Spring Garden!

My new composter and expanded veggie garden got me all excited for the gardening season! Feeling that it was too early for planting, I was always told to wait until after the threat of the last frost has passed (end of May in Nova Scotia), I headed to the bookstore to pick up a book on backyard composting.

We had a composter in our backyard that previous tenants left behind years ago but we were really never successful at it so what better way to learn then to read about it before getting your hands dirty. One thing I have a really hard time with is resisting books. I LOVE books and I do eventually read them all! Sitting on the shelf beside the composting book was this book...

I sat in the bookstore looking at my books thinking about all of the issues we currently have with food. My thoughts turned back to the Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food, both books my Michael Pollan and both AMAZING. Mainly I was thinking about where it comes from and how it is grown and the environmental impacts of it all. Even though I try to buy everything local and organic, it can be difficult in the dead of winter to get local greens...so I bought Niki's book (she is from Nova Scotia!) and vowed to give some of her ideas a try. So I quickly read the relevant sections on designing a garden, crop rotation and most importantly the section about plants themselves. To my surprise, she recommended planting some crops before the last frost! There are so many cold hardy plants, like broccoli, kholrabi, lettuce, spinach, kale, leeks, carrots and the list goes on that I made a garden plan and planted it on April 27th!

With a little care, like row covers, I am hoping to successfully grow all of these veggies! The strawberries and chives have been there for a couple of years but everything else is new, much of them new to me as a gardener! The poppies come from seeds from my grandmother's garden that my mom has kept growing since her passing in the 90's. They will give the garden some wonderful colour and bring me back to my youth at the cottage by the lake at the same time. I am planning to start a fall crop indoors in July (need to get a grow light set up...) and build a mini hoop tunnel to protect them into the winter. So far I have planted 4 rows of salad greens and this weekend will be planting the rest with some broadcast seeds in between many of the seedlings that are popping up! I also have a plant for a small A-frame to get some pole beans climbing and plant some more greens underneath to keep them going through the heat of the summer. Who knows if it will all work out but I will keep you posted. Here are some promising first signs...