I think I have mentioned it many times before, but we actually don't live in Edmonton, we live in St. Albert (just outside Edmonton). The opening of the new Hole's Enjoy Centre has been a much anticipated event around here, and it happened ages ago, but I finally made it out there this week. Like most of our daytime outings, this was half for me to check it out, and half because it is a giant place that my little girl can run around and tire herself out. There is a lot of cool sounding stuff still coming (a natural food store, deli, etc.), but the Bistro is open already, so we stopped in for lunch.
Everything is promoted as being organic and/or local and/or generally good for the community in some way. There was a huge salad bar that had a make your own salad section as well as a wide selection of pre-made salads. You pay by the weight. There were also many pre-made sandwiches, and a couple of homemade soups. Everything looked good, but as is often the case with organic foods, they were a bit pricey.
My mom had a pre-made chicken and leek salad sandwich. It was really yummy, but was a bit sparse on the filling. I had a grilled veggie, brie and apple panini, which was excellent. I guess combining some of my favourite things in a warm, melty sandwich is pretty sure-fire to please. 
I am very interested to see how everything else builds out. The Centre was really busy when we were there considering it was mid day on a Thursday. I suspect that everything will do well out here given the support of me and all my suburbanite neighbours.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Hole's Enjoy Centre (St. Albert)
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Vegetables Galore
Just before the first snowfall, we pulled up the last of the garden (except for a few hibernating potatoes). This was my share of the harvest, and I spent a weekend preparing everything for storage and freezing. Most of the leeks and zucchini were put in the food processor and frozen for soups and baking, and the carrots were chopped, blanched, and frozen. Now I can look forward to garden veg all through the winter!
Tuesday, September 1, 2009
Garden Leeks
The leeks are finally ready! I am pretty excited about these, as it was our first attempt at them and we started them indoors from seed. For a while it seemed they wouldn't make it, but it turns out they just take a long, long time to get established. We got lazy though, and didn't mound up enough dirt around them so only the very bottoms are white.
I made these this morning to put in my lunch - and while this looks like dinner it really only took about 10 minutes to make. I am in the process of moving house, so nearly all of my pantry is packed up and the only things left are salt, pepper, and whatever is left in the fridge/freezer. I boiled the leeks for 4 minutes in water with some japanese pickling liquid I happened to have in the fridge. Yes, that sounds strange to me too. Once done, I drained the liquid and in the same pot added some butter and salt & pepper to quickly brown them up. While I was working on the leeks I quickly fried a pork chop. This lunch was based on the fact that I had defrosted meat in the fridge that needed to be cooked, and not much else in the house at all.
Friday, August 7, 2009
Harvests, Finally
Last weekend we had an amazing harvest, and I look forward to another this weekend. My mum's Sunday dinner was a traditional roast beef with veg and yorkshire pudding, with the potatoes, peas, broccoli and green onions all coming from the garden. Fresh picked flavour and free - my favourite combo.
The only downside is the constant harvesting. Allotment gardening is great for people like me with only a balcony, but it does mean a lot of extra driving. The peas really need to be picked every few days, so for the past couple of weeks I've been back and forth between St. Albert and home several times a week. It's all worth it though, as I now have a freezer full of goodness to help me through the winter. 
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Gardening Update
Well, it has been raining here on and off for three days, so I thought I would post some pictures I took this past weekend to show what the gardens are looking like. Of course, since we have been in the middle of a "drought" and now we are getting load of rain, everything will probably twice the size by the end of this weekend if we get a little help from the sun. Above are my wild raspberries, that are well on their way to becoming jam (our first try will be documented!)
Spinach is already up as can be evidenced by the fact that Brooke and I have posted no less than three spinach salads in the past month. After taking the picture I pulled out all the mature stuff and got my third round of planting seeded. My family gets bags of spinach given to them fresh all summer!
I have a good bounty of herbs finally. The chives have been up since before the snow was even done, the oregano I bought at Superstore rather than growing it from seeds, both the basil and the parsley had bits come up from the first round of seeds, but I supplemented the planting a couple of weeks ago when I realized that a few really cold nights through the last month had killed off some of the first round. The rosemary was bought already started since our season isn't long enough for it to get like this, and the thyme was the same as the rest - needed some additional seeding. The dill grew like crazy (no surprise given that it is a "weed").
Onions grown from bulbs are all up and growing well:
I am glad I got some carrots seeded prior to the snow, they are decent sized now and should be good to eat later this summer. A second round followed, and depending on the weather, they may only get to baby carrot size before the season is done:
My zucchini is coming up gang busters! This is more than one plant. Maybe I will try doing something with the blossoms this year if I catch them in time. I find that they sneak up on you and all of a sudden you have a giant one foot long veggie!
The squash came up later than the zucchini, and aren't getting quite as much light, so they aren't getting quite as big. Their season is pretty long, so given how late they started, I may just get to enjoy their greenery as we might not make it long enough for actual squash.
