Seedy Spring

It's finally springtime, and all the Bees have been very, very busy getting our gardens ready. We love getting our hands dirty at the Beehive.

Towards the end of last summer, I dug out the ornamental garden in my backyard to make more room to grow my own food. And with two newly built raised beds this year, I'll have more room than I know what to do with. I'm growing some of my favourites from previous years (tomatoes, rhubarb, arugula) and lots of new things too. Beans! Watermelon! Cucumbers! Sunflowers! Kale! Collard Greens! Beets! Radishes! A full bounty.  

I attended Seedy Saturday in Hamilton in February, and picked up some organic seeds from Hawthorn Farm and Tree and Twig.

The garlic that I planted last fall is poking through, and this is the crop that I am most looking forward to. Every good dish starts with good garlic.

Meg and her husband Kevin bought a new house last year, and Meg is looking forward to start their new garden in their new downtown backyard. They made a trip to William Dam Seeds in Waterdown to get all the essentials to do so.

With the help of their housemate Joanna, Meg has already started seeds for lettuce, kale, peppers, onions, basil, thyme, oregano and rosemary and lots of lavender. They have plans to do some direct seeding, and to purchase some plants, mostly tomatoes. I'm excited at the prospect of trading some crops with my new neighbours!

Last year I recieved some beautiful cut flowers from Jen's peony bushes as a gift, and I told her that she had a real knack for flower arrangement. She confided in me that she had always been interested in the art of doing so. This year, Jen is planting her first cut flower garden, and I'm so excited to see the beautiful bouquets that she will undoubtedly fill her home with.  She loves floral arrangements but can't splurge on them all of the time, so she is very excited to have these blooming in the back garden ready for picking and experimenting with different combinations all summer long.  Such an easy and affordable way to bring cheer into your own home!

Jen's husband Mike is a real tobacco aficionado (and expert gardener), and for the first time this year he is trying his hand at growing his own tobacco! As a pipe smoker for the past 10 years he has become more and more serious about tobacco blends, experimenting with his own using a variety of cured tobaccos.  He even has a diary rating each of the hundreds of tinned tobaccos he has tried.  This year he is growing a Virginia and an Oriental, which he is planting at the farm that the Bees help out at.

Speaking of diaries, Kate's mom gifted her a 10 year gardener's journal this year, and she has been putting it to good use already. Logging your exploits in gardening is such a good organizational and planning tool, and is often overlooked.

I ran into Kate and her husband Erick at Seedy Saturday and they were there picking up some organic seed from Hawthorn Farms as well.

For now Kate has only started kale and lettuce. She plans to direct seed more once it's warm enough, and is planning a trip to Tree and Twig's Tomato Days to pick up some of her great tomato plants! Kate and Erick built their own raised bed last summer, so they have lots of space to grow delicious food for themselves.

When I need help with a gardening question, I often to look to Thea. She is a wealth of knowledge, and has a delicate, intrinsic way with the natural world. I only hope to one day have half the green thumb that this lady possesses.

Eggplant, tomatoes, radishes and greens, including baby kale mix. Thea grows lots of different varieties, and likes to plant heirloom seed whenever she can.

Thea not only plants her own food, but being a textile artist that specializes in natural dyeing, she grows her own dye plants as well to harvest for their spectacular colour. Her mother grew cotton last year, and got Thea interested in growing some of her own this year! I can't wait to see how this turns out for her.

So there you have it! Hopefully you all have been busy bees in your gardens as well. We'd love to hear about your green plans, too - whether it be food or flora. We love it all!

The Bees at Home: Projects in Progress

Our blog has taken you to the farm, to knit night, and to our planning meetings, but we thought it might be about time to show you some of the crafty things us Bees work on in our spare time. Most of the time, we've all got something (or a few things!) in progress at home, so we're going to start showcasing them on the blog a little bit! Hopefully this will give us more motivation to get these projects finished, and maybe inspire you to start (or finish?) a project you've had on the go as well!

First, Kate is working on an assignment for her program at Sheridan - embroidering a number of fashion related pieces. She's working them into this AMAZING dress she designed, which she'll then have modeled and photographed to create a look-book:

Second, Meg is working on an alphabet crewelwork sampler. Using all the standard stitches, this piece is interesting and enjoyable, and will likely take a while to complete. Every letter is totally different, and the colors are super fun!

