We have a few really cool flowers in our garden. One of them is a purple spiky flower. It grows on a long thin stem and the flower part looks like a bloomed out dandylion, but instead of seeds, the head is made up of bright purple flowers. They mostly grow from bulbs. I found out today that these flowers are called Allium 'Purple Sensation'. Last year Alan spread the seeds from the seed pods that resulted from local bees' busy work. This year we have many more Alliums than we did the first year. I read that Alliums grown from seed are a lighter colour than ones grown from bulbs. This could very well be true as some of the Allium have a lighter lilac colour compared to the others. Today I cut some along with some cat weed, and put them in a vase on the coffee table. I love having flowers in and around the house, and we are lucky we have enough flowers to do so! Isabelle luckily does not seem to be at all interested in the cat weed, so at least I dont have to worry about her knocking over the vase.
The Mountain Bluet has started to bloom as well, so I cut some of those along with some of the impatients. The impatiens are starting to produce their little seed pods, and they do not have very much longer to bloom. I'm going to have to cut them all back. Hopefully I'll have time to clean up our little 'secret garden' ally between us and the neighbour house a bit and get a good picture. It is filled with impatients and even though it is very wild, I think it looks beautiful.
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
Photo Session
As promised for a while now, I have some pictures here to show some of the work in progress
The before and after pics of cleaning around and moving of the compost bins.
preperation of our vegetable garden boxes with compost in anticipation of the veggies.
Alan's beautifully installed irrigation system, you can see the soaker hose at the top and the placeable loose hoses in the bottom two containers. You can also so the nice trellis he built for the beans and cucumbers
The irrigation system in action, you can see the lettuce very well on the left, along with some spinach, the rest is still a little tough to see, I will take another picture when the garden is growing in more
this is one of the water barrels which will be used for the rain water irrigation. It is almost finished, and when it is I will also take a picture of this.
And last but not least the future herb garden 'before'. I have yet to take an after picture, because even though it is planted, I still want to make a stone edge to finish it all of, so I am holding off on the after pic for now.
You can see a corner of our patio and a piece of the gravel path that isn't covered in out of control plant growth. I am slowly weeding the path, but it has been terrible weather for the last few days, so I haven't been out much. Perhaps this weekend.
The before and after pics of cleaning around and moving of the compost bins.
preperation of our vegetable garden boxes with compost in anticipation of the veggies.
Alan's beautifully installed irrigation system, you can see the soaker hose at the top and the placeable loose hoses in the bottom two containers. You can also so the nice trellis he built for the beans and cucumbers
The irrigation system in action, you can see the lettuce very well on the left, along with some spinach, the rest is still a little tough to see, I will take another picture when the garden is growing in more
this is one of the water barrels which will be used for the rain water irrigation. It is almost finished, and when it is I will also take a picture of this.
And last but not least the future herb garden 'before'. I have yet to take an after picture, because even though it is planted, I still want to make a stone edge to finish it all of, so I am holding off on the after pic for now.
You can see a corner of our patio and a piece of the gravel path that isn't covered in out of control plant growth. I am slowly weeding the path, but it has been terrible weather for the last few days, so I haven't been out much. Perhaps this weekend.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Veggies here we come!
I went to the market on wednesday and purchased a whole bunch of veggie plants to put in our vegetable garden boxes. It is all just so exciting. It is unbelievable how little money you end up spending compared to the amount of stuff you will be receiving in return. Unreal!
So what did I end up getting and pretty much planting right away you ask? Well, don't let me keep you in suspense.
we have six separate boxes spread over three layers, which will become obvious once I can get pictures inserted here. Box1 contains spinach (last years reseeded itself) as well as curled leaf lettuce and arugula. Box2 contains multiplier onions, garlic and carrots, Box 3 contains green and red peppers, box 4 contains strawberries, as well as jalapeno peppers. Box5 has 3 different kinds of tomatoes and english cucumbers and box 6 has 2 types of beans, peas and broccoli and cauliflower.
