It’s April! It’s not even an April Fool’s joke, it’s actually April. I do not know what it was, but, as I mentioned before, March felt like it was three months long; not in a bad way, this is not a complaint, but it seemed to stretch on and on. Maybe it was because we had a short trip mid-month, who can say. All I know is that it is April, my birthday month!
I don’t play favourites with months, because I anthropomorphize everything and I don’t want to hurt any months’ feelings, but I love April. I especially love it here, because GUESS WHAT IT IS ACTUALLY SPRING! I had a weird seasonal cognitive dissonance back in October and November; I felt like it was September during those months, and now I feel like it should be May or June. My mind is on its own strange Daylight Savings-esque journey; my mind is falling back in fall and springing forward in spring, but instead of an hour, it’s months. Forty-eight years in the Canadian prairies, forty-six of which were in Calgary, have conditioned me to never let my guard down in April, because snow can easily continue into late May. But here, that is unheard of, and so I am in full-on garden preparation mode.
This is our new veggie garden, do you love it? I am so excited about it. My husband has been working nonstop on this project for over a month now; he built all the garden boxes and brought in many loads of dirt, he rototilled the flat part, and last Friday, he rented an auger and he and my son drilled holes to put up a giant fence, very necessary in this place where the wildlife roam and eat everything.
I cannot wait to start planting. One of the boxes we are reserving for my mother-in-law, who has been starting her own tomato plants from seeds that she saves from the previous year’s tomatoes, something which she has done for decades now. The rest of the boxes are going to be filled with cherry tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers – my Greek salad garden! – spinach and kale and lettuces, and so many herbs. The flat part will be a berry patch, plus there’s room for some squash. I’m planning butternut, zucchini, and pumpkin. I’ve only ever grown zucchini, so I’m quite excited to try something new.
A friend very sweetly said that, given our over-the-top vegetable consumption, we would be saving so much money on our grocery bills, and while I agreed with that in principle, I also thought of the expense of the wood, and the drainage rock, and the soil, and the new miter saw to cut the wood, and the new rototiller. Will the garden pay for itself? Not in our lifetime, Clifford. However, there is nothing like eating fresh vegetables grown in one’s own garden, and seasoning one’s meals with one’s own herbs, to make a person feel like Ma Ingalls. An incredibly spoiled and privileged Ma Ingalls, but Ma Ingalls nonetheless.
The veggie garden isn’t the only thing we are undertaking; we are also overhauling the grass and having giant flower beds put in. We are actually consulting with a garden designer who specializes in this area, and who is well-versed in the problem of deer, and also knowledgeable about drought-tolerant plants. She has some really great ideas and I can’t wait; the gnomes are anxious to get outside into their natural habitat.
If it were up to me, I would have no grass at all, just one giant garden, but having a nice lawn is very important to my husband, and having a lawn, not necessarily a nice one, but an existent one, is important to Rex. He needs somewhere to roll around in so that he can track grass and leaves all over the house, after all. The grass around our house is just a complete mess from the construction; it’s patchy and bumpy and still has some gravel in it. But! In six short weeks from now, Rex will be rolling around in soft, green, all new grass; he will be chewing sticks in it and leaving little shards everywhere, and my husband will be happily mowing up those shards along with the grass.
Is this going to become a gardening blog? Maybe! Well, probably not, but you can certainly expect many, many plant-related updates in the months to come.
Weekly Reading
How To Be A Better Person. As many of you know, I like to read a little inspiring something something right before my yoga practice; typically this means poetry, but at the start of this year I thought I’d try something else – a reread of a book that was already on my shelf. I met Kate Hanley in 2014 at the Blissdom Canada conference (bring back blogging conferences, except instead of panels about how to monetize, let’s just have parties and cozy chats, who’s in?), and in 2017 she very kindly sent me both of her newly-published books to be reviewed. I haven’t read either of them since that time, and I thought it was time to revisit. This is a lovely little book with helpful ideas on how to make small changes to improve your life and the world around you. It’s so interesting, I had made many notations in this book about things I felt were very important, when I read it in 2017. Some of these resonated seven years later, and some didn’t. Interesting how life changes and evolves.
