Convenience food

When we lived in Vancouver, the weather forecast often promised sunshine that would fail to appear.  They had to give us some hope.  In Lethbridge, the promise is rain.  I decide that I don't have to water the garden because rain is imminent, then arrive home from work in the afternoon to find lettuces prostrate under the sun.  Yesterday we finally got the precipitation we were promised, or some of it: 28 out of 50 mm isn't bad.  That's more than an inch (to make the visualization easier).  It woke us shortly before standard wake up time this morning, pounding on the roof.  My first thought was of the basement and whether seepage (an unwelcome occurrence) would occur.  My second thought was of the tomato seedlings in their 3-inch pots, sitting at their designated planting sites.  Would they be hailed upon?  Unlikely, hail is more of an afternoon thing.  Would they be knocked over by the driving force of huge, heavy, hurtling raindrops?

The tomato transplants were all still vertical when I checked on them late morning.  I rewarded them with a good helping of crushed eggshells in their planting holes.  (It wasn't actually a reward; I give that to all the tomatoes.)  The entire garden looked happy, especially those species that weren't expressly invited to participate in our garden   Spent  about half of an hour deadheading dandelions and the other half uprooting creeping bellflower and quack grass.  Can't help thinking my time could be better spent for the good of humanity.  This morning I watched a video that summed up in 10 minutes Stephen Covey's "7 Habits of Highly Effective People".  In case you are not familiar with the book, weeding is not one of those habits.

....but back to the rainfall.  The ground is soaked and I am off the hook for watering for a bit.  As the garden area expands, it takes longer for us to deliver water everywhere it needs to go in the growing season.  Plants are good about making their own food with what is available in the air and soil.  They just need to add water.  Right now there are recently sown and germinating seeds close to the surface, vulnerable to dessication.  They don't care whether the water comes from a watering can or falls from the sky.  If it falls from the sky, like manna from heaven, that's mighty convenient for me.  Can I have that 28 mm divided among three showers per week, preferably around 2:00 am?   

First fruits

These haskap berries might be a day or two under-ripe, but I could not wait (except long enough to wash off this morning's Btk application).  We have had parsnip roots, sunchoke tubers, asparagus stems, and chive leaves(?) this spring.  It's time for dessert.

Garden ornamentation I

triceratops with echinacaea

Plastic dinosaurs were not my first choice for garden kitsch.  Kitsch was not even my first choice for the garden.  However, there was the newly built perennial bed dug across the entire front edge of our property (actually most of it over the line and into city property), and very little of it filled in with perennials.  I could have spent a fortune on transplants, following a long drawn out decision over what to plant and where, but I chose to go slow and see what would survive.  In the mean time, some extra visual interest could be provided by traditional adornments such as gnomes and cherubs.  They would, of course, have to be inexpensive and pre-enjoyed objects, because we could not justify consumption of raw resources for the sake of the that "visual interest", nor did I wish to part with any substantial quantity of dollars in exchange for something that would sit within an arm's length of the passing public.

My first garage sale tour was disappointing in terms of the availability of gnomes and cherubs, until I came upon farm animals and dinosaurs.  It seemed best not to mix the two.  I'm rather conventional that way.  Livestock went into the backyard vegetable garden and have always seemed most content in the garlic patch.

grazing in the garlic

taking cover in cliff green

Dinosaurs make their habitat in the large perennial bed, often half hidden in the foliage.  They are visible if one looks for them, but not so obvious as to be the defining feature of the garden.  Some have wandered away and not been able to find their way home.  As winter approaches they have to come indoors.  Snow and cold don't harm them, but they look sad on the grey-brown ground when the snow blows away.  They are also at risk in late fall of being raked up with the leaves and put through the shredder, which is bad for both dinosaurs and shredder blades.

king of the onions

New this year is the African collection.  Checking out a garage sale for dinosaurs, to replace last summer's escapees, I found instead: elephant, hippopotamus, gorilla, rhinoceros, crocodile, and an unstable ungulate.  The gorilla doesn't quite belong, but it's not as bad as having Cretaceous and Jurassic reptiles cohabiting in the rock garden.  A zebra would be nice.  The lack of a terrestrial carnivore bothered me until I got home and noticed that we already have a lion in the herb garden.

lone moose

The moose was never a good fit for either the dinosaurs or the livestock areas.  It has always been alone in the largely clear cut asparagus forest. It doesn't stand up well on its own, so having a few adjacent stumps to hold it up has been something of a blessing.


