Author Archives: jkmcintyre

The Black Aphid

Posted on August 3, 2010 by jkmcintyre


Black aphids love nasturtiums. Love them to death, in my case. I’d never seen a black aphid before I planted nasturtiums last year. They didn’t appear to move beyond my nasturtiums, so I simply observed.

I have been using nasturtiums in the garden as a natural pest control. They “repel squash bugs and whiteflies and draw beneficial insects”, according to one of my books. What I couldn’t decide last year was if nasturtiums drew pests away from my other plants or if they drew pests to the garden more generally, serving as a jumping off point. Continue reading →

Posted in beans, tomatillos | 3 Comments

Digging Potatoes

Posted on July 28, 2010 by jkmcintyre


The first olla experiment has come to a close. The potatoes I planted April 16 grew to tremendous heights, then withered, and died. Time to dig.

We discovered 7 pounds of smooth russet potatoes near the original depth of the seed potatoes. So, it was an early setting variety. In contrast, late setting varieties will continue to produce potatoes up the stalk; if you continue to bury the plants, you’ll get more potatoes. For my early setters, the extra mounding probably did more harm than good Continue reading →

Posted in olla irrigation | 3 Comments

Meet Cheddar

Posted on July 27, 2010 by jkmcintyre


Cheddar is a cauliflower variety I purchased as seed this year from Territorial Seed. It was developed in Ontario, my patria, and is named, pretty obviously, for its colour. The orange is from beta-carotene, which is evident even in the plant stalk. Pretty cool.


My favourite thing about it was the beautiful fractal patterns, not well captured here. Guess I’ll have to grow it again next year. I have never grown cauliflower before. It wasn’t hard. Or maybe I was lucky. Time will tell! Continue reading →

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Chicken Lock-Down

Posted on July 14, 2010 by jkmcintyre

Chickens are fun to watch. Since we got ours in September 2008, we let them free range in the yard, amusing us when we chose to watch ‘chicken TV’. But we got tired of the chicken poop land mines that … Continue reading →

Posted in chicken coop / run, chickens | 1 Comment