The back 40

The back 40, originally uploaded by jocelynb.

My mom and I painstakingly cleared this area out (well... partly) and I built another 36 square feet of raised beds back here. I also cut down about 10 trees in order to let the sun shine on this area. There is still lots to do.

A beautiful story

Once upon a time, there was a glorious Queen of England named Victoria. Victoria loved vegetables so much that she invented a new holiday, Victoria Day, at the end of May, so that Canadian gardeners could plant their gardens.

(I've been so busy over the last week or so that I haven't had any time to think. And Saturday and Sunday were PERFECT transplanting weather here. On Saturday and Sunday it was a bit overcast, with alternating sunny periods and little rain storms. And then today it's raining for real, hopefully helping all those plants get established. I'm going to upload a few photos to flickr though and I'll post them here too.)

In bloom this week: Double-hanging plum

In bloom this week: Double-hanging plum, originally uploaded by jocelynb.

Just saw the first blossoms today!

sort of a garden poem

There is something so satisfying about THIS EXACT TIME OF YEAR
because the baby weed trees in my yard are the perfect size to be weeded:
small enough that they have a single long root, and are easy to pull out of the ground;
large enough that spotting them and pulling them out is satisfying.

an unpleasant wilderness

an unpleasant wilderness, originally uploaded by jocelynb.

A pioneer woman update.

I’ve been pleasantly adrift from the Internet this week as I immerse myself in a giant yard project. The largest looming thing on my to do list for the past two years has been the approximately 180 square foot area between my garage and the edge of my yard. This photo shows the area as it appeared in July of last year. The house’s previous owners had dumped all kinds of crap back there — garbage, plywood, pruned branches from trees, etc. There is a huge compost bin built of rotting wood in the back left hand corner of the picture, which you can’t see because the weeds are so high they cover it completely. ALSO SHOWN! About a dozen weed trees (at the back, against and indeed growing THROUGH the fence), which completely block the sun and drop thousands of new potential weed tree seeds on my yard every summer. AND! Invasive thistles. Which are called Canada Thistle even though they are not in fact a native species. So the place is really mired in a lack of semantic organization as well as a lack of actual organization.

So this week my mom has been here, and we’ve been tackling the wilderness. We have sawed down trees, built garden beds, and carted out wheelbarrows-full of garbage and dirt full of quackgrass. A partial list of other items uncovered in the pile: drinking straws, pop can tops, McDonald’s ketchup packets; a child’s sock; 4 rubber/tennis balls; 2 strands of Christmas tinsel and one piece of rope; a Hot Wheels car; and my favourite, the winner of the garbage-pile sweepstakes, a leaf from a fake plant. SO META. Oh, and a nest full of mice. Gheeegh.

So that is where I have been. Taming the wilderness, like a pioneer woman. “After” pictures to come shortly.

The emotional roller-coaster ride that is mystery plants from the Zellers garden centre clearance rack

Mystery plant outside, originally uploaded by jocelynb.

So, I am a total sucker for plants on the clearance shelf in garden centres -- the sketchier the garden centre, the greater my sense of pathos. (Actually the reaction I have is almost identical to the one I get from Spike Jonze's Ikea commercial. Or, actually, this clip from Community. Because the part of my brain that personifies things without consciousness has had too much caffeine. OR NOT ENOUGH LOVE.)

Anyway, as a result I end up with these sad, bedraggled plants in my garden sometimes, and I don't necessarily know what they are, or even whether they are annuals or perennials. BUT! This one is apparently a perennial! Which means that I really got my $1's worth. I have three of these, and they have pretty, variegated pink leaves. Plus their new spring shoots look DELICIOUS. And pink! Like Gaga Pink! Yay spring! Yay mystery plants! Yay lamp!

This picture also signifies the fact that I'm finally out in my outside garden, trying to clean up some of the disastrous last-year mess. I did NOTHING to clean up my garden last fall. I mean, literally, the snow is melting and under the snow are pots, and bags of lawn clippings, and 8 months' worth of dog poop, and apparently at least a few plants that are going to grow again. (Or at least, they'll grow again if I hold up my end of the bargain and clear away the debris that is blocking the sun.) But it's still not really at a point where I'm comfortable taking pictures of it. Just take what you see in this picture -- mud, dead leaves, dead plants from last year -- and extrapolate.

In praise of enthusiastic plants

chard, originally uploaded by jocelynb. Less than 24 hours elapsed between left-hand and right-hand pictures.

I love the plants that are started inside closer to last frost because they're showmen and keeners. I planted swiss chard (variety Five Colour Silverbeet), zucchini (Costata Romanesco, which I had great luck with last year), and cucumbers (Early Russian and Armenian, which by the way is actually a melon) on Saturday. Over the past couple days it seems they've been sprouting one plant per hour.

When I checked the plants yesterday morning when I woke up, there were a couple of slight disruptions in the soil where the chard was about to poke up. By the evening, half a dozen little plants had sprouted and spread their initial leaves. By this morning there were about 15 shoots. No sign of the zucchini yet, but the Armenian Cucumbers are all sprouted, and so are most of the regular cukes. No offense to the slow germinating peppers and asparagus of earlier this year, but these are my kind of plants. I guess because I have the patience of a first-grader!

And I have more of this to look forward to, because the only seeds left to start indoors (this coming weekend) are the melons and squash. I'm going to try two varieties of watermelon (Sugar Baby and Cream of Saskatchewan) as well as Bennings Green Tint squash. And then I will get to wait for all THOSE to sprout.

