Two artists, two canvases

For Mark, it will be business as usual

Ben was ‘an artist without a canvas’ — a passion for food and nowhere to plant.

The last few years, Ben has enjoyed container gardening, indoor plants and gardening in small urban yards.

This spring, everything changes now that he has secured a 1,000 square-foot plot 10 minutes from his home in Guelph, Ont.

For Mark, this season will be business as usual, growing loads of vegetables in his oneacre veggie garden, in addition to the remaining nine or so acres of orchards, meadows and flowers.

Two artists, two canvases. How will we work differently? What can you learn from this? Ben:

My 1,000 square feet is a big allotment, but my ambitions started out on a much larger scale, so I want to maximize space.

“Square foot gardening”. Square Foot gardening was pioneered by Mel Bartholomew, an engineer who applied his mechanical inclinations to vegetable gardening. I am employing this concept in about one quarter of my allotment. Using string to outline a grid of one square foot sections. Planning becomes easy: in each square I will plant 16 carrots, nine onions, four Swiss chard or one broccoli, and so on. This allows for maximum density, and it is easy to plan, organize and maintain. http://www. squarefootgardening.com/

A “pollinator’s perimeter” will provide an easy and attractive border, in addition to attracting and sustaining the necessary pollinators to the garden.

The easiest way to establish this is to find a Bee & Pollinator Wildflower seed mix, which will contain a blend of Black Eyed Susan, Borage Officinalis, Butterfly Weed, Corn Poppy, Blanket Flower, Coreopsis, New England Aster, Wild Lupins, Coneflowers, and Wild Bergamot.

Mark:

While I have the luxury of space on 10 acres, I also have the luxury of 13 years’ experience on the property and a few more years growing at three previous homes.

Parallel to the vegetable garden, on the Northern edge, runs an “apple fence”, inspired by Claude Monet’s garden in Giverny, France.

It was important to create space for the veggie garden that is visually separate from the rest of the farm. This fence was created by growing dwarf apple trees, trained along two horizontal wires and delineates the vegetable garden from the rest of the property. A nice harvest from my Monet apple fence each season.

Crops are rotated throughout the beds to maximize soil fertility and suppress weed and disease pressure.

For example, I avoid planting tomatoes after potatoes or peppers, as late blight can overwinter in potatoes and kill the tomatoes. However, planting tomatoes after a legume, such as beans, is beneficial, as the beans will leave the soil enriched by fixing nitrogen out of the atmosphere for the tomato plant’s consumption.

Indeed, every artist needs their canvas.

Now, as Monet plotted his garden in Giverny, we are off to the drawing board to finish plotting our gardens for 2018.