Spring of 2019 A new Growing Season Begins

A New Spring- March 2019
A new garden season has finally begun! We had an exceptionally long and bitterly cold winter. (2018-2019) It started in early November with snow and very cold temperatures very suddenly, seeming to jump right into January type of weather.
In December we had a bit of a break but not for long. New Years was somewhat milder as well as the first part of January.
Then OMG! We dropped back into the bitter deep freeze, many days and nights were -

40C and more. I felt sorry for all the cattle around here that had to live outside and endure this weather, not to mention the deer, rabbits, coyotes and pheasants and more.

March 31/19

March 31/ Buffalo lake berm

We had about 10 days of sudden springlike weather beautiful in March and then the cold was back again with a vengeance!
We have had quite a bit of snow off and on in April, but thankfully not the terrible floods in eastern Canada, Quebec and the maritimes.


I began my dahlias earlier than normal this year. The tubers started sprouting in February in the laundry room storage bins so I thought, why not!
I planted 2 pots of Firebird Dahlias, one Tahitian Sunrise. I had them in sunny location by my big living room windows. I kept pinching them back to try and get them to be bushier.
I had also over wintered a few on my geraniums as well, most of which survived (not the citronella).
I have been putting them out on my balcony for a few hours a day for several weeks now except on the coldest days when we got snow.

I even planted 2 pots of glads which had sprouted roots. So I should get some early gladiolas this year, but not 40 like last year! LOL!

March 31/ there was still a foot of snow on top of the flower beds in the centre of our yard although the flower beds closest to the house had been bare of snow for a couple of weeks already.
I took my snow shovel and shovelled off as much snow off the flower beds as I could. I was getting tired of waiting for Mother Nature to do it!

Round bed and Long perennial bed still covered with snow March 31/19

Stack stone bed is snow free Not much green yet though.

Rock Garden Bed

First robin of the spring April 9/19

April 9/19 crocuses on Picnic Hill

April 19/19 beach Buffalo Lake

Early Girl seedlings April 19/19

Seedlings
I planted my tomato seeds on April 11/19
Early Girls
Super Sensations
Lemon Boys
Tumblers and Beef Steaks.

They all sprouted well. The early girls were first. :)

Lavatara seedlings, tomatoes and peppers

spaghetti squash seedlings 

Side of house tulips April 19/19

I also planted some zucchini seeds and a few spaghetti squashes as well as some red and yellow pepper seeds that I took from the inside of pepper which were in the fridge. Helpful husband had bought a little plastic "greenhouse" kit from Home Hardware with the little compartments and the peat moss "plugs".  I wasn't sure how it would work, but we gave it a try. Once you water the plug it starts to expand, then we dropped the seeds into them and it worked really well.
The pepper seeds did nothing for a long time. The 2 zucchinis sprout first and one spaghetti squash, followed later by 2 more.

We were able to transplant them into bigger pots so easily without disturbing the roots by just dropping the peat moss plug, seedling and all into a bigger pot and covering it with soil.

We fired up the greenhouse in mid April and put the tomato seedling out there.
The pepper seedling came up about 2 weeks later and now they are in the greenhouse too. We transplanted all the tomato and pepper seedling in late April and last week (early May).

April 19/19 tulips 

Herbs
I had started herbs as well. The tarragon, basil and cilantro is up and growing nicely. The thyme is barley growing at all. The lavender and rosemary did nothing. But we rectified that by picking up some little potted ones along with a spearmint plant at Parkland Nurseries in Red Deer.  I don't know why I didn't get any parsley or oregano.

I"m thrilled that everything is doing so well!