New maps

I decided to redo my map of the back yard to reflect what I actually planted. I had to rearrange tomatoes because the raspberries spread on one side, and I did not like the design on the other. I removed the carrots from the map because they did not grow. Chloe told me I need to keep the seeds wet a long time, and I think they dried out and died before they had a chance to germinate. I also did not plant onions so have some space for more basil or lettuce later. Please bear with me as I repost changes, I found the original map invaluable when I planted last week, and I know I will not remember where I planted what by next summer so my map will help me with crop rotation. (Click to see larger image). 

Today my pageviews hit 2013, and I had readers in Japan and Columbia and Australia and Turkey. I copied the map because I thought it was pretty cool, even if some are just spammers. 

We are getting a magnolia for the front of the house. I will posts pics when we get it planted, although we won't see the flowers until next year. I am hoping to get a black tulip magnolia.

I did some more weeding today, and my black eyed susans are beginning to be distinguished from the creeping bell flowers. I have been tearing the latter out along with the remaining goutweed and new crop of dandilions with great abandon. Gone are my days of guilt at killing an innocent plant.

I also moved some of my smaller flowers around so they would have more visibility. All this in the rain, which although a bit uncomfortable, made the work easier as the soil was soft and I did not have to water everything afterwards.

Spring fever

My front door

Normally, May is a month in which I have a lot to write about and tend to start blogging regularly. Somehow this month flew by. I got back from Vancouver at the end of April, and instead of putting out last year's compost, weeding, cleaning up and putting down fresh hay, I committed myself to presenting at a conference in Quebec city during the first week of May.
We had a beautiful bit of very summery weather during the first two weeks of May, temperatures hitting 29 degrees Celcius (we average 17 usually). Iulia very enthusiastically planted her tomatoes despite my warning her that we can still get frost up until the third week of May. I was spending my time getting ready to present, and helping kids with huge projects. Then we (finally) renovated our windows and doors. I had hoped that the company we ordered them from would have them ready early in April so we could finish the construction before my garden came up. There were inevitable delays, and instead of taking two days to do the job it took four. I was a bit nervous about workmen stomping on my tulips and daffodils, so Josh built wooden bridges over the garden beds under the windows with wood and concrete blocks. He did a rather good job, there were no major casualties. In the meantime, I was not getting much done outside.

The third week of May it got cold again. We had some hail, a touch of snow and temperatures hovering just above zero at night. I had put all my sprouts outside long before, and had hoped to plant early, but ended up taking them all back inside for a couple of days. Iulia borrowed some mason jars and popped a jar on top of each tomato plant. They survived and seem to be thriving.

Garlic cluster

Forget me nots

Last weekend was the big planting weekend in Montreal. We have a three day weekend, in celebration of Queen Victoria's birthday (we just ignore our current Queen on her birthday), but for gardeners in our city, it is the weekend to plant. The magical frost is over date and it is safe to plant weekend. Actually, that applies to plants from southern zones like tomatoes and peppers, and annuals. I had already put in seeds for lettuce, bok choy, cucumber, basil and coriander directly into the garden (and the bathtub and the big herb pots). The garlic I planted last fall are doing wonderfully. Some local cats had decided to use my garlic patch as a litter box, and had in the process undug a bunch of the cloves after they had sprouted, but I stuck them back in the ground and they seem to be doing okay. It turned out that I missed one garlic at harvest time last year and all of the cloves sprouted in a big bunch. I am leaving them to see what they do. I also had a couple of green onions pop up. They did not do well from seed last year, but a couple of last year's seeds sprouted under the snow. I am trying a bunch again but the sprouts are so spindly I am not planting them in the garden for a while. Maybe I should put a row of seeds out in the fall this year.

I also had a red oak lettuce pop up early in the spring (left). The delphiniums I planted in the fall, according to the package, however have not turned up. I may just give up on delphiniums, they don't seem to want to grow for me.  I decided to put in a lot more annuals this year to carry over between the various stages of perennials. I bought a bunch of pansies because Josh loves them. I put in some sweet william and marigold seeds (nothing showing yet). We started a new flower bed in the back yard and put in a combination of sprouted poppies and seeds of a few varieties.  Iulia gave me some red dragon Geum sprouts, some more poppies (annuals) which I put in a window box together, and some bulbs and roots for some other flowers, which I can't remember what they are called. I bought some chrysanthemums and dahlias and Josh bought some more, as well as gerbera daisies. The freesia bulbs Chloe gave me do not seem to be showing any signs of life, but they are in a sunny spot in a pot so I can hope. She gave me a heliotrope sprout too, but I managed to kill it before I got it outside.


