CANADIAN REGION: What are you doing in May 2017

Lovely day yesterday so that encouraged me to get out and do some weeding;  then I found that it was far too ho to keep up for long, so I have done some more this morning.

Then I have some visiting to do so maybe I will get a little more done this evening.  More sun tomorrow then some rain.

Hey all! First time poster, first year doing SFG!

Speaking of dandelions, just thought I'd share - I read recently that it's good to not jump on removing them right away, as it is the first food that bees get after a long winter. Never thought about that before myself, although I don't have a backyard. I do my gardening on a raised bed and containers both on my terrace. Growing a variety of veggies and some flowers too, hopefully to attract some of those friendly pollinators to my space. :-)

Fiz wrote:Hey all! First time poster, first year doing SFG!

Speaking of dandelions, just thought I'd share - I read recently that it's good to not jump on removing them right away, as it is the first food that bees get after a long winter. Never thought about that before myself, although I don't have a backyard. I do my gardening on a raised bed and containers both on my terrace. Growing a variety of veggies and some flowers too, hopefully to attract some of those friendly pollinators to my space. :-)

Hi Fiz ... welcome to the forum from Ottawa. Have you read the All New Square Foot Gardening book? The forum also has lots of good information and wonderful people who are always willing to answer questions, provide advice, share their experiences, and contribute to this excellent community of SFGers. So join in and tell us more about your plans.  Photos of your progress are much appreciated.

Thanks trolleydriver!

I have indeed read the All New Square Foot Gardening Book! I have also read the "With Kids" version as I have a 3 year old who is very interested in what I've started.

Here is a pic from this weekend! I have a loose brick raised bed. I added a lower tier extension recently for baby butterhead lettuce. The grid is temporary and I'll be replacing it with something more permanent. This is a smaller bed, 3x2, to save space on my terrace.

Overall, I'm growing super bush container tomatoes, baby butterhead lettuce, mini carrots and round romeo carrots, green onions, sweet corn, cucumbers, eggplant, sweet peppers, basil, cilantro (which needs to be restarted, too leggy), and marigolds. I think that's everything, haha. I did bush beans as we'll but those were done indoors and already finished producing. These are all from seed indoors except the stuff in the raised bed which all was directly sowed, minus the tomato plant in there that I moved from a pot. Still some work to be done in terms of repotting, etc, but so far so good!

 I hope I added the image correctly!

https://i.servimg.com/u/f58/19/70/08/57/img_6010.jpg

Really nice Fiz. Best of luck with your gardening. Thanks for sharing. 

BTW I bought the kids version of ANSFG for a couple of our grandkids.  Our son built them two 3x3 beds and now he says he wants to build more!

Fiz,  Welcome to the Forum from California!

I also read about dandelion flowers being one of the first flowers for bees.  I let the dandelions flower, then remove the whole plant.  The leaves suffocate the grass with their horizontal growth.  

Here is an older thread.
https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t4894-dandelions-i-cut-this-out-of-a-magazine-when-i-was-a-teen#39413

Thanks sanderson! Great to be a part of the community. :-) It's interesting to hear other people's challenges and successes in different parts of the world as well as in my own back yard.

And trolleydriver, that's great to hear! Always nice when the little ones get interested. There's such a disconnect with where our food comes from and how its grown these days - my son already is starting to understand how much work goes into growing food and he respects his dinners a little more now, haha. 

I'm pretty sure I'll be expanding next year to include another box. I've got some more space in another corner, just don't want to overwhelm my wife and take over the whole terrace all at once! ;-) One step at a time, lol.

Nice to see everyone's getting busy!

Regarding dandelions, my neighbourhood is covered with them, so if I'm picking them out of my front yard, they won't notice! My backyard is covered, thanks to the previous owners. But I'm working on battling them down between frequent mowing, weeding, and some overseeding. It might take a while, but I AM going to win this battle!

I took my mum to a nursery called Connon's last Friday. We were there for a good two hours just browsing around. I picked up a couple of hanging baskets, and many goodies to put in my garden.

I decided on Sunday to get everything in before I left it too long. So, there I was, out in the drizzle, planting my tomatoes, peppers, etc. I had a few to direct seed as well. That might not have gone so well because my hands were wet, and my glasses were spotted with rain. There's a distinct possibility that they won't show up in a nice grid pattern.

I took some photos, and hopefully I'll get back on the board later tonight to load them from my home computer (shhh... I'm at work right now).

Looking forward to seeing your pics!

Welcome to SFG, Fiz!  Glad you found us, and your bed and containers look great!

YouThanks Scorpio! So far, so good, although I've definitely not been without challenges, as I'm sure you can all attest to!

Before moving my plants outside I started getting fungus gnats. I let the soil dry out and they seemed to be controlled but it's been quite rainy and will be more so over the next couple of days, so kinda worried about my raised bed because I've seen a few hanging out in that soil, and I've noticed some green fungus because it's been so moist. Gonna keep turning over the top inch and hope I can contain them!
 
I also got a bit too eager when hardening off. I brought the containers out for an hour or two every day for a week but I think I transitioned to full sun too fast because I've got some sunburn on some of my leaves. I've since moved the pots under my patio table to shade them for a couple of days, and also to protect them from the rain and wind gusts we are getting. Hopefully the damage was minimal!

Beautiful Canadian Flag Tulips at a cemetery in the UK.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-39972489

I've just about finished filling my new beds, and unfortunately I've already filled my compost bin.  I'm contemplating a 2nd composter.  A tumbler.   As it would have the same space (if not more) than my current bin.