Tropical Attire Encouraged (And Other Phrases That Scare Me). If you don’t know by now that Alison Rosen’s podcast is one of my favourites, well, then, you haven’t been listening to me! It’s a delight and so is this entertaining book of short essays. The fifth anniversary edition has five new essays, the remainder were written around 2012-14 I think? It’s a fun trip down memory lane (skinny jeans!) (I’m still wearing them). Fans of the show will love this.
None Of This Is True. I have been learning a lot lately about the craft of writing, and one of the keys to a successful novel – particularly a psychological thriller! – is to “plant curiosity seeds” and then “water them” throughout the book, so that readers are interested to see the plant in full bloom, so to speak. This author is really excellent at that; even though psychological thrillers are not generally a genre I reach for, I was hooked from the beginning and dying to know what was going on. I think this was a pretty good read; I had a few issues with a couple of the reveals and details, which I shall obviously not go into here because I don’t want to be a spoilsport, but this was a solid, engaging read. I liked the lead up to the climax better than the actual denouement itself, which I found a little flat, but, as I said, a very compelling read.
I hope you all had a wonderful weekend, and even if it doesn’t feel like spring – hello, I love you, Calgary friends! – I hope you have a little spring in your step and sunshine in your heart. And maybe some chocolate? Do you have an Easter candy preference? I sure do; it’s Cadbury Mini-Eggs or NOTHING. Nothing, I say! Well, probably I would eat something else, but there is something amazing about those little shells. And aren’t these nests so cute? Happy April, everyone. xo
Ha, I can see why the gnomes are eager to get outside- it’s BEAUTIFUL out there! It’s beautiful even without anything planted- I can’t wait to see what it looks like with flower gardens. And I also can’t wait to see the results of your vegetable gardens. Yes, you may not be saving a ton of money, but there’s nothing like growing your own food. And, anything you grow yourself will be healthier than even organic produce that you buy in the store. I’m excited for you!
Yes, I am so excited! I really missed gardening last year (since we moved in late July, it just wasn’t possible). Many updates to come, Jenny, you can rest assured!
Happy birthday month! Your garden beds look great and that’s cool about your MIL growing tomatoes from her own seeds. I do that sometimes with cilantro because it goes to seed so quickly, but it only works about half the time.
I have been eating mini eggs I reserved when I made the kids’ Easter basket, also jelly beans, but I have to be more careful with those as they are pretty much pure sugar. I accidentally bought a bag with no black ones and Beth was disappointed.
Steph, I tried that with cilantro and I also had limited success. There must be some trick we are missing!
I don’t like black jelly beans or licorice, and it seems kind of lovely to have someone who will eat those jelly beans! Too bad for Beth, though, that she didn’t get any.
I am so excited about the plant updates! Your garden boxes look AMAZING (I am so impressed!) and I can’t wait to hear about how everything goes/grows! For Easter, my daughter loves the Kinder mini-eggs, but tried her first Cadbury Crème Egg this year and was quite the fan, lol!
I used to love Creme Eggs as a child too – but then I tried one as an adult and kind of recoiled. All that filling is (and I never say this, I love sweet things) too sweet. But! I do love the mini-eggs and I love chocolate in general.
You of all people deserve a Spring birthday month, Nicole…. I’m so happy it’s happening for you this year! The garden boxes look amazing and your veggies are going to be so delicious (all the one-time expense will be worth it). I’m really interested in your deer-proof flower garden too, if you ever want to share updates. Those nests are cute, cute, cute!
How lovely that you met Kate Hanley. I’m all for cozy-chat conferences! Bring them on!
It remains to be seen if the deer-proof flowers are really deer-proof, but updates will be had. Rex is very helpful at keeping the deer away. We used to have them in our yard all the time and now they don’t come close, and I see them on our road all the time. He chases them away and pees everywhere, so that’s a help!
I want one of those Easter nests! Note that I did not say that I wanted to make a batch of them, I just want to be able to reach through the computer screen and take one.
