Adventures of a First-Time Gardener.

A couple of months back, I made the decision that this year, for the first time ever, I'm going to delve into the wonderful world of gardening. Not just any gardening either; vegetable gardening! So, for the last couple months I've been researching, pretty much everything there is know about gardening in Alberta. (Keep the jokes to a minimum please.)

It might surprise you to learn that, something as simple and basic as growing seeds in the earth can quickly turn convoluted and confusing when you factor in things like, soil PH balance, average last frost, growing beds, raised beds, compost vs manure vs fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides, indoor sowing vs free sowing, different seeds requiring different soil conditions and different sun levels, and on, and on. You even have to plan your garden the same way you plan seating for a wedding. In the same way that you don't want your creepy, extra-friendly Uncle Bob sitting near the teen table, you don't want onions next to the beans unless you enjoy disastrous results. How naive was I to think that I could dig some holes, throw some seeds in, dump some water, and in approximately 8 weeks time, harvest some organic, home-grown, fresh veggies? Apparently....very.

Fast forward to May long weekend 2010. Best planting weekend of the year for us Albertans. Well past the average last frost, it's often sunny, mild.... Everyone's got an extra-long weekend, it's a weekend for family, for planting, for Bar B Q. We bought some seedlings (yes, I'm cheating....cut me some slack, it's my first time), some top-soil, some Miracle Grow, some organic pesticide. I planned to borrow a tiller, I even bought myself a bright pink watering can and some totally fashion forward, baby pink gardening gloves. We were ready. *I* was ready. That is, until I woke up to pouring rain and a message on my answering machine informing me that the tiller would not plow through sod. I was going to have to remove the sod from my 30 sq foot plot, by hand, in the rain.

Thankfully, though my family is not QUITE on board as I am about the whole gardening thing, everyone banded together. One of my friends was a good sport when he learned that my promise of Bar B Q and beer was ultimately a big ruse to get a pair of extra hands. So, the four and a half (Ayla collected worms) of us, and one hoe, got to work. We dug up the sod, hand-tilled the soil, mixed in some top-soil and fertilizer, and prepared to plant. We even got the backyard mowed, we rocked it pretty hard.

Then, as we start methodically placing seedlings and seeds according to my well-planned (or so I thought) paper guidelines, I began to realize that I'd made some huge mistakes and oversights in regards to the spacing of my plants. The information I'd gotten from the Internet (come ON, the internet is NEVER wrong) conflicted from my seedling wrappers and seed packets. Erring on the side of caution, that left us with far too little space. Exhausted, and with very few hours left in the daylight, we decided to plant what we could, downsize in some area's, and wait to plant some things altogether (potatoes). All in all, it didn't turn out too badly. We got 6 corn seedlings, 12 onion bulbs, 3 tomato seedlings, 6 red cabbage plants, a whole packet of carrot seeds, half a packet of broccoli seeds, three squash plants, three strawberry plants, a whole packet each of beans and sugar snap peas, 6 radicchio lettuce seedlings, and 6 Swiss chard seedlings plants. As well as chives, sage, oregano and mint (far away from the rest.....apparently that stuff will MANGLE your garden). We plan to expand the plot next weekend and add the potatoes, some more carrots and some more broccoli. I feel pretty good about it. Ask me again in a few weeks.