Garden Journal

Entries from May 1, 2011 - May 31, 2011

Sunday
May222011

...

Piper

Rest stop #6 on last Wednesday evening's walk

 

To paraphrase e.e. cummings,

The world is green-luscious & blossom-wonderful.

Saturday
May212011

Community gardening

I woke up to the sound of rain against the window; it's now late morning & though I can't hear the rain, it's still very grey outside. I suspect, at best, today will be unsettled with rain, showers & maybe (?) sunshine. No, none of the latter. I just checked the Environment Canada forecast -- but wished I hadn't because now my hopes are dashed. Sigh. At least we had yesterday.

Sorry. In writing the introduction to this post I got off on a weather tangent & lament. Back to the real topic. Which I'm writing about because of the weather. If it were dry & warm, I'd be out in the garden. The community garden, that is.

Yes, finally after 20 months on a waiting list, I have a plot in the City Hall Gardens. (If you follow me on Twitter, you'll already know as I shared the news a week ago. Thanks for joining in my happiness! Your delight & support made the good news even better. I do believe gardening is like eating -- sweeter when done as part of a community.)

Since early May, I've been a busy bee: I prepped my bed, began sowing seeds & transplanting peas & tomatoes, attended the community garden AGM & work party, & planted the sharing garden with summer crops that will help nourish a local neighbourhood house.

In this post, I'll show you some of the shared care areas. During our recent AGM, each gardener signed up to tend one or more of these groups plots during the coming year.

Entranceway arbour & perennial bed. (I'll tell you more about this area in future posts as I volunteered to help tend it.)

 

Blossoms on apple trees around the garden's perimeter

 

Strawberries

 

Rhubarb (I've already harvested some tasty stalks from this shared plot)

 

Myosotis (Forget-me-not) in the all white Healing Garden

 

In a future post, I'll introduce you to my plot, which looked like this when I first saw it two weeks ago:

Yes, I had a bit of a clean-up ahead of me but as I discovered, there be treasure (overwintered 'Dragon's Blood' carrots) beneath the soil's surface.

Wednesday
May182011

Balcony highlights

Lewisia

Resilient, long blooming Lewisia cotyledon forma alba

peas

'Little Marvel' peas

& finally, greens in the warm, spring sunshine (I was beginning to doubt I'd ever be able to write those words this May):

Bowl of greens in the sunshine

California Spicy Salad

Thursday
May122011

They aren't finished yet...

these not-as-fragile-as-they-look cherry blossoms:

'Shirofugen'

 'Shirofugen'

I was certain the weekend hail storm would have turned them to brown-tinged, pink mush. Thankfully, not.

Sigh. {The longing, wistful kind.} If only I could weather the storms of life so gracefully :-).

Wednesday
May112011

Wordless Wednesday

Tulips