Organic feeding, organic eating

Sara is down on her knees these days, planting tomatoes and peppers, turning the soil in preparation for planting peas and beans. Her kale is ready for eating, and the Brussels sprouts and broccoli are well on their way.

It’s Spring gardening season, and despite the unpredictable nature of our weather, some of her small strawberry plants are already showing red fruit, while her large raspberry bush is full of promising buds. In the flower department, poppies and peonies are trying to outdo each other in rich reds and oranges, while the purple blue shower of catmint flowers is only outdone by the long lasting blessing of the forget-me-not blue star field.

We went through the first signs of Spring—crocuses, hyacinths, daffodils, tulips—and now we’re in the clematis, early rose, bluebells, and lupens period. Sara has dug up large sections of her flower beds, moving things around and redesigning the stone walled enclosures. Yes, after years of having her raised beds enclosed by driftwood, Sara started converting the perimeters of the beds to stone, with a little help from a neighbor. My work and sore back prevented me from helping out.

We had kale—prepared with garlic and slivered almonds—last night, and Sara’s red and green lettuce has been ready for the nightly picking for quite a while. Her sorel has bolted, and ready for trimming. She promised to utilize the second growth to make sorel soup, hopefully sweetened with some honey.

Speaking of honey, we finally spotted some bumblebees among the catmint flowers this week, but still no honey bees. Facebook friends report a similar dearth of the helpful insects, without whom the work of pollination will be very difficult, indeed. Who is to blame? Corporate pesticides, cell phones, or an insidious virus? It’s very disturbing…

Advanced Nutrients, our favorite fertilizer maker, has undergone many changes since we started using their products back in 2006. We hear that their CEO is helping to feed thousands of poor families at Christmas and Easter in Bulgaria these days, and that they are coming out with a brand new line of products to be used with coco coir as a substrate. Since we hardly use hydroponics, we’re still betting on Iguana Juice, Grow and Bloom, to keep our plants and flowers well fed each year! But Sara has switched to a coco fiber seedling pot, which is biodegradable.

She started the kale from seed, BTW, under a very primitive grow light, wick-action hydroponic system, but we had to cut the holes bigger on the bottoms of the coco pots, in order to aid the absorption of water from below. The taste of that wonderful vegetable still lingers on my tongue from last night. By producing some of our own food each year, we are not only saving a bit of money, but we’re taking part in a very exciting global revolution of growing our own—rather than depending on the corporate agri-businesses to supply shrink-wrapped, half-ripe produce for our table.

The largest and best tomato plants in the entire neighborhood!

Sara has been diligently nurturing our vegetables (tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, snap peas, lettuce--of five different kinds, dill, oregano, red bell peppers, yellow Hungarian banana peppers, beans, pumpkins,  and the best damn home-grown carrots you can imagine.) They are growing in a flower bed circumscribed by a wooden enclosure in the front, or in another bed made of composted kitchen scraps and shredded fallen leaves, in the back of our house.

Our summer weather is nothing to write home about, but we managed to get enough sunny days, between rainy and overcast ones, to enable the Advanced Nutrients organic Iguana Juice to work its magic. The lady from the local garden club came by and told Sara that she has the biggest and most fertile tomato plants in the entire neighborhood!

As usual, Sara's flowers are twice the size of what they should be (a three-foot Phlox is now a six-foot super Phlox!). Sara does take good care of her soil, to be sure, but I suspect it's the regular application of the Iguana formulation that causes the growth spurt. As well as the prolific number of Roses on one of her prize bushes.

She started growing Dahlias in semi-hydroponic plastic containers. You have to fill up the reservoir at the bottom of the container and the soil and the roots get moisture through capillary action from below. Sara also has a network of soaker-hoses intertwined with her plants, and buried near their root systems to keep them well watered during the hot, summer days.

It's a lot of work, Sara's style of gardening. She is redesigning the main flower bed and has bought some very nice rocks to build a rock wall around it. Prior to this, the soil in this particular bed was contained by select pieces of driftwood, which are slowly rotting away and are even growing mushrooms!

The huge Lilies dominate one portion of her garden, not just by their sheer size and beauty, but also by the wonderful fragrance they emit, causing each passer-by to comment very favorably!

