Calling Canadian Gardeners......

How are your gardens doing? Have you all got everything planted yet?

Traditionally this is the weekend most of us plant our gardens. It is still a bit early for toms and cucs or anything on the tender side, at least in my neck of the woods. Today I planted the corn and some Yukon Gold potatoes. I also decided to put in some more spanish onions since I had more of the sets. It is a bit late for them but I have lots left over since I could only buy them in bags of 100. Last weekend I planted Kennebec potatoes in the box I built for them last year.

So far, I have two kinds of peas, beets, two kinds of carrots, bush beans and pole beans and parsnips, Kennebec potatoes, Yukon Gold potatoes, red onions, spanish onions, yellow storing onions, multipliers, potato onions, shallots, three types of garlic, mesclun mix, romaine lettuce, swiss chard, spinach, radishes. For herbs, I have perennial ones......oregano, thyme, sage, chives but also planted garlic chives, cilantro, trying parsley AGAIN, mint, stevia and feather dill. Still have to put in my melons, cucs, tomatoes and brassicas.

Normally, I would plant my tomatoes and cucs, etc. this weekend, even if it is a bit early but it turns out that I get a few extra days off this next week. Combining that with my normal days off and the stat holiday I will have a total of five days so we are making a trip to Vancouver Island to finally meet the newest grandbaby. I hate to give up this weekend of gardening but since we didn't get to go away at Easter, we decided to go now. If we don't, baby Silas will be all grown up before we even meet him. I am looking forward to seeing all the grandkids! Yippeeeeee! The oldest will be 18 in a little over a month and the youngest is three months. Only grandkids could make me give this weekend up.

So when I get back next Thursday, I will have to finish my planting. I will still have to be careful about frost for another couple of weeks so it shouldn't matter too much that I am finishing a week behind what I usually do.

Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. I am taking my laptop with me and should be able to hook up to the internet sometime while I am away. However, grandkids do take precedent over the forum.

Happy gardening.

Gwynn

Congratulations on the new baby. I hope you are having a lovely weekend.

I caught a break in the weather at Easter and planted radishes, peas, lettuce, chard and spinach. I did another planting 2 weeks later. They are all up and at the tallest is about 2 inches. I need to plant beans and potatoes and do the transplants still. It's very rainy and cool here so I think I will wait on those. I missed the one perfect day, which was Saturday.

Leaves are starting to form on all the trees, even my clemitis.

Last year my growth stopped right around now, except for the peas and potatoes. But I have added extra compost (bagged) and a box of organic fertilizer so let's hope I have a stronger year.

Happy gardening.

I have planted lettus, chives, onions, green onions, garlic, carrots, strawberries, radishes, spinach, tomatoes, parsley, basil, rosemary, lavender, 2 types of potatoes and am waiting impatiently to plant my peppers-hot and sweet type.

I have not grown tomatoes before so I think they are growing slowly, maybe not? But the lettus' and parsley are bigger and the garlic is growing well, strawberries are starting to flower. carrots,green onions, radishes and spinach have all sprouted. So I guess I am doing ok.

happy gardening, Kari

My garden is well underway too but still need to wait on transplanting the tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, and squash here too. Need to wait past last frost date in early June here before they can go outside.

My niece and nephew planted 6 squares of carrots from seed (3 types of nantes -- coreless, scarlet, and touchon) and 2 squares of parsnips on Apr 24 when they were visiting on easter weekend. The weather was horrible here on carrot week, snow/freezing rain prevented my from preparing the gardens and planting them in time. Better late than never! They are all sprouting and onto true set of leaves this week. Parsnips are a bit lower, germination rate seems to be lower than the carrots.

Several squares of assorted romaine lettuce are growing great, the leaves are starting to form tight centers on some of them; they were started inside from seed April 16 and transplanted outside on April 30 just as the 2nd sets of leaves were starting to sprout. Also planted 6 squares of beets from seed on April 30 (3 varieties -- detroit dark, early wonder, and red ace). I added bone meal to my gardens this year to hopefully address nutrient challenges I had last year that cause broccoli and beets to be all leaves without heads on broccoli and no roots on beets. I also started the beets earlier, hoping they will grow better with a headstart before season gets too hot.

Multiplier onions just went in May 22 (I heard they were a great producer and found some to try), and green onions started from seed March 31 also went into SFG on May 8 along with the 6 broccoli (2 kinds -- green sprouting and munchkin a dwarf variety), a couple cauliflower, and 6 cabbages (2 kinds -- earliana and copenhagen). Also split and transplanted 1 garlic that was in my strawberry box last year into 4 garlics in their own square in another SFG away from strawberries.

Planted 4 squares of sugar snap peas on May 1, but when they started to come up a couple weeks later the chipmunks started eating them as fast as they poked thru the soil. So I set out a trap killing loaded with peanut butter on the pea squares killing 3 chipmunks and 1 white bellied mouse, which I assume also ate all my strawberries last year before they ripened. I replanted some more snap peas May 16 in the dug up squares, and planted another 4 squares in another box too on May 23. Hopefully they will come up before another wave of chipmunks move in! I didn't have this problem with snap peas the last 2 years, so I not sure why the chipmunks ate them this year -- the chipmunks were around the gardens but only dug out onion sets a couple times which they didn't like, so I just planted them back in multiple times until they remembered they didn't like them (they didn't dig any onions this year, just peas this time which they ate).

