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Green walls are glorious. Take the technology for green roofs and put it somewhere everyone can enjoy it. Regardless of any environmental benefits that may result, just think about how great it would be to coat your entire house with succulents!
The designer that everyone seems to watch is Patrick Blanc – read an interview with him here. He does these fabulous wall sculptures with plants. A steel frame is mounted onto the face of the building (leaving a gap between the frame and the wall), PVC sheets are attached and then felt is used as a rooting medium for the plants. His soiless system uses hydroponics (water with nutrients) to irrigate and sustain plant life.
Most green walls use some type of grid planter system using a frame, cells and irrigation channels. If soil is used as a potting medium, the cells are generally 2 – 4 inches deep and a lightweight moisture-retaining mixture is used. The home gardener can order cells that are slanted, to help keep the potting mixture in the wall.
There are lots of great examples of commercial applications – particularly in Asia and Europe, where green walls are used for company logos. With careful plant selection and planning, the walls can thrive most places – indoor and out.
It doesn’t have to be a full wall either – some designs use green panels like architectural punctuation. Here’s a recent article in Met Home about a garden wall installation.
Interior installations look like art. I wonder if it would give your living room that steamy conservatory smell?
People who sell supplies and install green walls:
G-Sky (Canada)
Alive Structures (USA)
Elt Living Walls (USA)
A Green Roof (USA)
Green Roof Plants (USA)
Green Wall Australia (Australia)
Green Fortune (Sweden)
Indoor Landscaping (Germany)
here is another post on more wall gardens.
And finally, yesterday’s (horizontally grown) harvest:
I decided to try and grow my own herbal teas this year, since we drink gallons of the stuff. As a general rule, harvest first thing in the morning, after the dew has evaporated. This is when the flavours are most intense. These are some of the herbs I’m growing and how to harvest them:
Chamomile
I’m got three kinds of chamomile growing: german, roman and lemon. German chamomile is more commonly used for tea as it has a slightly milder flavour, but both german and roman are used to aid digestion and relieve anxiety. I planted it in April and (after surviving a late snowfall), it has grown to about 2 feet tall and is blooming right now. The best time to snip the flowerheads is when the white petals have begun to fold back from the yellow centre. Screen dry them in a cool dark place. The lemon chamomile is almost as tall, but the leaves are more silvery grey, and I think that the flowers will be yellow in colour. Roman chamomile is much shorter and can be used as groundcover – if you mow it regularly, it will form a thick green mat that emits a lovely apple-like scent when walked on.
Mints
I’ve got mints running rampant around the garden – mint, spearmint, peppermint, orange mint, lemon balm. According to my herb book, you can cut them back by 1/2 or more, tie the stalks together and dry them in bunches hanging upside down. I’m experimenting.
Lavenders
I know that some people cook with lavender, but I just like the smell. Cut the stalks just before they flower because this is when the oils are the most concentrated. Tie them in bunches and hang them upside down to dry.
I have a variety of unidentified lavenders growing. I’m pretty sure that this one is Spanish lavender.
And this one is probably some variety of English lavender. I found this site to be helpful.
Jasmine
One of my all-time favourite smells. Did you know that French jasmine is disappearing? It’s highly prized for perfume and rarer than truffles, but most of the world jasmine production has moved to India for cost reasons. I know because I read it in a book.
I planted the vine last year and it has started to bloom – I’m going to try screen drying the blooms.
Rose
If this works out, I’ll make something with the petals – sachets? Potpourri seems so 1990s. Anyways, I have followed instructions to separate the petals and lay a single layer of them on a paper towel and repeat before weighting the whole thing with magazines. We’ll see how this pans out.
I also picked some thyme (screen dry), lemon thyme (screen dry), marjoram (bunch dry) and oregano (bunch dry). My kitchen smells great.
Finally, yesterday’s bumper crop: 65 strawberries.
The u-pick strawberry farms just opened on Wednesday – the season has started very late this year with the cool weather. I took the younger two kids out there yesterday and put them to work. They did great – we picked 25 lbs before they lost interest and had to recover at the play area, and I bought another 30 lbs (some for us and some for a friend).
The farm also sells these great strawberry shortcakes – buns similar to scones, topped with icing and sliced in half with cooked strawberries in the middle – like a warm strawberry sandwich. We had those first, followed by some corn pizza (yum) to fortify us for the drive home.
It was a schwack of berries.
Everyone has their own way of putting up strawberries, but I wash them, cut off the tops and slice them into freezer bags in pre-measured amounts for making jam. Then I can just pull them out when I’m in the mood. I also freeze some whole for use in drinks (instead of ice cubes) or baking.
No-Pectin Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
This recipe is from Mary Anne Dragan’s Well Preserved and produces a lovely tart strawberry-rhubarb jam. It uses the slow-cook method to get the jam to gel, instead of pectin.
9 cups rhubarb (chopped into 1/2 inch slices)
12 cups sugar
9 cups sliced strawberries
3/4 cup lemon juice
Combine rhubarb and sugar into a large pot – let it stand for 2 hours. Sterilize your jam jars.
