Tulips Love Organic Nutrients


Well, we have four more years of Harper, but at least the Green Party got a seat in Parliament, so the interests of gardeners everywhere will be voiced frequently, we hope. Spring is my favorite time of year, when the life force of Nature surges forth in every bud and bloom.

I also have a fondness for Jack Layton and I am glad that he did really, really well in the election. I am tired of shouldering the costs of social programs while huge corporations are not only given tax reducti0ns but in many cases, subsidies as well.

The crocuses are gone, but some beautiful daffodils are still in bloom and the newcomers, the exquisite tulip varieties are bursting forth everywhere. At one time, these flowers were worth their weight in gold! During the tulip mania in 17th century Europe, a single bulb would fetch as much as a tradesman made in ten years of hard work. The bubble burst, and prices plummeted.

Some blue hyacinths still remain in Sara's garden and some different perennial flowers are beginning to make their appearance. The roses have all sprouted fresh leaves and the poppies are going through their vegetative growth. Everything seems to be a month behind last year, when we had a very warm spring.

We continue to feed our plants 100% organic Iguana Juice, as well as some supplements, such as Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid. These ingredients create a very fertile soil which will guarantee a bountiful supply of flowers, as well as vegetables in the back of the house.

I hope you enjoy my photographs of Sara's magnificent blooms and that you'll come back to this blog again and again to check out the progress of our organic Gabriola Garden.

Daffodils and Hyacinths Grown Organically

Our Spring garden is late this year! The bright yellow daffodils are here now (last year they were here a month ago), but the tulips have not opened yet. Down south in Washington State they are already having tulip festivals, but up here in British Columbia, Winter's grip is slower to loosen.

Canada is in the middle of a federal election campaign and given the hyperbole of the opposing party leaders, there is enough fertilizer in the air to feed everybody's garden. Then the spin doctors take over and the b.s. reaches unbearable proportions!

Yesterday, on a sunny Sunday afternoon, I used our wheelbarrow to transport several large containers of 100% Organic Iguna Juice mixture to fertilize different parts of Sara's garden. In the next few days I will also administer Humic and Fulvic Acid, as well as Bud Factor X and Rhino Skin, in order to immunize our plants against the onslaught of insects and pathogens, that are sure to arrive, along with the warmer weather.

Many people forget that when the buds start bursting in the Spring plants require feeding, not just water. Just think of how much energy is required to produce a beautiful bloom! Without a good meal, plants will still flower, but the yield will be poor and disappointing.

We use Advanced Nutrients products in our garden to ensure bigger yields and happy plants! :-)

Crocuses Herald Arrival of Spring!

These magnificent flowers emerge from the soil, even if the temperatures hadn't warmed up as much as the arrival of Spring would indicate. Sara and I were out in the garden on Sunday, administering nourishment to the soil (and the perennials that are just coming to life). The crocuses will be followed shortly by the much taller daffodils and then in April it's time for the tulips to bloom! Spring is my favorite time of year, because even the rose leaves have started budding and some of the blossom trees have exploded with white and pink petals!

How does one replenish the soil at this time of year? We mix the correct amount of Iguana Juice Grow or Iguana Juice Bloom into large containers of water and manually pour the mixture into the different sections of the garden. The plants already in bloom will require Iguana Bloom, and the plants that still have to go through their vegetative cycle will be given Iguana Grow. Iguana Juice is the 100% organic fertilizer from Advanced Nutrients that Sara and I have been using in both our flower garden and our vegetable garden for years!

We also give Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid to our plants. These supplements replenish the soil and provide extra nutrients to the plants in a synergistic fashion. Each product helps the other to perform better. Both of these are derived from Leonardite, a rich dark brown or black organic layer found on top of coal beds. Humic acid takes its name from humus, the rich, black soil that our grandparents grew their food in many years ago. Modern agricultural technology is helping to recreate the fertile soils of yesteryear, before the overuse of chemical fertilizers have depleted the natural nutrition content of good growing soil.

We also use Bud Factor X to immunize our plants against pests and pathogens. The roses really need this treatment, because black spot has attacked them in the past. Hopefully, by using Bud Factor X and Rhino Skin, both from Advanced Nutrients, we'll be able to prevent such infestations from happening.

It's just the beginning of another exciting gardening season and Sara is already down on her knees pulling weeds and fixing up the flagstone paths that protect the lawn areas of our garden. She needed to put flagstone down in order to allow the wheelbarrow to deliver bark mulch and manure, without damaging the lawn.

