A Better Life

When I visited the village of Barauli, Nepal in April I fell in love with the place. The houses were small, on half acre lots where the land was perfectly levelled and filled using a system of ditches connected to the river ankle deep with water. Rice was growing in perfect rows and women hand weeding the fields, barefoot. 

Through the streets there were women walking their small herds of goats, or water buffalo. Many of them wear dresses in vibrant colours- clothes I would never dream of wearing for farm work for fear of getting them dirty! Around the houses there were chicks, chickens, and ducks. I walked all of the streets of that village on my own, everyone said hello as I walked past, and I felt safe and at home and more than anything I wanted to live there.

When I visited a city less than an hour from my home two weeks ago (Perth, Ontario) I was surprised to find it equally appealing, with flowers exploding out of every possible nook and cranny, the main streets are full of stores, pubs, and cafes run and owned by local people. The farmers market had live music and lots of interesting vendors. I wanted to move there too!

The problem with this thinking is that it doesn't allow me to fully appreciate my role in the community where I currently live. If I want my community to become like Perth or Barauli, I have to be part of that change. I have to stop looking with jealousy at what another has and put that energy into turning what I do have into something that is worth appreciating. 

My village has that look of a place which might have at one time been bustling with a lively centre but which has since been slowly dying. The symptom of nearby box stores offering people lower prices along with lower quality of life. 

If I want to live in a place vibrant and alive like Perth or Barauli (without moving there), I need to be the change I want to see in my community. I can make my front yard explode with colour and plant life. I can create a garden that can feed me, and share the excess with my neighbours. I can say hello to everyone I walk past. I can go to the art studio across the street that hosts live music on Sunday mornings to show there is a demand in this little village for affordable entertainment. I can give up the uncomfortably tight waistband of jeans and wear my beautiful dresses that I usually save for 'special' occasions that never come. 

This theme of making our place on earth more beautiful was a big part of my choosing to start Eden's Rise. I chose the name "Eden's Rise" for my orchard because I like that it invokes the idea that this orchard is where the Garden of Eden begins to reclaim the earth. 

I want to invite everyone to take their own journey and remember what is really important to them. Quiet the voice of culture and listen the child that lives within you. The version of you that survives societal pressures to conform. When you think of where in the world you would prefer to be - or what in the world you would prefer to be doing - I want you to really acknowledge those thoughts. Don't push them aside. There's no thought too big to be worth exploring. 

I have started with very small ways I can make my world better today, but I dream of living in a world where women are not still sold into sex slavery, a world where there are no borders preventing people from living in areas where they can find better work, a world where everything doesn't need to be wrapped in plastic, a world where we place more importance on preserving biodiversity than on making profits, a world where we care more about the health of people than profits.

We cannot do the work of improving this world if we don't first imagine what a perfect world looks like. Once we admit there is a problem with the current state of things we can begin to find a solution. Perhaps together we can make our world even just a little more like the Eden of which we dream.

Blueberries turning red in August

There's a lot to be said about doing your homework and learning from the experience of others, rather than reinventing the wheel. In many areas of my life I do learn in that way, but sometimes you have to learn by making your own mistakes.

Intellectually I knew my soil was far too alkaline for blueberries, and while I made some small effort to mulch with pine needles I did not think that the effects of a high pH would affect my blueberries this early on. I was under the impression it would reduce the amount of berries the plants produced years in the future. I have been growing uneasy throughout the summer as my blueberry leaves have been turning gradually redder and now I am forced to admit I should have taken action months ago. 

The pH of a soil will not kill your plants, what happens is that the acidity of the soil affects the plant's ability to take up certain nutrients. Nutrient deficiency leads to weak plants, and eventually death. Since blueberries evolved in areas where soil acidity was higher, they are adapted to take up nutrients in a pH of around 4 or 5. Most other plants seem to like a slightly acidic soil of 6.5. 

My blueberry plants are now bright red and waiting to be rescued. I was able to buy a tiny amount of aluminum sulphate which lowers pH, and I sprinkled it around all of my plants. There was nowhere near enough in the tiny box which was likely for people who own 4 rhododendrons. I ordered 25kg of ammonia sulphate which will be more than enough for my 60 blueberry plants. I read online that coconut coir can also help blueberries in neutral soils, though it didn't seem clear to me why this should be. I happened to have kept half a dozen old bags of coconut coir that were used to grow tomatoes in a greenhouse; I mulched the blueberries with this yesterday. It is my hope that this will help them struggle through this period until I can give them their "medication". 