Rhubarb is doing what rhubarb does: growing like mad where nothing else will. It's in a shady damp area and producing like crazy. I haven't posted any recipes with it because I don't like rhubarb, but I will push some on Brooke (yes, I am a rhubarb pusher), and she will make something one of these days.
Lettuce was really just thrown in a pot mostly as an after thought. I had some seeds from last year and an extra pot so in it went. I planted romain, and just pick it as baby greens or to throw on a sandwich when I want a break from spinach.
Here is the "big garden" at Brooke's parent's house. I have called dibs on some of the potatoes and peas, and had called beans, but surprisingly our beans didn't come up this year. Aren't they supposed to be an easy grow? Anyway, Brooke and my father in law put in lots of potatoes, radishes, peas, onions, leeks, spinach, and gave broccoli a go this year since there were some cheap seedlings at Superstore. I can see they are starting to produce a little floret, so maybe something will come of them. Also, there is what may be a cucumber or a zucchini coming up in a mound where both accidentally got planted. That will be a fun mystery surprise for later in the summer.
The first round of potatoes - looking good!!!
Peas, peas, so many peas:
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Finally, Spring has Sprung
While my balcony "garden" isn't nearly as good as Court's was
, it is still enough to supply me with lettuce and greens through the summer and all the herbs I need year-round. I'm also lucky enough to have parents with a big garden where I can grow anything else I want. And the fruits of our labour are finally starting to come up! I definitely do not have a green thumb, and I always find the early days of planting somewhat demoralizing as it always seems to take so long for actual results. When I plant, I want to be eating fresh vegetables the next week. Now, 3 1/2 weeks after first planting, baby greens are nearly ready to eat and pretty soon good (vegetable) times will be here.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Planting Upside Down
My neighbor's daughter apparently brings guests out in the summer time to look over the fence at the crazy upside down plants. The plants belong to me. I don't know for sure where this idea came from - I have a vague recollection of seeing Jamie Oliver do it on TV, but my husband swears we saw it done when we were in Denmark. Either way, the result is a bit strange looking, but it is a great space saver, and we found that it increases our yield from pepper and cherry tomato plants. Start hanging your own upside down plants, and you too can be a neighborhood oddity and enjoy lovely produce come mid summer. This is also a great option for balcony gardeners.
It is actually very simple, and also very inexpensive. You do need to start with a plant though, so you will have to either buy a small plant, or start the seeds inside and grow them until they are about the size shown.
The first step is to go out and purchase some inexpensive hanging baskets (from Canadian Tire or Walmart), and cut a small hole in the bottom. You want it small enough that your dirt won't all fall through, but big enough that you can slip a plant through it gently.
Be very careful in feeding the plant leaves through. Try to keep the root ball intact or you will get it crumbling through the opening (Note, don't be too afraid of this happening, it hasn't happened to me yet).
Top up the basket with soil, and water so that it drips through the bottom. You will get a lot of dripping through the first few times you water, but as the plant gets larger and more established, less will drip through. In the mean time, water pretty regularly. You won't over water seeing as excess does drip through.
Having the plant up in the air means that you don't have to deal with tomatoes rotting on the ground by accident if your plant cage isn't holding it all up. Also, it is fun to see how the plant adjusts in the first few days to reorient itself to the sun.
In addition, here are some gratuitous pictures of my chives and the one onion that somehow didn't come up last year, and this year survived our late spring snowfall. Yay! My asparagus did not fare so well as I will elaborate soon. 
Friday, May 8, 2009
Gardening Part 2 - You can't grow everything
The summer is such a great time for foodies up north. Not only can we grow fresh food if we choose, but if we don't, we can still get farm fresh products to use in our cooking thanks to local farmers markets. There is one link that I use all the time, because not only does it show the markets, but they are mapped, and their hours of opperation are listed as well. Check it out here.
It adds in the summer markets as they begin opperation, and it even lists upcoming markets that are open through the winter, so you can use it year round. Clicking on each pinpoint will provide you with additional market information. I will be adding this link to our sidebar under Edmonton Resources where the big restaurant list is, so use it often!
Friday, May 1, 2009
Happy May Day!
It finally feels like spring is here, and I am ready to get some stuff in the ground. Since it feels like forever since I started planning the garden and started off the early-sowers, I'm pretty excited to get digging. The garden plan above is the result of my research on companion gardening and crop rotation (thank you Edmonton Public Library!), and will hopefully increase quality and yields this year.
The prep work for gardening is really the worst part - I don't like getting the soil ready or sowing seeds, but I am willing to put up with it for the quality of produce that results from it. It also means you save a lot of money - not only in the summer months, but all year round. Once everything starts producing the majority of your vegetables are removed from your food bill, and you can extend these savings into winter by making use of cold storage, blanching & freezing, and canning. Last year we mainly did the blanch & freeze, but Court and I are excited to try canning for the first time later this year.
