Planter Inspiration

Now that I have a community garden plot I feel free to use my mostly-shady patio to grow beautiful things. Inspired by my friend Camilla, who recently started a rooftop garden in Montreal, I hit up the garden centre on the way home from Fort Langley and bought some beautiful geraniums and dahlias for a box that had swiss chard in it last year. The flowers have really brightened up the patio during an otherwise pretty bleary spring here in Vancouver.

I also planted this big, lush hosta. I'm not a fan of variegated varieties (when the leaves are speckled or streaked with other colours or tones), especially in such a small space. I simply wanted some greenery to further brighten things up. The sunflowers and nasturtiums will also bring some much-needed colour to the space. Of course, I still have some herbs, tomatoes, and squash growing out here.

June 28, 2009: Garden Update

Blueberries! Full sun to part-shade and growing on my patio thanks to my friend Jacqui, a local garden designer. This is a very exciting addition for me as there is hardly anything I enjoy as much as fresh blueberries. I'm hoping this particular variety, Patriot Blueberries (USDA Zone 3) will bring me back to days of picking wild blueberries in Nova Scotia.

AND another fabulous addition to the garden: a little pot of succulents that love full sun. Thanks to Sara for contributing these lovelies.

Here's how everything else is shaping up:

Peas are climbing.

Tomatoes are flowering and fruiting.

So are the patty pan squash!

The patio is lush and productive these days.

June 24, 2009: Garden Update

Rain! It's finally raining! It's great to have a day off from the old water butt (see my earlier post on gardening books if you don't know what a water butt is). The four squash plants that I've got on my patio are totally taking over the large area that used to house peas, mint, and bush beans, too. They are greedy for space and a little tough to move around and prone to being blown over or knocked down by visiting skunks, raccoons, and a local cat I call "Sneaky Bandana".

I also added a couple of habanero chillies to my garden. This one is growing in an old coffee can, inspired by my sister Jennifer and her boyfriend, Peter. Living in Vancouver, we do a bunch of grocery shopping in the United States at Trader Joe's. Coffee is cheap there and comes in these great cans. This one has a bunch of gravel in the bottom for drainage and sits in one of the hottest, sunniest spots on our patio.

Gardening Books

While recently at Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon (incidentally, the best city and the best bookstore) I came across Growing Stuff: An Alternative Guide to Gardening. Though I'm a little skeptical of trendy gardening books (often pretty pictures with no information about cultivation and care) this one caught my eye. It's a little more exciting than other DIY gardening books because you don't have to have access to vintage wooden crates or a cool Manhattan fire escape to get the full benefits of the creative gardening projects covered within. Once I figured out what "an old holey water butt" is (watering can, I think) I was on board with lots of these projects, wishing it was April again so I could start a beet box of my own.

Earlier this spring I checked out Garden Anywhere from the public library and was inspired to repot my root-bound house plants and put together a mixed mint pot, perfect on a north-facing patio. Now I've got English, pineapple, and cat mint thriving with some lemon balm and peppermint in a small terra cotta pot.

Of course, if you're gardening in Alberta or anywhere on the Prairies, your garden guru is, without a doubt, Lois Hole. Any of her books are worth checking out, no matter where you garden. They cover everything from seed-starting to harvesting.

My Patio Garden

June 8th, the beginning of my patio garden. This year I'm growing Sun Gold tomatoes, patty pan squash, a variety of mint, peas and more. Everything got off to a bit of a late start, because I wasn't inspired to plant until it really seemed like summer was here. I have only one small corner of sunshine (which every fruit-bearing plant needs a lot of) so every living thing (plants, humans, and animals) hang out together. One of my favourite things are these custom-built boxes for greens and other shallow-rooting, small plants. The original plans appeared in Organic Gardening magazine. These boxes are very simple: 1 x 4"s, some screws, and the bottom is supported by galvanized hardware cloth and vinyl window screen. Handles on either end make them easy to move around.