McKillop United Church held its rummage sale yesterday morning and I scored big.  It was sale by donation; I tossed $20 into the basket for this lot and considered half of that to be donation and the other half to be purchase price, based on your typical garage sale offerings.  No way will I spend nearly a dollar per critter.  The bulk of the dinosaurs were packaged in a large plastic zipper storage bag (awkward but responsible avoidance of brand name) that also held a Godzilla, a Shrek, and a few other unsuitable characters that will find better homes via the MCC store.  It's always good to have extra dinosaurs on hand, to make up for attrition, but I'm most pleased about finding forest companions for the moose - bear, bison, snake, skunk, lynx, deer, and wolves.  This might be, finally, enough.

rummage sale riches

Push ups

This was happening all over the garden today.  Cracking and heaving of the earthy crust.  Is it a major geological event?

No.  It's just a few bean sprouts getting pushy.

This one is an Ina's White bean.  The Mennonite Purple Stripe and Scarlet Runner beans also broke the surface today, as did the Red Swan bush beans.  Planted one three different days, all debuted within hours of each other on Victoria Day.  What goes on among them underground?

CSI Cabbage Patch

2 square holes discovered in brassica bed, one  each in the cabbage and broccoli sections.

Shape of holes match  transplanted seedling pots placed there 12 days earlier.

No other transplants disturbed.

Small impressions in the surrounding soil surface, not clear enough to identify fingerprints, footprints, or tool marks.

survivor - Red Express cabbage

The broccoli plant is known to have been dead at the time of disappearance, but the missing cabbage was said to be vibrant and healthy, with its whole life ahead of it.

Who would steal a tiny cabbage and a deceased broccoli, and why?

cucumber seedlings in coir pots

A witness interview revealed that an unidentified bird was recently seen flying from the yard with a large mass of fibrous material in its beak.

The starter pots for both missing plants were made of coir, fibre from coconut husks.  Could the need for nesting materials have motivated a bird, or perhaps birds, to dig up the brassica pots?

found!

Within minutes, both fibre pots were spotted where they had been carelessly discarded in the beet and chard bed.  The perpetrator had obviously worked away at the pot material with little effort to protect the health and safety of its inhabitant.

not dead yet

The traumatized cabbage was replaced in its original spot.  Odds for survival are not good, given the stem damage sustained, but we are doing all we can for it.  It is fortunate that the incident occurred on a cool, rainy weekend.





With all the seedlings that have been set out to harden off in the last few weeks, unprotected in their coir pots, it is remarkable that there have not been more incidents like this.  It was a careless gardener who put her plants in such peril.

Our baby is growing up

Barry planted the crabapple tree in 2008.  It made its first blossoms this week.

All rise

A week in the life of asparagus spears:

May 4

May 6

May 8

May 11

Left out the gory bit, with the skillet and hot olive oil.  Nobody needs to see that.

Fruits of the future

Haskap berries will be edible before the end of the month.  They could pass for sea squirts at this stage.

A week ago the Nanking cherry bushes were covered in blossoms and humming with bees.  The green cherries seem to have appeared out of nowhere.

Since Wendy and Carl (across the alley and two doors down) planted a pear tree (different variety form ours) last year, I have reason (I hope) to hope that this bulge, like many others on the tree, is a sign of successful pollination.  A fresh blossom is offered below for comparison.

The haskaps have always come through for us.  The other two were running out of chances to disappoint us. There may be a reprieve in sight.

True grit

Is there an expression "tenacious as a tulip"?

It impresses me that any plant can push its way through several centimetres of our hard-packed clay soil.  Why should a cinder block's depth of gravel be any more of a deterrent?  Maybe we should add another block this summer, to test the tulips' limits.  Makes me wonder about those very specific planting depths prescribed on bulb packages.