Next, our east-coast member, Anna, has been naturally dyeing some silk. The growing seasons in Nova Scotia are a little shorter than in Ontario, so when she moved back there recently she managed to just catch the end of the Goldenrod flowers. Anna dyed a piece of satin silk tied up with shibori knots (see second picture). Anna said that the color was very subtle, but a lovely muted yellow-green came through and with a simple rolled edge it will make an elegant scarf.

Last, Hollie has been working on a quilt! This is her first attempt at one, and she started all the way back in January with the guidance of quilting pro Melanie. Progress was halted due to a busy summer and a finicky old sewing machine. She recently acquired a new-to-her machine for her birthday and has been getting back at it. She chose bright and busy fabric and a simple half-triangle design for her first quilt. She's looking forward to finishing it any day now!

So, there's a little sneak-peek into some of our current projects! If you've posted your progress on a piece you've been tackling, feel free to link to it below, as we'd love to see! Happy crafting!

Our Roots, Part IV: The Farm

Two summers ago, a group of us were toying with the idea of starting a shared vegetable garden somewhere in the downtown area. That’s when our good pal Gary stepped in and offered up a much better suggestion: his parent’s farm had an acre of land that we could use, just outside of the city. That summer, The Farm was born.

The Farm belongs to the Buttrums, a family of farmers (and friends) who have been at the Hamilton Farmers’ Market for seven generations, since the 1880’s. Gary’s parents run the farm and sell their produce at the market. Squash, potatoes and tomatoes are their key crops, but they have grown all sorts of vegetables over the years. When they offered us up some of their land, we were beyond thrilled.

The first summer, we cleared the back acre of land up at the farm and planted our crops as quickly as we could. It was already late May by the time we started farming, so we didn’t have a lot of planning time. We started heading up a few days a week to plant seeds, move rocks, weed, weed some more, and finally, harvest. When the harvest came, it was bountiful. It was also a little crazy. Beans sprouted up faster that we could possibly pick them, and by the time the frost came, we probably had about 300 heads of cabbage that we needed to find homes for. Some of the excess went to the Hamilton Farmers’ Market, but even then we still had too much.

With the help of Gary and his parents, we’ve learned a lot about farming since that first summer, and we’re still learning. Last year more friends came up to the farm, and we expanded our farming area to cover the other five acres of farm land owned by the Buttrums. We helped farm their key market crops, and in return we got to use the remaining land for delicious tomatoes, beets, potatoes, hot peppers, onions, carrots, broccoli, cucumbers, zucchini and more.

It’s hard, but rewarding work. Most of the weeding takes place on your hands and knees, so you often leave the farm a little worse for wear. Still, when the weather is nice, or the sun starts setting, I can’t think of a better place to be. It’s so satisfying to grown your own food and know exactly where it came from, and what (if anything) went into it. It’s a rewarding experience to get back to the basics, and become part of something so sustainable.

We don’t use any chemicals at the farm, and even though we prefer it that way, sometimes the crops suffer as a result. Last year these pesky Colorado Potato Beetles pretty much wiped out our supply of potatoes, and most of the tomatoes suffered from a blight. It’s a small price to pay for knowing we are eating natural, pesticide-free food.

Last summer we grew a little of everything you could possibly think of, and we did our very best to minimize any waste. We planted in phases so that not all the crops were ready at once, and we had a steady system of weeding and harvesting going on all summer. We hosted canning parties, made lots of soups and stews, and organized an outdoor market outside of White Elephant during the art crawls. Everyone from the farm volunteered to help harvest & transport the vegetables, and set up the stand outside of the shop. Hollie’s sister Nikki was often the face of the market stand, and she did an amazing job.

This summer we are seriously stepping up with the farm. We have a ton of new friends who are interested in coming up, and we are taking this job seriously. Gary has appointed Hollie as Farm Manager, so we have someone to help organize and keep us all on track. We’re growing new crops, and bringing in something we are all really excited about: BEES. Some new friends are bringing their 3rd generation beekeeper experience to the farm this summer, and we’ll have our very first hives.

We’re also planning to plant a natural dye garden, full of Madder, Indigo, Goldenrod, Hollyhock and more. There’s going to be a 6 x 20 foot natural dye garden, so you can expect lots of Beehive dyeing projects in the future. The weather is just starting to warm up here in Hamilton, and farming has been on everyone’s minds. I can’t wait to get back out there and get started on all the new ideas and projects we have planned, and I’m sure you’ll hear a lot about it this summer on the Beehive blog. Photos courtesy of Jane, Hollie and Gary Buttrum