I love to garden, watching tiny seedlings grow and bloom into beautiful flowers is so special. I also love growing my own vegetables.
In the early morning or evening I love to just go outside and spend time in the garden. I take around my little empty pot and gather spent blooms, and dead head flowers that are done. I water all the plants thoroughly and refill the birdbath. I help the trailing flowers catch on to the trellis and twirl them around the stakes in the garden. This is my special place.
This is a very peaceful and quiet time for me. Sometimes I reflect and sometimes I just enjoy listening to the birds sing their songs back and forth. I am proud of my garden and the stories that it tells.
This year I have been able to find some gently used treasures to add to the garden. Including non-garden items in the garden adds a whimsical touch and a sense of beauty. I have a few items that I have found from antique places that I intend to clean up a bit and plant some low lying ground cover in.
I also know that lighting is really important in the garden. A few years ago we installed metal poles in our garden and then hung solar globe lights in the backyard. I love these lights and they create a beautiful warm glow in the evening. This year I got little fairy sprig lights that are small globes on a spray. They add a delicate sprinkle of light to some of my planters at night.
One of my favourite things to do in the Spring is to visit some of my local garden centres. It is a time in between the seasons when you aren’t quite ready to put flowers outside but it is a great source of inspiration. I find that it gets me thinking of great colour combinations and gives me the opportunity to see those pops of colour that we have all been missing during the winter months.
Visiting a garden centre is also a great activity for a rainy day. Garden centers are not only a great resource for inspiration, but they also sell pots, seeds of all kinds, gardening tools, and lots of garden accessories. If you love plants there are also a great selection of tropicals and house plants that can add a fresh pop of green to your home.
I began researching the idea of square foot gardening a few years ago. The concept is using a small amount of space to yield a large harvest. This is a great option for people living in urban areas. Or even for individuals with a small foot print available for gardening.
A few years ago my son helped me build a 5 by 5 foot raised garden bed in our backyard. We used string to mark out the twenty five, one foot plots. After setting up the area, I was able to plant. From experience, I would recommend scaling down to a 4 foot by 4 foot plot. The 5 by 5 does sometimes present some difficultly in reaching into the very middle. Over the years, I have questioned how many of each plant or seed I could fit into each one foot plot and just kind of winged it.
Often in the spring I like looking for new ideas to use in the garden from companies that sell garden supplies. As I was looking through the pages of the Lee Valley catalogue, I found an innovative tool that I needed to have. This would for sure be able to enhance my square foot gardening. Behold the seeding square. This is a genius tool that helps to maximize your harvest in a limited space.
The seeding square comes with a great template. The guide is colour coded and comes with suggestions for many seed types and their placement. Ultimately this allows the gardener to plant a wide variety of seeds and maximize space within each square foot. This tool eliminates the guess work out of optimum placement for each plant, and lets you know the exact number of each plant to plant in the square from the guide’s instructions.
I am looking forward to seeing if this new gardening tool will increase my yield from the garden and make my square foot garden more productive. Happy gardening!
Gardening is a hobby that I love. It is wonderful to get to be outside and watch things grow. I feel a sense of accomplishment and pride when I garden. I love seeing a tiny seed many months later turn into a beautiful healthy flower with many intricate parts. It really is incredible when you think about it. How a teeny tiny seed, some only millimetres big can grow and develop into a stunning flower or plant.
I’d like to share some of my tried and true tips and tricks to successful seed planting.
First, I have found that using a soil mix specifically for seedlings is a great start. This soil is light and fluffy and the seeds have a greater germination rate. Potting soil or top soil is often more compacted and dense making it difficult for the seeds to poke through.
My second tip, is to use great tools, above in the picture you can see a new tool I purchased. It is the Fiskars Hand Seed Sower. When I bought it, I was excited because it had two ends that I thought would be perfect for planting seeds. It has a skinny trowel for the dirt and a slender spoon like end. It wasn’t until I was looking up a link for this tool that I realized the small yellow end slid out. This tiny tool is called a widger. Apparently it can create holes to plant seedlings that are very small and you can use the widger to gently dig out the new seedling with minimal damage. What a great idea!
It is important to gently water the seedlings once they are planted, but not over water them. A few years ago I purchased a seed sprayer from Lee Valley. It is a fantastic tool and gives the seedlings a little delicate rain shower, by simply squeezing the silicone bulb.
Lastly, it is important to cover your new seeds with a cover. Most seed trays come with a clear lid that can be used for the first few days to encourage germination and a warm environment for your new seed babies.
I hope that you found these tips helpful and hopefully in a few weeks I will have some new seedlings to add to the garden.
Update: Everything is looking good and has sprouted!
Last year we made our new pollinator garden using a variety of West Coast Seeds. The results last summer were stunning. We had great success with all of the seed varieties in the seed packets.
In a previous blog post I wrote about the importance of keeping old growth in place. Keeping old stems and dried flower heads intact over the winter helps overwintering insects. This method offers protection for bees and insects to “winter” over, creating a safe place to stay during the colder months.
The other day I thought I noticed some spots of green among the old growth. Today, I began removing the woody stems, dried flower heads, and crumpled up leaves in the garden. I happily found lots of new growth had already started.
The wonderful thing about perennials is that they come back year after year. I am most looking forward to seeing the poppies bloom. In my childhood home we had poppies, and we could never get them to grow at our past houses (until now). I just love the delicate petals and the way they sway in the breeze.
The first step in Spring is to remove all the debris and old growth from the garden. Then, when the daytime temperatures start to get a little warmer, you till up the soil around the existing plants with a trowel. This loosens the soil and removes the areas where it’s been compacted over the winter. I also add in some fresh compost and a top layer of new soil. This step adds richness and nutrients back into the flowerbed for the growing season ahead.
