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Wednesday, July 29, 2015

The Difference a Little Sun Can Make

We moved to a townhouse a year ago. We found it difficult to be happy in an apartment in Toronto, especially one beside the 401. This is our first full summer at our new place which has an amazing feature none of our previous rentals have had: Sunlight. There is full sun on the deck and yard below in the afternoon and sun in the front yard in the morning. Growing vegetables is just so much more possible here. The two pepper plants we had last summer produced two peppers in total. There are at least 3 per plant here and we have room for more plants.


We are trying to be as cheap as possible so our planters are a mix of small garbage bins that I think my husband got at ValueVillage and dresser drawers that someone left loose to be hauled away as garbage. We added a few hollow recyclables to the bins as a reservoir for water. 

There are beans climbing along the fence and up the walls which add to ambiance a bit. Despite all the plants there is still room for us to enjoy the space. 


We fit a few planters on the ground below the deck for some extra tomatoes. Over 20 of our seedlings survived so we had to put them somewhere. You can't have too many tomatoes. 


Since the sun makes it into the house, I am starting so beans in hangers inside. Just 2 up now but I am working on 2 more bean plant hangers and one onion hanger to avoid buying as many onions.


This is a bit experimental but why not grow a pineapple. 


There was an empty patch of dirt in the front yard for all our lettuce and rainbow chard, which just turned out to be all yellow but still neat. 



We were blessed with some nice wide window sills in the kitchen for our kitchen herbs to grow on. 


The stinging nettle is really not a house plant I suppose but I love nettle and I found this little guy growing randomly in my seedling tray with the tomatoes. Not sure how it got there but its a pretty awesome weed to have around. I'll have to plant it somewhere a kid is not likely to get stung by it. It has outgrown its living space. 


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