I skipped the garden last year because I wasn’t feeling it, but this year I’m at least going to do herbs and tomatoes. Can I just say what you said, that there are ZERO dollar savings to be had from gardening. I’ll run out of cilantro mid summer and go back to buying it, I’ll probably never use any of the basil, and then I’ll get one million cherry tomatoes all at once and have the bigger tomato plants not do very well. But hey, I’m still determined to do it this year.
Herbs and tomatoes are so fun to do. Do you have a dehydrator? I have dried my herbs at the end of season to use throughout the year JUST LIKE MA INGALLS IF MA INGALLS HAD A FANCY DEHYDRATOR.
I wish you could have one of the nests! There are only two left, hurry!
Gnomes rule. I’m saying that as a fellow gnome lover. Your planting beds are amazing. How will you keep deer and rabbits and whoever else you have there from eating your salad makings?
Ally, we (and by “we” I mean my husband, with the help of my son) are putting up a very tall fence around the veggie garden this very week! The posts are in now, the fencing just needs to be added. Not to worry, there will be updates!
I am envious of your garden!! I am so excited to see what bounty you get out of it.
I’d like to plant things in a garden, but I lack the patience to see it through. I’d really like to change this aspect about myself. 💕
I love your easter nests! So cute.
There will be many gardening posts forthcoming, Kari! GET READY!!!
I can’t wait! ❤️
I just want to say that there are currently snowflakes floating around outside and the forecast here is one to two inches of snow tomorrow and I’m busy considering whether or not I can take another minute of cold weather. I am green with envy over your completed winter. Do you need a roommate? I’m quiet and mostly read.
I don’t know if I have an Easter candy preference. I mean, as always, Reese’s peanut butter eggs are wonderful. My FIL’s wife had lemon KitKats on offer yesterday and they were SO GOOD. I need to broaden out my KitKat flavors, I think.
UGH UGH UGH that reminds me SO much of Calgary. Sorry about all the snow! I hope it melts fast and gets springy very soon, and failing that, I will expect to see you road tripping up here any day now.
Lemon kitkat? That seems like a strange combination BUT one I am very intrigued about. I will have to see if they are available here – the States is magical when it comes to interesting candy/ cereals/ Oreo flavours.
I’m always so happy when I see the gnomes, Nicole! Yay! That’s the perfect way to start April! Your garden beds look amazing, and I’m here for all your gardening posts! I can’t wait to see your gardens and your salads! It’s true that gardening might not save money but think how healthy and fresh the produce will be coming right from your yard. Farm to fork, so to speak. Your little Easter egg nests look wonderful! Ahhh, this post was a breath of fresh air today!
Michelle! Thank you! I can’t wait to find the perfect outdoor spots for all the gnomes.
That garden setup looks phenomenal! I will have to live vicariously through you because we are not gardeners. Sigh.
This made me laugh: “An incredibly spoiled and privileged Ma Ingalls, but Ma Ingalls nonetheless.” I expect pictures of you harvesting fresh produce in your flowing prairie dress (with a glimpse of your on-property outhouse in the background?)
Hahahaha! *goes out to buy prairie dress*
Not to worry, I will do enough gardening for the both of us!
Yessssss blogging conferences but for hanging out rather than learning about monetizing and branding!!
I have two co-workers who enjoy suspenseful thrillers, and they keep recommending them to me, and I keep being disappointed in the endings. Like, the build-up is SO ENTRANCING!!! and then the ending fails to pay off.
I AM READING THE MENOPAUSE MANIFESTO RIGHT NOW!
Swistle, I feel so seen right now. That’s how I feel about thrillers too! Very rarely does the ending pay off. But, then, I don’t read many thrillers so maybe it’s my own choices, who can say.
I’m imagining a blogging conference with all my bloggy friends and it is making me so happy to think about.
I need before and after pictures of the lawn/garden please, and if Rex is not in those pictures I will cry.
Your garden looks like it will be AMAZING, and I will live vicariously through you because we live in a little townhouse with a postage sized back yard and squirrels eat what plants I do manage to grow. This morning I found one of my plumeria leaves half eaten, and it is RIGHT outside my kitchen window, so I am VERY ANGRY. I think I need to put a big net over my entire back yard.
