What to plant for spring 2018

That is the question my wife is asking me.  We are planning to buy a house this year and we are wanting to limit the number of planters we put in.  It needs to be in light weight containers and can take abuse when we do move them.  That means a soil mix that is mostly peat moss and then plants that like that type of soil.  It is also a good time to go through our old plastic pots and then recycle those that are starting to wear out and then buy new ones when we get a new place.  We also will be planting varieties that can grow in full light, partial light and low light as we won't know which way the yard will face.

Herbs and spices should be OK as I normally put them into smaller and portable pots.  I think geraniums will do well in most conditions and in prior years the planters on the fence line were almost 50% peat moss.  I am hoping the sedums will take the move OK as those planters are quite big and heavy.

It is early (very early), but, I started my initial grass seeding on the west side of the house.  This location is protected on three sides and open to the south.  It gets quite warm there and the grass is already green and growing so it may be safe to start seeding there.  I have been doing this for the last several years and slowly we are getting grass to grow there.  Initially it was a very sandy and rocky soil that had only weeds growing and when my potting soils were exhausted I spread it out there and raked it in.

Looking forward to the 2016 growing season

Now that Christmas is over and we have snow on the ground I am starting the process of figuring out what we want for the backyard this year. I figure on the following:

• Geraniums on the top of the fence.  Nice colour and greenery.
• Sedums in the boxes.  If they survive winter they make nice green cover and in the autumn nice pinkish coloured flowers.
• Rosemary if it survives the winter here in the house.  Right now it looks a bit stressed due to the dry air, but, I hope it survives.
• Sage, savoury, thyme, basil, oregano.  Basic spices for when I cook.  They are also easy to dry and bottle.
• Sweet peppers.  They did quite well the past season in a 2x2 box as long as they got a good watering every day.  Peat moss mixed in with the standard potting soil helped retain water.
• Snapdragons.  The wife loves the colours and they last fairly long.  This time though I will mix in peat moss as the boxes did trend to dry out as they were in the sun all day long.
• Impatiens for part of the fence line that is shaded most of the day.

Along the fence line on the ground we are looking for shade tolerant plants as they don't get much sun during the day.

For the remaining planters we may put in a tomato plant (hopefully this year they don't rot out).  I have to do research to see if Brussel sprouts, brocolli and cauliflower can be planted in 2x2 boxes.  I would like to see if this is possible as the price of fresh vegetables this year is a bit insane and growing some fresh vegetables would be nice.

The remaining boxes (about six) will be for the wife and I suspect she will want something very colorful and long blooming so she has a nice oasis in the back yard.

One last thing I want to research is a watering system.  I see Lee Valley has some items that will allow me to fill a water container and then drip irrigate my plants.  This may be a real help on the hot sunny days where we can make sure our more important planters don't dry out.

Garden is smaller this year

As I noted in the prior post we were looking to buy a house so we didn't want to have a large garden.  Well things have changed a bit in that we are holding off for a while on buying a house.  We still have a garden, but, it will be much smaller this year.

So far we have dill plant in the north-east corner (by the living room window), a cherry tomato, basil, savory, oregano and a number of flowers.  Everything this year is easily transportable unless the tomato plant decides to grow to major proportions like prior years so if we do end up buying a house the whole garden can be easily transported.

We changed fertilizers this year.  Prior years we used miracle-gro and mixed it in the watering cans.  This year we bought the granular form and it only needs feeding every several months.  It will be interesting to see how this fertilizer works out, but, if it does this will make our lives a bit easier as I don't have to remember to feed the plants weekly.

2010 was not a good year

I was not able to publish what I did this year as I was working on a project at work that took most of my time. From June until August I was working seven days a week 12-18 hours a day and that didn't leave me any free time to enjoy the garden.

This year I put in a tomato plant, but, for some reason the fruit started to rot as soon as it ripened and all I got were three tomatoes.  I eventually took out the plant.  Next year I may work with a cherry tomato plant. The other problem plant was the dill.  There was some critter that stripped each and every stalk of the leaves and seed heads.

When I get some spare time I will take a few photos of what did work (Sage and Rosemary had a great year).

