My little bit of earth

For the last few years, as soon as the weather starts to get warmer and the days get longer I get so excited to start planting.
Growing up, our garden at home was always quite well tended by my mum and dad. Not one of those really neat and tidy gardens, more English country garden in style, and always with a small vegetable patch for beans, tomatoes and basil.
Most summers we took a family trip to the nursery, and my sisters and I were allowed to pick out a few flowers each to plant in our own window boxes that hung from the playhouse in the backyard.

I guess once I had my first, real place of my own out here, in order to make it a home I figured it needed some plants to take care of.
I'm not known to have the greenest of thumbs...the handful of houseplants I've had through the years generally don't fair too well. Even my attempts at container gardening out here the last two summers haven't rewarded me with much - heat waves, trips back home and a general naivete can be thanked for that.

But this year is different! With more space and (most importantly) sun than I've had yet I wanted to really make a go of it. And so I present to you, my little bit of earth*:


The view from my kitchen window.

This is actually a "no dig" garden, instructions for which you can find here. The main reason I went with this type of garden is probably the reason most people do - sheer laziness. Also, I realized when sticking in the fence that there are what seem to be flagstones under a lot of the grass and so digging all that up would have sucked.

My (somewhat ambitious) vegetable plan is to grow cherry tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, arugula, bush beans. I'll also have a pretty good selection of herbs: basil, chives, dill, sage, lovage and sorrel. And inspired by Generation A by Douglas Coupland and the Stuff You Should Know podcast about honeybees disappearing I'm including a patch of bee friendly flowers: corn poppies (also edible!), echinacea, mountain phlox and sunflowers.


Orginization! And dollar store gloves.


R-L: Cucumbers, tomatoes, basil, sage and lovage.

I've already started a bunch of things inside, and have planted a few outside. While I don't have to worry about frost like I would were I in Ontario, I do have to think about the rain and not drowning my poor little plants.

I'm feeling pretty good about it all this year. I've done a lot of reading and have been studying those seed packets like nobody's business. Here's hoping for a bountiful season!

*If you can tell me the origin of that phrase, I'll bake you cookies! Seriously.