So why this blog?

I've been blogging since 1999, when there was still a blink tag in HTML and websites had those "under construction" gifs on them all the time... remember? Oh man, it was awesome. But lately all I feel like talking about is my garden, and rather than cluttering up my normal blog with talk about homemade organic fertilizer, I thought I would give this specialty blog thing a try. Plus, I'm a Northern gardener-- not super-northern, but northern enough that most garden resources are pretty irrelevant. I know there are more of us out there, and we can provide moral support for each other during those June snowstorms.

The story - the short version: In 2009 I bought a house, got a dog, got married, and started a garden. In fact, the getting married and buying a house were sort of to make the garden-starting and dog-adopting possible. I had gotten tired of trying to garden on my dry, windy, sun-scorched 9th floor condo balcony and I was dreaming of neat rows of vegetables. We bought our house in February and moved in in March. By April, the snow was starting to melt, and would uncover-- or so I assumed-- a nicely tilled garden patch, some attractive shrubs, maybe a fountain or two. I was surprised (although I shouldn't have been) to find, instead, a mostly-dead lawn overrun with very-much-alive dandelions, some with thick trunks that seemingly grew down a foot or more. There were a few shrubs and one fruit tree, none of which had been pruned in years. And everywhere were broken, abandoned toys pushed into the ground and never retrieved. Sad! And creepy!

Discouraged, but not totally disheartened, I started small. Last year my husband and I built 3 raised beds with 36 square feel of space in total. This year I'm starting off the year with an additional 16 square feet, plus whatever space I make in the grass I will inevitably dig up as i run out of space for seedlings.

I'm also growing mostly heirloom seeds. One of the first books I read about gardening was Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and one of the things she writes about in that book is the modern phenomenon of hybridized plants cultivated for hardiness and high yields. I'm more interested in interestingness and flavour than yields, plus I'm a big fan of biodiversity, so there's that. (Am I the only one saving seeds for the apocalypse? No? Never mind.) I do have some hybrid plants, especially perennials like raspberries and asparagus. Because I wanted heirloom veggies, I'm starting seeds inside this year for the first time ever, and it has been such an adventure--one I can't wait to repeat next year, with improvements.

Why "gardening for masochists"?

I live in Edmonton, on the Canadian prairies, which is in Zone 3a. Our short growing season and unpredictable weather seem like a gardener's worst nightmare in some ways. But when it's warm here, it's really warm; and this is one of the sunniest cities in Canada. On the longest day of the year, we get over 17 hours of sunlight. This year I started seeds indoors beginning in late March. I should be able to transplant them by the third week in May. When I read about gardeners in more temperate areas, I do get a bit jealous. But at the same time, we Canadians thrive on adversity. And crappy weather. And those four short months, from May 24 to Sept. 21... They will be glorious, Internet!