I wish I was busy outside - sadly I am gazing at fields of snow - and another 2-3 days of below zero to follow.

I'm in Calgary and heartily sick of this spring. We had such a mild winter and we're getting all the winter weather now.

In regards to your other post, I just got my Vesey's order yesterday too. I checked the bags for moisture (they were slightly moist) and threw them into the fridge to wait until the weather decides to be spring. I can't blame Vesey's for the timing - it IS May 5th.

If everybody else is outside planting - I am soooo jealous!

Well, I'm here! We are getting fairly mild temps here for the past few days. Haven't done much planting except for trees. We ordered 1000 seedlings, 1-1.5', and have planted half of them. We pick up the next batch tomorrow and then the fun begins again! My garden is patiently waiting for some attention. Today I got to do some badly needed weeding. Marg

We're having March in May. :( It's darn cold and there were some flurries coming down just a few minutes ago. We've had a beautiful spring up until now and i was able to get a start on the garden clean-up, and a bit of weeding done, but there's lots more to go. No planting yet, but the cold frame has double insulation on it tonight and i even covered up the WS containers - supposed to go down to -6 overnight. Sigh...

I've been around but I'm busy in the greenhouse. Every day there is transplanting to do. Today I did 40 little darling snaps and 75 salmon storm petunias. Then I planted my saved Nasty seed along the fence. It seems there is lots to do but this old body says a little at a time goes a long way. Within the week I'd like to get some perennials moved. This next month will be pretty busy, but a summer of flowers is worth it.

I imagine it is the same for a lot of us northern gardeners

I'm here, in & out. It's been raining almost a week now but it was soooo dry before, we needed it. We're not getting the cold weather that everyone else seems to be getting. One quick flurry one morning but it didn't even sit on the ground. My garden's looking good and I'm just letting the rain do its thing.

I did get my indoor lights going this spring - on a really small scale - just tomatoes, Primula cortusoides, Jacob's Ladder and some penstemons. All things I already have and want more of. They're all sprouting already. Aaah, sprouts! :0)

Yep, you pretty much hit the nail on the head. I'm lurking. I'm more of a reader than a poster. But I'm still out here. I suppose I've also been busy, the weather has been holding at overcast but okay here, so I've been trying to get things into a semi-acceptable state while my husband is still here to help out . . . he's asleep right now, or I wouldn't be on here. He leaves in a couple of days, and then I'll either be stuck doing it all myself, or I'll give up and spend all my time poking the ground around my hosta shoots (how tall are they now? And how about now?) and trying to eradicate the quack grass and caraganas.

In other news, I think scillas (squill?) might be my new favorite flower. They bloomed here even before the johnny-jump-ups or the native violas (the little early purple ones just started today, that I saw). Yay, scilla! And they can take a first-class stomping by a puppy chasing a squirrel without croaking, too!

Finally, I have discovered a great way to force myself to exercise more - I made a few last minute seed orders, and a couple of plant orders, and I'm now waiting for them to arrive. I can't justify driving in to town every day just to check the mail, so I rode my bike the 18 miles to town and back the other day. It was fun, and NOTHING had arrived yet, so I might just do it again tomorrow. Anticipation - the lazy woman's motivation.

Julie

Still snowing in Calgary... Bought some perennials last Saturday, put some Tristars into a pot, had to do some fixing to some shrubs outside due to snow damage, got some more of the kid's playset done, and then promptly got Norwalk virus and puked my lungs out for the past couple of days.

We had a blizzard two days ago and temperatures dropped to -5C. I have too much in the greenhouse to risk freezing so I put an oil filled heater in to supplement the passive heat. Kept the low to a plus 2C. I brought my sweet potato into the house. It really looks sad when it gets below 10C.

I have ws starts that really need transplanting and I'm not sure which ones can take a frost. Next week the lows are supposed to be above 0C.

With the way the weather had been earlier in the season, it was definitely looking like much better conditions than the past two previous springs ... but, of late it's really been up and down, from hot to cold and with plenty of nasty windy days and this big dump of snow the other day ... oh, well, the moisture is really needed and I look forward to the warmer days ahead of our usual brief summers ... just don't blink, as you're sure to miss out on summer, lol.

Terry

{{gwi:750587}}

Glad to "see" everybody =:)

I've covered my fall planted lettuce (or maybe it's weeds) and my first year daffodils the last two nights because of snow. Some of my spring bulbs had almost finished blooming already, and well, who knows how the others are in this weather. I usually have the heat in the house turned off most of the time at the beginning of May. Hmmmm.

I'm supposed to be planting the strawberries I got from Vesey's, but.......

At least we all know spring will come sometime. It always does.

