Planting seeds into something that feels more like dust than soil, is a common thing here in Alberta. With over 300 days of sunshine a year we do not get much of rain at any time. Spring, however, often feels especially dry. Here we share how we deal with the dry spring weather challenge in the ...
Planting
When to Plant What – And Why Not To Follow the General Rule
When to plant what? - The answer to that question in our area seems to be very simple: on the May long weekend. This has to do with our last frost day, which is around May 25, and the Canadian Victoria day, a holiday that happens to be around the last frost day. Many gardeners here have followed ...
Starting Seeds Indoors
Winter in our area isn't over yet. The last frost day is still more than two months away. But spring is coming and with it the next growing season! Starting seeds indoors is the start for a new garden season. Why start seeds indoors? Why we do things depends on what we want to achieve. What is the ...
Spring Indoor Seed-Starting Schedule
There are different ideas about when to start seeds indoors. Some gardeners like to start very early, and others like ourselves follow a later indoor seed-starting schedule. In this post, we want to take a look when and why we start seeds following this schedule. The Seed Starting Schedule Plants ...
Convert a hay field into a garden
How to convert a hay field into a garden. This spring our Community Garden offered us to do a no till garden trial. We were immediately on board. We have been using a no dig or till method in our home garden quite successfully. To convert a hay field is a bit of a different story, but eh, we are up ...
How to Grow Early Peas in an Unheated Greenhouse
It was still pretty much winter here (March 10) at my first attempt to grow early peas in an unheated greenhouse. Now, you need to understand that we are in Zone 3, March IS winter with 2 feet of snow on the ground and possibly more snow to come. How to grow early peas in the winter in an unheated ...
Growing Overwintering Spinach in Cold Climate
Spinach is one of my favourite greens to grow in the garden, for so many reasons. It is the first crop to plant and to harvest in spring, it stays alive over the winter, and it needs no extra space in the garden. In this post we share with you a video that I made in the course of a year. There ...
Transplanting Tomato Plants into the Ground
It is always a very exciting day when my tomato plants can finally go into the ground! I start all the seeds indoors. We grow mainly heirloom tomato varieties. When to plant tomatoes out Tomatoes are a warm weather crop. They do not tolerate frost and do not like cold, wet weather either. To ...
Starting Seeds in Vermiculite
There's no set rule on how you start your seeds, you can experiment with several different methods and see what works for you. We already covered how to start seeds indoors in soil and for hydroponic growing, as well as how to start tomatoes from seeds. You can combine starting seeds in vermiculite ...
How To Grow Tomatoes From Cuttings
Usually you grow tomatoes from seeds, and I covered how to start tomatoes from seeds in this post. But did you know you can grow tomatoes from cuttings, too? Well, you can and it is very easy. This is especially helpful if you have trouble or no space to start plants from seed. Just get a ...