Rain day

God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done.  ~Author Unknown

Here in Lethbridge we are a little out of step with the overarching culture.  March winds?  Well, we get winds anytime, nothing remarkable about March.  April showers?  See the April 15 post for our version.  May flowers?  There are a few, and I fawn over them until they are embarrassed by all the attention, but they are few.  May is the time for showers.  June, too.  It's not on the scale of South Asian monsoons, but it's usually enough to cause rivers to become bothersome, even dangerous, and it turns the soil to an untouchable muck.  Nitrile coated gardening gloves are one of my favourite things.

The sky brightened late this morning, after a work week of steady rain, through which I stubbornly walked the 5km to the office, and home again, each time watching the Oldman River grow a little larger and chunkier.  I got in some easy weeding before the thunderclouds rolled in mid-afternoon, and then retired to the upstairs window seat to watch the storm.  It was very cozy until Barry called to warn me that hail might be on the way, and told me where to find the plastic sheeting.  Most of what needed protection was under the hoops, so it was a quick cover up.  The other few squashes and tomatoes (didn't worry about peas and carrots) fit easily under a few plastic seedling tents.  Just in time.  The deluge was short lived and the yard was almost sunny as I rushed out to sow a few seeds, only to find rain falling again.  The sky is friendly in the east window and menacing in the west. I unstopped the wine bottle and declared the rest of the day unfit for yard work.

This garden could easily consume all of my time, and twice more again.   It's taken me ages to get one room in the house painted and ready for occupancy, largely because it's so difficult to be indoors on a nice day during our brief season of warmth (or high probability thereof).  It's good to have a rain day every now and then.  It allowed me to do some painting and sanding, and gave me some needed physical rest.  And just look at the colour of the lawn.

Blossom awesome

 We have flowers.  The kind that turn into fruit.  Very exciting.

honeyberry blossoms

Honeyberries were the first blossoms to open, the Cinderella bush a little ahead of the larger Berry Blue.  Fat bumble bees with orange-banded abdomens wasted no time attending to pollination.  They must have been so hungry!  One evening I went to inject some water into the rooting pots and had to back off for fear of disturbing the bees and being perceived as a threat.  Returning after sundown, I confidently reached into the bush and began pressing on the syringe only to hear a deep humming somewhere around my armpit.  Uh-oh.  But no stinging ensued.  Glad to know they are so dedicated to the task that they will work overtime to make sure that no blossom is left behind.

strawberry blossom

Strawberry blossoms are so simple.  You can see the little berry already forming in the center of the blossom.  We have two or three varieties of strawberry planted in a small bed at the front of the house, some of which produce heavily in June and some of which produce less heavily all summer.  Before the end of the first summer, 2008, I lost track of which plants were which.  Furthermore, they have all sent out runners with new plants that get moved to where there is a bald patch in the bed.  It doesn't matter; we happily take what we get.  After destroying the Saskatoon bushes and moving the blueberries last year, we moved a few of the babies into the five holes left in the back yard.  Can't have two many strawberries.  When the front yard plants began to bloom last week, I felt defensive, remembering the long ago sight of empty stems after a herd of marauding deer had passed by in the night.  On went the bird netting, which apparently is enough of a deterrent.  Just then, along came a nice bumble bee that immediately crashed into the black plastic filaments.  Argh.  So I left the bed half covered, hoping that enough pollinators can get to the blossoms and hoping the deer try that end of the bed first and give up.

pear blossoms

 The Early Gold pear tree is covered in blossoms right now.  When I came home from work one afternoon, Barry told me to go listen to the tree.  The sound of industry.  This time it was honey bees rather than bumble bees.  I watched a bumble bee land on a pear blossom and quickly take off without feeding.  Not her station, I guess.  More numerous that honey bees were flying insects too small to be bees (or so I believe), that also seemed to be very excited about the blossoms.  They'd better not have been sawflies, who like to leave their slug-like children to make intricate lacework out of pear leaves.  While it is delightful to see a fruit tree covered in a haze of pollinators, it's a bittersweet experience for us who know those pollinators are unlikely to have any useful pollen on their bodies.  There isn't another early blooming pear tree close enough to us for natural pollination. I stopped downtown on Wednesday and pulled handfuls of blossoms off a city tree, blossoms that are then brushed up against our own.  It has worked in the past, but our tree is getting much to big for that.  Neighbours down the alley are planning to buy a pear tree this summer.  I hope the variety and the proximity will be fruitful for both of us.

cherry blossoms

I don't know what to make of the Nanking cherry bushes this year.  A few blossoms here and there.  It seems at odds with the amount of fruit they produced last summer.  Maybe this few blossoms a day goes on for a good long time.  I don't remember.  All three bushes are the same.  I wouldn't be surprised if they are in need of pruning, since I don't understand pruning and therefore don't prune any of my trees or bushes.  Last week, in wrangling some grapevines that were making it difficult to get to the greenhouse door, I snipped one vine that insisted on being in the way.  An hour later I returned to find a large wet spot beneath the wound.  No, I don't like pruning.  The cherry bushes will be fine.