April 26 2011: Taking the seedlings out for a walk

Once a week or so, I take my older seedlings out of their watering trays and give them some liquid fertilizer. (Once they get their first set of true leaves, they're ready to start getting fertilizer.) I start them on a very dilute mix (one-quarter of its regular strength) and build them up to full-strength fertilizer by the time they're ready to plant outside. My plants are on about half-strength fertilizer right now. You can see most of my seedlings in this picture -- the only ones that aren't down here are the very new ones which haven't sprouted true leaves yet -- chard, cucumbers, & zucchini, and a couple varieties of flowers. (Oh, and the cauliflower and broccoli are still in the lightbox upstairs.) You can also see the totally decrepit old freezer our house's previous owners left in the basement -- it is too heavy to move up the stairs! HOW DID IT GET DOWN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE? Theory: the house was built around it.

I guess I could just give them fertilizer in their usual watering trays, but I'm wary of that because I don't want the fertilizer to collect in there -- it stops being dilute if the plants are sitting in it. So instead I take them out and put them on other trays just for today.

This is kind of a big job at this point, so to help make the work worthwhile I'll leave them sitting out for a couple hours with the fan on. I'm not sure if this is just superstition, but I have heard that setting seedlings in the breeze from a fan helps to prevent damping off.

I'm contemplating starting to move some of the seeds outside during the day -- partly to harden them off, but also partly just because I'm running out of space and lights. If it was just a little warmer, I would consider planting some of the tougher plants out. We are still getting night-time temperatures of 0 or a few degrees below, so I think it's almost time to plant out the artichokes, broccoli and cauliflower. In the meantime, I will just have to keep squishing them in, since I'm obviously not going to stop starting new plants -- that's a little too logical.

Dispatch from the basement (Zone 2 probably)

I have a great feeling of accomplishment because I finally washed all the little pots from last year's seed-starting. This is such a boring job, I never feel like doing it, but now that it's done I do feel good about it.




 

And here is a picture of the first artichoke to poke through. It still has its seed casing stuck to it. I will give it a day or two to see if it can crack it on its own. I've pulled them off in the past (VERY carefully) with no ill effects. But I don't like playing God :)

As of today I am up to 8 asparagus sprouts and 1 artichoke. I've been impressed with the germination of the asparagus. The package said they germinate in 2-8 weeks, and I had my first sprout 10 days after planting. I really think my heat mats help with this. (Yes, the heat mats also constitute playing God. For some reason it's different.)

Outside temperature: -16. Believe it or not this is balmy compared to the -25 to -30 weather we've had for the past couple weeks. Bring on spring!

the umpire calls hotbox

www.flickr.com

The Hotbox!
I have 3 little baby asparaguses now so today I moved them into the light box I made this winter. I like to call it the HOTBOX!!! because it reminds me of Wes Anderson.

I made it out of a storage tub on wheels and IKEA components. HOTBOX!

Mini project: self-watering seed starter

Mini project of the day: self-watering seed starter. I'm starting another set of seeds today (artichokes!) and I had some plastic bottles and containers sitting around on my counter I decided to re-use.

I cut this water bottle about in half and turned the top around and stuck it inside the bottom. Easy. The self-watering part actually consists of a hole I punched in the lid, which I then threaded some wick through. I used wick from patio lanterns because I happened to have some sitting around, but I think any cotton string or fabric would do the trick. The final step will probably be a cover of some kind, just until the seeds sprout -- maybe just the working man's greenhouse, saran wrap. So far it seems to be doing pretty well -- I gave it a thorough misting after I put the seeds in, and watched the water move down into the water reservoir via the wick. There is something so satisfying about this, and something so counter-intuitive, to me. I will never really believe in the notion of "self-watering," were the evidence not BEFORE MY VERY EYES.

I love the versatility of plants, the way they grow almost anywhere. I recently picked up a new gardening book and (like every other gardening book seemingly) it features little tomato and chile plants growing beautifully in old olive oil tins. There is something so appealing about these images to me, but I never seem to find any attractive old containers lying around. Everything in my house is clear plastic, and once contained Chinese or Indian takeout, it seems. Oh well. The important thing is that plants WILL grow in there, they just won't look as elegant.

I have a couple more improvised planter projects I've been working on, which I will post over the next few weeks as I start to move plants into them.

The first seeds of spring

The winter is still feeling really bleak here. We woke up this morning to a fresh layer of snow over everything.  Last week it was down to the mid- minus-30s with the windchill. And yet! Today has this note in my calendar: 12W Asparagus. It's hard to believe, but we're about 10 weeks from last frost -- 12 weeks from safe planting. Before I started a garden, I never would have guessed how much this feeling of anticipation and excitement over the year to come could help the last few months of winter go by faster.

So here they are: Asparagus, variety UC-157, an open-pollinated hybrid variety that is supposed to be be an early producer. I pre-soaked them for about two hours and then planted them. (And yes, those are leftover cake container lids helping to keep them moist. That's how I roll: eco-friendly, cheap AND tacky.) I've heard that asparagus are supposed to be tough to start from seed, and maybe not worth the effort -- finnicky, slow germinators, and then at least two years from planting until they actually produce good asparagus spears. I did see some crowns (the one-year-old plants) at garden centres last year, and I was tempted by them, but by that point it was too late in the season to plant them -- and I have also read that they take a long time to recover from transplanting. I don't have high hopes for these ones, but if they're looking at all promising in three months' time, I will find a (permanent, sunny, well-drained, trench-dug) spot for them in my garden. Because, honestly, they are SO GOOD baked in phyllo pastry.