Victory Gardens is running a container gardening workshop at  Old Faithful Saturday, May 12th from 9:30 – 11 AM.  Not only will you learn some important basics on container gardening from this stylish collaboration, but also you will leave with your very own wooden crate planted with various greens and herbs and some certified organic Westcoast Seeds (my very favourite seeds!).

To register for this event, please go to http://www.Oldfaithfulshop.com/.  Space is limited.

The festival runs April 1-30 of any given year and a quick look at the bloom map will tell you which of the fields are in full glory.  Bloom times are always subject to Mother Nature’s schedule, but you can usually find a couple fields of tulips in bloom in the middle of the month, but you best be quick because the blooms don’t last more than 2 weeks before they are cut, bulbs removed, and soil turned for another year.

I have many tulips blooming in my garden right now so I planned to write about them as the April Feature Plant for Garden Blogger’s Bloom Day.  But as I took photos I remembered sensory delights from the Tulip Festival not far from here and decided that those are the photos I’ll share.  How could I not?  Wow. Look at those gorgeous flowers.

How to Grow Tulips

• Tulip bulbs are planted in the fall: in early October before the first frost. Never fear, if you missed planting last fall you can buy potted tulips that are blooming.  Enjoy them in the pot and transplant into the garden when the leaves begin to yellow.
• Most tulips grow best in full sun in loose, rich soil with good drainage.  Make sure to plant bulbs where you have room for them to grow (i.e.:  enough height and space between other plantings).
• Plant bulbs in groups of 5 to 9.  Odd-numbered plantings in groups (as opposed to lines) present a more pleasing and natural display.
• Plant bulbs approximately 6” deep, with the pointy end facing up and the roots down.  Mark the area where you have planted, and cover with a layer of mulch such as leaves, peat moss, or pine needles to protect over winter.

To see the tulips head to the Skagit Valley in Washington state, 60 miles north of Seattle and 70 miles south of Vancouver, BC, Canada. Print off this map of as the fields don’t have addresses.  The location changes every year so this map is your best tool.  If you happen to miss the tulip fields in full bloom, you can also check out the tulip demonstration gardens at Tulip Town.

May marks the anniversary of breaking ground on my back patio project.  I use the term “breaking ground” loosely as the year was basically a mud pit in the winter and a dust bowl in the summer.

Over the course of a few months, my husband loaded up thousands of pounds of  the backyard “soil” (another loose term) into a wheelbarrow and replaced it with a patio surrounded by beds and a small grassy area.

In the next 5 years the patio changed many times over. New house colours.  New patio furniture.  New deck.  And last year was the beginning of the potager phase where I packed this wee garden with hundreds of vegetables, herbs, fruit, and flowers.

This year it already looks quite a bit different.  I have replaced one of the tomato planters with a strawberry planter.  I’ve been growing only lettuces in the wine barrel planters as they get too much shade from the trees now.  I’m now growing mushrooms in my zen garden under the deck.  I’m only going to grow what was a success last year (sorry, no purple cauliflower) and I’m going to try to keep the clutter down (damn giant purple cauliflower).

The corner of the patio holds the container herb garden.  While the plants change up yearly deepening on culinary fancy, this photo shows sage, parsley, oregano, garlic chives, Egyptian walking onions, romaine lettuce, wild arugula and a few other treats.

The herbs don’t get lonely however, as we also grow quite a lot of veggies.  Enough to feed us through the summer and put some by for the winter.  The keys to growing edibles in a small space (that you want to use mainly as entertaining space) are to choose decorative varieties, tuck them in among ornamentals, and use interesting containers (like the wine barrel of lettuce shown here).

There are many showy flowers to keep spirits bright…

….and containers, containers, containers.

In the end what the space is now best used for is enjoying a little quiet time in the garden.

To celebrate the Vancouver Cherry Blossom Festival the VCBF is putting on a Cherry Blossom Umbrella Flash Mob Dance complete with pink umbrellas!  Part Bollywood and part Singing’ in the Rain, this upbeat flash mob is sure to be a blast for those who participate!   Sign up at: www.vcbf.ca .

Wreaths of Hope 2010

People living in poverty and addiction are awaiting the opportunity to use their unique talents once again to create your holiday wreaths.  By purchasing one you are giving one of the greatest gifts possible: dignity and hope to someone struggling to improve his or her life.  Just as the wreath was an early Roman and Greek symbol of victory, with every purchase you help someone experience a small victory in his or her life.