Of course 30 minutes after I planted all of this a bunny ran by. Murphies law. said bunny has of yet not discovered the delicious tender lettuce plants, but I am sure that wont be long. Good thing we got lots :D I wish youcould explain to them to wait until the plant is bigger, it is much easier to share at that point. Oh well.
Anyway, it ended up being cheaper to buy flats of 6 plants than just single plants, so I mostly did that so now we have enough to share with Alan's parents.
I am also going to be preparing an herb garden. This year we're going to actually put the herb garden in the garden bed, so this means getting rid of our enemy crawly plant number 1. At least partly so we can put the herbs in and it means reseeding the lawn part that had disappeared thanks to crawly plant #1. However, seen as though I also want to plant thyme next to the veggie garden I am going to be ripping out a whole bunch of crawly plant #2 as well.
Yesterday I planted 8 more carrot seeds next to the soaker hose. We are trying to stagger the carrots so they aren't all ready at the same time. For now we are placing sticks after the last seeds so we know where we stopped. This is until the carrots come up and we can see their leaves. As long as nobody moves the sticks it should work well I think. (thanks Alan :D)
Yesterday I noticed two of poppa's beans poking their heads above ground. Clearly the germination in paper towel works really well and I think we should do that for all future beans and perhaps try it for peas as well.
I am going to find out about the herbs I bought, see what their growing needs are and make sure they get placed in their proper spots. When I have learned more I will post the information.
So what did I end up getting and pretty much planting right away you ask? Well, don't let me keep you in suspense.
we have six separate boxes spread over three layers, which will become obvious once I can get pictures inserted here. Box1 contains spinach (last years reseeded itself) as well as curled leaf lettuce and arugula. Box2 contains multiplier onions, garlic and carrots, Box 3 contains green and red peppers, box 4 contains strawberries, as well as jalapeno peppers. Box5 has 3 different kinds of tomatoes and english cucumbers and box 6 has 2 types of beans, peas and broccoli and cauliflower.
Of course 30 minutes after I planted all of this a bunny ran by. Murphies law. said bunny has of yet not discovered the delicious tender lettuce plants, but I am sure that wont be long. Good thing we got lots :D I wish youcould explain to them to wait until the plant is bigger, it is much easier to share at that point. Oh well.
Anyway, it ended up being cheaper to buy flats of 6 plants than just single plants, so I mostly did that so now we have enough to share with Alan's parents.
I am also going to be preparing an herb garden. This year we're going to actually put the herb garden in the garden bed, so this means getting rid of our enemy crawly plant number 1. At least partly so we can put the herbs in and it means reseeding the lawn part that had disappeared thanks to crawly plant #1. However, seen as though I also want to plant thyme next to the veggie garden I am going to be ripping out a whole bunch of crawly plant #2 as well.
Yesterday I planted 8 more carrot seeds next to the soaker hose. We are trying to stagger the carrots so they aren't all ready at the same time. For now we are placing sticks after the last seeds so we know where we stopped. This is until the carrots come up and we can see their leaves. As long as nobody moves the sticks it should work well I think. (thanks Alan :D)
Yesterday I noticed two of poppa's beans poking their heads above ground. Clearly the germination in paper towel works really well and I think we should do that for all future beans and perhaps try it for peas as well.
I am going to find out about the herbs I bought, see what their growing needs are and make sure they get placed in their proper spots. When I have learned more I will post the information.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
note to self
I think that the shrub in the front yard underneath the maple tree is bridal wreath spirea, and I think there are a couple of baby bushes along the property. I'm not sure if they are bridal wreath or a different kind of spirea, but I am almost positive they are spirea. I might dig them up and plant them next to the front stairs of the deck.
