Thanksgiving Squirrel

I have been waiting to post because I love to have pictures, and the cold storage has so much in it that I really have lots to share. However, Mike has been about to leave, gone, sick and now camera-less, so I need to suck it up, be a big girl and post all on my own. I have so much stored up at this point that I am just bursting.

This weekend we dug the last of our potatoes (making nearly four 20 gallon pails), dug some beets and carrots and picked the last of the kohlrabi and peppers. We also canned 8 liters of tomatoes and processed three of our pumpkins. For Thanksgiving we were in charge of dessert at Liz's. Leo made gingerbread cake with our raspberry sauce, Mike made pumpkin cheesecake, I made carrot cake with our carrots, and Leo cranberry mousse. Anwyn made whip cream for everything. Mike also made homemade pasta so I could use up pumpkin as a filling and we used our last zucchini in apple/zucchini muffins.
 
Late breaking news: spurred on by my blogging and unwilling to see things undocumented by images, Mike has stopped by with his new iPhone to take pics. Here is one - the rest can be seen here.  Some are a bit dark due to lack of good camera. Just makes me appreciate Mike all the more....








Each year I do a post at this time  (view last year's for harvest comparison) with all of the food we have to support us through the winter. We already started eating, but here is what we have at the moment:

Canned

• 6 250 mls of raspberry jam (still 5 from last year)
• 8 500 mls raspberry sauce
• 5 125 mls of cherry syrup
• 9 125 mls of apple sauce, plus 8 500 mls
• 3 500 mls of chutney
• 9 125 mls pizza sauce
• 10 125 mls tomato sauce
• 8 liters pureed tomatoes
• 4 liters cooked pumpkin
• 15 liters of salsa, plus 5 125 mls in smaller containers
• 19 liters of pickles

Fresh

• 7 pumpkins
• 1 butternut
• 4 acorn squash
• 5 spaghetti squash
• 4 20 gallon pails of potatoes
• 1 gallon pail of beets (many more in garden)
• 6 cups carrots in fridge (many more in garden)
•  1 meter by 1 meter of green tomatoes still ripening

Frozen

• 13 cups green beans
• 14 cups zucchini
• 12 cups rhubarb
• 13 cups strawberries
• 9 cups cherries
• 30 cups raspberries
• 13 cups apples
• 4 cups saskatoons (left over from last year)

One exciting new addition is a food dehydrator. We used it to make apple slices and fruit leather, and we spent a lot of time doing spices. Right now Mike is working on basil. We have already dried dill, sage, oregano, and mint. I have transplanted some spices into our kitchen window for the winter, and we'll enjoy those fresh for another 6 weeks at least. However, the dried spices are a big saver over the frozen fresh that we usually do. I'll still freeze mint and have about 8 cups of basil, but am really excited about the dried spices. As usual I have a variety of small spicy peppers

From last year, harvest is pretty similar. There were few local saskatoons this year due to much rain, but cherries will be a good substitute. We have a record tomato harvest that will really keep us going, and we made substantially more pickles. I froze less raspberries and made less jam because we still have leftovers from last year.

We use our fruit for breakfast breads, smoothies, pies and crisps. Most of the other food we eat as side dishes, spices or sauces. As I am happily storing it all, I really feel like a Thanksgiving squirrel, happily storing for the winter while enjoying my bounty.

Full harvest

After a couple of days of rain, I am out picking again as it is full harvest for the next couple of weeks.  We are currently eating most things we plant, as only the lettuce, asparagus and peas are really done.  This week we picked:

• 4 ice cream pails of apples (off year)
• 1 ice cream pail of potatoes
• 2 ice cream pails of beans (yellow and green bush)
• corn
• purple carrots and orange carrots
• beets
• cucumbers (slicers and yellow ball)
• spaghetti squash
• strawberries
• raspberries
• black currents and gooseberries (wild on the river bank)
• tomatoes (early girl, sub arctic maxi, lemon boy and roma)
• pepper (green, chili)
• lots of all herbs
• 3 zucchini
• 3 kohlrabi

We freeze or process things that come in bulk (like apples, cucumbers or raspberries), but try to eat everything else ourselves. The girls are still tired of beans, but love eating all the other fruits and veggies. Mike has been making homemade pizza ever week and I have been making lots of crisps and smoothies.

