Back Alley Garden Renovations

Back Alley Garden Renovations

When we moved into our house in 2014 the fence was in very poor condition. At the time there was a fair sized area south of the garage facing the back alley that was just filled with weeds. There were indications that someone had tried growing things back there the previous summer due to various volunteer vegetable and herbs (especially dill!).

Unfortunately I failed to take picture of the back alley that first year. We basically contented ourselves with mowing weeds back there and keeping the status quo while we settled down. The spring of 2015 we began a rejuvenation project.

In the summer of 2015 we began by building two raised beds measuring roughly 8'x 2'. Along the south side of garage we put four trellis's with different varieties of grapes planted at the base of each trellis (as of 2017, Marechel Foch, Frontenac, Fredonia, & F-130). We put down weed barrier and covered the area with non-coloured cedar bark.

Along the fence line we planted raspberries and used leaves and lawn clippings as mulch to keep down the weeds. There was already a beautiful rhubarb plant back there that kept a large area weed free already.

We were pretty happy with the results of 2015, but knew that we needed to replace the fence as soon as possible. With three dogs including a Great Dane we were very concerned that our fence looked like it could be pushed over with a stern look!

I thought we kind of wasted a golden opportunity with the garden boxes in the first year. They are one of the few areas of our property that get almost full sunlight, and are in an excellent little high heat microclimate. In 2015 we grew mostly zucchini and beets which will grow pretty well in less than optimal conditions.

In the fall we started the process of replacing the fence, but the section facing the back alley was left until the spring of 2016. That spring  we also converted our whole front yard to garden (which is covered in an earlier post). Because of this I was able to focus on vegetables that could really benefit from the sun and greater warmth so



The grapes overwintered quite well, but were still not "taking-off". The raspberries that we had planted along the fence line on the other hand suffered quite a bit, both due to the winter and damage endured while replacing the fence. I decided a better use of the area would be to plant squash. I planted butternut and buttercup squash with about 6' separation. The pictures to the right were taken in about late July. As the summer progressed the squash weaved into the trellis at the top of the fence and looked awesome. Behind the rhubarb what had started as a single wild cucumber the year before became a dense matt of wild cucumbers.

Inside of the fence line I also planted squash and trained them to reach the top of the fence and travel along the top. This allowed me to grow some vegetables within the yard while at the same time not having them destroyed by the dogs.

I was very happy with the yield of the squash for the space that they used, they also made the area look very lush and green. This year I will probably grow peppers in the raised beds as they are probably the crop that will benefit the most from the location. Hopefully the grapes will have overwintered well and this is the year that they take off. Time will tell!

Front Yard Garden Update

In the spring of 2016 we converted the front yard of our house into a garden. My wife and I had been interested in doing this for some time. We had begun killing the grass in the fall of the previous year, but a huge amount of work remained, and with a hard deadline to finish in time to seed the garden in the short Saskatchewan summers.

I wanted to approach the project with a lot of planning. I was concered about the amount of shade certain areas of the front yard get, and what plants to grow in the different areas. Because it was winter already, just looking at which areas are shaded would not be a good guide to how the shade would be distributed in the middle of sumer. I started by uploaded the satellite image of the property from Google Maps into a free program called Sketch Up. The program will know your latitude from the location you pulled from Maps. Based on this it can display accurate shadows based on the time of the year that you pick. From there it is just a matter of building a model of the houses which will be casting shadows and uploading models of trees that match the local trees from the program's free model library. I picked a date of mid-June as a benchmark to "heat map" the shade. In the model I generated bright green represents 0 hours of shade, while dark red represents 0 hours of sunshine. Now that I had an idea of what could be grown where, it was time to start planning layout.

One of the things I really wanted was a good mix of hardscaping objects in the garden that would act as focal points around which the garden could be planted. The first item we built was an garden obelisk. The obelisk would act as both a focal point as well as add vertical interest to the garden. I adapted the design from this site. I was very happy with the results. We decided to position the obelisk at an angle when viewed from the street (point to the street rather than flat side) as it seemed to increase the "substantialness" of it since you see every strut, rather than them being hidden behind each other.



The next task was rock work. Because the yard slopes fairly significantly towards the street I wanted to split the yard into two flatter tiers so that when I ran a sprinkler on it the water wouldn't just run right off into the street (and bring soil with it). We happen to have a large amount of limestone boulders and flagstone that had previously been used to suppress weeds between the house and the fence line. We used the rocks to create small "U" shaped lower tier as well as flagstone path that leads from it to the house through the centre of the garden.

