No time for wasting. This week, I jumped into my online research as I knew I would soon have to get my garden in the ground.

First, I joined the Saskatchewan Gardeners Facebook page. I made a post to determine if one of my plants was a flower or a weed. Very quickly, I had 50 comments about my plant…not a weed!  It is a poppy! One of the commenters was able to identify one of the other plants in the picture. I used the Plant look-up tool on my iPhone in my pictures which confirmed what the comment said, it is a Lamb’s Ear.

Next, I used Feedly to start gathering articles related to my topic. I really like this site. I have to check only one place every few days and read the new articles. I have also found that some of the article sources are better than others and can look on those pages for other articles of interest. Here are a few articles that I found helpful this week:

Lawn care: From this article, I learned that I should mow the lawn every two weeks and keep the lawn length to 3.5 inches. It also talks about not cutting the grass in May. We had already cut the grass this month so I was too late to take that advice. The reason for that is to help with pollination. Other ideas for pollination that were given are to put a Hummingbird feeder, bird bath, bee house and a variety of coloured flowers to attract pollinators. So far, we have added a Hummingbird feeder and bird bath to our front garden bed. Below are not my pictures, I hope to have a few of my own pictures with birds soon.

Growing Vegetables– I took the advice from this article to prepare my vegetable garden for planting. I added cow manure to the soil and mixed it up together to raise the nutrient level in the soil. They also suggested adding fertilizer to the soil before planting, which we did. The greenhouse had cow manure and sheep manure. In reading both packages they seemed to do the same thing so of course I asked my toddler if he would rather have cow poop or sheep poop in the garden. His choice was cow so cow manure it is.

This article is specifically about tomatoes. They prefer full sun in the garden, which helped decide on garden placement. We purchased Beefsteak seedlings as they have the potential to grow larger tomatoes. Stay tuned for more about tomatoes in a later post.

When to Plant?: This site has lots of great information for beginner gardeners such as the easiest veggies to grow, how to decide what to plant, and guidelines for arranging the vegetables in the garden. This article led me to the planting calendar. This is a very cool web page. You input your postal code and it tells you when is the best time to plant seeds and seedlings based on the last frost in that area. I learned that I am late planting my carrot, green bean and pea seeds. They should have been in the ground by May 11^th and I got them in the ground May 21^st. I will plant my tomato plants and cucumber plants between June 15^th and 29^th as the almanac suggests.

Companion planting: The article shows which vegetables should be planted together and which you should avoid for the best growth. I used this article to decide the best placement for the vegetables and which vegetables to plant.

I also watched this video to help me decide on plant placement in the garden. The video and article are about square-foot garden designs. Look back at the garden picture and notice black tape. This is where I measured out each foot to help space the garden properly.

The last thing for this week is Aeration. My brother called me and said he was renting an aeration machine for an evening, would I like my lawn done as well? How perfect, I thought. This will fit in so well with my project, that he is unaware of.  Of course, I told him to come on over. I did the research after the aeration was done. It will allow to the water to get in deep to the roots and help with the compression of the lawn.

I hope you will come back next week to see how the garden is growing, learn about spring perennial care and find out what other mystery plants are growing in my flower beds. I would love any tips, tricks or gardening advice you have to share!

The long weekend seemed like a great time to start planning my raised garden bed build. I always get the itch to start planting and greenhouse shopping around this time. I really need to reign myself in and budget wisely otherwise I could easily end up with way more plants than I need. I believe this approach will be needed for planning my raised garden bed as well.

I started by researching the best types of wood to use for my garden build. I went straight to my favourite planning social media platform Pinterest. I had already started a board titled “Gardening That I Love” so I decided to browse and add to my search of what type of wood I should use to build the garden bed and any designs I liked. I especially enjoyed this blog post from Deanna at Homestead and Chill titled “7 Ways To Make Wood Garden Beds Last: Nontoxic Sealer & More”. I decided that I wanted to use cedar as I thought it would be easy to find. Boy, was I wrong! Rural Saskatchewan it turns out is not the best place to shop for cedar. I spent most of Saturday morning calling local lumber yards all within an hour of my home with little or no luck in sourcing cedar fence boards.

