No Longer Green

In my last post, I gloated over the fact that we did not get Calgary's snow. In retrospect, I may have been tempting fate a little. It's already May and today we had blowing snow all day. It makes me feel like banging my head against my greenhouse wall, but since that thin glass is the only thing protecting my baby plants, I think I'll refrain.

This photo is a picture of my yard on May 15th last year. I had planted my corn, and was protecting it with a row cover. It doesn't quite seem right to have a late season snow just as I am getting ready to plan. What if I keep tracking and find out that I always get snow in May when I want to plant. 

I have had cold hardy stuff in the greenhouse for a couple of weeks, but everything else is still in the grow table or the window boxes. Tonight is the first night we are heating the greenhouse. Last year we were heating by the first of May and had a much wider variety of plants out (see photo right). However, we spent too much heating the greenhouse and we are trying to avoid that this year.

Finally green

Last week I was at Teela's helping out with the birth of her new baby girl, Viola. While we were waiting (Viola was a few days late), Teela's son Merlin and I did some potting in Teela's screened porch. I also got to see azaleas in bloom and Merlin and I walked through a beautiful botanical garden. All this green and the plus 25 degree weather had me hankering to garden.

It snowed in Saskatoon while I was gone, but it was only raining when I cam home, and the grass had finally greened up. A number of trees are budding and my perennials had grown while I was gone.

It continued to rain most of the week, but we handily avoided the blizzard that struck Calgary.


 By yesterday, I was gardening even if it was raining and windy. I have good rain pants and a sold rain jacket, so I headed out into the yard and weeded my flower beds.

While I was there, I discovered so many exciting spring things. My asparagus is up and we'll get to eat it soon. The spinach and chard I planted in one of the square foot beds have also sprouted and I ate some of the spinach in the greenhouse. there is so much of it that I am putting it on the menu this week. My chives are starting to bud and I ate one.

All this weeding encouraged me to do some potting and seeding today. I seeded all the gourds and squashes (about 5 days later than I would have liked, but oh well). I also re potted cucumbers, artichokes and tomatoes. Some of my peppers are even flowering, so Mike fertilized the flowers by hand. Even though it was a high of nine and it rained of and on, I felt great.

Mike put some covers on a few of my beds so what I can get them really growing quickly, and I planted the astible and some lilies. I still have a few in the greenhouse and they are getting ready to flower, so I am hoping for some sun!

• Check out all the pics of the yard at the start of May

First Food

Thanks to Mike taking the girls out to Osler to see his family, I had a relaxing day spent almost entirely in the yard. I worked with two of my former students to prep for debate Nationals from 9:30-10:30, but other than that, I was out from 9 until 2. It was lovely weather and I spent it in a lovely way.

Thanks to that mighty wind storm, my first job was re-raking the yard. While doing that, I uncovered all sorts of baby plants just getting ready to be born. Since two of my sisters are due to have babies this week, it felt like a year of birthing (I feel free to say this because when I used to talk about dealing with Leora as a baby, Teela would always compare Leora to her dog Jessie).

My mother used to go around her yard poking into the partially frozen ground to see what was ready to come up. Since I spent many a good James evening teasing her about this, I am a little nervous to admit my raking time was a least half occupied by poking the ground. Since it was not frozen, my behaviour in no way resembles my mother's.

I found a number of things already up, but I was most excited about the Cranesbill Geranium (great smell) and the tulips I planted last year. The very tips of the hyacinths I got from my mom are up in the full sun bed, but no daffodils yet.

I also did some re-potting and pruning, and then I decided it was time to harvest our first food of the season - parsnips. Our neighbour, pat, told me to just "leave them in the ground in the fall and dig them up when the ground thaws in the spring." They were her husband's favorite when he was still alive, and she's been planting them "forever", so I trusted her advice. She said not to eat any that get mushy.

I dug up a small patch of ours, and two of the ten were mushy, but I am using the others in roasted veggies and am exciting to be eating our first meal with some fresh garden in it. Last year that was the asparagus, which is not yet perking this year. I also have chives, and will be harvesting cilantro and spinach in small clusters from the greenhouse soon. Check out the pictures of all the green things, especially my upside down tomatoes.

I also spent a nice couple hours reading in the hammock, which made it a great day in the yard. On Tuesday I am headed to Teela's to help with her new baby, and she tells me it is air conditioner weather there.