Life Lessons From Gardening: There Are No Mistakes

I love gardening for so many reasons, not least of which because of everything gardening has taught me. Anyone who has tried to grow something can tell you something that they have learned through the process. Some speak of the appreciation they have for nature, for being witness to the life around them. Others speak about the time spent outdoors and the meditative effect of daily tasks and chores. Then there is the satisfaction of growing one's own food and being intimately connected to the earth.

My favourite gardening lesson is also my favourite life lesson.

There are no mistakes in gardening, only learning experiences.

It is all a matter of perspective, really, as is most of life. Glass half empty or glass half full?

Sure there are posts and books about common newbie gardener mistakes, like not giving plants enough space, under or over fertilizing, or planting in the wrong location. I have read many of them, and when I started container gardening many years ago, and then gardening in my raised beds 5 years ago I did what I do when I start anything new: I read up on how to do it.

But gardening, like life, cannot always be anticipated perfectly, and sometimes things do not go as planned. Of course it feels like a mistake when the garden does not turn out the way you intended it. 

But there are no mistakes, only learning experiences and happy surprises.

An example is my backyard garden so far this season. I was very excited to plant asparagus for the first time this year because I love perennial plants that are plant once and go. I wouldn't be able to harvest any spears this year to allow the plants to establish themselves firmly in the soil, but oh the wait would be worth it for delicious, fresh homegrown spring asparagus. I read the information packet that came with the roots I ordered from a local seed company, did a quick search on the internet to read a little more and then I planted them quickly before heading off on a family vacation.

Asparagus crowns: the roots are the long dangly parts. You
maybe can see why I thought the part of the crowns in the
bottom of the photo were the beginning of the roots,
rather than the future spears. Basically this is upside down.

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Summer Bounty

It's been a busy gardening summer, so busy that I haven't really blogged about my garden at all. On top of weeding, cleaning and reseeding, I water every day, which alone takes 30-40 minutes. It is a labour of love, and the time spent in my garden is my personal therapy session.

There is nothing more satisfying than walking out my back door and picking my food, and nothing compares to the taste of fresh, homegrown food. Recently I had a greek salad for dinner at a restaurant and it tasted bland compared to what I could make at home.

Every summer I am reminded about the true cost of our food. I am much less prone to wasting food when I have grown it with my own hands because I understand the effort that went into growing it. When I walk around farmers markets and groceries stores I'm astounded at how reasonable the food actually is, even though people complain about the high cost of fresh, healthy food.

I have four raised beds and multiple containers around the beds. Here is a selection of photos of my summer harvest:

For a family birthday party: greens (kale, chard, lettuce, beet, arugula),
cucumbers, carrots, dragon's tongue beans, tomatoes, peppers.

I tried something new this year: potatoes in grow bags. It was successful,
but next year I will go back to the garden beds to get a higher yield.

Asian greens, so good! I am currently starting new greens (sui choy and
bok choy) for my fall garden.

This mini harvest turned into pesto.

It has been a pretty good year for tomatoes, despite a rough start. The hot
summer has provided the perfect conditions for them. Now to pick them
before the squirrels eat them all! 

I like growing heirloom varieties too, like these yellow pear tomatoes.

The pride and joy of my garden: garlic! It was a bumper crop this year.

Speaking of bumper crop, my cucumbers have been amazing!

I'm trying four different varieties of hot peppers this year: jalapeño, habenero
yellow and red.

My beautiful yellow peppers, so sweet with a little kick.

My beets did very well too. There were a few gargantuan sized ones, but
these ones are so pretty when sliced.

It was my first year growing spaghetti squash and I have enjoyed it. This
is my first squashed harvested, and it was delicious.

My first successful year with onions, and the difference was buying the bulbs.
I have learned a lot this season, such as not planting onions with garlic.

Perhaps the hot, dry season wasn't as good for my zucchinis, which
did not produce as many as previous years.

Another first for me: edamame (soy beans), and I will definitely be growing
these again. 

Finally, the harvest today. I gave much of this to my neighbour who
has helped me so much by building my raised beds and fixing
my fence. He's so awesome.

