I Wet My Plants

I decided to help put in a new vegetable garden at my in-law’s house this year. I came up with a design of six 4′ x 15′ beds with mulched pathways in the shape of an “H”. Then we found a good, sunny location in the backyard and staked it out with twine:

We started calling around and found a good price on some blended garden mix of topsoil, composted manure and black peat from a local landscaping company.

Using a yard calculator from Earth Depot I was able to figure out we would need almost 10 cubic yards of garden soil to create a 16′ x 32′ x 6″ deep bed. We also needed some extra to fill in along the driveway. In the end, we got 15 cubic yards as a full load on a tandem truck at a cost of $346.50 with taxes and delivery included. Here’s a shot of all that dirt:

I was tasked with getting cardboard and found an amazing source from IKEA by dumpster diving in their Customer Cardboard Recycling bin and going into the warehouse and collecting empty boxes. At first I felt a little conspicuous searching up and down the aisles until I asked a staff person if it was okay that I take the cardboard. His reply was, “Definitely! Cardboard’s free”. IKEA cardboard is great as there is no dyes or paints on it and it has a minimum of tape and plastic. Also, you can usually luck out with a few huge pieces which are great for covering large surface areas.

Once we got all the cardboard together, we started to lay it down and wet it with water from a hose. Then we dumped the soil on top using a lawn tractor and trailer.

It took two of us about two minutes to fill up the trailer before heading over to the garden site. The pile slowly started to go down:

There was a good rhythm to it: load up the trailer, move it to the site, spread and level it, lay down more cardboard, water it, get more soil, repeat. Here you can see that we’re just over half-way:

We quickly ran out of our cardboard stash:

The next day I got more cardboard to finish off the rest of the garden. We also mixed in some extra sheep manure/leaf compost that we got on sale from a local farm store, spacing out the bags at regular intervals to help spread it evenly.

We let it sit for a week so it could settle in a bit and then we started creating the pathways. Instead of doing the “H” in the initial design, we decided that two pathways would be enough. After four hours of work we finally had the garden finished and planted with rutabaga, carrots (under the white board), beets, radishes and spinach:

I watered the areas where I had planted seeds:

It even has its very own sign - a tribute to a lone rabbit spotted earlier in the day:

In the upcoming weeks I’ll be planting 2 types of corn, 4 types of watermelon, 2 types of squash, 3 types of cucumber, 2 types of potatoes, asparagus and bush beans. Hooray!

The Ottawa Farmer’s Market opened this past Sunday, May 4th at Lansdowne Park and I decided to finally go for the first time. I parked my car in the free parking lot (always a bonus) and headed towards the throngs of people.

It was really organized and there was a variety of stuff for sale. I was most interested in the Bloody Dock from Acorn Creek Garden Farm:

At $5 a pot I didn’t buy it and instead gave in to my growling stomach with a breakfast from Bearbrook Farm that included game meat sausage at the Food Court. A few vendors caught my eye while strolling through the market: the Glengyle Garlic vendor from whom I bought some Music seed bulbs last year and never put in the ground (oops!), a sheep vendor with $90 sheep skins, and Take Charge Teas with their different blends of herbal teas. There was also a couple of miniature horses from Mickie’s Miniatures for me to feed and pet:

Unfortunately these minis were only here for the one day though you can get a ride with Max and Willie, two Clydesdale horses from Navandale Farm, throughout the season. This year the Ottawa Farmer’s Market will be opening on Thursdays starting June 26th from 2 PM - 7 PM.

There’s so much going on in the flower beds, it seems every day there is something new.  I decided to take some pictures of how everything looked yesterday morning after a couple of mornings of light frost.

Darwin Hybrid Apeldoorn Tulip:

One of the tulips has a busted bloom:

Here’s a cheery double Narcissus ‘Dick Wilden’ bloom:

Some blue grape hyacinth muscari armeniacum:

I’ve never planted bulbs before and last year I used the guideline on the back of the packages for spacing and depth. The depth was fine though my spacing is another matter entirely. Here is some very orderly and sparse large-cupped Narcissus ‘Gigantic Star’ and ‘Ice Follies’:

Ice Follies:

Gigantic Star:

I mean, really, this looks like a newbie mistake, especially since not all of them came up.  I’m thinking of digging them up after they’ve finished blooming and spacing them closer together so that they aren’t so sparse. I’ve been looking around at other gardens in my neighbourhood and really like the clumping effect of most of the spring blooms.

Lungwort is still hanging in there:

Apple tree blossoms about to emerge:

Dwarf tulipa is growing up:

Allium ‘Gladiator’ is doing well:

I still haven’t seen any of the anemone that I planted and the package says that it blooms in early spring.  If they haven’t come up by now I’m not sure if they’ll come up at all.  Maybe I bought a package of duds.

A couple of days ago, I divided and relocated some overgrown perennials in my garden.

The larger chunk of bleeding heart seems to be happy and doing well in its new location in the back yard garden:

The Siberian iris is bouncing back and I hope it’ll recover this spring to bloom later this summer:

The Centaurea montana likes its new spot in the side bed in the back yard:

Time will tell if the bleeding heart and hosta will have enough growing space without duking it out this summer. So far so good:

And the hosta in the front bed seems to like its new location under the apple tree:

The forecast has been calling for rain for the next three days so I won’t have to worry about watering them while they settle in. There’s only one small transplanted chunk of bleeding heart that doesn’t look like it’s going to make it. I’ll be happy as long as the other two larger chunks do well.

I think I’ve been pretty successful in my first year out for winter sowing. This is a method where you sow seeds in sheltered containers and then put them out in the snow in the dead of winter. This is great for those seeds that need scarification as the process of freezing and thawing helps the break the seed coat. Also, you don’t have to worry about damping off or hardening off as you do with starting indoors and you get really hardy plants with huge root systems. I started off this year with 5 clear storage containers with small pots/cups inside.

BOX 1

Here’s a picture of Box 1 back on April 6, 2008:

A couple of weeks later on April 17, 2008:

And here is it this morning on May 2, 2008:

You can see a nice pot of alyssum, some marigold and cosmos.

BOX 2

April 6, 2008:

April 17, 2008:

May 2, 2008:

Loads of wild lupine, spinach and coneflower in this box!

BOX 3

April 6, 2008:

April 17, 2008:

May 2, 2008:

Zucchini, squash, cucumber and tomato fill this box out quite nicely.

BOX 4

April 6, 2008:

April 17, 2008:

May 2, 2008:

I’ve got bunching onions, alyssum, zucchini and squash doing really well in this box.

BOX 5

April 6, 2008:

April 17, 2008:

May 2, 2008:

Lots of coneflower, lupine and one or two columbine pots.

BOTTLE

I also put together a 15-gallon bottle of mixed flowers such as, gaillardia, lupine, columbine mixed, cornflower, lavender, rudbeckia and echinacea.

Here it is on March 21, 2008:

April 17, 2008:

May 2, 2008:

Overall it’s been pretty low-maintenance so far. The only thing I do for them right now is angle the lids during sunny days to let hot air out so that the seedlings don’t cook inside. They’re protected from frost and they’ve been getting lots of water from the recent rains. Back when there was a warm spell I had to water them every day as they’d dry out quickly. I already know I’ll be up to my ears in wild lupines!