Here's how my polyculture, cherry tree bed is starting to look after getting it started in early May. On the shady side I've planted chickweed, and another attempt at cleavers, we'll see if this one takes. On the sunny, south-west side, I transplanted yarrow, sage and St. John's wort.
After such an incredible turn out for the weed walk last month, I decided to run a longer, more in-depth workshop later this month. You can find the details about it here:
Wild Food in the City: Urban Foraging for Food and Medicine
I also created a public document of what I think are some important Principles of Ethical Foraging and Wildcrafting.
I'm really excited for the Fletcher Wildlife Garden's Annual Native Plant Sale tomorrow! I missed the last two years. Here's a list of what they will have for sale. There's quite a few edible and medicinal plants that I would like to add to my garden.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone!
Thanks for posting this document with the accompanying resources. I was wondering how to get started and hopefully this should help. I would have loved to make it to the Wild Edibles Walk, but I was working at the Landsdown market. If you do another, not on a Sunday, I hope to be there.
ReplyDeleteHi Amber,
ReplyDeleteI have a silly question but where did you get your straw? I have a small urban garden in Westboro, I've pulled out all the grass and planted vegetables and flowers like crazy but don't have anything good to mulch with. Would you recommend straw? I don't really care for garden centre bags of mulch...
Amanda, I'm so glad you found the info helpful! The resources listed are definitely a good place to start, very accessible and filled with loads of good info.
ReplyDeleteIf all goes well with the workshop coming up, I was thinking of doing another one in the fall, during root season. I won't schedule it for a Sunday!
That's a great question Sherry. Not silly at all! I actually got our straw by doing a search on usedottawa and kijiji. Quite a few farmers had listings there.
Alternatively, you could ask around at the farmer's market.
Straw is much better than hay, as hay contains a lot of weed seeds.
You might also want to look up lasagna gardening or sheet mulching for ways to use other materials.
Good luck with your garden. It sounds lovely!