Walking round Wychwood & Halifax donair.

When I first moved to Toronto, I lived overlooking Christie Pits park.  Today, I went for a mooch around the old stomping grounds, and visited the Wychwood area, including beer and lunch at the Wychwood Barns, a stroll through Wychwood Estates, topped off with a wander around what is now the urban hipster hub of Ossington & Dundas.  Today, I had my first Halifax donair, which was something I'd never heard of, but apparently, I'm not up to speed on my Canadian delicacies.

Old signage at the Wychwood Barns, reclaimed transit garages which are now a community arts & environmental hub.

Halifax donairs:  we watched the pita bread dough being rolled out and cooked in a wood burning brick pizza oven.  The "Halifax" aspect of the kebabs is the sauce.....a very sweet concoction with condensed milk as a starting point.  Unfortunately, although the pitas and meat were delicious, I wasn't too keen on the signature sauce!

Eggplant and feta pastries - these were absolutely delicious (and I don't even really like eggplant that much).  The olives were served warm from the wood burning oven, and were smokey and delicious.

This is the oven in which our food was cooked, including little pitas which puffed up like balloons in front of our eyes.  Note the homemade catering cart - a Heath Robinson affair of plumbers pipe and bicycle wheels.  Food courtesy of "Hot Mess Hall"  

A beautiful house, with dramatic charcoal grey shingle front, in bucolic Wychwood Estates, a privately gated enclave in the heart of midtown Toronto.

Arts and Crafts style house 

Wychwood Estate is like a little private English village in the midst of Toronto's urban sprawl.

Love the exterior of this house...inspiration for my current renovation project at home.

My dahlias were flattened in the storm this weekend, but these on a Davenport Road garden were absolutely amazing.

The Ossington and Dundas area used to be Toronto's Little Portugal, but it now has more of an urban hipster feel.  This colour scheme would look charming and exotic in Havana or San Juan, but on a cloudy Toronto day, on a Victorian house, it seems a little out of place.

Stormy weather

Pouring, torrential, bucketing rain this morning.  Violent winds - pots blown over, dahlias flattened, tomatoes washed into the soil.  I rescued the fallen dahlias, and cut the broken stems for a bouquet.  I'm not the world's most talented flower arranger, and the fact that there wasn't a single straight stem in the bunch made the task more challenging!

Shepherd's pie, with a cauliflower mash topping for dinner......cheesy crust - yum!

Chanterelles for dinner, and a prize!

I got back to my desk after a meeting this morning to find a little paper-towel wrapped package, in a ziplock bag waiting for me.  The wild mushroom fairies (aka my colleague Tanya who is just back from a week with her family in northern Ontario) had paid a visit, and left me with a generous portion of fresh chanterelles picked from the woods a couple of hours outside Thunder Bay.  When I was a kid,  my best friend at school had a Swiss mother,who would take us out into the woods in October to find these orange coloured, apricot scented beauties, hiding under moss and amongst beech leaves and pine needles.

For me, having grown up in a Scottish culture where any idea of eating mushrooms gathered from the wild would invariably be greeted with derision and possibly even fears for one's sanity, the entire process of gathering these, and their remarkable flavour, which is unsurpassed, was entirely magical.  I have to say, unless my memory has elevated the chanterelles of my childhood beyond reality, the ones gathered in Scotland have a superior flavour.  But then, I wonder if the cool, damp autumn conditions in which we gathered them may have made a difference too, and intensified the flavour?  Regardless, these were a completely unexpected treat and a wonderful reminder of how good the simplest of things can be.  And on another note.....

.....I got a letter in the mail today about the "Etobicoke Great Gardens Contest 2012".  I'm very pleased to announce that I was the first prize winner for Ward 6, in the alternative category (which basically means I don't have a lawn).  YIPPEE!!

Progression of the season

We've had a beautiful Labour Day weekend, with amazing blue skies, lots of sunshine and heat - little sign yet that summer is preparing to depart, but the progress in the garden indicates that we are rapidly progressing through the season.

I've been delighted with my fig this year.  I bought it as a tiny twig in the wet summer of 2009, as a reminder of a beautiful vacation in Provence in May of that year.  Last year was it's first year to produce any fruit, and of those, only a single fruit made it to the end of the season, and to perfect ripeness.  It was an absolute revelation, still warm from the sun, and oozing honey-like juice as it was cut open.  This year, the number of fruits has been multiplied to a dozen, but the pattern is the same.  Tiny figlets formed around mid-June, swelled very slightly, and then just sat there without much change until the last days of August, when they suddenly started to swell like balloons, and ripened in a couple of days.  You can tell by the frequency of my "fig posts", that I will never get over the excitement of growing figs.  Having been brought up at the same latitude as Hudson's Bay, they seem like a miracle as far as I'm concerned!

