Calgary Garden Coach

these are my repotted tomatoes, and what they are too!

Just finished repotting my tomato seedlings this morning.  The dishes never got put away last night, but really, what's more important...?

I won't spend too much time on tips since I posted a lot on repotting and taking care of tomato seedlings last year.  Lots of information on growing tomatoes from seed can also be found here.

I am planning to trade some tomato plants with a few friends, plus I may have a few extra to give away.  So, for the record, these are the tomato varieties I'm trying this year:

2 cold-tolerant, early varieties:
Sub-Arctic Plenty, determinate (bush), 45 days (large cherry-size, red)
Siberia, determinate, 48 days (small-med sized, red)

and several relatively early indeterminate (vine) varieties:
Sugary, 60 days (cherry, only 2 germinated so sorry, none to trade)
Charlie's Red Staker, 65 days (large, red)
Sweet Gold, 65 days (yellow cherry)

garden planning: raised beds, cold frames and espaliered apple trees for a sunny south-facing corner of the backyard

Here is the northwest corner of our backyard as it looked last fall (it currently looks exactly the same except buried in snow...)
It has been our junk corner since we moved into the house, but that is about to change.  It is the sunniest spot in the backyard and it is time to make better use of it!  It's a perfect veggie growing spot. 

One of our goals for this gardening season is to clean out the junk (over the course of the summer) and then build raised beds this fall which will be ready for planting next year.  I wish we could get it ready for planting this year but I'm trying to be realistic here - it just wouldn't happen.

Last year we put in a couple little raised beds in a different spot in the yard, but it wasn't enough space for what I'd like to grow.

Anyway, the fence on the right hand side of this picture faces south, and the grade slopes down toward the back.  It was previously used as a parking pad so there is concrete and hard-packed soil in this area.  Rather than trying to dig and improve the soil, I plan on taking the easy route and building raised beds on top.  I also have 3 windows in my living room that are 1.6 m tall and destined to be replaced soon, so the raised beds will be designed so that the windows will eventually fit on top of the raised beds to make cold frames to extend the growing season.  The beds will be approximately 2 ft deep to make it easy to reach to the back.  Ultimately, this is what I want them to look like:
Whaddya think?

Happy Hallowe'en!

Here are the 3 pumpkins I grew this year still in various degrees of ripeness on my laundry room floor.  I thought it would be fun to grow them for the kids and was hopeful they would be ready by Hallowe'en, but no such luck.  Since I have a small urban space, I chose a variety that was fairly compact - but it was only medium in terms of planting to harvest time. 

That's OK, the kids still had fun watching them grow, and I didn't plan to use my homegrown organic pumpkins for jack o'lanterns anyway - they're going to be food!!  Yum.

a garden salad - my kids eat veggies!

After reading lots of articles about how growing veggies will get kids more interested in eating them, I can finally report that yes, it's true!  This lettuce is growing right beside the patio and my kids like to walk over and yank off leaves to munch on while they're playing in the backyard.  I wouldn't believe it myself if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes!!

... and here's the salad I made last night.  The kids didn't eat the flowers but at least thought they were interesting!  They had 3 helpings of lettuce and tomato.

After blogging about how borage flowers are edible, I decided to give them a try.  I wouldn't say they taste like cucumber, but they do have a pleasant, very mild flavour.  I still think they're nicer in the garden, though.

a fast-growing bean teepee for kids

Here's my first attempt at a bean teepee.  I realized when I made it that in order to make the base wide enough for 2 kids to fit under, the tee pee was going to be too short.  Next year I'll invest in some bamboo stakes at least 8 ft long.

Anyway, scarlet runner bean is a fast-growing vine, but it still takes until the end of august for it to fully cover the teepee.  Maybe I should have planted more densely?  I'll give it another shot next year before I decide if the whole effort is worthwhile...

The flowers are finishing now and the beans are starting.

the new orchard

There used to be a hedge of cotoneasters here, at the north edge of the back garden.  I took them out (I do like their fall colour but I have more elsewhere anyway), and replaced them with 5 fruiting bushes.  In a few years, we'll have a little Upik in our own backyard!

The two shrubs you can see are my two new cherries, Crimson Passion (at the top) and Carmine Jewel (at the bottom).  I had trouble deciding on the varieties, but decided on these two.  I picked Crimson Passion for its large, sweet fruit and Carmine Jewel for its earlier, sweet fruit with a small pit.  Both are classified as sour cherries but are sweet enough to eat out of hand.  The shrubs are big enough I should get a few cherries next year.  Can't wait!

I have also planted 2 haskap (honeyberry) bushes and 1 saskatoon.  They are all seedlings so you can barely see them in this picture.  If you look closely, you'll see the wire cages that I put around them so the kids and dog don't step on them.  Fruit in maybe...  3 years?  We'll see.

raspberries

backyard harvest

Speaking of enjoying the garden, we have been enjoying the fruits of my labour, literally as well.�Call me crazy, old-fasioned, a Martha-wannabe, or maybe I've read too much Michael Pollan lately, but I just love the fact that my kids go out in the backyard�every day and pick lettuce leaves, snap peas,�berries and tomatoes to snack on whenever they like.� Is that cool or what?�

The spinach and strawberries are finishing,

the raspberries and tomatoes are starting,

the snap peas really snap,

the carrot thinnings are delish,

and the scarlet runner beans and pumpkins are in blossom.

