We are into eek three of our Garden Q&A Series with the Vancouver Master Gardeners. In case you didn’t catch the first two weeks, be sure to read our blog posts on ‘Summer Harvests, and Winter Crop Planning’ here:
You can submit your questions via our social media accounts, or by email to christine@growingchefs.ca.
This week, we would like to introduce you to a couple of the Master Gardener students who have been working hard to share with you, their passion for growing food, and the great knowledge that they have.
Meet Master Gardener Student Bev!
What got you into growing food and wanting to complete your Master Gardener training?
Hello Fellow Gardeners!
Growing up I didn’t have a lot of exposure to fresh vegetables. My grandmother always had rhubarb growing at her front door and would make pies with it, combining it with apples or strawberries, but other than that, most of what I knew about vegetables came from a can. I’m not talking about the canning you do when you grow and can your own food so you have amazing treats throughout the winter. It was can opener stuff! I’m likely dating myself by saying that, but we also had a milkman and breadman who delivered these essentials to our home every few days. We didn’t have a car and there were no corner or grocery stores around my neighbourhood. As a family of 8 kids, my amazing single-mom would go grocery shopping once a week and someone had to be home for the grocery delivery because she went right to work after shopping. It was like Christmas every week! My sister and I would open the boxes praying for a box of sugary cereal, or some other treat. We did have more fresh food on holidays like Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving. My Mom did love fresh corn which would show up on our dinner table in the late summer, early fall. These memories shaped my early understanding of where food came from. I took a course on the sociology of food in my undergrad which made me realize that our relationship with food is complex and changes the more we learn about it and appreciate it.
My interest in growing my own food didn’t really start until about 14 years ago, when I had some space to grow it. I started with tomatoes and lettuce, which seemed like a good match up. We had so much lettuce I made lettuce soup. It was actually pretty good if you add potatoes which thickens it up. From there we eased up on the lettuce and started garlic, which is amazing fresh and one of the easiest things to grow if you make sure you rotate your crop every year. The onion family (of which garlic is a member) is susceptible to root disease.
What is your favourite food to grow?
Green beans are my favourite and I typically pick them right off the vine and eat them raw. This year I’m growing cucumbers for the first time. It’s going very well, but I have to admit I didn’t think about how quickly they would grow and how having a structure for them to grow up (to stay off the ground) is essential. I managed to cobble some tomato cages and string together to help with that.
Can you share with us some of your best garden hacks or advice?
My best advice about food gardening is plant what you love to eat but try new things every season. Being able to make a simple salad with fresh veggies from your garden, is one of the simple pleasures of life! Oh, and always share with your neighbours…they may have something you’ve never tried. Happy gardening!
Meet Master Gardener Student, Jennifer!
Tell us a little bit about yourself!
Hi Growing Chefs!
I'm Jennifer Martin, a retired Food Scientist, who maintains a cooperative, urban garden in the city and a large, challenging coastal garden on the Sunshine Coast which I'm trying to restore, back to its native glory. I grow herbs, fruits, vegetables & perennials, especially ones that attract pollinators and beneficial insects. On the coast, I have mostly native woody plants, shrubs and trees, including some conifers that are over a 100-ft tall.
What are some of your favourite culinary uses of the plants that you grow?
I love herbs, especially the perennial ones, like Rosemary, Lavender, Thyme & Sage. Have you tried adding crispy sage to your pasta? Just cook the sage leaves in melted, browned butter until crispy then add it to your favourite ravioli. And for a really special treat, make honey lavender ice cream. Simply add the culinary lavender flowers (any English variety) to a spice bag and steep them (like tea) in the heated cream mixture until you get the desired flavour. The longer you steep, the stronger the lavender flavour will be. It's delicious!
Can you share with us a fun tidbit of your knowledge around growing food?
Did you know you can grow vegetables from food scraps? While you may have done this with a potato, you can also regrow basil, mint, cilantro, celery, romaine lettuce and even onions! Make sure there is at least 2-3 inches of stem, then just place their ends in water until they grow roots. After they have rooted you can replant them in soil and let them grow to full size again before eating. Start with green onions, they're the easiest and make sure to place them in a sunny location in your house to encourage root growth . This is recycling at its best!
Meet Master Gardener Student, Sally!
What led you to your passion of growing and gardening?
My first career was focused on the built environment. I studied 3-dimensional design in England in the late ‘70s before moving to the West Coast in 1981. My passion for design carried me through four decades in the corporate world in Vancouver as a consulting interior architect. I loved the job, always finding new things to learn, opportunities for creativity and developing new skills, and working with wonderful clients and colleagues. As a professional designer I became conscious of the giant footprint that design and construction have on our environment and I committed to practicing sustainable design. In the early years these concepts were considered optional and extravagant. Now, thankfully, these ideas and processes are being adopted as non-negotiable and essential.
Even as a young child living in Barbados I remember my parents giving me a wee corner in their yard, and having my own little garden. My passion then was coleus. So many gorgeous colours and leaf shapes, and in that climate they were perennials.
What are you most excited about in your Master Gardener training?
Over the years I’ve had a number of other gardens, and have made just about every gardening mistake in the book. I certainly wasn’t born with a green thumb. Yet, the natural environment has continued to lure me. I find every aspect of the plant and animal world fascinating. Taking the Master Gardener training has been a gift. What propelled me to take the course was realizing I wanted to know a lot more about the art and science of growing things. The classes covered topics I didn’t initially think would be of much interest, such as entomology. Turns out, bugs are riveting! And the drastic decline of beneficial insect populations means we need to restore and develop habitats to bring them back.
For me, what connects design and gardening is the notion of ’nurturing’. If ecology is the relationship between organisms and their environments then my previous focus was on humans and their relationships with the built environment. Now the focus has shifted to all living things and the natural environment. My image of what a beautiful garden should look like has changed in this process. Once, a manicured, European show garden was my idea of heaven. Now, gardens with wonderful soil, less formality, habitats for beneficial insects, places that celebrate the life cycles of plants - these feel right. A landscape designer I admire tremendously is Piet Oudolf from the Netherlands. And of course our own most famous landscape architect is Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, a local treasure who has been a passionate and early proponent of rewilding, environmental protection and liveable urban landscapes.
My garden for the past few years has been a tiny city one near Vancouver City Hall. It’s south facing, yet very shaded from the magnificent trees that line the street. Growing vegetables is challenging (ok, impossible) and so it’s filled with shade-loving perennials. In the autumn the trees shed their leaves and provide a fantastic leaf mulch throughout the winter. Under what appears to be dead or dormant, the soil is teaming with life, and the circle continues next spring.