My First Casualty

Poop.  

One of my tallest, strongest, healthiest tomato plants snapped in the wind when I had everything outside this morning.  Early days of hardening them off.  I hope that's the only one that's ruined in the process.

Eat Your Greens

Here is what I planted today in raised beds.  The pictures are from the internet.  I hope my greens turn out looking this good!

Red Oak Leaf lettuce

Mesclun Mix

 

Lacinato kale

Lucullus Swiss chard

 

Black Seeded Simpson lettuce

 (and new this year...)  

Green pac choi

 

Perpetual spinach

Green Curled Ruffec endive

Collards

Red Russian kale

 

Bloomdale spinach

Oh, My Aching Back

The pea patch has been raked, picked of rocks, staked, and planted.  My poor back. We won't even talk about my hamstrings.  It's worth it in the winter, though, when it's -35 degrees outside and I'm adding garden peas to my soup.










 
Afterwards, we made a quick jaunt to the nursery and bought strawberries, sweet corn, catnip (last year's made it through the winter inside, but then got zapped by cold temps after I put the pot outside again in April), and chocolate mint (last year's was zapped during the winter).










Sweet corn.  No doubt it will look more impressive in a few months!










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Ready For Planting

This past week's tasks...

R had a large load of soil delivered and dumped on the shed garden.  From there, we moved wheelbarrows full to the containers lining the driveway and those along the side of the house, topping them up to they would be ready to plant at the end of May.  I say "we", though R does the brunt of the heavy work.  I do what I can, it just takes a lot longer to do a fraction of the work!



In the newly expanded rock flower bed, I planted orange calendula, Shasta "Crazy Daisies", gomphrena, Scarlet Flax, Rose Mallow, and Double Pink Poppy seeds.  All are new to me except the Rose Mallow, which I grew last year.  Already growing there are patches of Creeping Thyme, Wooly Thyme (love this!), and two silver mounds that I don't think are going to make it this year.  I love flowers, but don't know much about flower gardening.  It's complicated.  So many to choose from, and all growing to different heights, with different spreading habits, blooming at different times, requiring different amounts of sunlight, etc.  My approach has been to choose the flowers I like, get a general idea how tall they will grow, find out if they are annuals or perennials, plant the seeds, and see what happens...


 
R tilled all three gardens.

Today, I planted dahlia tubers (they look like a dwarf "Dinnerplate" variety), Sunspot Sunflowers, Morning Glories, and lemon balm in containers. Saj, Karl (neighbour's cat), and Butters (other neighbour's cat) all supervised to varying degrees.  :-)

Building a new raised bed!

What to plant here?  Decisions, decisions!

Potato patch in foreground, general garden behind.

Containers along side of house ready for peppers & tomatoes.

 
Newly filled strawberry-patch-to-be!

Potatoes Are In

   What a hot, sunny day!  28 degrees Celsius. The whole weekend has been beautiful.  Can we hope this is the start of an early summer...?

   We took advantage of the weather and worked outside.  Yesterday, we cut up the branches left over from pruning and tied them into bundles to dry.  Tedious, but it's finished, and the result takes up far less space than piles of branches on the lawn.  Today, R moved a small rock bed and constructed a much larger rock bed that I'll plant flowers in.  The north garden was extended a bit and R rototilled it.  I schlepped rocks from beside and behind the house to add to the small rock wall bordering the end of the north garden.  At one point, I came around the side of the house to see this:

   A grass fire out of control on the north side of town.  Sirens galore and a water bomber (actually a "flame retardant bomber") circled above our home, making loops until it finally let its contents go.  One street in our small town was lined with vehicles, a veritable traffic jam of looky-loos.  Fortunately, the fire now seems to be under control.  Unfortunately, some jerks took advantage of  the diversion/chaos and robbed the Dollar Store downtown.

   I raked the weeds out of the north garden and R planted Yukon Gold potatoes.  Usually, the potatoes are planted close to the street in the garden next to the raspberry patch.  We needed to rotate the 'taters, though, and the soil is much better in the north garden.  I have a feeling it will not look as pretty as having a variety of other vegetables in that plot, but it's a small price to pay!

Another Experiment - China Asters

In early March, on a whim, I bought Aster seeds (Milady Mix) to try to grow this summer.  My success with growing flowers from seed has been hit or miss, as we do not have grow lights or heat mats to help with germination and growth.  The instructions on the packet of seeds said that the seeds should be sown in flats, watered, and then the flats should be kept in the fridge for 8-10 weeks before being removed and put in a sunny, very warm location.

Flats of seeds in our fridge for 2 months?  Wasn't going to happen.  Instead, I tossed the packet of seeds in the fridge for 5 weeks, sowed them in pots in the plant room in the last week of April, and hoped for the best.

This morning, to my delight, I discovered they have sprouted!  I really hope they continue to do well and that they thrive outside.  They are so pretty.   :-)

God willing, this is what they'll look like in a few months...

China Aster - "Milady Mix"

One of my Pineapple tomato seeds has sprouted as well.  A good morning!

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Favourite Quotes

Earth laughs in flowers.  – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Flowers are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty out-values all the utilities of the world. - Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Amen of nature is always a flower. – Oliver Wendell Holmes

Deep in their roots all flowers keep the light. – Theodore Roethke

If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change. – Buddha

Perfumes are the feelings of flowers. – Heinrich Heine

If you've never been thrilled to the very edges of your soul by a flower in spring bloom, maybe your soul has never been in bloom. – Audra Foveo

A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade they know they shall never sit in.  – Greek Proverb

In my garden there is a large place for sentiment. My garden of flowers is also my garden of thoughts and dreams. The thoughts grow as freely as the flowers, and the dreams are as beautiful.  – Abram L. Urban

I used to visit and revisit it a dozen times a day, and stand in deep contemplation over my vegetable progeny with a love that nobody could share or conceive of who had never taken part in the process of creation. It was one of the most bewitching sights in the world to observe a hill of beans thrusting aside the soil, or a rose of early peas just peeping forth sufficiently to trace a line of delicate green. – Nathaniel Hawthorne

Unemployment is capitalism's way of getting you to plant a garden. – Orson Scott Card

The kiss of the sun for pardon, The song of the birds for mirth, One is nearer God's heart in a garden Than anywhere else on earth. – Dorothy Frances Gurney

To garden is to let optimism get the better of judgment. – Eleanor Perenyi

Despite the gardener's best intentions, Nature will improvise. – Michael P. Garafolo

A garden is the best alternative therapy. – Germaine Greer

If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. – Cicero

God writes the Gospel not in the Bible alone, but also on trees, and in the flowers and clouds and stars. – Martin Luther

You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters. – Saint Bernard

A seed hidden in the heart of an apple is an orchard invisible. – Welsh Proverb

Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower. – Albert Camus

To see a World in a Grain of Sand

And a heaven in a Wild Flower,

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour.

-  William Blake

Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace. – Kent Nerburn

Butterflies are self propelled flowers.  - R.H. Heinlein

Moss covered paths between scarlet peonies,

Pale jade mountains fill your rustic windows.

I envy you, drunk with flowers,

Butterflies swirling in your dreams

-Ch'ien Ch'I (translated by Kenneth Rexroth)

The violets prattle and titter, And gaze on the stars high above. – Heinrich Heine

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