A lot of dirt

 These are mostly pictures of dirt. I want to document the growing of things in the garden, so here's the beginning: March 23, 2021

Thyme, just starting to green up.

One of the things I don't remember planting

Mostly dirt, but slender green spikes of something are popping up

Mid progress clean up

Collection of squirrel holes. And tiny crocuses

Tiny purple sedum

New tulips in the OG (first-year garden)

These particular green things are garlic!

Not everything is faring well. This poor boxwood declined all last year

I have a vague memory of this shrub looking dead last spring, too. I hope it's just playing possum.

Pay attention! A lesson from the garden.

Be patient with me. After what felt like the longest winter in the history of dark and dreary days, I'm going to spend some time rhapsodizing over green and growing things, blue skies, and daylight after five PM.

As it is, I know that temperatures could very well plummet once more. There could even be snow (this isn't an invitation!) I know that while I am abundantly eager to wallow deep into Spring, things need time to wake up and get their bearings for the coming growing season.  

I need to ease into Spring in this little garden, too. I thought I made good notes last year about what I planted where, or at least that every plant would be obvious, so of course I'd recognize them all! Ha. It's like not labeling the chicken soup in the freezer: you're so sure you'll know what it is seven weeks later, but I assure you, you will not. I'm finding all kinds of awakening green bits that I don't remember planting last year, or if I remember putting something there, I don't remember what. When this happened last spring (because, yes it did, and I still didn't learn to make more thorough notes!) I was too quick to pull up what I thought must be weeds, only to realize too late that it was actually the gaillardia I'd loved so much the year before (transplanted from container to rock garden in the Fall... so certain I'd remember where and what it was). This year I'm sitting on my hands in enforced patience.

The garden has its own timetable. There is very little I can do to bend it to my will.  The tulips will take exactly as long as they need to stretch up from the earth.  The Dogwood will leaf out when it's good and ready to. I can (and do) go outside several times a day to examine the progress since my last visit, and drag my husband along to exclaim and admire at how miraculous it all is, but I can't make it happen any faster. 

In truth I wouldn't really want it to.  Oh, I'm very eager for the beauty to come, but this part is special too, the anticipation and the dreaming. Every year I remind myself: pay attention!  Don't miss a moment! Soak up the joy of right now.

Pretty seedy things

 The seeds are here! They have come! They have arrived!

This is year three of our little garden. The first year it was a tiny ring around a little lamp post out front. The second year it expanded not only around the lamp post, but we took out a wooden deck in the back, put in a gravel patio and somehow plants found their way into that space, too. 

Now, year three, we're branching out into seeds. This very moment in our dining room there is a fancy full-spectrum light bulb waiting to shine its life-giving rays onto pepper seeds, if only they would sprout into seedlings (the first batch grew an impressive crop of mold, you see. We're trying a little less watering this time.) I'm also going to try to fill corners in the garden and pots galore with flowers grown from seed. That's the plan, anyway. Have you any idea how tiny flower seeds are?  I'm supposed to just drop them onto the earth and hope that, against all odds of wind, rain, and squirrels, they manage to cling to the soil, drink in the sun, send delicate roots into the ground, and grow into beautiful, jubilant, fragrant flowers. They do it all the time in the wild without me watching over them, worrying about their comfort and their fate, so I suppose I can trust that some of them, anyway, will make it, these pretty, seedy things.

Of green dreams and grey skies

Blue sky chases grey

Dragging puffs of white

Red and orange ride the wind

Covering bare brown earth

I was feeling poetical while planting bulbs earlier today, and those phrases kept drifting through my mind.

 The air was just crisp enough to be sharp but not unpleasant -  a Granny Smith apple sort of afternoon.  The sun couldn't seem to decide if it wanted to shine unfettered and joyous, or to take on a more muted demeanor. As I dug holes, dreaming ahead of the delight that comes from watching plants break free of the earth in Spring, I'd have my vest on, chilled by the overcast sky, only to have to take it off again when the sun grew bold once more. 

There was snow yesterday.  Barely enough to be called snow, but it landed too heavily on your shoulder to be called rain, so the pepper plants - elegant with arching branches, decorated with tiny red jewels - stayed in the garage all day. It look like there are a dozen young peppers growing still, and we're trying to keep the plants alive long enough for the peppers to ripen.  

