What to do this week If you are doing what I am doing this week, it has to do with tomatoes. By now your beans should be planted, or you are also planting them, but your squash, not yet. Squash will be bothered by the few cool days we areRead More

What to do this week There are tricks to beating the pest cycle in the garden. Knowing the life-cycle of the one you want to beat and figuring out a work-around is critical. Having problems with cucumber beetle? They are expanding their range with climate change and are becoming anRead More

What to do this week Soon we will be getting very itchy to plant, but how do you tell for sure that your soil is ready? One of the most common questions I get this time of year is if it is time to plant yet, and I always say,Read More

What does $160 buy you?  Nova Scotia’s Liberal government has promised an average $160 tax cut for half the province’s population, in a surplus budget that seeds the ground for an election campaign that may begin within days. — Globe & Mail, 27 April 2017 So, if I’m a middle-class NovaRead More

CBRM Council last week approved a budget that nixed the 2017/18 heavy garbage pickup while re-upping the CBRM Blossoming Program. The reason given for canceling heavy garbage — i.e. Cape Breton Christmas — was that the CBRM already provided such a service following the Thanksgiving floods, never mind that the post-flood collection onlyRead More

Caring for seedlings: I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that it is very important for recently planted seeds to be warm until they germinate. Once germinated, they are a little more forgiving, and can be moved to a cooler windowsill so you can use your warmest spot for theRead More

What to do this week: Now that we have seeds and soil, we need some sort of system for planting. You can use anything you want as your system — you just need containers that hold soil. You can use yogurt containers with holes in the bottom, cut-down milk cartonsRead More

What to do this week: So now that the seeds are ordered, let’s plan those windowsills. Onions get the first rotation on the best windowsill. Best means warmth and light. You can plant onions by mid-FEBRUARY. You can also start new perennial flowers then. I tell you, compared to buyingRead More

Editor’s Note: This week marks the launch of a new feature in the Cape Breton Spectator, “Bean There,” a monthly column by Cape Breton farmer and seed-saver Michelle Smith.  It’s only right that I came to the end of the United Nation’s Year of Pulses with a visit to Agriculture Canada’sRead More

What to do this week: The seed displays are not out yet at the local hardware store, but anyone who is serious about gardening, or wanting to be serious about gardening, should not be buying seeds there anyway. You may have been grabbing seeds there until now, and you mayRead More