At the same time, my flowers are starting to wrap it up for the summer, especially in the back where the color palette is cool. None the less, there were enough cool colours for Mom to make a large bouquet with a rose from David and Bree's wedding as the centerpiece. My favorite current bloomer is my clematis (see right) , but I love all the flowers in my yard. Currently blooming:

• bell flower (3 types)
• sunflower (3 types)
• 7 types of lilies
• one flower (2 types)
• clematis
• morning glory
• Himalayan orchids
• yarrow
• sage
• gayfether
• roses (tea and hybrid)
• silver mound
• hydrangea
• potentila
• poppy (2 types)
• sedum
• companulla
• daisy

Take a look at some great pictures Mike took of the yard with my notes about them.

Canning and Freezing

This time of year, we eat as much as we can of the garden produce. However, there are lots of things that we still need to preserve. We are just ending peak raspberry season, when we often pick more than 8 cups of raspberries ever couple of days. As a result, we freeze them, make many things with fresh raspberries and can them.  Last night we made raspberry jam and pickles to add to the raspberry sauce we made the week before. I also froze 8 cups of raspberries.

In the midst of all this we have had guests to hang out with. We had Brad last week and Mom this week, which slows down the yard work but gives you good reason to sit in the yard and enjoy it. I find myself picking in the early morning before others are up, or in between visiting.  This also means squeezing in a chance to use up produce. Today was a classic day for that. Leo made cherry pie this morning, Anwyn made whipping cream and Mike made breakfast loaf.  I made a variety of meal items for everyone including seasonal fruit salad, pasta, and a supper of baby potatoes and fresh vegetables.The pasta had a sauce made from our tomatoes, pepper and herbs. The tomatoes just started last week so we are really loving them. Like carrots, they are much better than what you get in the stores.

Mike and I have also been squeezing in some projects. We finished the bench last week (that's Anwyn driving the support posts with a sledge hammer in the picture to the left), and today we re-hung the fence and made a large entrance for big objects. I had Mike leave some boards off to make room for my crazy plan to grow things on the fence that moves. Yes, I know it is crazy.  More to come on that front.

I find the canning and freezing a bit oppressive at times. There is always more to do, and you can't just take 3 days off. Having said that, I love having it to eat throughout the year. I do all the picking, but Mike usually does the canning and it is nice to have the help. Apples, basil, beans and carrots will all need more of his help soon.

Rich harvest

Living in Zone 2, sometimes it feels like you have barely any time to garden.  My entire frost free period is usually slightly longer than 4 months. I start eating fresh food in the second or third week on June with early spinach (frost hardy), and asparagus and strawberries (early perennials).

By the first week in August, though, I have a rich bounty of fruit, vegetables and herbs. So much so that I pick most days, and we eat fresh produce with most meals. Typically the fruit goes in baking and is eaten fresh on cereal or in yogurt. It is mostly breakfast and desert. My veggies are lunch and supper and I love the variety. My girls claim we rely to heavily on beans in the summer, and Mike asked this week how to cook a kohlrabi, so I suspect they get tired of the same fresh veggies all the time. I never do, though. The yard has such a rich harvest of food, fun and companionship. All summer long, it is my favorite room in the house.

Yesterday, Leora jumped on the trampoline (we traded Liz for the swing set until next summer) and Brad and Mike flew their hovercraft and joined her in archery. We sat out for meals and I read in the hammock. I made pie from fresh raspberries and Mike turned 8 cups of basil into pesto. We ate fresh carrots, zucchini and tomatoes, and used fresh herbs in every meal.

Today I was up early dropping Brad at the airport and I got some special time in the yard. I picked 8 ripe tomatoes (sounds like fresh pizza), 3 peppers, 3 cucumbers, 6 cups beans, 1 cup peas and some apples. Then I cut myself some flowers and enjoyed a cup of tea sitting in my recliner in the early sunshine. By lunch time, the yard was drying my laundry and I was doing some weeding.

