Oh Jenny, sweet backyard visionary, how I’ve missed you and your Fernwood oasis! What a wonderful reunion of newbie farmer and biodynamic elder/urban creative.

I had to travel for work a couple of weeks ago. As luck would have it the BC legislature is in Victoria - a perfect opportunity to pop round my old stomping ground and pay a visit to backyard farm.

Greenhouse tomatoes in full swing (and so sad I forgot seedling gifts at David Suzuki’s cabin on Quadra - hopefully they’ll find a home in David and Tara’s garden), fresh purple sprouting broccoli and arugula tasting delicious, and the little flock of Barred Rock and blond beauties (can’t recall their name) strutting their stuff. Jenny was disappointed to find out that the striped hens were called Barred Rock, not Bard Rock. They can get the attention they deserve and be flamboyant bards here…

Oh Juliets! But brief months ago thou were to be growing tall in locavore garden. From the blissful day thou entered my life, I anticipated thine stealthy growth. I imagined the sweet fruit dangling from thine slender limbs. I salivated thinking of thine juicy flesh dripping from my chin.

But alas, it was not meant to be. I am bound for eastern rural horizons, and thy await a transplant in a coastal urban farm.

Juliet, sweet Juliet vining tomatoes. Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I should say goodnight till it be morrow.

These beauties don’t just strut around and fluff their feathers. They earn their keep on Backyard Farm churning up the soil, eating grubs, and laying eggs everyday. They also return nutrients to the earth in their nitrogen-rich manure.

I’ll miss popping by Jenny’s kitchen to pick up a dozen eggs for just $3.50. In the short time it takes her to gently clean twelve shells, we seem to fit lots in: we get each other up to speed, offer advice and encouragement, swap current cooking inspirations, make plans, and share a couple of warm hugs.

When I leave Jenny’s my hands are full of eggs and my heart is light. Everyone needs a Jenny in their life.

I drool just thinking about rhubarb. I’m a huge fan of tart fruit in baking, jams, compotes, or just blobbed onto yogurt or ice cream. Raspberries, gooseberries: anything that makes me pucker. But rhubarb is my favourite, and it’s the first local fruit to make an appearance in the locavore calendar year.

Jenny and Philip have a beautiful bushy patch in their “field” at Backyard Farm. Roddy and I got a sizable haul after transplanting Jenny’s baby lettuces, and it went straight into rhubarb muffins (wheat-free and dairy-free). I adapted this recipe from Canadian Living and they’re the perfect tea time treat.

Rhubarb Muffins
Servings: 18 muffins

2 ½ cups rice flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 cup packed golden sugar
½ cup walnut oil
1 egg from next door
1 cup soy milk (with dash of vinegar)
1 tsp almond extract
2 cups chopped rhubarb

Topping:
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 tbsp butter, melted
½ tsp cinnamon

Prep:
In large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt.
In separate bowl, blend sugar and oil; whisk in egg, soy milk and almond extract. Stir into dry ingredients along with rhubarb just until flour is incorporated. Spoon into greased or paper-lined muffin tins, filling ¾ full.

Topping:
Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over batter. (My batter was quite wet because I swapped all purpose flour for rice flour, so I added my topping after the muffins had baked for 10 minutes. I also didn’t add butter to my topping because I’m preserving what we have – but I’ll include it next time)

Bake in 350 degree F (180 C) for 20-25 minutes or until toothpick inserted into centre comes out clean (mine needed 25 mins). Let cool in tins for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely.

Please pass on tips for making these muffins even more local (how much honey/maple syrup would you substitute for sugar, have you found a local flour producer, and obviously local milk is better than soy - perhaps my gut can handle raw milk?)

This may be the last time in a long time that Roddy and I are transplanting lettuce seedlings into a plot in April. We’ll be leaving the milder west coast climate for the more extreme seasons of Southern Ontario, where transplants to field in April are uncommon.

We’re happy to help Jenny and get a refresher on the process. She follows some tenets of biodynamic, or French Intensive, farming. This method is new to us, and we’ve been studying our loaned copy of John Jeavons’ How to Grow More Vegetables to aid our education.

