We have a much loved etching by the English artist Graham Clarke hanging in our dining room ... admire it every day. This is another of his works that pretty well sums up life for us these days - apart from the thatched roof. No complaints.
Spring Planting Last year was the year of experimental vegetable gardening, not that we don't have many years of experience but very little of that in Canada. We had three excellent raised beds installed for us by Urban Seedling and stock the beds with seedling vegetables or seeds obtained from the same people. [...]
We are now a couple of months into our learning experience with high density successive vegetable growing. Quite a success so far and perhaps this is a good time to publish an update for those who have been asking questions. In May we started with the installation of three raised vegetable beds [...]
There is a famous phrase from a chidrens’ poem written in the 1760s by Isaac Watts that asks: “How doth the little busy bee improve each shining hour?” ... and the answer in our case is by industrious labouring in our Socially Distant Garden. What, you will be wondering, loyal reader, has [...]
Right at the very northernmost limit of their range, two Carolina Wrens are settling in for winter in a garden west of Montreal. A serendipitous snatch of hand-held video. ** The first Wren appears from behind the dark chain-mesh feeder at about 12s and the second flies in to join it at 30s. I [...]
7 January 2017 A moderately cold week to start the new year with a great dollop of heavy, wet snow followed by freezing rain in the middle of the week so that the snow cover is rather crunchy and sitting on a layer of ice. It will be doing what it is supposed to do [...]
Very hot and steamy today - opportunity to photograph some of the flowers we have at the moment. The roses are starting to bloom and the peonies are showing wonderfully. The small vegetable patch is filling very well and there are going to be pounds of blackcurrant. Click a thumbnail for a full size slide-show. [...]
First week in June and things are going strong. Yesterday was a day of extreme rain and thunder around here so the mosquitoes are about this morning and roaming gangs. All that rain and a bit of heat today though has really spurred plants into growth. The vegetables are sootting up - first lettuces will [...]
It's always amazing to us how summer suddenly arrives in Quebec after a fairly short and concentrated spring. Certainly it is here today and we have been labouring outside trying to get a head start on things. Dandelion flowers needed strimming off before they can set seed (how I love doing that - nasty little [...]
This year, being retired folks, we get to visit the garden centres a few days before the big Victoria Day Weekend and so have the choice pick of the plants without the awful crowds. Sheer bliss. It's an expensive way to garden, but the hanging baskets and window boxes are being prepared and the newly [...]