Author: John

As I mentioned in my first post about the the garden I have a very small space to work with: about six feet by twelve feet, and there’s a two by two foot compost box in the corner. Despite the small size, I currently have eighteen different plants, (or seeds), in the garden, with space for a couple more herbs when they’re ready to be planted out.

My main strategy growing as much as possible in the garden is to take advantage of my vertical space. There is a fence on two sides of the garden to which I’ve attached netting to allow plants to climb the fence and along the fence I am growing snow peas, both wax beans and scarlet runner beans, and cucumbers. To support the tomatoes as much as possible I gave each plant cage and a six foot pole to each plant as soon as it was planted and will train the plants to climb as they grow. I have additional poles and twine to help keep the tomatoes reaching for the sky as the season progresses. By using the airspace above my garden I hope to achieve much greater production than if I were not supporting plants very well or were using non-climbing plants. One possible pitfall is the possibility of taller plants shading smaller plants but I believe I have laid out the garden so this won’t be a problem.

My second strategy for high production is modified succession planting. True succession planting consists of planting an early, or cool season, crop, such as lettuce, then when that crop is finished replacing it with something that loves hot weather. Because the growing season here in Montréal is much shorter than a most of the continent, (there are still nighttime lows near freezing), I don’t have time to allow one crop to mature in the spring then plant another crop for the summer, so I have planted my cool season, (or fast growing), and warm season plants together. When the cool season plants finish I will simply remove them and allow the warm season plants that are already beside them to expand into the space formerly occupied by the cool season plants. This is why I have radishes beside the tomatoes, carrots beside the peppers, and turnips between the tomatoes & peppers. When the radishes, turnips, and to a lesser extent the carrots are finished, the tomatoes and peppers should be large enough that they need to occupy, (or will entirely shade), the space where the the cool season plants grew. If you’re having trouble visualizing my modified succession planting there is a sketch above that may help. Some may argue that some plants to which I have given a space for the whole summer are cool season crops, (leeks, for example), however because of my short growing season and the long time they need to mature they will need all summer to grow.

By using these two techniques and by having the richest soil possible in my garden I hope to have decent production and eat fresh all summer.

Yesterday, after a week of rain and cold temperatures, one week after they went into the ground, the first seedlings popped up in my garden. They were the radishes and the turnips. Today the cress followed in the spice patch.
Some photos are on flickr.

In this second installment on my garden I will look at the preparation and nourishment of the soil. When I first started my garden weeds were having problems growing now the situation is improving.

The garden, as I inherited it, consisted of small half-dead cedars around the edge and a few weeds. The soil was kind of rocky clay, except where someone had planted the cedars in sand, (I’m not sure, this may be what you’re supposed to do with cedars, but don’t quote me on it). Obviously something had to be done if I wanted to get vegetables to grow.

I started last summer by turning about 50kg of composted sheep manure into the ground. Also, I bought a composter, (you can see it in the photos, it’s the wooden box), from the city and started using it. The manure has a fertilizing value of 5-5-5, plus it contains a bunch of organic matter, something that was sorely lacking in the ground. This worked fairly well, and I had a bountiful harvest of tomatoes, but most of my other plants didn’t really produce, although I think it’s because they didn’t get started until mid July.

The preparation for this year’s garden started last fall. All the dead plants from last year’s garden went into the composter, and another 120kg of sheep’s manure, as well as a bunch of fallen leaves, were turned into the soil. Then it was time for the snow to fall.

Fast forward to last weekend. With the snow melted and the ground thawed it was time to start the garden. I dug 100kg of cattle manure, (for variety), and another 20kg or sheep manure into the soil. Also, I emptied my composter and added everything that had turned to soil to the garden, (not much — I guess I have to turn my compost more). With this addition of manure and compost the soil in my garden is finally starting to look fertile, although it will be some time before it is black & crumbly.

I will continue to add as much organic matter as possible to the soil in both the spring and fall, and hopefully each year the garden will produce a richer harvest. For this year, however, we will have to see how it does, perhaps with some help from liquid fertilizers, (but that’s another article).