2012 Victoria Day Garden Tour

It’s Victoria Day here in Canada, which is officially considered the kick-off to both summer and the high season of gardening. In honour of that, today I’m sharing my annual Victoria Day garden tour.

Up first, like last year at this time I’m currently hardening off my melon seedlings. Last year, they didn’t survive the transplant. I’m crossing my fingers they fare better this year. There’s also a pot of some unidentified flower in this photo, courtesy of my daughter Hannah.

The sedums that I moved into pots last year are still going strong. I also added two additional planters with flowers, because Hannah wanted flowers and I didn’t want to give up space in my vegetable garden. There was a bit of a disaster with these planters because when I filled them I neglected to remove the plugs on the bottom. They filled with water, and the plants nearly drowned. Once the waters receded, some of the seedlings were covered in dirt. They seem to be recovering, though. These planters contain yellow yarrow, butterfly bush and cosmos.

The first of my garden beds contains sage, rosemary, oregano and bush beans. The first little bush bean seedlings are just starting to poke through. So exciting!

Up next, you’ll find my carrots and onions.

As you follow the garden bed to the corner of my house, you can see that my strawberries are in flower and my raspberries are going strong. I would honestly say that buying those two raspberry plants nine years ago was the best thing I did. These plants are totally low-maintenance, and totally rewarding.

Beside the strawberries you’ll find my lavender plant. Beside my lavender there’s some licorice mint I just planted, and one little broccoli plant that survived. In this photo it’s in the top right, beside the stick. I call it my “victory broccoli”.

My garlic is going strong, despite some trampling courtesy of three-year-old Jacob.

My blueberry bush, which is now nearing eight feet tall, is another plant that I really love. So low-maintenance, so much yummy fruit. It was planted by a previous owner, and it’s the only bush in my yard, but it produces like nobody’s business. I suspect that some of my neighbours also have blueberries, which is why this one performs so well, but I honestly don’t know for certain.

Finally, at the very end of my side garden, are my potatoes. They seem to be happy.

I also have a raised bed. This year I have a small plant tunnel in my raised bed, and I’ve planted romaine lettuce and spinach inside it. The romaine lettuce is doing okay, but the spinach is really going gangbusters. I planted it when the nights were still freezing, but it grew happily under cover. My raised bed also has tomatoes, ground cherries, peas, quinoa and amaranth. You have to look really closely to see the little reddish-purple amaranth sprouts, but they’re there.

I also have a planter with basil, that you don’t see. It’s struggling at the moment because some unknown child knocked it over, but the plants seem to be on the mend. You also don’t see my pepper seedlings, which all died when it got really hot and I failed to water them one day. It was very sad, indeed. But as I’m already out of space in my garden, I think I’ll just give up on the idea of peppers this year.

That’s what’s happening in my garden right now. Do you garden? How are your plants doing? I’d love to hear!

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