Archive for the 'Gardening' Category
My Flora Friday pick this week is the Hellebore.
Not only are they blooming everywhere right now in so many different sizes, shapes and striking colours, but also Phoenix Perennials, my favourite nursery, opens today with their annual Hellebore Hurrah! Starting today and running all weekend, The Hellebore Hurrah is “Celebrating early spring and all things Hellebore” with a wide selection of hellebores on sale, a free workshop both Friday and Saturday at noon: “Hellebores in the Garden: Secrets of Success with the Lenten Rose” presented by Shelley Brignall, and a first glimpse of all the great stuff they have at Phoenix Perennials for 2010. I can’t wait!
March 05 2010 | Flowers and Gardening and Vancouver | 3 Comments »
It’s been a year now that I have taken on the new adventure of growing purple cauliflower. I started the seeds indoors in March 2009 and tenderly cared for them until they could be hardened off. I grew a bunch, maybe twelve, so I put two in my back garden beds, took six more to the community garden and gave the final ones away. The ones in my back garden grew and grew and grew into monstrous proportions and finally started to rot and stink over winter so I composted them. That was hard to do after ten months of anticipation for a purple crown of deliciousness but the backyard patio area smelling like rotten cabbage was a strong motivator.
The ones at the community garden were basically in shade because my plot—unbeknownst to me when we took the plot in the late winter of 2009—was totally shaded by a huge tree until 2PM every day. Not the best spot for growing veg. Nonetheless, four of those plants seemed to be staying healthy albeit quite small so I potted them up and brought them home and forgot about them. One day I had a bare spot in the front garden so I put four of them in the ground and a year later to my great surprise I have purple cauliflower!
Each plant is looking a little different today. Two have golf-ball sized crowns, one has melon sized crown and one, in this photo, has started to set a bunch of florets instead of a crown.
Cauliflower Gardeners out there: what should I now do with my purple cauliflower? I couldn’t imagine after the treacherous life these plants have had that they would provide me with something edible, but they have, and now I wonder if I should harvest them or let them grow larger. Could it be that each one could become it’s own crown?
This certainly is no ordinary tale of planting a growing cauliflower, and I would not recommend it, but this sort of chaos is to be expected as I try new things and stray from the traditional ways of doing things (like gardening in rows – for shame!) I’m sorry to those experienced gardeners with dedicated vegetable plots that are carefully organized and planned that I am making cringe with my tale but for me any experiment that ends with a tasty meal is a success. And I’m hoping for a tasty meal soon.
March 04 2010 | Community Garden and Gardening and Growing Food and Harvest | 4 Comments »
I think Bergenia is a great border or edging plant on the West Coast because this fast growing perennial’s elephant ear-shaped leaves often turn a dark burgundy colour over winter and send out these lovely pink blooms in the late winter / early spring. Bergenia is quick to fill in a forgotten corner of the garden or adds low maintenance beauty under trees. I use it as edging for my flower beds, under my dogwood, and to reduce soil erosion on a stepped bank near the neighbours.
February 19 2010 | Gardening and Photography | 2 Comments »
I think I’ll have a great crop of radishes in a few weeks with this warm sunny weather we have been having and my wonderful umbrella greenhouses. I planted these just a few weeks ago and I already have to thin my seedlings.
The lettuce and peas I’m growing under the other greenhouses are also doing really well. I can’t wait for spring salad season!
February 18 2010 | Gardening and Growing Food | 1 Comment »
My blooming flowers out front are wide open to the sun today making it BEE CITY out there! I’m so excited to have lots of little workers all over the garden buzzing away and being so industrious. This is a good sign.
February 09 2010 | Gardening | 3 Comments »
Outdoors I’ve sown lettuce, radishes and peas in wine barrels. These great clear umbrellas make great pop up greenhouses!
February 07 2010 | Gardening | 6 Comments »
I’m pretty freaking excited that it’s so warm here and everything is growing (sorry to those who are still under snow or that terrible Cali rain). I feel all the excitement of a new gardening year ahead. But when asked about my favourite season, I wasn’t sure I could choose.
Perhaps early spring is my favourite. The excitement of season’s change, the new growth, the possibilities. Each seed carries enough energy in it to burst into a new plant and it feels like that energy is rumbling beneath the earth ready to explode into eggplants and coneflowers and sage.
Then again in late spring it’s a joy to have so much lettuce that I’m forced to eat a 10:30 salad daily, and drop off bags of spring greens on the doorsteps of neighbours.
In early summer it’s wonderful to get my big seedlings out to their forever homes in the garden beds while the lush green foliage of perennials are filling up every corner of the garden.
And then in mid summer there’s the wonderful days spent resting in the hammock chair under my deck while the bees and plants do all the hard work to fruit and flower.
In late summer there are the new recipes I’m forced to create to use the masses of veggies that are ripe to be picked.
In fall there is the sound of canning lids popping in a chorus that sings about the freshness captured in each jar to be enjoyed in the colder months.
And in winter rest in the garden gives way to bustling emotions around family and change.
I can’t choose. I love them all. So what is your favourite season? I’d love to know.
January 28 2010 | Garden Therapy and Gardening | 8 Comments »
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