In the midst of this calling adventure, I began looking at different designs that I might like to use as inspiration or plans for my own raised garden bed. The look and simplicity of this design was something I was really interested in.

However, the location I chose in my garden area was a corner section where the grass was spotty and the land was flat. Therefore, I wanted something that would meet in the middle providing a garden bed on each side. I did not have any luck finding a design to match the area I wanted to build the raised garden bed in.

I guess it was time to design my own! After calling around to several places, I finally found luck in Regina sourcing 6 foot cedar fence boards. Using this information, I planned my design around using the 6 foot cedar fence board for my original plan. It seemed to resist rot and was budget friendly upon my research.

Now, I wondered what this design would truly look like plotted out and when I would be able to get to Regina which is almost 3 hours away from where we live. So, I started by plotting out my design, with a little help from my husband! The visual provided great clarity as to whether or not my design was what I was looking for. It turns out, I wanted to make some adjustments to my original design as noted in this video.

I realized that 6 feet did not provide enough room on either side for a large amount of space for plants to grow and develop. It would really limit the amount of plants I could put into the raised bed. Adding an additional 6 feet on each side seemed to be the best plan to go with. Now, all I needed was a plan to get the wood! I called a few family members to see if they were going to the city soon. However, no one was planning a trip. So…with no big plans for our family this weekend before our weekends become full of sports events, we decided to take a Sunday road trip to Regina for wood and a few other household items.

Doing a little price comparison, we found that Rona seemed to be the best deal in the city for cedar boards. I am thankful for the knowledge my husband has in this area as I was given a mini-lesson on picking the best boards for the project. Each of the 36 boards (a few extra for good measure) were inspected to ensure they were not warped or cracked. After combing through two different bundles, we were able to pay and load up!

After, accomplishing our task, we couldn’t resist a little stop at McDonald’s for our daughter and of course Costco for the whole family. These are luxuries to those of us who live in rural Saskatchewan!

The next steps in my learning journey will be researching all about safety when using power tools and actually practicing before trying to cut into my precious cedar boards! Stay tuned for my next post about how I overcome my fear of the power saw. Let me know if you have any tips or suggestions to help me along the way to building my raised garden beds.

Thanks for reading!

A green thumb, I do not have! I have always loved the idea of having flowers and a vegetable garden in my yard. Each year, I chose the flowers that I think are the prettiest, a variety of vegetables seeds and a few veggie plants and away I go. Some survive better than others. My approach to yard maintenance is: weed when I see weeds, cut the grass when it gets long and water when I have time. As you can see, no science involved.  

A year ago, at the end of June, my family and I moved into our new home. It is an older home with a mature yard and landscaping. We have many perennials, shrubs, bushes, and a lovely garden box. When we moved in, everything was in bloom. I am starting from scratch this spring. My goal is to figure out what kinds of plants and shrubs I have and how to best maintain them. I would like to find out what vegetables are best planted together, what are best for the location of my garden bed and how I should fertilize the soil and so on. We are fortunate to have underground sprinklers, which I have never had before. I would like to investigate best time of day to water and for how long as well as, when is the best time to cut the grass and what length to cut it to.

By the end of this semester, I hope that my thumb is a bit greener and my plants are happy!

Here are the before pictures, taken May 13, 2023.

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The warm weather has me dreaming about gardening as I begin to think about my major project. I have decided to tackle the learning project and learn about carpentry. Since I want to be outside as much as possible in the Spring, I figured what a better way to combine my love of gardening and learning about carpentry than to build a new raised garden bed in my current garden area. I love watching DIY shows but haven’t been brave enough to tackle anything on my own. I often have these big plans for my husband to build things for me but not this time! I am going to tackle this learning myself and even conquer a bit of a fear of power tools.