There you have it, I knew what I needed to do to have happy blueberry plants and yet I needed to see the effect of not doing it before I bothered taking action. This is not a good trait to have, but learning first hand helps the information stay in my brain permanently. 

A small harvest

Have a lovely week,

Eden

Fix it or buy Refurbished

After my last post I decided I would finally take my blog seriously by releasing a post on a weekly basis and really digging into gardening and environmentalism. Life has a way of throwing us curve balls. As I began research on a new blog post my laptop, which had already been consistently giving me a hard time, spluttered and died. 

As a person born into a society where when something breaks it is easiest to go buy a new one, I was tempted to donate the computer for scrap and buy myself a shiny new one. However, as someone who is becoming increasingly environmentally aware (attempting zero-waste, using reclaimed materials for renovations, cycling to work, eating a mostly plant based diet, etc.) I decided this was a perfect time to practice what I preach.

I do not like to support big box stores if I can help it, so I found a website that some dude in my village created claiming he can fix broken laptops. I contacted him, brought the laptop to his home, and waited. I'm still waiting.

My friend shared this website with me as an option in case I decide to give up waiting for my freelance geek: https://www.newegg.ca/Refurbished/Store

Refurbished electronics, yay!

It can be inconvenient to be eco-aware. I've been without a laptop for over one month now and it makes paying my bills on time more difficult, I miss watching videos (I don't have a TV so all my visual entertainment came from the laptop), and I want to have a computer again. After living 16 years of my life in steady presence of technology I do miss it. I am strong willed enough that I will not sacrifice my dedication for the environment in exchange for convenience, so the wait will continue. 

I hope my readers will consider making the same choices.

Before buying something new to replace something broken, try to fix it or try to buy that product second-hand or refurbished. No matter what it is. I had a second-hand flicker-y lamp, and rather than buy a whole new lamp I just had to buy a tiny new plastic part for it to work properly. Let's try to recycle the resources we've already extracted before mining for new ones and increasing our polluting influence on this planet.

Have a lovely week and continue to practice the art of patience!

Why Does my Tree Only Bear Fruit Every Other Year?

Last summer someone wondered aloud to me that there were not many wild flowers. This year, walking through the forest and wild meadow on the way to the orchard flowers are exploding from the ground, trumpeting life and the air buzzes with insects. I knew that 2016’s drought was a heavy one for our area, but the stark contrast with 2017’s wet spring is shocking.

My fruit trees are growing like fireworks, currant bushes I planted as twigs in May have quadrupled in size. The blueberries I planted this spring have already outgrown the ones that struggled to survive the dry summer. The grass last July was brown and flattened against the earth, now it makes a solid green curtain reaching my navel. It has turned the orchard into a maze where I have to guess the general direction of my Honeyberries to find them. The grass is taller than most of my berry bushes, but they don’t seem to mind. They all have a small radius where I have weeded and mulched the 'root zone'. After all the rain we’ve been having and my application of manure last week the orchard is singing. A monarch butterfly flutters past, floating above the tall grasses and flowering milkweed.

This week I’d like to address a question sent by a reader asking why their apple tree did not flower this year. I commonly get asked about this sort of fruit tree behaviour. The alternate version of the same question is: Why does my fruit tree only bear fruit every other year?

Trees run on a two year cycle when it comes to flowering. Trees want to produce fruit and seeds in order to create offspring. Imagine this year your tree is not producing any fruit. It is going to put a lot of energy into creating flower buds which will be able to produce fruit next year. Fast forward to next year, the tree is loaded with pollinated flowers and it is using all of its energy to ripen its immense load of fruit. This means that during this second year the tree has not been able to invest energy into next year’s flower buds. Year three we are back to a tree with no fruit.