One of my favorite things is thinking about what I can eat soon. My corn and beets are almost ready and I think I could steel some potatoes to go with them. My raspberries will probably finish soon, but my strawberries and apples are starting to be ready. I also love trying my new things, like yellow globe cucumbers or new types of peppers. I think all the great time outside is like Gus and Greta at the river, but they don't get all the fresh food the same way. They do, however, have a great waterfall, and are adept at finding harvest without cultivation.

New Patio

Our deck has been slowly rotting out from under us, and last weekend we put in a new patio.  We spent one day in demolition of the old one.

We started by removing the top boards with a crow bar, then we cut through the supports or demolished them with a sledge hammer. It took us two loads to get the whole thing to the dump, and I even drove one of the trips.  The sledge hammer was the best part - I treated Mike to lots of advice about the way to use it best every time he tried to take a turn.

I wanted to replace our high deck with a low deck and stairs, but Mike really wanted a patio.  We compromised on a recycled rubber tile. I wasn't sure about it first, but now that it has been in a week, I really like it.  It has a bit of give and great grip.

Just like a stone patio, you lay a bed of gavel and level it, then add a layer of sand and level it. That took us most of the second day. We rented a tamper (to compress the sand and make it hard), then laid out the tile to see how it would look. To the right is that version before the stairs were in.

On the final day, we put in the proper boarder (I wish we had done that before tamping, as it would have saved a lot of time) and Mike built the stairs down from the patio door to the patio itself. Then we cut and placed all the partial tile. Cutting them was pretty hard at first, but Mike got the knack of it. He needed a really good grip to be able to push the jigsaw through. I think I would have struggled. He also did a number of tiles with an exacto knife.

I did come up with a good system of chalking the back of tile to get the exact line we needed. I got the idea from the chalk lines used for roofing. I chalked the back of the inside edge of the boarder, then snapped the tile against it to mark it.  Mike was pleased, but still pointed out more than once that it would have been much easier to have a plain square patio.  He's right, but this version fits the amorphous shapes of the planting beds, and makes a lovely conversational shape for the table and lounger.

Once we were done the tiles, I added a series of beds the next day to make the patio feel embedded in the yard.  Above is a photograph with the look from above so the layout is clear.

We are still debating putting tiles on the stairs, but the top small deck is painted to match the house. It is salvaged from the old deck.  We are hoping we can salvage the old bench as a boarder on the south side to block the view of the airconditioner and provide more seating.

The last thing we did was buy a few lanterns so I could sit out at night and some solar lanterns to mark the step down. We also set up Mike's outdoor kitchen between the patio and the garage (it is on the right of the night time picture). I love to be out at night reading or listening to Mike play guitar. That's where I am headed now. You can see all the images of the new deck in Mike's photos.

Loving my yard for 100 posts

We've been home a week from Teela's and I have spent every minute I could in my yard.  We've been replacing our deck with a patio (I will do a post on that as soon as I have pictures) and I have been enjoying the full feeling of summer in the yard.

My favorite thing is eating fresh things moments after they are picked and storing food to eat in the winter. Today I picked the last of the saskatoons and froze four cups of cherries - we are sad because all the rain killed all the saskatoons at the U-Pick. I also froze 8 cups of raspberries and made the rest into fruit salad. Today we ate peas, tomatoes and beans from the garden, but we are also eating kohlrabi, cucumbers and all greens and spices this week. Mike just made homemade pesto and cherry sauce. All the picking and fresh food actually fills me up emotionally and physically.

I have 7 types of lilies and 4 types of roses blooming right now, and they are my favorites of this iteration of the yard. My astilbe and white clematis will bloom in the next couple of days, and both look like lace to me. Mike and I have taken to sitting out in the evenings listening to the fountain and looking at all the flowers. Today I bought a couple more lanterns so we can see well at night.

Currently blooming

• 4 types of ground covers
• 7 types of lilies
• Lavender 
• Sewell
• Hosta
• Bee balm
• Comfrey
• 3 types of Bell flower
• 2 types of yarrow
• Himalayan orchid
• Cone flower
• Beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, squashes, peas, eggplant and spices 

This is my 100th post, and today I enjoyed looking back to see how far the yard has come. I mostly keep this blog as a record.  For example, I know I fought with cabbage moths for 4 years but my current cover appears to be working. But more importantly, the blog is a celebration for me. It notes the satisifaction (and occasionally joy - I don't feel things very strongly very often) I get loving my yard.

