Our garden – Year 2 : Our perennial patch!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful Saturday morning!

As I had mentioned in my previous post about turning over and preparing our community plots, we are lucky enough this year to have two separate plots to which we have decided to give two very separate vocations.

We decided during the holiday week-end (last week) to turn last year’s 10 X 12 sq.ft. plot into a perennial garden. The idea of having one patch that would not have to be replanted every year was very nice and since we do not have a yard of our own yet, having our own little flower area seemed like a wonderful long term project!

WHY PERRENIALS?

Well, aside from the fact that half my favourite plants and flowers are perennials (including hostas and hemerocallis – commonly called daylilies), there are quite a few reasons to go for perennials. Even though at first look, perennials are more expensive then annuals, they will cost you less and less every year as they multiply and spread, making your garden lush and green. Also, good ground cover perennials like sedum, wild thyme, and many alpine plant varieties, once they spread, will help keep the soil shaded and cool which means less watering! And that alone is a good reason for me!

A few things to keep in mind when buying plants to start a perennial flower bed is to take good note of your hardiness zone, of the sun exposure of your patch and of blooming times. Most perennials have shorter blooming seasons then annuals, and even though their leaves are lovely, if you want to insure a presence of flowers throughout the whole growing season, pick species that flower at different times.

So everyone knows of the traditional perennial ground covers such as clover, sedum, hostas, certain grasses, but here are a few plants you may not know are perennials :

• Lavender
• Daylilies
• Daffodils
• Tulips
• Thyme
• Rosemary
• Asparagus
• Garlic
• Marguerites
• Sage
• Marigolds
• Irises
• Lobelia
• Bluebells
• Primrose
• Bleeding hearts
• Columbines
• Poppies… just to name a few!

Plus, if we stick to the basic definition of perennial which is really any plant that lives more than one year, vines and shrubs are great additions to any perennial garden patch! Also, depending on space, try adding fruit bushes! We’ve decided to go with hardy kiwi vines and blueberry bushes.

This is the picture of our plot when we started this season :



And this is what it looks like now :



I know it may look a little empty, but considering most of our plant choices will triple in size in the first year, we think the “bare look” will be worth it to have our garden come back in force next year!

On a side note : All our plants, vines and bushes came from local sources! Look around and find nurseries that grow plants in your area. Plants that have been imported mean more of a carbon footprint and more probability of species that are not well adapted to your climate! You may pay a little more, but you will get quality plants that last!

Please stop by and share your plans for a garden this year!

Our garden –Year 2 : The first days of work…

I hope you all will humor me; this will be a life blogging moment instead of one of my usual tips and ideas ones.

The temperature in Quebec City jumped 18 degrees Celsius this week-end and we went from early spring to “feels like summer” weather! So my husband decided that this was it! We were starting the gardening season. Of course, we meant prep work (we will still be getting nights of frost until the end of May) but we worked hard, making our garden plots ready for planting.

On Saturday, we went to my parents for dinner and my dad and husband diligently worked on our new composter. We went all around the home improvement stores and all we could find, in our price range, were plastic compost bins. Now, with trying to create a greener life for ourselves, as much as I understand the durability of the plastic bin, we just could not get ourselves to buy one. So with the price of the pre-made wooden bins, we decided to use all recycled natural pin wood we had here from an old bonsai growing shelf we had built and voilà! It turned out wonderfully.

By the way… Making a compost bin is super easy! Just make sure that you always use untreated-unpainted-unvarnished wood! Any treatment on wood will contaminate the actual compost!

Now today was the really hard job! We only had a 10 X 12 ft. plot at our community garden last year and were able to square away a 10 X 24 extra one this year! But the people that had it before us did not tend to it very well last year so we knew we had a day ahead of us. But as you can see it all went wonderfully.

Our goal is to be at least 75% self sufficient for vegetables this summer. Here is a list of what we will be planting :

• Tomatoes (7 different varieties)
• Cucumbers (3 different varieties)
• Onions
• Shallots
• Peas (3 different varieties)
• Beans (3 different varieties)
• Collard greens
• Lettuce
• Spinach
• Brussels sprouts
• Zucchinis
• Herbs
• Asparagus (which we will not be able to eat until next year unfortunately)

For the rest of our veggie needs, the organic farmers market will open here in just 2 months and all will be well.

I hope all of you had a wonderful week-end!

What veggies, fruits and plants are you growing this year?

Our garden –Year 2 : Eggshells, the wonder trash

A little snippet for all of you this morning in my garden series.

Last year in our garden was a year of learning. It was the first year that we had a plot at the local community garden and unfortunately, it did not yield much. I would like to blame the horrible weather we had that year (we got almost 493 millimeters – over 19 inches – of rain last summer) but I know that a lot of it was our lack of experience and knowledge.

But like all good students of a new art form, we observed a lot of the more experience gardeners around us and one thing we quickly noted was all of them walking around, early in the season, with buckets full of crushed eggshells that they would sprinkle around all their plants.

Turns out, like bone meal, egg shells are a great calcium source for your soil. Calcium deficiency is one of the most common problems in gardens. What it does is to make the roots weak and then, you end up with a root system that is unable to sustain a healthy plant. According to Calcium Deficiency in Organic Vegetable Gardens - Natural Garden Solutions for Your Green Lifestyle, a wonderful article by Deborah Aldridge :

“Calcium deficiency symptoms in organic vegetable garden plants is very noticeable, but may be misdiagnosed, as some symptoms, such as browning of young leaf margins and leaf curling, can also be associated with other deficiencies and diseases. However, if these early symptoms are not treated, it can lead to the death of the terminal bud and root tips.

