The Plant Hustle

The Plant Hustle Organic-focused urban farm with love for all pollinators!

⚠️ FROST WARNING ⚠️ Repost • These beautiful 20 degrees days have had ALL of us thinking summer, but if you’re a garden...
05/17/2023

⚠️ FROST WARNING ⚠️

Repost • These beautiful 20 degrees days have had ALL of us thinking summer, but if you’re a gardener in our part of southern Ontario (zone five on the hardiness map), then you know we typically always receive one or two frosts just before the May long weekend.

Tonight is one of those nights!

There are two frost warnings in the forecast this week, and here’s when you can expect to receive a chance of frost:

🛑 Tuesday, May 16th, overnight (tonight!)

🛑 Wednesday, May 17th, overnight (tomorrow)

What does this mean for your garden?

It means that you’ll want to bring in any tender plants and seedlings, and protect any tender annuals, that you have already planted in the garden.

What is safe to be left unprotected in your garden?

✅ Lettuce, chard, kale, onions, and most herbs (except for basil!).

✅ Ranunculus plants are safe to be left unprotected, as they love the cooler temperatures.

What needs protection during a frost warning?

🛑 Protect your basil, cucumbers, melons, squash, peppers and tomatoes.

🛑 Protect your young annual seedlings, and tender annuals, and your hanging baskets and any flowering plants you may have already planted in patio planters. You’ll want to make sure to protect your begonias, any dahlia plants you have outside, geraniums, petunias, and more.

How do you protect your tender plants?

✅ Bring your plants indoors, into a garage, a basement, or just inside of the house if you can. If your tender plants are already planted in the ground, you can place buckets or pails or plastic containers over top of the plants to protect them from a frost. Make sure to put a rock or a brick on top of any of these pots or containers, to make sure they don’t blow off over the night. We have also used old blankets and quilts, in a pinch, to place over garden beds, to keep the frost off of our tender plants.

Once all of our seedlings make it through the next two cold nights, the forecast looks safe to plant your gardens this coming weekend!

We always wait and watch for 10° nights, once we receive those temperatures consistently, tender plants can go into the ground.

Excited for my *very adult* experience this Spring!! Thanks to for a great first day at !
01/11/2023

Excited for my *very adult* experience this Spring!! Thanks to for a great first day at !

06/21/2022

Aanii niibin!
Hallo sommer!
Hello summer!

To celebrate the arrival of this beloved season I would like to introduce to you my original (and secretly favourite 🐝) logo! Hope it brings you a smile, like a good sunflower always can. 💕

For the longest day of the year, boy it’s a beauty out there! ☀️ Have fun (play safe!) and on this, , remember that all animals and insects are our kin! They need hydration just as much as we do. 💧

🍯 Honey or sugar mixed with water can help rejuvenate an overheated friend! ⚠️ Just remember to provide something, like a tiny rock, for them to climb on so they don’t drown when they’re having a drink!

Chi miigwech/tusen takk/thank you so much for all of your ongoing support! 💕

Diana


Meet: Black Krim, a beefsteak tomato! 🌱 “Indeterminate” variety that provides a continual harvest until frost☀️Rare purp...
06/03/2022

Meet: Black Krim, a beefsteak tomato!

🌱 “Indeterminate” variety that provides a continual harvest until frost

☀️Rare purple/black colouring (the more sun it gets, the darker the colour will be)

⬆️ Black Krim grows approximately 6’ tall (though it can be pruned back to a smaller size)

↔️ If growing in a container, indeterminate varieties require at least a 20 gal container (you can use a smaller one, though expect a smaller yield)

💪 Support (staking/tomato cage/trellis is required regardless of whether it’s grown in-ground or in a container (heavy tomatoes)

💧Limit watering tomatoes overhead. It’s always best to water at the soil line (or let the roots soak up water from a dish under a planter) as often as possible to avoid spreading disease

🪴Black Krim is grown organically from seed using hand-crafted potting soil

💲Prices range from $3 - $7 at current sizing (see last photo)

✅ All seedlings have recently been pruned for best harvest, topped up with compost-enriched soil and mulch (for water retention). All have been hardened off and are ready for planting though they are able to withstand their current planters a while longer (until the roots start poking through the bottom). Email or DM for details! ✅

💡 PRO TIP: Look up “pruning indeterminate suckers” for the best yield!