Riot of Color

I love the first week of July. So many of my favorite things are blooming and the yard keeps shifting colors.  Right now, my back yard is very pink, but in a few days, it will be purple. My front yard is a sea of yellow, but in a few days, it will all be covered by a canopy of orange, which is just getting started. Needless to say, I have been out everyday since school ended, wallowing in my yard.

Colors of my island bed in the center of the backyard. After these are done, this bed becomes purple and white. Lavender, daisies, and lilies are next.

Textures of orange and yellow in the front under the pine tree. Currently 6 types of yellow ground covers are blooming, providing a carpet of yellow under all the plants. The yarrow in the foreground is my only orange right now, but in less than a week, there will by 6 types of orange day lilies and asian lilies.

One of 4 blooming roses - all photo credits to Mike.
I will have roses for the next 2 weeks all over the front. Underneath these roses, my hidden veggies are also adding color. Right now I have yellow tomato flowers and big yellow blooms from a variety of squashes.  Soon I will add white bean flowers.  My coriander is already blooming, as are my herbs.




Today I am headed out into my yard to hill potatoes and do a little watering.  Yesterday Mike reinstalled the windows in greenhouse ($74 to put new glass in 2 of them, and 50 km per hour winds again today.  Maybe a glass house was a bad idea. . . ) and I moved the last of my basil starters into the yard. I keep roaming around admiring various flowers and dreaming.  As I sat on the deck this morning I watched baby birds learning fly (no small task in this wind), dragonflies, and butterflies. All this color, beauty and potential is a great start for summer.

Start of good eating

Ironically, just as we are ready to leave the garden, we are starting to eat from it. Yesterday we had a great tomato from the garden and the best kohlrabi. We are eating strawberries everyday and big salads. We have also been able to make our first fresh pesto of the year, which always makes Mike happy. The first of the Saskatoons are starting to ripen so I am nervous we won't get to pick any this year as I am from Teela's from the 8th to the 15th. Last year I picked on the 15th, so if I pick as soon as I get home, it might be fine.

The thing I am most excited about right now is the current success of my organic gardening. Last year, my kohlrabi were destroyed by pests, but so far my mesh covering has worked really well.  This time it is one sheet buried in the dirt, the holes are much smaller. I am still worried because last year at this time I had hope, and then the cabbage moths descended.

I have most of my greens in the square foot bed that I grow on my driveway.  Because this bed gets so much shade, my greens and green onions are doing well but not bolting.  I think my spinach will soon, but I am enjoying it while I can. Last year worms came down from the tree and ate all my baby plants so I had few greens, but I covered this bed as well in the spring and it really helped. I have staggered the plantings of various salad ingredients, so I should have various greens for most of the summer.

Vertical Gardening

One of the best tools I have as a gardener is vertical gardening.  Although I have a large yard by city standards, I have a small one compared to my ambition for it. I want to grow most of the vegetables my family eats over the summer, lots of things to store and cut flowers for every week all summer. My children seem to feel our yard should house large play spaces and archery ranges, and I "need" to dry all my laundry, eat, and relax in my yard.  Space is at a premium.  Just like Tokyo, I go up.

I use nets to grow tomatoes vertically and pots to grow them upside down. Because of the added heat these plants get on the south wall of the garage, they are larger and blooming earlier than those I grow in cages or on stakes in my main garden.

I also use nets to grow on the south side of the house, where I grow cucumbers and peppers. Cucumbers and other trailing vines are a big space hog in the yard, because they need a 4-5 foot radius for growing. Vertically, I can grow two plants per square foot of soil, and the cucumbers are really easy to pick because they hang down right where you can see them, rather than hiding covered by leaves.

I also use verticals for my beans and peas to climb and use cages for unruly flowers and climbing roses. Of all my living walls, my clematis walls are my favorite. I use them to create walls in my garden and provide privacy for the play areas. View all my verticals, and some great butterfly pictures from the garden in my June photos.


