Herb gardens are going crazy all over town and we want you to make use of that bounty in every meal. Here we present a series of recipes and ideas for putting all those delicious plants to good use.
With an aroma that fills the yard when you brush against it, lemon thyme, is the most deliciously fragrant herb in the garden. It’s lemony grassy scent is so refreshing and subtle one is tempted to turn it into a perfume.
This herb grows up nice and bushy, it suits hanging planters perfectly but can spill out of a terra cotta pot on the ground just as easily too. Thymol, an essential oil found in thyme, is the main active ingredient in Listerine mouthwash.
The leaves just need to be stripped from the stem, no chopping required, before adding to salads, soups, egg dishes and especially pastas.
Lemon thyme is the perfect finishing touch to a simple macaroni & cheese or spaghetti and meatballs but my favourite pasta dish of all time would not be complete without this herb.
This dish, made famous at Kingston’s popular Chez Piggy restaurant, has only six ingredients and is moronically simple to throw together. Continue »
A large container with verbena, pelargonium and as a dramatic touch, a fuzzy foliage specimen.
1. Soil & Mulch. It’s best to use a professional potting mix rather than actual soil—never use soil right out of the garden. The lighter professional potting mixes give excellent root stability and allow for lots of air around growing roots. Promix is a good variety, but there are other mixes that contain perlite for drainage and some peat. Once planted, mulch the soil on top of the pots to conserve moisture, about an inch will do. If soil becomes bone dry it stresses plants out—especially on a very hot, sunny day. Stick your finger through the mulch to see how wet the soil is to know when to water.
2. Use the biggest pots available. From a practical standpoint, the bigger the better when it comes to containers. Large pots dry out more slowly and keep roots cooler, so less stress on the plants. Bigger pots make watering less of an issue: No matter how cute a series of small terra cotta pots look on a windowsill, unless you are prepared to stand there with a hose on the hottest days, it’s often a death sentence for plants. (Unless they are succulents and cactus.) Make sure all pots have holes for water drainage, by the way.
Fiesta Farms has a new Mayor! Didn’t know that our little grocery store had an official head of state?
If this notion is confusing to you, you might not be using Foursquare. Foursquare is a free GPS based service you can access on your iphone, blackberry or smartphone. It’s under a year old in Toronto, so don’t feel like a newbie.
Once you sign up for a Foursquare account, you can use your mobile device to “check in” at various locations across the city and share your local travels + tips with your online network of friends.
If a person checks in more than anyone else over a period of 60 days, they are crowned the “Mayor” of that location. And that’s exactly what happened when Andrea Chiu last checked in at Fiesta Farms. Andrea runs a food blog and podcast at Tongue + Cheek and is a loyal Fiesta Farms customer.
Not only did her loyalty get her the Mayorship on Foursquare, but the staff of Fiesta Farms were proud to fete her as well.
Foursquare does more than make you look busy and well-travelled. So how can you use Foursquare at your favourite grocery store? Using Foursquare at Fiesta Farms will allow you to share tips with your network. Here are a few ideas how:
Tell your network about a favourite product you found on our shelves
Know we’ve got the best deal on something? Let your friends know too (that’s what friends are for)
Is there one aisle not to be missed?
Shout out to your favourite Fiesta Farms employee who makes your visit brighter
Succulent filled pots and concrete forms add interest to this window sill.
1. They make your garden bigger: Growing plants in containers is a great way to expand your garden space. Pots can go anywhere: on pavement, a window sill, a deck, up a flight of steps.
2. Allows you to control the soil your plants grow in. Your garden soil may not be the greatest but when you plant in a pot, you control the soil and can provide excellent growing conditions that the soil in your garden may not have. My garden is sandy and full of tree roots. My pots give me a dream garden of rich soil.
A large planter with a sculptural plant makes a statement in a side entranceway.