Tiny figlets, formed in June.

These suddenly started to swell up on the weekend, and should be ripe by mid-week.

I'm also pleased with the Wim's Red hydrangeas I planted earlier in the summer, to replace the unkempt and unpleasing cotoneaster by my front steps.  Even though they are only just getting established, they have produced a number of flowers, and these have undergone the transformation from frothy, creamy white, to deepest rosy-pink.  They may yet descend into deeper mahogany...only time will tell.  I must given them some winter mulch to make sure they make it safely through their first winter.

Here are some photos of what else is going on in the garden....and a few notes to myself on jobs to be done!

I bought some lavender "Grosso" to fill in a couple of spots in my lavender hedge, but didn't get a chance to create proper planting spots in the garden.  In order to keep them healthy, I quickly potted them up in a terracotta pot, and I may well stick with this.

Towards the top right hand corner of this photo, you can see one of my year 2 rosemary bushes - I'm very proud of it!
Less proud of the clay pot in the front of the photo - which had a couple of nerine bulbs planted in it.  They produced some lovely leaves, but recently died back without blooming.  Not sure if they were just settling in, and will bloom next year.

Huge swathes of pink Japanese anemones are filling the front yard right now.....

......as well as some more demure and less invasive white ones, which are quite lovely.

I was surprised to suddenly see this cardinal flower blooming in the jungle of my front yard....then I remembered it was one of the plants Greg brought from his grandmother's garden for me last summer.

You know fall is approaching when the asters are starting to bloom.  I do love them.

Pink carpet roses gathering the last few rays of the day.

Here is a job to tackle before winter.  In the spring, I thought I had thinned out these black-eyed Susans, but they are back with a vengeance.  I need to reduce them by at least half and make room for some more interesting companions!

Have always had issues keeping my window boxes moist enough, but last weekend, I got some new, much larger ones on mega-sale at Plantworld.  The increased volume of soil should help!  I planted them with some more seasonal specimens. 

This urn is completely thriving, despite little attention for most of the summer.

A few of the purple kale plants I sowed in the spring have escaped the slugs and snails, and are a good size now.  I made my first dish of them this weekend, mixed with some beet greens, swiss chard, tomatoes and onions.  Delicious!  And the plants are decidedly statuesque now.

Anemone invasion!

Arabian Night dahlias.....the photo doesn't quite represent their most striking feature.  They are almost black, and very beautiful.

I'm finishing the weekend with some achingly beautiful Brahms.

Ham, eggs and homemade tomato ketchup

I was on a pickling, canning and bottling frenzy this weekend.

Ham steak and eggs for breakfast this morning - not a normal Monday breakfast for me, but definitely a good one for a long weekend.  And the real highlight?  Tasting the homemade tomato ketchup that I made on Saturday!  It was surprisingly little effort (although it didn't half make the kitchen hot!!), and the results are amazing.  I can highly recommend it if you have access to some good, ripe tomatoes.  I followed a recipe from delectablemusings.com, which was a real cinch.  I may make another batch on a cooler weekend in the fall to give away as presents.

Following a tip on delectablemusings.com, I broiled my tomatoes to remove the skins, before canning them.  Much easier and quicker than the boiling water method.

I was also very pleased with a previous auction purchase this weekend.  A year or two ago, for no particular reason, I bought a massive copper pot in an auction.  The interior tin lining is still there, but probably not intact enough to be safe to cook in directly, and it's so gargantuan, it didn't seem worth the money to have it relined because I don't intend to boil 10 chickens simultaneously at any point in the near future.   However, when I discovered that my normal process of using my stock pot as a boiling water bath when canning wasn't going to work with quart jars because they are just too big, I suddenly remembered that old copper pot.  It weighs a ton, and by the time I had filled it with water, it took two of us to get it on the stove, and about an hour to get the water to a rolling boil, but it did the trick admirably.  I knew I must have bought it for a reason!

I don't know how many litres this copper pot holds, but you could boil about 10 chickens in there, and probably half a sack of potatoes as well.

For a sense of scale, to the left is my standard stock pot, which I normally use when canning....don't normally do anything larger than a pint jar.

Labouring on Labour Day weekend

Summer has sped past his year, and here we are at Labour Day already.  I haven't had a moment to write a post in weeks, or at least, I've been very busy and have lacked the inclination to post anything as a result. Since my last post, I've had a fantastic holiday in Italy, with a few days in Rome with my mother, followed by a week in an ancient farmhouse with a dozen friends in the midst of the Chianti hills, and ending with a weekend in charming Amsterdam.  We ate like lords, and I ate the best gelato ever (Orange chocolate at Bar Vivoli in Florence), the best prosciutto of my life, my first dish of tripe (surprisingly delicious, on a balcony overlooking the main square in Greve in Chianti), unforgetable pici with duck ragout in glorious Montepulciano, and raw herrings and huge pancakes in Amsterdam.  In July and August, my garden was judged for the Etobicoke Great Garden's contest, and made it to the finals....but I haven't heard any more, so I'm thinking I didn't make the cut for a prize.  And last week, my chamber music friends and I pulled off our performance of Schubert's Trout Quintet, which was a huge amount of work, but turned out very well (except for a page turning incident for me..ugh!).

