Young Love

Photo of Kale, thoroughly enjoying digging potatoes in the summer.

... The lesson I have thoroughly learnt, and wish to pass along to others, is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives.
GERTRUDE JEKYLL: Wood and Garden

Peggy"s Patio

What a great little space Peggy's husband has created for her in their tiny back yard! These wooden "tiles" - purchased and installed by Peggy's husband are a good example of a creative and beautiful effect in a small space... and yes- that is one of the upcoming titles in my new book series... more info to follow as all the details come together- now back to work.

Tomatoes you have known and Grown

Cohen's favorite eating tomato is this green zebra ... what is your fav?

I am seeking the names of tomatoes Calgary Gardeners love and asking for reasons you love them!

Send in the names of tomatoes you grow and tell me why they are a favorite of yours ...

What Have I been Up to?

It is hard to imagine a faster month gone by. In the month since I put away my steel-toed boots and stacked my tools in storage- why have I been too busy to write?

I am in thinking mode and in writing mode but not in writing Blog mode. I have been reading all the various garden books I have bought over the years including one from 1908 . I am worse than the proverbial "kid in the candy shop" - It really is a gorging event. This is my "education season" and I have been waiting years to do it. Instead of staying in Calgary to read and write amid distractions of "real" work and visiting with friends I have come to the coast with all my books and I am doing exactly as I dreamed. I am reading and writing and thinking. I am keen to start a new book but not a book that simply repeats all the old wive's tails and adjective filled descriptions of plants or step-by-step instructions to do this or that. I was looking for a single "good idea".

I recently came upon a set of magazines called "The Garden" published monthly by Theo A. Stephens starting in January 1934. With a subtitle "An intimate magazine for garden lovers", Stephens opened with a personal foreward. "For many years it has been my ambition to produce a gardening paper" starts Stephens. "The type of magazine I have always visualized was a de luxe production, taking advantage of modern methods of reproduction by colour printing, photogravure and fine screen half tone.... a small intimate book, simple and friendly".

Coincidentally I have also been dreaming of writing "a friendly small intimate" book (not a monthly magazine). I have considered producing a series of small books covering tasks people tell me they want more information on. It will be a distillation of my thirty years of gardening experience with a dash of my collected book knowledge. And it won't come together quickly. It is a luscious and fun task and I am in no hurry to complete it! The working title for the series is almost a done deal and the first book in the series is in the works with many titles and ideas on the board. Meanwhile I am also enjoying modern non-gardening reading and have almost finished "Cradle to Cradle". In a few weeks I leave for an extended visit to New Zealand where I hope to keep "working" in a comparative way on my various garden ideas.

Meanwhile I will fill this blog with bits and pieces from "The Garden" and other books I am reading so that there is something to fill the blank pages of my blog as I pursue my dream.

Plants back to life? Anita was right

My horrible dry and frozen leaves have thawed and look normal now and just may get normal fall colour.

A week ago I was worried that my life (as a gardener this season) was over! The temperatures dipped to minus 15 celsius and the leaves on trees including my little silver maple were horribly crispy and shrivelled. Registered Consulting Arborist Anita Schill told me not to worry. Trees that are horribly dry may need water, she said but everything else will be okay. I am publishing a photo of a leaf from the same maple I was so worried about a few weeks ago. It has thawed, come back to life and looks like it will go into normal fall colour and perhaps senesce normally. Go figure. You were so right Anita!

Remember if your leaves have not dropped and do not look like "normal" fall leaves you must get out and water right now. While the soil is still alive. Don't wait until February to think about this. In all many gardening years this is the first time I have seen heavy freezing as a general rule on trees in the fall before the leaves have dropped.

Empty Water Barrels Now

Well --- I drained my water barrel and then placed a container under it to catch the last of the water, tightened the tap - and then I went away. When I came back it had snowed and the melted snow has filled the barrel again! Okay - truth is it is time to physically disconnect the barrel and put it in the garage or upside down beside the house for winter. A rain barrel is a big item but if it is not put away and kept dry it might split and break during one of our freeze/dry cycles this winter... And it is not just me- Clean Calgary also reminds us to empty barrels and their argument is convincing- open the tap and empty it out today! Before it gets cold again. We are not living on Vancouver Island - we are in Alberta!

The End of Summer?

Yes there is snow on the ground this morning. I guess this is good for oil prices?

It is definitely too early for temperatures this cold and the trees know it. After a warmer than expected fall with a leisurely and extended summer the frost came and it stayed. The first few frosts started turning the leaves and we had a bit of fall colour coming on. Some hardy old poplars even shed their leaves. Good for them. Now it is so bloody cold we are all checking on last minute seat sales and passport renewals. The trees can't leave town so they are stuck between the proverbial rock and hard place. Many leaves have frozen rigidly on the stems before they started to change colour and this is the worst case scenario.

What it means is that no abscission layer was formed between the leaves and the stems. Instead of slowly pulling in all the reusable nutrients and storing them away in the roots for use again next year, the leaves and stems froze rigidly on many trees and shrubs and the nutrients are now locked in the dead leaves and are hanging on instead of falling off. Woody plants and even old standby perennials like peonies usually put the minerals and sugars and nitrogen back into the roots and that way they have a resource come spring. The plants were caught with their pants down. Some arborists are not as worried. To paraphrase Anita Schill, Registered Consulting Arborist with Tree & Leaf in Calgary: "The short days have triggered plants to begin to acclimatize ... they have been storing away food for a month already" she said. She is not worried trees will lose all their hard labour and nutrients with this sudden turn of events and thinks there is something we can do to save them - water, water and water.

The nutrients will be reused by the tree if they are left on the ground because eventually the woody plant can bribe a few fungi with sugary photosynthate exuded from their roots and these fungi will break down the dead leaves into its usable components again next spring. I believe stems still holding leaves may now suffer from "winterkill" or freezing because they have too much water still in the cells. Dry trees, Schill emphasizes, are the problem. They are holding dry leaves right now so watering will help because the root fungi are still active and needing moisture.

Not just a sad day for gardeners, it is a sad day for new trees planted this year that may not have the reserves in place to fully overwinter. We won't really know until next May but it isn't looking good for any new plantings or lush growing plants right now. I agree with Schill- get out and check your moisture. The snow we've had is not enough for the soil borne organisms - give them a break by watering now.

Snow, Compost & Fall Bulbs

It was a busy weekend of emptying the old compost bin and spreading it; draining our water barrel for the winter; watering in the peonies we moved and finally planting the bulbs and spreading a yard of commercial compost. Yes it happened all at once. I ordered compost and just as it came the weather turned and it started raining. By the time the bulbs (Allium christophii and Allium Mount Everest - see first two photos above) were planted it was starting to snow. Luckily we finished planting bulbs and covering all the beds with compost (see bottom photo of Eagle Lake Black Gold) before it really came down this morning. Now it looks perfect!

The leaves are slow to change colour this year but those that are down were added to our cleaned out bin along with a few kitchen scraps. It is hovering near 2-5 degrees now which is only a shock because it was plus 30 last week. This is all in celcius of course and that means it was very hot and now is so cold. Good thing we are going away for Thanksgiving!