Home Featured in American Style Magazine
Screenshots from the magazine.
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“It’s a Long Long Time From May to December”
“Maypole” Columnar Apple Tree in Bloom on the Rooftop Garden 124 Merton Street in May 2011 The song, “It’s a long, long time from May to December”, chronicles the stages of love, womanhood and relationships. In retrospect the “Malus Maypole’s” journey to my rooftop garden started before May, but in considering the purchase of this particular tree, who could have imagined just…
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Vivian’s bedroom: where she dreams her dreams
Vivian Reiss’s bedroom: where she dreams her dreams Read this article on the Globe and Mail website By DEIRDRE KELLY From Saturday’s Globe and Mail For the last 25 years, painter and art-gallery owner Vivian Reiss has lived in a sprawling 5,000-square-foot house in Toronto’s Annex neighbourhood, built circa 1870 for the widow of Augustus…
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Of Rye and Radishes
Rye in my garden This morning looking out at my garden, I noticed that the rye was ripening in the paisley bed near the elephant. How did that happen? Just yesterday I had pulled out the maple syrup taps from the maple tree. Meanwhile, on the boulevard in the front yard, my Spring planting of…
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“To V. or not to V.” The 3rd Act
The invitation to my birthday party read, “To v. or not to v.?” That is the question. Come to a birthday party to celebrate my birth, rebirth and the birth of William Shakespeare. I’ll supply the Elizabethan feast, please supply your ideas of Shakespeare or of the Elizabethan era or just come as you. After…
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Expanding Rooftop Garden
Even though it is still quite cold, it is time to start the cold weather crops such as lettuce. In a month or so bunches of our beautiful organic lettuce will appear in the lobby of 124 Merton Street for the tenants to take home for dinner. These giant urns will line the parapet…
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Getting to The Root of the Matter, How Deep Are Your Roots?
If you think; ” a new broom sweeps clean,” is a refreshing adage, you have no idea of how the concept of getting to the root of my garden’s suffocation and plague is rejuvenating. After all, a new broom is only sweeping away some mildly irritating dust mites and dust bunnies revealing a clean floor but digging out pernicious roots…
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Tomato Panic or Red Alert [or yellow, purple, white, pink or maybe, striped alert]
Last week I had a tomato panic. I found out that Doris Giardino, who grew my beautiful heritage tomato seedlings for my www.124merton.com rooftop garden, was not growing them again this year. What would become of the annual tomato tasting? Realizing that I would have to grow the seedlings myself, I went from window to window…
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We all do what is takes to find sweetness: Maple; tap into it!
This year I decided to tap the maple tree in my back yard. Truthfully, I was never too fond of the tree. It blocked out the light from the rest of my backyard and however much I pruned it, it regrew in some mathematical equation until it was too huge to be easily trimmed. No plant ever survived…
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Sow to Sew
Last year my boulevard garden yielded, as far as I know, 100% of Canada’s cotton crop. Continuing my quest to live off the land in the city and grow “wearables” not just edibles, it was time to plant this year’s crop. Giving new meaning to,” you reap what you sew,” I gently pried the seeds from…
