If grocery-store produce has you wishing for something fresh from the garden in winter, consider this: you can grow a surprising number of vegetables throughout the winter in our moderate south coast BC maritime climate. (Article continues below slideshow.)
RECIPE
This recipe for Pumpkin Apple Bread pairs two fall favourites, pumpkins and apples, in a deliciously spiced bread. Moist and full of flavour, this sweet bread works well with canned or fresh pumpkin and almost any kind of apple. To capture the taste of the season, try using a fresh pie pumpkin (sugar pumpkin)—just bake, scrape out the pumpkin’s flesh, and puree it in a food processor.
A handful of walnuts a day could make a great difference to the health of your heart, research shows.
Walnuts are an important plant source of Omega-3 fatty acids.
In a study in the journal Metabolism in 2013, German physicians confirmed that walnuts can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. By eating just a handful of raw walnuts (43 grams/1.5 ounces) each day for eight weeks, subjects improved their blood lipid profiles, bringing about a significant six percent reduction in heart disease risk.
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Gardeners often ask how they can grow and harvest vegetables all year long. Here are our top ten tips for a sustainable, organic year-round garden:
Is eating organic worth it? A study in the journal Environmental Research says yes. The research, conducted on four families across the United States, offers a snapshot of how pesticides in our food accumulate in our bodies.
This refreshing salad combines the tang of sweet cherry tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, and garlic with quinoa in a fresh basil vinaigrette. For a sharper flavour contrast, try this salad with crumbled feta or blue cheese.
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By planting native flowers, plants and herbs, you can create habitat in your garden and help rebuild threatened bee populations.
A mason bee on a pear blossom in a bee garden.
Most of us are familiar with honey bees. In addition, Canada has 800 species of native bees, ranging from tiny black foragers to blue orchard bees and yellow-striped bumblebees. The survival of these important pollinators is essential to the reproduction of approximately three-quarters of the fruit, nuts, vegetables and herbs we eat.
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Open source seeds increase food security by keeping seeds in the public domain.
As community food movements bloom across North America, their efforts to provide food security face a nearly invisible threat from multinational seed patent holders like DuPont and Monsanto (Bayer)—the loss of public domain seed. Unlike traditional seeds, which have been passed down from generation to generation, patented seeds cannot be saved, replanted or shared by gardeners and farmers.
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Want to grow fresh lemons on your patio in the winter? With a few simple protective measures lemon trees can adapt to outdoor year-round growing in a cool northern climate.
For me, the best lemons grow in winter: fragrant blossoms and juicy, fresh citrus fruit when most everything else in the garden is cold and dormant.
I brought home my little potted Meyer lemon tree on a whim. The idea of growing citrus outdoors appealed to me. I’d heard that lemon trees are hardy enough to survive our Canadian South Coast British Columbia winters (plant hardiness zone 9).
Citrus trees are subtropicals that typically grow in warm, sunny places like California and Florida. Growing a subtropical lemon tree outdoors in the north takes extra work and care.
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Roasting brings out the intensity of the beets in this tangy side dish. You can roast (and freeze) the beets ahead to save time, and prepare the rest in a quick 2 minutes! Choose baby beets for sweetest flavour. Roasted sweet-and-sour beets are good as an appetizer or as an accompaniment for almost any main dish.
You can help bees through the winter by growing plants and flowering trees that bloom during the colder seasons. (Article and plant guide continue below slideshow.)