Add strawberries and lemon juice and bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Increase heat to medium-high and boil rapidly, stirring often for 20-25 minutes until jam is slightly thickened. Click here to read more about how to test for set and process jam.
Remove from heat and stir for a few minutes. Skim the foam off the top with a spoon. Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal before processing in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes. Let the jars cool on a rack and wait for the ping to let you know the lids are vacuum sealed. (if any don’t ping, put those jars in the fridge and use them first). A little bit of summer saved in a jar!
A part of last night’s harvest: more strawberries and shelling peas.
we had a locavorious dinner last night – fresh peas and broccoli from the garden to go with barbecued salmon and yams, and then 47 strawberries and 8 raspberries for dessert. it has become obvious that i really like to count things. the salmon was a whole chinook (minus the guts), and my husband had great fun making it talk to the kids before i slathered the inside with pesto, wrapped it in foil and threw it on the grill.
now that we’re well into the growing season, i’m revisiting my garden goals and results.
1. Peas: of the four varieties i planted, the Alderman are producing the best and the earliest so far and they’re up over the top of the fence already. We’re eating them as fast as they grow, so i will plant some more now in a cooler area of the yard to produce more for later. i can’t imagine how many i would need to grow to have enough to freeze for the winter – maybe an entire 4′ x 8′ garden box? maybe more?
2. Beans: these (purple, yellow, green) are coming along and halfway up the netting towards the top of the fence. I was most excited about the edamame at the base of the trellis, but these seem to have been mysteriously swallowed up by something. Will replant in a different location. The dry beans (speckled bay, black turtle) are short but leafy.
3. Gourds: I may have gone a bit nuts on the gourds. i have zucchini, various squashes, and three pumpkin plants growing like crazy in relatively confined spaces. They are now long enough that i can try to train them upwards. I looked at building the upright frame outlined by Mel Bartholomew in Square-Foot Gardening (rebar, pipe conduit), but it seemed expensive and complicated. Plastic is strong (right?), so i’m going to try growing them on the same nylon netting i’m using for everything else (it’s attached to the wooden fence). I think i also need to fertilize to sustain their growth.
4. Herbs: my herb bed rocks – i think this is the most successful thing i’ve done this year. The chamomile is flowering, so it’s time to start harvesting for tea.
5. Cucumbers: Part of my master plan was to grow cucumbers and dill for making pickles. The dill in the herb bed is coming along well, but only one sad little cucumber sprout came up and then quickly expired. i made a quick trip to the gardening store to buy some seedlings (twist my arm) and i’m going to plant these today.
6. Carrots: i finally grew some carrots! at least, i can see them lurking – i’m waiting to pick them for a few more weeks. in the past, i have tried and failed miserably at growing carrots (thankfully, my in-laws grow oodles of them every year without any problems and come to visit us with bags of carrot contraband tucked into their luggage). because i was feeling pessimistic, i only planted a few short rows, and now i think the harvest will last us about a week. too late to plant more?
7. Broccoli: planted 6 plants, but should have planted more (we eat a lot of broccoli) and staggered yield times.
8. Cauliflower: is really purple and should be ready to eat in a few more weeks.
9. Greens: spinach, lettuce, etc. are producing consistently. The spinach grows super fast (it’s an italian variety), so i need to remember to plant less of it, but more frequently.
10. Beets, Turnips, Artichokes, Brussel Sprouts: too soon to tell, but growing.
11. Swiss Chard: coming along. must remember to water. the mutant swiss chard is now taller than i am.
12. Tomatoes: after early casualties due to a late snowfall (April! in B.C.!), i replanted and these are growing nicely – especially after i cleared out the potato foliage that was blocking the sunlight from reaching them.
13. Potatoes: i’m still planting them in random spots around the garden.
14. Asparagus: I planted 10 plants far too late in the spring, and then (to add insult to injury), moved the bed a few weeks later. A few straggly shoots came up (and they look so pretty and feathery now), but won’t expect much of anything for a few years.
15. Strawberries: the yield is up to 1 strawberry per plant now (80 plants). These are doing great and i would highly recommend a strawberry patch to anyone trying to get kids excited about gardening. We’re also heading out to a U-pick this week to get a whole bunch for jam and freezing.
16. Fruit: i planted this year for future yields from apple, plum, and pear trees, and a kiwi vine. They all seem to be doing well, except for the pear tree, which has developed raised orange blotches on most leaves. Of the two new rhubarb plants, one is doing well, the other not so much. No sign of the melon seedlings I transplanted. Either they’re hiding or dead.
All four blueberry bushes are bearing fruit, but i think i would need about 20 bushes to meet our snacking needs. The raspberry (2 years old) has lots of berries forming on last year’s canes, and the blackberry (running rampant through the camellias – i keep hacking it back) has lots of blossoms.
And that’s my gardening report for today…
My husband passed on this ESPN article about vegan/vegetarian pro athletes and i love how it aims to challenge the idea “you are what you eat”. i.e., if you want to be a large man who knocks down other large angry men for a living, then you really should eat large quantities of meat and milk. On the other hand (as several athletes featured in the article point out), if you want to be a large man who enjoys health and at least an average lifespan post-NFL, it’s probably a good idea to change your diet now. It’s amazing how much energy these athletes seem to need to put into defending their lifestyle choices. Team doctors are involved. Sports fans follow their progress intensely. Reporters blame slumps on their salads!
