Multiple Plots - May 3, 2021
When we speak to staff at gardening shops or when people at our seniors’ apartment ask what we are planning, I warn them that I know absolutely nothing about gardening. That this is our first time we are doing this. And this is 95% true…
But there is 5% of it that is not. When we lived in Sudbury and had a balcony and a front yard (and a back yard, and side yards, etc.,) on the May 2-4 weekend I’d go to the Canadian Tire garden shop. I’d pick up three geraniums to hang on hooks and a bunch of annuals to put in the flower boxes on our balcony, and more annuals for our sunny front yard garden. And I’d pull a few weeds and dead leaves out of our shady “hosta garden” And other than watering things from time to time, that was it. I never used the terms “annuals” and “perennials” – I simply described them as “lasts a summer” or “lasts forever.”
But one year a friend of mine asked if I would be interested in working for her at “Jelly Bean Flower Shop” for the Mother’s Day weekend rush. I said, “Sure!” But I asked to be paid in flowers and baskets instead of wages. Two reasons for that. One, I figured I’d kill half the flowers I processed. So it wouldn’t be fair to take a wage. And two, less sinister, I simply loved giving beautiful gifts to sweet people. And there were so many of them in the Sudbury community. (As there are here in St. Catharines.)
I had a great few days at Jelly Bean Flower Shop. Chopping off ends and running flowers up the basement stairs was something I could do. And I loved the florists – so creative. I asked if I could continue to volunteer and my friend was kind and honest with me – they really didn’t need me. After Mother’s Day, things went flat. Sigh!
Another friend knew of a plant nursery which I’ll call Lollipop Gardens, and told me they could use a free helper for a few weeks. I only worked a few hours a day and I loved it. I do love plants; I’m just best not left unsupervised with them.
I watered and weeded and ran things back and forth – under close supervision. I noticed that the owners and workers at Lollipop Gardens composted the plants that were anything less than remarkable. So I asked if I could bring them home and they said “Sure!” as long as I didn’t say where they came from. They had a great reputation for perfection in their products and work.
Thankfully, we had a van. Because I filled it. Laur added extra balcony boxes, and I filled them. I lined the front steps and porch with flowers until they were full. I filled the garden patch that got sun and the patch that didn’t. It was a hot summer (by Sudbury standards) and I was grateful that daughter Elaine truly didn’t mind taking a turn watering my “planties.”
I soon ran out of space at our house, so I started creating and giving away free containers full of slightly odd plants to my church family at All Peoples United. It was so much fun!
And one day I even brought home three small trees that had a bit of a lean to them which Laurence dutifully planted on our front lawn. Two out of three of them are still there. One of them succumbed to tent caterpillars – a scourge that happens in Sudbury about every seven years.
Nothing lasts for ever. The selling season for flowers and vegetable plants is very short. It was pretty much over by the end of June.
I didn’t return the following year. That September I opened up the Small Things shop – the arts, books, crafts, and delights store that turned into a cat adoption centre. You know my line – “There is what you plan and there is what happens.” Rarely the same thing for me.
*****
We have lived in our life-lease apartment for five years. We have the best unit for gardening in the whole complex, having a corner unit that faces southwest. Up until now, I had not considered gardening. We used to fill our mornings with GoodLife fitness or cycling. And I visited people in long term care a few afternoons each week.
This summer is different. Good Life is sadly in our past. Laur is not keen on cycling. And the hiking? We’ve covered pretty much every trail around us a few times. It’s sure not Arizona!
PLUS we are looking after 3 year old Jasper for a few hours a day – Monday to Friday. There isn’t a lot to do with this lad due to covid restrictions. We can’t bring him into our apartment. All the play centres are closed. We can’t get groceries every day. Going to one park a day is fine – but 4 a day gets old pretty fast.
So gardening seemed like a thing that would interest him and us. As it turns out, there are limitations on where I can plant. (Limitations? What are those?) The management of our life-lease does not want tenants planting in the gardens surrounding our floor level units. They hire a company to do that. And I understand completely. The assortment would get very odd, very quickly. Especially the area outside of #103. 😊
But we are allowed to run wild, run free on our patio. So we bought four cedar boxes for the top of our patio and two cedar patio boxes for the floor. We have been given a large gardening box at the back of our building. Plus one at our church here in St. Cats. And we dug out two spaces for Walter and Jasper at their home. (Ems has declined – gardening is not their thing. I understand completely!)
Jasper is interested in gardening in a way that most three year olds are. He likes to dig up earthworms and to pour water at a rate that rivals Niagara Falls. I think he’ll get more interested in the plants when they actually start to do things. Because we started a little too early, our planties are under-impressing him.
By the end of the Fall, we’ll know what plants thrive and what plants succumb to the many things that can go wrong. One thing we know is that the garden box at Grace Mennonite grows onions really well. The box is filled with them. Or was. I pulled all but four of them out. There had to have been 100 plants.
On Sunday afternoon I trimmed, washed, and chopped up about fifty of them. The rest were scrapped – an hour of doing that was plenty. (Where was Laur? Setting up our patio boxes and putting up geranium brackets.)
The onions are about to go into the freezer in individual serving sizes which means that everything in our apartment freezer will smell and taste of onions. I went online to discover amazing the things you can make with onions:
- Onion soups
- Onion curries
- Onion sandwiches
- Onion breads
- Onion pancakes (This is beginning to feel like a Monty Python sketch.)
