Pay It Forward

A very generous lady gave me a few of her plants last weekend. She was packing up her yard sale in Trinity-Bellwoods Park, and noticed I was poking around. She gave me a chive plant, 2 mint plants and a bag of rhubarb.

I gave some of the rhubarb to a friend, a mint plant to a neighbor, and chives to 2 co-workers. The neighbor plans to use the mint in mojitos for hot weather bbq parties, and one of the co-workers plans to seed the chives and plant them in her garden. My rhubarb will undoubtedly become an integral part of berry pies for summer picnics.

One small act of kindness. The love continues to spread.

City Chickens

The existing law that bans chicken-keeping in Toronto is in the news again. The Toronto Sun recently ran an article suggesting that it could be an issue for voters in this upcoming municipal election.

I would love to see this ban overturned, for all the reasons you can imagine. Plus it gives me another reason NOT to vote for Rob Ford (who is against city chickens, claiming "we're not living on the farm". What a sad day it would be for food policy and security if this bozo got elected to office).

Step 1: backyard chickens. Step 2: building rooftop chickens?

Indoor Gardening Experiment

Since my apartment doesn't get much sunlight (due to a west-facing, partly blocked view), indoor gardening hasn't been much of an option. Most edibles require a fair amount of sunlight.

But my living space is seriously lacking greenery. So I picked up a small rectangular planter at a garage sale, and visited a local corner store to see if I could find any seedlings that can tolerate shade.

I ended up with chicory and sweet woodruff. Chicory can be eaten like a lettuce, and sweet woodruff is an herb that can be used medicinally. Their tags said that chicory enjoys partial sun (4-6 hours), and sweet woodruff prefers shade. I planted them together in the pot, and it looks great sitting on my kitchen table. In a few weeks we'll be able to tell how the plants feels about its new environment.