A noun. A verb. A blog.
On Sunday, while in Waterloo, we went a few clicks further north to visit St. Jacob’s. I was in dire need of fresh-picked apples, and hoped we’d have time to visit the farmers’ market. The huge market in St. Jacob’s is open on Thursdays and Saturdays all through the year. Sundays are much smaller, but […]
The Judge’s Choice in the Community category, East York Blooming Contest. This shot would be better if the road beside it weren’t being chewed up by large earth movers. How do you winnow 135 nominees to a select few gardens for the official judge of the East York Blooming Contest? Send out ten teams of […]
How can one describe the taste of a fresh, fresh beet? Sweet, with something of the earth about it. Beets from a store can’t approach this flavour. Typically, the time from field to market gives them the leisure to transform their sugars into starch. If you don’t grow your own beets, the city has an […]
Shakespeare has been the attraction for my past visits to Stratford, Ontario. Sure, I’ve long been a fan of the swan-dotted park along the Avon River. Yet, I’d never thought of the town as a place to go just to see gardens. What a pleasant surprise. Between Brian Bedford’s not-to-be-missed Lady Bracknell in The Importance […]
On Sunday, the Bluffs Garden Tour organized by the Scarborough Horticultural and Garden Club allowed us to see five very different gardens. Of course, the Bluffs being the bluffs, in a couple of them the star performer, as above, was the view. Seeing how the turf shelfs out along the coast, like something from a […]
This is the blog equivalent of a re-tweet: The Withrow Park Farmers’ Market and Toronto Balconies Bloom introduce their first collaborative Edible Container Garden Show, on Saturday Aug. 8, 2009, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., rain or shine, at the Withrow Park Farmers’ Market. Participation is open to all urban gardeners, from 3 to 103. […]
On a rainy afternoon at the end of June, we and our umbrellas (and cameras) toured twelve lovely gardens in the Upper Beach. This is my first time using a slideshow on the blog. Hope it doesn’t cause any technoglitches. If you have problems seeing the slideshow [ed: or if you want to view the […]
Thanks to the blog Don Watcher for this tip: Get to know Toronto’s urban green spaces through one or all of this series of inexpensive hikes. They’re like mini-staycations. You’ll discover sides of the city you might not have known about, like Toronto’s Belt Line Trail – a forgotten bit of Toronto history, revived as […]
With apologies to Keats, when it comes to garden tours in Toronto, it’s June that’s the season of mellow fruitfulness. Nearly every weekend in the month has something to choose from. Sadly, we’ve missed the Secret Gardens of Cabbagetown (last Sunday). But others are sprouting up as quickly as weed seedlings, but far more welcome. […]
Open Gardens Toronto is a fantastic program that lets us take an informal tour of our fellow gardeners’ spaces during the long weekday evenings of summer. (and on Weekends in fall) $25 gets you a pass for a full season, or you can pay $4 for each garden you view. Proceeds go to the Canadian […]
I dropped into the Don Valley Brickworks for Doors Open this week and met with a group of bee-keepers who were there with their bee hive display — It’s an odd feeling to be standing near several people wearing blinding white bee-keeper outfits! You certainly can’t miss them in a crowd. They showed a 2 […]
If you haven’t been to the Toronto Botanical Garden since it was transformed with new gardens and a new name (formerly the Civic Garden Centre), you have one more reason to do so on Saturday. It’s the final day for their spring plant sale. Nice specimens for containers, or garden beds in sun or shade, […]