I am looking forward to seeing what the garden has to hold for us this Summer. Let’s get growing!
After a closer look at these photos, I discovered that I need to give my gardening pruners a spa day!
My Mom and Dad love to listen to CBC Radio as the background of their day. My grandparents did this too, and so does my Aunt. They regularly share interesting little tidbits that they hear from the day’s stories. My Mom likes the gardening segment in particular, and she always shares the advice with me. Though she always wonders why they don’t give more time to the gardening experts; there always seems to be so many people with questions, and never enough time.
A couple of weeks ago she mentioned that one of the CBC gardeners suggested leaving your perennials intact. This apparently allows bees and insects to overwinter in the dried out stalks, as well as providing homes and food for wildlife. It just so happened that the week before, my Mom had helped me cut back some of my perennials in our backyard. If we’d known this then, we might not have cut them back. I then realized that our new bee and butterfly garden, still full of wild flowers, would be the perfect spot to leave untouched for the winter.
Our pollinator garden project has been a huge success this year. Perhaps there are already creatures in these hollow, dried out stalks and the flower heads with their shrivelled up petals, setting up for the winter.
The garden did its job in the summer months by producing beautiful blooms and nectar for the bees. Now, as we prepare for the winter months, it is providing a safe place to rest. So I will leave my dried up stems and stalks for the winter this year, and I will smile because it makes me think of my Mom and how she shares her stories with me. That makes my heart happy and puts a smile on my face.
It is time to be thinking about putting the garden to bed for the winter. As the temperature drops and the weather begins to cool, fall clean up begins.
Today in the vegetable garden, I cut back some plants and harvested my root vegetables. It looks so empty now, but I left the kale in hopes that it will continue to grow as the temperature gets cooler.
The process of putting the garden to bed offers a chance for reflection on the year’s growing season, evaluating successes, failures, and considering new approaches for the next year.
Elsewhere, some plants are slowly dying, but some are still blooming beautifully. The bee and butterfly garden is still thriving. It is safe to say that this new pollinator garden was a huge success! I will start trimming the perennials tomorrow and scatter seeds for next year.
Although this process of harvesting and cleaning up seems like the final phase of the year, gardening is a year-round activity that involves planning in Winter, planting in Spring, enjoying the fruits of your labour in Summer, and preparing (like today) for the next season in Fall.
Good night for now, my sweet garden!
There are a lot of reasons to do companion planting in the garden. In this container I have planted a pear shaped yellow tomato, basil and marigolds. I also have a larger raised bed with a variety of other tomatoes. Including sweet one hundreds, heirloom, black cherry tomatoes, and grape tomatoes. I have added marigolds and lots of basil in this planter as well.
Companion planting allows the plants to reap benefits from each other in the same container or space in your garden. The main reason for doing this is pest control. In this instance the pests that may want to eat your tomato plants don’t like marigolds or basil. This is a simple non toxic way to control garden pests from eating your vegetables.
Basil is also good friends with tomatoes. Last year was the first year I planted them together. It was lovely to smell the aroma of the basil while working in the garden. This also led me to discover one of my favourite lunch time snacks. Start by taking a Rye Crisp (or similar cracker) and spreading hummus on it. Then slice up cherry tomatoes and place them on top. Then add a few fresh basil leaves, a drizzle of balsamic and a sprinkle of fresh sea salt ! Delicious!
Some other easy companion planting combinations are corn, beans, and squash or onion, peppers, and garlic. Radishes, cucumber and oregano are also another choice. As well as, rosemary, carrots and lettuce.
It is indeed worth looking up what pairs well with other plants in the garden. This is important because some pairings are not good with each other and will affect your productivity in the garden. A simple search of companion planting will result in a lot of information, which you can then use to get the most benefit in your garden.
Happy gardening!
Some flowers just speak to you more than others. The dahlia seems to be one of those. It has such intricate petals and is so lovely. There are so many varieties to choose from and sizes of flower. Some are even as big as a dinner plate!
My daughter lives in Montreal, and likes to go to the Atwater Market. It is such a beautiful market that is open year round and has the most amazing breads, produce, flowers, sweets, and more. During the spring the parking lot becomes a green house/garden centre and many growers sell plants, vegetables and hanging baskets. It is a sea of green with pops of vibrant colours everywhere, it is simply stunning.
I unfortunately didn’t get the chance to go this year, but my daughter was able to pick up these two beautiful dahlias for me. I love their rich yellow colour and they were so healthy. They have become a welcome addition to my backyard. I decided to plant some lantana with them as well for an additional pop of colour. I have planted them in pots and will see how they do, I may have to upsize the container if they are doing really well.
Do you have dahlias growing in your garden? Maybe this post will give you inspiration to try them, I guarantee you will love them!
I have always wanted a potting bench for my backyard garden. A place that I could transplant seedlings. The opportunity to store my gardening tools, display flowers and treasures from the garden, and a general outdoor work surface.
This was a weekend project that my husband and I did together.
We used cedar to create this bench. Cedar wood is very nice to work with, and it also holds up well to the outdoor weather.
We used tools that we already had in our garage to make the cuts we needed. The next step was to screw the pieces together to form the potting bench. We made the top deep enough to be able to have a good work surface, which was important to me.
I wanted somewhere to hang things like, twine, gardening scissors, and other gardening tools. We had some left over chicken wire which was the perfect thing to attach to the top portion using a staple gun. We also reused some old Ikea shelves for added storage on the top as well.
I think this is a great addition to my backyard gardening space. I love the way it turned out, it is absolutely perfect!
