Grow Lights and Garden Resolutions

Grow Lights & Garden Resolutions

Last night, Bea wowed us all at her school’s annual Science and Technology Fair with her project on the way in which the colours of light affect plant growth. Not that we weren’t expected to be wowed. All January, we’ve had a series of coloured compact flourescents in a basment room, clipped onto a bookshelf and set with tiny pots of Scarlet Runner Beans…The plants were tiny, for a while, at least…But the beans below the “black lights” grew like nobody’s business, shooting up several feet within weeks of germination. What we hadn’t seen, however, was Bea’s final project – the board that she created in school, and all of the data she had compiled, over the past few weeks, set out to be presented to the community “willing listeners.” Gobsmacked!

Bea’s project has got us all thinking about gardening once again. The garden books were already out on the table for Bea’s research:  The Garden Primer by Barbara Damrosch, The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible by Edward C. Smith, and the Flower Gardener’s Bible by Lewis and Nancy Hill. And so we began to talk about what types of “gardens” we wanted to create in the backyard and what types of flowers, fruits, and vegetables we wanted to try this season. In then end, we came up with a whole list of Garden Resolutions for 2015!

Garden Resolutions, 2014

 The Lunchbox Season’s Garden Resolutions, 2015

Imrpove our Container Vegetable Garden by 

Expanding from the back deck onto the parking pad — building Large Containers on Wheels
Starting Potato Barrels
Trying Strawberry Pots and keeping them away from “critters”
Planting more Scarlet Runner Beans on the existing trellises
Try growing Garlic and Ginger
Going Beyond Lemon Balm: Planting unusual herbs for cooking, canning and body products

Improve our Backyard Flower Garden by

Adding more Service Berries
Experimenting with Dahlias [and learning how to care for them in winter]
Encouraging pollination with even more bee-friendly perennials
Fixing the bird bath or DIYing a new one
Adding a second Backyard Mural to complement the one we made a few summers ago!
Learning more about pruning the Lilacs
Finding a new flowering vine for the side fence
Researching grass alternatives
Push-mowing the lawn once a week
Building a bat house

Dress up the Front Yard by

Replacing the Cotoneasters that died last winter
Swapping out more of the grass with environmentally friendly, flowering ground-cover
Growing annuals from seed for the front pots
Finding new solar light solutions
Playing with succulents
Placing a lattice in front of the air conditioner unit for sweet peas and moonflowers
Planting more bulbs this Fall

Photograph the Garden’s Progress!

#Nourish2015

What’s on your garden resolution list this year?

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