I wish I had more time to document Sara's garden, but this will give you a taste of what it's like living near this small Paradise surrounding our home--and created by my wife.

BTW, that muddy gardener is our new puppy, Cooper!

 

Organic Nutrients Produce Bigger Yields

Forget-me-nots galore! Huge daffodils soaking up the sun! Rich hued tulips speak of things to come!

Sara’s garden is coming into its own, and the world’s best organic nutrient is boosting the size of her blooms! Spring is the most magic of seasons, when the earth rejuvenates itself and covers all our gardens with bright, colorful flowers that gladden our spirits!

She soaked the humus-like soil with Advanced Nutrients Organic Iguana Juice, and her plants burst forth with new energy! They love the pure ingredients in this fish-based fertilizer. Her friends always ask as to how her blooms grow so big!

I am very enthusiastic about it, but I’ll let my pictures speak for me. We look forward to celebrating Earth Day tomorrow with Hedgehog and Jim, as Sara cooks a stir fry of organic vegetables, seasoned with the herbs grown in the Aero-Garden that I bought her for Christmas.

Stay tuned for the pictures of these herbs and the story of how they grew in their hydroponics setting, as if by magic. You’ll have to wait for my next posting for that one.

Advanced Nutrients Iguana Juice for Bigger Flowers

Sara always prepares her flower beds for spring by putting down a layer of rich, black compost, as well as treating the soil with Iguana Juice Grow, the 100% organic fertilizer from Advanced Nutrients. This product adds so much zing to our garden, that our neighbors are constantly asking how did your flowers grow so big?

Sara and I have been using Iguana Juice, both Grow and Bloom, for a number of years now and are always amazed as to not just the size, but the quality of flowers that it helps nature to deliver. In addition to the base—made from fish caught in the pristine waters of the North Pacific Ocean—Iguana Juice contains:

 Alfalfa Extract

 Earthworm Castings

 Kelp Meal

 Krill Extract

 Volcanic Ash

 Yucca Extrac

This is the kind of diet that both Sara’s flowers and my vegetables love to absorb and turn into lush vegetation and the biggest flowers we’ve seen anywhere. Included in the pictures of this year’s crocuses is one of last year’s red poppies, which were saucer-sized and the envy of the neighborhood.

Even though Advanced Nutrients says that their fertilizers are ideal for hydroponics growing, soil-growers like us also appreciate the quality of all their products and the bigger yields that result in using them!

Organic Gardening Pays Off With Gigantic Flowers

Six-feet-tall Campanula! Seven-foot-tall Foxglove! Even taller Delphiniums! Sara’s garden hasn’t seen flowers this high ever! Last summer her blooms were spectacular, but she’s been building up the soil of her flower beds consistently ever since. She uses composted horse manure, composted kitchen parings, Mother Earth Super Tea Grow and Bloom, and grass clippings as a form of mulch. All this, in addition to our super-growth-inducing primary 100% organic fertilizer—Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom**.

Complementing the Campanula, Foxglove, and Delphiniums, Sara grows about a dozen different kinds of Roses. The Hybrid Tea Roses Brandy, Blue Girl, Sunflare, and Intrigue are especially beautiful this time of year, and the Cecile Brunner Rose is particularly prolific, with it’s delicate blooms popping up all over the place and the plant reaching heights of five or six feet.

Sara’s Catmint plants are especially beautiful this year with their purple flower-covered branches bursting forth from the centre into all directions. Her Lilacs have bloomed in late spring with their lovely scent and she is growing three kinds of Peonies, all of which are still very much active.

Hedgehog’s barrel has reddish Lilies this year, along with an assortment of colourful annuals and Sara’s Honeysuckle is attracting hummingbirds to its prolific array of flowers. The sweet nectar of this plant is like a magnet to these tiny birds with their wings flapping a mile a minute.

The upside down tomatoes are flourishing. Out of the ten buckets, only one pepper plant died, soon to be replaced by a fledgling tomato plant. It’s a challenge watering the buckets, but if we aim the hose just right, the arc of the water enters from the top. Some of the buckets are open at the top with annual flowers gracing the opening, some still have lids on them with only a two inch hole for the water to enter.