Friday, May 9, 2008
More veggies on the way
I forgot to mention that I started three kentucky wonders in wet paper towels 3 days ago. They had all started germinating today so I put them in the ground along with three peas and a couple more scarlet runners. I also planted 8ish carrots in the top garden box. Carrots take a long time to grow and I figured the chance of frost we get from time to time shouldn't harm the little guys anymore at this point. Next week or in two weeks from now I'll plant another 8 etc. So, veggie season is offically starting off with beans, peas, carrots and last season's self sown spinach. I am curious to see how it will do. It looks good so far. Perfect timing because I am on my last bag of frozen spinach from last season. I like spinach in omelette's. Yum!
I am also starting a list of vegetable plants we want to buy on the market/at the garden centre. Lots and lots of lists lately that is for sure.
I am also starting a list of vegetable plants we want to buy on the market/at the garden centre. Lots and lots of lists lately that is for sure.
learning about our plants: Buxus and Centaurea
I discovered today that the little evergreen shrubs in our front yard is called Boxwood or buxus sempervirens. I've noticed they suffered a lot from the frost this winter, so I think next winter, until they are larger, we should cover them in burlap or something like that to protect them from the cold. Appearantly they are slow growing shrubs, which is to bad because a whole bunch of the small branches broke off, and they were small to begin with. We will see what happens there. They are usually planted in shade or partial shade, ours are in direct sun, so that means they need to be water regularly. They also need (liquid) fertilizer every 2-3 weeks according to several websites, and pruning is best done spring/early summer and no later than august. Overall it sounds like a shrub that requires a lot of attention. I think landscapers put these guys in as a selling feature to spruce up the look of the front yard. we moved three of them from where they originally were to below the window, and I am not sure if we shouldnt do the same with the ones still remaining around the lamppost. I like the way they look there, but snow get's piled high on top of them over the winter and I am not sure if they can survive another winter like we had this year.
One of the books I picked up at the library also provides information about some of the plants currently in our garden. It is a great book called Care Free plants, A guide to growing the 200 hardiest low-mainentance long-living beauties in Canada... Wow, what a mouth full, but it is nice anyway. So I discovered the name of a couple of flowers which we assumed were related but had never seen before until last year. They are perennials called centaurea (aka knapweed). In the back yard we mainly have Mountain Bluet, while the front yard mainly has Cornflowers. They are originally european wildflowers. In order to keep the flowers blooming all summer long, dead-heading or cutting for bouquets is encouraged. This will stimulate production of more flowers. Plants should be dug up and divided every 2 or 3 years in early spring or fall and replanted at approximately the same depth to keep the plants healthy. Mountain bluet can spread through underground roots as well as through seed.
One of the books I picked up at the library also provides information about some of the plants currently in our garden. It is a great book called Care Free plants, A guide to growing the 200 hardiest low-mainentance long-living beauties in Canada... Wow, what a mouth full, but it is nice anyway. So I discovered the name of a couple of flowers which we assumed were related but had never seen before until last year. They are perennials called centaurea (aka knapweed). In the back yard we mainly have Mountain Bluet, while the front yard mainly has Cornflowers. They are originally european wildflowers. In order to keep the flowers blooming all summer long, dead-heading or cutting for bouquets is encouraged. This will stimulate production of more flowers. Plants should be dug up and divided every 2 or 3 years in early spring or fall and replanted at approximately the same depth to keep the plants healthy. Mountain bluet can spread through underground roots as well as through seed.
Thursday, May 8, 2008
stuff
I have had time on my hands now that school has been done for a while, so I have been able to do a few things around the garden.
