tardis gardens in 2024

Not really any gardening going on right now, although when we had a warm spell in February I pruned my pear tree. Then it got cold (REALLY cold) and snowed a bunch, and now it's warming up again. I started my peppers under lights, and will start the tomatoes in a week or two.

However, today was the Public Library's Books 2 Buy sale, and I bought 4 (FOUR) gardening books:
NatureScape Alberta : creating and caring for wildlife habitat at home
Garden Magic : Inspired Garden Design
Giverny : the garden of Claude Monet
The New Garden Paradise : great private gardens of the world

The first is practical and local. The other three are straight-up eye candy. The 4th is a honking 3 kilograms. Total cost was $20, and I'm feeling quite pleased with my haul.

Taking a week and a bit away from home during May is not ideal, but we needed to visit my mother.

My tomato and pepper seedlings are looking good, and before we left on vacation I stuck the cucumbers, peanuts, and assorted squash in peat pots. I hope when we get home (tomorrow evening) they'll have sprouted. First thing Monday, I start hardening the seedlings off while planting the stuff that needs to be direct-seeded, both at home and at the community garden. It's a bit late but weather meant I couldn't start them before we left.

We've been home a week and very little of the garden has been planted. I started hardening-off the transplants right away, but then it got too cold to plant. Not below freezing, but too cold for the transplants. On the plus side, we've also had rain, which is lovely. We had a dry winter.

Speaking of the winter, I've some sad losses, probably due to either the extended winter warm spells or the drought. None of my asparagus has come up. I'm giving it a little bit longer, but I'm afraid it's gone. There are almost no blooms on the pear tree so not getting any fruit there. That might be partly due to the heavy pruning I gave it. All the buds on the apricot dried up and fell off.

On the plus side, both my cherry trees, the saskatoons, and the haskaps are loaded with flowers and buzzing with pollinators. The edible mountain ash (Ivan's Beauty) has lots of flowers. The grapevines and the hardy kiwi are coming back. Most of the ornamental perennials are fine.

I planted the corn a few days ago, but I'm afraid it's been too cold and the seeds may rot before they germinate. Well, I have more seed so I can replant if I have to.

The rest of the seeding will have to start today, if it stops raining. We have such a short season - can't waste any of it!

Don’t give up on the asparagus. I transplanted mine last year, and the root mass is amazing. But they took a year off, barely acknowledging spring. Only a few stalks from each of them.

The haskap berries are ripening. The ones in my yard aren't quite ready yet, but I picked a couple of cups at the community garden this evening, and I'll go back tomorrow for more. I should be able to get enough for jam and still leave lots for other garden members.

Haskaps, for those unfamiliar, look like elongated blueberries but the flavour is more tart. I like them with yoghurt and in smoothies, but being so tart they're perfect for jam.

In other garden news, I replaced the asparagus, which was definitely dead. The cherry trees and saskatoons are loaded with fruit, but won't be ripe for a few weeks yet. The veg garden is doing okay, although the chickpeas haven't germinated well, so the odds of getting any significant harvest are low.

I got enough haskaps for a triple batch of jam. It's REALLY good.

Today, I have to go pick up the signs to deliver for the Front Yards In Bloom program (awarded to nice front yards that improve the city) and then I'm going to one of the greenhouses I haven't been to yet this year. I'm hoping to get a few veg starts to fill in some holes in my garden where things didn't germinate. None of the okra came up and I only got ONE chickpea, out of 24 planted, and one variety of corn was very irregular in germination. So disappointing. It's very late in the season for much that's interesting, but we shall see what's available to fill in the holes.

>6 tardis: I got really good corn germination without even trying. I bought a handful of corn on the cob a couple of weeks ago. One ear sat too long in the fridge to look appetizing. It was still uncooked and in the husk, so I tossed it under the maple tree to give the squirrels a treat. They gnawed on it every night (or somebody did), but didn’t carry it away. After last week’s rain, I picked it up to see if it was time to compost it. Every kernel in contact with the ground has sprouted.
Gonna show T today before disposing it.

Last Wednesday, I picked 24 cups of saskatoon berries off the tree in my back yard. Today I got another 6 cups. The 24 cups went in the freezer to deal with later because its MUCH too hot to make any jam, but the ones from today are going to be made into a dessert for a potluck tomorrow. I just haven't decided which dessert, yet. Maybe some muffins, or squares. A number of the people at the potluck need gluten-free, so I'm going to have to factor that into the plan.

I also have to pick black currants, red currants, and a gooseberry. Yes, one gooseberry. Not one plant, one berry. Sigh. Last year I had THREE berries on that plant. I'm going to have to threaten to remove it.

>8 tardis: LOL I hear the disgust in that sigh. Does threatening work on plants?

I was just reading Luke 13:5ff I assume what counts for fig trees would also count for gooseberry bushes. I don't grow them myself, but buy them from a local grower. Actually I'm eating a gooseberry sauce right now with yoghurt and almond crackers. It would be a shame to miss out on that. But if you give them some more compost and normal TLC, and they still don't carry, you need something else there.