📣 REAL TALK 📣Anyone who lives the horticultural life will tell you that it’s a dawn-to-dusk deal (but worth it!) and tha...
05/19/2022

📣 REAL TALK 📣

Anyone who lives the horticultural life will tell you that it’s a dawn-to-dusk deal (but worth it!) and that you are always at the mercy of Mother Nature, to some degree.

Recently I lost my second crop of hot peppers, 75 little buddies or so in total. That’s a big hit in my tiny garden world (especially because they’re slower growing and uncommon varieties, thus harder to replace). Of course a tear was shed and a few unsavoury words tossed out. Then all was accepted and over again I started.

It was partly my fault (lack of mulch and a faulty watering setup when I skipped town) and partly Mother Nature having a moment in early Spring. Burnt them to a crisp, she did. That’s the reality of gardening. It is also the reality of farms and nurseries, etc. trying to get product out in this increasingly unpredictable climate. And still trying to have a little bit of a life in the high season! Imagine?! 😂

Now, because I am a tiny experimenter in my soul (and I hate resource waste), of COURSE I had to try and save every single one I could. Snipped back hundreds of tiny dead leaves to see what my happy soil mix & sheer plant will could do.

Here is some of the progress as of today, tiny little guys and gals fighting their way back!

(I will be selling whoever is strong enough to go when ready and gifting any remaining tiny fighters to friends/family. 🌈)

P.S. I was trying to have stuff ready for a sale this weekend (mostly herbs, slicer/beefsteak/plum/cherry tomatoes, peppers and ferns to start) but this has set me back a little. If Mother Nature gives me a little love and I can swing one I’ll post in my stories!

Getting excited for another year of food, flowers and foliage - bring it on, March!! 🌱 Here is a sneak peak at what’s sp...
03/18/2022

Getting excited for another year of food, flowers and foliage - bring it on, March!! 🌱

Here is a sneak peak at what’s sprouting/turning into an awesome little friend at the moment:

Hot Peppers 🌶
* (10,000 SHU)
* (30,000 - 50,000 SHU)
(100,000 - 350,000 SHU)
* (2,500 - 5,000 SHU)
* (15,000 - 30,000 SHU)
* (150,000 - 350,000 SHU)
* (300,000 - 450,000 SHU)
* (100,000 - 350,000 SHU)
* (100,000 - 350,000 SHU)

Back by popular demand! 🌶
(5,000 - 30,000 SHU)

Sweet Peppers 🫑
(0 SHU)
* (0 - 500 SHU)
(0 SHU)
(100 - 1,000 SHU)
* (0 - 100 SHU)

All items with an asterisk are new to the shop this year!*

SO much more to come, friends! Stay tuned…

A beautiful salad or salsa coming his way, that’s for sure! 🌶🍅(P.S. this was a friend so I gave him some underripe as ...
08/25/2021

A beautiful salad or salsa coming his way, that’s for sure! 🌶🍅

(P.S. this was a friend so I gave him some underripe as well. Don’t forget that you can always leave any green/underripe tomatoes on a window sill to ripen! A great tip if you have overzealous raccoons who are waiting for that red to peek out…)

Something’s afoot…
08/18/2021

Something’s afoot…

For those of you who think it’s too late in the season: NEVERRRRR! 🤺 We are seeing an extension of the gardening season...
08/14/2021

For those of you who think it’s too late in the season: NEVERRRRR! 🤺

We are seeing an extension of the gardening season here in Ontario - you can still get those veggies (and of course flowers and plants) into your space and onto your plates!!