Frost roulette

Tribe's Tobique tomato

The average last frost date for Lethbridge is May 17.  The many websites that consistently provided this information also warned that, of course, the actual date of the last frost is not so consistent.  One should add two weeks just to be sure, or almost sure, that the garden is safe from killer frost for the next three months (Is that all??!!).  Nevertheless,  the weather has been great, and I figured the sooner the baby plants get out of their little pots and into the ground, the faster they will grow.  Two squashes and four tomatoes were selected last weekend to play frost roulette.  Another five tomatoes, two squashes, and a few herbs - cilantro, thyme, nigella, sage - followed a couple of days later.  One fairly cold night I drew the plastic cover over the hoop bed and placed little plastic tents over the tomatoes in other locations.  They looked a bit scary in the morning, but seem to have sustained no permanent damage.  I once heard (once!) somebody say that a plastic covering can promote frost.  Maybe a vapour-permeable cover would have been safer.  I don't know what frost is, or how it works, just that it can maim and kill plants that weren't meant to persist in this climate.  There is another topic for me to research.  A serious gardener should have a working knowledge of frost.

Costata Romana zucchini, in better days

 After a week it doesn't look as if the transplanted tomatoes or squashes are doing any better than their potted siblings.  In fact, the Costata Romana zucchini appears to be done for and the potted cilantro is in better shape that the one in the ground.  Another sixteen days to go to average last frost plus two standard deviations (or however they worked out the additional two weeks safety margin) and then we will see if there was any point to putting these plants at risk.  If early transplantation does make a difference, it might make sense to plant the full garden in early May, if the two-week forecast looks good, and have a full set of back up plants in case the killer frost does happen.  More work, though.  Another kind of backup plan is the one we used last year, when transplanting was done a week before the end of May (because I was going away for a few days and the plants didn't stand much of a chance in  pots) and then it snowed - Greenhaven Garden Centre.

Caution: Worm at work (2010)

Sowing seeds in May isn't scary like doing live vegetable transplants.  Following the demise of all the early cauliflower transplants, a line of cauliflower seeds was sown on the north side of the south pea fence.  It's hard to know if there will be enough room for them; they definitely aren't getting the regulation spacing for their kind.  Last year, the cauliflower and brussels sprouts plants were swarmed by delicate white butterflies and then devoured by their ravenous offspring.  Two inch cauliflowers had developed by October, but overall, it was a bit of a waste of space.  These ones might have to try growing under a shroud of row cover fabric.
In other pest news, the spinach leaf miners are probably quite excited about the upcoming feeding frenzy in the raised bed.  I had finally topped up the soil level in the bed - it had sunk considerably since been built on a bed of uncomposted organic matter some years ago - and sown several rows of spinach family seeds: Kaleidescope and Silverbeet Swiss chard, Detroit Dark Red beets, and Bloomsdale spinach.  Then I looked in The Vegetable Gardener's Bible to see what good companions I might eventually fit between the rows and wished I had done that half an hour earlier.  Above the "good companions" list was "rotation considerations". For all spinach family plants, one should avoid following spinach family plants.  What was I thinking?  The leaf miners know where to look and can't wait for the first leaves to open.  Maybe enough interplanted onions will put them off.  One can hope.

pea - riscope

garden cress

 Yesterday I felt terribly behind on the sowing.  It would be easier if I knew exactly where everything was going to live for the summer.  Sticking with easy decisions, I added two more cages of Schweiserreisen peas, and then more radishes, garden cress, and Black Simpson lettuce next to the existing rows of the same.  Plenty of vacancy in all the garden beds right now, but there are also plenty of reservations.  The time to assign specific accommodations is fast approaching.

The race against nature

I appreciate the misunderstanding I have had with Nature over my perennial border.  I think it is a flower garden; she thinks it is a meadow lacking grass, and tries to correct the error.  ~Sara Stein, My Weeds, 1988

Confession:  I spend more time intentionally destroying plant life than enabling growth.  It seems that way, at least.  This weekend I spent maybe an hour preparing beds, sowing, transplanting, and watering.  Many more hours were devoted to battling the most vigorous crops of early May - dandelions and quack grass.  It's deja vu all over again.  Last summer was consumed by "weeding", a euphemism for killing unwelcome plants, and I promised myself that next year would be different.  Promise unkept.  But it's early in the season yet.

If only I could learn to like quack grass, how happy I would be, and how successful I would feel.  The large, wide, soft blades grow quickly in the spring and spread rapidly by underground rhizomes.  It's a lush grass, especially at this time of year when so few species are making serious contributions to the landscape.  If a cow wandered into our yard she would salivate at the site of these generous tufts.  If left alone, the grass would gradually succumb to ecological succession as other species replaced it.  My big problem with quack grass is not its competitive spirit, but those rhizomes.      A blade emerges in the middle of a patch of tiny carrot tops and I don't dare to pull it for fear of the entire rhizome network coming with it and disturbing the carrots.  Yet, if left there, it becomes a shade-creating, water hogging competitor as well as an energy source for the rhizomes as they tunnel onward toward the beets.   One preventative measure started yesterday was to cover the bricks that surround our garden beds with lengths of board in an attempt to starve the vegetation to death.  It first required some work to dig out roots so the board could lie flat on the bricks, but one small section is now in darkness.  It's a risky investment of time; I did have better things to do.  If only I could trust the killer chemicals.