>9 lesmel: it has worked for me. Last year the irises didn’t flower much. I informed them they had to perform or get pulled. This year, they were spectacular. Another example - I brought purple loosestrife into my WV garden and it threw babies everywhere. Again, I had to threaten removal. It hasn’t tried to spread since.

>9 lesmel: Threatening worked on my pear tree. 12 years of nothing, and then I threatened it and it started producing the next year :)

>10 MarthaJeanne: I had to look up your reference, and it does seem apt :) Your gooseberry sauce sounds delish.

This gooseberry is in its second location after years of non-production in the first. To be fair, the first location was probably too shady. It's possible the weird winter we just had affected fruit production (I've no fruit on either pear or apricot, either) so I won't take it out yet. Although, annoyingly, the red currant I added last year has fruit this year, so I don't know what the gooseberry's excuse is. Anyway, I tried praise on the gooseberry last year because I was so thrilled to see the two little berries it produced then. Doesn't seem to have taken, so threats it is!

>11 2wonderY: Gosh, I miss purple loosestrife. It's on the noxious weed list here so I had to rip mine out, but it was so pretty and bloomed for such a long time.

The sauce includes elderflower syrup. A combination made in heaven. But do NOT plant an elder bush. The berries stain horribly, including the bird poop. And the bushes are very difficult to kill once they are established.

The temperature has moderated a bit. It dropped 20 degrees last week, from mid 30s to mid-teens (C) for a couple of days, and then popped back up to mid-to-high 20s. I took advantage of the cooler days to process some of the cherries and saskatoon berries I picked, including clearing out some older stuff from the freezer,

My next job is picking the black currants, which really can't wait any longer, but I've had a brainwave about moving some perennials around out front, so I'm going to rush through the berrypicking to get on to that.

Well, it's been a bit since my last update. I did all the perennial moving I was thinking of and then some. Also all the berry picking. The blackberries went into the freezer.

The veg garden is winding down. Peas are done. Tomatoes are late but finally starting to ripen. I have a surfeit of cucumbers. I had to pull all the remaining carrots at my community garden as someone was stealing them.

Today I hauled all the sour cherries out of the freezer and made chocolate-cherry jam. It's a bit runny, but that's okay. It's KILLER on ice cream. I still have a large number of cherries to process, though. A tomorrow job...

I dealt with all the remaining cherries (a large batch of jam and two jugs of juice). Nice to have that out of the way.

Today (Sunday) I'm going to dig up a corner bed (front yard) and rearrange it. There's a saskatoon seedling that I want to move to the back yard, some white martagon lilies that I want to rehome, and I'm not sure what else. I'll put the hostas and primulas back, but not sure about the bergenia or the lamium. Mind you, even if I don't put the lamium back, it will probably return at some point. That stuff is always popping up in odd places.

Today was the Horticultural Society's perennial exchange, so I took some plants that I needed to re-home. I was hoping not to come home with anything else, but ended up with a pulmonaria, a Canada violet, and a native aster that I've already forgotten the name of. Also about 25 pots of basil, because you can't have too much basil!

The three perennials went into the front garden to replace the little juniper that I took to the exchange (it wasn't doing well in that spot and I didn't have another place for it), and the basil will mostly become pesto.

I got a large quantity of plums from a friend's tree, and will be making jam and plum cake and stuff like that.

We're having a nice autumn. The trees have barely started turning colour and we haven't had a frost yet. The forecast is looking good for the next week, too.

Still no frost! The garden is definitely winding down, though. Leaves are turning and starting to fall and some of the perennials are yellowing. I spent yesterday afternoon outside doing some winter prep.

I planted some flower bulbs in the boulevard in front of the house. I've been putting spring-flowering bulbs in there for years, trying to get them to naturalize, with mixed results. So far the best have been the species tulips, so I planted two more colours of those, plus some mini-daffodils.

I also cleared out the brassicas and planted garlic up the middle of that bed. The bed edges still have leeks, which I'll harvest after the frost. Best leek crop in years. In the spring I'll put carrots on either side of the garlic.

It's windy today, so not sure how much time I'll feel like spending outdoors, but I need to get out for a bit. Even if I only get a couple of things done, it all helps. Also, the cats will want some outdoor time. I'm just waiting for the temperature to go over 10C.

We've had our first frost. I am away for a week starting Tuesday, so I'm going to spend as much of the weekend as I can clearing out the garden.

But first, I have to pick up some bird seed and a migraine prescription. The former because I want to put the feeders up, the latter because I won't get anything done if I don't get rid of this headache.

I've been back for a week, but I'm still trying to get the garden put to bed for winter. We're having frost almost every night, now. I need to collect enough leaves to mulch everything. I'll rake the leaves off the lawn to mulch the front yard beds, but for the veg beds I "steal" the bagged leaves that the neighbours have put out for trash collection and put them through the leaf shredder.

The cats and I are enjoying the procession of birds coming to the various feeders. If I put nuts out, we get the big birds like magpies and bluejays, but mostly its the little guys coming for sunflower seeds. Chickadees and nuthatches, mostly. So cute. I haven't put up the suet feeders yet, but will do that today. Then we'll get more woodpeckers.