kalegrower

Gorgeous photo from my friend Mrs. S.

I’ve always viewed gardening as a fairly solitary activity, so the social aspect of gardening has been unexpected. I love having friends over to view my garden and I love seeing what my friends are doing in theirs. Many friends have been sending me photos of their gardens and describing their plans and projects. Unlike tweets and Facebook updates, which I usually ignore (sorry), receiving a picture or a description by email always makes my day.

One of my friends has a garden that always seems to be almost a week ahead of mine. When I see her photos I know that the same flowers will soon be blooming in my garden. Another friend has been experimenting with exciting new blooms…I hope she saves me seeds.

Himalayan Blue Poppy, Photo from Mrs. B.

Another friend received her mom’s greenhouse this spring and is in the process of moving it into her own garden. Her pictures elicit a strong emotional response as I remember the greenhouse when it was in it’s original location, and look forward to seeing where it ends up.

I’m excited by friends who are growing blubs on the balconies of their west end highrise, friends who are experimenting with novel space-saving approaches, and friends who are adopting community gardens. I hope that they will invite me over or send photos of their projects.

Some photos really bring out the competitive spirit. The Tomato King of Coquitlam has been sending me photos of his tomato plants, and I am filled with envy. He has gardening down to a fine art, and has shared a lot of his tomato tips with me.

Tomato seedlings from the Tomato King.

Although I will be away in the next few weeks (leaving my garden to the care of my kids, cat (!!) and husband) I look forward to returning to my own garden and opening my email to see pictures and updates from my friends. Happy gardening this month everyone!

This is going to be one of those boring posts about the seeds I planted and where I planted them. Before we get to that, here are some pictures of spring flowers.

The two camellias above are from the same tree. Sometime in the past few decades, branches from a pink tree were grafted on the white one, and now the tree produces both types of blossoms. The tree is ENORMOUS.

Okay, on to sweet peas.  Last year I had a lot of success with sweet peas so this year I am planting them again, in four different locations.

(1) In the front garden and on the left side of the rock garden, I planted Bijou Dwarf Blend sweet peas. These, according to the package, produce “large aromatic flowers on sweet peas that grow to only 30-45 cm tall on compact bushy plants that don’t require staking.” I planted the pre-soaked seeds about six inches apart, then sowed Purity cosmos over the area. “Single snow-white flowers will lighten the dark areas of a cottage garden with continuous glowering from summer until into late autumn. Plants grow about 76 cm tall”, which means that they will tower over the sweet peas. Whoops.

(2) Area under the lilac tree. Every year I plant this full of flowers and except for a particularly robust bleeding heart, everything else just seems to suffer and die in this location. This year I planted Late Spencer Blend sweet peas, which “are characterized by their frilly petals and lovely fragrance. They have long stems and large flowers.” I also sowed the seeds I collected last year from the Shirley Double Mix poppies, along with the empty seed heads for good measure.

(3) Finally, I hijacked the Man Garden at the side of the yard, and planted three things. (i) Cuthbertson Mix sweet peas, which are a “highly scented mix of cutting varieties in shades of pnk, cream, white with picotee edging and lavender.” These grow to 2 m tall, which is great because they are against a huge hedge (and can presumably climb up the hedge). (ii) High Scent sweet peas, which are highly scented, and are white with bluish edging. I planted these last year with much success.(iii) White cosmo seeds saved from last year. If, like me, you are wondering “what does picotee mean?”, here is a definition plagiarized from Wikipedia: Picotee is a variety of flower whose edge is a different colour than the flower’s base colour. Now we know.

After only one week, the tomatoes have sprouted. See below:

Just a note of thanks to the Man, who cleared out the big pile of junk in the back yard. Thanks honey!

Spring begins!

Chicks – March 3, 2013

Today was probably not the first day of sunshine this year, but it felt like it. So many things were waiting to be done; I spent most of the afternoon in the back yard shoveling, raking, planting and cleaning.

