My Heroes

All we needed to do was to drive over a few hills and through a couple of valleys to get to my heroes' gardens this afternoon. I've learned a few good gardening tips from them and wanted to see how their gardens were doing in this droughty summer. It's good to learn from nearby gardeners who have similar growing conditions to ours.

The tomatoes on the left don't look too colourful. That's because bushels of them were just picked for a salsa day.

These hero gardeners grow vegetables for the Yonge Street Mission in Toronto. Because they grow such large volumes, they save on input costs by saving their own seeds. We were wondering what these dried out plants were? They are Westlandse Kale plants from two years ago that were allowed to go to seed this year. The seeds are around the same size as poppy seeds. They saved 3 or 4 plants. There's a lot of finicky work ahead to get the final goldmine of kale seeds.

I don't think these folks are bothered by finicky work. They planted 10,000 garlic cloves this year and the bulbs are all harvested and drying now.

Below is one of this year's patches of Westlandse kale. They are growing a couple of other varieties as well. The kale is looking good for a dry year. To the left is Painted Mountain corn, a coloured corn that is dried and milled for cornmeal.

Our heroes grow quite a few beans for drying too. I love how the dried beans and cornmeal extends the giving season.

Our heroes add excitement to their gardening year by experimenting with interesting tomato varieties. One was called Pineapple.

One of the heroes is into growing hot and hotter and hottest peppers in a big way. I imagine these are treasured when neighbours in Toronto pick up their food bank vegetables. The peppers were very happy with this year's weather.

Both Ted and I shake our heads every time we visit these friends. It is amazing to us to see the volumes of food that they and their gardens produce in a year. Two people making the lives of countless folks healthier even though they live 125 km away from them.

“Heroes aren't always the ones who win," she said. "

They're the ones who lose, sometimes.

But they keep fighting, they keep coming back.

They don't give up.

That's what makes them heroes.”

Cassandra Clare