Other vegan/vegetarians featured include mixed martial arts fighter Mac Danzig and ultramarathoner Scott Jurek. I’m really impressed by the daily 6,000 – 8,000 calories that Jurek consumes. The man only eats fruit, vegetables, grains and nuts. Can you imagine how much food that is? We’re talking about the health food equivalent of 15 Big Macs every single day. That’s like 100 apples!
The article lumps together the purist vegans with the guys who live off of soy protein powder shakes and Clif bars. It may be vegan, but if it’s powder and it comes in a can, then i wouldn’t really call it food. Would you?
i think that most people interested in growing food and eating well have incorporated some version of Michael Pollan’s edict “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” It’s something that we try to do around here, with varying degrees of success. As my son puts it, “We don’t eat land animals.” Or at least I didn’t for about 12 years. My third pregnancy led to insatiable cravings for bacon and ham, which (sadly) I am still doing battle with. On those days, I call myself a porco-pesco-lacto-ovo vegetarian.
I don’t have an ethical problem with eating animals – people are designed to be omnivorous, after all. And obviously, every body is different and has different nutritional needs and sensitivities – how can anyone make gross generalizations about eating – more protein, less carbs, no dairy, more soy?
But really, the point is to be a conscious eater. To be aware of the food we put in our mouths. To think about its point of origin. I’m not just talking about transportation costs and farting cows. Did it grow? Was it manufactured? Did it live a miserable little half-life in a factory? Does it have ingredients that you can’t pronounce? Do you actually know what went into producing it? Will it rot (as is proper) if left on the counter or stay curiously unaffected by the passage of time? Would it survive a nuclear blast? Is it the best choice available to you at this point in time? I believe these things matter.
yummy delicious home-grown strawberries – they do live up to the hype. especially when they are still warm from the sun.
the kids are going outside several times a day now to “check and see” if any more have ripened since their last visit. they take their friends on tours around the side of the house to visit “the strawberry patch”.
as soon as the berries have passed some invisible marker of redness (we have discussed this a few times after some sacrificial pickings), they are unceremoniously plucked and consumed on the spot.
i may never grow enough berries to actually make jam or even a dessert, but it is FABULOUS (and yes, i embrace my overuse of the word) to see how excited they are about something growing. i have to sneak out of the house extra early to eat one myself, but that is a sacrifice i am willing to make…
I’ve been tagged by Today I will mostly be growing. This reminds me a bit of those dreaded chain letters we wrote back in the day, but I’m up for a game of garden tag.
These are the rules for tagging:
Link to the person who tagged you.
Post the rules on your blog.
Write six random things about yourself.
Tag six people at the end of your post linking to their blog.
Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
Let the tagger know when your entry is up.
Six random things:
1. I like small foods.
2. I can’t leave the house without something to read and a bottle of water.
3. I love the smell of gardenia and jasmine.
4. I studied Mandarin and Hindi in university and can only say Hello and How are you in both languages.
5. I make my own Windex.
6. I wish I knew how to build things out of wood.
i’ll admit to being a skeptic. i really thought that the little picture on the stick that came with the seedling had been seriously doctored in Photoshop to enhance the purpleosity of the documented cauliflower. i planted a bunch of these guys back in april and i’ve been waiting and waiting for something to show up. so far, we’ve had lots of leaves (note to self: cauliflower takes longer than broccoli). but i peeked this evening, and this is what i saw:
it really is purple. some of the other ones are even more purple! and they’re all about the size of a really small plum at the moment.
as it turns out, broccoli does grow in heads (even ones grown by me), but some random broccolis (broccolae?) prefer to send out shoots. i don’t know why this is.
the first ripe raspberry on the bush.
the blueberries are coming along – this is a second year bush – the two first year bushes that i planted earlier this spring have only formed a few berries each.
and finally, once you’re done with your blogging, check out typeracer for your chance to triumph in a typing throwdown. good times.
at last, the strawberry patch bears fruit! i sliced them up and threw them on some lettuce/spinach with capers and feta – yum.
i’m still pretty new to this whole gardening thing, but it always amazes me how MUCH things can grow in such a short time. If I was like the fennel, I figure I’d be about 17 feet tall by now.
It wasn’t even supposed to be in the herb garden at all – it somehow magically transported itself from the garden at the back with all the work that went on. Anyways, here are the herbs when I planted them:
Here are the herbs about a month ago:
Here are the herbs yesterday.
And finally, here is the luscious peony that is perfuming my kitchen.
The hanging Bubble Chair by Eero Aarnio.
What is it with these crazy Finns/Danes/Swedes and the furniture design? Was there something in the water or the frigid length of the winters or some crazy critical mass of collective design inspiration in the 1960s and 70s?
Whatever the case, I want one of these for my own personal Cone of Silence. I could sit back and pull out my shoe phone and have a conversation in peace and quiet while swinging back and forth.
All I need is a sturdy ceiling beam and about $3000.
