What to consider for spring gardening

The Artist’s Garden in Argenteuil by Claude Monet (1873)

There is no gardening without humility. Nature is constantly sending even its oldest scholars to the bottom of the class for some egregious blunder.

— Alfred Austin

A few days ago something miraculous happened, someone dragged a groundhog out of a cage so it could forecast the weather, and I’m not sure how this works exactly, but many across the western world revere these giant rats and their supernatural powers. In 2023 Fred la marmotte, Quebec’s giant rat, was found dead, offering an ambiguous and ominous prediction. What strange powers do these giant rats possess? Did its death forecast wildfires and other catastrophes?

This year Balzac Billy, a giant Albertan rat, unfortunately saw its shadow signifying 6 more weeks of winter, which is fine as long as it doesn’t go below -30°C again. Might sound fun, but in practice — no, it’s not fun at all. But all these astrological discussions about giant rats predicting the weather got me thinking about spring, which is quickly approaching, and what I’m going to do in the garden this year.

Having recently moved I didn’t have an opportunity to experiment in the garden, because we landed just before harvest and the growing season is a few days shorter than what I’m use to. The weather also behaves differently. The prairies are kind of like the desert, where a high sun creates a blazing heat and overcast skies carries a chill on the wind. But unlike the desert, this place is teeming with life, maybe a little too much life somedays, since we still have flies in the house during the middle of winter, which suggests an awfully high pest pressure during growing season.

Lots to consider for the spring.

October snow, motiv from the garden of castle Hartenstein by Olga Wisinger-Florian (1844–1926)

One of the biggest issues with social media is misrepresenting reality.

Take for example “selfies,” where a flattering self-photograph is taken on a specific angle, sometimes with a little extra makeup, to create a tailored online image that masquerades unpopular defects and blemishes. Similarly, other posts present picturesque scenes that hide unflattering realities, be it a family gathering or a company event, because normal life isn’t glamorous enough for the ego.

Social media is an overused digital veneer to dress up ugly truths.

Gardening is no different.

It’s tempting to look at photos or videos of professional gardeners, create an enthusiastic fantasy, only to be disappointed when it flops in practice. Quite simply, what you’re seeing online isn’t real. A few photos or a 5 to 10 minute video is only showing so much. Complex esoteric tasks are glossed over after a few trivializing words, because stories and fantasies are more entertaining than real life.

While there’s always truth to stories, you can’t see what you’re not being shown.

There’s no point starting a project from a misconception, because applying work to something wrong creates something even more wrong in the end. For my scenario, the truth is, I’m starting off on virgin plots occupied by deep rooted prairie grass, and likely dormant aggressive weed seeds. Taking into consideration the volume of pests seen so far, the idealistic garden will probably be overrun by weeds and chewed on pretty heavily, which doesn’t mean my plans get thrown in the garbage, but implies I need a strategy before getting too excited. And my strategy is rather simple.

Fractal garden by Creepy Substack AI

There’s a gardening mindset I discovered that blends concepts from physics and philosophy by explaining complex processes as variations of cycles.

Consider the conservation laws, where energy cannot be created or destroyed only transferred, and refers to the idea that energy-in has to equal energy-out in a closed system. For plant life, energy-in is sunlight, where chloroplast stores solar energy through photosynthesis to produce some kind of sugar. This process also includes the absorption of water, freeing up oxygen atoms, and carbon dioxide, which are used to build complex vitality storage molecules.

Except the conservation laws don’t end there. For successful plants to grow from seed, sufficient energy must be stored within the germ. Recently harvested seed has more stored energy than seed from an unhealthy life-cycle or aged seed consuming its finite vitality, because vitality-out is supported by vitality-in, and all seed gardeners know that quality seed is needed for resilient productive plants.

But there’s still more to the conservation laws.

For life to thrive, it must be nourished from prior life, which is the functioning principle behind compost and organic fertilizers. The cycles of life are misunderstood when fretting about poor garden results or weeds, they have a purpose, because those inedible plants are broken down as nourishment for successive generations.

Weeds grow for a reason, just like garden plants grow poorly for a reason.

Garden varieties tend to thrive after sufficient organic matter is introduced into the soil, which increases the supporting microbial populations and leads to conditions less ideal for common weeds, which tend to favour nutrient deficient soils. Failed expectations are often caused by misunderstanding natural processes.

Musical garden song by Creepy Substack AI

Since everything is energy, gardens are best imagined as waves.

Now, this idea unfortunately gets expressed as “everything is a frequency,” which carries very little practical meaning, because it should be imagined as “everything has a period” and “everything is composed of multiple cycles,” because a garden is best visualized as charismatic singer in a symphonic choir, not a ticking clock or a radio station that can be modified by a few dials.

