I grew up in Ottawa, the Capital of Canada, and my parents always had both flower and vegetable gardens at our home in the city, and two big gardens up at our cottage. Our cottage area was old farmland that had been owned by my mothers family.
So you can imagine how much practice I had as a child – weeding, watering, making compost, planting seeds and seedlings, tending to plants and harvesting the vegetables each fall.
Gardening was a way of life I suppose. It was a small part of my chores and other than enjoying a few flowers here and there I really didn’t think much of it, or really how lucky I was to grow up with such fresh food to eat and lovely flowers around all the time. As I said it was a way of life, it was normal.
When I was 18 I moved to Toronto to live with my sister and her husband so that I could attend school. I’ve been here ever since and I’ve had many rounds of education and careers in my short lifetime!
I met my husband when I was about 23 years old and we lived together for five years before we married. We lived in an apartment and I believe it was during those years that, when I’d go home to visit my parents, I’d marvel at how much better their tomatoes and cucumbers tasted than the ones I purchased at the grocery store. I also began to long for flowers and eventually started growing more and more of them on my apartment balcony.
When we finally bought a house in June 2001 I already had window box containers planted with vegetables that I had planned to transplant into the flower beds in my new backyard.
The garden that I’ve created over the last few years began in that first week that we owned our home. It’s grown now to include over 3000 spring bulbs, more than 60 roses, and hundreds of perennials and annuals.
Come join me on my gardening journey. I’ll talk about my experiences and little tricks that I’ve learned over the years, and perhaps you can share some of your experiences with me too.
You also notice that I talk about home decor and home renovation quite a bit. Well, that’s because as I was growing up I learned how to refinish furniture and renovate rooms within a home from my parents.
I’ve continued that hobby and money saving activity in my own home. My house is currently undergoing major renovations. I’ve been renovating since the day we gained ownership and I expect it will take a few more years before we’re done. Then it will probably be time to start all over again!
As a result of my posts about gardening and home related activities I consider this a Home and Garden blog.