The Sweetcorn is Up...

... and the garden is growing, no thanks to the cold spell we've been having this week. One of the perils of living on the 49th parallel is that gardening season tends to be a bit short. The last two years I've attempted to grow sweetcorn only to see the plants mature just as the autumn frosts start moving in. This year, I went after an early maturing variety that is supposed to shorten the time to harvest by almost a month.

The other areas of the garden are doing well, though the soil this year has been unusually dry (we're behind in spring rainfall). The peas are about eight inches high, and the potatoes have been hilled twice already. I am trying a bit of fertilizer this year, as well as lots of compost for the hot-weather plants like canteloupe and pumpkins. This year I moved some of the heat-loving vegetables to the front hill, so that freed up some space to experiment with cover crops. After scrounging around two counties I finally found a store that sold buckwheat seed, which comes highly recommended as a quick growing summer "green manure". If it is successful I'd like to use it to cover some of the areas vacated by early summer crops like peas and lettuce.

The weather has been chilly and rainy this last week, but at least partial sunshine is predicted for Memorial Day weekend. We're taking the kids camping in Canada (hoping to escape vacationers from the States). Two years ago we discovered Nelson, a beautiful little town on the west arm of Kootenay Lake about two hours north. There's a nice 30-minute ferry ride to cross the lake that is always exciting for the kids, so we're heading that direction this weekend.

1 comment May 24th, 2007