Let’s Talk Gardening

I am more than bored with winter and needed a garden-related activity so we decided to try our hand at making maple syrup. We’ve never tapped maples before and our sugar maple is too small. So rather than wait, we’re … Read More

In past years I’ve done all my seed starts from February through May in a small setup in my basement. Now with a new greenhouse, I have room to grow, quite literally. The question is, how early will I want … Read More

One of the decisions I had to make when building our Hartley greenhouse was how it would be heated. Ultimately I decided to go with electric heaters. While not as efficient as gas, I was way more comfortable with the … Read More

Let me start off by saying I love my new Hartley Greenhouse. It’s a dream to have something this beautiful and yet, for me, functional. I still have some finishing details – brickwork which could not be completed before winter … Read More

Living around the Kitchener-Waterloo area in southern Ontario we have a decent gardening season, but most years you can’t reliably plant vegetables outside until late May and most produce is finished by late September. I’ve read a lot about year-round … Read More

Last fall, with the help of my mom and dad who were up for a visit, I planted a couple hundred daffodils along the edge of my back gardens. Some were the traditional single yellow daffodils, others were white, some … Read More

If it wasn’t April 4 I’d think this was someone’s idea of an April fool’s joke. After a very mild winter, with little snow, old man winter dressed up as a Polar Vortex and decided he’d show up just as … Read More

Gardening evolves with knowledge and experience. I have been formally planning my vegetable garden layout on paper for several years now and each year I think I get a little bit better. In addition to learning about plant families, I … Read More

When planning your vegetable garden, consider the benefits of crop rotation. Good crop rotation prevents the build up of pests and diseases in the soil and preserves micro-nutrients. For example, legumes (beans and peas) will actually add nitrogen to the … Read More

I’ve often found it hard to know what shrubs needed pruning when, and with all the new shrubs I have planted or plan to put in this year, this task will get even harder. To help me this year, I’ve … Read More

I experimented with quite a few different garden design software packages. Many of them were very cumbersome or too limited for what I wanted. I eventually found that it was easier to use an Excel spreadsheet by treating it like … Read More

The lusher our garden becomes, the more wildlife we see. Birds, rabbits, deer, chipmunks, squirrels, even garter snakes are now common place in our yard. Isn’t that great you say? Well perhaps, but couldn’t they be better house guests? I … Read More

I know it’s still officially spring and that peonies, irises & weigela are technically spring blooming plants, but I always think of June as the promise of summer to come. The blooms are bigger, brighter and more intense than the … Read More

I’ve got a pretty good green thumb when it comes to outdoor plants and the vegetable garden. On top of that I love to experiment. We’ve grown our own sweet potatoes, celery, kidney beans, black beans and even pak choi … Read More

Spring may have arrived late this year but it has been almost picture perfect. For the past several years, unseasonably warm weather in April and early May meant that most plants began to leaf out and put on blooms early, … Read More

I don’t care what the calendar says or what the weather was like yesterday, you can always count on a good chance of frost in southern Ontario even into the end of May. Having said that, I always jump the … Read More

I’ve been away from garden blogging for a while. Having returned to work this past winter my energies were focused elsewhere and that meant taking a break from gardening and garden blogging. Perhaps that’s healthy. I’m now ready to start … Read More

It has been a terrific summer to enjoy the outdoors this year and at the same time it has been a busy summer for most gardeners. Flower pots had to be watered constantly, often twice daily, to keep up with … Read More

I recognize that I am still relatively new to the gardening thing, having only gardened for about 12 years. Yet in that time, my approach to gardening has evolved. Cycles of hot-dry, cold-wet weather teach you a lot about gardening … Read More

My new favourite annuals are sun begonias. I’ve always liked begonias but with very little shade, and our hot dry and often humid summers, they just don’t do well in my yard. Enter what to me are new sun begonias. … Read More