At an Urban Farming course at the Toronto Botanical Society. 

Its that time again, garden season. After a winter that was warm and mild, it feels like we are almost a month ahead of where we were last year. The snow is gone and unless winter has one last nasty surprise in store, I think (and Environment Canada agrees) that we are basically done for the year. Of course now that I have written these words an Arctic blast will descend upon us!

Rhubarb peeking out from the backyard, the first sign of spring

Over the winter I spent some time thinking about what I want to accomplish this year. I have a growing interest in heirloom varieties of vegetables, as we need to grow as much genetic diversity as possible, for the health of us all. Here are some sobering statistics on our shrinking gene pool that was shared at a Pollinators Conference at the Toronto Botanical Society this past fall. In 1903 there were 285 varieties of cucumbers, by 1983 they were down to 16. Lettuce from 497 to 36 varieties; tomatoes, 408 to 79. In only 100 years we have lost 75% of our plant biodiversity. That should get our attention, anyone remember the Irish Potato famine? The following article quoting a study in the Lancet illustrates the impact of Climate Change on agriculture and why we all need to be concerned: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/03/05/climate-change-could-cause-500000-more-deaths-in-2050.html
Equally important is the following documentary on the TVO web site http://tvo.org/video/documentaries/seeds-of-time on the race to save biodiversity in the face of climate change and what it means for all of us who like to eat.
 As the spring continues I plan to expand my pollinator garden and utilize more native plants for much the same reason. I'm also going to construct an 'insect hotel' that I learned about at the same conference and hopefully this year attract more monarch butterflies, which seem to be on the rebound, which is excellent news.
 At my Urban Farming course I learned about this guy and I have planned my raised beds according to his square foot method. My blog will be a test run of how it goes. Should be fun.

In closing, I really believe that every backyard and balcony can play a part in building biodiversity and helping our planet. It's not just the big things, its the one small act after another.

Daffodils just breaking the surface of the soil.