Our very own Thai chillis! Year two of gardening has produced mostly squirrel fodder but not much for human consumption, so these fiery red beauties are precious to us. Next year might bring garlic and onions to our table, for I defy those long-tailed fiends to feast on such a harvest.

The flower bed continues to provide contentment, though it no longer produces blooms. Its beauty is less obvious now, more muted, quieter, and yet it remains a lovely thing, offering shapes and structures not evident in the dizzying time of growth and blossoms. There is purpose in the seed heads and folliage for life goes on in the garden, though flowers are gone.

The time is right and good for sleep, for plants and people. Let's hibernate, recouperate, and dream dreams of a green tomorrow.

Flowers with Five

The Big Boys (Peanuts One through Three with Four thrown in) went to swim lessons last night.  Five stayed home with me, and helped plant some new geraniums (let's not talk about why we needed new geraniums, but a house must have geraniums because they remind me of Germany).




Notice the gloves



"There's still water in there, Tante Eia. Let me do it."



Offerings of the earth

The growing season is in full swing, here in Sohoe. Corn is tall and in tassel; grape vines are fully dressed in foliage and actual clusters of tender green grapes; trees bear their offerings of cherry and peach, while strawberries and blueberries are being picked by the bushels.

As for our own bounty, we have sampled lettuce grown at our front door. A hot pepper is currently drying in the kitchen prior to being a welcome addition to something yummy in a few days. The Whopper tomato plant has one small fruit undertaking its journey to bigness (or so I am expecting. The helpful plastic information tag that came with it promises a bountiful harvest of large fruit) after flirting with an early demise. The Sweet Millions is literally bursting with life, growing four inches in all directions every day and now fostering cherry-sized fruit by the dozens. The earliest are now a glossy deep green, so we can expect some to be ready for picking any day now. (When I say 'every direction' I do mean 'every direction'. Some branches are so long now, this plant resembles a vine as they creep along the ground) The Patio Tomato has a cluster of green crab-apple sized tomatoes, and two days ago we noticed one was blushing. Today it is a proper tomato red, ready for harvest. Hoorah!

Our bucket-o-potatoes is flourishing - or at least the green leafy bits are. We've been teasing ourselves with the thought that there might not be actual potatoes in the soil, but even so, we are proud as peacocks at having managed to produce these lush green plants. Yesterday, I convinced my sister to rootle her hand in the dirt to discover if we were indeed the proud parents of baby potatoes. We are.

These are modest efforts, for sure. You experienced gardeners out there are probably chuckling over how excited we are over a potential potato, but to go from 'plant killer' to 'tomato grower' is a heady transition.

How does your garden grow?

The fallen and the flourishing

There is sad news to convey:

Our vibrant and fiery orange nemesia plant has died. I had to pluck its withered stems and roots out of the pot and throw it on the lawn waste heap. Part of the club moss, and the coral bells are rather peaked, and I think I know why: three days ago, I saw Four 'helpfully' watering the containers by the front door. From a 2L watering can! It was more water than a camel needs after the rain we'd just had. That explains why the soil in those pots always feels moist to the touch!

The garden thyme is also struggling, though it is beginning to show signs of revival - probably because J moved it to the sunny side of the front steps (and I make sure the watering can is always empty.) The Thai basil is also looking shocky (to borrow a term from the emergency room) but it seems to be clinging to life. Hooray for basil! We definitely need a second rosemary plant, and yet more Italian leaf basil. And why not? We've still got room for more pots on the steps... we'll just use the back door from now on.

Our big tomato plant, one I picked out specifically because it already had flowers on it, has lost its flowers and isn't exactly thriving, though its doing fine. I don't know if its determinate or indeterminate but I figure it will give up fruit when its good and ready to. The little patio tomato is showing great promise for a bountiful harvest, with its seven or so flowers and numerous other fuzzy spots. Yay! The sweet million tomato is growing like crazy. Each day I check it, it's at least an inch taller. That is very exciting, and rather reassuring too, that I don't kill absolutely everything I stick in the dirt.

Green stems and leaves are shooting out of the potato bin. We will soon have to mound them up further. Out of five wrinkled old spuds from our kitchen cupboard, we have 14 plants!

