Girl cleans balcony; tulip bulbs lament

So I cleaned off my balcony today. It is incredibly sunny so took advantage of the beautiful weather. Now I won't say it's amazing, but at least I'm not ashamed of it. It's now possible to see my previous attempts at "gardening": the seedling from the Al Gore talk that I potted with plans for it to be my perennial Christmas tree; the jasmine plant I bought in bloom at Caper's last year around this time (seems to be alive, but no flowers at this time); the two onions (or are they garlic, or maybe one of each?) that are sprouting up - one in the same pot as the seedling, the other with the jasmine; and finally, I know I have planted random other garlic cloves that sprouted roots in my fridge and old school tulip (?) bulbs left over from Safeway purchases - I see one green sprout, but I'm not hopeful for much more.

And finally, I found some forgotten bulbs (tulips and something else - crocuses maybe?) that I bought in Salmon Arm during Thanksgiving with the intent to plant them last fall. I didn't. While at the gardening store yesterday, there were signs all over the place saying "Did you forget to plant your bulbs last fall?" with little pots of bulby-type flowers that they obviously did not forget to plant. Instead of buying up their successes, I googled "forgot to plant bulbs in fall force in spring". Based on my results, I may still not be totally at a loss. One site told of a story where a women did the same as me, but just soaked the bulbs overnight in water in the fridge and planted them the next day and still got successful blooms. I'm going to soak them overnight, then leave them a bit longer wrapped in moist towels in the fridge until some roots sprout (which I have no idea if they will actually do) and then plant. The tulip bulbs already have some greeny sprouty things coming out, so I have hope. Plus, I have lots of worm compost run off to feed them. Mmmmm....

A step in the right direction...

So today I did what you should do when starting something you have no clue about - ask someone who does. I've been to the gardening store at Broadway and Arbutus many a time before, but I've never built up enough nerve to actually ask any questions. This time I did a complete circular "browse" of the place, pretending I knew what I was looking for, before I got into the thick of things with a nice gentleman who worked there; he helped me get started on the right path. I kept my questions to herbs and vegetables - didn't want to overwhelm the guy, or myself.

He started me off with two pieces of free reading material - the first being a one pager called "starting seeds" produced by the store, and the other a seed catalogue that also includes a bunch of how-to specific to the Pacific Northwest. He gave me the comforting news that I was right on track, a bit early even, for starting my seeds.

While I was there, the head gardener for the city farm and compost demonstration garden happened to be buying something and she mentioned to my answer man that she had meant to drop off fliers for upcoming gardening workshops. I got her card.

Some answers to basic questions...

What sort of containers will I need for the resulting plants?
10-12 inches deep if I want to do carrots, beets and tomatoes, less deep for others - troughs or pots will both do, depending on how far apart I am supposed to plant the seedlings

What sorts of vegetables are the best so as not to get discouraged in my inaugural year?
Beets, peas, carrots, beans, leaf lettuce, zucchini, spinach and cucumbers are all fine from seed; tomatoes are easier from starter plants

What sort of supplies will I need?
Small containers to start my seeds in - it's possible to buy starter kits, but I asked about recycling old containers and he told me small yogurt containers, shallow containers like sour cream, egg cartons and other little things are fine as long as you poke some holes in the bottom for drainage. I didn't get as far as asking about soil and fertilizer. I know I'll have to buy that stuff, so I'll take stock of all the stuff I might have hanging around the house first.

Other interesting piece of information...

He mentioned something about strawberry plants in early March. Guarantee I'll be jumping on that train.

My next steps will be...

Put together a timeline based on the veggies and herbs I'm interested in. Seeing as I'll be gone for 3 or so weeks in March, I'm going to need to plan plant sitters.

Talk to some people. I think I'm going to do the social activity thing for seed planting. I'm going to put a few messages around my building to see if anyone else is interested in getting in on this vegetable garden business.

Take stock of my supplies. I've been hoarding little plastic food containers for months now, ashamed to recycle them when I hadn't reused them yet. I knew there was a purpose to my fanatic collecting.

Look into the city farm gardening workshops. (Update: Looked into it. $100 in March. Not sure what that includes. Might not be around so I'll going to see if anyone else is interested and I'll split the cost to share the resources.)

Clean off my balcony. It looks like poo and I know I can do better.

Friends in high places

The title of this post was a lot funnier in my head. I am making references to "herbs" so I thought "high" was a bit cheeky. But the fact that I have had to explain it just makes me lame.

Anyway, I've thrown the idea out to a friend that a bunch of us should get together and sow our herbs seeds together one day - you know, safety in numbers and all that. We can make it into something fun and social but also productive. I just have no idea if this is the right time of year to be planting herb seeds. Gotta check into that.....

Now that I think about it, "high places" could refer to gardening on the roof top too. I'll have to keep this line in my back pocket for future use.

A seed is planted...

Not a literal seed, but a thought. I have decided to make this year the one where I finally start some sort of gardening. Until this point in my life, my "gardening" experience has included trying to keep my few indoor plants alive and perhaps the odd attempt at buy a plant that is already grown and seeing how long it lasts. About 5 years ago I bought a book, "Flower Gardening for Dummies." Flower gardening has yet to happen, but I'll agree to the dummy bit.

My goals this year are to: 1) have a few flowers blossoming on my balcony, 2) grow some herbs growing on my balcony or indoors, wherever they are supposed to be, and 3) have some fresh vegetables growing on my building's rooftop.

But why? Couldn't I fulfill myself by buying myself a bouquet every week or so, using up the dried herbs in my store-bought spice rack, and getting my vegetables from the local grocery store? Well, that's what I have been doing. However, I've been spurred on by a variety of experiences: reading books like "100 mile diet"; staying and eating in Peru and Costa Rica at guesthouses that offered homemade meals of ingredients directly from the land (call it a "100 metre diet"); becoming more and more conscious of the carbon footprint of so many things I eat - whether grown 4000km away and shipped here or grown 100km away in greenhouses; and finally, can it really be that hard?

Resources

Vancouver's City Farmer
Information from the city farm and compost demonstration garden near 6th and Maple (I think). The webpage is pretty awful (they won many awards for it back in 1997-1999, but I don't think the format has changed since then) but the information is good. They have a new "blog" for new gardening news, which is MUCH better. I took a worm compost workshop here last year, and highly recommend it. The wormshop is $25 and includes everything you need to start your worm compost (HUGE value). They usually happen March/April-ish.

UBC Botanical Garden - A Beginner's Guide to Vegetable Gardening
Exactly that. Getting started, sowing seeds, planting, maintenance. Basically makes makes this blog redundant, really.