Granskou Greens

10/10/2024

What an honour to be featured on the Food System Roundtable Waterloo Region blog. Thank you Erica Carmount for a job well done and a lovely conversation. Hunting for photos gave me the kick in the pants I needed to finally get my website updated since the property renos a year ago.

Uncategorized Granskou Greens: Urban Farming in Waterloo Region foodsystemroundtablewr October 9, 2024 October 9, 2024 October 7, 2024 • Erica Carmount PDF version Interested in learning more about Granskou Greens and handmade salad bowls? Click the link here. Once thought to be a leisurely activi...

08/08/2024

Sounds like a great opportunity for our youth.

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Click the Linktree in our bio to access our registration form.

07/30/2024

I finally beat bacterial wilt. These represent 2 unpruned untrimmed cucumber plants, each cropping about 50 cucumbers each! Well, I didn't actually beat it but I managed to source County Fair cucumbers from McKenzie seeds and they are resistant. Now time to decide whether I pull them or trim the diseased leaves off etc. as downy mildew is settling in.

05/17/2024

Lettuce, Asian greens, kale, spinach and claytonia available for fresh eating. Seedlings both large and small available for planting now and ongoing. As I grow all year, my preferred planting times can be a little different in relation to our climate, insect and disease pressure and other factors. Seedlings are sold plastic free. Please message to inquire and I will get us connected via email. Pick your own options and summer/fall shares available (includes fruiting and root veg produce).

04/27/2024

My daughter made herself a kale smoothie for breakfast, and here is the lunch chosen by my 2 others. They are now going out in the garden and helping themselves. Life is good!

04/27/2024

I've had a great time emptying most of my winter outdoor worm composter into containers. After fermenting all our kitchen waste and adding microgreen roots, garden waste and cardboard, this is the result. I got a little carried away making faces from what wouldn't break down. Make no bones about it. I love composting. Now that it's in sun again, the composter is a cold frame.

04/15/2024

Gorgeous salad bowl made by my partner, Trevor, of Once Upon A Tree.

04/14/2024

We will pay you to take our clean fill! 7or 8 cubic yards available. It is sandy and loamy and not clay but would only be recommended for areas where vegetables will not be grown as it was taken from around an older home. We will shovel it for/with you as well.

06/30/2023

Diverse frozen greens from fall 2022 for sale by donation. Blanched fresh, finely chopped and ready to go. Free of plant diseases, tunneling larvae, pesticides and fungicides. Stored in Zip Zag bags, which are air tight, prolong the life and exclude freezer odours.

06/25/2023

The foggy polytunnel this morning, featuring tree collards along the back wall. It's currently 43 degrees in there but not in direct sun, as there are so many plants that they shade each other. Everything is doing ok, even the peas! I'm also growing sweet potatoes (for leaf production), okra, Armenian cucumbers, Mercury hybrid cucumbers, Emerald Everleaf Basil, Blue Lake pole bean, Contender bush bean, New Zealand spinach, cow pea, Welsh onion and flowering cilantro and dill. A veritable jungle!
I saw an aphid for the first time yesterday on my operation. Where? In a mesh tent where I am growing chard to prevent leaf miner feeding. I have inspected every leaf I have harvested from cole crops before bringing them in and looked and looked but otherwise they are absent. I also have not seen flea beatles. My theory is that due to the protected growing, all the early claytonia and cilantro flowered earlier than anywhere in the area and attracted swarms of beneficials.

06/20/2023

Just doing a wee harvest before the groundhog does again after composting countless mature and healthy but ruined plants. Groundhog are on a whole other level than bunnies. Basil is not a favourite but also not an effective deterrent. They just plough it down, flattening the bed to reach the kale, beans and lettuce, beheading them all. They can climb, jump and dig. The poor creatures have been displaced from construction along the Spurline trail and the removal of vegetation.
Sometimes acceptance is the necessary step to take. My ancestors would have starved in this scenario so there are a lot of emotions right now. The next step is building enclosures, burying fencer wire 4 feet vertically underground around the polytunnel (though it's already 4 feet out horizontally) and planting onions, fennel and basil in open areas. My youngest loves fennel and calls it nature's candy. Too bad it kills everything it's planted next to! Perhaps I will have less weeding. Thank you to all who supported Granskou Greens for a successful year. Next year will look VERY different.

06/17/2023

First blog since winter, thanks to the rain. I aim to post specifically about growing various greens and purples. Felix, this is for you.

The only reason I can post this is we finally got rain for the first time in 6-7 weeks and I have no irrigation system. I'll be posting in gratitude of 4 plants that served me well this spring, as I am gradually ripping them out: Claytonia, Choho, Purple Mizuna and Mâche (a,k,a, corn salad, lamb's ...

06/16/2023

Before I pitch a bag of organic wheatgrass powder and spirulina in the worm bin (they are hungry), does anyone want it? For obvious reasons, I am not craving it/needing it these days.

06/14/2023

I am offering a deal on 8mm TWINWALL POLYCARBONATE, as I am ordering large quantities to work with a school and renovate my front yard. The shipping is the same for 10 sheets as it is for 30 or 50. If you buy a small amount for a cold frame or 2 you will spend more on shipping than the product. Please contact me for more info should you be interested. They will be delivered in September and would need to be picked up in a timely manner.

06/05/2023

Has anyone seen any aphids this year yet? I have not seen one which is really surprising. Last year I had an infestation in my indoor seedlings which got under control when they went outside. I have a theory but just checking in with other gardeners first.

Aphids are small sap-sucking insects and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Common names include greenfly and blackfly,[a] although individuals within a species can vary widely in color. The group includes the fluffy white woolly aphids. A typical life cycle involves flightless females giving li...

06/02/2023

Bye bye spinach. You'd only just begun and now you are done. The leaf miner is active and loving this heat. Such is farming. Many clients request spinach but it is one of my trickiest crops and the window of success is so small. Move over spinach, come on basil.

05/24/2023

The last month has been abundant at Granskou Greens and with great pleasure I have shared this with my 17 dedicated clients (and their friends). I have pushed the limit on what my beds and pots can deliver, as the polytunnel took a break due to hot days and cold nights and is now a refuge for Armenian cucumber, okra and Lima beans. I have developed an effective, rodent deterred and varied composting system for all our waste and those of apartment dwellers. The learning curve has been long, creative, fulfilling, frustrating and expensive but well worth it. Here are some pics of April and May.

03/10/2023

Today's indoor greens and purples in a bowl by my partner, Trevor Ewert, of https://onceuponatree.ca/ We will fill your new bowl with every purchase.
Outdoor greens waiting for me to do some ice picking...or grow a really long arm.