No-beer slug bait recipe (yeast trap).

On May 19, 2020May 27, 2020 By Sheryl @ Flowery ProseIn Alberta, Calgary, Canada, Garden Books, Gardening, Guides for the Prairie Gardener, Plant pests, Prairie, Prairie gardening, The Prairie Gardener's Go-To for Pests and Diseases, The Prairie Gardener's Go-To for Vegetables3 Comments

Beer traps have long been used for slug control but there is another way to trap them that doesn’t involve you sharing your precious brews (because, really, why should slugs get the good stuff?). Try this very basic yeast trap instead:

Ingredients:

1 cup water

1 tsp sugar

1/2 tsp dry yeast

Instructions:

Throw everything into a jar and mix it together. (You can double or triple this recipe if you are attending Slimapalooza and require lots of bait. It’s best to mix up a fresh batch each time you need it).

Raid your recycling bin for some shallow containers and sink whatever you scrounge up into your garden bed so that the tops of the containers are level with the surface of the soil. In effect, you’re creating a drop of doom/swimming pool sort of scenario. Pour the bait mixture into the containers so that they are about 3/4 full. Then go crack that beer and enjoy the rest of your evening. Slugs come out at night so check your traps the next morning and dispose of the contents in the garbage.

What are your tried-and-true methods to combat slugs?

Can we grow sweet potatoes on the Prairies?

On May 18, 2020May 27, 2020 By Sheryl @ Flowery ProseIn Alberta, Calgary, Canada, Food, Gardening, Horticulture, Plant, Prairie, Prairie gardening, The Prairie Gardener's Go-To for Vegetables, Vegetable5 Comments

Sweet potatoes, perhaps; yams, no. Yams (Dioscorea alata) cannot grow on the Canadian Prairies – they are native to Asia and the Caribbean (where they are a perennial vine) and require a very long growing season to be able to produce tubers.

Under certain conditions we might be able to grow sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas), which are sometimes mistakenly called yams (at least in the grocery stores, where the names seem to be interchangeable). Due to our short growing season, sweet potatoes are a tricky crop to grow, as we often run out of time to produce tubers. There are short-season types available, however. Cultivars such as ‘Covington’, ‘Beauregard’, and the Canadian-bred ‘Radiance’ can produce crops in 110-120 days, and ‘Frazier White’ supposedly only needs 105 days. This is, of course, if conditions are suitable. Due to the time constraints of our growing season (for example – Calgary only has 117 frost free days on average), starting the slips (unrooted vine cuttings) indoors is essential.

Sweet potatoes also require a long period of hot, dry weather to produce decently-sized tubers, and we all know that the weather doesn’t always co-operate in that regard.

If you have the heat and the time, sweet potatoes aren’t massively demanding plants, as far as inputs go (they are susceptible to a number of pests and diseases, however). They don’t need extremely rich soil; in fact, too much nitrogen is detrimental to tuber production. Beyond watering consistently, you don’t have to do much to make this crop happy. Sweet potatoes fare best in full to part sun, and will produce sizeable vines that resemble those of another plant in the same genus: morning glories (I. purpurea).

Although things will likely change in the future as breeding efforts continue, sweet potatoes are considered a novelty veggie on the Prairies (although they are grown as specialty food crops in provinces such as Ontario). You can attempt to grow sweet potatoes in-ground or in a raised bed, but your best bet is probably to try them in containers in your greenhouse and see what you end up with – at the very least, you’ll have a lovely vining plant to enjoy all summer!

Do you grow sweet potatoes in your garden (I’d love to know – whether or not you live in Canada!). If you enjoy eating sweet potatoes, what are your favourite ways to prepare them or use them in recipes?

The books are here!

On May 13, 2020 By Sheryl @ Flowery ProseIn Alberta, Book, Botany, Calgary, Canada, Garden Books, Gardening, Horticulture, Plant, Plant diseases, Plant pests, Prairie, Prairie gardening, The Prairie Gardener's Go-To for Pests and Diseases, The Prairie Gardener's Go-To for Vegetables, Writing7 Comments

Picking up today’s mail was a much more delightful experience than usual….

“Over the moon” pretty much describes the feeling. ♥

What hardy roses are good for a small garden bed?