 I was very dissappointed, they are really gorgeous. The geraniums I got from my friend Laure are budding but they do not look like they are going to be blue and white, they look pink (right, below). I guess they were not the "splish and splash"  variety that Laure thought she was giving me. It took two years for it to bloom since I transplanted it, so I am happy with whatever it does.












So last weekend, I raked out my compost and got rid of a lot of weeds that had started to thrive in the vegetable garden. I put in the tomatoes and got at least the first levels up of the cages, but then I ran out of zipties so the next levels have to wait. My careful planned design did not work once I started putting things in the ground, so I will be redoing my garden map in order to make sure I know where things were this year for when I rotate things around next year. I put the peppers all in pots, because they seemed to have done better that way, and I may yet have success bring some inside to winter. I planted one row of  basil directly in the garden, more in the bathtub and the rest in pots. I was careful this year to make sure all of it is accessible. I couldn't find a lot of the basil I planted last year once the tomatoes and the nasturtiums got big. I have no idea how much basil I will have, but I planted around 35 each of tomatoes and hot peppers. I gave some to basil and tomatoes to Julie who plans to grow an upside down suspended garden. I need to see this to understand what it is exactly, but will blog about it sometime later this summer. I am also sending some tomatoes up north with my mom for her country garden.

We decided this year to try carrots. I read on the back of the pack that they like to grow near beans, and onions. I had planned to try onions but have not managed to find sets yet (I did not order them. Another mistake). I originally planned to put the carrots near the onions, but with no onions, I ended up putting them near the beans and the garlic. This week Chloe visited and told me that carrot seeds take a long time to sprout and need to stay wet, even covered with boards, for them to sprout. Oh, didn't know that. I may not have carrots this year after all. I did not plan to have potatoes this year, but I have a whole bag of potatoes that have started to sprout so they are going in instead of onions. I am also sprouting sweet potatoes but those are going in the flower garden for decorative purposes.

We are hoping to get a bunch of composted manure through my in-laws and a lot of hay from our friends Jack and Amy next week. I feel like I am doing everything backwards. The lack of new hay last year meant that I ended up with a lot more weeds last summer and this spring I had a big job to get rid of the weeds especially creeping charley and creeping bell flowers. I am not only getting to know which weeds are really bad news, but I know them by name and have been feeling less guilty about ripping lush green plants out of the garden. I am also starting to remember where I put things so I am ripping out less of the lush green plants that I actually planted in the garden. Where I had put hay two years ago I have now got thick beautiful grass coming up exactly where I don't want it. This apparently happens less if you continue to put thick layers of hay on the areas between plants you want, or if you use straw instead of hay. The downside is that hay decomposes better and fertilizes the garden more than straw. So I am sticking with hay and carefully ripping the growing hay from between the cosmos and the poppies.

One deep purple iris has bloomed  for the first time this year (that was one of Olllie's). My side garden that faces Iulia's house is looking great. The orpine and goose-necked loosestrife , the creeping thyme and columbines are spreading out.

 

I have a lot of little stuff that Iulia gave me coming up, some anemonies but I have no idea what the rest are. Just when I think I know what I have and learn the name of everything, Iulia gives me more stuff I don't know. Some have to be dug up and the bulbs or roots brought in for the winter. I am not very good at that but maybe this year I will give it a go. I think you can do that with dahlias and begonias too.

Once I got all my seeds and sprouts in, I attacked the weeds in the front yard. Having waited until the third week of May to do this, I had a big job, but it has been raining a lot so the earth is soft. I have a hard time teasing out the creeping bellflowers from the black eyed susans because they look very similar, and the spot where my back eyed susans are trying to grow are infested with bellflowers. The weather has been ranging from hot and sunny to very cool and wet, so everything is growing like mad, especially the dandelions and mushrooms.They are huge this year.

the view from my kitchen

Orianne, my 11 year old, has been trying to master blowing all the seeds off in one breath. This has taken her a lot of practice to get right and to keep up her skill, so I am holding her responsible for a good number of the dandelion infested lawns in the neighbourhood. I finally had the time to mow the front lawn today despite it being wet, weed infested and with some of the grass (hay, actually) being over a foot tall. It was a tall order for my manual mower, but it looks a bit more decent out there. I was getting a bit embarrassed.


My beebalm is spreading nicely.