I grow tomatoes, and so much more. Our family eats food from our garden in Qualicum Beach every month of the year and many of the things we eat, like Sorrel, are already sprouting and growing. But March is tomato month. This is the time to buy and start seeds indoors so you have your own harvest this summer.
It is officially February and there are suddenly so many jobs a gardener can be tackling. But if you don’t have an apple tree, an orchid or sprouting lemons you are probably focussed on starting seeds this month. Growing from seed is one of the most rewarding tasks facing gardeners.
I saved leek seeds one year from my own plants and the plants grew like a cross between the sleek long leeks you buy and a fat bulbing onion. Ooops. I guess the leeks were hybrids so did not come true from seed. Or they may have crossed with an onion I had in bloom at the same time. Saving seed is not as easy as it seems. Read more about saving and ordering seeds here.
Green Beans are Tasty! But oh they love heat. And at this time of year, in December, it is just too cold to grow green beans outside or even in a greenhouse without a full blast of heat for three months.
For Leek and Potato soup I clean and slice leeks into 1 mm rounds and put in pot with butter or cooking oil heated on medium heat. I slice a lot more than just the white parts. I also use the light green parts but never the dark green coarse parts of the leaf. These are tossed into the compost. In oour kitchen, Leek and Potato soup is one of our very favourite ways to eat leeks.
Looking back on my video from 2015 I can see how much longer my hair was then and how much shorter my two year old lemon trees are. The lemons are now touching the roof of my shelter and this year I harvested 54 lemons in the fall and many more during the season for a total of 75 lemons per tree. If you are thinking of growing citrus and can’t move west, consider them as a houseplant! They are self-pollinating and pretty hardy if you have a cool spot with bright light.
