A Look Back on Gardening in 2012

It is the first gardening season in our new home and to say the least, it has been a very odd year at best. When we moved here last September, I was quite excited to discover we had two peach trees and a pear tree. Needless to say, I had a lot of plans but the weather simply did not cooperate. Within a very short period of time, my gardening plans turned into a comedy of errors!

Our new house

The Heat of the Day

Now that we are back home from our three week spring vacation, attention has been turned to outdoors. We have opened the pool, bought a few plants and we are getting to know our new property. I actually discovered a gooseberry bush yesterday! What I have noticed is this is definitely a hot property. Unlike our last house, there is very little in the way of shade. Our last house was so shaded

Unseasonably Warm Weather with Record Breaking Temperatures

The past two weeks have been unseasonably warm with record breaking temperature in the 70's (F) highs and lows in the 50's (F). Now that is just unheard of here in southwestern Ontario this time of the year. Folks are walking around in shorts and sandals. Our neighbours actually had their AC on yesterday! Folks have been out doing spring yard clean-up but at the same time some are really

The Home Gardening Season is Fast Approaching

Today is the last day of February, in a leap year no less. I can't believe the first two months of 2012 have flown by so fast! We normally have the furnace on late October to mid-April but this past winter has been extremely mild to a fault. Just last week a couple of farmers were talking in the local ER waiting room about the lack of cold weather, specifically a hard freeze. One said that

Another Winter Lacking Snowfall

Normally we have a light snowfall in late October, a bit heavier in November and quite often snow for Christmas. We had just enough snow so far to barely coat the grass but it was gone in a flash. The temperatures have been quite mild as well especially this past week with temperatures above the freezing mark. In fact, we have yet to have a hard frost which translates into a lot of mud and

Turning Cold

It's turned rather cold here meaning that we aren't getting a lot done in the way of gardening at home or at the vacation home. We left home in beautiful Ontario, Canada just before we had to turn on the furnace. According to our kids who are housesitting and doing a bit of garden work there has been few days since we left that they could get anything done. It was a balmy 90°F plus at our