Currently eating:

• all herbs
• all greens
• strawberries
• rhubarb
• pea shoots

Things are about a week behind due to my start this year. Last year by June 20th, I already had baby cucumbers etc. On the upside, the front bed I started last year is already well established and I am loving all my flowers.

Currently blooming:

• zhuchini
• poppies
• daisy
• lavedar
• iris
• peony
• columbine
• bleeding heart
• viola
• chives
• citronella
• comfrey
• tomatoes
• roses
•  crainsbill germanium
• yarrow
• 6 types sedum
• passion plant

Rain News

It is pouring today, which is a good thing from a blogging perspective, if not a gardening one. Lots of little bits on news (but no new pictures due to rain) to share:

• I finished eating asparagus this week, and have allowed the spears to grow to full fronds
• Currently eating 5 types of lettuces and spinach, all spices, green onions and rhubarb
• Mike trimmed our front tree so I am getting much better sun in the front
• We had 60 plus km an hour winds last week, so I think the main drop of dutch elm seeds has passed. Mike helped me rake them out of the beds and lawn, which will mean less weeding later. 
• I wanted to plant my third planting of beans and peas this week, but it looks like I will be waiting till at least next weekend due to rain
• My squashes and peppers are flowering and some of my tomatoes are starting. I have tomatoes on one larger plant I bought
• Tulips are mostly done done blooming, and the yard is moving into a new faze.  The backyard is currently dominated by Cranesbill  Germanium, purple and pink Lilac bushes and purple Iris, and the front by orange Poppy and yellow Iris. My back wall is especially beautiful with purple and pink carpets of flowers like flox.

More news to come when I have more pictures.

Three Great Things

This is one of my favorite times in the garden in spring.  My major planting is done (I use a square foot method that means I will keep adding rotational planting all year long). My garden is full of perennial color, and has moved from my early tulips, elephant ear and grape hyacinths to later tulips, daffodils, flox and narcissus, so I have watched the first color transition. Finally, I am eating what I am growing.

Early eating in my yard is mostly chives and asparagus. Yesterday I had enough of my own garden produce to make a salad with three types of greens, and a basil and chive flatbread for supper. Today I'll use up a bunch or rhubarb and eat some asparagus (which is actual awesome raw out of the garden). This early munching starts a full season of eating as much as I can from what I grow.

Wanting to eat as much as I can of what I grow is actually why I stagger my planting the way I do. Next week I will plant more peas, beans and greens.  Because of the types I use and the staggered planting, I will be eating beans from June to September, but I won't freeze very much.  I was raised in a more traditional planting pattern where the goal was eating and bulk preserving, but this is less work and more flavor. I still freeze a lot of my fruit crops (no way to stagger plantings) and preserve crops that have too long a season for me to grow multiple plantings, but I love the squarefoot planting where I can do it.

The waves of color are my favorite part, and I am out in my yard as much as I can be. It was mostly rainy last week, which is not a bad thing to help seeds germinate, and it also prolonged some of early tulips, which are starting to drop their petals now. I have a wide variety of types of tulips (check out the types online), but only a few of each, as I am too cheap to buy lots and wait for them to reproduce. I love my new ones with feathered edges. 

My back yard pallet is mostly purples, pinks and whites - see the full pictures in the album. In the spring, it is made up of bulbs, snowcrop, flox and other early ground covers.  I pick matching annuals for my boxes and some pansies, inpatients and snapdragons to round out the color.  As the year progresses, my iris bloom, and then my lilies and late bulbs (like gladiolas).





This last tulip (Mike's current fav - he calls it the fire tulip) is from my front yard, where the pallets are warm colors like reds, yellow and oranges. Tulips, daffodils, poppies, crocus and narcissus are my early color.  You can see from last week's pictures that it starts mostly with red and yellow, then this week moves more towards yellow with some orange.

I go out each day and see what is new and what is starting to fade. Later in the season I start grazing on the fruits and vegetables as I wander. This week, as soon as it stops raining, I will go out an pick a new bouquet, some rhubarb and some more asparagus. There is nothing like a hobby that keeps changing while you are gone. There is always something to see or do. The highlight of this week was vase with fern and lily-of-the-valley, which Leo called "the best ever."

