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| Edmonton, Alberta Backyard Garden, May 2, 2020, 10 am. |
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| Edmonton Garden, June 18, 2020 2pm |
Garden Hints and Ideas
A garden is a never ending, interesting experiment. What works, what doesn't? Our basic approach is to maintain healthy, fertile garden earth by adding compost, keep harmful bugs away and try to cut down or pull weeds.
Consider garden and plant location
Sunshine
Our backyard is directly south of the house, perfect for backyard gardening. The yard is also pie shaped, with the larger section to the south, in the backyard. If you plan to garden in your yard, either front or back, check out the daily sunshine. Full sun, with no shade from neighbouring buildings or trees is preferable.
Trees
Besides shade from trees, tree roots can be a problem. The roots from big trees around the perimeter of the garden, on your property or your neighbours, can drain moisture and nutrients, and hinder tilling and planting.
Sunshine
Our backyard is directly south of the house, perfect for backyard gardening. The yard is also pie shaped, with the larger section to the south, in the backyard. If you plan to garden in your yard, either front or back, check out the daily sunshine. Full sun, with no shade from neighbouring buildings or trees is preferable.
Trees
Besides shade from trees, tree roots can be a problem. The roots from big trees around the perimeter of the garden, on your property or your neighbours, can drain moisture and nutrients, and hinder tilling and planting.
Know your microclimate and work with what you have.
The west end of our garden is warmed by the morning sun. So this is the ideal spot for crops that require warmth and full sun - like tomatoes. The beds on the east side don't get early morning sun, good for cool crops, like peas, spinach, and kale. Sunny parts of the garden are drier. Rotate the crops to different locations each season so that nothing is planted again in the same bed the following year.
Around the edges of our garden are perennials. The cherry is Carmen Jewel. These tart cherries are really good! We have a variety of different haskaps and saskatoons. Haskaps are an early berry, the first fruit of the season. Plentiful! The two apple trees are closer to the house, away from the garden beds. Perennial herbs are in a bed planted close to the back door.
Raised beds and tilled garden in healthy garden soil
The west end of our garden is warmed by the morning sun. So this is the ideal spot for crops that require warmth and full sun - like tomatoes. The beds on the east side don't get early morning sun, good for cool crops, like peas, spinach, and kale. Sunny parts of the garden are drier. Rotate the crops to different locations each season so that nothing is planted again in the same bed the following year.
Around the edges of our garden are perennials. The cherry is Carmen Jewel. These tart cherries are really good! We have a variety of different haskaps and saskatoons. Haskaps are an early berry, the first fruit of the season. Plentiful! The two apple trees are closer to the house, away from the garden beds. Perennial herbs are in a bed planted close to the back door.
Raised beds and tilled garden in healthy garden soil
Over many years of gardening we have continued to add leaves and compost to the garden to keep the earth loose and fertile. Weeds are much easier to pull out of loose soil.
We have some raised beds and also a main tilled ground garden. We top the 8 raised beds with composted manure, garden compost and leaves each spring. Raised beds are easier to keep weed free. They warm up and dry out earlier in spring, so earlier planting is possible. But they do require more water during dry spells. In heavy rains, they drain well (fewer slugs).
We have some raised beds and also a main tilled ground garden. We top the 8 raised beds with composted manure, garden compost and leaves each spring. Raised beds are easier to keep weed free. They warm up and dry out earlier in spring, so earlier planting is possible. But they do require more water during dry spells. In heavy rains, they drain well (fewer slugs).
We plant hardneck garlic in the fall in raised beds. It overwinters. Garlic is not planted in the main garden because we rototil the main garden in the spring, and the garlic grows so well in the raised beds. We also rotate the garlic beds every year. Garlic is a wonderful crop for a backyard garden in Edmonton.
We also add compost and leaves to the main central garden area each year.
Weeds
Bugs
Keep weeds down around the edges of your garden. Bugs are waiting in the weeds to eat your vegetables.
Weeds
There are lots of weeds around the old neighbourhoods in Edmonton. Dig out the dandelions. They are easier to pull out in dirt that is not compacted and fully dry.
Cover, cut down diligently, or dig out the quackgrass around the edge of the garden. Keep quackgrass out of the main garden.
Amend the garden soil with compost to make it light, so weeds can easily be removed.
