As evidenced by the jaunty video I am sharing with you today, the majority of my time in the greenhouse these days is spent playing a horticultural Tetris game trying to make room for my ever growing vegetables. Today, I potted twenty-five cucumbers into 4 inch pots, and it was a struggle finding any room for them at all. Someone (E) should remind me in January when I am planting little tiny seeds that they will very soon grow up to be big tall plants. The greenhouse is bursting. The plant sale/garden party is two weeks away and, honestly, I will be glad to turn my babies over to their new families. I worry so much that something terrible is going to happen. What if I fall on them or lean on them or somehow find another unique way to murder them? There are 293 plants currently thriving, 73 of which are for me. How many will survive two more weeks?

The apple branches were still scattered around the lane after this year’s pruning attempt, in January, so it seemed like a good idea to use them as stakes for the tomatoes that are getting so big. I noticed today one of the branches has taken root and is growing leaves. That seems an easy way to propagate apples. Sign me up!

When not in the greenhouse, I am designing the new garden, by the playground, where the studio sat before the fire. It may look like I am doing nothing as I swing on the swing set with two Austrians and a husband working beside me, but it takes a lot of work to plan where I am going to put all the plants shared with me over the years and saved for just this day. A Hazelnut tree from Leslie and Colin, Rhodos from Lynne, Climbing Hydrangea from SoHo, Ornamental grasses from Marion, and climbing roses from Kathryn, to name just a few. For years, cuttings and divisions have been taken and saved for a garden I never knew I would be able to create.

For two years I have waited to share a song I found on the internet with you. Today’s video seemed the appropriate time. Enjoy.

Back in the nineties I had a boss who we can call Pat for the sake of simplicity. Pat was living near Granville Island around Christmas time and feeling sad that one of her children would be away for the holidays travelling in Asia. As she walked through the market she ran into a young man wearing a backpack, buying food at one of the stalls. She got to talking to the fellow and discovered he was going to be in Vancouver away from home for Christmas for the first time in his young life. Pat invited him to join her family for Christmas dinner.

After the fire last year, and following health related issues, we fell far behind on all the chores that needed to be completed. There was no room at the top of the list for any more urgent items as everything needed to be done sooner, rather than later. Just the firewood alone waiting to be split was overwhelming.

My friend here on the island had decided to join a work exchange program where one can host travelers from anywhere in the world and, in return for room and board, the guests would work 4-5 hours per day, on mutually agreed upon chores. The program is called Workaway and you can host people to help you with everything from wood splitting to sheep herding; from childcare to housecleaning or window washing. These opportunities are posted for free by hosts all over the world and the travelers pay to have access to the host profiles. With accommodation being the most expensive part of travelling, the program enables visitors to visit countries they might not otherwise be able to afford to visit, in return for a few hours of labor.

We signed up in an effort to get some much needed help and make a healthy dent in our to do list. One is expected to write an honest profile about your house, the accommodation you will provide and the work expected. The travelers are also expected to write an honest profile about their skill set and what kind of help they can provide. With everyone hopefully being honest, you end up with a match and invitations are offered and accepted.

In the spirit of honesty for example, in my profile, I admit that cooking isn’t my thing but we are happy to stock the fridge and pantry with any reasonable items.

Our first Workaways arrived last week. They are an Austrian couple who have visited eleven countries in the last ten months and are now on their way home. They are loving the life here so much they have extended their stay for an extra week. Honestly, I think they are a bit tired from their travels and this is the perfect place to rejuvenate. They use our kayaks and bikes to explore the island on their off hours or sit on the deck watching for whales while sipping wine exchanging stories with us. In the meantime my garden has been weeded, a large pile of firewood has been split, the new fenced garden next to the workshop is almost finished, the cedar siding has been stained and we have been treated to three Austrian dinners.

We are so loving the experience that I searched for more workaways to come this summer. I was in the garden when I received a request from a couple in Lithuania and I wrote a lovely letter back explaining in detail what our life is like and emphasized that there are no stores or young people, etc. and then I pressed send. I checked the letter in my outbox on the program app and, what went instead of my intelligent sounding letter, was a letter that said “Thank you for the love”. What the actual hell? Needless to say, it didn’t work out with that couple.

We have arranged for two more groups to come over the summer, one from France and one from Germany. I think that will be it for this year as our chore list should be substantially reduced. We will probably plan accordingly for a workaway visit every spring. This program could very well be a game changer which allows us to stay here forever without killing E’s back.

