Minter Country Garden Blog
Ingredients For Late Fall and Winter Containers
As the weather turns cooler and wetter with shorter hours of daylight, wouldn’t it be wonderful to brighten up your patio with some great colour? Enhancing our patios with colourful containers is easier than you may think. You just need to be both creative and...
Feeding the Birds
Birds appreciate a little assistance with food, shelter, and even water through the colder months, and it’s a treat to watch them flit about the garden on those cold grey days. Here are a few suggestions of what you can do to help them out! The dusting of snow now on...
Your October Garden Checklist
October is an important month for many things in our gardens. Here are the top 10 projects to tackle: 1. It's the last chance to plant garlic for harvest next July. Raised beds, sandy soil and a sunny location are key. Russian garlic is quite successful in our area....
Creating Bulb Displays
Millions of Dutch-grown bulbs are flowing into BC right now, giving gardeners an opportunity to create some spectacular displays for next spring. The only problem is that many new gardeners are not quite sure just how to go about creating those eye-catching...
Reviving Your Lawn
Our lawns haven’t had to endure as tough of a summer as they have in recent years, but some are starting to show the typical signs of summer struggle. Long dry spells and pesky weeds can take their toll, turning lush green spaces into patchy brown spaces, but fear...
Love It Or Lift It
Should you harvest everything and finish the gardening season? Cover and protect to get a few more weeks of ripening time? Here is some info to help you make a plan of action for the fall. Late summer gardens are a thing of beauty, when we can appreciate the months of...
True Winter Vegetables
In the Lower Mainland and the Valley, fast crops, like lettuce, some brassicas, peas, beans, radishes, Swiss chard, and beets, can easily go in now, especially from started crops or transplants, for harvesting from September through next March and beyond. In...
Summer Veggie Garden Struggles (& How to Deal with Them)
From looking lush and vibrant to becoming peppered with pests, our edible gardens can go awry pretty quickly at this time of year. Pests and diseases are in full force right now, so we need to be at the top of our game to keep our gardens healthy, strong and producing nicely for the next few months to come.
Pumpkins!
Pumpkins are often a child's first introduction to horticulture—and what an interesting and rewarding plant it is to learn from! A single seed will grow into a sprawling plant, filled with bright blooms visited by bees, and ultimately producing multiple plump fruits...
What to Watch for After a Cool, Wet Spring
Normally, when we edge our way from spring to summer, the weather gets a little warmer, a little drier, and out come the shorts and T-shirts. Well, this year is certainly far from normal! The many days of cool, wet weather that we have had are bound to cause a few...