Three varieties of lettuce are doing well. I sowed a second batch last week, and they have already poked their heads above the soil. (lettuce... heads... get it?) The first batch needs to be thinned, but I'm nervous to do so. How can I make that decision? "You, stay. You however, sorry, this is your end. Mwah ha ha ha!"

Three stems of garlic, which share the lettuce pot, are standing tall and vigorous. Sadly, I'd planted four, so one of them didn't take. Still and all, three whole ears of garlic from four little cloves we had sitting in the fridge anyway... not a bad return.

Signs of life

It's very exciting! There are wee little lettuces growing outside our front door! I planted those growing green things! I think it was last Saturday that we first saw signs of life, only we weren't sure if it was lettuce or little weeds. Sadly, I plucked a few out today and tossed them over the banister before I looked online to see what infant salad looks like. (Google search term: what does lettuce look like when it grows images)

On Victoria Day, I went to a large local nursery with the intention of buying more herbs and another tomato plant. I was very tempted to bring home other pretty flowers, but strictly disciplined myself to stick to the plan. I bought a little 'Sweet million' tomato, and a fully grown 'Parks whopper' plant that even has a few yellow flowers on - tomatoes are imminent! I also added a chocolate mint, a garden thyme, and three kinds of basil to our already flourishing herb containers: Thai, Italian large leaf, and Red Rubin.

Today we tackled potatoes. We had five old potatoes growing stems in the cupboard, so J drilled holes in the bottom of a deep Rubbermaid container we had laying around (as you do) and we planted them. Then, just for fun, I poked four garlic bulbs in the lettuce tub to see if they will turn into anything.

What's next?

Danger lurks in the garden

Beware, Reader, lest you mistakenly take up gardening as a means of gentle exercise and perhaps even as a source of relaxation. All of which may be possible, depending entirely on your personality (I myself am a somewhat compulsive perfectionist for whom it is difficult to begin a thing unless I can be sure to do it just right, and am unable to leave a thing alone once the idea has taken root) (ha ha - a gardening pun!)


Turns out - and you may already know this - gardening is a hobby fraught... yes, fraught... with risk and danger. Here are a few things I've learned in the 8 days I've been a gardener (well, to be perfectly honest, there was that potted geranium I neglected to water last summer, but I don't think that counts)


You may get your heart broken when a plant you love dearly and have nurtured from a small seedling to full flowering planthood looses its hold on life and withers into a pallid version of its former glory. You may see wild weeds or selfish spreaders strangle your beautiful blooms. You may learn that 'full sun' means precisely that, non-negotiable, which is why your lavender or tomato is now less than vigorous after spending the season tucked under a douglas fir.


Always wear gloves. There are worms and other multi-legged things in that dirt! Not to mention dirt is extremely difficult to get out from under your nails, ruining a perfectly good manicure. (The manicure may have been months ago, but still, right?) I used to scoff at wearing gloves, but then I was also afraid to accidentally touch a creepy crawly. Last summer, though, I found a really cute pair of gloves, and am now perfectly fearless to dig like I have never dug before, amused at the spider scurrying over my fingers and smiling at the worm as I put it back in the earth. Oh, the power of the glove! Not to mention, digging bare-handed in the dirt can lead to tetanus. Yikes! Not entirely sure what tetanus is, precisely, but I'd like to avoid experiencing it firsthand.*

Another danger is that you may begin too enthusiastically. As in all new ventures, it is prudent to begin slowly - not only for the sake of your pocket book, but for your spine as well. Spending hours hunched over as you yank dandelions out by their scruffs, or as you uproot and replant the forget-me-knots and wild onions growing in your flower beds into more attractive arrangements, you will ache and be quite unable to stand upright the next day. You must begin slowly and work your way up to marathon sessions. Any athlete will tell you the same thing.

The greatest danger of gardening is the power it has to consume every waking moment, occupying all your thoughts, figuring in every conversation causing family and friends to natter on about short cuts and sumo wrestling in order to prevent you from discoursing on the finer features of mulch and fertilizer.

Despite it all, I am hooked. I'm longing to get out to another garden centre. There are more herbs to bring home, and a climbing thing to coax into climbing the side of the shed. I'd like to thin out the lillies we have, and add more colour. It's the May Two-Four weekend, the official start of summer and the traditional gardening weekend. Happy planting, all!

*I do know that tetanus is bacterial, and causes muscle spasms, like lockjaw. Ouch.

