Spring at Spring 114

Well, May is finally here and although there wasn't really much in terms of April Showers, I am looking forward to some good ole May growing here at my new place in Toronto. One of the big attractions I had immediately to this house was the gigantic back yard which the landlady has given me open-season to plant however I like. Hoping that this generosity on her part was sincere, as soon as April came around I started digging, and I then proceeded to spend a good portion of that month in preparation for a solid gardening season, setting up the various plots, deciding where plants would go, getting the composter started up, etc.

The photographs that follow are from last week, and actually there have been huge changes since then (!). I thought people might be interested in seeing how things are coming along so far this spring, however, so I haven't taken any new photos yet.

The yard from the fire escape

Given that our new place doesn't have any good spots for sprouting seedlings indoors, the first step, at the beginning of March, was to build myself a cold-frame, a small greenhouse-type structure that uses the heat of the sun to keep a controlled climate warm enough for plants.The Coldframe!

I thought about several designs, but after finding this shower door at the re-store for 20 bucks I settled on the one that you can see here. The basic frame is built out of spf 2x2s from Home Depot and it is clad in 2" pink EPS insulation which, as you can see I have more or less spray painted black.

CF, upclose

Inside, I placed a couple of concrete blocks and some bottles of water which I also painted black in order to retain heat during the night. As you can see it has actually worked quite well.

And even closer

Generally my routine has been to pre-soak the seeds indoors until they start to develop a bit of a tap-root, then transfer them to small peat pucks out in the coldframe which I then transfer into larger peat-pots when the little fellas get big enough. Come last frost I will transfer the mother load of the seedlings outdoors, ripping the bottom off of the pot and planting the whole thing in the ground.

Transferring from sprouter to pucks and from pucks to pots

Before placing pucks in pots, vermiculite

... and then some potting soil . . .

Seedlings in the CF

The stars of the show so far are the tomatos and the zuccini and the corn, but the broccoli and brussel sprouts are putting in a fair showing as well. Eggplant and peppers however are really having a hard time although I understand that they should both be treated almost exactly like the tomatoes. I suppose my rather cowboy-like approach isn't always the most effective - I hope my techniques get more nuanced with experience!

Peas!

In conclusion, cold-frames are awesome and so are pea-sprouts. I hope that everyone else's gardens are coming along well too and that you'll find some time to post about them at some point.

Peas out!