Spice up your home cookin'

Argie and I live in an apartment building, but we are lucky enough to have a relatively large balcony with our unit (much larger than our TO digs, anyways). This is the time of year I like to start thinking about what I want to have in our balcony garden.
For the most part, we plant edibles, because, well, we're obsessed with food. Its nice to have some flowers in your garden, but to me there's nothing sweeter than the sight of a tiny yellow tomato blossom!
Balcony gardening is challenging, you have to think about space, lighting and keeping things organized. Luckily there are plenty of resources out there that give plenty of advice and inspiration!
There is a definite trend toward greening small urban spaces, and for some ideas on how to get started, check out BalconyGardener ; Urban Gardening ; for the international urban greening movement: City Farmer
For us I like to keep things simple, and fairly low maintenance. My usual balcony suspects are cherry tomatoes, basil, lemonbalm, and mint (although last year we also had bell peppers and even and eggplant!)
Use your imagination then get dirty! The best tomato you will ever taste is the one you grow yourself :)

Ah! Spring is in the Air

The days are getting longer, and the light spilling in through the windows is making me think about what we eat at home, and where it comes from. We try to eat locally whenever possible, but during the winter, its difficult to find fresh produce in southwestern Ontario.
In the fall we try to load up on certain "seasonal" hard-to-finds, like bell peppers, etc. We clean and prep them and keep them in the freezer so they can provide a tiny bit of colour during the dull winter months.
For anyone trying to be more mindful of what they eat, I would highly recommend reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. This book documents Kingsolver's family's year of living off the land. Of course for the average family, especially here in Canada, this extreme a lifestyle change is not feasible, but the book provides lots of great suggestions for how we can all reduce our negative impact on the environment, and even come to enjoy and appreciate our food even more.
http://www.animalvegetablemiracle.com/