I'll confess I've been lurking too, and spending my spare time thinning and transplanting all my seedlings. Who knew it was going to get so miserable out again. I just got some of my hardier stuff out to the greenhouse, then I turned around and hauled it back in. My little electric heater isn't up to several days with highs of +2. I sure hope it gets warmer soon! My tolerance for two-foot snowdrifts in May is very limited.

Connie

It was incredibly dry here. I was pulling up sod for the playset and it was bone dry the first six inches.

Here too, Shazam. Last week i was digging through a hard powder to plant some iris bulbs. Should be all different now, but it's too darn cold to go out and play!

Another lurking Calgarian here too. Very annoyed with the weather and itching to get out there.
I have done my spring clean-up and transplanted some perennials, but it's been too cold for me to even get excited about browsing through the greenhouses

Thrilled to find this forum with people gardening in zn.3! An "accepted" sign-in name wasn't easy. Lol!
Oh well, most will know what abz3 means. (Live in the Calgary area.) Hoping for warmer weather SOON!!

Mostly finished the playset today. Bought some Nest Spruces at Walmart for $6.47 each and some Rudbeckia as well. They also had Tristars for $5.47 so bought more of those :)

I was at Walmart yesterday and bought some roses. 2 HTs and a Blanc Double de Coubert, own-root. I have been wanting more Rugosas and was pleased to find BDC without having to mail order!

Yup, another Calgarian caught lurking. If it would ever warm up here and quit snowing I think we might have something to post about!!

I was eyeing the hanging baskets on sale for Mother's Day at Home Depot today, but since it was snowing at the time I wasn't too tempted to buy yet.

I'm in Whitehorse and spent last year just lurking but am now ready to contribute more often.

We've had beautiful weather here. Highs around +15 and mainly sunny or partly cloudy but it's still going down to below freezing at night.

I planted some pea and beet seeds yesterday outside and started a tray of tomatillos inside. My son planted a tray of nasturtiums, cosmos and bachelor buttons a few weeks ago and those are all sprouting nicely. I also bought two Early Girl tomatoes and a Sub-Arctic Plenty at the garden centre yesterday. Those are going out to the greenhouse during the day and coming inside overnight.

I'm mostly trying to plan out what to do with the garden this year. We moved into our house in 2007 and the garden was totally overgrown. I've never had a garden before so I had no idea where to start. Last year I spent getting a big flower bed going, putting in the greenhouse, trying a few potatoes and raspberries and that's about it. This year my goal is to get the vegetable beds figured out. Plus do some other exterior things like paint the decks, etc.

I'm glad to have this forum! I've learned so much on here.

Hello Kate! It's fascinating to have someone from the far, FAR north! Please tell me more about gardening in the Yukon. I imagine you have to deal with the risk of frost in any month. Do you heat your greenhouse?

Hi Dr. Horticulture! Thanks for the welcome. I've only just started gardening up here so there's not much for me to tell, yet!

We added a greenhouse last year and just built a tomato bed for inside it this year. We haven't got as far as heating it yet but we may in the future. It's still going down below freezing in there most nights so I'm not keeping anything out there overnight. I'm starting to realize that heating it would be a good idea if I want to have more plants in there.

Yes, we can get frost just about anytime. Back in 2007, we had a big snowstorm on June 7th. I think our average number of frost-free days is about 85. Most people here hold off on planting anything out until at least the May long weekend, and even wait until the first week of June for some things. Some things are okay to plant early as seeds, like peas.

Most of my perennials are poking up now, which is exciting. I had a look around last night and just about everything I planted last year seems to be coming back, thank goodness. I'm going to make a list of the things that survived and maybe I'll post it in case anyone's interested.

Right now our big projects are to build a shade bed against the north wall of our house and to figure out what we can do with our vegetable beds. We've got the beds in place from the previous owners but they're totally overgrown and full of aspen suckers.

I think I'm kind of lucky that I'm starting out as a gardener up here since I have nothing to compare it to. I don't know what I'm missing out on by not living in a hotter zone. How's that for a glass-half-full approach, eh?

I'm looking forward to contributing and reading more here. It's such a great resource.

Yes Kate, I would love to hear what stuff of yours survived! I think that most things simply haven't been tested that far north, so it'll be really interesting to see how tough some things are.

And I feel for you having to paint your deck...we have two large decks that I am having to paint sealant on this year. I'm about 1/3 done and I'm already ready to tear my hair out over those freaking spindles.

Thanks Weeper! I'm going to get outside and make a list to add to your "What didn't make it...and what did" thread as soon as I can.

I know what you mean about painting. I've got another coat to do and am wondering what on earth I was thinking. I'll be very pleased with it once it's done (I'm painting the entry red and all the trim and deck white) but in the meantime, it's sure a pain.