3. Adds to your garden design by creating structure: Get the biggest pots you can afford and make it a statement, they can really add to your garden design. Pot design has come a long way, and you don’t have to choose between plastic and terra cotta.There are so many interesting shapes and materials. New types look like cement or terra cotta but are winter hardy, a huge bonus, as terra cotta pots will crack in a winter freeze.
4. Adds vertical space to your garden. Use the wall to attach pots to the wall, increasing the space you have for gardening. Foliage cascading from pots always gives a lush feel.
5. Takes advantage of your sunny spots. You might have a shady front yard, but a sunny spot along the side of your house, a great place to put a large pot filled with flowers, foliage or even vegetables. There’s nothing like having a walk through your garden and being able to pluck a fresh tomato out of a pot.
Top chefs from around Canada converged on Toronto recently to duke it out for best grilled cheese. Chef Paul Olgarski from Rouge in Calgary, Melissa Craig from the Bearfoot Bistro in Whistler, Corbin Tomaszeski from Toronto’s Holt Renfrew Cafe and Michael Howell from Tempest in Nova Scotia.
This is a dish that doesn’t get the spotlight very often, an easy standby for lunch.
Two pieces of bread, some cheese, butter and a hot pan. Simple right? Think again.
You’ll never settle for that again after you try the award-winning recipe from Chef Michael Howell. Continue »
We hosted the kids’ booth at The Evergreen Brickworks Wild Blueberry Festival and had such success making blueberry died scarves that we couldn’t wait to share our ‘how to’s’ with you. This is a perfect, messy weekend project that is non-toxic and recalls the ancient roots of all the dyes we use today.
The final product, is truly useful. Who wouldn’t want a fabulous lavender muslin scarf to bridge summer to fall weather? Here’s a video from the Blueberry Festival showing kids and parents having a blast getting in on the act. The instructions are below.
2. Mash 1 cup of blueberries, preferably by hand. Squish them up really well. The more you squeeze them the more vibrant they dye will be.
3. Strain the mashed blueberries and juice into 4 cups boiling water using a fine strainer or cheesecloth. Press the blueberries through the strainer for best results.
4. Mix juice into boiling water.
5. Place elastic bands in random order all around the muslin scarf. Be sure to put them on really tight.
6. Submerse the scarf (with elastics) in the boiling water for 10-15 mins.
7. Transfer scarf into 4 cups cold water mixed with 1 cup salt (salt is a fixative)
8. Wring out and let dry in the sunshine before removing elastics
Al Fresco, the Italian expression, for “in the fresh air” has made its way into English: alfresco. I love this expression, and this tradition: eating outdoors, lounging outdoors, reading outdoors, sleeping outdoors…fill in any blanks you want to. *wink*
What meal doesn't taste better outdoors amongst the greenery? As night falls, lighting a few candles makes a table magical and meals memorable.
A while back I showed you a vegetable garden started with bags of soil laid on top of grass. I recently visited my friend’s garden to take a look at the progress.
At left, just planted garden using soil bags in May. At right a few weeks later mid-summer.
Now it’s positively jungle-like, with a bountiful harvest. It’s amazing what a garden can bring in just a few months—one season. And all this without digging a single shovelful. Think about it for next year when you are contemplating growing a few vegetables in your back yard. You can get great results doing it the easy way.
Harvesting: The gardeners started with heavy-duty stakes, but the tomato plants now need extra twine to hold up their fruits.
Herb gardens are going crazy all over town and we want you to make use of that bounty in every meal. Here we present a series of recipes and ideas for putting all those delicious plants to good use.
This stuff grows like mad. It is taking over a corner of my yard. I recently brought some cuttings to friends in New Hamburg when we went up there for a Slow Food Pig Roast. Antony John of Soiled Reputation, the most flamboyant farmer in the land, spotted the leaves and identified them immediately. No one else we talked with had ever heard of this plant before, not even Suresh Doss (the man behind spotlightcity.com) and I thought he knew everything! Continue »
