As the Garden Grows

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A lovely early Spring

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I haven’t been writing in this blog very much recently. Life has a way of getting in the way and in my case it got in the way BIG TIME. I don’t think that’s going to end anytime soon, and it’s affect my writing in all of my blogs, but I’m going to try to write more.

I do want to remind my readers that I have another gardening blog that I hope to write in regularly as well. It’s called Organic Gardening Tips and as the name implies it’s about organic gardening. As I’ve mentioned in many of my posts on this blog I don’t use chemicals or synthetic fertilizers on my garden beds. I use organic materials so I suppose this blog is also an organic gardening blog as well.

Yellow daffodils 3

In other news – my garden is doing very well this spring! I don’t think that I lost any roses this year. It was a very warm winter with barely any snow here in Toronto. So warm in fact that my roses started to leaf out in mid March! I’ve never seen that happen before. They usually don’t start getting leaves or even turning green until mid April or even later.

Everything is growing and I’d say that my garden is at least 1.5 months ahead of itself. My Crocuses, Glories of the Snow, Snow Drops, Hyacinths and the first of the Daffodils are just about done now. I’m waiting to see what will bloom next.

How is your garden doing this lovely Spring?






Alfresco Entertaining in my small Garden

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We’re at the height of summer and I find that almost every day we’re having a meal in the garden on the patio. It’s lovely to sit outdoors enjoying the beauty of the garden and when we’re lucky it’s bounty as well.

As I mentioned in my last post, our tomatoes are just beginning to ripen and very soon we’ll have cucumbers and beans. We’ve already been enjoying strawberries and raspberries from the garden and I expect that we’ll continue to enjoy them for another month or so.

It’s at this time of year when I most enjoy entertaining. I love inviting a few friends or some family members over for an informal visit. We’ll get together and have a barbecue or just a snack and a few drinks. Just a chance to get together – but of course it’s always in the garden surrounded by my lovely flowers and all the lovely scents they produce.

One quick and simple treat that I whip up when guests come over is cheese and crackers. I almost always have both cheddar cheese and a soft cheese on hand like Boursin Cheese and of course a variety of tasty crackers is always handy.

Do you do a lot of entertaining in the summertime? Do you keep supplies on hand for “drop in” guests? Supplies such as tasty spreadable cheeses like the Boursin cheeses discussed above or other quick foods?

It’s been a strange cool Spring

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Are you having a cold and rainy spring in your area? Or are you having strange and turbulent weather? We seem to be having all of the above here in Toronto.

Two weekends ago it was cold and we actually had snow with thunder and lightening storms .. yes and odd mix, but it happened – more than once. It’s true. Then it warmed up … then it cooled down again and then it rained and rained and rained.

Currently we’re hovering between periods of torrential rain storms and then warm sunny periods. It actually reached 22 Celsius (72 F) today which is quite warm for us in April – especially this year given that we had snow less than two weeks ago (which was really really unusual).

First Crocus of spring

I guess the good news about the cool rainy damp Spring is that well … April showers bring May flowers … and well they bring April flowers too. I’ve had Crocus’ blooming since about March 20th and thanks to the cool weather a good portion of them are still blooming. Usually they’re GONE by now. I’m also enjoying my Snow Drops this year … often they come and go so fast than if I blink I miss them, but since we’ve had an extended cool period they’ve stuck around instead of blooming at lightening speed and disappearing.

My Glories of the Snow are in bloom in the backyard garden beds and the a few in the front are beginning to bloom this week. A few Dwarf Irises are also blooming. Other flowers that are growing and preparing to bloom are several Hyacinths, daffodils, tulips and I’m sure a few others that I can’t remember off the tops of my head. Basically everything is greening up and growing leaves including most of my roses. At least the heavy dose of snow that we had over the winter covered all the plants well and protected them so I believe most of my plants survived the winter cold. We don’t always get very good snow cover here in Toronto so I tend to worry about my plants in the deep cold of winter but not this past winter.

Blooming crocuses

Overall my garden is healthy and happy … I’m just waiting for the weather to warm up and for all my flowers to start growing and to begin blooming … but what gardener isn’t?

Tell me about your garden.

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