Hello from Canada!

[PrairieMom]

Hello!

I've been watching the videos for awhile now and was delighted to discover a good, old-fashioned forum!

I have lived and gardened on the prairies in Southern Manitoba, Canada my whole life, mostly in zone 3a. We have relatively short, hot summers (+30C or more is pretty common) and long, cold winters (-30C or colder also very common). Our growing season varies from 90 to 120ish days depending on where you are relative to the uplands etc. Most of the land was either under a glacier or at the bottom of a lake (Lake Agassiz) or a lake shore for most of the fairly recent past (<100,000 years ago), and our landscape and soils reflect that.

I learned to love gardening and preserving mostly from my parental grandmother, who farmed not too far from where I currently live. Gardening and preserving is a must for our busy household of 5 kids! We are in a city but manage to squeeze 8 raised beds, scavenged containers of all kinds, multiple fruit trees and bushes (including Norkent apple, raspberries, strawberries, gooseberries and a rhubarb that wants to take over the yard) and perennial gardens with room to spare. I routinely can ~400-500 jars a season of whatever I can grow or scrounge from the farmers market (it helps to develop relationships - I have farms that will happily sell me seconds at deeply discounted prices!) or forage, plus fill my freezers and pantries with things I freeze, dry or ferment.

I love reading about other people's experiments (failures and successes!) while gardening and are forever tweaking our process. I've become passionate about seed saving in recent years and in native plants.

So glad to make your acquaintances and see you around!

Jolene aka PrairieMom

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Welcome to the forum @PrairieMom !

Old-fashioned perhaps, but thankfully full of knowledge gained throughout the years

That's so interesting. I did hear that Canada has quite cold winters. How do you grow outside of the growing season?
I've got my own little rhubarb plant going now as well, as my father always had one when I was growing up. My biggest struggle is that I now live in a sub-tropical climate (5C in winter to 40C in Summer), whereas in The Netherlands we had temperatures generally from -5C in winter to 30C in summer. I've had a number of people call me nuts for trying to grow things not meant for a sub-tropical climate (like rhubarb, which needs a cool dormancy period to really thrive). Not that it'll stop me.
That's a lot of canning! Where did you get your recipes from?

I am a relatively new gardener (think 2 years) and would love to learn more alongside with the other members on the forum.
So far I have been very successful at seed saving, as that was something that was quite interesting to me. And I've seen the progression in my successes, and also know when to call it quits and buy some new seed. My favourite things might as well be propagating and regrowing (from seed, or otherwise). I think it's so much fun to grow a new plant from something small. It's a challenge I enjoy taking on.

I'd love to see what your garden setup looks like

 

[PrairieMom]

Hello! Growing in winter outdoors is impossible where I live, although in some regions you can, especially in the lower mainland (Vancouver area etc, which is actually temperate rainforest). Canada is very large and has a diverse climate, although a lot of it is very cold. The most southern bits though are as far south as northern California! I live about an hour's drive north of the Canada-US border, which is fixed at the 49th parallel for most of Western Canada (west of the Great Lakes).

I have grow lights and heat mats for indoor propagation and seed starting. Because our growing season is so short on the prairies, many of our plants are started indoors 6 to 12 weeks before they can be set outside. It's not uncommon to get digging in half frozen dirt to plant carrots!!

I hear about crazy people like you trying to grow rhubarb where it's hot! I always find it amusing when people in hot climes complain about their rhubarb dying. It grows uncontrollably here and very hard to kill if you want to move your patch or hem it in.

Most of my canning recipes come from Bernardin, which is a company that sells canning supplies here in Canada but also does recipe testing. Their American counterpart is Ball. I also use lots of recipes from extension offices in the US online. I'm careful to follow current recommendations. I do a lot of pressure canning too - canning plain veg, meats etc. Such a time saver down the road!

I'll post pictures once I find them lol.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Ohh! Fair enough.

Yeah I was wondering if you grew indoors instead. That sounds pretty good. And starting seeds is half the work, and can save so much time.

Haha, yeah can't stop us crazies. And I do enjoy a challenge.
My father always grew it. And by grew it I mean planted it once and it's refused to die for like, the next 15 years until we built a garage on it.
I've moved to Australia almost 4 years ago by now, so I'm still getting used to the differences between my previous temperate climate and my now sub-tropical climate.

Oh interesting! Bernardin, hadn't heard of them before. I gave it a quick google and it does seem very informative. I might give it a better look once I get set up and perhaps want to try canning myself. Sadly none of the stores (other than Amazon I suppose) are available in my area. I'd love to learn someday though.

Cheers

 

[JP 1983]

...or forage... or ferment.

Now you're speaking my language!