Amy Urquhart's Blog

Posted by Amy Urquhart

First come the zucchini, and then the other summer squash. The cucumbers arrive at around the same time. Oh, and then there are the beans. Soon tomatoes will make their appearance.

Since my husband and I have become vegetarians we’ve been especially grateful for the bounty of fresh, local food right in our back yard. With so much food at my fingertips I don’t want to waste a single bite.

As a cook, I’m not usually one to “wing it”, preferring the security of a well-tested recipe. I have several sources I consult to find new and exciting recipes with which to cook my home-grown vegetables and herbs. Some of my favourite places to look for vegetarian recipes include:

• Everyday Food Magazine. This is a great little publication that references vegetarian main dishes from its index, making veggie suppers extra easy to find.
• PETA’s VegCooking. This website, operated by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, includes a vegetarian recipe blog, which also contains many vegan choices for those going without eggs or dairy products.
• The library. Every once in awhile I completely rediscover the library, amazed that it’s possible to get books on loan for free! My local library has a section devoted to cooking, and part of that section features books that focus on vegetarian cooking. I checked out two cookbooks and will spend time this week copying the recipes I think my husband and I will like to eat, before returning them on their due date.
• Suite101.com. The Vegetarian Cuisine section here is also an excellent resource for vegetable recipes. Although I haven’t personally explored this section in great detail, I’m sure I’ll be making use of it as we move into eggplant and tomato season!

Posted by Amy Urquhart

Do vegetable gardening and vegetarianism go hand in hand? I think so. My husband and I have recently decided to give vegetarianism a whole-hearted try. While I’ve considered limiting my diet to meatless food in the past, it seems much easier to do so when there is so much fresh food readily available to eat.

In the past week, we have harvested cucumbers, ruby red chard, onions, garlic, peppers, lettuce and more zucchinis than I can count from our back yard vegetable garden and our community plot. I have no doubt that I wouldn't have purchased all of these vegetables from a grocery store had I not been a gardener.

Being an organic vegetable gardener means that I am in tune to the seasons, to what foods are in season, and I'm more connected to the vegetables that I grow and eat. I get more pleasure from eating the vegetables that I grow myself than those I purchase.

As a vegetable gardener, I naturally read more publications related to growing food, and that includes learning about the production of meat, whether organic or not. True, there are many options available for those of us who want to encourage a more sustainable lifestyle, but for the majority of us, these options are too expensive to practice regularly. For some, the answer is to simply stop eating meat.

It has been over two weeks since I’ve had any meat to eat, and I can’t say that I miss it so far. Perhaps practicing vegetarianism will be more difficult in the winter, when I’m unable to grow my own vegetables. Becoming a vegetarian means I’ll need to find creative ways to extend my growing season!

Posted by Amy Urquhart

Last week I flew to California to attend the annual BlogHer conference. Unfortunately due to scheduling conflicts, I was unable to meet up with my fellow home and garden bloggers. On the plus side, though, I had time while on the west coast to visit two beautiful gardens.

The first garden I saw was a community garden located in the City of Palo Alto. The garden was situated in the middle of a suburban residential area, and plots are offered to those residents living in the immediately surrounding neighbourhood. What impressed me about the garden in particular was the fact that it was obviously planned for. There was green space all around the garden, with a playground for children and concrete paths leading neighbours around the space. Gardeners grew tomatoes, beans, peas and other edible plants as well as sunflowers in their plots.

The other garden I was privileged to visit was a large vegetable and herb garden at the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation in Marin County. The garden on site at the center is absolutely gorgeous, with towering rows of closely planted sunflowers, a large squash bed, and densely planted rows of lettuce in between taller rows of vegetables. There were also several apple trees, raspberries and blackberries approaching harvest time. The garden also featured two hoop houses, one of which contained growing heirloom tomatoes, while the other was being used as a seed house, where plants were allowed to flower and go to seed; the seeds are collected for the following season’s planting.

When traveling, I highly recommend scheduling some time to visit local gardens. Not only is it a relaxing way to spend a holiday, but it’s a great opportunity to see what kinds of plants are native to another location.

Posted by Amy Urquhart

I try to visit my community garden plot every evening, especially if there has not been any rain during the day. At the garden there is peace. Sometimes I bring my mp3 player and listen to music while I weed, water and tend to the vegetables. Sometimes I enjoy listening to the simple songs of birds in the field, the far away drone of a lawn mower or the laughing of neighbourhood children.

Because my plot is in the corner furthest away from the garden gate, my visits to the garden begin with a tour of the other plots. Some of the gardeners who grow food in the plots surrounding mine are so fabulously talented and creative with their plantings that I almost want to turn around and go back home, I am so filled with envy. Other days their uniqueness is what inspires me to put more work into my garden.

This year I actually planned out a little design for my garden, placing a path down the centre of the space, bringing in rocks to edge the path. I’ve brought in lots of items for holding up the plants that need vertical support, such as tomatoes, peppers and cantaloupe. I’ve planted marigolds, basil and parsley along the edges of the path, to make harvesting these frequently used herbs easy.

I’ve mulched with straw so that my garden’s weeds won’t be quite as evident as they have been in the past. I’ve tried to plant vegetables that display an interesting blend of colours, shapes and sizes. Happily, a large sunflower arrived on the scene without any sort of help from me, and I’m allowing it to grow smack dab in the middle of the plot, adding an air of casual disarray that I’ve grown to love in a garden.

Posted by Amy Urquhart

During a visit to my community garden plot last week, I was astounded to see how quickly the weeds had taken control of the garden. I had systematically worked my way through the entire plot, which measures in at about 200 square feet, ridding the plot of weeds.

After a few days of warm, humid temperature, sunny skies and nightly rainfall, everything was doing very well—including the weeds. It was time to take more drastic action.

Most of the gardeners at my community garden use straw to mulch their plots. Like good little gardeners, they arrive on the scene early in the gardening season, turn their earth, work in a layer of mushroom compost, and mulch well with straw. This has not been my routine. I’m usually late to the plot, although this year I was earlier than last year. Although I had cultivated some fantastic-looking weeds in my plot, I decided I was going to find some straw to mulch my plot. I would not let another weekend go by without finding it.

I dragged my patient husband out into the country and we were fortunate to find a farm nearby that featured a sign out front, reading “Hay 4 Sale.” We pulled in and bought two bales of straw from the farmer, who charged a mere two dollars a bale for the stuff.

It took me a couple of days to get the sweet-smelling and ever-expanding straw onto the vegetable garden in our back yard as well as the community plot, but already I feel like the straw is worth the trouble. It will keep down the weeds, keep moisture in, and as it breaks down, it will add much-needed nutrients to the soil. I’m just wondering why it took me so long to figure this out?