My Garden This Season:

basil, thyme, cilantro, sage

arugula, salad bowl lettuce, mustard

chard

four varieties of kale

three varieties of beets

zucchini

spaghetti squash

two varieties of potatoes

yellow onions

four varieties of carrots

multiple varieties of sunflowers

cucumbers

multiple varieties of heirloom tomatoes

edamame

green beans and dragon's tongue beans

four types of hot peppers

radishes

bok choy 

celery

horseradish

hard neck and soft neck garlic

snap peas

blueberries

raspberries

strawberries

Spring Cleaning in the Garden

I took advantage of a sunny, warm afternoon this week to finally get started on my garden for the year. I have been avoiding getting out there partly due to the weather, but also because I have been overwhelmed by the task before me (and partly because I'm a little bit lazy). 

How can I resist a macro ladybug shot? 

My youngest, our little monster, joined me and "helped." It would have probably been easier without her input, but I'm trying to encourage my girls and have them feel like they are a part of what we grow and eat.

Pulling the wheelbarrow around for me is her job.

Despite initial trepidation, she liked getting dirty
shaking the soil off the weed roots.

It was much needed, both for the garden and me. The weeds had taken over where I didn't mulch in the fall and it was a big job. The fresh air and natural vitamin D after a long winter with lots of sickness was wonderful.

Our magnolia tree, which blooms three to five times a year.

My favourite spring flower, bleeding hearts.

I cleaned out all the raised beds except for the kale, which is beginning to bolt. I can't decide whether to let it go to seed and save the seeds or take them out to make way for new plants and freeze the kale. Then I started to clean up the back of the yard where I grow raspberries and flowers. There is still much to do but I am holding off because my amazing neighbour is going to patch up our dilapidated back fence until we can afford to replace it. Then I cut the lawn, which was not fun (push mower for the first cutting of the season = hard work).

Over the next couple of weeks I hope to add more soil and compost to the raised beds, clean out the pots, then plant some spring veggies.

I removed the mulch from the garlic bed. Looking good!

Still pretty rough looking - can you see the big hole in
the fence in the right corner? I hope to plant wild flowers
this year for low maintenance and to encourage pollinators.

Next up, get some seedlings started indoors!

Kitchen Scraps Garden

It may be hard to think about starting a summer vegetable garden when the weather outside feels decidedly more like winter than the first days of spring. I live in the pacific northwest and am making plans to begin my indoor seedlings in the next week or so, but I realize that this is just a dream for some

Celery grows well in containers, making it ideal
for small space gardening.

For those of us who are itching to get their hands dirty there is a quick and easy way to begin a garden inside that can transfer to a container garden outside, on a patio or larger garden. Even if you don’t have a green thumb or desire to grow a backyard garden, there is an easy way to grow some food in containers.

Place the cut end of the celery in a bowl with
water and watch it begin to grow.

I enjoy growing food from kitchen scraps, and my favourite is celery because of how easy it is to start. Each winter I buy celery from the grocery store and save the cut ends of the plant to begin a new plant. I start my celery inside and when the weather warms up I put it outside in a larger pot. Last year I received many compliments on my flavourful and aromatic celery.

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A Garden Transformation

When I decided to move from container gardening to raised garden beds, an idea was planted (pun intended) to slowly, over time, replace my lawn with a vegetable garden big enough to feed my family.

It wasn't hard to make the decision to cover my grass with a garden, and raised beds were necessary because most of the existing soil is full of clay. The previous owners ensured that most of the gardening area has unusable ground. There was once a swimming pool in our backyard, and instead of removing the concrete and fill with soil when they no longer wanted the pool, they filled it with rocks then covered everything with a thin layer of soil and sod. The grass on top now requires a great deal of moisture to remain full and green. In our Wet Coast winter, when we have week after week of rain, my lawn is lush and green. In the summer heat my lawn becomes patchy and brown.

The two beds in late spring last year.

We started with one raised bed three years ago. In it I grew tomatoes that suffered from blossom drop for most of the summer, chard, kale, and potatoes. The second year we added another bed and expanded to peas, beans, radishes, cucumbers, Brussels sprouts, beets, zucchinis and pumpkins. In containers I grew carrots, lettuce and a host of herbs. And yes, it was all very crowded.

