Welcome to My Garden Obsession!

Hi! My name is Martha. I live in Montreal with my family and I am completely obsessed with gardening. I spend much of my time wandering around and inspecting my plants. I must walk it three times a day in the summer. I have more photos of flowers and my garden than my own children on my phone.

Here is my backyard garden:

It’s a decent size for an urban home. I grow flowers, shrubs and some vegetables with varying degrees of success.

My backyard is south facing, so I get full afternoon sun. It gets very hot, so anything shade loving does not fare well. I’m very lucky that our water table is quite high, so I don’t need to water my garden beds that are in the ground. 

The soil on the two sides of my garden is quite different. On one side, it is very wet and soggy and the soil is more like clay. The other is fairly normal.

My Garden Boxes

My lovely and very tolerant husband has built me a number of different boxes and raised beds for my garden. Two, he even assembled on our flat roof.

These are my boxes in the backyard. I reserve the largest one for vegetables, but the other two have shrubs and flowers:

I also have a few rooftop boxes. I plant only vegetables up here. I do not have a good watering system for these beds, so it is a real chore to keep these veggies hydrated:

And this is the vegetable box that is also in the garden:

My Gardening Challenges

My biggest obstacles are time. And the groundhog, Sam, who lives under my backyard neighbour’s shed. Last year, Sam ate all my herbs and my cucumbers. He also threatened some of my native perennials. He seemed to find my asters and coneflowers particularly tasty! He’s the reason some of my plants are surrounded by dollar store fences. Maybe this year I’ll find a more elegant solution.

I also have to contend with a 70-lb dog and young boys who are obsessed with sports. My dog is older and slower moving, but he does still like to chase squirrels and Sam. I try not to notice the balls being kicked into my garden beds, but I can hear the distinctive sound of a ball flattening plants a mile a way. I swear sometimes they aim for them!

Garden Experiments

I am always looking for new ideas and I love to experiment in my garden. These experiments start from the seed, as do many of my plants! I started experimenting with starting seeds indoors in 2020, like so many other people. Honestly, I have been surprisingly successful.

This year, in addition to starting my vegetable seeds indoor, I am trying winter sowing for the first time, mostly perennials.

My ultimate goal is to have a garden that blooms from May through November in Zone 5b. Every year I get closer to my goal. Last summer I was quite pleased with how parts of my garden looked, but I still find there is a gap between spring flowers and early summer. 

What I Offer

Join me as I try to curate the garden of my dreams. Come here for real-world gardening experience, but don’t expect too much! I have no formal training. The best I can offer you is to share my adventures and what works and doesn’t for me. Let’s learn together.

The only asset I bring is my passion. I love gardening and learning about gardening and talking about gardening.

Also, be warned – I get lazy. Life takes over, weeds grow, plants that need to be divided aren’t. My tomato plants would give an attentive gardener nightmares! Just about anything I grow needs to be tolerant to neglect.

Maybe this blog will keep me accountable. I hope it will provide you with an interesting story and lots of ideas.