A couple of weekends ago we got the first batch of seedlings from the early-sowers separated and moved to deeper trays, and started the second batch. I kind of look on last year's garden as a trial version, because we just threw some seeds in and went for it. We had a disaster (daikon radish) and some poor yields (potatoes), but it mainly went really well. Unfortunately, due to lack of planning we had half a row of green onions and 15 heads of romaine lettuce all ready at the same time. Hopefully, most of the bugs will be worked out for this attempt, and the successive planting should result in delicious fresh vegetables all summer long.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Gardening: Because Tomorrow is May!!!
I'd like to say that I garden for many reasons, environmental sustainability, to reduce my carbon footprint, to improve my community, but to be honest, I do it because the food I grow tastes better. I'm not saying the other stuff doesn't happen, and if it does, I am glad, but really, the food tastes better. Not just a little bit better, or I wouldn't put in the work, but really a ton better. I think that in a blind taste test of store produce versus garden produce, it would be hard to even identify some items as the same type of food.
Having said that, I am now going to encourage you all to grow something this spring/summer/fall. Yes, I know some of you live in apartments, so did I the first couple years I gardened. I made a dirt box and started with herbs, lettuce, and a few items that didn't work out (onions that I really willed to grow, but didn't have the space, and some peas that grew, but a few sprouts don't yield enough to really count). In an apartment, you can buy some dirt and some containers (or use old ice cream or yogurt containers) and do herbs easily. It will make a huge difference to the taste of your food, and you can freeze herbs so that they work for you into the winter. I start from seeds (cheaper), but if you really feel that you have no growing abilities, just buy small plants and let them get larger. Here is a link with a list of greenhouses around Northern Alberta. Chives, dill, thyme and basil have been the easiest for me, and parsley grows well once it has a chance to start. Another thing that is very easy, even with limited space, is greens. You could literally take a bunch of empty large yogurt containers, throw some lettuce and spinach seeds in with some dirt, and have fresh greens through the summer. For singles, this is especially good given that heads of lettuce and bunches of spinach are generally too big to go through before they get wilty.
Depending on your situation, you may be able to get a plot of land in a community garden. We do have them in Edmonton; here is a site that will list them by area of the city (including one in St. Albert).
If you have a yard, maybe you can think a little bigger. The first thing I would encourage you to do is consider getting a rain barrel ("be green")! We have had some serious downpours this past summer, and having a rain barrel holds a bit of the water that would otherwise be flooding your streets, and then when dry spells come on, you have a nice store of water. Just make sure that the barrel is in a place where if it overflows a bit, the water flows away from your house. If you live in Edmonton, check out this link, and if you are in St. Albert, try this one.
If you are very intimidated about starting, and you want to be really serious about it, you may want to get in touch with the Urban Farmer a guy that is really serious about organic gardening in Edmonton.
I would say that if you have some space, feel free to experiment. Think about your favorite fruits and veggies, and look on the internet to see if and how you can grow them here (or email, and if I have tips to help I will share). As above, herbs and greens are easy to start with. Carrots are pretty simple, as are zucchini plants (but they get HUGE). This year I will be doing cherry tomatoes and peppers in upside down baskets. I know this sounds crazy, and I will take pictures, but I did it last year, and my yields were a lot higher. Asparagus is a big commitment, because you won't get real yields until three years down the road, which I am finally at!
So, with all that being said, here is my big plan this year (and you will see photos as the year goes on). I am lucky in that my in-laws have an acreage, so a few of the items will be grown out there due to space constraints.
My Garden this year:
- potatoes (various colors) - Acreage
- carrots (colors)
- onion
- zucchini
- squash
- spinach
- asparagus
- beans - Acreage
- peas - Acreage
In baskets:
- tomatoes
- peppers
Pots:
- chives
- parsley
- dill
- thyme
- rosemary
- oregano
Window Box:
- strawberries
Wild:
- raspberries (along my chain link fence)
- blueberries (a couple of random scraggly bushes in my front yard)
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Spring Sprouts
Even though the big first planting weekend of the year is a month and a half to two months away, it makes it seem closer to see the little sprouts of what's to come peeking out at me against the snowy background of our windows. The snow is getting less and less, and my excitement about digging in the dirt is growing every day. Get ready, in the next couple of weeks we will be posting our garden plans so that you too can anticipate the kind of fresh ingredients that will show up as ingredients in our summer recipes.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Think About Gardening
I know it seems like gardening, and the resulting fresh produce is miles away from what you see out your window today, but now is the time to jump on the gardening train. We are fortunate in that Brooke's parents (my in-laws) live on an acreage, so we will each be stealing a plot of land out there. In addition, I will be planting as full of a garden as possible in my normal sized backyard. Right now we are planning what will be planted and where, as well as getting a start on some items that require longer than what our growing season provides. The above photo shows preparations for starting leek seedlings. Yay! Stay tuned this spring as we feature what we are doing in our gardens, things we make from our gardens, and all sorts of helpful resources for people to buy more locally sourced food.
