Today's post is a relatively new addition to my roster of tasks when it comes to putting up my harvest every year. I dabble a bit more every year in the business of growing biodynamically in my yard, adding whatever I can to my toolkit as time and energy allows. I learned a few years ago of the magic of companion planting: see, I have been growing food crops in my little patches of back yard along the way since a basement apartment off St. Clair in Toronto some 14 years ago. Everyone else had a balcony but us, and so I rallied to dig up a patch of mint-bedraggled-grass in the courtyard to which our landlord at the time agreed. Before this, my first attempt as an independent grownup gardener, I helped tend our backyard plot and our 2 acres of rows at our farm in Fabre, Quebec (some people have cottages, we had a farm. How cool is that. Never appreciated it enough back then. Sorry Maman et Papa. Making up for lost time!) and learned from my parents the ins and outs of growing our own food organically before it was such a term, and how to put up the harvest for winter times. Companion planting came about as I was interested in growing without the use of 'plant food' and low-grade pesticides for home use. Never did use pesticides, but I had one year of particularly bad bugs at a house we rented in Edmonton. It was time to hone up on alternative ways to grow my own vegetables.