We get a good workout just taking care of our garden and save a lot of money in fitness club membership fees! :-)

Organic Gardening
Results in Bigger Blooms

Our Delphiniums have reached eight-feet in height, and they’re still growing! They’ve never been so tall, or so full where the blooms are concerned. Several years of organic gardening have helped to establish an extremely fertile soil base in Sara’s flower beds, and using Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom every Spring also adds to the nutritious mix.

Our Pink Roses developed a touch of Black Spot on account of the rainy weather we’ve been having, but they still produced the biggest cluster of flowers ever! I must confess, we ran out of Scorpion Juice, thus we didn’t augment the plant’s resistance to pests and pathogens, like we normally do. I just ordered some Bud Factor X, as well as Rhino Skin, from Advanced Nutrients, in order to avoid the chance of infestations in the future.

Another pair of AN products that we’ll try is Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid. These two organic super additives will help ensure that our growing soil will stay fertile and productive for many more years to come. Derived from an organic layer, called Leonardite, mined from the top of coal fields, Humic and Fulvic Acids have magical powers associated with them. Just check out the YouTube videos praising their attributes!

Hedgehog and Jim are both upset about the British Petroleum oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. They’re writing letters to politicians and the media, asking Canadians to rush to the aid of the victims, both human and animal. Hedgehog was especially happy to hear on the news that the Canadian government is sending scientists to the Gulf to help the BP salvage team with the clean up operation.

We hope the Poppy thieves will stay away from Sara’s garden this year (trying to get high on the pods of backyard variety poppies is like smoking hemp for kicks—it just doesn’t work!). The Blue Girl rose offered us a perfect bloom again this year, and my Mother is looking down from the great beyond with a smile of her face, seeing her favourite Yellow Rose producing such lovely blooms with a subtle fragrance. A more powerful fragrance can be had by bringing your nose close to the Peony flower, from a late blooming variety that Sara especially loves.

Sara takes the art of organic gardening to the next level. She composts all her kitchen parings in the Fall and Winter, so by the Spring she can put a layer of rich composted soil on top of her flower beds to rejuvenate their ability to produce bigger yields. She also covered her garden with a layer of fallen leaves at the end of last Summer, and that organic mulch has served her organic garden well. Augmented by the addition of her base nutrients, Iguana Grow and Bloom, she is instrumental in creating the best organic growing environment for her plants, resulting in the outstanding blooms you see in these photographs.

Post-Olympic BC Celebrates With Flowers

That truly memorable hockey game earned well-deserved gold, and the closing ceremonies spoofed the clichés of our identity (dancing mounties, floating moose, and beavers galore!). Now we're all feeling a collective letdown. Let's face it, we're not going to have a party of this size anytime soon!

Sara and the kids took the ferry and then bussed it as close to downtown Vancouver as transit would allow. They made it to the torch, but drew the line at standing in line for the pavilions. The way Hedgehog put it, "it was bad enough to stand in line for forty-five minutes for hot dogs, but there were no toilets and when we found a friendly restaurant washroom, we had to stand in line for that too!" But when they returned, the family vehicle was festooned with a red maple leaf flag!

Sara's garden decided to bloom early this year, so the crocuses, hyacinths, and daffodils have all sprung forth, with tulips not far behind. Sara used Humic and Fulvic Acid to prime the soil, before applying our 100% organic fertilizer of choice, Iguana Juice. Grow was applied last month, while this month it's Bloom that the garden requires.

The pale pink cherry blossoms are in full bloom, while the darker pink ones are soon to follow. Pink cherry blossoms usually bloom in April, not like this, a month early! The weather report is making noises about snow flurries, but this weekend Sara had the winter tires taken off the family van!

The early spring of 2010 will be remembered not only for the Olympics but for the magnificent flowers that bloomed so early to celebrate Canada's winning the most gold medals at any Winter Olympics in history!

Organic Nutrients for Bigger Flowers

God save us from uneducated flower thieves! Last summer, we woke up one day to find that someone had cut the seed pods off of all our red poppy plants. Obviously, someone who does not know that the red poppies that are legal to grow in our gardens are only a distant cousin of the opium poppies that grow in countries like Turkey and Afghanistan, and have no hallucinatory properties whatsoever.

Well, our perennial poppy plants somehow survived this onslaught, and once again we have beautiful, huge, red poppies growing in our garden. But on closer inspection, I noticed that three or four of the buds (not the seed pods, but the buds before the flowers had a chanced to open!) were carefully cut and removed. Now this shows even more ignorance. By cutting the buds, all they did was deprive us and the neighborhood of three or four additional flowers. Good luck trying to get high on these buds!

