Vert-à-Go

Donna Ziegler from the Canadian Cancer Society will give a talk about the connection between pesticides and cancer at the next Saskatchewan Environmental Society presentation next month.

Pesticide exposure may increase your risk of developing cancer. Most of the research has focused on occupational (workplace) exposure to pesticides, linking them to non-Hodgkin lymphoma and leukemia, as well as cancers of the prostate, kidney, brain, and lungs. But there is also evidence that children may be especially vulnerable to the harmful effects of these chemicals.  These chemicals appear in a wide variety of places for a wide variety of reasons, ranging from pest controls designed to reduce the threat of disease and safeguard the food supply, as well as those aimed solely at ornamental lawn or garden use. Many of the latter pesticides have recently been banned in a number of Canadian municipalities. This presentation will give you the facts and advice for reducing your exposure risk. 

Pesticides and cancer presentation (for the Saskatchewan Environmental Society)

When: Wednesday 11 March, 7pm

Where: Lower Auditorium, J S Wood Library, 1801 Lansdowne Avenue, Saskatoon, SK (Google map)

Admission: FREE

For more information: Saskatchewan Environmental Society, 665-1915

photo: Library of Congress archives

Earlier this year, Kitchen Gardeners International launched a campaign to plant edible landscapes in high-visibility locations. At the forefront of the campaign is a petition to ask the next US president to convert part of the White House lawn into a large organic food garden that would supply the White House kitchen and local food banks with fresh produce.

Roger Doiron, founder of KGI, explains that there is a well-established precedent for ‘eating the view‘:

“The White House lawn has been a sustainable and edible landscape in the past, notably at times of national emergency. In 1918, for example, Woodrow and Edith Wilson did away with gas-powered mowers, replacing them with a hungry herd of sheep. Later, in 1943, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt planted a Victory Garden on the White House lawn inspiring millions of citizens to follow suit. For the really obstinate opponents who say “that was then, this is now,” you can point them to the governors of Maine, New York, and North Carolina who are already happily eating their view and saving tax-payers money along the way.”

In his victory speech last night, President-elect Obama declared the importance of embracing a spirit of service and sacrifice “where each of us resolves to pitch in and work harder and look after not only ourselves, but each other.” I think taking responsibility for feeding himself and his neighbours would be a terrific way to start. Vote for the Eat the View proposal at the On Day One web site or “buy” a parcel of the lawn to fund kitchen garden projects!

This Lawn is Your Lawn from roger doiron on Vimeo.

Work is continuing apace on the front garden—you can see a new long bed for anemones extending along the sidewalk, with a new rock border. This border creates a nice wide edge with space for bulbs, and make it harder for our two small people to stomp across the middle of the yard and through the flower beds.

We stacked the old pieces of sod up along the edges of what will be the path, to get it out of the road while we’re working. I’ve been burying some of it upside down in the newly dug beds (about a foot down) so it can compost all by itself.

And what’s that poking up in the middle?

It’s the beginning of the herb spiral!

I shovelled dirt into a mound (could have gotten rid of some more of the upside-down turf on the bottom of it, but for some reason I forgot to stick it in), and then I started pressing rocks into the base to see how big we needed to make it. We actually enlarged it somewhat after this picture; it’s about 1.3m across.

We stacked up two layers of rocks all round, then once we got all the way around, started moving in to create the spiral and a small planting area at the top. We finished building it after it was too dark to take a picture, so I’ll have to post one tomorrow! It was a really fun project.

The Victoria Day long weekend is the traditional time for Canadians to put in their gardens. This year, the holiday really falls on the early side of the 24th of May, so I’m not panicking to get everything planted this weekend. I haven’t even bought any bedding plants yet, although I did plant some lettuce seeds in pots on the deck about 10 days ago, which are now enthusiastically poking their heads out of the dirt. I’ll plant some more in the next day or so so that I have nicely staggered crops of salad greens throughout the summer, and plan to put in some other cool-weather vegetables like carrots, beets, radishes, and spinach. Tomato seedlings could probably do with another week under their cosy coats, just in case.

One thing that we did start work on today, which I’m very excited about, is removing the grass from our front garden. I have been gradually chipping away at this pathetic area of sod for the past few years, expanding the flower beds and putting in low-maintenance perennials instead. Our house faces north and we also have a very old maple tree in the front yard, which means that it is an awkward area for gardening. Part of it is in total shade, part of it is about half-shade and half-blast furnace, and all of it tends to be very dry because of the tree cover. There really isn’t enough sun there for grass, and because I don’t like wasting water on a lawn, it can look pretty terrible when it’s dry. We do have a small patch of grass in the back garden for the kids to play on, but we never just go and sit on the grass at the front. So, its days are numbered!

We are planning on extending the perennial beds, putting in a path, and also a raised bed in the middle. We are still deciding between putting in a herb spiral (I think that it might be difficult getting the right kinds of stackable rocks for it–my mom and dad’s farm tends towards producing round, not flat rocks!) or something star-shaped like this raised bed kit from Lee Valley. I plan to put in most of our lettuce and greens out here, and will be launching an experiment with herbs and carrots to see how well they do with the somewhat limited sun.

So, we’re getting the ground prepared and then we’ll have a look at our rocks and see how they stack up. I’m also planning on getting some willow branch cuttings from my mom and dad’s farm to make an obelisk for scarlet runner beans…my sister’s branches actually took root and started to leaf out again, forming a beautiful living obelisk. Sweet!

City dwellers are becoming increasingly excited about the possibilities for growing food in the space that is traditionally dominated by a barren patch of grass. I’ll be posting more about the burgeoning Food Not Lawns movement in the coming week!