I Wet My Plants

I had my first and only weekend as a vendor at the opening of the Kemptville Farmer’s Market on Sunday, May 31st (I know, this post is long overdue) and it was kind of a crap day.  The forecast was for rain, however, no one thought it would hail:

That makes it three times now that my tomato plants have been hailed on!  Ridiculous!  Everyone else’s stuff got full of hail too:

Many vendors and customers took sanctuary under tents and umbrellas:

There was a space between two tents tied close together and underneath was a little hail pile:

Yikes!  It was a cold, wet, hail-ey, no-good day.  I did manage to sell some tomato plants – they were priced to go.

The Kemptville Farmer’s Market runs on Sunday from 2 – 4 PM.  I hope the weather gets better for them.

I was in Seattle last weekend for the Northwest Folklife festival and managed to get my garden on.  First stop was City People’s Garden store:

This place was huge and completely gorgeous!  If I lived in Seattle, I definitely would go to this garden centre.  Of course, I had to check out the seed selection and promptly made my way over to here:

Ed Hume, Renee’s Garden, Territorial Seed Company and Abundant Life Seeds were on the significantly-depleted racks.  I picked up some White Russian kale, Marian rutabaga, Early Jalapeno hot pepper, Black Cherry tomato (can’t have too much of this), Gala Mâche and a Sensitive Plant seeds.

Like I said, everything was gorgeous:

They even had a Northwest Natives section:

This is just a small selection of the variety of tomatoes for sale, many of them heirlooms:

Well tended and well watered – a gardener’s dream!  We also went to Magnolia Garden Center where I bought some Flashy Trout’s Back romaine lettuce (completely for the name!) and some bio-degradable bamboo pots for me and my mom.

Touring around the city we saw lots of interesting things:

Anyone know what this tree/shrub is called?  We saw lots of them in full bloom:

Gorgeous!

At Northwest Folklife I stopped by the Seattle Urban Farm Company to check out their display:

You can see a humongous bay leaf plant in that 5-gallon blue bucket.  They also had some raised beds and chickens:

Seattle was very nice – sunny days and cool evenings.  The rhododendrons were in full bloom in a wide variety of colours, shapes and sizes.

All you Seattle-based gardeners are pretty lucky!

The Kemptville Farmer’s Market website is up.  Hooray!  Again the kick-off for the Farmer’s Market is this Sunday from 11 AM  to 4 PM in conjunction with the 2-day event of the Dandelion Festival and Veg Stock.  As part of this weekend’s festivities, my sister and I (as Nukariik) will be performing at Veg Stock on Saturday at 6 PM.  Hope to see you there!

P.S.  Here’s a line up for this weekend’s performers:

Saturday:
12pm – Kansas City Shuffle
1pm – George Buys
2pm – Andy McGaw
3pm – Meredith Luce and the Mandates
4pm – THE OH YEAH’S
5pm – Loon Choir
6pm – NUKARIIK
630pm – Barn
730pm – Al Wood and the Woodsmen
830pm – Roxilla

Sunday:
11am – Chef Bruce and the loose n’ juicy acoustic army
11:30 pm – Grenville Grass
12:30pm – Shady Blue
1:30pm – Pat Moore and the Vinyl Frontier
2:30pm – Trevor Alguire and Gilles Leclerc
3:30pm – John Carroll
4:30pm – The Standby Brothers

Just a quick note to tell you that I will be selling the last of my tomato seedlings at the Kemptville Farmer’s Market this Sunday, May 31st from 11 AM to 4 PM in the parking lot behind the Court House at Water and Prescott Street.  Come on out and enjoy the tunes at Veg Stock starting at 12 noon on  Saturday and 11 AM on Sunday!

I took my mom to the Rare and Unusual Plant Sale at the Experimental Farm this past Mother’s Day and despite the chilly morning, the turnout was pretty good.

There were lots of vendors:

Select Plus Nursery
Greenspace Alliance of Canada’s Capital
Solo Vivaces Inc
Whitehouse Perennials
Bonnie & Ann McQuillan
Rockcliffe Landscaping
Centre d’Interpretataion de l’Horticulture de La Monteregie
Ottawa River Iris Society/Ottawa Horticultural Society
Denyse Simpson
Old Field Garden
Eternal Seed
Alpines Mountecho
Rideau Nursery
The Herb Garden
Jardin de la Montagne
Les Jardins d’Emmarocalles
Charing House Gardens
Field Grown Perennials
Rock Wall Gardens
Down the Garden Path
Fieldstone Gardens
Ottawa Valley Rock Garden & Horticultural Society
Gardens North

La Vie En Rose Gardens

I talked to the people at Gardens North and sadly found out that this would be the last year for her sale at the Experimental Farm.  I had been to her farm near my house a few years ago which has since been closed to the public.  Apparently she’s sold her farm, dug up all her plants and packed up all her seeds to move to the Maritimes this year.  She’ll still sell her seeds online however and I hope to make a purchase for some Labrador Tea soon.  I bought a lot of cute little plants from her:

Jovibarba sobolifera

Rosularia rechingerii

Sempervivium ‘Jubilee’

Orostachys spinosa

I saw my friend Bernie from La Vie En Rose Gardens selling her beautiful bearded irises:

I’ve offered to be a host gardener for her extra iris plants.  The ones we dug up from her gardens two years ago have already bloomed this year:

After we bought all our loot, we scoured Loblaws garden centres for free recycled pots and trays for my mom to use for transplanting.  I took her to my favourite garden centre, Make It Green, and she bought lots of seeds and a few herb plants.  We had a nice lunch during which I found out that she had learned how to garden from a neighbour when I was small, as my dad was gone for work during one spring.  She’s quite an accomplished gardener and when she had come over earlier the day before, she had brought with her a car load of seedlings of peas, beans, broccoli, lettuce, mint, turnip, spinach, garlic and cucumbers.  All well-tended and healthy looking.  After lunch, I whisked her off to The Herb Garden outside of Almonte and we got more herbs for her garden.

We tallied it all up and I came home with the following:

Rhododendron fernigineum
Italian parsley
Good King Henry
Raspberry Royale sage
Orostachys spinosa
Bay laurel
Rosularia rechingerri
Sempervivium ‘Jubilee’
Jovibarba sobolifera
Sweet cicely
Marjoram
Paeonia tenuifolia
Arisaeha triphyllum
Purple trillium
Fritillaria meleagris
Canada columbine
Night jessimine
Salvia ‘Cathedral’

My mom picked up:

Lovage
Aztec Sweet Herb
French tarragon
English mint
Lime balm
Lemon balm
Good King Henry
Allium spirale
Ginger mint
Rosemary

It was a pretty fun day spent hanging out with my mom.  Here are some pictures of the things we bought:

Arisaema triphyllum

Purple trillium

Paeonia tenuifolia

Canadian columbine

Fritillaria meleagris

Bloom from a Rhododendron fernigineum