Starting a Garden Journal
Pandemic life has me concentrating on my hobbies right now. With the businesses on hold, I have time to work on my hobbies more. It no longer feels like I have to get them done and out of the way so I can tackle the mountain of emails or the unending task list related to running events & photoshoots.
It’s not that I don’t love those things – I definitely do! – it’s just that if there had to be a positive outcome in all this, reconnecting with my hobbies is something I’m grateful for. It makes me think long and hard about work/life balance and what I want to do about that balance when things return to “normal.”
At the moment, I’m taking a course on edible gardening through the Calgary Public Library. My friend Jennea took the course earlier this year and was the one who alerted me to the fact everyone gets two free courses per year. How could I pass that up?
I’m currently two lessons in to the course and lesson one had us start our own gardening journal. Though it’s detailed with dates, prices, and zones in a note on my computer, my desire to spend time doing more writing and practical sharing has me coming to the blog to document things with photos and to notes what’s working for me (and which plants I’ve managed to kill in the process).
This year, we’re starting our journey on featuring more native Albertan plants in the garden. After a weird dream about wildflowers, I did a deep-dive into learning what grows here in the wild and which ones I wanted to see in my own garden. Right now, I’m experimenting with fireweed, bergamot, and prairie sage – three favourites for making tea. It was during this deep-dive that I came across Wild About Flowers, a local seed company specializing in native plants and flowers. This is exactly what I was looking for!
As of this moment, nothing has started to spring up in the wildflower beds. I also planted my usual purple tansies and am waiting on pack of seeds from the City of Calgary that will help encourage the bees. We have so much grass in our 20 x 20′ backyard that we’re planning on digging up a lot of it to make more room for flowerbeds, alpine gardening, herbs, and vegetables.
A trip to Golden Acre saw us come up with prizm and lacinato kales, thyme, sage, dill, parsley, and mint. We’ve also picked up two little bing cherry tomato plants, which always grow well in the afternoon sun on the one side of my garden. If there’s one thing I know how to grow well, it’s a tomato plant. I think those few drops of Italian blood I inherited are working their magic there.
