Sunday, April 10, 2011

Garden wanderings

My husband was out of town so I decided to take my camera and wander around Kitsilano where I used to live many years ago.

So many things have changed and yet some things stay the same. I wandered down to the railway tracks on West 6th to where they now have a wonderful community garden all along the railway line. Talk about great use of space. Very peaceful. I love to wander and look and see what people are doing in their garden allotments. Mostly they were neat and tidy and look to be ready to either plant or perhaps some things are in already. Perennials are starting to come up and the birds are in full force.

It makes me yearn for a garden of my own and I hope these people realize how lucky they are to have this. It does give me some great ideas for when I do get a garden. I just hope the one I get isn't in too much of a mess. I'd like to put in some rhubarb and lots of flowers for cutting and for the birds and bees. I love the decorative elements people put in their gardens.





Wednesday, April 6, 2011

My love of gardening

I was never interested in gardening until I got my first community plot over 20 years ago in Burnaby. It was very definitely a learning experience. My first garden was 100 square feet and I had no idea what I was doing. It came complete with a lot of weeds, a tired old wood compost and a rather bedraggled scarecrow. I loved it. I think I managed to turn half the soil one weekend and then commenced to throw in seeds. The next weekend I tacked the other end and then when I came back I started in weeding again. It wasn't the neatest garden but considering my inexperience I did okay. I ended up giving away quite a bit and ended up with some really gigantic zucchini. No one told me that they could double their size in a day. The slugs... oh the slugs, they were something else. They loved my lettuce. To this day I can't look at a head of romaine lettuce without thinking of them. I would soak the lettuce and all these slugs would float to the top. Yuck!!

I took a head (washed) of romaine to my girlfriends place one night for dinner and she proceeded to make a caesar salad with .... shrimp. I was sure I had gotten those slugs out but I couldn't help thinking about them as I ate. It was good but....

I think some of our passions are passed down from our ancestors. My grandfather was a wonderful gardener and had a beautiful garden. I only wished that I was interested in it while he was alive. I would have loved to have learned from him. I wonder what he did with slugs.


My grandparent's backyard, Vancouver 1958.

Poof

Still getting the hang of this blogging thing. I had my second blog all done and I found a mistake after I had published it. Well, I finally figured out how to fix it and when I hit save poof, it disappeared. Yikes. Actually that wasn't quite what I said...

Monday, April 4, 2011

Frustrated Gardener

I have had my name on the list for a community garden plot for a year now but at last count I was number 97. Hopefully next year I will finally get a garden again. In the meantime I will have to be content with my balcony. It will be mainly flowers as it is quite small.

We have critters who have eaten all of my 160 crocus that I put out in the fall but so far the bedding plants that I planted last year seem to be okay. We moved into the townhouse 8 months ago and I pretty much took everything except for a few things out of the flower bed in the back. I planted bee balm from our last house and it is spreading nicely. I also put in some other little cuttings from the house and a bag of 10 flowering plants that I picked up at Thrifty's. It is a very small space. There was a rather sad hydrangea in the back that was infected with something strange so I cut it back and it looks rather sad. There are a few new buds now but it is looking kind of lopsided. I'm hoping that with some TLC it will come back. I put compost and mulch on the beds last fall and keeping my fingers crossed.

I bought a few mason bees for my new little bee house and hope that will also help my little backyard spot.



The hummingbirds are also back and hungry. They will enjoy the bee balm when it comes in.