On May 6, 2020 By Sheryl @ Flowery ProseIn Alberta, Botany, Calgary, Canada, Flower, Gardening, Horticulture, Plant, Prairie, Prairie gardening, The Prairie Gardener's Go-To for Pests and Diseases, The Prairie Gardener's Go-To for Vegetables5 Comments

I do quite a bit of volunteering throughout the year, most of it fielding online questions about gardening. I am always super busy at this point in the growing season – right when everything is just getting started here in Alberta – but this year it’s even more hectic. Gardening is on everyone’s minds! How awesome is that?

A couple of days ago, I was chatting online with a lovely lady, who mentioned that she had a nice, sunny flowerbed, but it had a width of only three feet. She wanted hardy and compact roses for the site. I came up with a list for her, then thought: Hey! Maybe someone else wants to know this exact same thing and here I’ve made the list and all…so…I expanded it a little for you and here it is:

Seriously Hardy and Compact Roses for A Really Small Garden Bed

‘Adelaide Hoodless’ – zone 2 – 3 feet x 3 feet – red flowers

‘Da Montarville’ – zone 2 – 2 feet x 3 feet – red flowers

‘Frontenac’ – zone 2 – 3 feet x 3 feet – dark pink flowers

‘J.P. Connell’ – zone 2 – 2.5 feet x 2.5 feet – yellow (One of my personal favourites!)

‘Winnipeg Parks’ – zone 3 – 2.5 feet x 2.5 feet – dark red flowers

‘Nicolas’ – zone 3 – 3 feet x 3 feet – red flowers

‘Bill Reid’ – zone 3 – 3 feet x 3 feet – yellow flowers

‘Champlain’ – zone 3 – 3 feet x 3 feet – red flowers

‘Never Alone’ – zone 3 – 2 feet x 1 foot – red flowers with white centres

‘Cuthbert Grant’ – zone 3 – 3 feet x 3 feet – red flowers

‘Henry Hudson’ – zone 2 – 3 feet x 3 feet – pink/white flowers

‘George Vancouver’ – zone 3 – 3 feet x 3 feet – red flowers

‘Hope for Humanity’ – zone 2 – 2 feet x 3 feet – dark red flowers

‘Marie Bugnet’ – zone 2 – 3 feet x 3 feet – white flowers

‘Oscar Peterson’ – zone 3 – 3 feet x 2 feet – white flowers

‘Snow Pavement’ – zone 2 – 30 inches x 30 inches – white/pink flowers

And, here are the Mordens:

‘Amorette’ – zone 3 – 2 feet x 2 feet – red flowers

‘Belle’ – zone 3 – 3 feet x 3 feet – pink flowers

‘Blush’ – zone 3 – 3 feet x 3 feet – light pink flowers

‘Cardinette’ – zone 3 – 1.5 feet x 1.5 feet – bright red flowers

‘Snow Beauty’ – zone 3 – 2.5 feet x 3.5 feet – white flowers

‘Fireglow’ – zone 3 – 3 feet x 3 feet – bright red flowers

‘Ruby’ – zone 2 – 3 feet x 3 feet – red flowers

‘Campfire’ – zone 3 – 3 feet x 3 feet- pink/white/yellow flowers (Another of my favourites!)

‘Sunrise’ – zone 3 – 3 feet x 3 feet – yellow-orange flowers (This one takes my breath away – I’m a huge fan. I mean, look at it!)

'Morden Sunrise' 2

Morden ‘Sunrise’ rose (my photo)

Further reading: Roses and Explorer, Parkland, and Canadian Artist (Roses)

What are your favourite roses? (They don’t have to be compact and they don’t have to be hardy to our crazy Canadian zones). Go ahead and add links to photos, if you like!

The Guides for the Prairie Gardener Newsletter – May 2020.

