Planting Schedule for Edmonton Veggie Gardens

The snow is almost gone off our lawn and back gardens... could it be true that spring has obeyed its placement on the calendar and arrived on time in Edmonton? Of course not, but I will continue to harbour hope that more rain than snow is in the weather god's forecast for the next two months.

This year I created a public calendar with a planting schedule for spring and summer in Edmonton- and I'm excited to share it! You'll find it below as well as in the pages tab on this blog. It includes dates for planting seeds indoors and outdoors, dates for transplanting and planting for continuous crops. I've designated Sundays as my planting day but, if you want to use this public calendar too, feel free to consider the Sunday plantings as plantings for the week- to be done at your earliest convenience. If you plan to follow the schedule for 2nd, 3rd and 4th plantings- make sure you leave space in the garden (or plan for the early harvest of lettuce, spinach, and radishes that will make room for later plantings of carrots and beets!). You'll find that in some cases, there are additional details in the location and description of the event on the calendar.

I've added only those veggies I plan to plant- if you want me to add other crops, please comment below and I'll be sure to add it.

Happy planning and planting!

The Alpine Strawberries Take Off: A View of an Old Lasagna Garden

About three years ago, this section on the south side of our house, north side of the fence, was grass. We stripped the grass because it was mostly weeds and lasagna gardened it with newspaper, compost and grass clippings. Unfortunately, we didn't have a 'planting' plan beyond that. It's been a slow process of trying to decide what I wanted in the section, this year, it's finally filling in. 

These day lilies were transplants from a friend that I planted last August. I suspect they will give the strawberries a run for their money. In the foreground, are the alpine strawberries that I planted from seed last year. This carpet of strawberries started with about four seedlings last July! (See more on alpine strawberries in this post.)

The strawberries take over the paving stones and concrete sidewalk!

Some mint that I planted from seed in a pot last year... well it kinda got away! It is now quite nicely filling a metre long section of the garden. The great thing about 'wild' mint is that it is an easy, lovely smelling plant to pull out- useful too, though I must admit that my mojito and mint tea consumption is not keeping up!

There's a 10 foot section of black raspberries, red raspberries and interspersed rhubarb at the end of this section. These two varieties of raspberries are not supposed to be planted together since a disease that the red raspberry carries, but is not harmed by, can do major damage to the black raspberries. Unfortunately, I am running out of space, and don't have anything in the yard that would be that much farther from the other red raspberry patches in the yard... So I take a risk. So far, they've been safe. These black raspberries have canes more like a blackberry in that they are looooong! But they don't sucker and so are quite a contained plant when I tie the canes to the wires fashioned by Mat. The black raspberry variety has a really different flavour and is nice compliment to a mouthful of red.

The red raspberries have been somewhat contained by, what I can only imagine, is a hatred for  potatoes. A few years ago I planted potatoes in this section, just to see how they grew in part shade. Every since, the raspberries have not seemed interested in sprouting in the past potato muck. It was only later that I read in "Carrots Love Tomatoes" that these two plants are NOT companion plants... I know nothing more about it. If you do, please comment!

The beginnings of a high bush cranberry hedge. In five years, I may be annoyed that I planted a hedge (along where the day lilies are planted now) in this narrow section of the garden. It may give our pruning shears a run for their money. But, right now, I want the fruit, the view of the beautiful colour and shape of these leaves from my dining room, and a little privacy from our south side neighbour's deck into our kitchen. I really love these leaves... and how great they look against the delicate strawberry runners.

My Honeyberry Blooms

Berryblue 

Hurray- this week my honeyberries bloomed!  Two summers ago I planted six honeyberries. Since you need at least two varieties to cross pollinate, I was extra careful and bought three varieties. Last summer, I harvested a record of seven berries off one bush. This summer, my goal is to harvest... well, more. There are many more blooms on all the bushes this time around. 

I've experimented a little with the placement of each. Reading that they grow in both part shade and sun, I've planted the six in a variety of sunny to shady spots. There hasn't been much variation in the amount of growth on each bush, perhaps I'll see the difference in the fruit output.

The fruit, if you've never seen it, is a blue, elongated berry shape. The plants come from Siberia and their blossoms withstand -8 to -10 C frosts. The woman I bought my plants from had bushes which bloomed straight through a snow storm and went on to produce a rich harvest. 

The flavour of my seven berries was pretty mild; each was seedless and plump. According to the researchers at the U of S Fruit Program, however, flavour can range from "terrible to terrific" so there is still ongoing experimentation in the flavour department. 

Shannon Dyrland, who's Shallow Creek Nurseries closed last year, recommends the varieties Cinderella, Berryblue and Bluebell. Many of the greenhouses now carry at least a couple varieties of honeyberry.

