Back to the Garden

Food security for my family - fending off inflation, supply chain disruptions, lockdowns, and loss of income - is a primary goal of mine. Though struggling with serious health issues, my wife and I are excellent parents, and that begins with providing good nutrition. One way we accomplish that is by growing as much produce as we can, right in our back yard. Last year was a rough one for gardening, mainly because we didn't get a spring, and this year looks to be shaping up the same! Please enjoy my April 2022 garden update.

Wow, time to get those potatoes into the ground! This photo was actually taken a few weeks ago, after the last of the snow had melted. I had a bag of last year's potatoes (from the local farmers market) that I didn't quite finish, and they were going to seed:

I cut some of the bigger ones into two:

Then, I dug up a little garden patch against the back of the house, and spots down the side, to put them in:

Sadly, since then it got frosty again at night. We're even expecting another frost tonight - at the end of April! And yet it's already getting warm (over 20 Celsius) in the daytime, and we aren't getting any rain. So the potato tops all froze and died off. They're starting to come up again now, for the most part, but that will reduce my overall yield this summer.

Another thing that starts right away in the spring is garlic! I've done garlic for a good 10 years now, and recommend it to everyone. If you grow nothing else in your yard, grow garlic.

I grow mine right up alongside the fence, which goes around 2 sides of my main backyard garden, and also alongside the shed. Garlic comes up when the snow melts, and bulbs are harvested once the weather turns hot (here, that's traditionally late June or early July), then dried. Individual cloves are planted again just before the ground freezes (approximately October).

This is a shot of the garlic when it first came up this year:

A photo of the whole main garden, at the same time:

Soon, they were getting bigger and greener, but also clumping together in some spots:

I carefully extracted the clumped-together garlic shoots, so I could separate them and re-plant them further apart. They looked pretty tasty... I could have just washed these up and tossed them into a stir fry (but didn't):

I ended up with over 120 garlic plants in all! Here's about half of them:

As I mentioned, we aren't getting rain again this year. Normally, it's "April showers bring May flowers". In other words, there's no blooms (flowers or food) if you don't get a wet spring. So far, almost nothing, just like last year. So again, I've had to do the un-heard of, water garlic plants. And in April, no less!

Here they are last week, before watering:

And after watering:

So we're getting frost at night, meaning we can't plant beans or tomatoes or peppers or cucumbers etc, but we're also getting warm (almost hot) afternoons, and no rain. It's part winter, and part summer. No spring! :(

I'm doing the best I can to adjust, by timing things ideally, reseeding frost-killed plants, watering heavily, and leaning on frost-resistant crops like spinach and peas. Oh, peas!

That's a few weeks ago, clearing a little patch for the peas on the other side of the shed.

Here they are last week, just after uncovering them when temperatures dropped below freezing:

And here they are this afternoon, after a week of regular watering and afternoon sunshine:

Not bad! Peas offer a lot of nutrition, including excellent protein. 2 years ago, peas grown right here were my son's second food (after banana). This year, I'm doing the same thing for my baby daughter! I can't wait. Peas from the garden are so delicious. And the cool thing? These ones are the offspring of the previous crops - I kept a few handfuls of dried peas for seed! Everything I grow is done that way - from seed I collected the year before.

Here's the rhubarb (yuck), surrounded by a ring of newly-planted lettuce and spinach (yum):

Aside from the weeds, there are some other flowers getting started:

The rose leaves always look best before the aphids show up!

It's great to be back in the garden, even if my health isn't the greatest, and I'm extremely busy with my toddler and newborn. Growing plants gives me hope, distracts me from the stress of the world, provides exercise, and of course results in delicious organic food I can proudly put on my table.

My wife @MediKatie always grows sunflowers. Here they are, sprouting on the kitchen table just before being put outside where the sun will hit them:

Here's hoping the winter nights end, and the summer days hold off a while! I've got high hopes for the garden this year. All the best to you and your growing goals in 2022.

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