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Welcome to Transition Garden!  We’re glad you are here.

Join us for ongoing posts and discussions on gardening, as we work our way through the coming growing season.  We are discussing and filming not just any form of gardening, but serious vegetable and food production from the point of view of transitioning.

We live in a fragile time that is undergoing significant transitions of all types.  We may dive into some of the details in later posts, but we all see the reports coming out of an regular basis of environmental degradation, resource depletion, weather extremes, increased geopolitical tensions, and increasingly nasty societal rhetoric.

In the middle of all this, we still have to eat.  We still have to get food on the dinner table.

We should not take that for granted.

A curious thing happened to western cultures over the past 3-6 decades.  We have moved away from an immediate relationship to our food supplies, and allowed the convenience and choice of just-in-time chain grocers to take its place.  Less ‘developed’ countries around the world still maintain closer ties, economically and culturally, to domestic and village food production.  You can see this first hand with the way that immigrants from these regions relate to food and food production, with greater respect for their food sources and less waste.  And, many times, an itch to keep their hands in the soil.

Transition Garden brings you the how-to videos on food production from the home-gardeners or micro-farm perspective.  We hope to inspire the knowledge, ability and capacity for you to produce a significant percentage of your food.  I’ve heard the saying that the best food system is when you know who grew your food.  When you grow your own, you have full confidence in its quality, freshness and nutrition.  Make your back yard your grocery store!

Help us grow this site, as you grow your garden.  Your membership, and any donations, will be used for valuable additions to our film library and other content.

Happy growing and let’s keep in touch.

Bob Cervelli

Needless to say, its been an usually cold and wet spring here in Nova Scotia. The farmers are not happy, the bees are frustrated and we are burning fire wood very late into the season. I wonder in the back of my mind if there are no longer any ‘normal’ patterns in our weather, likely due in large part to the climate emergency.

Despite this year’s weather trend, late May is the time when a lot needs to happen in the garden and greenhouses. Traditionally, gardeners in the region wait until the long Victoria day weekend to begin their gardens. This is usually after when the last frost has occurred (but that is no longer the case, as is evidenced by last year’s very late freezing night in early June).

In the Transition Garden, we believe in a 9-10 month growing season. We have already gotten started in March with seeding transplant trays in the greenhouse, and in April with seeding directly into the ground in cold frames. There are many cold hardy crops that you can grow early. Many of these I consider to be quick 4-6 week turn-around spring crops, which go in and come out before you plant the summer heat loving crops. These include arugula, radishes, spring turnip (get the 40 day variety), bok choy, cilantro, beet greens, and the cold hardy leaf lettuces (my favorites are the old heirloom varieties black seeded simpson and red oakleaf).

So, by late May, the Transition Garden is already well into harvesting spinach (planted last fall), radishes, arugula, spring chives and lettuce). But we are also actively beginning the planting of other crops for the main summer season.

Last week, we direct-seeded more radish (we like to start a small amount every 2 weeks), dill, parsnip, potatoes and beets (I like the big storage variety Detroit red). We also transplanted cabbage (red and green), broccoli, Brussel sprouts, onions and chard. These are all frost hardy, with the chard being perhaps the more susceptible to cold – so we placed row cover over this bed. Our peas went into the ground about 3 weeks ago.

This coming week, we will continue to seed and transplant – rutabaga, radicchio and other things. We will also continue preparing 2 of our greenhouse beds for summer tomatoes and peppers.

LOCAL FOOD RESILIENCE

We consider the Transition Garden to be a ‘home micro-farm.’ About 2 acres are under production, and the gardens are worked by 3-6 gardeners on a weekly basis. This is a community effort and we all share the harvests. We run this farm differently from a community garden, where each individual gets their own small plot to grow what ever they like. In the Transition Garden, we grow most everything, everyone involved helps with it all, and we all share the harvest. Not only that, but we learn a huge amount from each other.

This community aspect of growing food is key to Transition Garden. I believe it will be key to how we feed ourselves in the future, even only 5-15 years from now. Local community-based food production will re-arise in an essential way once we start to see the increasingly dramatic effects of the climate emergency. These effects will impact the major bread basket regions of the world, and associated supply chain disruptions and food pricing. The most obvious recent example is the unprecedented spring flooding in the mid-western US farm belt, in which thousands of acres were rendered unplantable for this season.  The trends in other agricultural areas is also not good, whether it is loss of top soil, ground water depletion (used for irrigation) or other unsustainable pressures.

I will continue to discuss the important of growing your own food in further posts, and we will provide valuable how-to content as the season progresses.

Help us grow this site, as you grow your garden.  Your membership, and any donations, will be used for valuable additions to our film library and other content.

Bob Cervelli

The Transition Garden peach tree is in full bloom now. This peach variety is called Canadian Harmony.

