the Garden this week

 

The garden is coming alive.  It's rather exciting...

Garden Joys

Having a garden is a real joy for me.  This year was the first year I kept my tomatoes in pots, covered from the rain in the spring and then out in the sun during the summer.  We have been enjoying a bumper crop of cherry tomatoes and the roma tomatoes have now started to turn red.  Even the kitten seems to like the tomatoes- she eats any that I leave on the counters:)  Happy Monday to you!

Country Fun at the Hobby Farm

Dean grew up on a 5 acre plot of land about 1 hour from Vancouver in Langley.  We go and visit my in-laws hobby farm quite frequently, especially on long weekends.  In summer, the boys sometimes get to stay over for a couple of days, allowing me to get a little more work done. Garden gates leading into wild gardens, saskatoon berries, tire swings and a trampoline are just a few things that take us far away from our city life and make us feel like we've just taken a trip to the country.  See last year's pics from the farm here.

Happy Canada Day

I snapped a few photos in the garden the other day and thought I'd put them up to remind myself to spend a little time gardening today on Canada Day.  The potatoes are coming up nicely, so is the zucchini, the tomatoes have absolutely gone nuts (my neighbour was asking me what kind of 'crack' my tomatoes are on, lol! It's sea soil actually...) and the strawberries obviously need a little more sun.  I have been sheltering the tomatoes- they've been on my half covered porch in pots and I'll pull them out when it's sunny, and keep them sheltered in the rain.  I have lots and lots of blooms but no little tomatoes yet, so I may need to act like a bee today and get a little paintbrush going from flower to flower to help that out.  (I may also need to find a section of my garden that has more bees in it and move them over there.)  We are off to see the parade; unfortunately the weather is once again gray and cool, but we'll try to meet up with our friends and make a morning out of it anyways!  Have a great day!

DIY Gardening Ideas for a long weekend

I really like succulents and mosses.  So when I saw these planters the other day at our local public garden, I was pretty excited about trying it out. Since the May long weekend is coming up (yep you can start planting those beans and tomatoes soon) I've been thinking a lot about making some planters for our front porch and these might be perfect. I've found a few instructions that might help:

here with some really lovely ones here and finally a bit more info right here.

A taste of Spring

The Olympics begin on Friday and we've had an incredibly warm winter.  So warm that many of my early spring flowers and trees are starting to bloom.  These were taken just today while we had sunny skies and enjoyed playing at the park with our neighbour friends without jackets on. 
Tomorrow I get to watch the torch relay with the boys.  Should be exciting!