Each year the need is even greater than before, as many people face the winter without even their basic needs met. While we are not able to solve the big picture for the poorest people in our city, together we can make a difference in the lives of some.  In this, our tenth year of wreath making, we aim to create many more hours of meaningful employment.

Pricing remains unchanged this year at $45.00 (Small) $60.00 (Med) and $90.00 (Large).

Please call Emerging Hope Projects to order: Ph:604.716.4284

THANK YOU for giving someone a hand up not a hand out this holiday.

It felt great to get out and dig in the soil, and harvesting is always fun.  While I was disappointed to only have a few pounds of potatoes, I did get a bunch more Gladiator parsnips and a ton of various beets that I didn’t expect.  I roasted up this bunch of roots for a family dinner tonight.

Now that the community plot is officially put to bed for the winter I wonder weather I want to keep up the space again next year.  I have enough room to grow a small variety of veggies at home and while I love gardening with the community members, it has lately been feeling more like a chore.  Much of the food at the gardens gets stolen, many say because of the part of town we are in (notorious for homelessness and drugs) but sadly, the folks that I’ve seen steal are (gasp) other gardeners or visitors in suits who drive Hondas and show off their knowledge of growing food by cutting off all my garlic scapes or plucking a pumpkin.  Mostly the thieves are foodies with a sense of entitlement and little concern for community.  So that sucks.

Then there’s the growing conditions.  The soil is poor and disease is rampant.  Without daily weeding the plots are soon overrun with buttercup, horsetail, bindweed and in some cases the dangerous giant hogweed.  This year I just wanted to grow squash.  I ended up planting 10 types of squash and got about 12-15 orange spaghetti squash and downy mildrew killed the rest.  I did also plant strawberries, potatoes, artichokes, tomatoes, beans, celeriac, beets, parsnips, peas, fennel, carrots, garlic, leeks, and kale, so I strayed from my focus and got a little of everything (except the celeriac which was a big failure).  It’s fun to bring home fresh veggies and I haven’t really shopped for any in the grocery for the last 5-6 months.  The number and variety of what is left after theft and disease is just a taste.  Despite a valiant effort–I added manure to the soil, a bacterial / fungal mix that we bought at the farmers market and compost compost compost–the soil still lacked nutrition.  This combined with the fact that disease is so quickly spread in a community garden space that I fought rust, mildew and blight daily.  I certainly appreciate the fresh food I brought home, yet this alone is not worth the effort when I can buy the like at the farmers market each week.

Even if I never brought home a veggie I would still be a member because I joined the garden in the first place for the community.  I wanted to learn from others, connect and share.  In my mind perhaps I had the idea of a communal gardening group of people laughing and sharing huge baskets of fresh produce, while tending their lush green plots and beautifying the neighbourhood.  The reality is that you see most of the members only at the monthly work parties.  For most of the year I went to the work parties religiously.  A few of the other members have the same commitment, a few.  It’s great to see some of them, sometimes, but I wouldn’t call it a community.  There is rallying around the condom/needle clean up and stopping the crazy dude from pouring rat poison on our plants, but it’s not quite what I had imagined.  I’ve made a few friends at the garden though, so that’s something.

Now, as another year comes to a close I’ll reflect on whether or not it’s worth the effort or if perhaps there is another group or space that would be a better fit for me.  For all the reasons above I almost gave up my membership last year, but something kept me there.  The promise of something new, perhaps.  Maybe this year some new people with join and keep me company at the work parties.  Or perhaps I’ll get to run a seed starting project with the new greenhouse or learn something new.  Who knows?  But if I’ve learned just one thing about being a member of a community garden, it’s that it is about a whole lot more than just growing food.

I got out a few days before the dump and covered my rosemary, sage and gai lan with greenhouse umbrellas which may help a bit.  As you can see by the photos, it’s a bit like trying to drink a swimming pool. 

My weekly home-grown vegetable adventures weren’t a total bust though.  Just before the dump, I managed to get a few parsnips from the ground and make a lovely parsnip and white bean soup with crispy parsnips.  It was delish.

Now that the ground has thawed a bit I’ll try to dig up the potatoes I left at the community plot (whoops) and I pulled some beets.  Greens are wilty but the roots are plump and sweet.  I hope to continue pulling the roots for as long as I can, but I think that the winter vegetable starts are a write off for the year so I’ve set up the automatic sprouter indoors and I’ll grow my greens there for now.  

It’s been an interesting week or two we have been having here, so it’s great to have a look over at Daphne’s Dandelions to see what others are harvesting elsewhere.