Notes from the garden

Exciting news! Our first vegetables have been planted! Three kinds of lettuce were sowed today: a kind of romaine, something called salad bowl and another called Ruby Red which looks very pretty on the seed envelope. I hope I did it properly - the seeds are so very small and vulnerable looking. I guess we'll find out in 45 days. Also planted today was a patio tomato and a collection of herbs. The tomato sits out back where it will soak up the sun all day long, growing big and producing many yummy fruits. The round lettuce container sits by the front door where it is cooler. J and I were dismayed weeks ago when we went to the "grow vegetables on your patio" seminar to learn that lettuce is a cold weather crop and we should have begun our salad adventure back in April. Oops. Hopefully the tiny seeds now taking root in the soil wont hold our ignorance against us, and still provide us with plenty of green goodness in the months to come. The herbs (so far basil, rosemary, thyme and oregano) are also on the front steps, very handy to the kitchen for frequent harvesting.

And so, garden work is well and truly underway. The grass was mowed into submission on Saturday, and today, J spent hours and hours uprooting dandelions from the patch of mushrooms and clover we like to call our front yard. Even now, she sees the yellow terrors with her waking eye. I undertook some weeding of the front bed, using the garden tools I bought last summer. At Schmapters. Reader, it is not a good idea to buy tools at a book store, unless you mean to keep them on display on your own at-home book shelves. In attempting to dig up some roots, I bent the tines of the fork-like tool completely out of shape. So while at the President's Garden Centre, I bought a stainless steel replacement, which looks like it belongs in Freddy Kruger's arsenal. Bring on those roots, baby! Except for the plant growing up around our verbena tree, which has a root structure like a prehistoric don't-mess-with-me weed which could probably prevail over flame throwers and leave bulldozers weeping into their buckets. So we attacked that one with sheers, cutting it down to size but conceding to leave it in place.

It's odd, really. Our yard that is. While it's true that SOHOE is the garden of our fair province and everything seems to grow with lushness and variety, we are still amazed by what we find growing here. In the grass of our lawn (I should say 'grass') is pumpernickel (mom calls it pimpernel but it's actually called something else with a 'p' causing me to only be able to think of the dark bread. Sorry), forget-me-nots, little white star-like creepers, mushrooms, clover, several varieties of mosses, and something else that looks like cress. It's fascinating. We just might have the makings of a fine salad growing right outside our own front yard!

How does your garden grow?

*Please excuse me: I've just been informed that the 'p' growing in our front 'yard' is periwinkle. And I kept calling our flowering tree verbena, but I think it actually is vibernum.

The Greening of the thumb

The growing season is upon us. All but the biggest trees have leaves, the fruit orchards are in blossom, lilacs are blooming and the grape vines are starting to show green life. It wont be long before we hear the grapes sighing!

We've been watching for these signs of Spring since the end of March and have been very impatient for them all to arrive. Several times a day we would update each other with reports on how big the buds were on the trees, watching for the moment they became leaves. And of course we missed it! It happened entirely without our help, and while we weren't looking, leaving us in awe at how lush it is here already.

Though very novice gardeners (with one season of maintaining a pot of herbs now firmly in our belts), my sister and I are eager to tackle a somewhat more substantial garden this year: lettuce. Maybe potatoes and onions and such. All in pots of course. We attended a 'Growing vegetables in containers on your veranda' sort of workshop a few weekends ago, and learned that we had virtually killed our unsuccessful tomato plant last year through starvation and dehydration. Oops. We also learned that this area has a blight that attacks cucumber and zucchini which is very good to know because as every vegetable gardener seems desperate to give away their surplus zukes, we were going to try some of that and would have given up gardening entirely if we had failed.

After reading The 100 mile diet, we've become very aware of the fact that most of the produce we eat comes from parts of the world we've never been. We live here, in 'The Fruit Basket' or 'Greenhouse' of Ontario, and still the apples stocked by our grocer come from the States and our lettuce from Mexico. How does that make sense? What happens to everything grown here? Where does it go? Just what exactly is going on in all those massive greenhouses if they aren't feeding us?

Being at this point on the learning curve, with no land or cold storage, the idea of attempting self-sufficiency even just for produce during the summer months is very daunting. How to begin? We're already late for lettuce, it turns out and I don't want to be responsible for another dead tomato. What to plant? How to care for it, when and how to harvest... all of that is a vast unknown.

