🌿 About Kiri Martin
I’m Kiri Martin, a plant nerd based in Ontario, Canada, where half the year is too cold to grow food outdoors. I’ve always been passionate about growing as much of my own food as possible, but living here meant I had to find another way.Since 2005, Hester has done more than refine an old tradition. Guided by an international palate, we fuse unique pickling techniques from around the world to create the most interesting flavors and textures.
🌱 Where it started
Growing food has been part of my life for as long as I can remember—from helping in my grandad’s garden on the Isle of Wight, to harvesting apples in my nan’s backyard in London, to gardening with my mum. That progressed to growing the best corn I have ever grown in the backyard of my high school boyfriend’s apartment. Once I got my own house I quickly transformed the backyard in my garden happy place.
Then in December 2013, when a massive ice storm hit and left us without power for days. It was a wake-up call about how fragile our everyday systems really are and I was left feeling out of control. This drove me to take gardening from something one the edges of my life to something I was passionate about. I doubled down on becoming more self-sufficient in any way I could. I started transforming my backyard bit by bit. At one point I dug up a 10 foot x 10 foot space, by hand, using an As Seen on TV garden claw. In this space I grew 50 tomato plants (which for the record is WAY too much) and i made a ton of tomato sauce that year
As time has moved on I have refined back backyard, started planting down the side of the house and spilled my garden beds into the front yard as well. When you are growing in a small space, you quickly learn to make to most of the space you have and get a bit creative!
With the space that I have I manage to grow a LOT of food! I have raised beds, cattle panel arches and GreenStalks. I squeeze food into every space thay I can, and oh…did I mention my baby bees? In order to help our native bee populations and to increase the harvest from my small but mighty garden, I leverage the power of solitary bees. I raise both mason and leafcutter bees and nothing gives me more joy than to see the babies emerge every year!
Always remember, it’s not about how big your garden space is, it’s about how you leverage the space you have!
Happy Growing!
