.


This is one of our basils -- Greek. It looks nice but neither it nor the purple basil planted next to it is as good as the old fashioned green Genovese basil that we are also growing.


We've had this little bay tree for almost 10 years. It always had just a little frond of bay leaves at the top; a few new ones popped out every spring and it kept us going through the winter. This year, for the first time (who knows why?) I took it outside and after a shaky adjustment, it sent forth new growth up and down its spine.


It is satisfying, and lovely to boot:


As are the little flowers on the purple pole beans:


The beauty of ornamental plans sustains you in a different way. I've never seen so many buds on one branch of this rose bush:


Here they are, bursting forth. I think they liked their meals of organic fertilizer followed by a strong pot of coffee grounds (fair trade, bien sur).


Our honeysuckle is working hard to establish itself. It comes on great in the spring, then gets chewed up by bugs, then comes back again in late summer.


Kelly's dahlias are expanding. This dinnerplate is on a plant sprouting three other such blossoms. Its tuber was so big that Kelly had to split it between two pots, so there are anoher two huge white blossoms a-blooming in the back yard. I love the fact that after all this beauty, you dig up an ugly ginger-like knob, hide it in the dark all winter, stick in back in the dirt in spring, and the beauty just multiplies.


This year's exercise in planter construction was a raised bed in the front yard. The plants did very well this summer but we would like to give it another year with more typical hot and dry conditions before expanding it. My two favorite flowers in it are the red yarrow and the orange poppies, which have bloomed all summer long.


Both our grandmothers would be proud of this garden, I think.