Our gardens belong to a greater orchestra, characterized in practice through words like short season annuals, long season annuals, biennials, short-lived perennials and long-lived perennials. But this idea also translates to soil stages such as clay / silt / sand, turf, loam garden soil, rich humus and forest soil, which are composed together through the greater ecosystem to provide unique functions and support diverse life.

Using this philosophy, us gardeners are not architects of clay, but conductors in a musical performance, which should change the perspectives of deadfall, garden waste and a poor performing season. After some mechanical processing, deadfall is an excellent mulch for perennial beds, and provides feed for microbial life that further supports existing perennials, setting the stage for successive cycles. Garden waste and poor performing seasons act as a nutrient source that reallocates productive energy into the soil or into the surrounding wildlife.

This philosophy personally helps me adjust my expectations for starting new gardens.

Wealth of the Soil by Louis Schaettle (1916)

Unfortunately, I have to till the soil this year.

Ideally, I’d like to use no-till and no-dig methods, but that requires a large upfront cost of organic material, if I can even get it, and years to build up; neither of which are practical for a 2024 season. This strategy requires mats to manage aggressive weeds, but also presents an opportunity to collect yard waste and begin large compost piles for next season, because developing biodiverse soil is my long term goal.

So, my compromise is to use till methods, but prepare beds long term for no-till.

Expecting loses, I plan to plant three times what I normally would, and maximize plant varieties to study what grows well in this area, because I have to assume loses to wildlife and general environmental incompatibility, but poor performing plants will be used to develop the soil for the following years. While I can’t fully implement idealistic organic garden initially, I can roll targeted tasks into longer term cycles and compromise until the right balance is in place, which may take 3 to 5 years.

The garden suggests there might be a place where we can meet nature halfway.

— Michael Pollan

Of course, I’ll try as many experiments as possible including no-dig potatoes, where seed potatoes are covered with a heavy mulch and left to borrow into the turf. Supposedly the yield is less in the first year, but the tubers work the soil for the following season, and mulch decomposes into much needed organic matter.

Additionally, I would like to create trap gardens that act as wildlife food plots, where I can stage the ground for successive growing seasons, but specifically design and locate the plots to keep critters away from higher maintenance gardens. I intend to put extra transplants in these food plots, as well as brassicas, corn and pumpkins, to lure deer and giant ground rats, but they may also produce a small usable yield.

Unlike

William Hunter Duncan

I live in a much harsher climate, and I need to wait longer to start my indoor transplants, but I encourage you to read his post and his plans for this coming spring. Myself, I plan to limit indoor transplants to tomatoes, peppers and brassicas, purely because of space, and I intend to plant the majority of the seeds near the end of May outdoors.

While I prefer using transplants over direct sowing, for this season that’s the best strategy, and will change once we have a proper greenhouse setup.

Spring Already?

I’m also planning perennial fruit gardens for long term.

Specifically, I’ve been looking at a reforestation nursery in Alberta that supplies fruit trees, berry bushes as well as multiple varieties of deciduous trees. The website is called treetime.ca, and I’m considering the Kent Strawberry that’s on sale for $0.99 if you buy 300, which is a lot of plants, but I’ll never have to buy strawberries again if I transplant runners every year. Hope everyone here likes strawberries…

They also have elderberry trees, which I’m keen on, because I was wanting to get bees to make my own cough syrup from honey, elderberries and garlic. I’m amazed with the variety of plants on the website, and I’ll have to be careful not to overwhelm ourselves with plant purchases that require a lot of cultivation, but it’s tempting.

The musical philosophy of the garden helps me recognize that not everything comes at once, where a chorus may be necessary first before proceeding to the next verse, because the garden is a complex energy system that I don’t control, yet may have the opportunity to conduct by getting the right instruments and talent to play. Failures and tragedies are just part of the greater symphony needed to set the stage for new successions of life. And whatever this season brings, I recognize that both my ups and downs play a grander role in the cycle of things to come.

There’s plenty to be alarmed about, but equally as much to be excited for, and gardening and self-sufficiency are on the top of my list. In conjunction with storage vegetables like potatoes and squash, and perennial fruit like strawberries and blueberries, I’m also considering a medicine garden, which right now consists of hot peppers, peppermint and feverfew.

Feverfew and hot pepper tinctures work for headaches and body pains, at least for me.

If you have any exciting garden plans, feel free to share them in the comments below. Also if you have any herbal remedies, that actually work, I would love to hear about them and their preparation methods. I’m looking for a Pepto-Bismol / heartburn replacement if someone has one, obviously diet is important for that one too.

Take care, and soon we can look forward to getting our hands a little dirty!