Happy May Day!

It finally feels like spring is here, and I am ready to get some stuff in the ground. Since it feels like forever since I started planning the garden and started off the early-sowers, I'm pretty excited to get digging. The garden plan above is the result of my research on companion gardening and crop rotation (thank you Edmonton Public Library!), and will hopefully increase quality and yields this year.

The prep work for gardening is really the worst part - I don't like getting the soil ready or sowing seeds, but I am willing to put up with it for the quality of produce that results from it. It also means you save a lot of money - not only in the summer months, but all year round. Once everything starts producing the majority of your vegetables are removed from your food bill, and you can extend these savings into winter by making use of cold storage, blanching & freezing, and canning. Last year we mainly did the blanch & freeze, but Court and I are excited to try canning for the first time later this year.

A couple of weekends ago we got the first batch of seedlings from the early-sowers separated and moved to deeper trays, and started the second batch. I kind of look on last year's garden as a trial version, because we just threw some seeds in and went for it. We had a disaster (daikon radish) and some poor yields (potatoes), but it mainly went really well. Unfortunately, due to lack of planning we had half a row of green onions and 15 heads of romaine lettuce all ready at the same time. Hopefully, most of the bugs will be worked out for this attempt, and the successive planting should result in delicious fresh vegetables all summer long.