Dandelions began rearing their deceptively pretty heads a few days ago.  It makes them easier to find on the lawn and instills a sense of urgency approaching panic.  It almost flashes a countdown, akin to a pedestrian traffic signal, to the moment when the yellow head turns to fluff and sets off to conquer new lands that are not far enough away.  The pointy right-angled extraction tool makes removal somewhat easier, if you don't mind having holes all over the place, but it's still hard to keep up with them.  I also feel some ambivalence about removing the plants rather than making daily rounds of flower-picking.  It seems that some ground nesting bees like to dig their nests under the spreading leaves of plants like dandelions, which provide some protection from the elements and from predators.  Who in their right mind would deny a good home to a bee?  Being a steward of the earth is not an easy gig.

At last I put a deadline on destruction: "At two o'clock, I will put down the shovel and do something constructive".  By the end of the day the lattice above the greenhouse entrance was in place, a task I did not find the time for last year.  The grapevines have something to reach for now.  This felt like success, and I'm quite motivated to feel that again.

Green things

May 2

March 31

Remember when colour television was new and how much fun it was to play with the colour saturation knob?  Someone, somewhere must have been playing with the controls for southern Alberta recently.  Suddenly, we have colour.  It may be too subtle for some, and certainly pales in comparison to tropical latitudes or the coastal rainforest, but trust me, this is something to be excited about after six months.  So far, it's mainly green - grass, chives, rhubarb, and sprouts from seeds that were planted a week ago and still too small for decent photos from my feeble camera (or for my feeble button-pushing skills).  There are other bits of colour - yellow and purple crocuses, pale pink glory-of-the-snow, deep red tips of emerging peonies, blue blossoms on a new weed I can't identify - but these are yet too small to make much of an impact on the landscape.  Nor do we care at this point.  Going from no colour (my young cousin has stated emphatically that brown is not a colour) to one colour is good enough for now.

Greenhouse

The greenhouse seemed like a good idea at the time, and I'm still glad to have it. Unfortunately it is not performing its intended function, to provided a good growing environment for young vegetable plants until frost is no longer a threat, as well as we had hoped.

It makes a great solarium when the March sun heats it up in the afternoon, but during April and May the sun is too intense and the temperature can soar past where even butternut squash are comfortable.  Opening windows at either end usually doesn't sufficiently reduce the heat, especially if the day is calm.  I protect the plants by stacking water-filled plastic juice bottles in front of the them to absorb some of the sunlight.  The chloroplasts don't get as much direct light, but they also don't get cooked.  It's surprising to me how little of this blazing heat is retained overnight.  The min-max thermometer shows that temperature inside the greenhouse overnight has been similar to the reported low.  If the forecasted low is 2C or less, I carry everything into the house for the night, which is an effort I'd like to avoid, especially considering I might forget until after dark.  Some protection is afforded by leaving the water bottles in place and covering the whole assembly with a sheet.  The solar heat absorbed during the day radiates into the enclosed space and saves a few, but only a few, maybe three, degrees.

 Barry worked very hard on this greenhouse, scavenging windows from back alleys (this is quite acceptable in Lethbridge), digging into the tough clay substrate, setting huge posts in concrete, then framing, roofing, glazing, and insulating the whole structure.  It must not become just a spot to store lawn chairs and gardening supplies.  Proposed amendments include replacing the glass portion of the roof with shingles and adding some insulation, getting a solar powered fan to improve air circulation when wind is not enough, and painting the floor (large concrete paving stones) black to better absorb solar heat.  It could use some more thermal mass, too, though I don't know what to use, other than more water bottles.

That all said, the greenhouse is still much appreciated.  It makes possible a warm, windless place to do messy potting up work in early spring.   And it does provide opportunity for the plants to get a bit of hardening off (aka tough love for seedlings) so that temperatures out of the range of 14-17 are not a shock when they are transplanted.

 More tough love was applied this week in the form of culling.  Into each starter pellet we had dropped two seeds.  Most seeds are expected to germinate, and do so, but there is the odd dud.   Only one individual admitted per transplant site, though.  Thus, when two tomato seeds germinate, one eventually has to meet a premature end; there is no separating the roots.  With scissors in hand, I decide which one has better prospects - the one which is bigger, or leafier, or more upright - and snip the stem of the other.  It feels like a waste of a plant, but I know how difficult it is to maintain the vines of just one plant at a stake, and the longer the plant is allowed to grow, the more of a waste it will seem.  The first one is the hardest, not exactly Sophie's choice, but hard; the process rapidly gets easier.  Some of the pairs had started twisting around each other for support and the survivor was distinctly wobbly.  One could get anthropomorphic about it - the one left alive is reeling in grief at the loss of its partner (and some might say that's not even anthropomorphism, but just the way plants are) - but that would be to risk caring too much about their well-being.