Before you plant, stir the soil to disrupt weed seeds. After planting, when your seedlings are up, stir the surrounding soil again to disrupt weed seeds. Pick out the little weed seedlings.
We have a collection of rubber tiles for use in pathways. We purchased these second hand. Some gardeners cover paths with cardboard, but cardboard is dangerously slippery when wet. One idea is to put bark over cardboard in the paths around the raised beds. This lasts a few years.
Get the weeds before they go to seed. Learn to live with a some weeds and grass in the garden. We don't fret too much about weeds as long as the crops are growing well. Weeds that have not gone to seed can be composted but we don't put quackgrass in the compost.
Ultimately you can kill weeds by covering the ground with cardboard or newspaper.
Bugs
Keep weeds down around the edges of your garden. Bugs are waiting in the weeds to eat your vegetables.
Harmful insects are less likely to attack healthy plants. And healthy plants come from fertile, loose, healthy soil.
Some years, flea beetles have destroyed our young crops. Floating row covers protect these early crops, like kale, peas, swiss chard, from flea beetles. Keep the white cloth on as long as the bugs are eating your plants. Flea beetles poke holes in the leaves.
Later in the season moth larvae go after kale and cabbage crops. Floating row covers protect these crops too. If the plants need insects to pollinate flowers, lift the floating row covers off in the daytime.
Ants seem to like raised beds. They are not really harmful unless a big ant hill resides in your prize growing space. Plants won't grow in an ant hill. Try stirring them and disrupting them, to try to get them to move elsewhere. I don't have a good organic solution to ant hills in the vegetable garden, so we do lose some small parts of the garden to ants.
Cutworms will destroy plant stems of young tomatoes, and peppers. Put 2 or 3 toothpicks at the base of the stems, snug up to the stems, a good inch into the earth. The toothpicks prevent the cutworms from wrapping around the stems. Cutworms also eat leaves of many vegetables. Skim the soil surface when it is dry to find them. They hang out about an inch below the surface. Pick them up and relocate them out of your garden. They are thick grey worm-like bugs, about a half inch long. Easy to find, and easy to get rid of.
Slugs Nobody likes slugs. In rainy seasons they are plentiful. They will chew up your kale quickly. Some gardeners just pick them off . Others lure them to saucers of beer. Raised beds, because they drain well, seem to keep slugs at bay. I just kind of accept that the slugs will get some of the garden, and hope that next year there will not be so many.
Greenhouse
We start seedlings in the basement under lights in late February, March and early April. When temperatures hover around freezing, the seedlings can go into the greenhouse. It's an old 6x8 foot greenhouse with a floor of cement sidewalk blocks. A small heater warms up the greenhouse at night. Once the seedlings are in the garden, the greenhouse will house 6 or 7 tomato plants in large pots. The greenhouse protects the tomato plants from late blights, that may or may not attack the tomatoes in the garden.
Greenhouse
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| Greenhouse for seedlings in mid-April. |
We start seedlings in the basement under lights in late February, March and early April. When temperatures hover around freezing, the seedlings can go into the greenhouse. It's an old 6x8 foot greenhouse with a floor of cement sidewalk blocks. A small heater warms up the greenhouse at night. Once the seedlings are in the garden, the greenhouse will house 6 or 7 tomato plants in large pots. The greenhouse protects the tomato plants from late blights, that may or may not attack the tomatoes in the garden.
Tomatoes
Tie up tomato plants to keep the leaves off the ground. Plant them in full sun. Don't crowd them. I like Sun Gold, Lemon Boy, Celebrity, but we experiment with many varieties.
Best crops from our Edmonton garden
Kale (covered with floating row covers)
Beans
Peas (seedlings are covered for first 3 weeks)
Herbs
Garlic
Zucchini
On June 18:
Growing
Under the floating row covers - lettuce, kale, beets, swiss chard, young pea shoots, spinach.
Annual crops - corn, pumpkins, zucchini, beans, tomatoes, peppers, older pea plants, winter squash, carrots, cucumbers, parsley
Trials this year- fennel, celery, long beans, long Italian zucchini, lemon cucumber, parsnips
Regulars - strawberries, haskaps, saskatoons, rhubarb, apples, cherries, herbs, garlic
Harvesting on June 18
haskaps, spinach, kale, swiss chard, lettuce, mint, chives, oregano, French Tarragon, thyme, parsley (curley & Italian leaf), dill, rosemary