CANADIAN REGION - What are you doing in March 2015

jebailey to the Canadian Regional thread.

My board name is Kelejan and I am the Canadian Regional Host.

I  live in British Columbia, which as you know is sometimes called Lotus Land and with good reason this year, seeing what everyone east of British Columbia has and is going through. have gone through this winter with all that white stuff.

We had one good dump of snow and that was that. I have no doubt that we are going to suffer from drought and fire later in the year.

My grass is still grey but there are a few green blades poking through and my tulips, daffodils, grape hyacinth and garlic leaves are showing the tips of there leave and soon enough I will have my first bit of colour in my garden.  Meanwhile in Victoria and Vancouver I think all the grass has turned green.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Kelejan

Kelejan wrote:

AtlantaMarie wrote:Housework is important?  With seeding & gardening to be done??

  

Marie, did you not notice the invisible raised commas around important?

OOOhhhhh...  is THAT what those things were??

NOPE no housework going on in this house. Planting planting planting. I have been replanting the tiny tomato seedlings into gallon pots for the farmers market in May.

Unfortunately in my warm weather ZEAL I left a tray of artichokes outside and we had a hard frost night before last.....

I have planted most of my potatoes, I read somewhere that when the grass started to green was the time to plant  potatoes..... and I am experimenting with my cooler season plantings, afraid to check the ones I planted a few days ago...

aww GWN sorry to hear about your artichokes that's happen to me before too!

funny story: ...well I thought it to be funny

my daughter has a friend over this weekend, and I apologized for our kitchen table being full and cluttered with gardening stuff & that they had to eat out in the living room.....

I said: *when the spring garden gets planted I will clean it up*

my daughter says: *well that doesn't last long mom because then you start and harvest and the table gets filled with canning, freezing and dehydrating* LOL and *mom when the summer garden is almost done you are back to planting for fall!*

man I love my kids!
hugs
rose

Goosegirl wrote:

I agree, Goosegirl. 

It is the same with my carport, especially as I no longer have a car and that space is so convenient next to the house.  My stuff fills any space that becomes available.  When the night time temperatures do not dip below 10C my "Wiggler Hiltons" will be placed there as they will be protected from direct sunlight and it is so convenient.

It is really a shame to waste that useable space on a car just sitting there.

Kelejan wrote:

Goosegirl wrote:

I agree, Goosegirl. 

It is the same with my carport, especially as I no longer have a car and that space is so convenient next to the house.  My stuff fills any space that becomes available.  When the night time temperatures do not dip below 10C my "Wiggler Hiltons" will be placed there as they will be protected from direct sunlight and it is so convenient.

It is really a shame to waste that useable space on a car just sitting there.

Nothing much seems to be happening in my garden but I have faith that underneath the surface roots are digging deeper, the mulched soil is getting better and the worms are growing longer and all sorts of good things.

I keep my spirits up by following everyone else living in lower latitudes with your lovely pictures  that at the moment I can only see mine on the seeds packets, gardening books, the Internet etc.

After some more rain the sun is showing and enticing me out to do some more "landscaping" with the remainder of my wood chips, and still some clearing up needed.

I do have a little colour now, some crocus like little rays of yellow sunshine, lovely lilac and purple ones, sadly all in the way right now as I have to tread carefully as I clean out my overgrown flowering hedge. I must remember to mark them so that I can dig them up after flowering and place them elsewhere.

Just checked my grape vine cuttings, 33 of them, and I have my first sign of life, one bud. I placed the cuttings in water at the beginning of this month. The cuttings I took of one flowering shrub has loads of leaves budding, but so far no roots. Now I have to identify it as I planted it there about 18 years ago and I cannot remember its name.

The tulips, daffodils and grape hyacinths are showing promise. Just checked my first bed that I seeded and I found two pea plants just poking through and four blueberry bushes show leaf buds. So progress is being made.

While out with my dog Jazz I am keeping an eye on the thirteen comfrey plants that I discovered last year. They are actually on city property, that part of house frontages that do not belong to the householder but have to be kept tidy. I have the approval of the householder to harvest them.  At the moment the comfrey plants are just piles of stalks left over from last year, but I can see the new growth coming.  The current householder is interested in gardening and has started an SFG but his wife just has little time to help as she has three very small children to look after. Hopefully, as he keeps up with it, the little ones will grow up and even get interested.  I have some extra seeds from our local seed exchange and as there are too many for one person, I am going to give him some so that we can chat about SFG etc and I can get to see how he is doing.  His land is about six feet higher than the road so I cannot peek in unless I climb his driveway.

So our Maritimes are still being hammered with snow, ice, rain, floods etc. I wonder how long this can keep up. You are all in our thoughts.

That was a lovely writeup.

I had 3 under 4 years of age. The back yard was my sanity break. The kids just ran (or crawled) around, dug dirt, checked the strawberries, while I weeded and mowed. Maybe the wife can develop a liking to gardening in some fashion with the little ones,

Thank you for your compliment, sanderson.

I bet your children grew up with very few allergies due to playing in the dirt and that they had lots of fun.  I know I am very healthy for my age and I put it down to playing in the dirt.  I did have measles, whooping cough and chicken pox so hopefully I never come down with shingles like so many seem to do nowadays. A late friend of mine had that nasty affliction and she suffered greatly and it lasted for months.