I have a feeling this method may be too time consuming on a larger scale. At some point we’d like to be growing fruit and veggies on all or most of our new 2 acre field. The techniques I’m more familiar with are those touted by Eliot Coleman in The New Organic Grower. My summer working Mike’s 2 acre field on Thurston Organic Farm was my first foray into organic farming, and Mike farmed by Coleman’s rules. Roddy’s and my interlude at Backyard Farm is an excellent opportunity for us to discover different techniques.

These baby lettuce seedlings are getting the biodynamic treatment. They’ve been planted to create triangles between the rows, the logic being that once they’ve filled out, the lettuce itself will serve as a mulch. The plants will grow close enough together to block out potential weeds. This method also allows for more food in a smaller area, hence “intensive.”

Perhaps our farm will be a hodgepodge of different farming methods? One thing’s certain: we’re keen students and all ears for advice!

I arrived home the other day to a mysterious gift left on our doorstep. A seed tray, plant pots, and a tangled mass of celery leaves. Now, while this was much appreciated, it stayed outside overnight. And another night. Yesterday I shifted it two feet into our entryway.

Overwrought with guilt, I finally carried the puzzle of mud, leaves and roots into the kitchen tonight. See, I’ve never even touched celeriac until an hour ago. Has anyone ever encountered a recipe calling for 2 cups of diced celeriac? It must be one of the most uncommon vegetables!… or else I’m once again coming face to face with my relatively sheltered culinary upbringing. I’m sure my grandma knows about it.

Celeriac. It sounds like something that kept people alive during famines. Or a medicine.

Has anyone got a delicious recipe they can recommend? (Roddy’s requesting a pie).

Roddy and I are trying something new this season.

Last autumn WWOOFing was on high on our list (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). We dreamt of heading to the land of milk and honey – strolling through orchards in the dry California heat is intensely appealing during the damp West coast winter. We’ve also considered volunteering on organic farms north of the border. But for now, we’ve settled on a simpler option: I call it LOUFing, Local Opportunities on Urban Farms.

Jenny and Philip at Backyard Farm two doors down are our friendly hosts. We helped clean their 8X10 foot greenhouse and had a lesson in fruit tree pruning today. They must be impressed with our work ethic. We warmed up by their fire with tea and biscuits, followed by beers, a curry and wine. And we didn’t leave empty handed either – Jenny insisted we take a dozen eggs and a celeriac home, plus a couple of reference books on permaculture and pruning.

Don’t tell our hosts, but this LOUFing gig is a good deal!

A milestone for locavore: Roddy and I broke in the soil for our first kitchen garden today! I can’t believe it’s only January and we’re getting our hands dirty already – yeehaw!

Our neighbours from Backyard Farm came round for a garden consult this afternoon. Jenny and Philip have converted their entire backyard into a mini farm field complete with urban chickens. They sell their fare twice a week from their backyard – very quaint! Who would say no to strolling down the road and buying gorgeous pesticide-free veggies, flowers and free-range eggs direct from their urban farmer?!

Jenny and Philip have followed Roddy and I through our offer on a 70 acre plot of land in Cape Breton, to my wish to have chickens of my own right here in Fernwood. Our landlord isn’t warming to urban hens yet (I give him ‘til Easter), but he has given us the go ahead to develop the edge of our long backyard into a sizeable garden. Now that the snowdrops are up, it’s full speed ahead.

The days are getting longer, but the light fades at about 5:45. When Jenny and Philip were finished guiding us through what to plant where, and how to space our path (and where to grow our obligatory Victoria pot plant!), Roddy and I jumped at the offer to borrow some of Philip’s shovels and get tucked in right away for an hour. First I plotted the new border of our patch with twine and makeshift stakes, then I got down to work using a brilliant sod tool which splices right into the hard sod like a knife into dense bundt cake – very satisfying! Roddy joined me in shifting our compost bin and the month’s worth of rotting kitchen waste to it’s new corner. We also removed four invasive fennel and a lemon balm plant and transplanted some hideous beast that looked like it belonged in the Galapagos. Slowly, we’re making a dent in the sod that surrounds the current herbaceous border of the garden.

We may not have a farm of our own yet, but we’ve got an excellent patch of land to experiment on in the meantime. And knowledgeable, generous neighbours to boot - the real icing on the cake!

