The most mind-boggling gardening book ever!

About three years ago, my husband and I cleaned out a room to make way for our new baby. It was basically wall to wall books. We then went to used book stores to sell our books. That is when we made a discovery that, being the book lovers that we were (and still are), astounded us. Used books are worthless! We resolved then and there to stop buying books (and only get books from the library)! We amended our resolution shortly after to: only buy books that we thought would be used often enough that it would be inconvenient to get from the library.

So why am I telling you this? Because I am in the process of reading the most mind-boggling gardening book ever! I am SO impressed with this book in fact that I decided that this will be my new way of gardening. And even beyond that? I decided to buy the book and the other books written by the same author as well. That is how impressed I am!

The book: THE WINTER HARVEST HANDBOOK by Eliot Coleman.


Mister Coleman, as far as I can tell is a gardener turned farmer. He lives in the state of Maine (so a very similar climate to ours) and grows vegetables year round on his farm in unheated green house. He explains in his book that he has always loved reading gardening books. Now, some years ago, he read that the city of Paris used to be completely self-sufficient in it's vegetable production. He new that Paris had the same amount of winter light hours that his garden got during the winter so it gave him an idea. He wondered if the plants that grew over there during the winter could grow over here during the winter. It's colder here, but we get the same amount of sun. So off he went to Europe to visit winter gardens.

He found out that only specific vegetables grew during the winter in Europe. The next logical step was to try growing them here in cold frames. It worked! Unfortunately, he found that digging cold frames out of the snow was a bit inconvenient, so he decided to put a green house over his frames. This turned out to be a stroke of genius! Now he farms during the winter with much bigger green houses. Inside, he now uses spun row covers instead of cold frames. Oh! And this is all done using organic gardening techniques!

Like I said, this is going to be my new way of gardening!




Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

The Humanure Handbook

In my research on water conservation, I fell into the topic of composting toilets. It makes sense to me not to use water in toilets when water availability is an issue as it is on our new land. But I still wanted to know more so I asked around if anyone knew about these devices. My friend from The Veggie Patch Re-imagined recommended I read The Humanure Handbook.


A surprisingly good book!

I really didn't expect much from this book but I ended up finding it absolutely fascinating!

The point of this book is to explain that it is not only possible but a very good idea to compost human body waste. It also explains in detail how to do it safely.

After reading the book, there is no question in my mind what kind of toilets we are installing in our new house! Composting toilets not only reduce water consumption but they also eliminate the risk of the contamination of nearby ground water supply. Plus, you end up with great nutrients for your flower bed or garden. This one is a no-brainer!

All I have to do now is to convince my husband...

My son wants to be a garbage man!

My 5 year old has been fascinated with garbage since he was about 2 years old. It started off with the garbage truck, which I think many children are interested in, but it's moved on to a whole different level.

He seems particularly fascinated with the idea that you can make something new and useful out of something that has become completely useless for us. He has actually been asking to go visit a recycling center for over a year now. I've been trying to set this up for him but with no success, I'm told they don't let children in these places.

His current favorite toy is a conveyor belt my husband made for him.

He puts Lego on it, sorts it and then "recycles" it.

This game has been going on for over a year now, in various levels of complexities.

Last summer, he discovered composting, boy did that open a whole new can of worms! : ) Since then I think he has asked me about every single thing in our house. Does this compost? Does this go in the reclycling? Why not? This week has been particularly intense with recycling and composting questions at our house. He actually managed to make me feel bad about our incomplete recycling efforts! So I've decided to step it up a bit. I went out and bought small recycling boxes for each bathroom as a place to put toilet paper rolls, used tissue paper and anything else that is compostable.

Here is a picture of my toilet. : )

Garbage on the left of the picture, recycling box on the right.

This is an easy way to "green-up" any house. Even yours!