The final hardscaping item added to the garden were raised bed boxes at the very corner of the property (the only good picture I have of these is from the fall). These added a nice anchor point to this corner of the yard as the other edge ends in the driveway. They also provided a convenient way for the rock wall to end and reduce the amount of rocks required.

Once all the hardscaping was done it was just a matter of planting in between. I also used potted trees and plants to fill in spaces and gaps as they developed over the course of the summer. I'll get into the potted trees and plants in another post.

Fig Tree Update

I stored my Chicago Hardy fig at my parents' farm over the winter in a part of a barn that they keep heated. I got this tree as a root ball from T&T seeds in the spring of 2015. After an intial struggle it took off and grow to about 15" tall by the fall. After all the leaves had fallen off and after it had experience a few frosts I took it indoors before it got really cold (although this winter there hasn't been a whole lot of that).

The room that it was stored in stayed a little above zero for the last few months. About three weeks ago I brought it home and just kept it inside. It took about a week and a half for the buds to start developing and it has been growing very rapidly since. Last year my wife bought me an X-Up Flowerhouse Pro Greenhouse from Early's in Saskatoon. Because of the large amount of space that this now gives me I decided to give the fig a bit of a head-start on the year in the hopes that it will guarantee me at least one ripe fig by fall. Considering that I have yet to taste a fresh ripe fig I figured this would be useful before I get too excited over them. Regardless of whether I get fruit this year I do love the look of the foliage on figs. They have a very tropical look to them (at least to this boreal dweller!).

I've been perusing the website figs4fun and figsforlife and they've both been providing me with some excellent information on what to expect in terms of pruning, how the figs develop and variety information. Figsforlife is a Canadian site and their rates look very reasonable and they also ship across Canada. If I hadn't already bought so many fruit trees this year I would definitely be making some purchases there. Oh well, there's always next year.

Shade Mapping

Shade Mapping

I recently used Sketchup to model the distribution of shade in my front yard. In the coming summer I plan to convert it to a garden and would like some guidance on where to plant different varieties. Because the front yard is north of the house part of it is covered in deep shade even during the middle of summer. As well because I live at such a high latitude (52 degrees north) the house casts quite long shadows. Sketchup's geolocation function allows you to use Google Maps satellite data to locate models in the real world. Once Sketchup knows the latitude of the model it can accurately model the shadows cast throughout the year off of any given model. I'm not aware of an easy way of getting Sketchup to track shade, so instead I modeled in hour by hour by drawing shapes to match the shade then added up the hours that each shape spent in the shade. I then applied a colors to the shapes to indicate the length of time spent in shade.

In the map you are looking South-West (the house is orientated almost directly North-South). The area running from the street South along the East side of the house is the drive way. During the summer I put a number of planters and containers for growing vegetables in the driveway. I had intended on placing planter boxes along the house on the driveway, however this map has made me realize how much shade this area actually gets. I will likely try to put most containers along the North-East edge of the driveway to maximize the amount of sunlight they get.

It's a really nice feature of Sketchup and nice to use in planning of new gardens.

Russian olives, olives, and wild dreams

Foliage of  the Russian Olive

Russian olive tree from my local nursery

I recently bought a Russian Olive (Elaeagnus angustifolia) from my local nursery, Little Tree. I have been looking for a slightly shrubby plant that would provide some interesting foliage and beautiful smell in my backyard. I had read on a few websites that it does well in containers and so I'm going to try this out for the next couple years. I know that in many US states Russian olive is considered an invasive species, but I have seen exceedingly few Russian Olives in the wild here in central Saskatchewan and so I think growing here they are near the limit of their possible range which hopefully will limit their invasiveness. This seems to be borne out by this thesis paper which indicates Saskatoon and Warman are outside of the suitable zone for rampant Russian olive naturalization.

Russian olive environmental suitability according to research
by  Lianna Collette

Regardless it is a beautiful tree, and an excellent fill in for my burning desire to try to grow a real olive tree in Saskatchewan. Olives (Olea europaea) are not related to Russian olives at all. I have not been able to find any information on anyone being crazy enough to try growing olives in Western Canada online. Information from Oregonolives.com indicates that they are getting successful harvests of olives from around 2350 degree growing days at 10C (athough this is fewer GDD than they normally get). In Saskatoon we can expect around 1200, so right off the bat this doesn't seem like it's going to end well. Research at the University of Saskatchewan has shown that growing plants like watermelon in high poly tunnels can increase the number of GDD's a plant receives from 1200 to 1900 GDD. I'm hopeful that given enough love and attention and a custom microclimate near buildings it may be possible. Obviously because these would be growing in an area many zones colder than they could possibly survive the olives would be brought into an above zero area for winter (more on that later).

