March 12 Gas Station Garden Beds 10/11 and 64

Good to go for another year at the Gas Station Garden ..... this is a temporary garden on a future development site - 3rd year

Perfect day for garden clean up and prep ...... the compost won't arrive until month end, but I had two beds full of over-wintered arugula; read this can be used as green manure - so cut up plants and dug them into the soil ...... also installed some pea sticks in Bed 10, a very old time method for pea support - 

Bed 64 Before

and after

Beds 10/11 Before

and after - note pea support branches at back of Bed 10; I'm waiting to plant my Oregon Giant snow peas until after compost arrives

March 3 "R" Garden Spring Prep

 Here is a before picture of "R" Garden .......

and after clean up - the garden was top dressed with a thin layer of mushroom manure ......

rhubarb is breaking through the soil - it got an extra shovel of manure - they like it rich - nice to see red stalks this year - the variety is Canada Red, but last year the stocks remained mostly green - this is the third year for my rhubarb

I dug under some of my mustard as a green manure, but decided to let some flower to feed the pollinators and beneficials

March 3 Back Container Garden

Just a quick update on the containers out back ......

 

March 1 Finally Time to Start Some Seeds

Well, this is my gardening blog ...... so here we go; had a really hard time rehydrating my Dutch Treat seed starter mix - finally poured hot water into bag and hand mixed - also added about 1/3 Pro-mix organic vegetable and herb mix

First up are onions - shallots and scallions - the rule is use only fresh seed, but I thought I'd give these two a go so see what sprouts (from 2019); after watching Charles Dowding I now like to sow my onion in groups of around 7 and transplant entire plug; these were placed on top of hot water heater with about 80 degrees heat until first sprouts show

Zebrune Shallots:

Red Beard scallion:

also time to start a few early lettuce:  Breen (a really tasty mini romaine), Amish Deer Tongue (an old favourite of mine) and Johnny's Salanova Red Sweet Crisp (very nice flavour last year with no bitterness) - lettuce does not like heat to germinate - so placed in kitchen window

February 24 and 25 Back Garden and More Snow

Another sprinkle of snow and cold - racoon tracks ......

back garden, kale doesn't seem to mind

was hoping for snow cover for my containers ..... will see how they manage and cold

and who can resist fairy gardens - the melting snow makes it perfect!  The doorway to spring .....

 

February 23 Back Container Garden

the sun's out again and my back container garden is beginning to show first signs of spring with crocus and snow drops ....... the mesclun mix sown last fall is looking healthy

February 13

Here we go again ...... perfect opportunity for browsing through seed catalogues and my ever growing seed collection ....... so many tomatoes so little space

February 8 and 9

 First light dusting of snow for the year ........

and then it was gone ......

January 19 "R" Garden

we've had a few mild frosts and both the kale and mustard are looking good ....... the mustard seed was scattered for a cover crop