On May 1, 2020May 1, 2020 By Sheryl @ Flowery ProseIn Alberta, Book, Botany, Calgary, Canada, Flower, Garden Books, Gardening, Guides for the Prairie Gardener, Horticulture, Photography, Plant, Prairie, Prairie gardening, The Prairie Gardener's Go-To for Pests and Diseases, The Prairie Gardener's Go-To for Vegetables2 Comments

Welcome to the second issue of The Guides for the Prairie Gardener Monthly Newsletter! Janet Melrose and I are keeping you up-to-date on everything related to our book series Guides for the Prairie Gardener, letting you know about what other Prairie gardening-related projects we’re working on, and throwing in some gardening trivia and newsy tidbits, just for fun! If you like what you see, please follow us on our social media and hit the subscribe button on Flowery Prose.

Book News and Events

The print versions of the books will be released this month!

The Prairie Gardener’s Go-To for Vegetables and The Prairie Gardener’s Go-To for Pests and Diseases were released in e-book format on April 7, and print copies will be out on May 12! We are so thrilled that our publisher TouchWood Editions has given us this opportunity to get these books out into the hands of prairie gardeners! You can order them from independent bookstores in Calgary such as Owl’s Nest Books, Shelf Life Books, and Pages in Kensington, as well as Audrey’s Books in Edmonton. They are also available from Chapters-Indigo, McNally-Robinson, and Amazon – you can use the links on our publisher’s website (click on either Janet’s bio or mine). Look for them in bookstores and garden centres near you!

On April 16, Janet and I were guests on CBC Radio One’s Homestretch program with Doug Dirks – we spoke a bit about our books and early planning for our favourite time of the year: spring! If you want to listen to our segment, click here.

Out and About

Sheryl:

This month may seem slow as I don’t have evidence of everything I’ve been working on – no new published articles this go-around! But I have been writing up a storm, plugging away at the next two manuscripts in the Guides for the Prairie Gardener series and a slew of articles that will be published later in the year (and one already for next summer!). I’ve researched and written about everything from dragonflies to herbal adaptogens to beardtongues to leaf mold over the past few weeks…never a dull moment!

In mid-April, I took in an online class through the University of Saskatchewan. It was taught by Egan Davis, the principal instructor of horticulture training at the University of British Columbia, and covered an interesting and relevant topic: Ecologically Modeled Planting Design (EMPD). To simplify the concept, it’s basically the antithesis of modern gardening, where we have tended to work with static landscapes (plants are grown and mature in place and decline fairly rapidly, usually within a couple of decades). EMPD is constructed in phases, and it is dynamic and long-lasting, taking as its inspiration the natural world and the way that plant communities evolve in the wild. The presentation left me with a lot to muse about, and ideas to delve deeper into.

Otherwise, I’ve been getting outdoors daily for long walks, taking in as much of spring as I can possibly soak up. The pond near my home is a favourite destination for me…and a myriad of duck species. The red-winged blackbirds arrived last week; their “rusty gate hinge” calls are a sure sign of the changing season.

IMG_6914 (2)

Photo by Sheryl Normandeau

Janet:

April turned into a really busy month for me! Like Sheryl, I have been writing like crazy on our books for 2021, articles and new workshops too! Plus trying out all sorts of techniques indoor sowing and growing. Some worked out beautifully, such as the leeks I finally got to germinate and have a nice crop on the go, but some not so much as I have killed many a lettuce seedling pricking them out. I have lots of kale, tomatoes and cucumbers on the go and about a zillion wintersowing jugs starting to germinate now outside. Lately of course now that it has stopped snowing, it has been a delight going out into the garden to see what has bloomed overnight with crocuses, snowdrops, and other spring bulbs popping up.

Photos by Janet Melrose (l-r: crocus, wintersowing)

What really made my month busy was learning, literally overnight, how to do online workshops and Horticultural Therapy sessions! It’s quite a skill and not one I had on my bucket list for 2020 for sure, but it’s fun getting together virtually and learning gardening when we are stuck at home!

In May and early June I have a number of workshops scheduled on a range of topics and with a number of groups, all of which are open to everyone! You register either through Eventbrite or on the Calgary Horticultural Society’s website. Most are talks, but others have a hands on component either with supplies you bring in yourself and others where a kit is delivered to you. I do hope that you will be able to sign in for at least one!

May 5^th – Garden On! – How to Get the Most out of Your Raised Bed

Got a raised bed? Learn how to get the very best out of it with planting strategies and practice to maximize your space to the best effect!