A very common and easily recognizable symptom of calcium deficiency is blossom end rot, which usually shows itself on peppers and tomatoes. Blossom end rot begins with a decayed brown spot on the blossom end of the fruit. Sometimes, not all the fruit is affected. Feeding with a fertilizer too high in nitrogen can also cause blossom end rot.”

You are probably thinking they are already pretty amazing little scraps. But that is not all!

Fun fact : Did you know that if you sprinkle broken eggshells around your more delicate plants, they will keep away slugs and snails?

So as you are making your Sunday eggs this morning, think of rinsing the shells and setting them to dry. You will reduce waste and grow happier, healthier vegetables this summer.

What natural, organic ways have you found to keep your garden and flower beds happy and healthy?

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Our garden - Year 2 : Attracting beneficial insects to help with pest control

Well, after all the rain we’ve gotten in the last few weeks, the snow here has been melting at a ridiculous rate. With the sun finally out today, I decided to take a nice walk to venture into our community garden and see how much snow was still there and if some of our early bulbs had started to show their little green heads.

As I was walking, I was thinking of flowers, fruits and veggies I would soon plant and it reminded me of a wonderful conference my husband and I attended last week-end on “How to attract beneficial insects into your gardens”. Now, the conference was in French and the book that the facts are taken from is titled Attirer la faune au jardin : insectes bénéfiques, papillons, grenouilles et oiseaux dans votre cour (Attract fauna in the garden : beneficial insects, butterflies, frogs and birds in your yard) by Albert Mondor and Daniel Gingras, but I decided to translate and share with you a few of the facts we picked up.

FACT ABOUT BUGS!

At the very root of the matter, all bugs, in the bug kingdom, are beneficial. Every insect is food for another living thing; every one plays its part. In the human world, it is another story all together but...

Did you know that…
Only 0.05% of insects on the planet are non-beneficial/harmful to humans?

We are talking insects that carry diseases like West Nile and malaria carried by mosquitoes, lime disease by ticks, lice, etc. But those are a miniscule fraction of insects on earth and the rest of them can be quite effective with ecological population control, at helping with invading plant life and they actively participate in the decomposition and recycling of organic matter into yummy composted soil.

Beneficial insects we commonly come across are the following :

Spiders :
40 – 70 % of insects caught in spider webs are non-beneficial (mosquitoes being one of them).

Ladybugs :
Both adults and their larvae are powerful pest controlling agents. 60% of their combined diets consist of aphids. Adult ladybugs can eat up to 1000 aphids a day.

Green lacewings :
One of the most beneficial, although hard to attract, insects. Their larvae will eat everything from aphids to scales, including spider mite eggs, thrips and white flies. They are hard to attract because they are very delicate and fall victim to predators like birds, but you can build bug shelters with openings only big enough for them and hang them in your garden. I found a fun little how-to sheet on a UK gardening site that you can check out.

Ants :
I know *shivers*, but they are wonderful for plants. They are true protectors because a small colony can eat thousands upon thousands of insect eggs a day and they will never ever touch the plants. Plus, like earth worms, they aerate the soil very well.

So how do you attract all these wonderful little helpers?

• Have a good variety of different plants to offer something to everyone.
• Have different sized plants to attract all kinds of little helpers.
• Flower and plant families that are very popular to use are Umbelliferae (including angelica, anise, celery, dill, cumin, carrots, etc.), Labiatae (including aromatic herbs like basil, mint, rosemary, sage, savory, marjoram, oregano, thyme and lavender, etc.) and Asteraceae (or Compositae) which is the daisy and sunflower family.

I hope this was a useful article for all of you.

A new way to look at insects may give you a whole new freedom in your garden this year! Hopefully you’ll take a few steps towards attracting the good kind and in the process, reduce (or *fingers crossed*) eliminate the need for insecticides!

What steps will you take this summer to make your gardens and flower beds a green place?

Preparing for spring : Our garden - Year 2

Last year, my husband and I had the great pleasure of acquiring a little plot of land at out local community garden. We thought it was a great green step to city living. We decided to sign up rather late in the season so we rushed through the preparations and opted for nursery grown plants. We weeded, tiled, turned and fertilized the soil with bags of organic compost bought at the garden center and planted our little garden.

It had been a rainy week so the following days, we stayed home. When we decided to return to check on things and do a bit of "light" maintenance, we were horrified to find that all the weeds had grown back in force and we could barely differentiate them from the little plants that were struggling for room to grow. This event was only a preview of our war on weeds. The remainder of the growing season only got worse before it was over.

So as I mentioned before, I love to know the why of things, especially when those things are coming between me and my desire for a greener, healthier life. After loads of research, I've come up with a chemical-free plan for snuffing out the weeds this year and actually getting to enjoy gardening :

Step 1:

As soon as the snow is melted off our lot (this part may not apply to all of you considering I live quite a ways up North) and the hot spring sun is out, we will cover the whole patch with dark landscaping tarp held down with bricks, to stop the weeds from getting the light and air they need to break dormancy and actually start spreading and growing. The increased heat and darkness will actually go as deep as the underlying rhizomes and stop them from taking over your garden. It is recommended to leave the tarp down for about 6 weeks, until it's time to prepare the garden for planting.

Step 2:

Once the soil has been turned and all the "remains" have been removed, strategically position your plants, alternating high growing plants (like tomatoes, peppers, bean bushes, etc.) with low, ground covering cultures (like cucumbers, squashes, cantaloupes, etc.) so that there is a minimum of light between the rows.

Step 3:

Use mulch in the walkways and on all areas where the sunlight hits the ground. You can also lay down newspaper under the mulch for an extra barrier of weed protection. Not only will the paper and mulch block the light and air supply again, but as they naturally biodegrade, they will give back nutrients to the soil of your garden.

I hope this helps and if any of you have ideas and suggestions, please feel free to post them here!