W- and I took the day off to set up our vegetable plot, with lots of great help from Laura Kalbun of Backyard Harvesting. She helped us plan the garden, pair up plants, improve the soil, and get everything sorted out. She even made nice laminated labels for us!

(photo © 2009 W. J. Young)

We removed most of the patio stones, added compost and other amendments to the soil, and made three rows of vegetable beds. We planted:

• two varieties of strawberry plants
• three varieties of peppers (including Chinese five-colour hot pepper), with two pepper plants each
• two tomato plants
• a bunch of green onions
• two rows of cosmic purple carrots
• two rows of radishes
• a couple of burgundy okra seeds
• a couple of six weeks bush beans
• two rows of Bloomsdale spinach
• a fair amount of Easter egg radish
• a few sugar baby watermelon seeds
• a few hearts of gold melon seeds

The basil seeds I planted a few days ago are starting to come up, too. We’ll be swimming in pesto come fall. =)

We moved some of the irises to the back of the border, and I moved some of the other tomato and pepper plants in front of the new irises.

And one of the bitter melon seeds looks like it might be growing well! =)

In a way, anticipation slows time down. I can’t wait to see what the garden will grow into, and each moment seems to pass by ever so slowly. There’s a fine balance between anticipating the future and wasting time waiting for it. If gardening can help me enjoy the passage of time as well as the fullness of each moment, and if it can help me make my peace with Canada’s seasons, it’ll be well worth it!

Oh, and another thing I learned today: it’s a good idea to keep one’s mouth closed when pulling up stubborn plants… ;)

UPDATE:

Starting our vegetable plot from Sacha Chua on Vimeo.