Sara and I get a great deal of pleasure working in our respective organic gardens. My vegetables this year include Sweet and Hot Peppers, Cherry and Beefsteak Tomatoes, Kale (which Sara prepares with olive oil, garlic, and slivered almonds), Spinach, Cucumbers, Zucchini, Squash, and four kinds of Lettuce, from Butter Lettuce to Crinkly Leaved Red and Green Varieties.

With the contamination of the commercial tomato crop, it’s nice to have a safe source of tomatoes within a few yards of our home. Sara and I have been talking about setting up a hydroponic grow space in our basement, so we could grow vegetables year round. A great way to reduce our carbon footprint! Not to mention cutting down on our car trips to the store and reducing the amount of money we spend on the outrageously high priced gasoline.

**Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom are beginning to be known in our neighbourhood as “that magic plant food that Sara uses.” A number of our local gardeners have written the name down and have gone to the Advanced Nutrients website to check out this product, as well as Humic Acid, Fulvic Acid, and that other Grandma Enggy organic wonder product, Seaweed Extract. The most avid gardener (next to Sara) has actually purchased Iguana Juice (both varieties) at a hydroponics store in Victoria.

Tulips Thrive on Organic Nutrients

Sara's flower garden is looking more lush and luscious every day. Although the daffodils have had their day, there are still some around, but it's the tulips that are spectacular. This month I am having trouble capturing them in all their magnificence. Also, I am not able to write much, since the demands of my job are such that blogging has become a luxury.

I hope to report in depth on Sara's flower garden and my vegetable patch in future postings. Just be conscious of the fact that Advanced Nutrients 100% Organic Iguana Juice is the main reason that both of our gardens tend to prosper and at times they become the talk of the neighborhood.

Sara and Hedgehog are visiting friends on nearby Salt Spring Island, while Jim and I are guarding the home front and eating a lot of hamburgers. It's a long story. The ladies being vegetarians, we do them the courtesy of not chomping on meat in front of them. We usually go off together to enjoy our carnivore desires.

Daffodils galore, Perennials popping up!

Our crocuses are already in decline, while our daffodils are numerous and swaying in the (still chilly) winds. Some blossom trees have ignored the generally low temperatures, and have burst forth their buds. Spring has arrived on Gabriola, although we all wish that warmer temperatures were here, as well.

Sara and the kids went to Vancouver by ferry over the Easter weekend and took in the latest Hannah Montana 3-D concert movie. The best of both worlds is the promo line used to advertise this show, which is about a country bumpkin brunette who puts on a blonde wig and becomes a superstar. In the movie, she performs both as Hannah, and as herself, Miley Cyrus.

Hedgehog loves the TV show and she was thrilled by the movie. They also went on a big Easter egg hunt at a community centre. I was left at home to complete my week’s freelance assignments and take care of our coterie of pets.

Sara has carted in many barrels worth of horse manure and compost over the first two months of the year, so now we have a very thick layer of fertile, organic humus for our flowers and vegetables. We also treated the soil with Advanced Nutrients Iguana Juice Grow initially, and now that our bulbs are in flower, we fed them with Iguana Juice Bloom.

This 100% organic fertilizer can be used effectively in both soil and hydroponics grows, indoors or out. If you’re contemplating using it for your indoor garden, rest assured that it doesn’t clog up your system, like some organic ferts do. Friends who have indoor grows on the island are raving about how smoothly this refined plant food works in their hydroponics systems.

I’m also spraying our roses with Scorpion Juice and watering them with a Barricade mixture to impart acquired systemic resistance (SAR) and thicken their cell walls, so they can repel pathogens and pests much more easily. Prevention is the key behind these excellent Advanced Nutrients products.

It’s a bit too early to plant peas and beans, but Sara has been to our local garden centre and has returned with some annual flowers for our flower boxes, as well as seeds for more flowers and vegetables. On top of that, she’s got a whole number of plants growing in big, green barrels for transplanting at a later date. She really enjoys digging in the dirt and sometimes I have to take her supper out to her, because she wants to stay out and stay dirty until there is even a hint of daylight left.

Sorry about not blogging regularly anymore, but the demands of my job have become such that I don’t have as much free time as I used to have. I’ll try to keep a photo journal of our garden, though—hope you enjoy looking at the pictures.