I have None of This is True on hold via my library app, I’m looking forward to listening to it!
Squirrels are little bastards who destroy everything. Honestly, they were such a problem in Calgary. I remember one year blithely planting like 150 bulbs in the fall, and those little fuckers dug up and chewed every last one. They also chewed through a giant light-up snowman we had put on our back deck after Christmas was over.
I read that Jewell book. Good, but disturbing! The nests are adorable. I made a coconut cream pie and a margarita pie for Easter, but didn’t have one piece of candy. As a kid, I liked the speckled malted milk ball eggs best.
I can’t get over your gorgeous view. We’d love to have a garden like that, but we don’t have the flat land and we also have a huge issue with chipmunks, rabbits and deer. Even with our small fenced in garden, there’s always something that ruins it. Last year, it was slugs! I don’t have the patience for any of it. I leave it to my husband and daughter.
YES it was disturbing!!! I found a number of the characters to be extremely off-putting. However, very diverting read.
Slugs aren’t much of an issue here because it’s so dry – I have seen some of those giant slugs on the coast and eeeeee talk about disturbing!
Happy birthday month!!! Mine is next month, which of course, is my favorite month because it is usually full on spring, which I love. Plus Mother’s Day (for us) and weather getting nicer and plans for summer shaping up. But I do love April too, although I am hoping that there are not too many April showers.
I love your garden and fully agree with you that you will not pay less to have the garden than you would to buy things, but there is nothing better than a fresh tomato or cucumber or zucchini that is not only fresh but that you worked hard to cultivate. It feels so rewarding, and you can’t put a price on that! I, like you, was very enthusiastic at first and grew all sorts of things, and did love it, but over the years I determined my favorites and toned it down a tad to just those. I was just ending up with way too many containers of canned tomatoes that I needed to use up!
Gardening is so rewarding! It can also be devastating – I remember one massive hailstorm in Calgary that mushed everything I had. But mostly, it’s just a joy to be outside and see things grow.
I have to stop in at a store tonight and get some half-off Easter candy! I will be looking for mini eggs, absolutely. I also like the Russell Stover chocolate-covered marshmallow eggs. We’ll see what else jumps in my basket!
Oh oh OH you are SO smart! I didn’t even think to pop by a store today! Mini-eggs, and also some combination of peanut butter/ chocolate would be pretty amazing.
Your new vegetable garden looks so wonderful! I can’t wait to hear more about it through the growing season.
Thanks so much, Elizabeth, and yes – many many MANY updates to come!
Your garden area is so beautiful; I might even enjoy gardening with that view. I chuckled through your entire post…the gnomes, Rex, the cost of your garden…
I have read several of Lisa Jewell’s books. She does know how to create suspense and keep you turning the pages. Have you read A Gentleman in Moscow? I know you don’t enjoy male authors. I DNF’d it last year but am trying again based on my book friend’s rave and all the great reviews out there. I do enjoy character driven books, but I am finding this pretty boring and that nothing really happens. I’m about 25% through and wondering if I should keep going.
Pat, I am with you – I have read A Gentleman in Moscow and I HATED IT. Well, maybe hate is a strong word. I was so BORED by it. And I don’t mind if there’s not much plot! But that book, ugh, no thank you.
I’m firmly team Reese’s peanut butter eggs! I will never tire of them. PB and chocolate is the perfect combination for me!
I am excited to watch your garden grow! I used to have a community garden plot at a church about 1/2 mile from our house – I had it from 2016 until 2021, I think and then I had to give up my plot because getting over there regularly to water (during some very very very HOT/DRY summers) was just too much with 2 littles. I really enjoyed it while I did it and we definitely talked about whether the value of what I harvested exceeded the money put into it. I think it probably did not but it was a fun and fulfilling hobby. I also did a TON of canning. I canned a lot of tomato sauce one year and then in future years I grew tomatillos and canned green salsa. We really really miss having fresh tomatillos as I made a very good green salsa that we used in so many dishes. So at some point I would like to try to grow some tomatillos in our yard, but our backyard is on a STEEP hill and I don’t know how I could keep the rabbits and such out… So I probably just need to find a farmers market where they would sell me a sh*t ton of tomatillos so I could make a giant vat of salsa and can it.