The first major thing that I have tackled is preparing the vegetable garden for this season, which entailed compost. We have two compost containers, one was not used because we werent sure if we wanted to keep the containers where they were. We decided we do like to have them in the same area, but move them forward from the cedar hedge. This meant I had to get rid of a pile of brush we had collected last year. I just broke the branches etc in small pieces and piled them into garden waste bags. Then I moved the empty bin where we wanted it and then took all the new compost from the used bin and put all the new/not yet digested stuff in there. The nice dirt left in the used bin was mainly used to put in the vegetable garden containers. I put about 3.5, 4 small bucket fulls of compost to each container and alan helped work the dirt into the containers. Once that was all done the now empty container was moved to its new spot and the containers are once again good to go. I noticed big stems of brocolli, big pieces of egg shell, avocado peel and some of the orange peels had a harder time decomposing. I also found tons of peach pits so perhaps we should just toss those in the garbage of the yard waste bags. Note to self, make sure that what ever goes into the compost goes in smaller pieces so it has an easier time being processed. I think it is a good thing we have been putting in our fireplace ashes, it seems to get absorbed in the whole really well.
Alan made an arbor for our beans and one afternoon I helped him put it in it looks great! I put our first two hatched beans from the seedlings we started in the ground and they seem to be surviving well. that is about all though, the rest of our seedlings are pretty much all dead. There are a couple of tiny plants of parsely, a couple of thymes, one gangly green onion and that is about it. Oh well, better luck next year. At this point I am just going to wait to by some plants at the nursery. Next year I'll be better prepared.
Alan has also been working on the irrigation system for our vegetable boxes. It looks amazing and once they are hooked up to the rain barrels it will be perfect. Organic veggies water by nature. Pretty perfect! Pictures to follow hopefully!
I am trying to design a garden for the front and more or less think about what to do with the back. I havent really gotten very far. I want to learn more about the plants we already have also. I picked up a couple of books from the library and I already recognized a few, so that is definitely exciting! Now I get to learn how to take care of what we have. I think Alan and I did a good job last year intuitively, because it seems that the few garden beds we did tend to are doing pretty well this year. We have far more tulips this year than we did last year and they look healthy. Whether they reproduced or the chipmunks planted some more for us I dont know, but I absolutely love all the colours.
Today I rake part of our 'lawn' also known as the dirt patch underneath our tree. We tried to sow grass seed there last year which turned out a complete disaster. Today was time for take two. I put Scott's heat and drought resistant grass seed on that patch as it gets really dry and hot in the summer, and last years seedlings just scorched away. So, hopefully this stuff will do the trick. Hopefully the seeldings will take and be established before the actual summer starts. It is supposed to be nice spring weather for the next few days, seedlings take about a week to start showing, so we will see what happens. Hopefully it will go well. I love a nice green lawn, so hopefully we can work to improve at least our front lawn. That is about it for today. more updates later.
The first major thing that I have tackled is preparing the vegetable garden for this season, which entailed compost. We have two compost containers, one was not used because we werent sure if we wanted to keep the containers where they were. We decided we do like to have them in the same area, but move them forward from the cedar hedge. This meant I had to get rid of a pile of brush we had collected last year. I just broke the branches etc in small pieces and piled them into garden waste bags. Then I moved the empty bin where we wanted it and then took all the new compost from the used bin and put all the new/not yet digested stuff in there. The nice dirt left in the used bin was mainly used to put in the vegetable garden containers. I put about 3.5, 4 small bucket fulls of compost to each container and alan helped work the dirt into the containers. Once that was all done the now empty container was moved to its new spot and the containers are once again good to go. I noticed big stems of brocolli, big pieces of egg shell, avocado peel and some of the orange peels had a harder time decomposing. I also found tons of peach pits so perhaps we should just toss those in the garbage of the yard waste bags. Note to self, make sure that what ever goes into the compost goes in smaller pieces so it has an easier time being processed. I think it is a good thing we have been putting in our fireplace ashes, it seems to get absorbed in the whole really well.
Alan made an arbor for our beans and one afternoon I helped him put it in it looks great! I put our first two hatched beans from the seedlings we started in the ground and they seem to be surviving well. that is about all though, the rest of our seedlings are pretty much all dead. There are a couple of tiny plants of parsely, a couple of thymes, one gangly green onion and that is about it. Oh well, better luck next year. At this point I am just going to wait to by some plants at the nursery. Next year I'll be better prepared.
