You Grow Girl™

Another manic gardening weekend is behind me. Monday was a holiday so I had three solid days of frenzied gardening activity. I'm tired.

Saturday afternoon was cold and blah but we headed over to the community garden to plant up the remaining plants purchased last weekend. I put in strawberries, egyptian garlic, garlic, a few varieties of basil and orange banana tomatoes.

Some of the bulbs I planted (off season) a few weeks ago are now producing flowers. There are clumps of tiny crocuses (I love them when the flowers are little) in bloom and a daffodil is showing a bud.

Sunday started off with weather that was unexpectedly warm and sunny so we spent the morning on the deck preparing more pots, drilling holes, and moving stuff around. Beate was kind enough to drive us to the Loblaws for mushroom compost, potting soil and mulch. This year I decided to mix it up and bought cacao pod mulch instead of cedar. The car was hot and REAKED of chocolate. I also picked up a few trailing annuals for the railing boxes. Man, it can be really difficult to make choices about what to put in what box. Everything at the garden centre says "sun or partial shade" and frankly if it can tolerate partial shade it can't tolerate the full sun ++ that is our deck. I really can't bother to plan what's ahead because I'm dependant on what the garden centres in my area carry -- which isn't much. I can't remember everything I picked up off-hand but I recall some nice ipomea (black and another one that's multi-coloured), some silver leaved stuff, some other red flowered trailing stuff and tons of nasturtiums. I'm always hesitant to get involved with nasturtiums because aphids LOVE them. I love the flavour of nasturtium leaves and flowers so every year I can't resist growing a few. And every year they become so coated in those soft green bodies that it borders on grotesque. I don't mind insects but after you've squashed a few zillion with your bare hands.... so of course this year I bought a ton and did an entire box of nasturtiums.

When we got back I applied the cacao pod mulch and then set about planting everything. Our deck was crazy with several people involved in planting at once. I didn't intend to do so much at once, but I got caught up in it all and did a lot of work. The passion flower I have been growing for years finally bit the dust and I'd been planning to replace it with a new one. Well of course I can't keep to a plan and on impulse bought two varieties of morning glories instead. I bought 'Heavenly Blue' and 'Pearly Gates' for a religious theme. It goes nicely with the Jesus lenticular artwork we found on the street and stuck out there a few years ago.

Coral Bells (Heuchera) 'Cappucino'

This year, because I'm lucky enough to have the community plot, I'm planning to grow less tomatoes on the deck. As a result I've decided to give the big cedar planter boxes a break from tomatoes. In one box I'm growing perennials including butterfly bush (which I hope will get big soon) and some artichokes I picked up, again an impulse buy. I've since read that in colder climate zones artichokes need to be tricked into thinking it's their second year so they'll produce chokes. I'm hoping that the grower did the trick already. It involves growing six week old plants in cold temperatures for 10 days. If my plants don't produce I won't be too disappointed. Artichokes have a lovely silver foliage that looks alot like one of my favourite perennials, globe thistle. It's an experiment.

In the second box I'm growing all edibles. I planted two sweet peppers (yes I know growing peppers instead of tomatoes doesn't really count as real crop rotation), lemon basil, thai basil and today I sowed more lemon basil and thai basil seeds. So far in pots I've set out three bushing cucumbers, lemon boy tomato, silver fir tree tomato, unknown basil, red beard onions (these are a really cool variety that are red and look like green onions only bigger), more purple tomatillos (my first batch are sad and under-developed), and an asian greens mix.

'Chocolate Soldier' Columbine

This morning I discovered that my favourite (or second favourite) columbine, 'chocolate soldier' (Aquilegia vividiflora) is in bloom. The plant is much larger than last year and with many more flowers. The reason why I love this flower so much is that they are muted unlike the really bright over-the-top colours that are usually seen. The flowers actually blend in with the foliage and can't be seen on first sight.

This time last year: expanding the garden.