This is the time of year that I go to the mailbox quite happily because more often than not, lately, there are seed catalogues to be found inside, which makes the arrival of those pesky bills much more tolerable.

So far I have received mailings from Terra Edibles, Renee’s Garden, Richter’s and McFayden. In fact, just a few days ago I sent a tweet saying that I was thinking about starting some seeds.

If I can’t have morning sunlight I can at least having morning grow-light. Got to get some seedlings going soon!

— playinthedirt (@playinthedirt) January 17, 2012

That very day when I went to the mailbox, there was a package from McFayden waiting inside. The package contained a selection of seeds including a variety of Echinacea called “PowWow Wild Berry” along with several vegetables such as Crookneck Early Summer Squash, San Marzano Tomatoes and Corentine Hybrid Pickling Cucumber. Just typing about seeds makes me excited these days. I’m itching to get some going in my little home office where I sit and write about gardening and family life.

The new coating on Jiffy pellets.

There is one other thing that I dislike about Jiffy pellets and that is the fact that they contain peat, which is a non-renewable resource and therefore not terribly environmentally-friendly. However, since they were sent to me and the mesh is gone, I plan to give them a try to see how the plants do, and to determine if the outer coating needs to be removed the way the mesh did.

There is still a lot of garden planning to be done before many seeds are started, but I think I’ll begin with a few that I already have here in the house as a form of horticultural therapy.

What are you growing?

Last night Graham and I took Nathan for a walk in the early evening. This time of year all of the yards and gardens in the neighbourhood are looking so nice. All of the trees and grass have really popped and since it rained yesterday afternoon, all of the colours in the gardens seemed extra saturated and vivid, even in the overcast light after dinner. All of the perennials are so pretty this time of year. They have yet to become scraggly, overgrown, or damaged by winds or bugs. They are new and perfect, full of promise.

This is a good time to divide perennials, too. I noticed one of our neighbours had been busy doing just this. I love that they decided to share the garden’s wealth with…well, whoever wanted to share. This is one way to get rid of those divisions and cuttings!

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I’m not 100% sure which variety of anemone this is, but I do know it is of the cutleaf variety. I had a look at Perennials.com this morning and I think it might be Anemone multifida ‘Annabella White’. I let it go to seed last year and it has scattered everywhere in the side garden!

Join

Gardeners, plant and nature lovers can join in every Sunday. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

One of the things I like the most about gardening is how easy it is to create gifts for friends and family, especially if your friends and family members are also into growing plants!

My brother and his wife are really excited to get started growing some edibles this summer, and yesterday I promised my sister-in-law Karlie that I would have some cuttings to help get them started. Yesterday I moved my garlic chives into the end of the main vegetable garden next to the lemon balm and valerian, and to my surprise I found that I had several separate clumps of garlic chives to deal with. Garlic chives spread readily if left to go to seed. I potted the remaining three up to give to my next door neighbours on both sides (both of them grow food in their yards!) and for Karlie.

They are the first growing garden gifts of the season!

It’s that time of year again! Time to start thinking about growing plants from seed. I had hoped to have the time/space/energy to grow some tomatoes in the basement this year but it just isn’t going to happen. I will probably take a couple of trips to some different growers to find some cool heirloom seedlings later in May or June, instead.

The whole shebang. Most of the seeds were either heirloom tomatoes (the trend continues!) or flowers.

I received the seed package on Friday afternoon, and today I sorted through and chose a couple of packets to keep:

Malabar Edible Climbing Spinach
Nasturtiums
Tithonia Mexican Torch Sunflower
Broccoli Romanesco

The source for all of these is unknown, but I can start them all either directly in the ground or outside when the weather warms up.

What I put in (pile on the left) and what I took out (pile on the right).

I think I put some pretty nice packets (all brand new) back into the envelope for the next person:

From Thompson & Morgan:

Morning Glory “Carnevale di Venezia”
Tomato “Vilma”
Pepper “Chili Pyramid”
Pepper “Mohawk F1 Hybrid”

From McKenzie: (You can follow McKenzie on Twitter now.)

Strawberry “Patio Temptation”

From Burpee:

Money Garden Pepper “Home Run”
Money Garden Tomato “Steak Sandwich” (The name of that one makes my mouth water.)

From Richters:

Poppy Opium Blue Seeded

From Heritage Harvest Seed:

Early Blood Turnip Beet

And from Mr. Fothergill’s:

Lettuce “Romaine”

I hope whomever ends up with these has good success with them!

Previous years’ exchange posts:

• YGG Canadian Round Robin Seed Exchange 2009
• YGG Canadian Seed Exchange, 2007

My husband, Graham and I are so pleased to announce the birth of our son, Nathan James! He was born on November 24 at 8:13 pm.

