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.

A liittle progress

Nothing seems to progress for a while and then one day you realise that the seedlings you planted are producing flowers and the house that is being built has the roof started.

In this sandy soil that I am slowly building up and that plants seem to struggle to survive I am slowly seeing results.
The sunflowers started to bloom and right behind them the cosmos and marigolds are budding.

The lemon grass has decided it likes it here and is looking lush.

The first lettuce that we have picked leaves from daily for a month now is starting to go to seed which is a good thing.
It is a red oak leaf and they are meant to do well in the heat,so I am looking forward to harvesting the seeds for next season.

In the mean time the lettuce that the Karen women gave me a few weeks ago have settled well into the cow manure enhanced bed and we are eating them now. I was surprised at how well they settled in as when the seedlings were pulled from the nursery bed they didn't have soil attached and I'm sure had many damaged roots.

The old mango trees on the land are putting out many flowers. Many of the trees look like they are past it, so we'll see how the fruiting goes before deciding whether they stay or go.

We managed to track down some grafted Hass avocados and the 4 trees we bought are settling into their new home.
So little by little we are seeing results and setting the gardens up to benefit from the next rainy season.

New house, new garden

Progress has been made on the house that is being built on the land we are moving onto in the mountains.

Every week it becomes easier to see how it fits into the land.
The views over the valley are amazing.

The garden I am working on is taking time to grow. The sandy soil has had bags of cow manure added-that should help. Gradually the plants are gaining size and I am at least able to harvest a few salad veg.

In the mean time we go exploring and I am taking inspiration from these young Karen women that are working in their market garden. We bought some mushrooms from them and they gave me 20 lettuce seedlings which are settling in nicely. In the last day we have had about 25mm rain here in the mountains. A little unusual for this time of the year but much appreciated. 

DIY seed pot

Here in Thailand I was having trouble finding ready made seed starting pots. There were the ones that hold 30 or 40 seedlings in a unit, but I only want to start a few of one variety at a time. The round seed pots were too big and besides didn't fit conveniently into my rectangular tray.
So I came up with a method of recycling my plastic milk jugs.

First I cut the milk jug off at the depth I wanted the seedling starter to be. The height I cut it to here works well to fill with dirt or to hold cut in half toilet rolls.

I then drilled 4 holes in the bottom (or you could punch a nail through), and cut the remainder of the milk jug into 2 strips the same depth as the base, with one being the same measurement as the length of the base and one the same width.
These were cut half way through in the middle. I widened the cut to about 1/8 inch.

These 2 strips lock together and fit into the base. The plastic inserts help separate the roots of the seedlings and make transplanting easier. The new seedling pots fit perfectly in the tray I had to hold them with no wasted space.

The newly acquired fruit trees are settling in. We are watering them daily now but in a few weeks we'll start watering less frequently.

Market days see many of the local Hilltribe people selling and shopping.

There are many Karen and Lahu villages in the area.

Tarantulas,Toads and Snakes

While clearing off the over grown stubble on land we are about to move on to in the mountains of Northern Thailand we have met some of the residents.
The tarantula I stumbled across while cutting the grass. He was wandering around the long grass. Apparently it is a he as the females live in their burrows and rarely wander around.
The toad was dug up in the temporary garden, and hurriedly recovered with dirt. There also seem to be a few snakes hiding out. One of them got taken home for dinner by the fencing guys.

A temporary garden has been created against the new boundary fence. The soil isn't great. It is quite sandy which is good for drainage but it will need to have lots of organic matter added to stop it drying out so fast during the dry season. I have a lead on some cow manure-conveniently sold by the bag, so that will be a start.
Hopefully the fence will keep out the neighbourhood dogs and chickens and the odd water buffalo that stumbles onto the property.
At the end is a small shade house for the seedlings.
Slowly we are filling up the garden with veg, herbs and flowers.

The temporary electricity was then installed.

And the most important thing - water. Fortunately the land is supplied with town water, so until we can start saving rain water(for the garden) we have a good water source.
A few days ago we went tree shopping.
The start of our orchard now includes bananas, mangoes, papaya, mulberry, pomelo, lime,coconuts and kaffir lime.
Building plans are being worked on and it looks like they may start building the house in the next few weeks all quite exciting.
The weather has been great. Lows as low as 9'C and highs of around 23-25'C. perfect for working and sleeping. It'll probably get even a little colder over the next month.