Arbequina olives

According to Oregon Olives they have found the most cold hardy olives to be the Frantoio variety. The Saturna Olive Consortium located on Saturna Island in BC suggests Frantoio, Calletier, or Taggiasca mainly on the basis of the fact that they are self-fertile (though they are also hardy enough to survive in coastal BC). I had previously also heard a lot about the cold hardiness of Arbequina, but at this point I have not found a way to get my hands on any of these varieties as seeds will not grow true, so I suppose beggers can't be choosers. Hopefully by next year I will have more to report.

Strawberries & Figs

I started a quick little project today. I took some June-bearing strawberries from my parents' farm and put them in some planters. Hopefully they will transplant without too much shock. There was a grand total of 2 strawberries already growing on them, so I'm hoping their most productive days are still ahead.  June-bearing strawberries only yield a single batch of fruit and then stop producing for the remainder of the summer. As an alternative there are also ever-bearing strawberries. These produce a small trickle of fruit all summer long. I have heard a lot of complaints about the productivity of this type, so although I would like strawberries all summer long I'll stick with the free ones I've got.

The U of S's recommendation variety when it comes to June-bearing strawberries this year is Cavendish. At their plant sale this spring I bought a few Kent to plant at the farm. This blog seems to have quite a good experience with them, and from the sounds of it Cavendish has quite a long productive season so that may be a purchase for next spring.

In other news my Chicago Fig from T & T seeds continues to finally sprout. The root bundle had a very tenous sprout when I recieved it in the mail, however it quickly broke off when I unpackaged it. I had given up all hope when last week it finally sprang into life again. I had first seen figs last year on sale at Super Value (President's Choice), but I had dismissed it as yet another item that was on sale in Saskatchewan, but couldn't survive outside a small area in Niagara or Vancouver. But it turns out with a little winter love and care they can be grown here. More on that in a few months I guess!

Grape variety update

It's been a while since I posted so I'l try to update a few things.

This is the south facing side of my garage in the back alley. Unfortunately I don't have any "before" pictures, but before I started this project it was just weeds back here. This is now the second summer of the project and it's progressing very nicely. There are currently four grapes planted in the ground as well as two grapes in pots. The garden planter boxes are also new to this year. They are planted with zucchini on either end (one yellow and one green). There are also cucumbers, eggplant, dill, green onions, basil,rosemary, parsley, borage and a ton of beets packed in there.

Going from left to right in the picture above, the grapes are Marechel Foch, Severnji, Frontenac, F130, Marechel Foch, and Fredonia. I had previously written about Severji, which is an interspecific hybrid of european and amurensis grapes. It was very delayed in budding out this spring and so I took it for dead. Everything I had read stated that the amurensis genes would cause early bud break, but it did not occur for me, or at least not this year. Because I thought it was dead I dug it up, but put it in a pot to hedge my bets. In either case it died back to very close to its base and so it hasn't set any fruit this year, not that I expected much.

F-130 grape from Boughen Nurseries

The F130 and Fredonia grapes were new this year. I bought them from Boughen Nurseries in Manitoba. I haven't been able to find any information on the background of F-130, which normally would bug me so much I wouldn't even be willing to try it! They budded out pretty slowly, and I definitely wouldn't call their growth thus far vigorous, but it's early.

Fredonia grape from Boughen Nurseries

Fredonia from what I understand, is also called "Early Concord". It is the result of a cross of labrusca and riparia grapes, and in theory has some of the same taste as concord grapes.

The only information I have been able to find on F-130 is that it has "good flavour" and "produces larger clusters than beta or valiant". Based on that I'm hopeful!

Marechel Foch grape growing in a 10 gallon pot

This spring I also bought two Foch grapes from the local Home Depot. It was both exciting and frustrating to see. It was exciting for me to see this variety available locally as it saved me the difficulty of hunting it down online, however I also knew that most people would not know what they were going to be getting into, and a lot of plants were going to die!

Foch is a French hybrid grape which is the result of a cross between a European grape (Goldriesling) and a rupestris-riparia hybrid. In theory it is hardy down to at least -32C, however I don't see it being close to hardy enough to survive outdoors in Saskatchewan, at least not most winters. Because of my doubts I have planted one Foch in the ground and will keep the other in a pot which will over-winter in a room that's kept at about 5C. The plant in the container is doing significantly better than the buried vine, however the plants also appeared to be infected with some sort of virus when I bought them, so it may be a difference of infection levels more than anything.