Growing vegetables is a passion of mine. I long for spring, for it is spring that brings together the perfect harmony of cool rains and a warming sun, and allows you to plant out your seeds and seedlings. Summer arrives (never soon enough, and gone too soon) and you begin your harvesting of fresh tasty food. It is so satisfying knowing you played a hand in your own fine nourishment.
This will be the first year with a vegetable garden at the Fort Wine Co. What used to be a lumpy, bumpy, spotty lawn in the “corral” is now growing food!
Wow, can you think of anything better? Fruit wines made from local fruit paired with vegetables picked that morning? Now that is the life!
Building the garden was a fun event: We tried to use all materials already on site to build the garden. The rock wall is made from crumbled cement pieces from a torn up roadway, and the logs that frame the raised beds are from trees fallen on the farm for our new cranberry fields.
Our neighbours, West Creek Farms, supplied the soil which gives me confidence in this years success (and the soil is beautiful, the worms love it!).
As May long weekend has come and gone (the golden gardening weekend!), I have planted out all of the seeds and plots, except for 3 plots saved for tomatoes and peppers.
We have planted small plots of each:
Okra
Parsley
Cilantro
Fava beans
Green onions
Red cabbage
Artichokes
Zucchini
Squash (pumpkins too!)
Cucumbers
Greens, lettuce and such
Garlic
Peas
Maze popping corn (it’s purple!)
Brussel sprouts
Swiss chard
Climbing beans
And much more!
We’ve also planted a number of edible flowers, such as bergamot (Earl Gray) and Calendula.
The seedlings will be coming up in the next few weeks (I hope!) and you are welcome to come and walk around the gardens. We will be selling our successful produce this summer on the weekends, along with tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant and peppers from Kwantlen University. Please feel free to come see me if you have questions about the garden, or would like a small tour! I will keep you posted!
