City Gardens, Weather & Cooking

Hello dear friends and fellow bloggers,

Time passed too quickly this month and before you know it May will be here.  With it's return the deadline imposed by the Community Garden Committee to fully plant the small community garden plot or lose it, rears it's head.

It should be relatively simple and straightforward to plant, but it never is for one reason or another.

Firstly, I think the timeline is too early. Good starter plants aren't really available here until May begins. That means you'll pay a premium if you want to get starter plants from the nursery. The 'real' gardeners always seem to get their gardens growing in April! I don't know how they do it but there are many who are just as behind as I am, if not more so.

To be honest, I'm not even sure you can buy a variety of vegetables and flowers until some time in May because that is when the garden season gets underway in the city.  Maybe you can if you travel a distance by car.

If you can't buy starter plants or nursery plants, the other option is to start your own starter plants from seeds.  If you want to start your own plants to beat the deadline, you'll need to start early and have all the soil, seeds, trays and pots at hand. There is a method to planting this way which includes transitioning starter plants to the weather so you need to factor that process into your timeline.  I believe this is called 'hardening" or 'hardening off'. 

Secondly, the weather doesn't always cooperate.  It's been very wet and very cold in the months of March and April though we have had a few good days here and there. This is what the weather was like on Saturday.

I was actually organized enough to start seeds early this year but they sprouted way too quickly and were unusable. I thought I'd try again but ran out of time and now it's too late to start my own seeds and still plant the garden on time.  So I had to try and find some nursery plants.

Saturday I called around to a few places might have what I was looking for and one of them did.  The other store said sometime next week and that would be too late.

I went today to buy what I could. The variety was somewhat limited but it will do.  Last year I didn't buy start plants or start my own. Instead I sowed seeds directly into the soil and most of the plants did sprout and do reasonably well except the sunflowers didn't look that healthy. The exceptional heat we had was not conducive for good growing conditions though the kale did very well.

I also bought a Boston Fern for my bedroom.  I love these ferns. The last one I had was on my patio in a pot for several years before I throw all plants away due to the patio renovation project which is currently ongoing.

Speaking of the patio garden, I'm still not sure when it will be ready or what work I'll have to do in it. I had to throw out many things including my garden hose and spray nozzle when I cleaned the patio out in preparation for renovations.  Today I was able to get new ones so they are ready to go when needed.

On the food front, I made a lovely lentil dish of lentils, carrots, eggplants, onion and various spices. I'll be making it again or variations of it. We had it with some air fried chicken which was also good.

The Weekly Home Blessing (part of Fly Lady's cleaning system) was done over the weekend and so now the house is clean ad relatively tidy and ready for the busy week ahead.

Wishing you all a fabulous week.