Bedding plants and potatoes

The first round of seeds survive their transplant and the tomatoes are happily sunning themselves in the window sills.

This week, we transferred the second set of seeds from the tiny greenhouse Jess has to their interim homes. The butternut squash came on hard!

The basil also looks good. This will fill in nicely in the raised beds in the back.

We then planted a bunch of melons, pumpkin, and cucumber seeds as a third round of starts. Once these are germinated, we'll then start some corn. We did put a few seeds in. Jess did the onions while I put in some spinach.

Meanwhile, the potatoes were all "TAKE ME TO THE SUN!" so we dug up one of the front beds and dropped them in. These are most blue caribe and a few sangre that I saved from last year. All told, we have about 60 potatoes in the ground.

I also got ambitious out front and moved some raspberry suckers that were invading a bed and then cut down two thorny gooseberry bushes, burning the clippings. After several years of trying to like them, I found I just don't care for gooseberries and the thorns are a huge pain to garden around.

I have one more weekend of Jessica's labour before she's off to the mountains to work for the summer so I'll need to figure out what I can use her for. Maybe some work under the deck? Or possibly doing some late trimming of the top of the apple tree.

Arch for vining plants and some pea trellis

The yard is starting to wake up. Early plants, like these chives, are already up and growing. The rest of the yard, though, is still pretty out of it, which means there is some time to finish some big projects.

Last year, we finally had some success with melons, grown along the south side of the garage. We built the two beds on the right (below) last fall to extend this hot zone in the yard a bit. Our plan this spring, was to built an arched trellis between the beds that vining plants could climb. In theory, the fruit (squash, melons) would hang down below the arch into the walkway area.

I bought some steel electrical conduit and fencing and roused Jessica Saturday morning. We needed to get his done before she took off for a summer in Banff. After a bit of an explainer, she put up most of the posts. We then tackled the trickier task of cutting the fencing and installing it over top. 

Skipping past the swearing and grunting stage, the end result was this:

It is a bit hard to see the arch but this picture gives you a better sense of it. We're calling this the gitmo garden, cause we'll be able to gitmo plants in these beds. And also because it looks like a prison. I'll post pictures this summer with it coverd in vines.

With that done, I recruited Jenn to help me string up some plastic pea and bean trellis on Sunday (it was almost +20C!). I decided to do the whole inside of the south fence this year (>100 feet) and had to buy second bit of 50-foot trellis (you can see it unfurled below, sort of). We managed to get it installed without anyone getting too tangled or shirty. 

I've been slowly cleaning up the rest of the garden beds while the soil is still moist and soft and that's the plan for this week. I also got the rain barrels up and seated. If I get time this week, I'll go in search of some onion sets and pea seeds.

Spring arrives!

As it often does, spring came hard this weekend. On Good Friday, there was 12 inches of snow in the yard and I had to shovel my way to the fire pit to burn off some clippings from last year.

By Sunday, it was +18, the snow was almost gone, and we were eating on the back deck in shorts. This meant we could start on a few garden projects. First up was a trip to the equine centre to get some compost for the bed we'll be planting corn in this spring. Note for next year: white pants are not ideal for shovelling compost.

We're still likely eight weeks away from planting corn, so we just dumped the two loads of compost on the bed and spread it out. I'll spent some time turning it in a bit as the ground thaws more.

Jess started tomato seedlings in her room about three or four weeks ago and they were ready tp transplant into containers so we did that one evening. This year, she's labelled the tomatoes, which will making gardening a bit less of a mystery. A few stupice and blush tomatoes, then a bunch of larger red and black tomatoes. She plans to start basil next. She'll be off to work in Banff again this summer so I'll be responsible for getting these into the ground.

I spent a lot of time cleaning up matted leaves and generally tidying the yard. I also fiddled with the water bucket arrangements (going to try a chain drip this year) but need the ground to thaw some more to level the wooden bases. Only a few early tulips have appeared.

The raspberries on the south fence line should produce this year (finally!). I'm going to top seed with clover to try and cover some of the bald patches.

The eastern side of the fence (facing the alley) had thawed enough that I put up a pea trellis. Eventually I'll plant scarlet runners here.

Until then, we can enjoy some early peas (ate the fancy new gardening knife stuck in the ground). I also went out and bought some more supplies for more elaborate trellising for melons and squash in the back yard but the ground needs to dry out a bit before I start to assemble that.

I'm committed to more frequent posting this year, with goal of 20. We'll see. The new neighbours are also talking about doing a garden in their yard so I'm keen to see what they do.