By Angela Hoy
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Having just come out of the winter and into official spring (not always real spring), it’s a good time to talk about day lengths, how they play into our climate in Canada, and how we can make the most of them as gardeners.
We’ve just had the spring equinox, which as the name hints at is the time when our day lengths become equal with our nights. This is what the day lengths are at the equator, tropical areas we normally think of being the best places to grow plants, but our northern climate has its advantages too!
From here until the summer solstice, the days get longer. Right now, almost three and half minutes every day in fact! The day lengths rapidly increase before evening out toward the end of June. So if it feels like the days are suddenly longer, you’re absolutely right — it’s not just the time change.
A lot of the seeds of warm weather crops like basil are best started around now in Canada so that they can be large, actively growing plants while the day lengths are long in June.
This is our gardening superpower in the north! During the summer solstice on June 21, the day lengths are over 16 hours long, providing a huge boost of energy to the crops we grow and ensuring a good harvest that summer.
Alex decided we should harvest the chives as they are at their best now, and there were so many. We harvested two kilos from the Garden and another … from the Kids Garden! We all took some home and there was still a box full for the Food Distribution Program. Also a few baby leeks — we both made soup with these and the chives, delicious.
Angela decided it was time to flip the compost bins, so the finished compost was moved to the empty Leaf bin, Bin 2 contents were moved to Bin 3, and Bin 1 turned into Bin 2.
Here’s a pic of some hungry worms doing their stuff!
The vertical garden pockets were emptied on Wednesday, prior to refilling with fresh soil for planting with salad plants and trailing varieties.
