Yes, I've been gardening in Calgary for 10 years now (but only 4 years at my current house) so I've learned a lot. But I'm still learning and trying new things. That's what makes gardening fun! These lazy days of fall have given me time to reflect back on the year and what I've learned from the new things I've tried:
Tomatoes
1. 1. Don’t start tomato seedlings until mid-March in Calgary unless you have a heated greenhouse or cold frame! Mine got just too big to handle in the house and it was difficult to move them in and outside in spring.
2. 2. Plastic pots of about 30cm diameter are not big enough for a typical tomato plant. The tomatoes I had in these pots didn’t do well because they didn’t have enough root space and they probably dried out too quickly. The ones in the big rectangular “self-watering” pots from Lee Valley did fine.
Sun/shade experiments
1. 1. I grew delphiniums on the north side of the fence and despite the fact they supposedly need full sun, they did fine. Maybe they weren’t as big or as plentiful in terms of blooms as they would have been had they had more sun, but they looked OK (except that I didn't get around to staking them in time). In a yard where sunny spots (more than 6 hours) are almost non-existent, this was an important discovery!
2. 2. I also have raspberries in a planter box on the north side of the house, where they get only about 3 hours of sun per day. Again, maybe I’d have got more in a sunnier spot, but the harvest was still very good and they certainly did well enough for me to decide to plant more there next year!
Gardening with kids
1. 1. For young kids, a hide-away and a pathway through the garden (especially one where they can run in a circle) ROCK. A place to dig is also essential. We had many playdates and parties in the backyard this year with kids running freely in the backyard and no damage to the garden occurred at all. And they loved to play chase on the pathways! The hide-away under a spruce at the back of the garden even elicited a very enthusiastic ‘Cool!! A clubhouse in the back of the garden!’ from one of my daughter’s friends. And the best thing is, no plastic was required.
2. 2. I’ve read it before and can now confirm from my own experience, kids do eat veggies that are grown in the garden! My experiment (with no controls and a sample size of 2) will be repeated next year (with a sample size of 3 and a bigger veggie patch).
3. 3. Poles of at least 8 ft long are required to make a decent bean teepee (tipi?).
4. 4. Chocolate cosmos don’t smell like chocolate.
Other
1. Hummingbird feeders make, um, nice decorations. I enthusiastically hung one this spring and then found out that the nectar should be changed and the feeder cleaned about every other day. Sorry hummingbirds, no time for that this year! Visit the honeysuckle instead.
2. Hanging paper bags to deter wasps from building nests in an area really seems to work. Unfortunately, we neglected to hang one in the back corner by the compost bins and they nested in a piece of rolled up carpet we haven’t got around to throwing away yet. My husband discovered this when he tried to throw the carpet away…
3. Blogging is fun but time consuming! This is the first year I’ve been a professional garden coach and also first year I've blogged and I was amazed by the amount of response I got this year both business-wise as well as friendly comments from other gardeners around the world. In the winter I will have plenty to do, including finishing posting the information on the plants I’ve catalogued, but what I'm really looking forward to is e-visiting other garden bloggers that I didn’t have time to communicate with much during the summer.
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