For Your Well-Coddled Seedlings

Nikki, a writer colleague and super gardener, has found a great little unit in which to start your seedlings. Check out her idea here, from her blog Dark Creek Chronicles. I have seen these and now just might take another look. At the moment my coffee table is taken over by seedlings so this might be a better choice!

Have a Window? Here's a garden for you.

For a bit of inspiration (desperately needed, I'm sure, after a crazy month of rain, slush, more rain; there's snow on Mt. Colnett!) check out The Windowfarm Project. (Make sure you watch the video, if for nothing else but to check out the groovy leaf dress.)



If they can farm in New York City, we can do it here!

Your Source for Drunken Women Lettuce

And then there's Georgescu chocolate peppers, yellow mortgage lifter tomatoes, and bullsblood beets. (For a word nerd like me, reading a seed catalog is about as much fun as reading the names on all those paint samples at the hardware store.) These seeds and dozens more are available from Salt Spring Seeds.



You can find a 2010 catalogue, as well as a selection of seeds, at Green Soul Organics on 4th Street. And, of course, Trina at Ordinary Corner Nursery has a great selection of seeds from West Coast Seeds as well as other brands.

Have any of you tried seeds from Salt Spring? What about other sources? I'm putting together a post on what people are seeding (and how and when). Let me know what's happening in your garden. Don't be shy. This is going to be awfully dull (for all of us) if we only learn about my garden.

Wet Coast Guerillas

Okay, so maybe this isn't directly linked to gardening on the west coast, but I thought you might enjoy this link with instructions on how to make seed bombs.

Do you have a suggestion for a garden I should profile? (Perhaps your own, no matter how small or humble? We all have something to learn/share.) Leave a comment anywhere on the blog or email me at toughcitywriter [at] gmail [dot] com.

A Little Help from Plastic and Glass

As a planting guide, I tend to follow this planting chart from West Coast Seeds. I was adding a few weeks to the chart to compensate for the cooler temperatures out here but this year I've decided to try sticking closer to the chart, with some help from plastic and glass. We don't have the same warm temperatures as Vancouver and area, but I think that the extreme levels of rain we get can actually do more to inhibit the early spring growth. Seeds just get too wet and the soil super-saturated. So, in combination with trying to raise my soil levels even higher, I've started seeds in my little greenhouse and under plastic tunnels. This is how it's going:



This is a snazzy little cold frame/greenhouse my parents gave me as a birthday gift years ago. We built a garden box the exact size so when it is getting too warm for whatever is inside, we can just lift it off. Right now, I have fava beans, peas and spinach seeded in the greenhouse. On sunny days, I open it up so it doesn't get too warm, but this does help to keep it a little warmer (and dryer) at night. Once things have sprouted, I'll move the frame as these are crops that don't mind some cool weather.



I also rigged up these little tunnels. Before I planted I also added a few inches of soil to these beds as it is a pretty wet area of my yard (the entire neighbourhood drains into our yard — it really aspires to be a swamp and probably was one once). I built the cloche using wire frames (from Lee Valley I believe), old poly we had left over from some painting work, and clothespins. Underneath went fava and peas. This is how it's going:



Again, once the weather warms up a titch and dries out, I'll remove the cover.

As I was trolling the Internet looking for web sites and blogs that specifically talked about gardening in the particular conditions of the wet coast (I didn't find much; thus this blog!), I did find the site Heavy Petal and her post on a square foot garden she just put in. I was curious how planting some of these seeds out here would work in comparison to Vancouver, so I set up a similar garden with one change:



I added an old window I had kicking around, again as much to limit how wet the soil gets as to warm up the temperature slightly. I've seeded spinach, radishes, corn salad, arugula, and a few others that have slipped my mind. I'll let you know how it goes!

What Remains

Last summer I thought I was organized to plant a winter garden, but I realize that I got started far too late. The cabbage and Brussels sprouts never had time to amount to much, but we are still eating a bit out of the garden. This is what is still lurking:



It's probably no surprise to others on the coast that this bed contains the stalwarts:



Like kale, and ...



broccoli. There's some Swiss Chard, too. What are you still eating from last year's garden?

Perhaps I Am Insane...

...or maybe I just have ADD or am easily amused or can easily find 101 ways to avoid the work I really should be doing. It's likely that the last thing I need is another blog, but still, I couldn't resist. It seemed to me that with all of the enthusiasm over food security, gardening, healthy food for healthy communities and all that, we needed a place for west coast gardeners to have a forum. And when I mean west coast, I don't mean Vancouver or the Gulf/San Juan Islands or Victoria or even Seattle (although I may cut Seattle some slack). I mean the WEST COAST. Like Tofino or Ucluelet or Tahsis where we have to deal with (among other things):

- rain (in excess of 3 metres)
- cool evenings year-round (if, on summer evenings, you still have to wear a fleece jacket, you're in the club)
- summer fogs
- mud
- clay soils
- did I mention the rain?

So what I am hoping to do? As I was digging out in my yard, this is what I thought this blog might be useful for — to share these sorts of things:

- what your garden is growing now (and how you're doing it)
- gardening tips you have to share
- extra seedlings you have to share round
- images of local gardens
- extra produce you have to share ...

Are you in? I hope so.