Besides the nutritional benefits for us, I think it is important for the Peanuts to experience a connection to the food they eat, to see how it happens and what is involved. Therein lies another challenge: how to keep five very active and inquisitive boys out of the garden when they're playing Star Wars with sticks or Rickshaw Driver/Roman Charioteer with the bicycle carriage all over the yard. I'd love to be a confident gardener with a flourishing vegetable patch, and a few fruit trees and be able to preserve the bounty for colder months. It would be great to have a some chickens and a goat, and I've always wanted to have a cow (not that kind of cow! I mean a living, breathing, pooping sort of cow).

I should probably reign in my expectations though, eh? This year: lettuce. Next year: the cow!

Death (to the tomato plant)

Oh woe is me. A deeply saddened gardener writes to you today with news of the demise of a tomato plant. Poor little Window Box Roma is heading to the great marinara sauce in the sky by way of the compost heap.
It was found two days ago drooping limply over the side of its container, not a sign of life to be found beyond its wan, green colour. It will be missed, but soon replaced. You know the saying: get right back in the saddle again. Or in this case: waste not the short Canadian growing season; replant immediately!

Darned furballs

Those pesky chipmunks have been digging again. This time the planter (the one with the mini tree, and the daisies all around) has the Chunnel dug almost all the way through from one side of the tree to the other. Yet another bucket full of soil gone into setting it to rights.

I know people are going to be upset with me, cause it's just God's cute little creature -- Chip and Dale afterall -- doing what it's supposed to be doing. I have no problem with the stupid thing getting on with it's genetically necessary work, however, there is a big wide world out there, it certainly need not dig up my poor plants and make a mess of the front porch each and every day! So there!

However, I have discovered the names of the growing things we bought yesterday: Gloria mix (Celosia); Chocolate chip carpet bugle (Ajuga reptans 'Valfredda'); Red dragon's blood stonecrop (Sedum spurium red form); Biokovo dwarf cranesbill (Geranium X cantabrigiense 'Biokovo')

There is good news: the bush/shrub (shrush) is getting wee little flower buds on it, and I'm sure that where we pruned yesterday already has new growth on it. This is very exciting!

I am gardener, hear me roar

However it happened, I am now enthusiastic about growing things. We went to a garden centre this afternoon, and I cannot begin to convey how happy I was. It wasn't a giddy, excited sort of feeling, but one of content well-being. We browsed in the best window-shopping fashion, admiring and praising how pretty everything was.

Four little plants came home with us, perched very precariously in the bottom of the stroller as we walked back, talking about where to plant them. (Please note the significance of that phrase: plant them. This was meant to be a container gardening experiment to determine how capable and committed we were going to be to the endeavor. Now we're putting things in the ground, discussing shade levels and watering requirements. Uh oh.)

Enthusiastic I might now be, ignorant I still remain. I should have gone back out before I wrote this to note the names of what we got, but I didn't and am now in my jammies so it's too late. I'll do the best I can. One of them is a Red Dragon's Blood something or other, bought for the boys. They think the name is pretty cool. The leaves have the look of a succulent about them. I can't wait for it to fill out and flower. I picked out a Chocolate Chip something. Who could resist that? It's a low, spreading plant which will get pretty little blue flowers on it. The ones I really love are the Glory. Eight little flowers came as a set, red, orange, yellow, and a creamy white. The colours are very saturated, and the flowers are fuzzy-looking. Very pretty! I hope they take ok and will grow well. We also bought another creeper...a something or other I don't remember.

It's amazing: today a shrub (or is it a bush? I'm not sure I know the difference) was pruned, and it looks great. A flower bed was dug around the base of a tree, and a lovely pink rock was placed just so, to offset the Glories. The unknown creeper is in that bed as well.

I'm sure none of that is of particular interest to anyone out there, but this is very exciting to me. I never in a million years would have thought I'd enjoy spending time in a garden centre, and actually want to attempt growing things. Huh. Here's the beef: squirrels are cheeky buggers, and pesty creatures! They are digging holes in the containers we have outside and are hiding their peanuts among our plants! Some mad woman in the neighbourhood walks the paths with a pouch of nuts and tosses them around to feed the bushy-tailed nuisances. How annoying! Drop all the peanuts you want in your own yard, lady! Some people are trying to garden around here!