Although I remember taking an Industrial Arts class in high school, I do not recall any of the skills I learned back then. I have often held boards for my husband but that truly has been the extent of my carpentry skills. I do know how to use basic tools such as hammers and screwdrivers but that is all I know. I have used the power drill but often sink in the screws too far! I have never wanted to go near the saw. So I am thinking I need to start at the beginning and watch educational videos on tools and safety. I’ll admit that my biggest fear is using the power saw! This article from wikiHow is a great place to start my learning. Once I feel, I have a grasp on this information, I believe I will need to head to the garage and get a live lesson from my husband on using these tools. I believe I will need to practice using these tools until I feel confident to move on and start my carpentry project.

The next step in my learning process is to research and find answers to some inquiry based learning questions. Here are my essential questions I will be researching as I begin my learning project:

• What are some different garden bed designs that I would like to build?
• What type of wood is most durable for garden beds?
• What additional materials will I need to complete my project?
• Do I have all the tools I will need to build and complete my project?
• What dimensions will my garden bed be based on the outdoor area it will be placed in?
• How will I need to prepare the area for the garden bed?
• Are there any plans I could follow or step by step directions to complete my project?
• What types of plants and flowers will I fill my garden bed with?

I have the dream of being able to create a beautiful garden bed for our yard. However, I think it is going to take perseverance and a lot of patience to develop my learning and skills. Perhaps, this learning and skill development will give me the confidence to try other carpentry projects in the future! So, here I go diving into this adventure with a lot of hope and the excitement that I am going to learn to create something for our yard that we will enjoy for years to come! Stay tuned as I walk you through my weekly progress on this project. I look forward to your feedback and tips if you have any knowledge in this skill area. Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts!

-Kendra

The warm weather has me dreaming about gardening as I begin to think about my major project. I have decided to tackle the learning project and learn about carpentry. Since I want to be outside as much as possible in the Spring, I figured what a better way to combine my love of gardening and learning about carpentry than to build a new raised garden bed in my current garden area. I love watching DIY shows but haven’t been brave enough to tackle anything on my own. I often have these big plans for my husband to build things for me but not this time! I am going to tackle this learning myself and even conquer a bit of a fear of power tools.

Although I remember taking an Industrial Arts class in high school, I do not recall any of the skills I learned back then. I have often held boards for my husband but that truly has been the extent of my carpentry skills. I do know how to use basic tools such as hammers and screwdrivers but that is all I know. I have used the power drill but often sink in the screws too far! I have never wanted to go near the saw. So I am thinking I need to start at the beginning and watch educational videos on tools and safety. I’ll admit that my biggest fear is using the power saw! This article from wikiHow is a great place to start my learning. Once I feel, I have a grasp on this information, I believe I will need to head to the garage and get a live lesson from my husband on using these tools. I believe I will need to practice using these tools until I feel confident to move on and start my carpentry project.

The next step in my learning process is to research and find answers to some inquiry based learning questions. Here are my essential questions I will be researching as I begin my learning project:

• What are some different garden bed designs that I would like to build?
• What type of wood is most durable for garden beds?
• What additional materials will I need to complete my project?
• Do I have all the tools I will need to build and complete my project?
• What dimensions will my garden bed be based on the outdoor area it will be placed in?
• How will I need to prepare the area for the garden bed?
• Are there any plans I could follow or step by step directions to complete my project?
• What types of plants and flowers will I fill my garden bed with?

I have the dream of being able to create a beautiful garden bed for our yard. However, I think it is going to take perseverance and a lot of patience to develop my learning and skills. Perhaps, this learning and skill development will give me the confidence to try other carpentry projects in the future! So, here I go diving into this adventure with a lot of hope and the excitement that I am going to learn to create something for our yard that we will enjoy for years to come! Stay tuned as I walk you through my weekly progress on this project. I look forward to your feedback and tips if you have any knowledge in this skill area. Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts!

-Kendra