After 7 years, the tree is well formed and can produce a significant amount of peaches every year – IF we get a good spring pollination and fruit set.  Timing is key.  This variety tends to be an early bloomer, which is a bit risky.  The weather needs to behave – there must be no frosts, and no long stretches of rain and cold, so that the bees can do their pollinating.  As you can see, the tree is right next to the bee hive!

This spring has been unusually cool and rainy, which has kept the bees frustrated. I continue to remind myself that we are rapidly getting into climate change, where there is no longer a case of what’s ‘usual’ or ‘unusual.’  In the Transition Garden, we will need to learn to take each season as it comes, and learn to be as adaptive as possible.

Keeping bees is a valuable learning experience for any one.  As we know, bees and the many other insect pollinators are becoming more and more at risk in today’s world.  We need them for much of the world’s fruit, nut and vegetable production.  Beekeeping keeps you close to the action in this world, and you begin to glimpse the world of pollinators.

It is a fantastic experience for anyone, youth included, to sit for long periods near the entrance of a busy hive and watch to comings and goings.  You can even see forager bees coming in over the tree tops at full speed from a long nectar and pollen collecting journey (they can go up to 2 miles), circle around the hive a few times and go into the entrance.  Bee friendly to your bee friends!

Producer Rant #1

A lot of things go into the decision to produce a show. Most projects seem to start with a flash in the eye. If you turn and look a second time, and if it holds your interest, you begin to ask questions…to go a bit deeper.

In the beginning there was no “transition garden”. There was, however Transition Town, a movement based in the UK and there was Bob Cervelli connecting to it here in Nova Scotia. That was the flash in the eye. Obviously we looked a second time and one thing led to another. Before long, we had committed to filming a “year in the life of a community garden” and we began calling the garden Transition Garden.

It was always about more than the garden. It was about community empowerment. It was about food security. And mostly it was about transitioning from one way of being to another, moving from consumerism to self reliance, moving from “can’t do that” to a “can do” philosophy.

Now we have twelve, half hour episodes, that follow a year in the life of a garden. The shows typically have three parts; “In the garden”, “Connections”, and “How to do Something”. They are informative, useful and fun.

In the Garden gets down to the basics: it is about growing things.

Connections links the garden to the community, to neighbours, and to other gardens.

How to do Something is a surprise. Maybe a recipe for something that has just come out of the garden. Maybe how to use a new tool. Maybe how to get rid of hoofed rodents.

Going forward, we want to expand on the ideas that the garden represents. Bob will be the main voice going forward – your guide into a world with visits to the likes of Thoreau, Scott Nearing, and others who challenge the way we think.

If we can get enough subscribers, we will keep on going, pretty well with the same format, adding gardening tips, building a community at the same time.

All the while, I will be ranting about our process, trying to film things that matter.

March is the time to start many plants indoors and it is best if you have a grow light.  Many modern grow lights use LED lighting, which demand less electricity and can narrow the light spectrum to the reds and blues.  (Did you know that the reason plants appear to be green in colour is because that’s the wavelength that they do not use, and reflect it back.  We see the green wavelength because they are absorbing the red and blue wavelengths).

Putting plants in a window will work, but it is tricky with newly germinated plants.  They will tend to stretch towards the light and become ‘leggy’ which will affect their health and physical ability to remain upright.

It is best to have a timer for your grow lights.  I set mine to 16 hour day length which gives them a good long day.  24 hours is not good, because plants need a rest period for a non-photosynthesis time called respiration.

I’ve started our peppers and tomatoes under lights.  Here is a shot of our fancy, extremely hot chillis – chichen itza, bhut jolokia, seven pot and ghost peppers.  These were started from seed in early March, because they tend to be slow growing and fussy. They need it really warm and are enjoying the bright light!

Grocery stores typically carry only a three-day inventory of food, and we rely upon delivery trucks and distribution centres to keep running. Over the past decades, our primary food chain has become a long-distance, just-in-time, import-delivery system.

We now live in a new reality.

Due to COVID, and all the related structural and economic fall-out that it will be causing, these food systems are fragile and becoming greatly stressed.  Not only are we facing a virus threat, but we have entered a global economic depression and we may be facing supply chain disruptions.

Home gardening seems to be an everyone’s mind over the past few weeks.

Food security is now one many people’s minds. Interest in gardening has exploded, and many are working quickly to plan for the coming growing season by either starting a garden or expanding the one they have.

The old adage of the ‘Victory Garden’ is coming back in many discussions. Victory Gardens harken back to World War I and World War II, as a way to support the war effort through home gardening. Are we looking at a modern day version – COVID Victory Gardens? Local food production can form one of the strongest means for local food resilience and security.

We will be providing regular information to help you make the most out of the coming growing season.

Bob Cervelli

Bob wrote a post earlier this week about LED grow lights and duration.

