Unique Varieties

We would be delighted to help you find unique varieties of garden classics, and can help suggest vegetables that suit your particular site and taste. A few of the varieties we will be offering this year include Japenese Cucumber, Lettuce Leaf Basil, Cajun Belle Hot Pepper and Jade Star Watermelon.

Fruit Trees, Shrubs and Vines

Contact us to talk about trees, shrubs and vines that can serve as windbreaks, privacy hedges and accents, all while providing you with delicious fruits and berries. Now is the time to pre-order, as stocks tend to sell out quickly. Imagine a gorgeous cherry hedge, an espaliered pear on your southfacing side and grapes and kiwis hanging from a cedar pergola.

Compost Bins

Place an order now for your very own Urban Eatin’ compost bin. Built with all reclaimed lumber and measuring a cubic yard, this is the perfect bin for most households. We also build double and triple compartment bin systems.

Compost Tea

Urban Eatin’ will be offering compost tea applications this season. Compost tea is a living fertilizer of beneficial microbes and fungi that replenishes depleted soils with the biological activity that supports all plant life. Please contact us to book an application(s) for the upcoming season!

Cob Oven Workshop

Our cob oven workshop last year was a great success! Here’s how it works: We offer a cob oven workshop at a set rate. The workshop fees help pay for the cost of the materials and our expertise, and you or your organization is left with a beautiful and functional wood-burning oven, and the knowledge and skill to build your own! Naturally, we need a suitable site to build the oven. Contact us for pricing!

Workshops

Urban Eatin’ offers a variety of workshopscovering topics from Seed Starting to Garden Design. Our workshops are designed with community groups and schools in mind. We focus on sharing skills that can help communities be more food-secure.

Worker Co-op Video on Urban Eatin’

Fertilizing your plants: Compost Tea Service

This fall we will be preparing large batches of compost tea to offer to our customers. Compost tea is made by percolating quality compost in aerated water. The action of the water bubbling knocks beneficial bacteria, protozoa, fungi, and nematodes into the brew. By adding appropriate foods, their populations multiply. Compost tea is used as a liquid fertilizer and foliar sprat. The cost is $50 per 500 sq. feet. Please email urbaneatin@gmail.com or call 770-2204 before August 31 if you’d like to book an application.

Soil Building

Compost is the best and easiest way to build healthy soil. Homemade compost, properly managed, is far superior to any product you can buy. It is a balanced blend of raw materials, already inocculated with your native soil microfauna. Urban Eatin’ builds compost bins that are the ideal size for household composting. Visit our compost bin page for more information on these bins

Green Manure is an important strategy in agriculture and gardening. Now that some empty space may have opened up in your garden, from harvesting, it is an ideal time to seed a green manure crop. Clover, alfalfa, vetch, and rye grass (to name a few) can be sown now, and then tilled under in mid-fall. We would be happy to help you with this if you don’t have the time.

Soil Testing can be of great service if you notice systematically unhealthy plants in your garden (both vegetable and perennial beds). Annuals and perennials require slightly different soil conditions in general, and certain plants have special requirements. Urban Eatin’ offers both soil testing for macro-nutrients ($30) and biological testing for compost ($60). Contact us soon if you are interested in a soil test, 1-week is required for results.

Preserving Water in the Summer’s Heat

Rain barrels are a great way to save on water during these hot summer days. We have rain barrels on hand for only 85$, in a limited selection of colors: grey, black, blue & terracotta. We will also help with the installation if you are unsure of how to set it up.

Mulch is another great way to preserve moisture in your soil, saving you water and time. Using mulch such as straw, wood chips, grass clippings, etc. helps keep the moisture in the soil quite a bit longer than if the sun was shining directly on your black soil. The mulch will also slowly decompose and fertilize your garden at the same time. It can get too wet though, and encourage mold growth, so be careful. We can help you source mulch and get it into your gardens.

Elwick Community Garden

During the months of June and July, Urban Eatin’ helped Elwick Village design and build new community gardens for their residents – a large project for us. Dozens of volunteers made the project possible through United Way’s Day of Caring initiative.

Upcoming Workshops

Sat. Sep. 10
Food Preservation: Salsa, Canning and More at Sage Garden Herbs.

Sat. Sep. 10
Seed Saving Workshop at Fort Whyte Alive.

Sat. Sep. 17
Ethnogenic Plants at Sage Garden Herbs.

Thu. Sep. 22
Learn how to compost (and not just throw things in that bin) at soulfude.com

Wed. Sep. 28
Growing Under Lights at Assiniboine Park Conservatory

Thanks for keeping us busy!

We want to thank all of our customers for keeping us busy this season.

Constant Gardeners

Though we are well past mid-summer, there are always crops to sow, and strategies for growing. Now, and in the coming weeks, it is a great time to sow a variety of food crops. With some planning, the right crops and season extenders (i.e. cold frames, mini-hoop houses) we can keep eating from our gardens well into October. Carrots, lettuce, radishes, kale, turnips and mesculun are just a few crops that we can keep sowing and harvesting. Call Urban Eatin’ for any ideas, and stay tuned for our next newsletter for more information.