Having a 3.5 acre garden pollinators are really important. Hand pollinating a three acre pumpkin patch does not sound like fun, good exercise, but not fun. Pollinators include: bees, birds, butterflies, bats, insects, and small mammals. They sustain our ecosystems and produce our natural resources by helping plants reproduce (source). Pollinator numbers have been declining…
Category: Manitoba
Attract Bees to Your Garden with Bee Balm
Bee Balm aka Monarda is a flowering plant that is beneficial to bees, birds, and other pollinators. It belongs to the mint family, Lamiaceae. The flowers can also be used to garnish salads, drinks, and desserts. Monarda is native to the North American region, where it grows in sunny places, on moist and well-drained soil. There are…
Raised Garden Bed Plans
As I have said in other posts having a plan is very important. Plants don’t like being crowded, they need adequate spacing so as to prevent diseases, and adequate spaced plants will thrive over crowded plants. Having a plan will also help you buy the correct amount of seeds and/or plants. I have come up…
Raised Bed Gardening
I love raised beds, but having a 3.5 acre garden it isn’t a feasible option. The pros of raised beds are you can make them any height you want so if you have difficulty bending or kneeling you can make them so you don’t have to kneel or bend. They drain quickly and you won’t…
The Archaic Garden Plan
I tried various methods to make my garden plan/map for the previous post. I tried drawing, but I realized quite quickly I don’t have the skills to make an eye pleasing map. Next I tried MS Paint and realized I need gridlines. My plants were doing the wave in the rows. Next up I tried…
Making a Garden Where There Once was Lawn
Are you a beginner gardener and it seems a bit daunting? In this post I’ll go through everything you need to do to have a successful garden. This post I’ll be writing about inground gardening. In later posts I’ll go into container gardening and raised bed gardening. Step 1 is finding the perfect spot to…
Starting Seeds Indoors
In this post I described everything you need to start seeds inside. Now that you have everything for seed starting what’s next? When do you start seeds? How can you make sure you have successful germination and strong healthy seedlings. When to start seeds? Most seed packets will give you information on when to start…
Starting Seeds Indoors: Set Up and Supplies
You have the seeds and you have them organized, now what? Before planting them you need to make sure you have all the supplies for successful germination and growing. Seedlings without proper light will get leggy and weak which will make for a unsightly plant that may not survive when planted out. Not having a…
Stratification of Seeds…Tricking Seeds
Stratification is simply tricking seeds into growing/germinating, in simple terms. It is creating an artificial winter and than creating an artificial spring. Some seeds need to be cold for a few weeks to months before they will germinate. A way to mimic winter is to put seeds into the fridge and than growing them under…
Start Indoors or Direct Seed
Some seeds need to be started indoors and some can be direct seeded in the garden. If you don’t have an indoor plant room or don’t care to start seeds indoors Penner Pumpkins Farm Store sells a wide range of plants online. Lorissa plans to have the website up and running by the end of…
Pumpkinist Lora 