Sunday, March 14, 2010

Mary, Mary Quite Contrary - How Does YOUR Garlic Grow?

Spring is upon us... the cherry blossoms are out in full force and my seed order that arrived in January is beckoning!

The overwintering crops are looking good - the Purple Sprouting Broccoli is sprouting tasty loonie-size heads of deliciousness, the garlic is going strong and the kale is a veritable forest!




This afternoon on an outing at the Robson park community garden (I'm a looky-loo!) I saw that amidst the largest stalks of kale, someone had planted their garlic and it was growing like gangbusters! Our very first crop of garlic had to be uprooted during the Great Ruptured Waterline Fiasco of 2010, so I was brainstorming where they would find home, sweet home. Kale grows rather abundantly in our garden, and so I decided to thin out the kale forest into a more manageable kale orchard, interspersing the garlic. I have no idea if this will work, but am willing to try!



Last year's potato crops were also very successful (who can't grow a potato?) and I decided to up the ante this year. I may have gone a little overboard though - instead of 14 plants like last year, I'm doing about 50, including Yukon Golds, Red Chieftains and Seiglindes! Right now they are happily chitting on the art room windowsill...



And last but certainly not least - under the grow lights we have 3 types of tomatoes (20 plants in all), two types of peppers (16 plants in all), 2 types of broccoli (16 plants in all), peas and leeks! Here you can see the tomatoes reaching for some rays. I am SO SO happy to not have these on my kitchen counter this year!



Next weekend I hope to get out into the greenhouse to start my lettuces, herbs, marigolds and nasturtiums. We're getting some more dirt and taking over more of our front yard, since the grass was kinda ruined from the Waterline debacle. Who needs a front lawn anyways? Radishes, parsnips and beets - oh my!

After a few hours of gardening in the rain this afternoon, I came back inside to this little scene. Silly family!



In other news, Keira has recently entered a new phase of crazy. Now she's carrying around multiple blankies, even during the daytime, and sucking her thumb like mad. Most nights we find her curled up on the floor, sound alseep beside the strip of light coming underneath the door to their room. Naps during the daytime are getting fewer and fewer... they aren't kidding when they say that every kid is unique! But her particular brand of unique is slowly driving me crazy. I'm hoping it's just her second set of molars coming in but who knows??




It's a good thing they're cute!