In commercial orchards farmers control the fruit set by spraying the trees (in both conventional and organic agriculture this is a permitted practice, though the chemicals and techniques differ) in order to make them drop two thirds of the potential fruit load. This means the apples, or peaches, or plums that are left on the tree will ripen bigger and more flavourful.  At the home scale you can thin fruit by hand and ladder. My second year working in agriculture I spent a few days in spring thinning fruitlets on peach trees in a greenhouse in northern Ontario.  It is a slow process, but it improves fruit quality and ensures a harvest for next year.

Once trees have gotten used to biennial bearing, it is very difficult to restore them to annual bearing. As far as I am aware it is not impossible, but the ease at which you can bring those trees back is largely affected by how long they have been allowed to bear fruit in this way.

Your berries won't need thinning, they are pretty good at self-regulating. You should thin your grapes to improve flavour. The amount of grapes you leave on depends on the vineyard, the use for the grapes (wine or fresh eating), and the climate. Go with your gut, trust your instinct. Often when it comes to plants the power of observation will lead you to the right place.

Hoping you enjoyed a lovely summer solstice, have a lovely week.

-E.V.

You Don't Need a Plastic Bag

You do not need a disposable plastic bag. Not ever.

They can hardly ever be recycled, they do not biodegrade, they have devastating effects on  ocean life. Canadians use 55 million of these PER WEEK. This week’s blog will address the bullshit people tell themselves to justify this disgusting laziness.

1) I forgot my bags in the car.

So what? You are using a trolley in the supermarket, they let you roll this trolley out right to your car. When you’re at the checkout, refuse the bags and put the items back into the trolley. Bring the trolley to your car and empty the items into your bags. There. Was that so  hard? No, it wasn’t. It’s not even worth patting yourself on the back for having done a good thing because this is something you should have started doing years ago.

2) I forgot my bags at home.

See above, except you empty the items into the car and your bags come into play when you get home. I can’t even deal with the “I forgot” excuse. If you forget bags when going to the supermarket, deal with the consequences of your actions and be better next time. Don’t pull this “I’m going to use a plastic bag for 3 minutes because it’s convenient, and let it rot during the course of the next 300 years” crap.

3)Your previous two arguments don’t apply to me because I walk/bike/bus to the supermarket.

Ever heard of a backpack? It will be easier to carry than plastic bags and you have the mental capacity to remember to put a backpack on before leaving your home. If you forgot to bring it, then only buy as much as you can fit in your hands and pockets. Done. Also, good for you for walking! 

4) If I don’t take the plastic bags, what do I use for my garbage bags?

Despite trying to reduce the amount of items I buy which involve packaging, I still end up with a bag full of bags. Here are items that come in bags that you probably throw out all the time, and which could replace the carrier bag: cereal, toilet paper, chips, cat/dog food, bread, potting soil, macaroni, the big bag that the three litres of milk come in. Honestly, we are so inundated with packaging that finding an alternative bag will not be a headache for you. So don’t even with this excuse.

Did I miss any brilliant excuses? Please leave them in the comments section so that I can assure you that there is NEVER a situation in which these ‘convenient’ resource drinking and nature polluting bags are appropriate to use. They should absolutely be banned.

Every time I go to the checkout at my local supermarket I see the same crap being pulled. Two apples in a plastic bag. Someone buying a bag of chips and a box of cereal and for some reason the idea of carrying two items which are already wrapped in plastic to their car without adding another layer of plastic packaging (packaging which will outlive us all) is unthinkable.

Red Currants

I want to live in a world where people who take these bags are heavily judged and receive heavy side eye. I am 100% fed up with this. I cannot remember the last time I used a plastic carrier bag, I hope there will come a time very soon where no one else can remember such utter nonsense either.

Gooseberries

Blueberry Flowers

Oh right, this is a blog about an orchard. How does this relate? Even though it’s a five minute walk from any human house or road, garbage still blows into my orchard regularly. 

Wet Noodles in the Garden

Weeding my asparagus patch this weekend was a joy. Weed a foot, celebrate with a spear, weed another foot, munch some more. Have you ever had asparagus fresh from the ground; raw, crunchy, juicy, and sweet? It was a discovery for me that asparagus could be so delicious. It was more reminiscent of fresh ‘mange-tout’ sweet peas than it was of the steamed spears traditionally laid out sparingly and artistically next to a fancy piece of animal flesh. I ate a dozen out there in the field, slowly burning the skin on the back of my neck.