If you’ve been asking to be added to the Green Thumb Blogroll, please have patience…I’ll be updating the blogroll when our babymoon is over!

I’ve just spent an hour doing something in the garden that, until now, has seemed somewhat unnatural to me: I’ve been ripping out plants.

Inspired by the neighbour of my parents, whose lovely back yard perennial garden seems perpetually free of weeds (each of her mature perennial plants standing proudly in its place, unencumbered by unwanted greenery), I’ve decided to follow her lead and garden a little more ruthlessly. When my step-mom, Heather, asked her neighbour, Alison, how she kept her garden looking so nice, she told her that she showed no mercy, pulling out any plants she hadn’t put there in the first place. This includes unwanted perennials that spread by seed or by runners. Of those plants, I have plenty.

As a beginner gardener, I was just happy that anything would grow successfully in my garden. Now that I’m a little more seasoned, and my plants are more mature, spreading their roots and their seeds around the yard, I’ve come to realize that there’s nothing wrong with pulling aggressive, invasive perennials from the places they’ve taken up unwelcome residence. In fact, I’m doing the rest of my garden a favour, and in the process found a little therapy for myself.

Rip away! It’s my gardening motto for the summer of ’09.

I realized just the other day that I haven’t yet mentioned here on this website that my husband and I are expecting our first baby!  The third member of our family will be arriving in November.  I’m almost at the end of my first trimester since I’ll hit 12 weeks this coming Friday.

What does all of this have to do with gardening, you ask?

It means that this year I haven’t started any seedlings, although I intended to at least do some zinnias and cucumbers outside.  It means that the perennial gardens in the back yard haven’t been cleaned up yet.  It means the raspberry canes I intended to move from the back of the yard near the shed into the veggie plot will be staying put for another season.  And it means that the vegetable garden will be simplified this year.

I wrote earlier about planning a direct-sow vegetable garden, which I had planned hoping that a baby would be on the way.  That being said, I really didn’t know how very little energy I’d have right through into May, or how much I’d prefer a nap to getting my hands dirty.

I did get out for an hour a couple of days ago to clean up the herb garden, and that felt great.  I’ve just accepted that marathon gardening sessions aren’t going to be happening this season, and I’ll just do what I can to maintain what’s growing here while I concentrate on growing the little person inside of me.

For the last several years I’ve experienced the fun that is growing vegetables indoors from seed. In Ontario (and most of Canada, really), this is one of the best ways to extend the growing season, since our last frost date here isn’t until May 24. Seedlings and young vegetable plants are widely available for purchasing in the spring, but the idea of having something green and growing and filled with hope for the coming season is so appealing that I usually grow plants indoors, starting right around this time of year, or earlier.

While the thought of having vegetable and annual plants in the house tucked away under their lights in the basement is certainly appealing, this past year has been so unbelievably busy and personally challenging that my heart is just not into it this time around. Graham and I both work two jobs right now, and we have a couple of home renovation projects on the go, as well, which means I just don’t think I can handle another area of the house that needs tending to, and this unfortunately means the basement seedling setup is going to go on hiatus for this year.

This doesn’t mean I won’t be growing from seed at all this year. I’m planning to concentrate my efforts on vegetables that can be sown directly into warm soil come spring. This includes radishes, greens, beans and squash. I’ll look for interesting heirloom varieties of tomatoes and eggplants, grown organically, for planting directly, benefiting from the work and care of other gardeners this spring.

Even though my growing process will be a little bit different this season, I expect my vegetable garden will be no less productive or beautiful this summer. I can’t wait to get planting.

I have a large clump of anise-hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) in my vegetable garden, and the clump is quickly becoming a patch. Lots of seeds were thrown around by the plant last summer, and I’ve given seedlings away to several friends and family members this year. In fact, if you live in the area I’d be happy to give you some.

This member of the mint family attracts all kinds of bees and butterflies to the garden, which is absolutely necessary for growing plants that require pollination, like zucchini, squash and cucumbers. It can also be made into a soothing tea. I told myself I wasn’t going to let this plant go to seed again this summer, because as much as I love the purple spikey blooms and heady licorice scent as I brush past it, I don’t want the veggie patch to be overrun with the stuff.

I also have some of the Golden Jubilee variety, which is very similar, but doesn’t seem to grow as tall in our herb garden. I gave a clump to friends Andy and Kelly earlier in the season and it’s already grown into a sizable plant, adding a nice splash of contrasting yellow-green to their perennial garden.

I’d better get out and trim mine down before it’s too late.