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About me



Suburban quasi-homesteader, I've started gardening in the northern hemisphere in 2015, passionate about flowers. But my heart was really sold one year later, once I planted my first patch of carrots, onion sets and beets, a mere 3 feet by 4 feet in-ground bed.

Since then we expanded to a few hundred square feet of raised beds and even smart pots. Plants are inside and outside the house. My husband is my sidekick, helping me from building the infra, clearing space and caring for the plants.

We live in the beautiful province of Quebec, in Canada and our growing zone is 5A, with short and humid spring and fall seasons and long-ish humid and hot summers. Our winter is cold and deep buried in snow. That is when nature sleeps.

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Waiting for Spring - In Memoriam of Pierre

 his was not a cold winter, but it wad definitely a snowy one. I am happy that starting in January my garden could rest beautifully protected by the a thick carpet of snow. It took a while, but the s now came. Snow is the healthy insulation that protects northern gardens from the damaging winds and harsh temperatures of winter. I celebrate snow.       2020 was a bountiful year and we were able to preserve a lot of food. As of today we still have stored, canned, dehydrated or frozen: peppers, tomatoes, pumpkin, onion, greens, pesto, green beans, cucumbers. Basically I need to tweak just a few items to have the perfect pantry. I need more carrots, beets and potatoes (it is NEVER enough) and I want to start celleri and corn because... why not? And I garden in just 329 square feet of raised beds and pot! Anyone can have a beautiful harvest.   I guess I can say in five years I learned what we need and how much to plant. That is probably the best lesson you can take f...
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Keeping carrots for the winter... out of the ground!

Ah, the sweetness of carrots pulled off the ground in the cold season! Especially as some snow starts to accumulate on the ground, making the days whiter and the carrot tops so apparent, somewhat crystallized, mildly flopped. A treat for someone like me, raised in a southern country, who never ate sweet carrots her entire life. Well, in our Quebec reality, though, there comes a time, usually in November, where the ground is frozen solid a good half feet, until it finally freezes for several feet. Getting to my carrots then starts to become an impossible enterprise. This year was rather "funny": harsh and cold temperatures in November and milder weather in December.  I knew in early November I had to start a remediation plan for the remaining carrots. Some of the harvest went straight into packets in the fridge, where we would consume them in the following two or three weeks following. Our carrot bed was not a massive success this year, but it did yi...
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For the love of garlic

Between July and August I have one of the happiest moments of all in my gardening life: harvesting garlic. The beautiful plants are now less vigorous and clearly signalling hidden gems await buried under the soil. Hands down, garlic is my single most beloved crop. I love to cook with it, I love its shape, the colours, the smell, the taste. I love planting it, I love seeing it poke through the soil as one of the earliest signs of life in spring. It is a beautiful once it is stored somewhere, be it braided, in baskets, wherever. I mean, just google it and see for yourself! Be used to just have some of your garlic lying around and ready to cook! My first garlic attempt was on fall 2017 and I had built a brand new raised bed, 2 feet in height, and garlic was the plant to open the season on that bed, being planted in late October. I planted a shy amount or Wrenglers Russian and Inchellium Red, from Boundary Garlic Farm . They are extremely specialized offering a great variety,...
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