Notes From The Potting Shed - May Long Weekend At The Potager

The long weekend is upon us. It is gardening (or camping) weekend all across the country. This is when it is traditionally safe to plant up the garden... mostly.

However, this year, the long weekend is very early! Many of us tend to call it the May two four weekend, but the 24th is not till next week. Use caution if you were hoping to plant now as it looks we're going to have a very cool weekend across much of the country.

Rain, cloudy, windy, night time temps nearing zero are predicted here on the prairies, below 10°C on the island. Yikes. This kind of weather is fine for sowing peas, carrots, beets, all your brassicas, onions, potatoes, more lettuce, peas, even your beans... everything except the warm season veggies can go out.

I've yet to plant or sow much of anything in the ground though, other than some flowers, peas, plus brussels from seeds and plants. That is just about all. It has either been rainy, windy, or I have been busy with something else...

I sometimes start to panic, thinking that I am late, late, late.. and then I realise that it is just the middle of May and I have a good month of planting time yet. Whew!

Tomatoes and shade planters in the greenhouse.

I am very used to planting my warm season crops (tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers) in June anyways as my wee ngp greenhouse was open till after the May long weekend, leaving me no time to plant until I closed the gates on the spring season.

My only worry planting them out the first week of June here on the prairies is that we have a shorter summer than we had on the west coast. Will they have time to ripen? I guess we are going to find out! I will put the longest maturing types in the greenhouse and cross my fingers.

The garlic is coming up so nicely!

The weather is not the only reason for my planting tardiness though. I am also pivoting a bit, taking stock and making changes as my plans have changed somewhat.

The plan was to quickly expand the foundation planting by a few feet, making it into a pollinator strip this spring. Then in summer to work on the rest of the side and backyard. Hubby got started on the digging and we both thought 'ugh, what are we two oldies doing?' This is a lot of hard grunt work, we are no longer in our 30's.. or even our 40's, hahaha, this is going to take us a month of Sundays, a lot of aching muscles, and we won't finish till the end of summer yet again.

So, it looks like we are going to get someone to do it for us. What would take us all summer will just take them a few days to do. The job will be complete and I'll be able to get on with my planting. I have a whole lot of Floret dahlias waiting to go in that pollinator strip ; )

I'll tell you all about the yard plan once we have things in the works. That fence is very rotten though so can tell you that it is coming down next week. The neighbour and hubs are going to replace that whole south side fence. You might remember that I keep saying we are doing the fence in phases? That still holds true. South side this year, back already done, so hopefully north side next year...

The hanging baskets and planters are in the greenhouse till the night time temps are more reliable. Thrillers, fillers, and spillers are hanging out in the mini greenhouse, just waiting to get potted up. The tomatoes are in the greenhouse hardening off. I just moved them out there three days ago but am now contemplating bringing them back into the potting shed again....

Since writing that, I decided to leave everything be and put in a small heater that will go on low just for the overnights (because last night went down to 0.9°C). I also planted up the strip in front of the green raised bed with onions, snapdragons, and celery. I see little seed starts coming in some of the cracks, too. Am pretty sure those are the little tagetes marigolds, the Mandarin Gems that I had in there last year. Yay! Cannot wait to see the palooza of flowers.

Oh, I've stuffed some bubble wrap into the gap of the Dutch door to retain more of the heat. We'll do a better set up for next year.

To make the baskets, I line the bottoms with paper plates. You can also use a real plate, a plastic plate, a saucer... anything that will help to keep the water from running right out the bottom of your baskets longer. I use plates in moss baskets, coir lined baskets, and also these burlap baskets (as I no longer have access to all that lovely moss from the woods).

Fill the baskets with my secret soil recipe (5 parts potting soil to 2 parts compost or manure). Do not stuff it into the basket but rather fill it up, give it a thump or two on the table to settle the soil, fill to the brim. The soil level will settle once you start planting it up and then settle some more as you water. Leave it loose for the roots to spread.

Top with a tablespoon or two of slow release fertiliser. This helps to keep the plants happy all summer, even if you forget to feed them now and again.

Plant up 12 to 14 inch pots with 6 or 7 plants. One in the center and 6 around them. Or, just the 6 in a circle. Do not plant right at the edge. Instead, plant them 2 inches from the edge so they fill up the entire pot, grow outwards and soon spill over the edges.

The flowers will soon be spilling over the sides of the baskets and cascading down nicely.

These flowers are withstanding the cool weather just fine.

These pots were made up last weekend and so were outside last night, not covered, when we went down to less than 1 degree in the greenhouse. I am going to assume that it was the same temp, or colder, out in the yard. Not even a bit of damage on the plants.

In the pots, I have petunias, alyssum, verbena, geraniums and (white) bidens. Plus one mojito mint in the pot in front.

I mixed up a bunch of flower and veggie seeds, tossed them into a bed.. and now we wait.

I did a little bit of what I call chaos gardening, today. I tend to like formal plantings of rows or blocks, everything in it's place. Rows of veggies with a row or two of flowers between. Well, this time, I decided to do a trial in one of the beds. I tossed some flower and vegetable seeds together into a small bowl and mixed them up. I then ran a rake through the bed to loosen up the soil (the one behind the blue pots in the picture above) and then scattered the seeds throughout the bed. I firmed the seeds down with the back of the rake, watered them in, and now we wait.

Oh, I also planted up two sheets of the seedy paper that I made earlier in the year. One sheet has alyssum seeds, the other has cosmos. Anxious to see what all comes up in the bed. I got this fun idea from this insta page.

Medium shredded bark mulch.

The Latest Q&A's

Question #1- I have a large yard and the landscaper put down weed barrier and then river rock on top. So now I stumble around weeding these rocks. The rocks are going and I would like to put down cardboard and then mulch. What is the best mulch to put down?

Tanja - For moisture and best for the soil and plants, arborist wood chips is the very best mulch that you can use. It is not always easy to get a drop off though (sign up with Chip Drop) and not everyone likes the look of this mulch as it contains twigs, evergreen needles, plus the chips. To buy mulch at the landscapers, I would look for a medium shredded wood. Not all fine and pulverised, but rather has some larger shreds and a big finer shreds. This will look nice, plus give you great weed protection and moisture retention.

Question #2 - What brand of soaker hoses do you use?

Tanja - No particular brand at all. I like the flat ones (like these) that look like they have a woven fabric covering. The round rubber black ones are rubbish. I use a 50 foot long soaker hose in each 12x4 raised bed.

Our wee dwarf Gemini apple tree has some flowers coming. If these all were to start groiwng into apples, I will take most all of them off, of course. The tree is too young and too small to maintain them yet.

We have the grandies this weekend while their momma is working at the nursery, so no further planting will likely get done now till Tuesday. I am on hold for the weekend, just going to enjoy my time with Grampy and the kidlets, while I anxiously await what the landscapers bring for price quotes.

You all have a great weekend, eh? ~ Tanja