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Urban Gardening - 2024

As the cost of food continues to rise, it’s hard to walk into a supermarket these days without being annoyed about the absurdly high prices of some items, especially fresh produce. In the winter, I paid $3 for a single bell pepper. (It used to be $0.99/lb pre-pandemic). It wasn’t even a locally grown, organic pepper. (Not that I can get locally grown produce in the dead of winter in Toronto). I’d like to support farmers for their work, but I suspect most of the profit is going to the grocery chains raking in record profit.

I freeze much of my summer-harvested veggies for winter consumption, but one thing that I haven’t tried freezing is bell peppers. To avoid paying $3 again for a bell pepper, I planted, harvested and froze a bunch this year -- hopefully they freeze well.

Also tried growing sweet banana peppers this year. The plants are compact, bushy and had decent yields. Sweet and thin-walled, they're pretty good stir-fried or stuffed.

At my allotment garden plot, there’s a shit-ton of wild rabbits. I keep this in mind when I do garden planning. I can’t always grow what I want to grow (like soybeans, which were stripped clean one year). I have to pick stuff that I like to eat, but doesn’t appeal to these cute, furry bastards. I lost maybe 80% of my golden beets to them.

More destruction from rabbits. They mowed down my kale. I guess that's another crop that I can cross off my list. :)

Rhubarb swiss chard. Prior to this year, I've never eaten swiss chard. Tried growing a few plants just out of curiosity. I had no idea how profilic they are; once they get going, I couldn't eat it fast enough. With dark green leaves and bright crimson stalks, this variety resembles a small rhubarb plant (I guess hence the name). The leaves are tender and sweet but the stalks can get stringy and you have to peel off the strings (as with celery).

Russian Blue potatoes. I like to grow potatoes; they are relatively low-maintenance and keep well (if stored properly, they last for months). Unlike mass-produced, store-bought potatoes which are bland and tasteless, these have a nice nutty flavor and pleasant texture. I usually get a few odd/funny looking ones in my harvest. :)

Green Zebra tomatoes. A friend recommended this variety and sent me some seeds. The plants yield clusters of 2-3" tomatoes with beautiful green stripes. I think the best time to harvest them is when it starts to turn yellow at the top and there's a slight give when you squeeze the fruit. Mildly sweet with a touch of tartness, I like to eat them as is. They're also pretty good in a bacon sandwich (the tartness cuts through the saltiness/fattiness of the bacon). When over-ripe, they turn a bit mealy and lose some flavour.

We had record-breaking rainfalls this year. One day, we had over 120mm of rain within a few hours (yes, 120mm!). Tomatoes don't like too much rain; I ended up losing a few plants. Despite this setback, the remaining plants eventually recovered and I had decent harvests - but a far cry from a good/normal year.

Petit Gris de Rennes melon. I first grew these a few years ago and was blown away by how good they tasted. This year, I started out with 4 plants but lost 3 early in the season to cucumber beetles. I only managed to harvest a single melon. It wasn't as sweet as I remember, but it was super juicy and fragrant.

Nagasaki Aka Kabu turnip. An excellent late summer/early fall crop. I tried growing these in spring, but the seedlings were destroyed by bugs. Mildly sweet with a crispy texture, these 2-3" turnips are awesome pickled or eaten fresh when thinly sliced. The greens are also delicious (I think I like the greens even more than the turnips!).