People who don’t know anything about horticulture, should stay out of gardens, especially our garden! Sara worked really hard to create a beautiful space where the heavenly scent of lilacs mingles with the magnificence of flowers in bloom.

The tulips have said goodbye, while the catmint, forget-me-nots, and lilacs are just coming into their own. In fact, the forget-me-nots have taken over a whole section of Sara’s garden, having started with only a few plants some years back.

My vegetables are getting started. The snow peas are coming up along the netting on the fence, and lettuce, sorel, spinach, and broccoli are thriving. In fact, the sorel is as tall as I am and even though it’s in bloom, the leaves are still as tasty as ever. No bitterness there. I recall my mother making sorel puree when I was a youngster. She always added a spoonful of sugar. I prefer them raw, with a sprinkle of honey on them, to complement the sour taste.

Hedgehog is a Wii Fit fanatic and she prefers the coolness of our basement rec room to the heat of the sun midday. She beat the hula hoop record by twisting her pelvis over 800 times in energetic succession. The next day she groaned a bit from sore muscles but now she’s back at it again. Jim prefers the Nintendo DS but he also rides his bike a lot and is thinking of getting a newspaper delivery job in the fall.

Our supply of Iguana Juice is getting low, so I must order some more from Advanced Nutrients. I’ll add some Humic Acid and Fulvic Acid to the order, in order to perpetuate the dark, humus-like soil that Sara manages to create for her flower beds each year, using organic fertilizer and composted horse manure.

Organic Gardening Pays Off With Gigantic Flowers

Six-feet-tall Campanula! Seven-foot-tall Foxglove! Even taller Delphiniums! Sara’s garden hasn’t seen flowers this high ever! Last summer her blooms were spectacular, but she’s been building up the soil of her flower beds consistently ever since. She uses composted horse manure, composted kitchen parings, Mother Earth Super Tea Grow and Bloom, and grass clippings as a form of mulch. All this, in addition to our super-growth-inducing primary 100% organic fertilizer—Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom**.

Complementing the Campanula, Foxglove, and Delphiniums, Sara grows about a dozen different kinds of Roses. The Hybrid Tea Roses Brandy, Blue Girl, Sunflare, and Intrigue are especially beautiful this time of year, and the Cecile Brunner Rose is particularly prolific, with it’s delicate blooms popping up all over the place and the plant reaching heights of five or six feet.

Sara’s Catmint plants are especially beautiful this year with their purple flower-covered branches bursting forth from the centre into all directions. Her Lilacs have bloomed in late spring with their lovely scent and she is growing three kinds of Peonies, all of which are still very much active.

Hedgehog’s barrel has reddish Lilies this year, along with an assortment of colourful annuals and Sara’s Honeysuckle is attracting hummingbirds to its prolific array of flowers. The sweet nectar of this plant is like a magnet to these tiny birds with their wings flapping a mile a minute.

The upside down tomatoes are flourishing. Out of the ten buckets, only one pepper plant died, soon to be replaced by a fledgling tomato plant. It’s a challenge watering the buckets, but if we aim the hose just right, the arc of the water enters from the top. Some of the buckets are open at the top with annual flowers gracing the opening, some still have lids on them with only a two inch hole for the water to enter.

Sara and I get a great deal of pleasure working in our respective organic gardens. My vegetables this year include Sweet and Hot Peppers, Cherry and Beefsteak Tomatoes, Kale (which Sara prepares with olive oil, garlic, and slivered almonds), Spinach, Cucumbers, Zucchini, Squash, and four kinds of Lettuce, from Butter Lettuce to Crinkly Leaved Red and Green Varieties.

With the contamination of the commercial tomato crop, it’s nice to have a safe source of tomatoes within a few yards of our home. Sara and I have been talking about setting up a hydroponic grow space in our basement, so we could grow vegetables year round. A great way to reduce our carbon footprint! Not to mention cutting down on our car trips to the store and reducing the amount of money we spend on the outrageously high priced gasoline.

**Iguana Juice Grow and Bloom are beginning to be known in our neighbourhood as “that magic plant food that Sara uses.” A number of our local gardeners have written the name down and have gone to the Advanced Nutrients website to check out this product, as well as Humic Acid, Fulvic Acid, and that other Grandma Enggy organic wonder product, Seaweed Extract. The most avid gardener (next to Sara) has actually purchased Iguana Juice (both varieties) at a hydroponics store in Victoria.