I made it to my garden yesterday. Sadly the batteries died on my camera before i got all the pictures i wanted. I did get some though.

Went to my garden today, awesome and exciting. So much going on. I've decided to move my honeysuckle out of the house tomorrow and into the urban thicket. I am worried at the consequence, i have been working at hardening it off, but i've heard that it is vital for them to have a nice cool winter, that it is has not had for the last 3 months.

It turns out Garden City Vancouver is the name of a book Dannie Mcarthur and Marge Meikle. I did not know this.

I chose this name because i grew in Bella Coola B.C. which has vast amounts of wilderness. When i moved to vancouver in 2001 i really didn't want to do the whole 9-5 thing and i wanted to be an entrepreneur. After a few months of idea after idea, i came up with roof top gardening as a business idea. Being an angry/ depressed young goth/punk metal musician who did things like put safety pins through my eye brows didn't exactly make me some one people wanted to invest in. I also new very little about gardening at the time. I chose the lifestyle and stuck with it for years. But what also stuck with me was the ideas i had that we should be utilizing all of our space, reduce pollution ( i've always had issues with the air quality),. Though what i didnt realize was that what a large part of it was is that i have a deep spiritaul connection with nature and i saw that was lacking in vancouver, for me at least.

I dont talk about it so much in here as its become more of an update place, but the philosophy has remained and developed much, much more.

So with all of that said i think i will be looking for a new name for this blog.

Regarding wildcrafting.

When i talk about wild crafting i some times forget some people may view it as stealing. To clarify; I would never go onto someones property to take a plant, but if it hangs out onto the side walk i may take a cutting, as an example i took suckers off of an apple tree last year.#1 Rule of Wild crafting, when harvesting never take more then ten percent of what is there. Also learn how to take effective cuttings, hard wood, soft wood, rhizome. Remember that the plants you craft from you and other people will hopefully be utilizing for years to come. Another thing i've learned, as i don't have a lot of money (infact try for zero budget), don't take more then you have the space for. If all of your cuttings by chance take and you don't have the room for them it is very sad.

My cats breath smells like worms

Wow i love this time of year. Wait and wait all winter then all of a sudden theres things sprouting everywhere. Over winter cuttings are showing signs on if they made it to root. Im resisting the urge to weed as there is so much coming up and im growing a lot of plants this year that i've never tried before. Sometime next week i will be taking pictures hopefully what has sprouted now will have true leaves so i can weed. Though i must say i feel a little dissapointed, the urban thicket (my ex-girlfriends balcony) doesn't get a lot of sun, if im lucky noon to three then a little bit around 5 or 6, so things aren't doing as well as my garden at cotton woods community gardens. Also my cat is terrorising the garden. He eats worms which means hes constantly pouncing across the bed and scratching at the surface. Dispersed areas totalling about 6 feet squared as been dug up and is barren. The tulips are almost all broken and have stopped growing, though ones starting to send up a flower. My ex doesn't mind so much, as long as it makes artemis (my cat) happy. Plus Artemis and i will be moving out soon and i am going to spread wild flowers over the not filled in spaces so hopefully it will be fine.

april 8th 2009,

This year i've decided (impulsively) to break my zero budget gardening pattern. I went out and bought about $50 worth of seeds. My reasoning is that i would like to see if i can do this once and continue supplying myself with my own seeds for the fallowing years, if not for the rest of my life. I will continue my wild crafting habits but there are some seeds out there that would be very rare to find without stealing from someone. Though last year i did know of a broccoli plant that was growing near clark and pender, saddly it was picked before it seeded, well not so sad i guess, someone likely enjoyed it.

Next week i will be taking more photos of the gardens as seeds are now sprouting.