Alan has also been working on the irrigation system for our vegetable boxes. It looks amazing and once they are hooked up to the rain barrels it will be perfect. Organic veggies water by nature. Pretty perfect! Pictures to follow hopefully!
I am trying to design a garden for the front and more or less think about what to do with the back. I havent really gotten very far. I want to learn more about the plants we already have also. I picked up a couple of books from the library and I already recognized a few, so that is definitely exciting! Now I get to learn how to take care of what we have. I think Alan and I did a good job last year intuitively, because it seems that the few garden beds we did tend to are doing pretty well this year. We have far more tulips this year than we did last year and they look healthy. Whether they reproduced or the chipmunks planted some more for us I dont know, but I absolutely love all the colours.
Today I rake part of our 'lawn' also known as the dirt patch underneath our tree. We tried to sow grass seed there last year which turned out a complete disaster. Today was time for take two. I put Scott's heat and drought resistant grass seed on that patch as it gets really dry and hot in the summer, and last years seedlings just scorched away. So, hopefully this stuff will do the trick. Hopefully the seeldings will take and be established before the actual summer starts. It is supposed to be nice spring weather for the next few days, seedlings take about a week to start showing, so we will see what happens. Hopefully it will go well. I love a nice green lawn, so hopefully we can work to improve at least our front lawn. That is about it for today. more updates later.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Gorgeous spring day
The last few days just have been absolutely gorgeous and I have been wanting to do gardening sooo badly. Unfortunately there are too many other things going on at the moment and no real gardening has occurred as of yet.
Some of our first tulips are blooming and a patch of daffodils is out as well! Very nice, and pictures will hopefully be following shortly.
I did some minor pruning on our hydrangea. I am not entirely sure which kind of hydrangeas it is, but after reading a few websites I am almost certain it is H. arborescens better known as 'Annabelle'. According to the websites I read, you should prune the heads off the stem, it is best to do this in the fall, but spring works also, before it really starts doing a lot of growing. You're supposed to trim it down to wear the life starts in the plant, but if you want the stems to become thicker, stronger and better at supporting the weight of the huge blooms this shrub produces, it is best to leave it about 18"-24" tall at least, so it grows taller and stronger. You can prune it back to the ground if need be though. It is also recommended that stakes or gaze is used to help support the shrub and not all stems break or bend under the weight of the flowers, especially after a rain fall when they are very heavy, which is exactly what happened last year.
This year I will have to make sure to come up with a better support system, and I didnt prune the stems down nearly as far as last year. I only took the heads off until the first buds that looked healthy, so hopefully the shrub will grow bigger and stronger this year.
Some of our first tulips are blooming and a patch of daffodils is out as well! Very nice, and pictures will hopefully be following shortly.
I did some minor pruning on our hydrangea. I am not entirely sure which kind of hydrangeas it is, but after reading a few websites I am almost certain it is H. arborescens better known as 'Annabelle'. According to the websites I read, you should prune the heads off the stem, it is best to do this in the fall, but spring works also, before it really starts doing a lot of growing. You're supposed to trim it down to wear the life starts in the plant, but if you want the stems to become thicker, stronger and better at supporting the weight of the huge blooms this shrub produces, it is best to leave it about 18"-24" tall at least, so it grows taller and stronger. You can prune it back to the ground if need be though. It is also recommended that stakes or gaze is used to help support the shrub and not all stems break or bend under the weight of the flowers, especially after a rain fall when they are very heavy, which is exactly what happened last year.
This year I will have to make sure to come up with a better support system, and I didnt prune the stems down nearly as far as last year. I only took the heads off until the first buds that looked healthy, so hopefully the shrub will grow bigger and stronger this year.
