Garden Diary: updates, sowing seeds and more plant art!
Spring has finally sprung in Montreal and we are nearing the end of overnight chills so I am ramping up the gardening!
I already had some garlic, spring onions, celery and basil going and those are shaping up nicely. I keep them in the windowsill for now but when we have a nice sunny day I stick them outside:
Some mystery plant sprouted up with my garlic (in the middle) so I left it there, not sure if it's a weed, lol, let's see!
I cheated with this basil as my local market didn't have any live ones so I bought a package of already cut fresh basil and managed to root them in some water. I did not expect this to work at all but figured it was worth a shot! They got transplanted into soil last week and actually seem very healthy :)
We also built this raised bed:
I am trying to germinate snap peas, spinach and tomatoes, some will go in the raised bed and the rest will go in a vertical garden possible on the back balcony:
I've been watching a lot of gardening video on youtube (specifically Charles Dowding) and one thing I have learned is how much you can create in a small space if you plan it out well and also do succession planting and multi-sowing. We are in zone 5a which is not the longest season but I will see if I can turnout enough this summer to add a second crop and see how it goes.
This is really the first time we are attempting more than herbs, wish me luck and bless this garden!
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Hell yes julia great to see your garden ... the fractalized image from it is totally album cover worthy!
Hey drumoperator 👋 I have so many album covers ready to go now I just need more albums 😂
Twitter: https://twitter.com/juliakponsford/status/1254153740535377920
This is actually amazing :)
It'll be more amazing if it all goes to plan and I harvest some edible food lol but I'm always down for an experiment :) I've seen some pretty intense apartment and small space gardens so I have some hope, thank you!
That's all looking great! I tried some vertical and hanging gardening last year with limited success. Snap peas and tomatoes are always great veggies to grow; they're incredibly versatile. Good luck!
Thank you! Do you have an idea why your vertical garden didn't work out? light/water issues or something else? I am sad that my front balcony which is tiny gets all the sun, our back one is three times bigger at least but is mostly shaded due to positioning and an overhanging roof :/
I think my green thumb is not quite green. But live and learn! I can do better this year. I think it was too much water to begin, then not enough to keep'em alive!
That's definitely rough about the sunlight. Even shade veggies need sunlight. Good luck with it!
Good luck and gardening is ALWAYS a boon to any life I feel, but of course, I'm obsessed. I LOVE charles dowding also Gardeners World with Monty Don (my favourite gardener) and Beechgrove Garden (a Scottish gardening show) and there is Garden Answer with laura on youtube she's in Oregon, so many, of course MIgardener, who I watch and also ordered seeds from. He grows in MI and I think he's probably your zone, he has great heritage seeds. This season I'm trying some cucamelons and banana melons from his seed range. Gee I could talk for hours about gardening.
I NEED to do a garden update post, I just finished my double bin new compost bin today, happy about that, and as I type this out my studio window I can see my full grown hens and my new batch of chicks (placed carefully in their own pen so they can SEE the big hens but not so the big hens can peck them into pecking order).
I love that you did your trippy art inspired by your garden growing. And I bless your little balcony garden one hundred fold with all the green thumbed garden goddess power there is ;)
Isn't Charles Dowding the beat? he does videos over the span of a year so you can really see everything from seed to harvest, I'll have to check out these other ones you mentioned. I am so envious that you have chickens, one day!!!!!! Do an update post I would love to see :)
I love throwing some basil to my pizzas, I don't know why but it adds a lot for me hahaha. It's really cool how you used the egg containers, I was thinking of planting some fall seeds and see if it works out but I don't have a lot of space, using those could be really useful.
Thanks for sharing!
Basil is great on everything basically, I poked some small drainage holes in the bottom of the egg containers but they are slowly degrading, it's really thin cardboard, i think the styrofoam or plastic ones would be better but these work in a pinch, even those small plastic party cups from a dollar store would work.