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By Rick Kelly | March 22nd, 2010 | Tags: Confessions of a Novice Gardener, seeds | Category: Planting 
Happy Spring!
It’s that time of year when you begin to think about buying seeds to plant all Spring and Summer long.
This year I got to work early dreaming about my garden and planning out all the vegetables I wanted to grow. Despite a goal of planting fewer varieties of plants we’d be growing my partner and I ended up with a huge list of indispensible, must-grow plants we absolutely had to have. That can get expensive, especially considering that most seed packets have way more seeds than a typical back yard gardener needs, so you’re probably paying for seeds you won’t use.
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Continue reading ’Tis the season to be seeding…
By Rick Kelly | October 17th, 2009 | Tags: Confessions of a Novice Gardener | Category: Planting 
EEk! Sorry everyone – I missed September entirely. Oh well, at least I have a lot to say about the garden.
As you may remember, I’ve been growing my first real attempt at a garden this year, with a 12×4 foot raised bed. Last time I wrote I was complaining about the water ban, but that’s certainly not a problem anymore! I’ve harvested just about everything now (a little less then I was hoping). What remains is to pick the carrots, beets, and turnip, and to prepare the garden for the winter.
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Continue reading Harvest Times
Check out this awesome event happening next month! I’m signing up my garden, so come on down and visit on the 20th! Email local.feast@gmail.com to sign up your own garden or just sign up for the FEASt newsletter (in order to get the map to the ‘open garden day’)
-Rick
FEASt (Food Education Action St. John’s) is planning an ‘Open Garden Day’ on Sun. Sept 20th, 1 – 5pm, to be followed by a Local Food Potluck Picnic (& Autumn Equinox Celebration) at Bannerman Park, 5pm – 8pm.
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Continue reading FEASt’s Open Garden Day – Sign Up!
By Rick Kelly | August 4th, 2009 | Tags: Confessions of a Novice Gardener | Category: Planting 
Hi folks – Rick here,
I have now had several delicious salads from the garden: lettuce, beet and turnip tops (while thinning out the small ones), some green beans and squash flowers (you can eat them). There have been a few issues to talk about, though.
Water Ban!
I’m sure every gardener using the city water supply has been affected by the water ban. You’re not supposed to do any watering of any vegetable or flower garden. An exception is made for water from a rain barrel or ‘grey water’, used cleaning water from the house.
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Continue reading A Thriving Back Yard Garden
By Rick Kelly | July 9th, 2009 | Tags: Confessions of a Novice Gardener | Category: Planting 
Haha, I thought we were having great weather this year, but yesterday’s frost warning had me running to cover up the garden with bed sheets! Otherwise things seem to be going well. The greens are slowly coming up, as are the root vegetables. There are some little squash forming. The Kale didn’t come up, so I bought some new seeds and planted those. I also planted some parsnip in my last two square feet of garden. No slugs have been spotted in the garden yet.
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Continue reading Frost?!
Done! (Almost). This weekend I planted all of my seedlings, and a bunch of seeds. Last week I was mixing together the soil in the raised bed according to a recipe, but I lacked vermiculite. I couldn’t find it anywhere and I got some advice that it wasn’t necessary with good peat, so I ended up buying a few bags of topsoil from Traverse Gardens to fill up the bed. My soil contains a lot of peat moss, a little vermiculite, my personal vermicompost, sheep manure, seaweed, and whatever is in Ross Traverse’s soil mix (peat, compost). It feels pretty light and moist, much better than the actual soil in the ground.
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Continue reading Garden!
I built my raised bed last week! It didn’t take too long. I laid out lengths of weed barrier over the space where the bed was going, with a half foot of extra space on each side. I removed all the grass beneath the bed and around it. Some I had removed last year when I was planting right in the ground. We connected all of the sides first, and then put in some posts on the outside to help keep it in place.
Last year I lost a lot of my small potential harvest to slugs! So keeping slugs out is a major goal this year.
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Continue reading Quick Bed Building Update (No Slugs Allowed!)
Long time no see! This week I’m here to talk about my preparations to build a raised bed and a bit about seedling starting.
As I mentioned last time, I have some tomato plants started already, but it’s about time to start a few others now as well. Most seed packets will tell you how long in advance to start them if you want to give them a head start before transplanting them outside (and some should just be direct seeded after the last frost, or earlier). Tomatoes, eggplant, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and peppers can all be started eight to ten weeks in advance, which is what I did. Last week I should have started some cucumbers and summer squash. The last frost date here is usually around the third week in June.
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Continue reading Preparing to build a bed…
Hello everyone
My name is Rick Kelly and I’ll be your amateur gardener this year! I’m going to be making posts all season about my backyard garden. This is actually my second year gardening… but last year my whole harvest amounted to about 5 salads and one meal of miniature root veggies. So I’m really hoping to do better this year!
This year I’m armed with knowledge from some workshops organized by FEASt (Food Education Action St. John’s), a lot of advice from friends, and hopefully some advice from you! This can be a space for commenting on any issues facing first time gardeners, or about what I’m doing specifically.
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Continue reading Confessions of a First Time Gardener
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