It's garden time!!

Now it is May 5. We got a late start this spring on everything because we had Zara's bat mitzvah a week after Passover, which delayed everything. We are still awaiting the arrival of our last batch of spring seeds, San Marzano tomatoes which Josh ordered on-line last minute because nobody in town seemed to be carrying the seeds. My basement is once again full of little green sprouts, most for us and a few for our friend Lisa who will grow chinese eggplants and tomatoes and hot peppers on her balcony. I seemed to have won the sunflower battle, Josh said I could plant the three or four varieties which I am sprouting. They will be in the one sunny corner in the front of the house, and a free standing line right in the grass in the back. I have some Kong sunflowers sprouting, and those get really big. We also sprouted several varieties of hot peppers, green onions, three types of basil (including bush basil this year), chocolate tomatoes, pansies, nasturtiums and some seeds which I have no idea what they are. No one could figure out what they are. I am hoping for something interesting. At Chloe's recommendation, we are not sprouting cucumbers, lettuce and melons inside, I will be seeding them directly. We also decided over dinner tonight to skip squashes this year, and swap pesto for my in-law's squashes. We have not finished eating theirs from last year, and the one we opened to cook for dinner last night was bursting with sprouts. I couldn't find our popsicle sticks, so Josh wrote labels on paper which we impaled on brochette skewers broken in half. It looked like a good idea, but the water in the jiffy pods traveled up the wood and blurred the ink on the papers to complete obscurity. Good thing I recognized most of the sprouting plants, but we may have some pansies in the basil and vice versa. I was inspired by Gu and Jas's clever re-use of milk cartons and yogurt containers as planters. Square orange juice containers stack together nicely. I am not sure if there is a reason that pots are usually round, but I figure they are being replanted in a couple of weeks anyways. We also are using plastic beer cups now that everything was bursting through the jiffy pots. I think I may seed directly in beer cups next year to reduce all the time and mess it takes to keep transplanting. I ran out of space for all the pots so I transplanted the green onions directly into the garden, as well as the four surviving columbines (my garden columbines are big and one has a bud) and some basil directly into the bathtub, which is a bit protected from frost problems. For the record, we planted seeds in mid-April. Last year I think we planted too early and needed to transplant the seeds twice. This year it was a week or two later. The garden is a full two weeks behind the rest of Montreal. I am convinced I live in a microclimate that covers my front lawn. Iulia and I planted daffodil and tulip bulbs from the same bags, randomly split, and hers bloomed two weeks before mine. I have made my peace with this. So May 5th, a few of my daffodils bloomed and are now turning brown at the edges. The rest of them, and the crocuses, grew but did not bloom. The tulips are up and just opening. I planted some right in my lilies. Someone up the street did this and it was really lovely, the tulips bloomed while the lily leaves were very low, and then the lilies grew next. My lilies are faster growing, and the tulips in there are a bit lost. I may move them once they finish blooming. The orpine are spreading. The columbines, geranium, irises and peonies are growing. I have almost killed a few small pinks while weeding today, I hope they will survive. The bleeding hearts,

lambeum, lungwort and periwinkle are blooming beautifully, as is a bush which I believe is a bridal wreath spirea which I discovered last night smells sweet and similar to honeysuckle. I think that the past two years I trimmed it back at the wrong time and inhibited its blooming. I did not think much of it, but now that I know what it can do, I will treat it with more kindness in the future. The roses are back and starting to grow, as well as the clematis. I tossed down my cosmo and morning glory seeds which I collected all over the neighbourhood last fall, hoping we will have a riot of colour. I also planted some of Miriam's blue morning glories in a pot which I am putting in the back yard, far from my neighbours. Miriam says they are more domesticated and don't reseed and spread. Josh picked up two canes of yellow raspberries which I planted a couple of weeks back, but forgot to water. They look like dead sticks and I feel guilty. He also bought some asparagus roots. I looked up on the internet how to plant them and it said they should be planted in February (in the snow???) and had very complicated directions. They seem to need a lot of water too. Josh plans to call his mom for help. I feel too intimidated to take them on right now. We had a planning session tonight. We are doing things differently this year. No broccoli, rapini or squash which took up a lot of room. More basil. The garlic is doing great (I have to be careful not to step on them as I go in and out of the garden.

We hope to set up a frame to grow cucumbers and grow lettuce underneath in its shade. Josh plans to convert Evan and Lisa's old gazebo frame for this purpose. I told him it needs to be picked up and modified asap, I want to plant the lettuce now. We plan to try melons, I collected all kinds of seeds last year. We are also planning to intersperse single rows of tomatoes with single rows of bush basil, so the cages will be much narrower. I have no idea how all this will fit back there. I promise lots of photos. I just reread my February blog, and realized that I never followed up on our little rodent issue. I am not sure if we managed to catch them all, or they moved back outside once the snow melted, but the action seems to be gone at night, and none of my sprouts were eaten by mice. I also washed every pot I have used for the sprouts with hydrogen peroxide, as well as all the vegetable and herb seeds to prevent contamination with aphids and bacteria (Claude's suggestion). We haven't done the soil testing yet, Claude has been working long hours on the South Shore and not been in our area for a while. I will keep you up to date.