Planting and flowers

After complaining last week about nothing blooming, my yard is already full of flowers.  Mike took a few pictures for me early in the week, and we'll lake more this weekend as we plant. This album gives a good sense of the start of the week, though.

In the last couple nights I have been planting a variety of annuals and veggies throughout the front yard.  I co-plant my veggies and fruit there, and love to disguise my vegetables with flowering items. I put in 4 types of tomatoes, 6 types of peppers, a variety of squashes and some onions. Mike seeded spinach for me, and it is already up. We are also eating rhubarb and asparagus (Mike made a great risotto with the asparagus Wednesday).

Currently blooming perennials and vegetables:

• 7 types of tulips
• Crocus 
• Grape hyacinths
• Poppies (yellow)
• Apple tree
• Cherry tree (2)
• Daffodils
• Flox (pink and purple)
• Johnny jump ups (think wild violets)
• Strawberries
• Elephant Ears
• Snowcrop
• Columbine

All this planting and blooming is very heartening. It is supposed to rain tomorrow, but should be dry by Sunday, when the main garden in planted. Luckily Mike got all the tilling done yesterday, so we'll be ready despite the rain.

Finally Out

After my return from Montreal I was feeling pretty down. It rained the entire time until yesterday and my bedding plants were destroyed while I was in Kitchner-Waterloo visiting Greta, Gus and their kids. My whole gardening habit seemed dead, or at least washed up. To the left is my basil as it as starting to die. Looks okay but a little limp right? It was dead in under a week.

On Friday, my thoughtful husband took me to Dutch Growers, where I had a gift certificate from Teela is spend. I actually laughed out loud with pleasure when I saw all the plants. We spent too much money replacing heirloom tomatoes and peppers that dies, and we could not afford to replace Mike's basil habit. All if it reminded me how much money it saves us to start our own things in the grow table and greenhouse. This would be an expensive pastime without them.

Today and yesterday I came home from work and spent a least a 1/2 hour in my yard having a zen moment. I examined all the plants that seem to leaping forward, and found my first flower, a Johnny Jump-Up (technically a weed). Last year at this time my first flower was a strawberry, and I had all types of things up, like asparagus.  Not even a tip so far this year with the unseasonable cold and rain in the last two weeks. If it were like last year, I'd have at least 5 types of flowers by next week.

The little bit of green I have up and the growth in the last few days has been really encouraging. Even if it is not all is great, I can see the hope in my yard now that I am finally out.

Almost spring

I have traveled so much this spring that I feel like it has been back and forth on spring for a month. I was in Washington for daffodil time, and now it is crocus and daffodil time in Waterloo, where I am visiting to help with my new niece, Darwyn.  Put my travel to places that start with 'W' and the weird weather (more 'W') together, and I have already had a month of spring, sort of.

It is snowing in Waterloo today and it got me thinking about the great transplanting I did right before I left. I usually transplant in early April, moving my tomatoes and squashes into the pots they will stay in until I put them in the ground on the May long weekend. I always use that transplanting to tide me over until I can start handling real dirt when the ground becomes workable in about the third week of April.

 Last year on the 10th, my yard was in a fairly similar state to this year - almost ready to burst. I can see buds on things and variety of my perennials are starting to green up. My favorite of my early bloomers is my yellow crocus, which is waiting for the -11C of this week to go away so it can bloom the purple ones under the living room window here in Waterloo. I really want to pull all the leaves off my beds, but it is still getting to cold, and I am worried about die back, which happened with my strawberries last year. It is always a challenge because the ground warms more quickly without the mulch, but the plants die more quickly if it gets too cold. I always want to take the rise because I really want to see the green. It is a tough exercise in delayed gratification.

When I get home next weekend, I need to finish the last of my transplanting. I have to do my peppers, the basil and the last of the squashes.  That will completely fill my planting bench until I can move things outside to the greenhouse near the end of April. I love looking at the thick leaves of the peppers, which grow so slowly that they barely need transplanting even though they have been growing since February. Once I have everything transplanted and out in the greenhouse, I'll know spring is really here and I have moved past the 'Ws'.

