Early April Potage Palaver
Spring has really sprung in the past week. Tulips are well and truly up, crocus blooms everywhere, the nectarine, peach, and plum trees are starting to open up their blossoms. This is a great time of year. Love spring... especially when the sun shines ; )
Today is a bit of a grey, wet day but I keep reminding myself that the trees, shrubs, plants and lawn will just love this rain. When the sun comes out again again, new growth and blooms will pop up everywhere.
Plus... rainy days are great for attending workshops, spending time with friends talking about growing food... doesn't get any better than that : )
I missed last week's palaver, was such a busy time with three workshops back to back and hundreds of my own tomatoes to seed, but here we are, back on track again. Going to get this out to you all before I head out for today's Kitchen Gardening workshop, all about organic pest, weed, and disease control.
Here are some great links that caught my eye these past two weeks.
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| Our flowering alternative lawn in November |
Want to grow a flowering lawn? This is a great link. How to grow an urban flower meadow - The English Garden
We picked up one of the seeds mixes from West Coast Seeds at Sharecost, a local shop here in town, but you can order yours on line or pick up these seeds in most BC garden shops. There are all sorts of blends available, and they are all amazing.
We love these flowering lawns so just recently tossed around some of the Bee Turf seeds, more flowers for the pollinators, butterflies, and beneficial insects.
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| My Claude Shride martagon lily. |
All about Lilies! I love lilies in the potager and throughout the entire yard. They bloom at different times of the year, so I always have some stature and glorious blooms. This blog post will tell you all about lilies, the different kinds. I love the Martagons, they are my absolute favourites, but they have all sorts, colours, and kinds. The 6 Types of Lilies for the Summer Garden - Garden Therapy
This article is not about growing food but instead about all sorts flowers and what to do with them in the month of April in the PNW. April Gardening Tips and To-Dos for the Pacific Northwest Region - Shiplap and Shells. Besides, who doesn't like flowers, eh?
Want to grow food throughout the season but not sure how to do it? Here is a a podcast about succession sowing. succession-sowing strategies, with meg cowden - A Way To Garden
Found two lovely articles from The Empress of Dirt... this one about what to do in the garden from month to month.
Then there is also this one about using cinnamon as a fungicide.
Have you always wanted a butterfly garden? Check out this article and all the pretty flowers you can grow for them. One word of advice? Keep it far away from your food garden as you know what butterflies start out as, eh ; ) 6 Steps to Creating Your Butterfly Garden (houzz.com)
This article coves a whole lot of common garden problems/hurdles and how to overcome them, from weeds to pests.
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| Charles Dowding's farm. |
Want to succession grow this year? Grow food in three seasons? Here is a good video from Charles Dowding about succession sowing from March through October. Real time, real sowing and growing. This is a very good video as he talks about bug damage through the season, water issues, all sorts of real life issues with 4 plantings. See that video HERE!
AND.... Here is another one of Charles' videos about sowing, planting, growing, interplanting, so many fun spring things! April 2022 plant raising, how to transplant, using covers, no dig fun, compost, salads, beautiful food, NEW weekly advice - Charles Dowding
Here is another garden blog with what to do in April to help get you started. She also has 'how-to-grow' guides for all veggies at the bottom of this page. the april garden chores - A Way To Garden
Two articles about starting seeds or planting starter plants.
These are some of the questions that came up during the weekend workshops.
Here are two different suppliers of the bug mesh for your brassicas (aphids/caterpillars) or your carrots (rust fly) or onions (maggot fly). I use the one from American Netting. Is 13'x 20'. These meshes are expensive but will last you for many years.
You can also look into screening, like you would use for an outside screen door, to see what that pricing would be like. Or.... In the UK, they often build these screen houses to keep pigeons and bugs off of their crops.
Someone was asking about my favourite companion planting chart that I use. This is the one that I have laminated and hanging in my greenhouse so that I can take it out to the garden at planting time.
Last but not least... if you are looking to grow a lot of food this year with the price of produce, the predicted shortages coming, check out the Vegetable Academy. He is a market grower and will help you immensely at figuring out what to plant, when to plant, how to plant, and how much to plant. His webinars are very informative.
That is all for this week..
Phew, what a list of fun things, eh?
Have the best week ever, happy gardening ~ Tanja
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