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

Editor’s Note: This week marks the beginning of a new gardening feature by Michelle Smith, who will also write more broadly on agricultural and food issues for The Spectator in a regular monthly column that will launch next week. This week, we introduce Smith and present her first tip ofRead More

A gentleman of my acquaintance can’t watch CTV’s Steve Murphy deliver the news without yelling at the television screen. I have a similar relationship with The Cape Breton Post. I don’t necessarily yell, often I simply ask it questions, questions I think its reporters should ask but don’t. Take thatRead More

Crows fascinate me. Try as I might not to anthropomorphize them, I catch myself thinking of them as sly or wise or watchful or mocking, depending upon whether they’re emptying my bird feeder, dancing on my roof, poking around my recycling or crapping on my head as I walk down NorthRead More

Not having been affected by the rain storm that hit the Cape Breton Regional Municipality this past Thanksgiving, I had the luxury of learning about the difference between “overland flooding” and “sewer backup” weeks later, over a beer with a friend whose basement had flooded. The woman sent by hisRead More

First, the good news. The cruise ship most seen in Sydney during the 2016 season, Holland America Line’s Veendam, got an A grade from the Friends of the Earth in their 2016 Cruise Ship Report Card. The bad news? Our second-most frequent visitor, the Veendam’s sister ship Rotterdam, got aRead More