Monday, April 14, 2008
It's about thyme.. or so I thought
I took some pictures of our front yard, as we can see snow drops and our first crocuses! I am *so* excited about it! Some colour in the gloomy grey muck. Yay spring here we come :) They pics will be uploaded later, as at the moment our hard drive is a little bit too load them onto the computer.
There haven't been to many progress reports as there hasnt been a whole lot of progress to report on the seedlings. A few days ago I saw some tiny leaves sprout up from the thyme container. I was soooo excited! The soil of the pots started to look a little bit dry, so I gave them a bit of extra water. Apparently that was a big no no... The thyme did not like the extra water and died off :( How disappointing.
However, some other plants have started to show themselves. Today we have 2 scarlet runner beans about 15cm tall. It was really funny, they just sorted of appeared from one day to the next. There are a couple of green onions showing, and the basil is also showing a few plants. No parsley yet, nor peas or the other beans.
It is no wonder the thyme isnt doing so well yet. It really likes sun as it is originally from southern Europe and the Mediterranean area. It doesnt like a lot of water...... Oopsss
It should be planted in well drained soil, with spread of about 30cm each and they recommend you dont harvest too much of the plant the first year. It can stay in the ground, but you will have to cover it up with organic mulch to protect it from the elements. After that once it has roots it should grow well and be nice and fragrant and look pretty. I am thinking it might look very nice along our gravel path next to our vegetable garden. Our herb patch might not get enough sun for it to do well. After 3 to 4 years the plant will become woody, at which point you should separate the plant, take it apart and replant it as this will promote new growth.
There haven't been to many progress reports as there hasnt been a whole lot of progress to report on the seedlings. A few days ago I saw some tiny leaves sprout up from the thyme container. I was soooo excited! The soil of the pots started to look a little bit dry, so I gave them a bit of extra water. Apparently that was a big no no... The thyme did not like the extra water and died off :( How disappointing.
However, some other plants have started to show themselves. Today we have 2 scarlet runner beans about 15cm tall. It was really funny, they just sorted of appeared from one day to the next. There are a couple of green onions showing, and the basil is also showing a few plants. No parsley yet, nor peas or the other beans.
It is no wonder the thyme isnt doing so well yet. It really likes sun as it is originally from southern Europe and the Mediterranean area. It doesnt like a lot of water...... Oopsss
It should be planted in well drained soil, with spread of about 30cm each and they recommend you dont harvest too much of the plant the first year. It can stay in the ground, but you will have to cover it up with organic mulch to protect it from the elements. After that once it has roots it should grow well and be nice and fragrant and look pretty. I am thinking it might look very nice along our gravel path next to our vegetable garden. Our herb patch might not get enough sun for it to do well. After 3 to 4 years the plant will become woody, at which point you should separate the plant, take it apart and replant it as this will promote new growth.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Sowing seeds
Today I started the first seeds for this season. Yesterday I dug out some of the empty flower pots from the garage and found some potting soil. Today I bought some herb seeds and planted them along with some seeds we still had left over from last year. I planted parsley, thyme, basil and two types of beans, the kentucky wonder , better known as Poppa's beans, scarlet runner and peas and a whole pile of green onions. I bought cinnamon basil by accident. It looks exactly like the basil we bought potted last year but I am not sure if it is the same kind. Lets hope so. Other wise we will have a whole new culinary experience when time comes to eat it.
This year we are planning to stagger our vegetables so they arent all ready at the same time. The next sowing date will be in approximately 3 weeks.
I put the planted seeds up in the guest bedroom in front of the window to make sure that our dearest kitty Isabelle wouldnt start digging up what I just tucked away. I took a picture of the nursery and will keep you updated on the progress of the little guys.
This year we are planning to stagger our vegetables so they arent all ready at the same time. The next sowing date will be in approximately 3 weeks.
I put the planted seeds up in the guest bedroom in front of the window to make sure that our dearest kitty Isabelle wouldnt start digging up what I just tucked away. I took a picture of the nursery and will keep you updated on the progress of the little guys.
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