The best part of the whole concept is the chance to invite the world to visit here now that we are unable to travel. Our Austrians, as I like to call them, have just been a joy to host and have added an air of positivity to our days.

As we visit with them over glasses of wine and bowls of chocolate covered almonds I am reminded of Pat’s words from the nineties. She wanted to treat the young traveler she met as she would hope her children were treated by the people they met when they were

on the road

I have been able to get some pretty good ideas from the various Facebook gardening groups I have joined over the years. The blogs I follow, too, have given me some useful tips. Often I pass them on to you after first trying them in my garden, like I did with the suggestion of watering vegies through the abs pipes.

This week I was given a digital thermometer for the greenhouse, which I had seen used in a greenhouse on a vlog. It is really cool to now sit in the living room and be able to monitor the temperature and relative humidity in the greenhouse. There is the ability to monitor the historical temperatures too. I don’t think it cost very much (40.00) but could be really useful going forward to track the temperature highs and lows as we move through the seasons. Apparently, I am easily amused.

We had our grandson here for the last two weeks, so very little was accomplished other than watching the tomatoes grow in the greenhouse and lamenting the lack of progress of my squashes and cucumbers. I ended up bringing them back down to the house on the heat mat and that seems to be helping them along.

We had our annual visit to the transplant clinic in Vancouver last week and I am happy to report that E sailed through all of the testing and we have returned to the island with a clean bill of health. 2023 is thankfully in the past!

He is progressing as well as can be expected with the roofing on his workshop, considering a two year old was running around his feet. I would imagine things shall go fairly quickly over the next couple of months as we concentrate all of our efforts on getting some major chores knocked of the urgent list.

I have to tell you about this really fun squash I am going to try to grow this year. I heard about it from one of my favorite gardening blogs (Jacques in the Garden). The Tromboncino is like a zucchini but instead of all the seeds you would find in a typical zucchini there are only seeds in the very blossom tip. Aside from looking like so much fun to grow, it is also supposed to be delicious. Again, I am easily amused.

So you know how Facebook suggests groups for you based on their perception of your interests, based on your searches? Today, while I was reading the posts on a vegetable gardening Facebook group I received this notification of a group that “they” thought would be of interest.

Is it just me or should

I be offended?

We have settled into a great routine while our grandson visits for two weeks. E works on his shop project in the morning while I watch our treasured guest, and in the afternoon I work in my greenhouse and leave E and babe to nap. By 3pm we are ready to regroup for playtime and walks. It works well.

That said, I do not understand how the young families with children on this island get anything accomplished or, for that matter, any sleep. Because, if they are preoccupied with child minding during the day, surely they are up all night completing chores. I can see my young mama friend planting her vegies in the dark. For E and I at this late stage of our lives we just keep our grandson’s hours. He goes to bed at 8 and then we go to bed. He sleeps for 12 hours, but we get up at 5 am to warm up the house and have our coffee. We can make it work because nothing on our todo list is urgent and there is nothing we would rather do than spend time with a grandchild. But, as a life plan, I do not understand how the young families living here full time, cope. Maybe that is just it, they are younger, much younger than we are.

Pollen season has arrived so we have had to close our rain water catchment system. Nothing worse than pollen getting into the tanks and turning our water to sludge. There is no filter known to man that can clean sludge. So for the next two months, there will be no rain water added to the storage water tanks. With any luck there will be a big rain in June to fill them to the brim again.

I power washed half the deck last week. Yikes, that was a hard job for a woman with no wrist bones. On the upside, the deck looks better, even though it has made it very clear that that it needs to be stained this summer. I have added that chore to the list.

I have potted up 100 tomatoes and they appear to be thriving in the greenhouse. There are fifty more to come but those seeds arrived late from the supplier so are very far behind the rest. Neighbours have been donating one gallon pots to help me pot up my addiction. It isn’t just tomatoes now, though, as I have lots and lots of baby roses that appear to be doing well. It is all so much fun for me and again worth mentioning that although I always had a garden I never grew vegetables or knew anything about propagation until I came here and began to experiment.

But isn’t that what retirement should be? The kids are raised and gone so time can be spent facing new challenges, meeting new friends, occasionally socializing with our grown children and seizing opportunities for the grandchildren to know us.

We went to town last week to pick up our grandson at the ferry but were met with increased traffic on the waters at the south end of the island.

Tonight’s sunset was, as the saying goes, red sky at night,

sailor’s delight. Indeed