Here’s what I have going at the moment (and, of course, what’s coming soon) for all of your in-ground and CONTAINER needs:

($4.50 + up)
* Begonias (Peach)
* Butterfly Wildflowers
* Coreopsis
* Cosmos (Xanthos, Yellow)
* Fuschia
* Lantana
* Purslane (Pink, Red)
* Snapdragons (Snaptini: Dwarf, Deluxe: Tall)
* Sunflowers (large mix, Mexican Torch)

($6 + up)
* Basil (Genovese, Greek, Lemon, Lime, Opal)
**CATNIP**
* Chives (Onion)
* Citronella
* Fennel
* Mint (Wild Spearmint)
* Olive
* Oregano
* Rosemary (Creeping, Spice Island)
* Sage
* Summer Savoury
* Thyme (White-edge Lemon, Spicy Orange)

($3 + up)
* Beets (Multi-coloured)
* Carrots: Amarillo (Yellow) - perfect for containers!, Lunar White
* Corn (Edible: Blue Jade, Sweet. Non-edible: Ornamental PINK)
* Cucamelons
* Kale (Darkibor, Russian Red)
* Lettuce (Baquieu, Marveille)
* Onions (Green)
* Peppers (Hot): Chili (Red), Chinese 5-Colour (Multi-coloured)
* Peppers (Sweet): Bell (Green - Red), Jimmy Nardello (Red), Mini Sweet (Multi-coloured)
* Pumpkins (Jack o’ Lanterns)
* Swiss Chard (Ruby Red)
* Tomatillos (Purple de Milpa)
* Tomatoes (Cherry): Bi-Colour (Orange/Red), Gold Rush Currant (Gold), Matt’s Wild (Red)
* Watermelons (Sugar Baby, Yellow)
* Zucchini

COMING SOON:
* Beans (Bush): Tendergreen (Green bean with white flowers)
Beans (Pole): Trionfo Violetta (Purple bean with white flowers), Scarlet Emperor (Green bean with red flowers)
* Calendula
* Cilantro
* Croton
* Dahlias (Pink Lemonade)
* Garlic Chives
* Garlic Leaves
**LAVENDER** (English, French, Spanish)
* Malabar Spinach (heat-tolerant, climbs!)
* Mint (Chocolate, Peppermint, Wild Spearmint)
* Phlox
* Poppies (Black Beauty)
* Rosemary
* Squash
**SUCCULENTS**
* Sunflowers (Autumn Beauty, Mexican Torch)
* Sweet Peas

…and more!!

grow super well in containers! Plus, they’re YELLOW when they ripen. Win/win, no?
08/05/2021

grow super well in containers! Plus, they’re YELLOW when they ripen. Win/win, no?

**LONG WEEKEND VEGGIE SALE!!**Let’s reduce our food waste and give these little guys a new chance at life! 🫑 $2 - $5 fo...
07/30/2021

**LONG WEEKEND VEGGIE SALE!!**

Let’s reduce our food waste and give these little guys a new chance at life!

🫑 $2 - $5 for Bell Peppers and Mini Sweet Peppers (typically $5 - $12).

• These are my little soldiers that are young - some have fruit forming and some are on the way still. You’ll still get a solid harvest though! All have been recently transplanted into bigger pots and will do well in either containers or in-ground.

🍅 $10 - $15 for Cherry Tomatoes (typically $20 - $25).

• All varieties have fruit forming and are “indeterminate”, which means they’ll keep producing tomatoes until nature says stop! Like the peppers, these will do well in containers or in-ground (recommended for a greater harvest).

*Limited quantities available*

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Toronto, ON
M6S2Z8

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Wednesday 10am - 7pm
Thursday 10am - 7pm
Friday 10am - 7pm
Saturday 9am - 5pm
Sunday 9am - 5pm

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