2012 Garden

After getting my first year of gardening under my belt I'm ready for another year, and getting an early start! Our growing season is short here in Calgary as our last "safe" frost date is the last weekend in May. After next week we can start putting root vegetables in the ground though!

This year we are going to be growing:

• Roma Tomatoes - I picked these because they are great for fresh salsa, but also learned these are a determinant variety, so I will be canning a majority of them. I have 4 good size plants I started about a month ago!
• Cherry Tomatoes
• Jalapeno Peppers
• Green Bell Peppers
• Cucumbers
• Yellow Zucchini Squash
• Spinach
• Carrots - purple and baby variety
• Sugar and Snap Peas
• Spinach
• Basil
• Cilantro
• Rosemary
• Green Onions

Other potentials:

• Potatoes  - we might try growing these in a tower
• Other salad leaves...
• Onions - we tried this last year but did not get any harvest as a hail storm killed them all :( 

We only have two South facing windows in our house - the one in our kitchen is completely taken over by seedlings!

I also received a tomato plant that was started from a cutting in February - it exploded and is huge!

I will post updates throughout the summer to show our garden progress!

Our potential projects (pinterest inspired) include:

• Gutter Salad Garden
• Pallet Garden

 






One Pinterest/ Martha Stewart inspired project I've already started is using aluminum cans as planters. I cleaned and painted them, and sealed it with mod podge, hoping it would prevent rust. However I am starting some Basil seeds in one of the cans and unfortunately already see some rust. To prevent this in the future I'd advise a few things:

• start your seedlings in another container and transport later (to avoid all the moisture a seedling requires that causes the rust...) 
• Use another container that fits inside the can, so the can is just "decorative"
• Use an anti-rust or other sealing agent to prevent rust!

 The blue can on the right shows the rust from all the moisture.....

Garden time

Last year we used our back yard to do a garden share with some nearby friends. It was my first gardening attempt - it's been a learning process! But I thoroughly enjoyed it, and the food of course tasted GREAT so I'm looking forward to doing it again this year! I will blog our progress - we will likely have some pinterest inspired projects for our garden as well!

Here are some before and after photos from when we first we moved in - everything is overgrown...

We grew peas, zucchini, onions, carrots, and tomatoes. Here are many of our seedlings at the beginning:

My tomatoes were attacked pretty hard by aphids, so it was a lot of work. I had a Lemon Boy that unfortunately did not survive... so I was sad not to get any yellow tomatoes. Below is my sad remaining tomato plant. I still got some good tomatoes, but after the aphids were under control, the squirrels started stealing them!

We then had a hail storm which wiped out my zucchini plant and onions. We are still not sure if anything else was attacking the zucchini plant (pictured on the right). We had two, the one pictured on the left stayed healthy, but had such slow fruiting progress we never got a good zucchini from it to enjoy!

The purple carrots were my favorite though! They are the sweetest and most full of flavor carrot I've ever had! We also grew a baby carrot variety.

Our green onions grow like crazy every year and the peas did great. The flowers from the green onions are great to add to salads and other dishes.

 We also enjoyed some very nice flowers!

Peonies, Lilies, Black-Eyed Susan, Cosmos, Delphinum

 

Going to be hard to wait another month before I can start really planting outside! Last frost date is the end of May here in Calgary.... But we do have some tulips peeking up from the ground, and green onions have already sprouted! Next update, Garden Part 2 !