I should begin the planting no later than Monday at the absolute latest, though I'm hoping to have a good portion done before then.

trolleydriver wrote:Beautiful Canadian Flag Tulips at a cemetery in the UK.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-surrey-39972489

I did a lot of gardening over the long weekend. All of therain we have been getting has made the yard very green. Not sure that there's enough sun for the

Mimi2 wrote:I did a lot of gardening over the long weekend. All of therain we have been getting has made the yard very green. Not sure that there's enough sun for the

Mimi did you use all of your tomato and pepper transplants? 

I may have some Tomato (Black Brandywine, Roma, Sweet Million), Pepper (Early California Wonder, Jalapeno, Banana, Chinese 5 Color) and Tomatillo transplants that I could share. I have not yet finished my planting so I am not sure how many I will have left over.

Fiz from Markham, Ontario  
from Kelejan, Canadian Regional Host from  British Columbia.

You certainly seem on your way to getting things done, and I agree with you that it is good to get the younger generation interested in how their food arrives.  So many young ones think everything comes from the supermarket in packages and get surprised when they find that it comes from the dirt and that milk comes from cows.  It is good when they can eat something that they themselves planted and that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Since joining this Forum  and having only limited knowledge of gardening, I have also acquired the ability to learn about preserving the food I grow; freezing of course, and especially canning and dehydrating.  Also quite a lot about composting and mulching and worms and all sorts of interesting stuff.  My freezer is full and my shelves have many cans of preserves so I never have to run out to the stores to get something for supper.  Now, if only I could find a way to save things like fresh lettuce and cucumbers so that I never waster anything. 

Look forward to seeing your progress.

Nice to see you on Canadian Regional, Jaffa55 from Milton, Ontario, and Swamp Troll from Markham in New Brunswick. If I have missed you before, my apologies.

The weather here in British Columbia Southern Interior, the Kootenay Region has been very warm these past few days so I was able to finally get all my grass cut in one day. Previously I could only manage portions at a time as the grass was so long and wet and the mower had to be cleared every few yards.  Yesterday I was able to mow it all in one day.  Naturally, being the month of May, it already looks as though it could do with another cut.

Unfortunately the Okanagan which is also in the BC Southern Interior is having to cope with too much water and there is flooding in Kelowna and area.  If you can imagine three ranges of mountains with valleys in between, I live in the one that is not being flooded and luckily for us the Columbia River dams are not allowing too much water through.  A few years ago we had very high water and it really damaged our Millenium Park on the edge of the Columbia River. 

Tomorrow I will be collecting my two free bags of compost from the City at our Annual Spring Garden Fair.  Although I no longer have a car, I do have a friend who who gives me a ride and we go together to collect our compost. I will have to be careful with the bags as they are in paper and easily torn.  Last year I was lifting out one of my bags and it split and left a pile of compost in the trunk of her car. Good weather is predicted so we should have a good day out.

trolleydriver wrote:

Mimi2 wrote:I did a lot of gardening over the long weekend. All of therain we have been getting has made the yard very green. Not sure that there's enough sun for the

Mimi did you use all of your tomato and pepper transplants? 

I may have some Tomato (Black Brandywine, Roma, Sweet Million), Pepper (Early California Wonder, Jalapeno, Banana, Chinese 5 Color) and Tomatillo transplants that I could share. I have not yet finished my planting so I am not sure how many I will have left over.

Hi TD- Yes, I do have a few

My posts keep getting cut off. Not sure what is happening.

Mimi2 wrote:My posts keep getting cut off. Not sure what is happening.

[size=36]https://www.flickr.com/gp/151081663@N05/9vbAyb[/size]

Mimi2 wrote:

Mimi2 wrote:My posts keep getting cut off. Not sure what is happening.

[size=36]https://www.flickr.com/gp/151081663@N05/9vbAyb[/size]

Looking good Mimi. Are those determinate or indeterminate tomatoes?

trolleydriver wrote:

Mimi2 wrote:

Mimi2 wrote:My posts keep getting cut off. Not sure what is happening.

[size=37]https://www.flickr.com/gp/151081663@N05/9vbAyb[/size]

Looking good Mimi. Are those determinate or indeterminate tomatoes?

Indeterminate. Did you have to go to the site to check out the pic? I am having trouble posting the pics through photo bucket

Kelejan wrote: Fiz from Markham, Ontario  
from Kelejan, Canadian Regional Host from  British Columbia.

You certainly seem on your way to getting things done, and I agree with you that it is good to get the younger generation interested in how their food arrives.  So many young ones think everything comes from the supermarket in packages and get surprised when they find that it comes from the dirt and that milk comes from cows.  It is good when they can eat something that they themselves planted and that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.

Since joining this Forum  and having only limited knowledge of gardening, I have also acquired the ability to learn about preserving the food I grow; freezing of course, and especially canning and dehydrating.  Also quite a lot about composting and mulching and worms and all sorts of interesting stuff.  My freezer is full and my shelves have many cans of preserves so I never have to run out to the stores to get something for supper.  Now, if only I could find a way to save things like fresh lettuce and cucumbers so that I never waster anything. 

Look forward to seeing your progress.

Thanks Kelejan! I'm cautiously optimistic that things will go well. Just need to get past all this rain we've been having the last week here in Toronto. It seems there is more on the way, but just hoping for a few days of mostly sunshine to dry out the soil, as I'm mostly worried about fungus growth on the soil and the gnats that come with it. I'll definitely keep you all posted on how things go!

A beautiful day here in Ottawa as 45,00 runners gather to participate in the events of the Capital City Marathon.

As for me, I'll be out working in the garden and wearing my PEI Dirt Shirt which is dyed with 100% Prince Edward Island dirt.