Whooping cough! I had pleurisy, every kind of "measles", and chicken pox. I didn't get allergies until I was in my 30's. When I started kindergarten, I received the first polio shot. I'm not real big on eradicating every disease. Polio, tetanus, small pox and pertussis, yes, but measles and chicken pox? Not sure about those. I think my kids are pretty hardy. They all got chicken pox at one time. I remember sending little daughter next door to play with her little buddy who had chicken pox, and sure enough, one by one all came down with it. That was how it was done in those days.

sanderson wrote:Whooping cough!  I had pleurisy, every kind of "measles", and chicken pox.  I didn't get allergies until I was in my 30's.  When I started kindergarten, I received the first polio shot.  I'm not real big on eradicating every disease.  Polio, tetanus, small pox and pertussis, yes, but measles and chicken pox?  Not sure about those.  I think my kids are pretty hardy.  They all got chicken pox at one time.  I remember sending little daughter next door to play with her little buddy who had chicken pox, and sure enough, one by one all came down with it.  That was how it was done in those days.

I remember those days.  I vaguely remember coming down with either measles or chicken pox  but have no recollection of whooping cough.  It's just as well, when I see babies with whooping cough on TV a little while ago, I thought, poor babies. I also have no remembrance of falling into the River Thames and being fished out after floating down the river for about fifty yards, but that has no bearing on being Canadian Regional Host.

I see our grass is turning green, in places, so it will soon be grass mowing time.  I must admit I love cutting the grass in spring. Never fertilized, or used weed killer, just let the grass clippings go back, keep the mower blades high, and enjoy the dandelions, violets, red and white clover and other assorted wildflowers do their thing.  Never watered, unlike my neighbours, and in high summer my grass looks much nicer than theirs as they over-water and scalp their grass.

I can't quite get DH to "try frequent" mowing without using the basket. We have Fescue which does better if it is 3-4" tall.

I find that frequent mowing is so easy. Easy to push the mower and no stopping to empty the bag.

It is also a lovely feeling  to walk around in bare feet.

DH doesn't like the look of dead grass on top.

Sanderson - with the frequent mowings and with the blades set high, the actual clippings are short and fall right between the taller blades and act like mulch at their base.  Not much, if any, dead grass laying on top of the lawn.  Once mowing season hits I mow weekly and only have to bag for the first month or so (our rainiest season!).  Once the spring rains taper off my grass growth slows to a moderate pace and I don't bag and just have a great looking lawn.  Like Kelejan, I leave the dandelions, violets and clover - in fact I scattered a pack of white clover seed and 2 packs of creeping charlie seed over my lawn last year and look forward to their mass invasion this year! The wind here in SD blows in so many weed seeds - especially thistles of every sort - that I am encouraging ALL creepers and crowders in my lawn to choke them out.  Last year the thistle population was the lowest in years, and I hope to see even less of them this spring.

GG, thanks.  We have Fescue and I don't know how much mulch it can handle, maybe try it twice a month?  I've started drying our grass clippings for browns, mixing with the shredded leaves.  Win-win?  We have a prominent, corner house in a nice neighborhood (not the ritz but a good solid North neighborhood for Fresno), hence the front lawn has to look decent.

The back yard can be a little wilder.

GG, thanks for explaining that frequent mowing makes for short clippings that do not sit on top of the grass.

I get grass clippings from my friend down the road who does not put anything on her lawn but does not mow as her son does it but lets it get too long.  Then I dry the grass and store most of it to go with the fall leaves as fresh dried grass stays a green.

Dried grass, browns or greens? I've seen it both ways.

sanderson wrote:Dried grass, browns or greens?  I've seen it both ways.

Greens. All that yummy nitrogen is why the little clippings are so good for the lawn - instant fertilizer.

The only time I bag my grass is when I'm mowing leaves in fall. I, too, sit back and enjoy and healthy lawn/meadow while the neighbors fertilize, weed-feed, water and scalp theirs.

CC

sanderson wrote:Dried grass, browns or greens?  I've seen it both ways.

My theory is that when you cut the grass it is a green when you let the grass die in the fall it is a brown because the chlorophyll has been used up.

HI!

I'm mew here and Kelejan invited me to check this part of the forum out/

I live in SW Ontario on the east shore of (still frozen) Lake Huron. I still have a two foot snow drift covering half of the backyard and my front yard (north side) is  still snow covered. Despite that I see daffodils poking through near the house and as soon as my order from Perron / Dominion arrives, I will be starting my tomatoes and peppers.

Hi Fred, you certainly acted quickly on my invitation to join us. Welcome.
Don't forget you can wander all over this site and visit anywhere in the world.

It seems that so far this year we have three or four members in British Columbia and another handful on Ontario. Of course, when I write here I have to remember that there may be thousands of people dipping in but never commenting.  That is the same with all Forums.  

Being a new Host here, started January 1st, 2015, I have not yet connected with anyone East of Ontario. 

If you go back on the threads, you will see there are January and February ones as well, and if you read them you will find that most of the postings are by me. When I mentioned that, I was assured that many people readmy posts so I continue with those  encouraging comments.

It WAS suggested that I start off with a three month thread and now I know why.

Despite not having as much snow this year, it has been dry as well, and I doubt that my yard is any more advanced than yours.  A few crocus, and today I see some yellow on the forsythia. I am in the Southern Interior, a different climate to Victoria and Vancouver and even the desert Okanagan.