Last week was the start of gardening season here in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. (sort of)

I filled up a bunch of trays (mostly old clear plastic egg cartons) with potting soil last Wednesday, when the outdoor temperatures were close to 10°C. Didn't actually get the seeds into the trays until last Friday. They're now on the shelf in front of the big south-facing window, except for a couple that I've left on the porch to experience a week of day-night thaw-freeze cycles (which help trigger germination in some plants that are native to places with cold winters).

The chrysanthemums were the first seedlings up & at 'em, 4 days after planting. But a week in there are now lots of little growing green things heralding spring.

Outdoors, real winter temperatures are due to return next week (highs in the minus teens, lows in the minus 20s). We're still nearly 2 months from any outdoor gardening — I usually get peas, spinach, and radish seeds into the sunniest garden in late March or early April.

#garden #YEGgarden

First snow means last garden flower photos of the season! Pink yarrow, orange calendula, and red snapdragons.

#YEGwx #YEGgarden

We have a volunteer lily in a rather wild shrubby corner of our garden. My kids have dubbed it the “night lily” (as opposed to the day lilies we have plenty of) or alternately the “miss kim” after a quirky and vivacious choir director they all sang under. Probably seeded from a neighbours garden who was much into asiatic lilies, may be a wild cross (?)

Interestingly, one of the them grew a spare petal this year!

#BloomScrolling #YegGarden

So I think we have a verticillium wilt infection. 😞
Any other gardeners in the fediverse have experience with this?

The back story: several years ago we planted a pair of laceleaf elderberry to frame our front door. One did lovely, the other didn’t survive the winter so we replaced it. The new one did fine until suddenly it didn’t. We replaced again, and this one thrived, budded this spring but then promptly wilted before they were fully open…

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#Garden #Gardening #YEGGarden #ABGarden

Eating home grown radishes & green onions for lunch (er, lupper?), fried up with some of that unexpectedly expensive asparagus I bought, huh, a whole week ago. (That explains why the tips were all getting slimey.)

Also ate some baby spinach thinnings, but those just get popped straight in my mouth. No need to complicate things.

#yeggarden