- Onion salads
- Onion sauces
- Onion salsa
- Onion noodles
- Onion onions
Follow me for more recipe ideas! 😊
But there is 5% of it that is not. When we lived in Sudbury and had a balcony and a front yard (and a back yard, and side yards, etc.,) on the May 2-4 weekend I’d go to the Canadian Tire garden shop. I’d pick up three geraniums to hang on hooks and a bunch of annuals to put in the flower boxes on our balcony, and more annuals for our sunny front yard garden. And I’d pull a few weeds and dead leaves out of our shady “hosta garden” And other than watering things from time to time, that was it. I never used the terms “annuals” and “perennials” – I simply described them as “lasts a summer” or “lasts forever.”
But one year a friend of mine asked if I would be interested in working for her at “Jelly Bean Flower Shop” for the Mother’s Day weekend rush. I said, “Sure!” But I asked to be paid in flowers and baskets instead of wages. Two reasons for that. One, I figured I’d kill half the flowers I processed. So it wouldn’t be fair to take a wage. And two, less sinister, I simply loved giving beautiful gifts to sweet people. And there were so many of them in the Sudbury community. (As there are here in St. Catharines.)
I had a great few days at Jelly Bean Flower Shop. Chopping off ends and running flowers up the basement stairs was something I could do. And I loved the florists – so creative. I asked if I could continue to volunteer and my friend was kind and honest with me – they really didn’t need me. After Mother’s Day, things went flat. Sigh!
Another friend knew of a plant nursery which I’ll call Lollipop Gardens, and told me they could use a free helper for a few weeks. I only worked a few hours a day and I loved it. I do love plants; I’m just best not left unsupervised with them.
I watered and weeded and ran things back and forth – under close supervision. I noticed that the owners and workers at Lollipop Gardens composted the plants that were anything less than remarkable. So I asked if I could bring them home and they said “Sure!” as long as I didn’t say where they came from. They had a great reputation for perfection in their products and work.
Thankfully, we had a van. Because I filled it. Laur added extra balcony boxes, and I filled them. I lined the front steps and porch with flowers until they were full. I filled the garden patch that got sun and the patch that didn’t. It was a hot summer (by Sudbury standards) and I was grateful that daughter Elaine truly didn’t mind taking a turn watering my “planties.”
I soon ran out of space at our house, so I started creating and giving away free containers full of slightly odd plants to my church family at All Peoples United. It was so much fun!
And one day I even brought home three small trees that had a bit of a lean to them which Laurence dutifully planted on our front lawn. Two out of three of them are still there. One of them succumbed to tent caterpillars – a scourge that happens in Sudbury about every seven years.
Nothing lasts for ever. The selling season for flowers and vegetable plants is very short. It was pretty much over by the end of June.
I didn’t return the following year. That September I opened up the Small Things shop – the arts, books, crafts, and delights store that turned into a cat adoption centre. You know my line – “There is what you plan and there is what happens.” Rarely the same thing for me.
*****
We have lived in our life-lease apartment for five years. We have the best unit for gardening in the whole complex, having a corner unit that faces southwest. Up until now, I had not considered gardening. We used to fill our mornings with GoodLife fitness or cycling. And I visited people in long term care a few afternoons each week.
This summer is different. Good Life is sadly in our past. Laur is not keen on cycling. And the hiking? We’ve covered pretty much every trail around us a few times. It’s sure not Arizona!
PLUS we are looking after 3 year old Jasper for a few hours a day – Monday to Friday. There isn’t a lot to do with this lad due to covid restrictions. We can’t bring him into our apartment. All the play centres are closed. We can’t get groceries every day. Going to one park a day is fine – but 4 a day gets old pretty fast.
So gardening seemed like a thing that would interest him and us. As it turns out, there are limitations on where I can plant. (Limitations? What are those?) The management of our life-lease does not want tenants planting in the gardens surrounding our floor level units. They hire a company to do that. And I understand completely. The assortment would get very odd, very quickly. Especially the area outside of #103. 😊
But we are allowed to run wild, run free on our patio. So we bought four cedar boxes for the top of our patio and two cedar patio boxes for the floor. We have been given a large gardening box at the back of our building. Plus one at our church here in St. Cats. And we dug out two spaces for Walter and Jasper at their home. (Ems has declined – gardening is not their thing. I understand completely!)
Jasper is interested in gardening in a way that most three year olds are. He likes to dig up earthworms and to pour water at a rate that rivals Niagara Falls. I think he’ll get more interested in the plants when they actually start to do things. Because we started a little too early, our planties are under-impressing him.
By the end of the Fall, we’ll know what plants thrive and what plants succumb to the many things that can go wrong. One thing we know is that the garden box at Grace Mennonite grows onions really well. The box is filled with them. Or was. I pulled all but four of them out. There had to have been 100 plants.
On Sunday afternoon I trimmed, washed, and chopped up about fifty of them. The rest were scrapped – an hour of doing that was plenty. (Where was Laur? Setting up our patio boxes and putting up geranium brackets.)
The onions are about to go into the freezer in individual serving sizes which means that everything in our apartment freezer will smell and taste of onions. I went online to discover amazing the things you can make with onions:
- Onion soups
- Onion curries
- Onion sandwiches
- Onion breads
- Onion pancakes (This is beginning to feel like a Monty Python sketch.)
- Onion salads
- Onion sauces
- Onion salsa
- Onion noodles
- Onion onions
Follow me for more recipe ideas! 😊