I'm determined not to have my pot of calla bulbs die over the winter. I brought them inside when it started to get cooler at night, back in September. They're currently residing in our mudroom, which is unheated. I've never over-wintered bulbs before, but I'm hoping that I can find some good resources and instructions on the internet. So far, I've found this site, and it looks helpful ...
I noticed today that all of the remaining blooms on my zucchini plants have turned a sad shade of purple and withered ... seems that the frost has got to them! We did get to enjoy a number of them - Chris and I like picking them when they're really young and grilling them. We harvested all of our tomatoes last weekend and they're riping indoors now. That one in the photo is called a lemonboy and it's kind of cute - it really is lemon-shaped.
Chris and I ventured into the world of home-canning and made a batch of crabapple jelly. Our neighbour has a crabapple tree that mostly hangs into our backyard :) We used the recipe from the Blue Flame Kitchen, and improvised by adding some cinnamon. It turned formerly pink jelly brown, but it now tastes like apple pie :) The recipe called for a jelly bag, and we never did figure out what one of those was exactly, though!
Well, after launching "Laura's First-Ever Gardening Experience" this past spring (or last fall, when I planted bulbs), I've concluded that I have an affinity for growing weeds. They're flourishing. I know that I've spent practically zero time in the gardens since Madeline was born, but I can't explain why one flower box of petunias and pansies died right out in July while the box beside it, containing the same flowers, didn't. I planted nastertiums that didn't bloom but sprouted leaves the size of apples (?), and I have no idea where my sweetpeas are. I know that I planted seeds ...
It's to Chris's credit that we've had some romaine lettuce and zucchinis because he still manages to get outside and water from time to time ...
Well, shucks - whadda you know? You actually can grow mini calla lilies in Calgary:
I have one blooming in my backyard, and another bud that will open pretty soon. I must say that I'm tickled that my two calla bulbs actually germinated! The foliage looks nothing like I would have imagined ...
So, Chris and I have been a little slow with putting together the raised garden bed that we were previously pretty excited about. For one thing, we're now only looking at one bed, and instead of buying a bunch of cedar or spruce boards, we bought a kit with a plastic frame and metal poles for stringing up tomatoes, beans, peas, etc. I realize that this is quite a change from previous plans, but this bed can be disassembled in the fall after the growing season and move across the country with us.
Now that we have the frame, seeds (peas and romaine lettuce), compost, and soil, the only thing that's stopped us from planting already is that we need some sort of liner for the bed. Surely one just doesn't dump the dirt on the lawn, right? Our first thought was to line the bed with some sort of plastic, or maybe even a tarp, but now we're wondering if we don't perhaps need something that would allow drainage ... Maybe a formed plastic liner with some holes in the bottom?
After two beautiful sunny days of above 20 degree Celcius weather, Calgary is now settling in for four straight days with rain in the forecast! This makes me glad that I've already started a photo album for our feeble gardening efforts - the tulips that I planted on my very own were up and blooming this past weekend:
I'm going to have to try to keep these images in my head as I pull out my umbrella after work today!
Amazing what a person can find in a garden when there's someone who knows something about green things is around! When my parents rolled into town this past weekend, they came prepared to work. My mom and dad helped us identify some of the shrubs in the backyard (the big overgrown one was a potentilla, and the one that blocks off the outside tap and the electricity meter is suspected to be a Rose of Sharon (which isn't a rose but a shrub with really pretty pink flowers). My dad pruned down the potentilla (while providing instructions for future upkeep!) and the dead branches on the big yellow rose bush, and then planted the shoot from my grandmother's hansa rose that they brought from Edmonton. It's meant to be big hardy rose bush like the yellow one in the yard, so hopefully it will establish itself well! Did some weeding and dandelion pulling, which amused my mom because my dandelion extraction technique removes quite a large section of lawn at the same time … she showed me a better technique, but it was little too late for some parts of the backyard lawn :)
The tulips that I planted in the fall are just about ready to bloom now - just need a another day or so of sun! And one of my mini-callas has sprouted - it's nearly and inch high already! - and I think that the other bulb is going to make an appearance anyday - there's a big crack in the soil!
It's about time that Chris and I got a move on building some raised garden beds - planting season has almost arrived here in Alberta! I think that that we've toned down our garden aspirations for this summer from every veggie that we like to eat to merely tomatoes, romaine lettuce, and peas. Maybe some carrots, but just maybe. We're just concerned about having the time to get the garden put together and having the time to tend it properly, so maybe it's better that we start small and plan an expansion for the 2005 season.
We don’t plan on buying the frames for the garden beds but instead see the project as a good opportunity to bond with our cordless drill. HGTV has some instructions and illustrations on building the raised gardening frames here and here, including some good raised-gardening design tips.
It looks like my very first adventure with gardening may turn out afterall, despite a few cold snaps. The new tulips that I planted in the fall are all up and have buds, and some of the established ones that came with the house are actually blooming! I was shocked to see that they're not the regular red or yellow variety, but a kind of variagated peachy-pink:
I think that it might be this variety - Apricot Beauty. There's only three, so not enough for a vase yet, but I can be patient! I should have been looking at a bulb-ordering page as I now want to plant some Sweet Wendy tulips and some Blue Herons next fall …
I'm very chuffed today because my struggles to tame the stinky garbage disposal problem that we had in the fall came to the aid of another blogger in need :)
The weather has been spring-like enough for the past month for me to know that I'm not a complete failure at bulb-planting - the tulips and the ornamental onions that I put into the ground in the fall have come up (I’m not are certain about the hyacinths and the anemones because I forgot exactly where I planted them). This early success was encouraging enough to prompt me to pick up a package of two pinkish-orange mini-calla bulbs at the garden centre last month. The mini-callas caught the attention of both Chris and I when the garden centres started opening up in February. I did a little research in the copy of The Calgary Gardener that Chris gave me last Christmas, and was pleased to find out that it's possible to grow callas in Alberta as long as they're not left outside for the winter. Happy, I bought a small package of bulbs and a big pot to keep them in. According to my book, I'm supposed to start the bulbs indoors at the end of April (so that's on my weekend to-do list), and I can take them outside after the threat of frost is gone. In the fall, I'll bring them inside to the mudroom and keep my fingers crossed that they come back in the spring.
