The Green Barn Nursery

I heard about the Green Barn Nursery in March for the fist time but it wasn't until September that I actually had a chance to go for a visit. This is a nursery like no other because they are not tree resellers, they are tree "breeders". It was a fascinating tour!

The owner is Ken Taylor and what he does is imports exotic fruit trees from around the world and then tries them out in our climate(in Montreal). He tests several varieties with a specific end goal in mind: hardy fruit producing trees that require NO maintenance. That's right, no spraying for fungus, bugs or weeds necessary with these plants. No pruning either in many cases. He jokes that his trees have to learn to survive otherwise they are not fit to be kept.

Well let me tell you, the end product is amazing! So here is a short list of plants I will be buying from him in the spring: kiwi, Asian pears and peaches. All hardy for this climate! How's that for shocking?!?

Check out his catalog for yourself. You might find something that will make it worth a trip to Montreal



.

We had a baby!

I'm sure the people following my blog had figured that out by now.

Our new baby girl was born at home on June 22, 2009. All went well and her big brothers fell in love with her right away. Although my two year old did ask if we could put her back when she was 3 days old. : )

She is 3 months old today and I can finally say that I have adjusted to life with 3 kids. Oufff!

Things are moving along with the house so I will start posting again very soon.

Planning meeting with the architects #1

We have now met with our architects a couple times to discuss what we wanted and I am really looking forward to seeing what they will come up with. I must say that I am very impressed with them up to now. They have been incredible accommodating with our schedule, agreeing to come meet with us after our children's' bed time. That makes for late evenings for them!

They went through a long questionnaire with us about our wants and needs for each room of the house. Our requirements seem to be mostly about the function of things and of spaces.

We also showed them our picture binder. These are things we like that we have been taking out of design magazines.

This is SO exiting!



Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Tagging Ottawa, Canada

I'm sorry about this post, it is just an experiment.

I'm finding that the ads that google is putting on my site are not very local, but then I have not been making a big effort at tagging my posts so this one is just one big tag. I'm also going to go back a month and finish off each post with a tag, just to see.

So here it goes:

Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada,
Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Building with our own wood

Today's post is a plea for help. : )

This new land we are planning to build our house on has a 60 acre forest. It would make sense to use at least a bit of this wood in the building of our house. Unfortunately, having never harvested our own wood, we don't know where to start!

So to people reading this who are in the Ottawa area. Please let me know if this is something you have ever done, and how we should go about doing it. (who can help do the actual work)

I know that wood has to dry a certain amount of time before it can be used, so we think we are limited to using our own wood for trim work and the like (if at all). Still, that would be something. : )

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated.


Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Thank you La Leche League!

I am now 8 months pregnant and really starting to think about life with the new baby (our third child). Nursing the baby is a given by now but I must thank the La Leche League women who helped me out the first time around. Without them, I would never have managed I am sure. We had so many little problems that could have gotten really big had I not had excellent expert advice!


But I find myself wanting to thank them as well for pointing me in the direction of sustainable living. Not that sustainable living is a goal of La Leche League but it definitely is a consequence of being part of the organisation! I mean, when you think about it, you can't get a much more local source of food than a mother's milk! Thanks to tricks I picked up from other moms in this group, I also learned how to make my own baby food, how to use cloth diapers, and where to find great used stuff for children. It's also from other moms in the group that I first heard of Natural Infant Hygiene as well as of masonry heaters (yes very divers topics of discussion in these groups) .


So yes, La Leche League is a sustainable living organisation! Who knew?!?




Green building, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

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