Summer 2009 - The summer that wasn't

So far this year the garden has been almost a total bust. For most of the summer it has been cool and wet. The Blue Stocking Beebalm and the Alask Shasta Daisy has been a total disapointment. They grew up fairly spindly and much less overwhelming in their flowers and foliage. I don't know if this is because of the weather or their being in containers, but, we won't be planting them next year. The wild flowers Emily planted along with her carrots are quite nice. She has already had two meals from her carrots and there are enough for at least two more. This is quite suprising as the box is 30x30 cm.

The other major disappointment has been the Basil. I think the combination of the weather and the fact we planted it with the Sage meant that we only got two small harvest from it. Next year we will be planting it in its own container and change the soil mix to one based on peat moss. The rosemary, savoury and thyme are thriving in their own containers and we should get several more cuttings before the autumn frosts. The rosemary will be brought in and placed in the living room beside the south facing window. We have done this for the last several years and the plant survives and thrives there so we won't be changing that.

The sedums are almost ready to blossom and when they do I will be taking photos of what they look like this year. This will probably be the last year in the pot as they are starting to out-grow the pot and will need to be divided next spring into at least two pots.

Just a short note about the photo at the top. You can thank Emily for this one. She borrowed my camera and took this image. The only thing I had to do was resize the image. She is getting very handy with digital cameras, Linux, digicam and the GIMP.

Garden 2009

It has been a while, but, I finally now have a few minutes to talk about this years garden. During this month (May) we had to protect our plants twice because of frost. Don't spend a lot of money doing this as I found that the plastic drop sheets from the dollar store works quite well. We move all of the plants to beside the living room window, stick in a few bamboo stakes on the corners and drap the drop sheet over the plants. It worked quite well and in the morning nothing was damaged.

We are going with the same thing on the south side fence as last year. On the top we are planting red and white geraniums and along the bottom we are planting red and white impatiens. The two go together quite well. We are still working on all of the plantings for this year, but, so far we have put in Rosemary, Sage, Savoury, Basil and Oregano. Emily has planted a bit of carrots and wild flowers (from seed).

The sedum from last year came back and next spring we will need to divide the plant as it has almost out-grown the current pot. My next project is to edit the current photos of the garden and update the layout to show what is planted and where.

Summer End

Today is the last full day of summer and we have started to clean up the plants in the back yard. This year has been a bit of a disappointment, but, some plants did quite well (impatiens, rosemary, sedum, thyme and oregano). The Sedum is now flowering and is adding a nice splash of colour to the back yard.









The honeybees are also in full force. On the sedum alone I counted four bees at one time and the impatiens have two or more at a time collecting the nectar.










The winter savour is now flowering nicely and it will continue until it is covered in snow. Two weeks ago we brough in the rosemary plant and it should survive the winter nicely in the living room at the south side window.

We have started to clear out the various planters of dead growth and saving the potting soil in a container over the winter. Over the next few weeks we will be doing the remaining planters and saving as much of the soil as we can. When the pail is full I will be reusing the soil and top dress the lawn area.

Once all of the planters have been cleared out I will be starting the winterizing of the perenials and like last year we will be raking and saving the leaves in large garbage bags and placing them on the top and sides of the planters as insulation as that worked very well last winter.

May Garden

It was too nice to be inside for the past several weeks even with some of the really hot days so I haven't been updating this blog. The garden is completely in and is doing very well so far this season.

The Roma tomatoes from last year self-seeded and there are about 12 more plants growing in the gravel. I gave my in-laws one and it survived and is growing very well. Our neighbors wanted several and we transplanted 8 more that survived. I left about 3 in the ground and reorganized the planters around the area just in case they grow as high as last year.

The savoury and oregano (left hand picture) are growing very well and the oregano was trimmed back once already and the spices dried and bottled. The basil (right hand container in right hand picture) really likes being in a small container. The box is about 30x30cm and gets sun from noon hour until the end of the day. It was over 30cm in height before I trimmed it back and dried the basil.


The planters on the fence contains geraniums and are doing very well. Underneath them in the shadow are impatiens and the colours are the same as the geraniums and the two together are quite nice. When (if) I get time I will take photos so you can see what the combination looks like and what the whole garden area looks like.