Cathy bought a new house last September, a roomy one with four bedrooms and a big, landscaped yard. She lives alone, and generously offered Lisa to stay with her to save money. They plan to move to Edmonton eventually, but apartments are expensive, and they are not ready to take that plunge.
Having moved in September, Cathy had no idea what was growing in the garden, so this summer was one of discovery. In anticipation of Lisa and Isaac's arrival, she planted a vegetable garden. Lisa was thrilled. She had been living in a basement apartment in a duplex in Montreal, not far from our house, and over the past few years had planted flowers and some vegetables in pots and in a few small areas in the yard, with permission from the landlord. Her plants were continually ripped out by someone. She had no evidence of whom but suspected one of the upstairs tenants. Whomever it was, she was continually frustrated by her attempts at gardening being undermined. Having her own garden space was a definite bonus to moving back in with mom.
This summer has been very dry out west. Forest fires have been burning all over Alberta and BC. They have had very different weather than we have in Montreal, lots of heat and a lot less rain. Needless to say, our garden experiences have been rather different this summer. They also have a swing in the yard, so Isaac spent more time outside on hot days than he did at home, at least up until we sent his computer to him. I am not sure if that is still the case.
In early July, Lisa started a Facebook conversation with Isaac, Josh and I, then added my mother-in-law Chloe and our friend Olivier, called "Garden Tour." It has turned into a summer long conversation and sharing of pictures of what is happening with Cathy and Lisa's garden, with some of Chloe's garden pics exchanged, and Isaac's pictures of the furniture in the house (Lisa reminded him this was for garden pictures, which ended that detour!)
After writing up a post about my trip to see Alex's garden, I asked Lisa if she would like me to do a feature on her garden. All the pictures are Lisa's and Isaac's, I am merely paraphrasing the content of our interchanges.
There is a lovely pond in the yard. Lisa was suggesting they fill it in and use it as a garden space. I could not understand why they would want to do so, until Isaac explained it seemed to be full of maggots of some kind. Josh, being into insects, wanted to get a picture to his friend Graham the entomologist, so Isaac went in for a closer look and discovered there were three (3!) dead birds in the pond. I am not sure what happened next, but we heard soon after that the birds were gone. I believe the pond remains and has become a more respectable feature of the garden.
As different flowers and plants cropped up, Lisa sent pics to identify what they were. Wild grapes and Virginia creeper on the trellis, a surprise sunflower that hitchhiked in the carrot seeds (or was dropped by a bird in the carrot patch, perhaps). A rather pretty delphinium, which looks a lot like the ones in my garden.
Lisa has a particular fondness for Hens and Chicks, and her patch of them was one of the few plants that survived the vandalism in her Montreal garden. When she left, she asked me to take her hens and chicks, which I have planted in around the stone garden path across my front yard (where they are doing very well). Cathy's neighbours are a couple who Isaac describes as "hippies" and are very nice people. They gave Lisa some Hens and Chicks for the garden, and also loaned Isaac a bicycle which, in the absence of a driver's license or public transportation, is now Isaac's means of getting to and from work.
From what I can see from the pictures, they are growing carrots, peas, radishes, chard, potatoes, dill.
Cathy's dog seems to have become interested in the garden as well.
Lisa has been updating us with her harvests and what they are having for dinner from the garden. They were several weeks ahead of us for tomatoes and carrots (which have finally started here in Montreal.) Their chard has been doing very well. Last summer I grew chard, but my kids did not seem to like it, and so I shared it with Lisa. This summer I did not grow any at home, but have been harvesting some from the Vanier gardens. I think I will grow it again next summer.
At Lisa's request, I have added a photo of her cat Harold (seen on the leash), enjoying time lounging in the garden.
I was curious about the floating bag. Lisa enlightened me that there is a laundry line just out of sight above the photo, and her lunch bag was drying when she took the picture. It was too nice a shot for me to leave out, so there it is complete with the mystery floating bag.
Below is the most stuck up tomato I have ever seen. You just don't see ones like that in the supermarket.
I am also going to take this opportunity to thank Lisa for leaving me with a large bag of old, sprouting potatoes when she and Isaac took off. They have been the most productive potatoes I have ever had in my garden. And tasty too!
Very nice post. Fun to see what they are growing.
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