Let out

I have a cat, Pippin, who would really like to go outside. She sits by the door, bursts outside on a sunny day if you aren't careful, and will suffer the indignity of a harness just to be be able to go out. This week, I felt a lot like Pip.

I have been contenting myself with my grow table. A weekend ago I planted the rest of my various squashes, which have now mostly come up, and thinned my tomatoes. I am always excited as as the new plants start coming up, because I can just feel the potential of each plant (view grow table album).  But nothing comes anywhere close to when the weather lets me out for the first time.

Last Saturday was a sunny and warm by late March in Saskatchewan standards. Mike was at work, the girls were off helping at Greta and Gus' and I had the sunny day all to myself. I racked the front yard, cleaned some of my leaves off my beds and examined everything.

I found bulbs peeking up, ground covers greening, trees budding - well, just about everything a happy Wendy needs.  I literally bounced about the yard picking up sticks.  The weather was so warm (about 14 degrees C) that I dried 4 loads of laundry on the lines. I also ate lunch outside, read a novel in the sunshine and dug through all my pots.  In short, I was finally let out after a long winter inside.

Squashed

Life has been pretty busy this spring, and like last year at this time, provincials just finished. I feel like I have spent too little time with my seedlings, and as I thinned my tomatoes this evening, they looked like it. They have gotten a bit leggy. Luckily, I have turned them and Mike now has the fan on them.  With the addition of the fertilizer I just brought in, they should be happy soon.

This evening I planted all my squashes. I have yellow and green zucchini, some butternut squash and some buttercup squash. I also put in some early kohlrabi and some delphiniums (flowers not food). Each of the types of seeds is so interesting as you put them in.  A number of the seeds I planted tonight are from last year, so I am not really sure what will germinate.

The last thing I planted are cucumbers, which did really well last year once they got going. I am down to my last jar of pickles and have only a few jars of salsa left, so I did more cucumbers and tomatoes this year than last. The snow is all melted this year already and the weather has been fairly warm, but it is hard to look at those seeds and really know the good food they will be in  matter of months. My spring has been a little squashed by recent stresses, but I am hoping the germination of a few edible squash will inflate my mood.

What will be

It is February break, and I just planted my first bedding plants of the year 4 days ago. My planning process starts in late January when I determine where I will place things in crop rotation in my various beds (read this post for a detailed description of the planning process). We start all our plants in a grow table Mike picked up for us, then transfer them to our green house when it is warm enough. This year it is so warm that the greenhouse is already hitting double digits in the middle of the day sometimes, but it isn't heated and is not warm enough for sprouting.

We have been eating sprouts for a while, and I just planted pea shoots, which are always a treat. The weather has been so nice, I feel less desperate for something fresh to eat, but I am still excited. Pea shoots are great because you can plant and eat them, then cut again and eat them a couple of times until they are too tired to start over.

I have also started the most southern crops we grow, peppers and basil. This year I planted 30 basil plants and 25  peppers. The peppers are mostly bell and mini bell peppers, but I also planted some chili peppers. I will buy a jalapeno bedding plant in the spring to round out our pepper planting.  My timing and plant numbers are similar to last year when we had a good crop of peppers.

The last thing I planted was some spinach and lettuce. Most people don't realize how easy it is to grow your own greens indoor in the winter. Spinach is so hardy that I was cutting my own in my front yard in October last year and will be able to plant it first in the spring in the floor of the greenhouse (built in 2008 by Mike and my dad). We will be eating these greens in March, and they will never be planted in the open garden.

The start of the planting year is always exciting for me. Because I live in a 2B Zone, I have a long, cold winter with a short summer. I really have to make the most of the growing time I have.  Last week we finished the last of our potatoes and we roasted our last pumpkin yesterday. Our last fresh storage vegetable is squash, and once it is gone this week, we'll only be eating frozen, canned and dried things from our 2011 crop. I will spend the next several months planting, dreaming and preparing for my new garden season, then by April, I will be out in the yard again celebrating spring. I spent a happy half an hour on my deck two days ago just anticipating. Mike laughs because I find a small snow-free patch, wrap myself in a blanket and drink hot chocolate just to stay out there.  But like the grow table full of soil, I don't really care about what is.  I can see through that to what will be.