My hands were black with rich earth and numb from the cold when we put the tools to bed for the night. What a fabulous feeling!

Our backyard in June

I work from home, and because I live in a quiet neighborhood just a 20 minute walk from the heart of downtown Victoria, I don’t have to face the noise of bustling streets. The sounds that filter through my window include bird songs and my neighbor’s hens. In fact, the sights and sounds of downtown are easily avoided as Fernwood is home to a few small grocers, seasonal farmers market, a pub, a few coffee shops and cafes, a theatre, art gallery, community centre, and handful of boutiques. Fernwood even has a community well!

But today an unusual sound is filtering through my window: the grinding of a wood chipper. Under normal circumstances, this cacophony would grate on me. However, today, it’s music to my ears. My landlord has been busying himself for hours chipping the branches from the recently pruned fruit trees in our backyard. This is the last task in his recent dogged yard work. And today I finally introduced myself to him.

For months I’ve been dreaming about starting a veggie garden in our spacious backyard. However, our plans being in constant flux, it seemed silly to commit. Not to mention my landlord has a slightly scary presence. On Thanksgiving weekend, when he undertook tending to his property, he was wearing orange coverall’s and looked like an escape convict.

As the months rolled on though, it dawned on me that it was sillier for me not to seize the opportunity to finally grow my own veg. Plus, I had word from two neighbors that my landlord was seeking urban farmers to cultivate his yard.

So today when I heard the chipper, I threw on my wellies, grabbed our overflowing bag of kitchen compost and struck out to the backyard to seal my fate as a willing gardener. The chipper silenced. The goggles were off. And here I stood before the tall, bald, coverall-wearing lord of this sizeable plot of urban land. The man I’ve caught glimpses of through my kitchen window as he transformed our front yard… while I kept my distance and created reasons why it was too premature to nurture a garden.

I’m still alive. He didn’t feed me to the chipper. My landlord is actually a very kind man. And I’ve just been given the green light to transform the edges of our backyard into a veggie garden! I got a bit carried away and mentioned to him how wonderful it would be to also have a few hens to keep our house stocked with eggs. One step at a time, as he said. I agree with him. This will be Roddy’s and my first foray into growing our own food – a tremendously exciting step in our locavore project!

The overgrown herbaceous border of our backyard in June

I used to be ashamed to own a creature that was responsible for the dropping bird population in our neighborhood. It’s hard enough to feel welcome in circles of bird lovers (read: cat haters), but we did try to stop this lethal killer in her tracks. However, our wee girl shunned the jingly bells we dangled from her neck as if to say: “Ha! But a challenge, silly human!”

If only she had a taste for mice, we thought. When we got Chika and her brother Yoshi back in Ontario, we were living in a old country house with a thriving family of rodents. In fact, although he’ll never admit it, getting cats was Roddy’s answer to our failing war against the intruders. The mice were outsmarting us, and we needed a night sentry.

But alas, neither of our cats proved their stealth in the kitchen. The yard was their territory, and Chika showed off her true talent maneuvering high in the treetops from an early age. It was the birds Chika was after. Height has never been an issue: I’ve seen her perched precariously on the 50 degree slope of a roof’s edge on an abandoned three-story house in Vancouver. Size is also no deterrent: she was stalking pigeons on that rooftop.

When we moved into the cute neighborhood of Fernwood in Victoria, I feared my neo-hippy neighbors’ reaction to our striking furball… when she sauntered by them with feathers in mouth… or shat in their garden. You can imagine my relief upon finding that Fernwood is full of cats - a sure sign of feline-lovers, right? Well, at least one neighbor isn’t a fan. She’s called three times to let us know that one of our cats has lost their collar in her backyard… right next to her fish pond.

So I was sweating it when Chika came bounding after me into our neighbor’s “Backyard Farm” earlier this year. My initial instinct was to ignore her and pretend I’d never seen the beast before. But I was surprised to find that Chika is a welcome guest to this urban farm. Jenny and Philip tell me that their biggest pests are the starlings, which destroy many of their crops. So our vile little killer is doing her duty to protect the crops which feed our neighborhood. And finally doing mommy proud!