Spring and Gardening for Kids

We’re still experiencing huge rain storms here on Canada’s Wet Coast, but occasionally the sun does make an appearance around this time of year. Along with the crocuses and other bulbs brave enough to emerge out of the soil, auguring Spring. Our bigger than ever "puppy," Cooper, can't wait for the rain to stop, so he can run around with his canine buddies in a nearby school yard.

This is definitely a special time of year, and it is also the time to start your seeds indoors. We have purchased at least four grow light setups, which work with a rudimentary capillary system of hydroponic watering. Placing our seed into starter cubes, then the cubes in coco coir seedling pots, we let the wet pad water them from below.

We usually get our kids involved in the seed starting process. Even though they’re now in their teenage years, they still get a kick out of germinating seeds sending their first sprouts into the world, full of promises for a healthy harvest in the Fall.

Sara is helping them to plant peas, beans, tomatoes, lettuce, and peppers of various kinds from seeds, as well as cucumbers and squash. Each of these vegetables should be started at different times, in order to take advantage of the most propitious time to take the seedlings out into the garden. Take the tomatoes or the peppers out too soon, for instance, and they’ll freeze.

A great book that Sara and I would recommend to get your kids involved with gardening is called Kids Gardening—30 Great Gardening Projects for Kids, by Susie Johns, published by Parragon.

Some hardy vegetables can go out right away, and of course the perennial flowers and bulbs are already coming up. If you’re not sticky about organics, you may want to use a time-release fertilizer by Advanced Nutrients, that has to be applied only 3 times a year--Heavy Harvest, Spring, Summer, and Fall.

If, however, you’re strictly an organic gardener, like Sara and I, we would recommend 100%Organic Iguana Juice, Grow and Bloom. You can use it at a quarter or half strength for your seedlings.

Sara is in the middle of building a rock wall around our most important garden beds. The driftwood logs we have been using to contain the soil have rotted over the years, so she has decided that something more permanent is warranted. It’s hard work, but she seems to enjoy doing it. I’m usually too busy to lend a hand, but we have some wonderful neighbors who come over and help out, once in a while.

Harvest Time Is A Special Time

Harvest time is a special time in every growers life. To see all your hard work pay off (finally) and to realize that those cherry tomatoes you nurtured from seed now offer you such magnificent tasting fruit that you can't believe it--well, it's priceless!

The heirloom and beefsteak tomatoes, even though huge and beautiful in color, are still a bit watery. Perhaps we have to let them ripen some more in the September sun before harvesting them.

Our squash, zucchini, and cucumber plants are producing fruit of high quality. Some species have been chosen to give us huge zucchini's, so the kids could enter them in the zucchini races at the annual Fall Fair.

Yes, it's back to school time and we look back on the bounty of summer with gratitude, but also a bit of sadness. The time went by much too fast. With a few visits to the beach, water parks and the PNE, as well as a quick trip to Harrison Hot Springs, and it's almost time for our annual trip to Telegraph Cove to connect with the Humpback Whales and the Orcas that congregate in the waters near the Cove.

We've continued to eat five kinds of lettuce from our garden for the past month or two, and the plants just regenerate themselves, as long as the warm weather holds up. Yes, some of them have bolted and gone to seed, but we planted plenty of them from seed, so we have a large array of salad greens to choose from--every single night!

Pretty soon it will be time for Canadian Thanksgiving, and Harvest Time is always a time to give thanks!

Thanks to Iguana Juice and the other great Advanced Nutrients products, once again we are the recipients of the produce from Sara's Garden of Delights! :-)

Great Video on a Greenhouse Ebb and Flow Hydroponic System



Greenhouse that is functioning as an Ebb and Flow Hydroponic Garden. vegetables include Tomatoes, Broccoli, Beans, Squash, Lettuce, Swiss Chard, Basil…

Sara is going to start preparing her garden for spring, probably next month! Stay tuned!

Tim :-)