Gardening With Fingers Crossed

After surviving the coldest April on record in Vancouver, James and I finally have everything planted in the garden. I crossed my fingers when last weekend I put out the tomato seedlings, which we'd started indoors six weeks previously. We don't really get guaranteed sun until later June here, and tomato blight from all the rain is a serious threat. But one week on (including a crazy monsoon thunder storm) they’re looking just fine so far. James just put in the beans yesterday, another plant that wants dry sunny weather until it's sprouted. Fingers crossed — it's at crucial times like these that I can imagine how a real farmer feels!

Other "crops" (in the 6-by-8-foot plot behind our apartment) include basil, tomatillos, onions, garlic, lettuce and orach (yeah, I don’t really know what that is either). We are also giving the pink Indian corn from Colorado one more go. We got one successful ear last year, but the summer was unusually cool. We’ll hope for sun, sun, and more sun for a better harvest this year. We also shared some of the seeds with friends in the hot, dry interior of BC, which the corn will likely adapt to better. One of our varieties of tomatoes is very rare, new to us from Salt Spring Island Seeds: it's called the Bali, and is supposed to be marbled pink and red, and shaped like a flower somehow. I'll be curious to see how it turns out - and please do share your garden experiments for the year with us, too.