A new year in the garden...

January 2 2016

It seems odd to post about a garden visiting January. Today I made a visit to my plot to remove the tarps I had placed over my patches. I had a full yards worth of leaf mulch that I had laid down in October. I covered it with a tarp to keep it in place until the snow started to fall. Toronto has been remarkably mild to this point and the snow didn't really fall enough to make a bedding over the mulch until last week.  But the tarps were still on so I removed them today to give the elements a chance to do their magic.

I still have a lot to do to get my soil ready for planting in the spring but it's a work in progress.

i spoke too soon!

Toronto has had an incredible amount of rain over the past few weeks and specifically the last two days - it rained non-stop. so i approached my after-work visit to the garden with some trepidation. There has been no sign of flooding so far so how bad could it be? sigh.... pretty bad it turns out.

About this flooding...

On Saturday May 30, the rain finally came to Toronto.  And plenty of it!! and then it rained again pretty much all day Sunday too. When the rain let up a bit on Saturday night, I headed down to the allotment to check out the space to see if the flood predictions were true. Nope,  no flooding.

I went back on Sunday during the rain and still no flooding.  Now the ground is pretty dry so its possible we have to go a long way further with rain to see any impact. But I still feel good about the space . My neighbour is still insisting I got off easy after this rain. We shall see....

Spent Monday night doing a final weed pull.  I'd say i haven't got all of it but almost all that I can get for now. Tomorrow night I will get my seeds in.....

The Hard Work Begins.....

So now that I have the plot, its a bit overwhelming.  I stared at it for about an hour. The neighbouring
 plot holders are all very kind and are offering a lot of advice.  I suspect one actually wants the space for himself. he has been telling me with regularity that the space WILL flood and it wont be worth the effort I am going to have to put in.  I remain undeterred.....

after the first night of just staring at the space, I started to plan.  My brother-in-law has assessed the space and is sure it wont flood.  He came out with his Ryobi battery-powered weed whacker and got a lot of the weeds down to an inch high - just so we can see what we are working with , not as my weed solution.

The ground is VERY dry and hard so I soaked the space with the hose (the allotments come with a water spigot - one for every 10 spots) and spent a Saturday afternoon turning over the soil on half of the allotment space as stage one of the preparation work.

Next day, we added 8 large bags of peat moss and b-i-l used his roto-tiller to turn it over again.

I let this all dry out again and came back a few days after to start pulling out the weeds to prep the soil for planting.  I am not sure how good the soil is - it looks good.  I suppose until I get a bit more experience, this will be a bit of trial and error.  i do have to get the seeds in soon if I am going to see a decent harvest so a few more nights of weed pulling and I shoudl be ready to go.

Welcome to Givendale Gardens

I am a few weeks behind in starting this blog. Herein I will be chronicling a new adventure I have undertaken - as an allotment gardener. I admit to knowing little about gardening but as an apartment dweller for the last 27 years, I really haven't had the chance to learn. A few nicely potted flowers on the balcony are about all I have managed.

The City of Toronto really doesn't advertise these allotments much, but I go past every morning on my way to work and decided this year to search the city's website for details. I called a bit late ( they open the waiting list on February 1 each year). The waiting list is destroyed every year so you have to call every year to get on the list. For existing plot holders, the city contacts you around February 1 to renew your permit. There is a deadline and if you don't get your money in on time, you are out of luck. Many of the plot holders have put in some really hard work so it's surprising that anybody gets off the waiting list.

I was fortunate to get off the waiting list for an allotment close to home , on Givendale. For those I grew up with in Scarborough, you will recognize this little roadway as the hydro field cut-through that we walked on our way to home economics classes at Ionview public school.  I was lucky to get a spot here so close to where I grew up, and also close to where I live now.

When I got the call, I was told there were 5 openings but only 4 people on the waiting list so I had no worries about getting a spot. Except, that these 5 spots were all a bit of a nightmare. Every one of them over-grown and with knee-high weeds. I ranked the spots by preference and called the next morning. Sadly my first three choices were already taken so I said that I would pass on a plot for the  year. The other two were just too far gone in my opinion. And one of them, I was told by another plot holder, would flood after every rain -  last years plot holder just gave up.

Next day, I discussed with my sister and brother-in-law , and they said they would help and come up with ideas for diverting the flood water. So I called early on the next Monday and got the spot. I was also told that because I knew it flooded, they would write that on the permit so I couldn't call after and say I was sold a dud plot. No worries, I had a plan!! I took the plot!! Now the hard work begins.