The Alberta climate is a special mosaic of misery for anyone who loves consistency and stability. Temperatures oscillate between boiling hot and bitter cold, sometimes in a matter of hours. Precipitation ranges from sleet to hail to rain to furious snowstorms, and, for gardeners, it’s more than just barometric pressure headaches and rain cheques on plans. It’s a short growing season, with ritualistic old wives’ tales on when to plant. It’s a great guessing game that could all come crashing down if it decides to snow after the May long weekend.
Author and horticulturist Janet Melrose says “There’s been May long weekends when you’re in a parka, and May long weekends when you’re in your bathing suit,” and that the familiar metric of planting on these dates isn’t necessarily going to lead to a successful garden.
Melrose’s Co-author, Sheryl Normandeau, agrees, saying, “Don’t think of it in terms of dates — think of it in terms of conditions.”
For example, this year, Melrose says she planted carrots in two beds, each one week apart from the other. While the first bed she planted is doing well, the second is still seriously struggling, with only a week’s time as the variance. “It can be that type of timing,” says Melrose.
In their book series, Guides for the Prairie Gardener, Melrose and Normandeau answer all the questions that the two experts could think of when it came to horticulture on the prairies. “A lot of it is literally, how do we garden in our climate?” says Melrose. The books also cover information related to planting and growing in Alberta’s heavy clay soil, and the authors make some ecological arguments.
Both Normandeau and Melrose are practitioners of integrated pest management in their gardening, which takes a more “holistic” approach to dealing with weeds and insects.
“We are not our grandmother’s gardeners by any stretch of the imagination, so [we are] trying to convince people with humour and information that there is a better way to garden that’s less impactful on our environment,” says Melrose.
Instead of relying heavily on pesticides, Melrose and Normandeau argue to understand your garden’s ecosystem more intimately, right down to the intricacies of the “soil life.”
“You have to think about the soil as sort of the backbone of everything,” says Normandeau. “It’s the foundation, so our gardens are successful when we have excellent healthy soil.”
Get your green read on at Audreys Books.
