Gardening

Gill in her garden	Gardening in Newfoundland is not easy, the season is short and the soil is poor. In both homes we owned there we grew some vegetables and planted fruit bushes. In St. John's the garden was very overgrown when we purchased our home, but with a couple of years clearing we discovered a wonderful "old" garden with many unusual perennials.
		Our yard before we started work

When we first moved to BC we just put down some grass that never did very well. One day I found Chris out with a roto-tiller as the lawn mower had broken down – he tilled in all the “grass” and now we have a garden that has been featured on two garden tours as fund-raisers – for the Vancouver Island Symphony and the local SPCA chapter.

We now have a series of "rooms" with fencing between each area. In front of our house we have perennials and bulbs. Spring daffodils and tulips are wonderfully colourful. Across the driveway we have the "orchard" with a plum tree, a cherry tree, a pear tree and an apple tree. There is a winding path around with gravel and more perennials.

Our vegetable garden

The arbour with plants

Behind our home we have three "rooms" - two have raised beds for vegetables and fruit and the last we call our Japanese garden. This is a tranquil area with a fig tree, a large oak tree, wisteria, several clematis and a mock orange, all planted since we came here.

The arbour

Chris was raised on a farm in Devon and has more knowledge in his little finger than I can ever hope to have. He would love to have a tractor! The amount of produce that we pick and freeze means that we had to purchase a second freezer in 2006! Both are over 20 cubic feet and both are almost full. We have raspberries, strawberries, black currants, logan berries, tae berries, figs, grapes, plums, apples, pears, but the birds get most of the cherries. Our vegetables include at least 8 different salad varieties, herbs, leeks, beans, snow and sugar snap peas, garlic ...

Our front yard in summer