On May 22, planted more carrots in front of snap peas to take advantage of partially empty square (peas are planted along back row against the edge of box so they can climb onto trellis netting). Also planted half squares of radishes in squares where cucumbers will be added later on (white tipped sparklers). Also planning to put radishes in front of tomatoes and other cucumber squares next week end -- the tomotoes and cucumbers will get planted in sometime in June, maybe even after some radishes are produced if lucky.

Planted 2 celery that I started Apr 4 from seed, outside on May 22 too. I just read that they can handle some light frost, so outside they went. I have never tried growing celery before, so this is a new experiment this year. They will need lots of mulch and regular watering -- they will need to be wrapped with cardboard a couple weeks before harvest to blanche them from the sun so they won't be bitter. Sounds like a challenging veggie, so we'll see how this all goes. I used dead maple leaves from last year as mulch.

Tomatoes are in XL Tim Hortons coffee cups under growing lights inside waiting to be topped up with soil around stems as they grow. 4 varieties of tomato were started from seed April 17 -- starfire and beefsteak (bushes), and cherry and juliet (vines); most will be shared with friends and I'll just plant the vining varieties into my gardens against the trellis's. Last year had piles of tomatoes and the vines grew off the tops of the trellis's into the trees behind (along with the cucumbers -- picking them from way up the fir trees was challenging).

Peppers were started March 13 from seed and are currently in 3" jiffy pots under growing lights too. They are about 6" tall with several leaves so far. Trying some earlier maturing varieties and starting extra early inside, hoping to get more peppers than last year -- growing season is a touch short here, making pepper production before early Oct frosts a challenge when they can't be planted outside until mid/late-June when temperatures stay warm at night.

Will be starting cucumbers, summer and winter squashes, and winter squashes from seed inside this weekend coming up.

Wow bullfrog babe, how many square feet is your garden? I have 36 square feet in the backyard and 32 in my community garden plot. I wish I had another one at home just for strawberries and asparagus. Maybe next year!

I went out into the rain today and planted 8 squares of potatoes in my community garden plot since it is two feet deep. I had to get them in before the "eyes" took over my basement. I also have carrots, beets and parsnips seeded there but it has only been a (cold and rainy) week, so no action.

The temperature will be around 10 C all week with rain. What do you Canadians think... should I repot the squash & zucchini into bigger pots, put them into the ground or just wait it out? They are in seedling pots with a fistful of seedling soil and are about 3 inches tall.

Wow! It feels rather silly for me to be posting what I have planted in my new 18sfg!!! Seems so small in comparison to all the other gardens. I did not want to overdo it, so I decided to start small and see how my first season goes here in southern Ontario.

On May 12th I planted sugar snap peas, radishes, leaf and romaine lettuces, and carrots.

On May 20th I planted green and yellow beans, cucumbers, green onions, and pumpkin.

On May 21st my tomatoes and red and green peppers went in.

An overnight visitor trounced most of the garden quite a bit. I had to replant some of my peas, cucumbers, radishes, red pepper, and at my son's request the pumpkin was replaced with a sugar baby watermelon. The whole garden was then caged in. Potatoes and the pumpkin have been planted in the side garden as well.

So my "Alcatraz" garden is now safe and sound and growing beautifully! Signs of life popping up in just about every square as of this morning!

Now we just need to see the sun again!

Hi everyone! I just got back home this evening. What a treat to see all your posts and read about what you have all planted.

Ontario Gardener, there is absolutely NOTHING silly about your garden. It makes perfect sense to start out small and see how it goes. If it looks like things are going well, it is not too late yet to add a few more things perhaps in pots. I have a bad habit of having grandiose plans that are often difficult to keep up with and then get discouraged.

Some of my potatoes are up. Yayyy! I see some beans poking just slightly through the soil. The carrots have their first sets of true leaves. I put down coffee grounds and DE in the radish squares as something was chewing them off at a ridiculous rate. It looks like I may actually get some radishes now. The strawberries are flowering. No sign of the corn popping up yet but it hasn't even been a week. Apparantly we had beautiful weather here while we were away. Vancouver weather was pretty lousy.........raining most of the time. It was nice on Vancouver Island too although a bit cool.

While in Vancouver, I picked up a few plants and brought them home. Celery, lemon thyme, pineapple sage and orange mint. They smelled sooooo good in the car on the drive home. Oh it was hard watching people put in gardens and buying plants while we were away. If the grandkids weren't so much fun, I could never have given up that weekend. But there is always this one. And after listening to Brian Minter from Minter Gardens answering questions and talking about gardens for an hour as we were driving, I know that waiting for another couple of weeks is okay. If he encourages people in the Vancouver area not to be rushing, I guess it is okay for us to wait another couple of weeks too. By the way, if any of you have trouble with beets, he mentioned on the program today that planting them later gives better results. So that goes along with what I had read in a seed catalogue a couple of months back. Good to know that could be what caused the less than stellar performance of my beets last year.

It is good to be home, but it is back to the salt mines tomorrow. The boss leaves for Ontario for a week and a half on Sunday so I will be in charge until he gets back. Oh boy! Should be interesting.

Take care all and happy gardening.

Gwynn