Manure – yesterday 25 bags of manure were delivered. Apparently not all the bags were sealed properly, so in addition to schlepping the bags into the back yard, I also got to scrape manure off my driveway. I used the manure from the open bags to top dress a few beds – luckily the manure is fairly “mature” so it is quite dry and spreads very easily. I added three bags to box 5, and used a trowel to dig the manure under and mix it with the dirt. While I was doing this I removed any weeds that came up.

Planting box 5 – although it is early, I planted three rows of space spinach, three rows of early season arugula and sowed a patch of early season greens. This bed also has some chives coming out and a sorrel plant. I’ve ignored the sorrel all winter and it seems to be thriving. If I was thinking, I would have harvested it BEFORE covering it with manure. Now it will have to wait.

Replanting favas – the favas in box 2 are suffering and only about five plants survived winter. Since I had a few extra packets of seeds (and the seed packets were wet- boo) I planted them all. I then spread a layer of manure on top.

Transplanting a rose – a friend gave me a rose from her garden. I noticed that it is starting to get leaves. I put it in a sunny spot under my lilac and behind the white bleeding heart.

Moving the water barrels – I moved the water barrels away from the apple tree and flipped them all over so they can passively collect water again through the holes in the covers.

Planting wild-flower seeds – I raked, sowed and re-raked the area under the lilac and the area under the apple tree. Both areas are currently bare so hopefully I can grow some flowers there before the weeds take over. The packages say “plant after last frost” so I hope it isn’t too early.

Removing the slug biodomes  – yes! They are finally off, and the spinach, kale and lettuce are starting to grow!

By this point in the day, the fun was just getting started. Quick story – when we lived in Toronto, we had a lovely 92 year-old Hungarian landlord called Mr. Csok. Our building was over 100 years old, and the basement was a maze of old horse stalls that had been converted into storage rooms, offices, and who knows what else. One day I was in the basement, and Mr. Csok showed me a room that was full of pieces of wood. He picked up an unremarkable piece, held it out to me and said “This piece of wood is decades old. It will never grow again”. So I looked at the wood. Nothing happened. It didn’t seem special. It wasn’t even beautiful. I kept staring at the wood waiting for something to happen, until he put it down next to the rest of the pieces of wood and said “All of it – very old wood. That is why I keep it”.

Someone with a very similar mentality has been stashing similar pieces of wood and other crap behind our compost bin. Today I carefully lifted each piece out and put it in a big pile on the lawn. The wood was all rotted and full of rusty nails (hello tetnus!), PVC pipes were all drilled through or broken, there was a huge piece of rebar, 25 plastic flower pots, rusty wire, a chuck of plywood, part of a balcony railing, what appears to be a few cabinet doors. I was just happy that I didn’t find anything truly unpleasant back there like a dead body or a rodent hotel. Just as I finished removing everything, two boards on the back of the compost bin fell off, so I added those to the discard pile and put the plywood back in place to block the hole.

Wine – after all the hard work, I rewarded myself with the first outdoor glass of the season. A most productive day indeed.

Iris pot from the UBC Botanical Garden Store. Notice the little lichen-covered branches added to the arrangement to add interest.

February leaves me bereft of inspiration. Blaaaaaaah. So, I decided to stop at the UBC Botanical Garden store to see if I could find a bin to inspire me to collect dead leaves and branches. The green plastic garbage cans I use to collect and store yard waste are too heavy when full and every single one of their handles are broken.

Not only did I find the bin I was looking for, but I also picked up the iris pot (above) and some interesting information from the Botanical Garden Ladies:

• many local bees live in tunnels in the ground and will be harmed if you disturb the ground before they leave their tunnels in mid-May;
• if old raspberry canes and other hollow stemmed plants such as lupins are left on the ground, bees will live in the hollow stems;
• bees don’t fly in the rain.

The first point gives me an excellent excuse not to dig too much now. Instead, I spent the rest of the afternoon pulling up weeds and crab grass, and gathering up all the larch cones and branches that had fallen during the winter. Lots of things are starting to come up now including cyclamen, snowdrops and crocus bulbs. See photos below of early spring flowers.

Little cluster of flowers…snowdrops?

The first cyclamens of sping!