In fact, my little veggie patch has been so successful that it was no problem convincing my husband to dig up some of the back lawn to make more space for veggies next year!� Yay!

getting kids to eat veggies

It works!  Gardening works!  Well, at least today it did.  My almost-5-year-old has been very difficult to feed lately.  Today she refused lasagna for supper which used to be one of her favourite foods... but she ate 3 1/2 helpings of spinach salad because we picked it from the garden today!  I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself.

Freshly picked organic homegrown spinach.  Yum.

strawberries vs. holidays.... hmmmm....

We've picked a couple strawberries every day the last couple of days, but most of them still look like this.  I hope they don't all ripen while I'm away next week!!

growing veggies - more would be better!

So far so good in the new veggie garden - although my 2-year-old's spring stomping disrupted the planned planting pattern a little...

But after going to the farmer's market last week, I am vowing to make more veggie space next year!  My husband and I have been buying organic for a while, but we're also trying to make more of an effort to buy local.  That means getting to the market and also paying a little more - fine.

But what really is the problem is dragging 3 kids to a crowded market!  Too stressful.  My 2-year-old is at the stage where she is distracted by everything and you can't get her to go anywhere quickly.  My 5-year-old was pulling on my arm the whole time to go faster.  Halfway through the trip I had to stop and nurse my 6-month-old.  Yes, my husband was with me but it was still almost too much to handle!!

So after the cost and the stress, I came home vowing to plant more veggies next year.  I'd rather garden than go to the market any day.  But where?  In my established neighbourhood with lots of big trees, the little area shown above is the only spot that gets enough sun (minimum 6 hours) for a veggie garden.  Except for the small back lawn....  By the time we got home I had a new design in mind to take out more grass this fall in preparation to plant more veggies next spring!!

Fortunately, my husband is not a lawnophile and is on board. 

Another note:  My neighbours are currently taking out their back garden and putting in more grass to make space for their 12-year-old boy to play hockey and football in the yard.  I have 3 younger girls and a corner lot so I think I can afford to lose a little more grass.

first harvest

Time to thin the veggie seedlings - I'm a little behind because I had to prepare a new site for the veggie patch before I planted this year. Normally the first harvest would be much earlier.

I always sow my seeds randomly within a square area, rather than neat little rows.  I like the patchwork look and it is a better use of space.  Thinning the plants is a pleasure since I get to make gourmet salads of the little baby plants - in this case several colours of lettuce and baby spinach.  Yum!

bean teepee (tipi?)

This year is my first attempt at a bean teepee.  The beautiful bamboo trellis on the right is for peas, and the very rustic, lopsided one on the left is my obviously home-made version for the scarlet runner beans.

I saved 5 straight-ish branches from pruning the lilacs last year.  There is cedar mulch around the inside so the "floor" doesn't get muddy, and I am wrapping string around the outside to give the beans plenty of things to hold on to as they grow (click on the picture for a bigger version and you just might be able to make out the string), leaving a space at the front for a "door".  I planted 5-6 beans around the bottom of each pole.

Scarlet runner beans are very vigorous and fast-growing.  The red flowers are also quite pretty and supposedly attract hummingbirds.  That fits in with my veggie patch / hummingbird & butterfly garden theme (hey, I don't have a lotta space so I had to combine themes!!).  I'm not sure how sturdy my construction is so we'll see how things go this year...

You can also see my trampled raised beds in front.  Seedlings seem to be doing fine!

mmmm... rhubarb

Rhubarb was probably the first edible plant I ever grew.  It's so easy to grow that it's practically a weed but it tastes yummy (when cooked with sugar, that is!) so why wouldn't you grow some?  My daughter can't wait for the first rhubarb pie of the season - neither can I.

Rhubarb can tolerate light shade and likes an anual top dressing of compost.  That's all I do.  You will have to dig it up and divide it every few years if you have a small space, and eventually your friends will all have some too. 

I noticed a few flower heads on mine already.  These should be cut off to give the plant more energy for producing stalks.

Note that the leaves are poisonous (but are fine in the compost).

raised beds

Here are my new raised beds waiting to be put in the ground (and have ground put in them).  With lots of mature trees, I don't have many places in the yard that get enough sun for veggies, so I am squeezing these little babies in a small sunny spot.  I like the raised beds especially beside the patio, because it will be easier to prevent kids (and dog) from stepping on the veggies.  Raised beds also have some other advantages:

• the soil warms up faster in the spring
• you can plop them down on top of poor soil and fill them with good stuff for growing
• the soil doesn't get walked on so never gets compacted
• the higher they are, the less you have to reach down to plant/weed/harvest

I am placing mine in a diamond pattern because I think they look more interesting.  Flowers will go in the triangle between them to make my veggies "prettier".  Can you say "potager"? 

They're made of 1x6's and 2x4's, of untreated cedar.

veggies to sow in mid-April

inside:

• cucumber
• lettuce

outside:

• peas
• rutabaga
• turnip