The Start of Gardening Season

Last night was the start of gardening season. It may be -22C with windchill outside, and snow deep on the ground, but it is time to get ready for the spring and summer growing season.

This year we are starting quite a range inside, even vegetables you traditionally directly seed into the garden, in an attempt to get some vegetables early.

The list of what we planted is as follows: tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, cabbage, lettuce, cilantro, basil, spinach, chard and kale. We also planted seeds for marigolds and calendula. Little bits of a large range of vegetables to hopefully get a head start on our 2017 garden.

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Garden to Table

Vegetable growing in watering troughs.

Eating local is a hot topic nowadays. Buying organic, buying from Farmer’s Markets, and buying from local producers. However one of the easiest ways is to grow your own food. You know exactly how it has been grown, it couldn’t be fresher and it is conveniently located right out your door.

carrots and beets

This is our first year growing in watering troughs and it has been a huge success. We have been able to turn an underused sidewalk into a garden. The three troughs are home to beets, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, onions, chard, and kale.

We have netted off the troughs as we have a healthy deer and squirrel population that have become quite brave.

kale and chard

Last night we again incorporated the food we have grown into dinner. We were able to use chard, beet greens, onions and garlic (from another bed) all grown at home.

beets

I have been  wanting to try filo wraps so last night we picked some ingredients from the garden, added in some mushrooms, and gave it a try.

The filling was sauteed mushrooms, onions, garlic, chard and beet greens seasoned with Worcestershire Sauce. My youngest was a trooper and cleaned a whole pack of mushrooms as I chopped. Our kids love helping in the kitchen.

We rolled up the filo parcels,

used an egg wash on top and sprinkled the filo rolls with sesame seeds.

Into the oven they went for about 20 minutes,

and out they came.

The rolls were a great success. Everyone loved them and ate them up. Another vegetarian meal to add to our list of family meals, and another great way we can use the veggies we grow.

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Photography by Debra Hunter

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Indoor Gardening – The March 25th Edition

March 25th and it is STILL -16C outside with windchill. Winter is definitely dragging. At least our indoor gardening project gives us a little virtual escape from all the ice and snow outside. Here is how our growing is going:

This was our lettuce on March 3rd.

This is our lettuce on March 25th. There is still quite a bit of growing to be done before we have salad, but it looks promising.

These were the radishes on March 3rd.

 

Now the radishes have really grown. Let’s hope the radishes form under the soil. Time will tell.

 

The peas had just barely sprouted on March 3rd.

They are doing nicely now after a few setbacks due to altercations with a three-year old. I popped a few more seeds into the pot this week to try to increase our chances of peas to eat.

Meanwhile the chives did basically nothing except a little weed at the side of the pot. I did add in some basil seeds that also seem to have done nothing. I am racking the failure up to one of two things: I may have two lots of bad seeds, or “someone” may have dropped the pot throwing dirt and seeds onto the floor. Evidently this “someone” doesn’t live in our house but I keep finding oddly placed piles of soil in the family room. Hmmmmmm……………did I mention I have a three-year old?

Indoor Gardening Experiment Update

We are finally seeing a little activity on our indoor gardening experiment. Each day I move the planters into the sun by our south-facing window. Every evening I move the planters to a warmer spot; it has been so cold our windows are icing up at night so I don’t want to risk the seedlings freezing (while inside the house!).

So far the radishes look the most promising. This is exactly what I expected as they have such a short time frame until they mature. Hopefully we will end up with some nice homegrown radishes in about a month’s time.

The lettuce is trying it’s best. We have a few sprouts. This planter was planted “creatively” by my daughter so I am not quite sure where all the seeds ended up. I guess the surprise is part of the fun.

Our peas only started poking through yesterday. We have one good sprout and about four teeny ones just barely visible. I am really interested to see if this planter will grow as fresh peas are just so tasty.

The last bucket is chives. Nothing happening yet. It could be old seeds or it might be a waiting game. I guess time will tell.

This has been a pretty fun experiment so far. The younger children love watching the plants grow and see more pop up each day. It has been a great experience for everyone.