The Victory Lap Garden
Crossposted from Dial T For Teddog (http://teddog.com). Feel free to comment here or there!
Let it be known that I will go insane without projects. I’ve been attempting to hone various household skills over the last few years. I wouldn’t call them “homemaking skills” but they look like it from the outside. These include learning to knit in 2010 and learning to crochet in 2011. Gardening is the one I want to work on in 2012. In particular, the art of container gardening.
One of the on-going frustrations I had with the old apartment was the lack of outdoor space. I had lots of windows, but this never the same as having my own outside space. It’s one of those things you don’t consider until it’s not there. On the plus side, I have a back deck now and it’s fantastic. The plans for the deck involved me using some of the space for gardening.
The last time I could really have a garden was in the summer of 2006; I claimed the back garden space and attempted to start a vegetable garden on a whim. I had good luck with tomatoes, mixed results with peppers and the raccoons ate my cucumbers. Cucumbers are heart-breakers, let me tell you. Plants tend to like me, so I wanted to given gardening another go. My spare time over later part of this week was studying various blogs and websites on container gardening.
It turns out that I live walking distance from the East End Garden Centre. It’s an awesome little place that’s bigger than it looks on the outside; a maze of plants and equipment that winds around and through the store building and in fromt of the house next door. The staff were all friendly and helpful and I suspect the place will see me as a repeat customer. I picked up some seeds and some gear I needed and trotted off back home. The centre had a wide collection of young plants that looked appealing, but we’re right now in the awkward phase where there’s still a risk of frost. I didn’t want to get a plant and kill it on accident, despite our unusually warm spring., but this also means there’s time to start seeds!
In the outside planters I currently have planted lettuce (a cooler weather crop I can rotate out in the worst of the summer), coriander and chives (greens that I can have on hand and not need to get from the grocery store), along with some mixed flower seeds in single pot. If we hit a late frost, I should be able to pull those back in. In my little indoor seed starters I have thyme (I might have envy of Erin’s thyme in her front garden), basil (one of more twitchy plants that I got), sweet peppers (I expect these to be labor intensive, but I wish for a successive go at these), green beans (I wanted a climber) and a mix of heirloom tomatoes (PRETTY COLOURS!). I might be looking to expand later in the season depending on my success rate and how the summer shakes out.
I’ve named the whole concept “The Victory Lap Garden” because it amuses me.
There will hopefully be pictures down the line. I’m attempting to grow these from seed, so there’s nothing exciting to show yet. I need to get some fertilizer early this week.
Let it be known that I will go insane without projects. I’ve been attempting to hone various household skills over the last few years. I wouldn’t call them “homemaking skills” but they look like it from the outside. These include learning to knit in 2010 and learning to crochet in 2011. Gardening is the one I want to work on in 2012. In particular, the art of container gardening.
One of the on-going frustrations I had with the old apartment was the lack of outdoor space. I had lots of windows, but this never the same as having my own outside space. It’s one of those things you don’t consider until it’s not there. On the plus side, I have a back deck now and it’s fantastic. The plans for the deck involved me using some of the space for gardening.
The last time I could really have a garden was in the summer of 2006; I claimed the back garden space and attempted to start a vegetable garden on a whim. I had good luck with tomatoes, mixed results with peppers and the raccoons ate my cucumbers. Cucumbers are heart-breakers, let me tell you. Plants tend to like me, so I wanted to given gardening another go. My spare time over later part of this week was studying various blogs and websites on container gardening.
It turns out that I live walking distance from the East End Garden Centre. It’s an awesome little place that’s bigger than it looks on the outside; a maze of plants and equipment that winds around and through the store building and in fromt of the house next door. The staff were all friendly and helpful and I suspect the place will see me as a repeat customer. I picked up some seeds and some gear I needed and trotted off back home. The centre had a wide collection of young plants that looked appealing, but we’re right now in the awkward phase where there’s still a risk of frost. I didn’t want to get a plant and kill it on accident, despite our unusually warm spring., but this also means there’s time to start seeds!
In the outside planters I currently have planted lettuce (a cooler weather crop I can rotate out in the worst of the summer), coriander and chives (greens that I can have on hand and not need to get from the grocery store), along with some mixed flower seeds in single pot. If we hit a late frost, I should be able to pull those back in. In my little indoor seed starters I have thyme (I might have envy of Erin’s thyme in her front garden), basil (one of more twitchy plants that I got), sweet peppers (I expect these to be labor intensive, but I wish for a successive go at these), green beans (I wanted a climber) and a mix of heirloom tomatoes (PRETTY COLOURS!). I might be looking to expand later in the season depending on my success rate and how the summer shakes out.
I’ve named the whole concept “The Victory Lap Garden” because it amuses me.
There will hopefully be pictures down the line. I’m attempting to grow these from seed, so there’s nothing exciting to show yet. I need to get some fertilizer early this week.