This weekend was supposed to be very relaxing, but a trip to the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning put paid to that.  I've bottled plums and nectarines, canned made homemade tomato ketchup, and put down a few quarts of tomatoes.  Oh, and almost forgot the dilly pickled beans!  On top of that, we've been feasting all weekend, and have enjoyed the first of the figs from the garden (good, but not as amazing as last years single fig!!), and the Swiss chard and purple kale that I sowed in the spring.  Tomorrow, I really need to take a break.

And in other news, I have a contractor in, repairing the decaying stucco outside my bathroom window.  I decided that whilst this was being done, I should investigate the possibility of having the front of my house renovated too.  Currently, it's clad in vinyl siding, which is practical, but not really in keeping with the style of the house.  Originally the front elevation of the 1926 Tudor style was half-timbered, and so in a few weeks, hopefully it will regain that original charm.
Here's are some before, and even more before, photos to show you what it once looked like, and what it currently looks like, pre-renovation.

My house circa 1934 - I'm the one in the middle, with the mock-Tudor half timbering

My house in 2012 - the plan is to remove the vinyl siding and restore the original lime plaster and half timbers.

The stucco above the bathroom window is really decaying, and this provided the impetus to get the professionals in and hopefully improve the curb appeal of the house.

Summer's lease.....

Summer's lease hath all to short a date......never a truer word was said as far as I'm concerned this year. Things continue to be frantically busy, and with our ongoing rounds of record breaking heatwaves, the garden is progressing through it's seasonal evolution at an accelerated rate!  Not ideal that I'm having to leave it in a state of relative neglect, and made all the more anxiety-inducing by the fact that I've been nominated for the "Great Gardens Contest".  I won a first prize in this competition in 2010 for Ward 6 in the "alternative" category, which basically covers any garden style that does not include an extensive area of lawn.  I never did find out who nominated me, and this time around, I'm equally unaware, and very flattered and excited that someone took the time to fill in a nomination form.
We're in the height of Lily season now, and the garden is absolutely filled with scent on the warm, humid evenings we've been having.  The lilies were actually bought as potted specimens 2 years ago, as an instant solution to some unsightly bare spots that I needed to fill for the last competition.  They have gone on to become truly handsome, exuberant clumps since then, despite ongoing battles with Japanese Lily Beetle (in which to date, I have been victorious!).
Here's a snapshot of what is going right now.....let me know if you think I'm in with a chance for a prize this year!!

These lilies are the most fragrant, and luckily are right by the front door to the house.  Coral carpet roses are growing through them as a compliment.

This Ruby Tuesday helenium is a new addition, and just coming into bloom now.  I LOVE it!

The phlox look amazing this year - the "chelsea chop" definitely seems to have improved them, and no mildew as yet!

My first Canna bloom is out.....looks like a little flame, which is appropriate given recent furnace-like temperatures!

the roses are having a rest after their very strong first flush of flowers.  New buds are starting to swell.

This clematis, Gravetye Beauty, has taken hold after being moved last year, and is doing a nice job of covering an unsightly municipal guy wire on my plot.

Perovskias are coming out now, and in the background, you can see the intense dark red blooms of Arabian Dahlias, which I started in the spring.  These are another highlight!

These towering yellow lilies look just wonderful now they are in bloom, but I have also been enjoying their statuesque form over the last couple of weeks.  Unfortunately, this particular variety seems to be a magnet in my garden for Japanese Lily Beetles.  So far, I have been able to control things by diligently removing the larvae as soon as I see them emerging.

The window boxes have filled out, and are looking quite nice now.

Sunshine impatiens are one of the few annuals in my garden, since most annuals are easy fodder for the horrendously large slug and snail population in my lakeside garden.

Double Delight roses are already reblooming.

On a more practical note, I have moved my vermicomposting activities outside for the rest of the summer.   Up until now, they've been munching through my kitchen waste in the basement, but with summer heat, the multiplying fruit fly population has become unbearable.  I've buried an old recycle blue bin in the ground, and transferred the worms outside.  An upturned old wire basket from an old freezer should hopefully keep the raccoons out.

The hot and humid weather we've been having over several weeks seems to be suiting my figs admirably.  I hope  that they all develop into lovely, tasty figs, since I've only managed to harvest one fig to date (on a tree that I've had for 3 years), and it was so absolutely delicious, that I desperately want a repeat performance!