Canada: Toronto’s Avling Kitchen & Brewery Has a Roof Garden

Frass is cricket poop, and we’ll be using it as a new fertilizer. Frass has many benefits, such as being lightweight and highly nutritious, and it stimulates soil microbial activity.

Avling
Apr 26, 2021

Excerpt:

We will continue to grow vegetables that were featured on our patio menu last year like zucchini, winter squash, cucumbers, mini purple daikon radish, hakurei turnip, garlic, fennel, mizuna, and several varieties of tomatoes and hot peppers. We are also growing an extensive variety of herbs for our kitchen, bar and brewery including hyssop, lavender, lemon balm, rosemary, basil, thyme, oregano.

Flowers are just as important as produce, as they’re pollinators which create a healthy garden ecosystem and attract butterflies and bees. This year we’ll be growing zinnia, gaillardia, sunflowers, calendula, nasturtium, cosmos, and many others..

There’s also a lengthy ‘to-grow’ list from the brewers including marigolds and pineapple sage, with some other ‘top-secret’ growing plans too!

What are you doing this year that’s different than in past years?

After 2 years, we have a better understanding of what works and what doesn’t. We are scaling back our crop selection and focusing on what works best for our space. This year we will be focusing more on tomatoes, hot peppers, cut flowers and selecting crops that thrive in our hot, dry conditions, such as okra and amaranth. We optimize our shoulder seasons, meaning we are planting early in spring and extend our harvest until December. This year we started selling our own saved seeds from last year’s harvest.

Read the complete article here.