Growing with your garden

Alas, summer is winding down, and so is my great gardening challenge.

This spring, I vowed to plant my first garden, even though I've never grown anything in my life. I signed up for a plot with a community gardening group and got started in early June.

Several rainy days and some pulled back muscles really put a damper on my ambition, but then a friend came along and saved the day, turning the soil in my little plot and prepping it into hills and valleys for my space-saving garden plan.

Once the seeds were planted it was time to water diligently and pull weeds. I made a few mistakes, of course.

When everything was sprouting I wasn't always sure which tiny plants were seedlings, and which were weeds. I used Google Image to identify some of the plants and found out I'd pulled some watermelon seedlings. You learn by making mistakes.

I also planted my brussels sprouts, potatoes and cucumber seeds way too close together. I wasn't happy about having to "thin" these plants and have some go to waste. Luckily, I was offered a spare garden plot the next street over. I transplanted them there.

So I ended up with two gardens and more veggies to share with friends and family. If there's extra I will donate them to a soup kitchen or Winnipeg Harvest.

During a long heat wave I'd go water my garden really early. The North End is a quiet and beautiful place on most early summer mornings.

A few weeks ago, a troop of red ants decided they'd take over my garden.

I wanted to be organic, so I mixed up some old coffee grounds and cornmeal, which I spread around all the plants. Coffee grounds repel most pests but if the ants still stick around and eat the cornmeal, they'll puff up and die.

I felt bad about this tactic, but it had to be done. After a few days, the ants disappeared, but some reappeared the other day so I'm going to make another batch.

Then there was the elderly raider.

I'd been forewarned by another gardener who'd planted in my lot before. Her garden was raided by what sounded like an 80-year-old baba. A neighbour spotted her digging in a garden a few times and tried to shoo her away.

The old woman would leave, but returned each Sunday, dressed like she'd come from church.

It was still a surprise to find two gaping holes in my row of beets. If it was the old woman, she has a good eye. The best beets were gone.

I'm not angry; some are left. But I did take some garden stakes and painted a few little crosses on them, to honour my fallen beets. I stuck them in the bare spots, like tombstone sticks.

Maybe it'll keep the remaining beets from vanishing, but if they do, it's all right. I learned from my cousin -- another urban gardener -- that community gardens are often raided.

If people need the veggies, then that's what they're there for. That old baba probably has a tiny pension to live on. I hope she made a big pot of borscht, which is what I plan to do in the next day or two.

The garden has been a good experiment. I've learned a lot. Many people in my life have some gardening knowledge. Just tell someone you're gardening, and they'll share a few tips.

And gardening is growing in popularity again. Many northern communities are starting gardens. Brokenhead Ojibway Nation has an annual contest that enlists kids to grow gardens, too.

One of my friends told me that's how it used to be in the old days. Every summer there'd be gardening contests for the biggest and best produce on the reserve.

As for me, I grew so much lettuce I had to give bags of it away to several neighbours. The carrots are still growing, but I didn't have the heart to thin them well. I threw some yellow beans and fresh dill into a recent pot of chicken soup and it was amazing.

My garden hasn't grown enough cucumbers to plan on pickling yet, but it's provided several sandwiches and salads for me and extended family members. Soon I will pick mint for tea, and potatoes for roasting. I'm still waiting on my brussels sprouts and pumpkins.

And my baby, Sikwan, likes her yellow beans straight from the garden.

Gardening has been well worth the effort just to have people enjoy what I grew.

It's a good way to relax and appreciate the little things in life: like the smell of fresh earth, the breeze, the warmth of the sunshine, watching bees and white butterflies dance around in the garden and listening to the birds sing.

Colleen Simard is a Winnipeg writer.

colleen.simard@gmail.com

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition August 13, 2011 J6