Eglinton Park: from Vermin to Voyagers

Last week in the garden I received a memorable lesson on both nature and native plants. The root of this lesson was an embarrassing and dirty little secret – there are rodents living in the garden. I haven’t mentioned it before because its been a source of shame for me and the garden. Urban rodents carry with them a legacy of disease, filth, and a general gross-out factor; scurrying and skulking being two of their most prominent activities. The mice or rats, whatever they are, that are living in the garden have apparently been there for years. It makes sense, as opposed to their cousins living in sewers or inside a wall, these rodents seem healthy and clean. The garden is a wonderful environment for them, lots to eat, frequent watering, many places to hide. In fact, as I’ve done some research I’ve found that those three factors – food, water and shelter– are the major requirements for rodent populations. Get rid of any one and your rodents will leave too.

This is where the native plants come in. Eglinton Park Community Garden started out as a partnership with Seeds of Diversity as a garden to showcase and preserve seed from native species. Our native plant bed continues to thrive, though when I started here in March none of the original players in developing the garden remained on staff. This left me hesitant to weed or maintain the bed for fear of killing off a rare heritage something-or-other, so inevitably the bed has become overgrown; a perfect habitat for sneaky rodents.

Enter Helen Mills. One of the original creators of the garden, Helen holds the knowledge of not only what’s in that bed, but why it’s there, its medicinal uses and historical importance. Helen is an important figure at TGC, but one I hadn’t met until recently because of late she’s mostly involved with our Lost River Walks program. This program is one of our most important, it takes people on walks through areas of the city where rivers were paved over as the city expanded. The walks are a fascinating combination of history, environmental stewardship, and an introduction to water issues and urban geography.

Groundnut

The walk Helen gave us last week in Eglinton Park told us the history of the park since the end of the Ice Age. We learned that the hilltop had been the centre of a Wendat settlement, the hillside a source of water and clay for pottery, and that the valley had been used to grow corn, beans and squash hundreds of years ago. The nearby Orchard View Blvd got its name from the orchards that covered the hillsides decades later when Yonge and Eglinton was a farming centre and the breadbasket of the country. According to Helen, centuries old pear trees can still be found near the park boundaries, a remnant of these old orchards. She went on to describe the importance of the crops found in the native plant bed and their role in Canadian history, from the groundnut, which was one of the first crops consumed by settlers, to the fleur-de-lys, used by Voyagers who marked trails with their bright yellow blossoms. An upcoming native plant post will go into further detail about the plants we have there and their uses, for those of you who want to know more.

Fleur de lys

At the end of her talk, Helen let me know that most of the natives growing in that bed were so hardy that they could survive any pruning I could throw at them, and that they would actually benefit from receiving a strong cutting back. This was the first step in my liberation from the rodents, knowing that I can remove their shelter means that they’ll have to move on to greener (and hopefully distant) pastures.

The second step came as an interesting precursor to my discovery of the rich natural and agricultural history of Eglinton Park. As I stood weeding the raspberry patch and feeling desperate about the rodent population explosion and considering getting a garden cat for protection, I noticed an unexpected  creature in the park. A large, raptor-like bird had landed on a nearby tree and was surveying the area. I returned to my work and a moment later the bird swooped – snatching up a mouse it had spotted from on high, and flying off into the distance. I almost cheered – what a great illustration of nature’s resilience. Even though humans have been in this park for centuries, taking it farther from nature with each passing year, mother nature could still come in with a quick fix to my human-caused problem: nature’s mousetrap!

Got Mice? Get a Falcon!

New Plum Tree, 3 Sisters and Transition Towns

Plum Tree Planting

The garden was looking great this week! We did a lot of new plantings, including a self-pollinating Italian Plum tree that our volunteers determinedly made space for in the very clayey park soil. Hopefully it should thrive there and provide us with plums and shade for years to come. Other interesting plantings this week were our sweet potato slips, which we bought in abundance from the “Sweet Potato Guy” at the Wychwood farmers market, and the addition of beans and squash to complete our “three sisters” bed. 