Once these weeds are out of the way, this asparagus spear is my reward!

As I pulled the weeds up through the mulch I was surprised at the number of earthworms at work in there. When I was digging the holes for my new plants this spring I saw very few earthworms, yet here beneath an inch of grass they were having a huge party on the surface of the earth.

Everyone knows worms are meant to be a sign of a healthy soil. I wanted to take a moment of your time to talk about what it is these fleshy noodles actually do.

Worms live in the ground, of course. Like rodents, they like to keep a door to the outside world in their domicile. From this hole they reach out and grab at decaying organic matter. You can see evidence of this in fields where debris is left in the fall. It looks like many consecutive circles, each circle being the territory around a worm’s hole.

They eat this organic matter and defecate in their hole, deeper in the soil. This way nutrients are spread throughout the soil profile. This organic matter, now worm casts, contains nutrients that are more easily available to the plants thanks to Mr. Worm’s digestion.

The tunnels created by the worms also have positive effects. They aerate the soil, and create conditions for better drainage and water infiltration.  The channels also provide an easy avenue in which plant roots can travel deeper in the soil to find further sources of water. Even their wee, noble bodies decompose and provide nitrogen for the plants. A healthy population of earthworms can actually build topsoil, by how much seems to vary from one study to another. This is excellent news for me on my site, where the topsoil is a mere foot before reaching pure bedrock.

I will end on a darker note. The earthworm is not native to Canada. It appears its presence

is having a drastic impact on the ecology of our old growth forests. National parks advise people to avoid dumping left over earthworms from fishing trips in the forest. Take them home, feed them to your dog, just don’t empty that container (even if it is just dirt, they might have laid eggs in there!) in our forests.

Flowering Chum!

Have a lovely week, I wish you good health and happiness!

Spring Begins-- Eden's Rise Year 2

After a week dashing off to my orchard every day after work to plant until sundown, Eden’s Rise is now 160 bushes richer. Currants, blueberries, haskaps, and gooseberries were the primary focus of this planting.

Astonishing numbers of flowers are appearing on last year’s Saskatoon bushes and the asparagus shoots are purple undead fingers pushing out from the earth. Rebirth, baby. Along the pathway in the middle of the orchard Crocus flowers bloomed, then delicate blue Muscaris followed.

The thick layer of coconut coir and dried grass mulch that surrounded every tree and bush has now completely disappeared. This could either be due to a natural process called ‘decomposition’, or, equally likely, garden gnomes stealing it as kindling to light their winter fires. Live and let live, but I will need more mulch if I am to combat weeds and weather. Far from last year’s drought, we began this spring with an unprecedented amount of water, with part of Ottawa heavily affected by floods. Who knows what this summer might bring, but mulch is that magical ingredient that promises to save you from everything. I hope.

It is a comfort, as I begin the long and frankly dull process of gathering and spreading mulch, that last year’s mulch is by now incorporated into the soil around my trees. Some of that mulch is now ‘organic matter’, which is extremely beneficial in the soil. Because the particles are tiny, they wildly increase the water holding capacity of your soil. Organic matter releases nutrients to plants over time and improves the structure of your soil. Even if the gnomes steal 90% of my mulch, at least some of it will have some lasting benefits after disappearing from the surface.

A large pile of horse manure waits to be distributed among the plants this spring. Since this will be applied beneath a layer of mulch (to avoid runoff at the next rainfall) I have my work cut out for me getting all of the trees ready. Once the trees are larger, the mulch will not be necessary. While the trees are young and the roots still finding their way it is important to reduce the amount of weed competition. If you think spreading mulch is boring, I dare you to try to pull grass out of an untilled clay field. I can tell you it is no picnic.

Catnip, onions, and strawberries all survived the winter and have already grown a surprising amount. I am pleased the catnip turns out to be a perennial (I did not do my research before planting; beware, it can become as invasive as mint). I planted catnip because not only does it attracts cats (and who doesn’t want an orchard full of cats?), it is said to repel mosquitoes. Maybe this is just another trick from the Catnip Marketing Board but I think it’s worth trying anything that makes such claims.

These are the first stirrings of life after a long winter!

See you soon!