Memories and seedlings

These past couple of weeks starting seedlings and setting up my garden takes me on a trip down memory lane.
I remember when I was young, the most important thing when we were looking for a house in Canada was having a garden because that was what my grandpa really wanted to do when he moved over from HK.

He loved gardening and would spend hours in the garden every day.
Of course he planted all Chinese veggies which takes a lot of room and lower yield, so it was always special on nights we eat veggies from the garden.

He grew bak choy, choy sum, winter melon, fuzzy melon, Chinese chives, peppers and tomatoes.
I remember he let me plant a strawberry plant from school one year and not only did we never get to eat the strawberries because animals came and ate them, but it took over his garden so he eventually removed it.

I loved the melons he grew and would like to grow it too but sadly I don't get enough sunlight in my side yard (west side of house).

So this year, being the first year I'm gardening, I decided to try to stick with easy things that can potentially grow in with less light

I'm hoping to be able direct sow lettuce and transplant some items next week as the weather is starting to warm up.
Right now it's still less then 10 degrees C and it goes to about 0 degrees at night so I'm hoping with the mini-hoop up, the soil can get to around 15 degrees C by next week.

So to get ready, I've started my seedlings 2 weeks ago. Funny thing is, the bigger pot on the bottom left has 4 seedlings growing but I only put 2 seeds in that pot. So I have no idea what else is growing in there....and I don't know what to pull because I don't know what is what....I guess I'll just have to wait until they grow bigger :(

The sugar snap pea on the bottom left is growing very well right now. It should be ready to transplant next week and good news is that it can survive with only 4 hours of sunlight, which is about what I get in the side garden.

So in the pots, I have broccoli di ciccio, cabbage "green express" and sugar snap pea started.

Today I direct sow 1 line of Purple Plum Radish and I started soaking a blue jay bean, a slenderette bean and and Orca bean. I'm a little hesitant to plant these because they're all bush type and require 6-8 hours of sun. I hope they'll still be ok even if it's slightly lower yield. One key reason why I'm planting them is because they can help pull nitrogen into the soil and I'm trying to make the soil richer anyway I can.

Next week I hope to get more things in the ground so I can start harvesting as soon as the end of May or early June :)

Categories: Gardening