On April 24th, Katherine and I saw our first butterfly of the season.

I forgot to blog it, as other things leapt into my path and track-sided me, but I’m writing it now. Coincidentally, we saw our first butterfly last year on April 24th as well; the same sort on the same heather plant. I didn’t get a picture of this years insect, so last year’s will have to do.

Spring she is here!

A butterfly dances on spring-blooming heather (erica carnea).

Apparently a Milbert’s Toroiseshell. Thanks to Sarai for identifying it!

a quickr pickr post

I finished planting the snow peas and spinach today, with help from Katherine. If the good weather holds, tomorrow I’ll get the second bed dug over and topped up with new dirt/compost and plant the swiss chard (bright lights variety).

In the meanwhile, the tomatoes, peppers and basil are all blissfully sunbathing in my studio window…..

a quickr pickr post

I have just either jinxed us for the next two months or provided a catalyst for spring’s arrival, as this morning I ordered the seeds for our veggie garden from Vesey’s. Which way my luck swings should be evident in the coming weeks.

Last year’s food garden worked out pretty well on a limited scale, with the tomato and snow pea crops being quite prolific with minimal attention and the zucchini growing more than adequately despite utter neglect.

This year we thought we’d actually water things, weed a little and just maybe expand our horizons to include such exotics as beans, assorted squash and lettuce. I’ve picked just about everything for fast growth, ease of care and high yield.

The seeds ordered are:

• Gold Mine Bean – aka yellow wax beans
• Red Salad Bowl Lettuce
• Fastbreak Muskmelon – a cantelope by any other name, but a fast-growing one
• Dwarf Sugar Pod II Peas – lots, to be planted at three week intervals (they can be frozen, apparently, if they last long enough)
• Richgreen Zucchini
• Horn of Plenty Squash – like a yellow zucchini, with a bent neck
• Early Butternut Squash
• Tay Belle Squash – an acorn squash variety
• Scotia Tomato – these were stellar last year
• Red Alert Tomato – ditto
• Juliet Tomato – a sort of plum tomato, good in pots
• Hungarian Hot Wax Pepper – the really flavourful ones we used in salsa way back when. Remember, Heather?
• Explosive Ember Pepper – ornamental peppers that are flavourful and hot. Can be used along the fronts of flower beds. Nice foliage.
• Small Wonder Squash – skeddi squash, fast growing.
• Fairy Tale – a small, fast-growing eggplant variety
• Vanguard Watermelon – Katherine’s dream crop
• Carmen Pepper – fast-growing green (or red) pepper
• Racer Pumpkin – just for kicks
• Tortoiseshell Spinach – to start the season off

To this end, I suspect the Dirt Party this year will be focussed on getting the veggie garden straightened out. I checked on roughcut lumber and it looks like a local sawmill has a reasonable price on 2×10s in assorted lengths. Whacking together frames, filling them and getting things like peas, spinach, strawberries and the like into the ground will probably be the order of the day. Cold frames will (cross fingers) already be built. A few sections of fencing may need erecting, as windbreaks. I’d love to have a go at getting the greenhouse up, but that seems more like fantasy than reality right now.

All-in-all, though, I suspect it’ll be a smaller production than in past years.

I hope.

Addendum: I will have more plants than I need. I always do. If this intrigues you and you live near me, feel free to inquire as to extras of whatever appeals. Anything left over gets planted in the old compost pile and ignored, often to unexpected ends.

Two years since we moved into this house-on-a-half-acre-bulldozed-lot and look what’s blooming….

Prairie Joy – I’m really impressed with this rose bush. Planted it last summer and it has at least doubled in size, despite the high winds (sometimes 100km/h) on the front lawn and the dogs trampling it. Really, really hardy creature. Would make a great hedge.

Peace is doing well. Also planted last summer and is bursting with buds. Planted in a more sheltered location than Prairie Joy.

Unknown lilies. At least, they’re unknown now. I *did* know what they were last year, when I planted them. Must look them up at some point.

The Tiger Lilies are budding. Hopefully they’ll look as good as the buds promise!

That’s it for stupendous stuff out front. The daylilies are just starting out back and the foxglove is finishing up.

The irises are done for another year. This year’s selection included the following, whose names (with the exception of Loop de Loop – the one with purple edges) are unknown to me:

This siberian was a cheap, unlabelled find at the end of last season….

Loop de Loop was stunning in its first year!

“Dorothy”, a plant sent to me by Berni in Ottawa who names her unknowns after those who gave them to her, was lovely. Seems to be multiplying well!

I *think* this is a Caesar’s brother. Again, not quite sure. Another old plant that my sister bought me for our wedding ten years ago. Has since be divided and transplanted more times than I’d care to count!

Purchased at a flea market for $1…… fragrant!

“Alice” Iris. At least, I think it’s an Alice Iris. Again, true name unknown, but I’m pretty sure that this one came from Alice’s garden over ten years ago. I now have almost a dozen large plants scattered around the garden….. Smells nice, too!

Another cutting from a friend. This is a “Shelley”…..

Most of these were planted last summer. We’ve been here two years as of now, so all of these are new plantings.

All blogs must have an initial post, sort of a “make the page not so white” entry that frees the mind from the ponderous task of saying something of importance. So here’s the starting post for this blog. If you’d like to become a poster, drop me a line and I’ll set you up as a member. Here we’ll post about feats of gardening in Newfoundland, share photos and tips about what will grow and how and discuss failures and tribulations in the hopes that a collective wit will yield solutions.

The subject? Gardening in Newfoundland, Canada. Labrador, too.

You don’t have to be a Newfoundlander to post, but I’m guessing it’ll help! Gardeners of all sorts (flower, veggie, water, herb, etc.) and levels of expertise are welcome!