Sweet potatoes are heat-loving plants which we’re trying for the first year in Eglinton Park. Members of the Morning Glory family, they produce long trailing vines with beautiful bell-shaped flowers. We planted them in 6 inch high soil ridges so the soil would keep the tubers warm, and are hoping for the required 90-120 frost free days before we harvest them in September-October.

Planting Beans and Watermelon

The “three sisters” is a traditional First Nations way of growing corn, beans, and squash together in a symbiotic relationship. Corn, a plant which typically requires a great deal of nitrogen in the soil, is sown and allowed to grow to 4-6 inches in height. At that point, climbing bean seeds are planted around the corn stalks, and as they grow they will fix nitrogen into the soil, making it available to the corn plants. In addition, they will use the corn plants as a natural trellis, climbing up their stalks and securing the plant in place against winds. The squash, planted at the same time as the beans, will spread out over the soil, preventing water evaporation and erosion, smothering weeds,  while at the same time making the ground difficult for corn-loving critters such as squirrels and racoons to navigate. This relationship of the three sisters is said to improve yields of all three crops, and maintain a healthier soil while reducing crop loss to animals. The varieties we selected this year are:

Corn – Golden Bantam

Beans – Kentucky Wonder Green, Scarlet Runner

Squash – Cream of Saskatchewan Watermelon

Beautiful Pea Flowers

I will not be attending next week’s workbee, as it is Toronto Green Community’s AGM and Speaker’s Series on Transition Towns – towns which are preparing for Peak Oil by moving toward more sustainable policies and lifestyles. There will be gloves and tools available at the garden, and a list of things that can be done posted for those of you who wish to get some time in on Thursday, and for the rest of you, you are welcome to join us at the AGM, more information is here.

Grafting, 4-in-1 apple trees and mint trading

Last week I got a little hasty. I cancelled the workbee since at 3pm it was pouring down rain, only to have it clear up and become a pleasant evening by 5pm. I had two new volunteers who didn’t get the notice come out to help, so we got a little work done alongside a lot of discussing the garden. Timothy, a new volunteer with an agronomy background has put me in contact with a beekeeping expert who has built and cared for many hives in the past, so hopefully I can keep working  away at my beekeeping fantasy! I’m planning to attend the pollinators festival at the Brickworks this month to to find out more. More details about this, and other environmental events this month will appear in my next post. 

Peas and Radishes

Last week showed lots of growth in the garden, the heavy rains have been making everything burst into life, with both our newly planted corn and potatoes putting healthy sprouts up. Once the corn reaches 4 inches we’ll be planting beans and squash, the other two sisters, and including some photos. 

Two interesting plantings of last week were our new 4-in-1 apple tree, and 

4 apples in 1!

 the beginnings of our mint plantation. The apple tree (at right), like all fruit trees these days, is made up of two parts, the rootstock (what we think of as the trunk) and the scions (the fruiting branches) which are grafted onto the tree. Grafting is defined as a technique by which two parts of different plants are joined together in such a way that they will heal, seal, and continue to grow as one plant. This is done by slicing open the rootstock, attaching the scion and securing the pieces together by tying and waxing them. In the case of apple trees, grafting is done because it is much easier than growing a tree from seed and much more reliable. Apple seeds do not produce the same type of apples as the tree they came from, they are just as likely to produce crabapples. Grafting ensures production of the same type of apple produced on the parent tree, so all Red Delicious apples you’ve eaten have been grown on grafts that trace back to an original Red Delicious tree! 

This technique allows trees to be produced which grow more than one variety of apple scion on the same rootstock, as is the case with our 4-in-1. It has Cortland, Melrose, Red McIntosh and Summerred apples on a semi-dwarf rootstock, which means it will be short and easy to pick. The added benefit of these mixed graft types is that they are self pollinating. Often fruit trees, like blueberries, need more than one variety growing in the same place to ensure pollination, but with 4 varieties on one tree that problem is resolved. 

The mint we planted will hopefully be part of a partnership with Chocosol http://chocosol.posterous.com/ a group which sells fairly sourced chocolate at the Apple Tree Market and elsewhere in the city. They have kindly offered to trade mint for giving a workshop for kids about chocolate production, and we will hopefully be incorporating a chocolate-making lesson into our Great Garden Adventure kids program this summer – sure to be a hit!