Keep in mind too, if you plan to landscape with these, that they aren't fussy about soil Ph, which can't be said for their cousins the blueberry and huckleberry (both need acidic soil). 

So, if you have a honeyberry bush, please let me know where you've planted it and if the fruit output has changed significantly when planted in the sun versus the shade! 

I'll keep you posted on my ambitious goal of "Eat More Than Eight Honeyberries in 2011".

First Plantings for the Square Foot Gardens

Last weekend (April 22) I covered the oldest of the gardens (planted 2008) with 1.5 inches of sheep and cattle manure. By the end of last season it was clear the soil needed nutrients: at the end of their third year they were producing carrots and beets half the size of the new gardens. This year I plan to experiment with a couple types of home-brewed, liquid fertilizers: stay tuned. 

No chance I'll be planting this garden in the next couple weeks!

Lovage, mustard and flax line the back of this garden. I use these square foot gardens like a greenhouse or cold frame- I plant the cold-tolerant seeds early and will move most seedlings to other spots in the garden. 

If you can see my scrawling on the sticks, I've planted 3 square feet of hyssop with 16 seeds each for a total possible 48 plants... I want to do a mass group planting in the front boulevard of our house and I guess I really love hyssop! There are four squares of swiss chard planted in the centre of this bed: Swiss Chard regenerates after cutting, so I won't worry about succession plantings (for those who don't know what that is, it's doing a number of plantings spaced a week or two apart to stretch out the harvest). Four is probably too much swiss chard- but if it goes crazy in the middle of summer, I'll pull the two north squares and plant spinach there (which will benefit from the shade of the fully grown swiss chard up front!).

Here's a map of the two boxes as I've planted them now. I include the date I plant it and often the variety. About half of these boxes will become empty at the end of May as I use the seedlings to plant my yard's gardens (hyssop, cornflower, sunflowers, lovage, mustard and flax will be moved) and my deck pots (nasturtiums, lettuce, red teff grass will be transplanted). 

A closer look. 

It's terribly ugly, I know, but I'm experimenting with creating a micro climate that will extend my season, without the need to build further cold frames and greenhouses. What the tent lacks in attraction, it makes up for in utility-- after a week about half of the seedlings have germinated with the arugula about two weeks from being harvestable. As for the garden on the right side, I've covered it with frost- cloth sold for tomatoes. It also has been effective in keeping the soil warm enough for many of the seeds in this box to germinate. The trick now is keeping the seedlings alive despite the dipping night temperatures. Last year I covered many of the seedlings with the bottoms of pop bottles- which created mini-greenhouses (technically these are often called 'cloches' but pop bottles/ milk jugs are cheaper!). This year I'm trying out old windows. Placed over the top of the boxes, these windows have worked similarly to the cloches. I will need to watch, however, that the seedlings underneath don't burn as our daytime temperatures inch up.

Oh, how nice it is to finally be outside- working and sweaty!

As an aside: happy voting, Canada!

Seed Starting 2011- In pictures

Nothing like a four year old in charge of dirt... The aprons were a gift at Christmas, bought by my sister in law from an Etsy shop.

Unfortunately, parts of my fancy 'self-watering' Lee Valley seed starters were food for the winter mice in the garage. I salvaged the tops and placed the capillary mat (that draws water up) in a glass 9x13 pan from the kitchen. This seems to be working. 

Madi is learning to write- and made most of the labels that were taped to the sides of the flats, directly under the designated cells.

Remember when I said I was 'going simple'? I couldn't help myself and ordered, then planted 8 cells, of Goji berries.

I'd love to hear how you organize. I place all my seeds in different bags: "Indoors 12 weeks" (plant before first frost free date. Here in Edmonton that's anywhere between May 7and 31!) "Indoors 8 weeks", "Indoors 4 weeks" and "Outdoors early"and "Outdoors late"

I keep this stuff close: scissors, pens and tape for labels. The green  bulbous spike is for seeding- $4 allows me to drop one seed in each hole at a time (instead of scattering heaps of seeds to later be 'thinned').

My garden book has coils so I can tape extra seed packs in, I also staple in most of my seed and plant orders so I can remember varieties and quantities from year to year.

The calendar allows me to count forward and back from May 7th. I'm an optimist when it comes to frost. I like Lois Hole's advice in her Vegetables book-- 8 out of 10 times you win when you plant a little early- harvesting at least 2 weeks earlier. The risk is that your first sowing of seedlings like carrots and peas die in a late frost but only, according to her math and experience, 2 out of 10 seasons. 

My scratchings.
 Date on top then a rough chart: Row 1: Name of seed. Row 2: Number of cells planted. Row 3: Date planted. Row 4: Date of germination (the first sign of green)

Tell me how you keep track and stay organized! I'd love to know.