This year we increased our raised beds to four. I was excited about all the possibilities. I have added quinoa, garlic, mustard, some heritage greens, horseradish (in containers) along with increasing the amount of everything I planted last year.

The four beds in early May.

But I had even bigger plans than doubling our garden space. I wanted to create a definite garden space by mulching around the beds and creating some extra space for my current containers and a mini raised bed for my daughters.

This photo has nothing to do with my garden transformation, except that
it is taken near my garden. I just wanted to sharehow awesome my daughter is. 

It's funny how I have no eye for decorating my home. I cannot walk into a room and visualize how amazing it can be. I have always been envious of friends whose homes are spotless and stylish, seemingly with little effort. Similarly I cannot plan how to make a flower bed look full and colourful but I do have a crystal clear idea of what I want my veggie garden to look like in the long term.

Mid June

So I set about planning how I was going to mulch my garden area. After reading about green methods of mulching, including straw or layers of wetted newspaper, I settled upon using garden fabric (plastic). Neither the straw nor newspapers would be aesthetically pleasing for me next to our eating area on my patio, and although I have read that the newspaper would be very effective (for the season), and straw would reduce the amount of grass and weeds I would have, I wanted a more permanent solution. I spent a great deal of money on the bark mulch and I don't want to be redoing the things each year. In the end I think I spent about $350 in total on the mulch (the bulk of the total cost), the plastic fabric, mini garden bed kit for my daughters, some additional containers, another hanging basket of flowers and some solar lights. I could have reduced the cost by getting fine wood mulch, but I was worried about it getting tracked into my home on little feet or blowing away in a strong storm. I went with small and medium sized bark pieces.

Early July. Everything looks so scruffy to me because of the patchy grass.

Of course I picked the three hottest days over the past week to start. I realized that while I have a vision, I have absolutely no knowledge or experience. Laying the fabric, while time-consuming, was not challenging. As soon as I started trying to put dow the garden edging I figured out that it was pretty much impossible to dig deep enough in our lawn to place the edging because it is so hard and dry. I sat down, dripping in sweat and gave up. I started to cry because I had just spent two 7+ hour days getting to that point and I couldn't turn back. My daughter saw me and came out to give me words of encouragement and a hug, which made me cry a little harder. I decided to take a break, and after a long afternoon nap and subsequently staying up half the night fretting about what I was going to do, I figured it out.

You can see how awful the lawn in in this pic. I was happy to cover it up.

Thanks to a couple of hours of labour on my husband's part, we finished the edging and I could pack soil down next to it to ensure it was firmly in place. Over time the grass will fill there and it will look a little more finished. By the end of the day I had my daughters' garden area built, everything put back and my outdoor "room" decorated. It may not be perfect, or exactly what I saw in my head, but I am proud of what I have accomplished. The best part is that I now I have greatly reduced the amount of lawn I have to cut with my push mower, one of my least favourite garden jobs.

The mini garden bed kit was very easy to put together. My three year old decided that we would be garden fairies for the day so we wore fairy wings while we built it. She loved helping to bang the pieces firmly into place using a mallet while I screwed other pieces together. She's been banging things with her toy hammer ever since. 

It doesn't show up well in the photos, but the mulch has created a nice defined space for my garden. Now something that is growing food for my family looks, and smells great.

I like the extra space on the left side that I added for all of my container plants. I have tomatoes, horseradish, celery, basil, thyme, rosemary, strawberries and additional greens growing. I love how I don't need to move all the containers around to cut the grass, which is really more weeds and clover than anything now. 

The bark mulch has created a pleasing path around the beds. The bonus is that I don't have to use the weed whacker to get rid of the long grass that grows beside them. The space between them is too narrow for my push mower to fit. 

Here is one more gratuitous shot of my daughter, standing next to the quinoa, which is now taller than our fence. 

Small Space Gardening Methods

Over at The Green Phone Booth I'm blogging about how I increase garden yields when space is limited.

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