I used to read thrillers but now I don’t feel at all drawn to that genre! The Alison Rosen collection of essays looks great so I will add that to my list. And I will check her podcast out, too!
Oh, tomatillos! Yum! I haven’t thought of that *adds to list*
The Alison Rosen podcast is just light and chatty and I really enjoy it. She’s a good interviewer!
Oh WOW that garden space is awesome!!! I have a tiny little garden that did really well the first year I tried it, but then it kind of turned to a weed pile after a couple years where I never seemed to have time to plant anything. I am not entirely sure if it’s salvageable at this point?! I mean, I pull the weeds out but it definitely probably needs some new soil and I’m not sure if the weeds would just take over it all again…I’m pretty clueless about gardening. But that first year I grew a bunch of tomatoes and jalapenos and habanero peppers, among other things, and it was very exciting!
Oooh I was thinking about growing some spicy peppers! Maybe I will! It gets hot here in the summers so they’d probably grow well.
I am so happy to hear that you are actually experiencing Spring in the actual season! And am also excited to see what your garden (veggie and flower) beds become.
Totally in on a blogging conference on that involves chatting with our friends!
Thanks so much, Gigi! I am VERY excited!
Your garden area is lovely, and the backdrop – wow! I might take up gardening if I could occasionally gaze into the distance and enjoy that view. I look forward to watching it develop.
I like Reece’s peanut butter eggs, or cups. Any excuse, really. I also really enjoy jelly beans, probably in part because that’s the only time I eat them. This year I probably had about 3. I didn’t buy a ton of Easter candy and then had to disperse it between 8 baskets instead of 6. The bio kids later admitted that they noticed less candy than they were accustomed to. Ha.
The books look interesting. Since I don’t really listen to podcasts, maybe I’ll read the book instead.
Oh Reece eggs!!! So good, and I didn’t even buy any this year – I should see if they still have them, on sale!
when I retire, if we stay in one place, I definitely want a vegetable garden. nothing like fresh vegetables, especially summer lettuce.
Oh YES, the lettuce is so good, fresh from the garden!
Cadbury Mini Eggs all the way!!!! it’s really the only holiday candy I like and I LIVE for Easter so that I can stock up. I don’t even like milk chocolate, but I love Cadbury Mini Eggs. Strangely this year, all the ones that I could find in store were bright bold colours, not the pastels I’m used to seeing. Oh well, they still tasted the same – candy crunch and smooth chocolate inside.
I am very excited to hear about your garden. I am decidedly not a gardener, but my Husband loves to garden.
Have you heard about the book The $64 Tomato? I haven’t read it myself, but it’s about a guy’s attempt to grow vegetables and he calculates that each of his tomatoes cost him about $64 to grow. So definitely not cheap.
I haven’t heard of that book, but that sounds really good. It reminds me of a book I read called Unraveling, where a woman made her own sweater – from shearing the sheep to spinning the wool, to knitting it. It was absolutely fascinating and a good reminder of the value of clothing!
I’m SO excited for your garden and of course, poor Salvador! How many manifestos can one gnome take?
You are going to be eating so well. My favorite part of your garden is that the guys did the drudgery and you will get to do the fun stuff!
Poor Salvadore! It’s been a long winter for him! He needs to get outside!
That is such an amazing garden space and I can’t wait to see how things grow! I always wanted to learn how to garden, but it’s a hard thing to do living in apartments. I could do a little container garden on my porch but that doesn’t interest me as much.
Container gardens are nice too, but I know what you mean – it’s nice to have the space!
I just…wow. Those gardens are Something with a capital S. I could never, but I will eagerly await the results of your tilling and growing and nurturing.
And yes x1000 for the blogging conferences that are just… hanging out. Sign me up, please.
Thanks Anne! I’m looking forward to planting!