Something new for my blog today! I have a guest! I’ve been thinking it would be interesting for me to pose a few questions to some Prairie gardeners I know, inquiring about their experiences gardening in such a unique, challenging climate. I want to find out what they love about gardening in Alberta, what they find difficult, and what inspires them about growing. Whether you live on the Canadian Prairies or you’re much further afield, I’m sure you’ll find some food for thought here (pun intended!).
Without further ado, please meet Maxwell Hislop! In his own words:
“I live in Turner Valley, in the foothills of Alberta. For myself, and many others in Alberta, we have to face cold weather and a shortened growing season. It is May 20th, and I still have some ice on the ground beside my house, so on top of being cold here even for Alberta, this is the coldest spring in recent memory. To overcome this, I have built multiple raised beds, with poly covers. This not only allows me to plant before my last frost (which is in June in my area), it heats up the soil ahead of time making the plants happier to go out into the soil early. I do take the covers off in mid- to late June, pending weather and to allow pollinators access to my plants, but often find myself putting the poly back on later in the season for crops to finish. Starting seeds indoors as well to extend our growing season is common practice here, or buying seedlings from our local greenhouses (whereas other places in Canada can direct seed the same crops).
What has always inspired me about gardening is the flavors, not only in traditional crops like carrots or tomatoes, but with the variety that we can grow at home that you can’t buy at your local stores. No one believed me as a kid that I was eating purple potatoes, or veggies that they never even heard of, like sorrel. I grew up with such a love for food from everything we grew at home and the variety that I continued to have as an adult – everything from four types of perennial onions to dozens of types of potatoes, herbs and spices that no one gets the chance to experience. And there are the added health benefits of the high nutrition that many of these come with. So all of that being said, my passion about gardening is the ability to grow my own food. There aren’t really any particular plants I am passionate about, and my obsessions change year to year.
Every year I choose new projects, and this year is no different. I have already built multiple new raised beds with frames for covers, and later in the year plan on building more independent raised beds for wild perennial veggies. I have been expanding my outdoor mushroom beds to include mushrooms in shady areas along side of my house, mushrooms in my lawn, and log towers for more variety rather then just the few I had already inoculated. They are a wonderful food source and being so high in protein are used as a meat substitute. As well, my final large project for the year is a grey water recycling and filter system hooked up to a large tank with my rain water for irrigating my veggies. My town has not fully rebuilt the water treatment system from the floods five years ago, and most summers we are struck with water restrictions which makes production erratic during dry spells. By filtering my laundry and bath water, I should be able to completely eliminate the use of town water and by using biodegradable soaps it means the soap in the water actually adds nutrients to the soil that the plants need.
My big goal for the season of giving away a thousand pounds of food to neighbors, family, friends, the food bank, and myself has already failed with this extremely cold spring that we are having. Many of my in-ground beds have not sprouted yet, and my perennials such as asparagus have failed from the cold winter with just a few plants surviving. But with the extra time off from COVID, it has developed into a new goal of helping others produce their own food. A few of us have put out time together to build nearly a dozen gardens for people, including one massive communal garden that is 1600 sqare feet. Using saved seed potatoes and seeds from my own garden, seedlings from my indoor grow setup, and volunteer work from others like me who are passionate about growing food, there will be much more food produced in the multiple gardens we have started for people. We are also building up a collection of videos to have ready for the fall so people can watch and learn techniques to optimize their own growing space.
I thank you for giving me the opportunity to share a bit of my story, and for all your work as well to help others with their own gardens.”
A huge thank you, Maxwell, for taking the time to share what is going on in your garden right now and your plans for the season and looking towards the future. You’ve offered so many excellent suggestions for extending the season and dealing with our crazy weather…and for expanding our edible plant horizons!
Flowery Prose 
Very interesting read. Maxwell is obviously not a novice gardener – he knows a lot – and has put in different ideas for potatoes and mushrooms for people to grow, let alone the sorrel. I have never heard of that one.
Sorrel is a yummy, slightly lemony, sour-tasting herb – you can make an amazing sauce from it to use on fresh veggies like peas or beans, or on fish. Maxwell definitely knows his stuff and loves experimenting with new crops in the garden!
Praten met mensen met ervaring ,helpt je altijd vooruit.
Isn’t it too early to say that the goal of giving away a thousand pounds of produce has failed? Even where the growing season is short, isn’t there enough time?
We got a late start too because we were not planing on developing a new vegetable garden here, but only did so when we could no longer go to work. There is not much space here, but some of the homeless in our Community will be growing a small volume of produce out in the forests and such for some of those who have been so generous to them.
A good initiative to give people who ordinarily do not have the ability to garden the space to do so and to reap the benefits and give back.
Our Community is so generous with those who lack resources; but recently, those who have been benefiting from such generosity have been sharing their unusual surplus with those who have been unable to work. I wrote about it at my other blog.
http://feltonleague.com/2020/06/14/a-new-surplus/
Yes, it would have been difficult to make that call when this post was written, for sure but our spring has been so wet and cold that as we now enter summer, Maxwell’s prediction seems to ring true…I think our growing season has been shortened even more than usual. He also lives in an area that is prone to late (and early) frosts and damage from hailstorms, etc.. With the construction of many covered raised beds and using other techniques to extend the season, he may just reach his goal anyway!