With just a week left in the month, March has decided to come back. Temperatures in Toronto dipped just below freezing last night, and it’s expected to go even lower tonight. Are those of you in similar regions worried? I’m not. At least not about my own garden. I’m worried about fruit orchards with trees …
Imagine my surprise when I pulled back the row cover at the back of my garden and found this pot full of living ‘Four Seasons’ lettuce that I had planted last fall and forgot about. It survived the winter! I love these little mistakes that result in new discoveries. Yes, our winter was much milder …
How about this weather, eh? I spent all of Monday getting the garden in order. Or, I should say, beginning to get the garden in order. Digging, cleaning, ripping out dead annuals, sowing seeds… my arms, shoulders, neck, legs, knees, everything are creaky, stiff, and sore. I did not stretch before I started. To be …
And just like that, spring is springing! I am very pleased to announce that I have been hired as a featured gardening expert as a part of HGTV’s new online garden initiative, HGTV Gardens. In the coming months I will be writing a weekly column answering pressing and seasonally relevant garden questions sent in by …
I’ve got tomatoes on the brain these days. Last weekend I had a table at Seedy Saturday at the Brickworks here in Toronto and the highlight was trading for some new tomato varieties. I walked away with at least ten new varieties feeling like a kid in a candy shop. That giddy feeling hasn’t worn …
I meant to post about tomatoes today, but with the weather so warm and spring-like I headed off to my friend Barry’s garden to photograph some early spring ephemerals before they are gone.
You may know fellow garden addict, writer, and general all-around badass Margaret Roach through her well-loved books, via the pages of Martha Stewart Living magazine (she was the first garden editor there), or through her superlative website, A Way to Garden. Today, I am thrilled to announce that Margaret and I are in the process …
Lately, I’ve been using photo sharing sites/apps like Instagram and Flickr to chart the progress of my seeds and seedlings as they germinate and grow. My older model iPhone does not take the nicest photos under low-light conditions, but I’ve found it to be a helpful way to track progress for my own purposes, especially …
I purchased this particular large, green, plastic container used and for only one dollar at a plant sale in the spring of 2010. It’s not particularly beautiful, but isn’t offensive either — I recognized it right away as a good sized tub with an uncommon depth and girth that would make a happy home for …
I just wrote and deleted a lengthy paragraph dedicated to complaining about the snow that came and went and came again and the lack of snow that has been the nattering gossip of the 2011/2012 winter season, but then I deleted it because COME ON… I wonder, does obsessing about the weather come with being …
Yesterday I posted about the Cyclamen coum I was gifted by my friend Barry, and later that day I visited his cold greenhouse where his were in bloom along with many other botanical delights, including these Crocus biflorus ssp. isauricus ‘Spring Beauty’ (aka snow crocus) that he grew in a pot. The dark purple underside …
I can feel it in the air. Just today I noticed that a few more green bits had forced their way above the soil surface outside. Spring will be here soon and for some of you it has already arrived. In the meantime, these flowers have been helping me through. Their colourful, long lasting blooms …