New green house

We have brought a touch of the tropics to our property with the addition of a green house.

Very simple constuction...we made 4 of these frames.

Set the posts into holes about 20'' deep- leveling it all.

Added a door at 1 end and a window at the other.
Covered with green house plastic.
Made the raised beds and filled them with soil.

Immediate feel of the tropics.
I transplanted a couple of basil plants that had hardly grown all summer because of the cool weather. Within a week they had bushed up and put on a huge amount of growth - lots of proof that this green house is going to be a wonderful asset.

Lessons for the cool garden

I am finding there is a lot I have yet to learn about how to manage my totally cool and cool weather garden.
It isn't that the summers are short or the winters long and fierce, but that the temperature never gets above 22'C even on the hottest days. Wonderful for working out in the garden but not so great for growing tomatoes and other warmth loving plants.
Here where I live on the B.C coast on the 51st parallel the winters are mild...Not many nights below freezing. The spring and fall are long and though the days are long in the summer, temperatures don't start to warm til the end of July when the day time temperatures then start getting above 20'C and the night above 10'C.
I am learning to grow lots of greens, peas and favas and stay away from tomatoes, cucs etc at least until I get my green house up (maybe this summer!)
One of my problems is that I am away from the garden here in June when I could maybe get on top of planting veges and cosset them more.
Also I am expanding the planting area quite quickly as we landscape the property and I have limited access to nurseries in this neck of the woods. So most of the perennial plants are from seed or divisions and it takes a while for them to fill in.
But I have a not so secret weapon to help the garden look very pretty at least for the summer season, and it takes no effort at all, and I don't need to be paying attention in the spring.
Each October I take Shirley poppy seeds and scatter them on any bare ground in the flower gardens, both in the sunny beds and in beds that get a bit of shade.
Starting the following June these poppy plants start flowering and put on an incredible display  til fall. One advantage of a cool summer is that the flowering seems to never end. The following October it starts all over again, though if you let the attractive poppy seed heads mature the plants will scatter their seed themselves or you can collect the fine seeds and scatter them in new places.
There are other seeds that can be scattered around in the fall but The Shirley poppies seem give the most dramatic display.

A few of the small rhododendrons here flower early and then look a bit sparse for the rest of the year.
By sprinkling poppy seeds around them the rhodos get a face lift and they help support the poppy plants...especially if they get a bit of a lean happening if they are a bit shaded.

The poppies come in all shades of reds and pinks and many have the 2 colour combo of white and pink which I especially like.

The plants are so delicate and silky looking they don't over whelm existing plantings...just fitting in where they can.

New garden beds and mini roofs for the gates.

Back to B.C and the cool climate here. Mixed successes in the garden. Peas, lettuce,collards and cool loving plants doing well. Tomatoes, beans and other warmth loving plants not so well-they certainly didn't like being planted in the garden early June when we left here.
The last few weeks we have continued to work on landscaping the areas we started in May.

Continuing the drift wood theme I have created garden beds with driftwood gathered on the beach.
A few of the odd corners that I can't plant I lined with weed mat and filled with the smooth stones I collected from the beach

Other beds I lined with cardboard and filled with a mix of top soil and sea soil compost.
I have seeded some of the beds with a hopefully deer resistant mix of flowers and other beds with a buck wheat green manure.

The new gates we made to go in the new fences we topped with the cutest little roofs.

The weather is starting to warm up a little but even so I'll continue to plant only cool weather loving veges.

The three week gardener

Returning to Ontario for a 3 week stint, I am amazed at how the garden holds together with only a few hours of work each June.

Admittedly not many people would covet the plants that are the backbone of the flower garden, but each year they put on a show that starts in the spring and lasts all summer.
My secret is to have planted a lot of thugs in the garden and as they fight it out with each other there isn't much room for weeds to move in.
In June I have columbines, hardy geraniums centaurea and iris adding a dash of colour both in the garden and in the vase
As I am about to abandon the garden again for another year I notice that the evening primrose, perennial sunflowers and spider plant are about to bloom, and in a few weeks the bee balm, black eyed Susans, lilies and hollyhocks will fill in with phlox following close behind.
To fill in the gaps with interesting foliage there are clumps of hosta and cimicifugia(black snake root) and don't under estimate the power of the rhubarb foliage. Mine grows enormous.
The veg garden of course isn't producing a lot but there are herbs - thyme,chives and lots of self sown parsley.
Some old sugar snap pea seeds I planted last year for a green manure have self sown and we have manged to harvest a few peas from them. And the rhubarb has produced many fine deserts.
I spent a few hours weeding the vege garden. I left the self sown parsley seedlings in place as well as a few columbine and hollyhock seedlings. The rest of the space I planted some extra pea, bean and sunflower seeds. Any other bare areas got a sprinkle of some buckwheat seeds I had around.
I am hoping that once again this small amount of work will take the gardens through another year....til I return next June.

Spring in Canada

Back in Canada and getting used to the cooler weather.
Though spring has been around here for a while we are still back in time to experience it at its best.

It is a great welcome back to see the flowering cherry in full bloom.
This pic was taken the day we arrived. Now 2 weeks later the lawn is a carpet of pink.

It is always interesting to see what survived in the vege garden over the winter and to be able to build on the experience in the future.
The carrots that were over wintered have been harvested. A few heads of lettuce remained as did the collards.
Arugala has gone to seed but there are enough leaves to flavour salads.
There are 3 kinds of onions- sweet red onions, walla walla onions planted in August and a row of scallions.
The field peas planted as a green manure are thick on the ground and we are enjoying eating the shoots in stir fries and salads.
Asparagus that were planted as babies last summer are growing strong though still only pencil thin. We'll hopefully start eating them next year.

 The apple trees planted last year have lots of blossom.

Already we have resumed deer fencing. This is along a south boundary that we had 30' cedars removed from last fall. The sun in the yard is most welcome. This fence is being built out of driftwood from the local beaches. A bit funky but fitting right in.

Lots of Rhodos blooming. They were here when we moved onto the property. Their colourful blooms still amaze me each spring.

End of the dry season

The dry season is coming to an end here in Thailand. Everything is brown and dry and the trees that lose their leaves, have. The smoke in the air from the burning of leaves and crop debris is hazing up the air...though it does create some amazing sunsets.

We are winding down our stay here and preparing to return to spring in Canada.

The house has progressed to the lock up stage and will sit til we return and start the finishing touches.

Slowly pot plants have been moved from our rental house up into the mountains and planted in the ground where hopefully they will survive the rainy season.
Not much can be done in the garden now. It is all so dry and the rains not reliable yet.

There are bags of local cow manure ready to spread out on the future gardens. Then the beds will be planted with some green manure. Hopefully the sporadic rains that are starting to arrive will keep it all going.

Sunsets and flowers

The garden continues to produce lettuce and cucumbers, some basil and cilantro. The yard long beans are struggling and the chinese kale is lacy with caterpillar issues. The tomatoes don't seem to like the sandy conditions though a few are showing signs of fruiting.

The flowers-marigolds, cosmos and zinnias are coming into their own. They don't seem to mind the thin soil or lack of water.

And the banana plants that came without roots have all started to produce green leaves. There were 3 out of the 7 that refused to do much for a long time but persistence with watering paid off and after 2 months they also started to sprout.

The house continues to progress and now has a roof on.

The nightly sunset displays are beautiful.