Monday, May 30, 2011

Garden results - part 1

Summer is here! Today is sunny and humid (tomorrow probably "too" humid for most people's liking) BUT it's not supposed to rain for the next little while and the sun is out. I welcome it.

I hope you all had a good weekend. Our weekend was B-U-S-Y! The Mr's parents were in town for a visit, and I'm ashamed (and yet so so so glad for the results) to say that we put them to work!

We started off nice and easy with an excellent brunch on Saturday at what is now one of our new favourite places: Bonjour Brioche in Leslieville. Everything there tasted exactly like it does in Paris - the baguettes were perfect, pain au chocolats delicious, and the chorizo-basil-parmsean tart I had was to die for (litterally, the crust was such buttery perfection I was beside myself). For those in Toronto I highly recommend a visit! The Mr. and I don't really love going out for brunch -primarily because the offerings are things that we can make quite easily at home, in the comfort of our jp's (yes, jp's, not pj's...jp's = jogging pants, and we are big fans). Bonjour Brioche really hits it out of the park though, and we are already looking forward to going back.

If you saw my original gardening post (check it out here), you know that I wanted to try the square foot gardening technique. I didn't go all out with a 4'x4' garden, but did a mini-version: 2'x2'.  We went to the Brickworks after brunch to pick up the plants. If you haven't been to the Brickworks yet I highly recommend it. It's a beautiful area in the heart of the city / Don Valley. On Saturdays they have a local farmer's market, and they have a huge garden centre every day.  Their herbs and plants were in great shape, so we picked up a number of them, along with some wood "nuggets" for a bush in our front yard:

Then after a few more stops, we were ready to go. We built the planting box out of cedar and planted away It was very simple and is looking good in the yard. I can't wait until we can start to harvest some of the goodies:
We have 2 plants each of radicchio, basil (can you EVER have enough fresh basil?), and spinach. I also planted some rosemary and parsely in a window box on the little deck off our back door. I have left some room for other plants as well - will try to find arugula (every place I've checked has been out), or if that fails I'll try to do beets from seed leading into the fall.

Stay tuned for part 2 of our gardening escapade tomorrow! Happy long weekend to my American friends.


8 comments:

My Interior Life said...

Your garden looks great! We did a similar garden a couple of summers ago and still have the box sitting in our backyard. Now it just serves as a digging spot for our two dogs. Now, you've inspired me to plant (and put up fencing, of course). My in-laws usually get put to work too - they're worker bees (you shouldn't feel guilty - they wouldn't do it if they didn't want to)!

emily said...

The garden looks great! And no, you can't ever have too much basil (or cilantro either)!

Anonymous said...

looking lovely Heather ;) Can't wait to see Part II!!!

Kim@Chattafabulous said...

Basil is a necessity for summer tomatoes!!

Andrea Reh said...

Sigh, reading about all you Americans summers is making me so jealous!

Just discovered your blog, would be lovely if you popped by mine sometime.

Andrea x
andreareh.blogspot.com

Designwali said...

looks great, i wish i had a green thumb!

Tobe | BIA said...

soooo jealous of the garden! i wish we had a way to grow fresh herbs . . . anywhere that they would get light are prime real estate for the cats, who would have a heyday. *sigh* someday . . .

Rosa @ Flutter Flutter said...

Food from your garden is such a perk! We're doing tomatoes and peas this year... if we weren't ripping apart our backyard there would be more.

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