Gardening 2017: Fruits, Veggies, Flowers

[Lady tehMa]

How did you get rid of lawn?! I am definitely interested in hearing about your method!

The last garden bed I made I used the lasagna gardening method. Lay down cardboard (no tape or plastic on it) in the fall where you want your new garden beds. Then pile layers of mulch, dirt and compost. In the spring, plant. Sometimes though the lawn survives and getting those roots out are a pain. :/

Home Depot has a sod cutter machine for rent, you'll need strong arms/backs and a trailer or truck to get that back to your place to use. That's what I used to do my main gardens.

Queen K's raised garden bed method is really the BEST.

[Jflem1983]

Looks like a bit of rain next few days . Should have the ground fairly soft . Planting will be next week sometime I hope .

[Bpeep]

I love having the male flicker peck on the chimney cap in the morning.

[Queen K]

I spotted a Spotted Towhee in lower Mission a few weeks ago. Never have I seen one in Kelowna before. So pumped.

Oh, and the parsley tastes marvellous. Got Swiss Chard coming up, Rhubarb and the Haskups are leafing out.

[Lady tehMa]

I have croci and snowdrops and winter aconite blooming. <3 I have tulips and daffs and some rescue bulb coming up (the rescues were from that house downtown -remember QK? You told me of it and came across me digging on a hot day around the edges of a pit where a house used to be)

[Queen K]

Like it was yesterday. We sure rescued a lot of plants last year. I can't wait to see what my rescue poppy is going to look like.

Many of my bulbs are coming up and I don't even know what they are, so exciting!!

[Lady tehMa]

Yours will bloom a good week before mine, I will want pictures!

[Queen K]

It funny how I recorded the entire season last year and did not post one photo of the gardens on facebook.

This year is different, k? I will do it. I do have photos of flowering plants to give away, if anyone wants anything, I'm going to have an overflow of plant material. When do I not?

I'm going to have an overflow of herbs as per usual, perennials to divide. Possibly more tayberry shoots, last year I found lots of saskatoon berry bushes growing.

[rose123]

To call what I had as lawn is actually being quite generous. I had a weedy wild field lawn. What we did was destroy the top layer and have it removed. Completely. That was our "from scratch." So then we took a cue from ByLands Nursery and laid down tough, top quality landscape fabric all across it. And then laid down raised garden beds for vegetables and the occasional flower.

The front section got a layer of thick cardboard too, and then landscape fabric. Then I collected wheelbarrels and filled them with plants. I have a small section for inground vegetables and an overflow section filled with all kinds of roses/bulbs/berry bushes.

Berries I added: raspberry, three haskups, two saskatoons, strawberries, tayberry, loganberry, himrod white grapes. I grow a huge sunflower hedge every year for the birds.

Thanks for sharing your method! This is quite close to what I had in mind. Luckily our lawn isn't much to brag about which should make it easier to conquer/reclaim!

I will be planting some sunflowers this year too, but berries will have to wait until I understand the property a bit better I think. The himrod white grapes sound appealing!

[rose123]

The last garden bed I made I used the lasagna gardening method. Lay down cardboard (no tape or plastic on it) in the fall where you want your new garden beds. Then pile layers of mulch, dirt and compost. In the spring, plant. Sometimes though the lawn survives and getting those roots out are a pain. :/

I'm going to try this too. I also plan to build some self-watering planters as I imagine keeping things evenly watered in summer can be a challenge here...

[Queen K]

Seedy Saturday at the Summerland Ornamental Gardens was the BEST!

It wasn't terribly busy either. We get that it was their first year and that they are just getting established. It was a small buying crowd with lots of choices. I scored well with tomato plants I think. I gave up Black Krim for Owen's Purple, I got a purple/black variety called Carbon, and I got a new red variety to me.

We got a larger than average rosemary bush, and will use some of it to roast the chicken tomorrow night.

Free seeds: onions, squash, and parsnip. Lots to share around too. Especially the onion seeds. They're a bunching variety, sort of like a scallion.

Jerusalm Artichoke bulbs were nice. We learned we can grow them in deep plastic tubs, finally a use for my old green rainbarrels and to think this was the year we were going to toss them. These plants are invasive and do well in tubs. We got a chance to eat the root freshly cut. Delicious. If the vendor had not done that I would not have bought the rhizomes.

We scored a German potato variety and a fingerling potato. Can hardly wait...so exciting.

Got hot pepper seeds, somethin' about the name Satan on one of the packages. The other one is not as hot.

It's so great that Peachland is having a Seedy Saturday soon, only I'll be back on a weekend work schedule again. I'd recommend attending to anyone who wants to see a seed variety outside just what is shoved at you in garden centers. They have their place, but you won't get the huge choices.

[Queen K]

Hot Pepper Up-date:

Rocotillo Pepper (organic) Originally from Peru, shaped like a space ship. "not really spicy, around 2000 scoville units. 50 seeds.

Kiss of Satan Pepper (organic) Spicy hot "Cherry Bombs', variety found in a seed shop in Italy. Recommended by the proprietor (of seed shop?). 30 seeds.

Oh, and I tried American Gooseberry or Aunt Molly's Ground Cherry, last year. I got a seed package with 50 seeds in it.

No way in H. E.. double hockey sticks am I using all these seeds, does anyone want to trade something for some of them?

Bman gets dibs on pepper seeds.

[Jflem1983]

When's it gonna warm up . Frost this morning again

[Queen K]

I've seen frost well into April before, so hard to know.

Loading Spring has taken so long.

[Queen K]

And it really hasn't warmed up either by 12:30.

Anyone else completely frustrated by this?