If you can’t afford LED grow lights, or you have some old shop light fixtures, you can make do with those inexpensive hanging shop fluorescent fixtures that use 2 tubes each. I converted the front hall closet into a grow op with two 4 ft units hung cup hooks screwed into the bottom of pine shelves. The only thing I would change is I would buy the fixture with the flared reflector so the seedlings at the edges of the trays were more evenly lit across the width of the tray (they tend to lean in a bit). I lined my closet with aluminum foil and drape some foil over the front of the trays to compensate.

If you buy a fluorescent tube set up, you need to know a little about colour temperature. Not much, though. ‘Kelvin’ is the scale used for colour temperature. If you’ve ever dabbled in photography, you’ll have a sense of what this means, because colour temperature has traditionally been used to describe the light sources, and setting ‘white balances’ and such. I read somewhere that was probably because the folks who invented photography were also physicists. It’s not really about light sources or levels, but you can go nerd out on this 3 minute video if you need to know more (yes, I watched it, of course I did).

Color temperatures over 5000 K are called “cool colors” (bluish), while lower color temperatures (2700–3000 K) are called “warm colors” (yellowish).

Anywho, when you purchase the fluorescent tubes, you want to make sure that the colour matches what you want to grow. Lightbulbs that are between 3,000 to 4,500K are better for growing leaves, while lower colour temperatures, around 2,700 K are good for flowering and fruiting stages.

I have 3,000K bulbs in my set up.

In addition to sprouts, microgreens are one of the quickest ways to generate salad and sandwich fixin’s.  I use a cafeteria tray filled about 1/4″ with potting mix and lots of previously soaked microgreen seeds.  I buy these in bulk from Mumm’s Sprouting Seeds.  It takes about 2 weeks of less start to finish.

These greens below are a combination of fenugreek, sunflowers, peas and fava beans. Get out the salad dressing!!

I’m slowly getting better at growing the super hot chilies – bhut jolokia, seven-pot, ghost and chichen itza – with Scoville ratings over 1 million.

These babies were started in mid February. Germination needed 85-90F, so seed trays were started on a heating pad with towels around it for insulation and a clear dome lid.  They were transplanted into these pots in mid-March. They are under a high-intensity LED grow light with 16 hour days, and still on the heating pad.  Intense chili aroma comes off just by brushing the leaves!  They will be re-transplanted into larger pots and go into one of the greenhouses in late April or early May.

Garlic is a wonderful crop.  In addition to it being an essential cooking ingredient, it also have amazing anti-viral and other health properties.  It has very few pests.  I’ve heard a few reports of deer munching on garlic, but very rare (and they must be an Italian variety of deer!).  And, it is a prized and valuable farmers market item, holiday gift item or great for bartering for other things you need.  So, grow plenty.  There are usually 400 or so cloves planted here every year.  Keep in mind that you need about 25% of the harvest for next years planting.

Plant your garlic in last October or early November, like you would a fall flower bulb.  Garlic will then ‘get its feet in the ground’ before freeze up and be staged and ready for spring.  It is one of the first out of the ground, as soon as the ground thaws and warms a bit.

These photos were taken on April 14th, and the garlic is coming up nicely through the straw mulch.  By mid-May it will be at least knee high, and by mid-June up to your chest.  It is a heavy feeder, so give it lots of compost.  It also like a lot of sulfur in the soil to make it as garlicky and spicy as possible.

Here is a PDF below with recent opinion article pointing out the need for advance planning in our food system, and why you should plan to capitalize fully on the coming growing season with your gardening plans.

Commentary – Food security for a world in crisis

Mid-April is a good time for planting potatoes.  Even though we may be still 3-4 weeks away from the last frost, the planted potatoes will slowly emerge from the soil during this time in a frost hardy manner, giving them a good start to the season.

Potatoes used for seed need to have an ‘eye’ or a bud.  This ‘eye’ will grow into the new plant.  You can cut up potatoes and plant the pieces, but make sure each piece has at least one ‘eye’. Our seed potatoes, red chieftains and Yukon gold, sat out at room temperature for the past month so that these ‘eyes’ could start growing ahead of time.  We will also be planting a few varieties of the fingerling potatoes.

We like to plant our potatoes in the bottom of a long ditch filled with compost, with each piece about 12″ apart.  They need lots of room.  As the potatoes grow, we will begin to fill in the ditch in mid-June, and then even pile more compost around the stems in mid-July.  This helps the plants produce even more potatoes.

You can harvest the first ‘new potatoes’ some time in July.  A good indicator when the first new potatoes are ready is when the first flowers begin to show up on the plant tops.  Dig in carefully from the side and remove some new potatoes without damaging the rest of the plant, and it will keep producing more potatoes for fall harvest.  With your new potatoes, get out the frying pan, some butter, a little thyme and parsley, get cooking and enjoy!!