Growing a Garden with Catherine and Phil

Please welcome my friends and Guest Bloggers, Catherine and Phil. They love their little urban garden and I was so happy when they agreed to share about how they grow a Winnipeg garden.


Joyful Planting

During a pandemic, it can be scary; in order to live through these scary times, one should focus on keeping healthy and protect yourself by sanitizing and social distancing. It's not easy as I'm a frontline worker at a Personal Care Home. I have to be extra careful, but in my house, it's hard to do. We try our best to make sure everything is sanitary.

Our home consists of my husband Philippe, my fur babies, Buddy the cat and Bella, the dog and me Catherine. Phil has the green thumb of the family. Phil grew up in the country and worked on a farm as a young teenager. Myself, city girl, I have a little green thumb. I've watched my parents' garden, and they taught me how to care for plants inside and out.

 I would help put seeds in the soil, pick out the weeds, and water the garden every chance I got. However, if there was a bee or wasp around, I'd be running for my life, leaving the water hose running waiting until that bee goes away. I did enjoy watching our plants grow through the years, especially my parent's apple tree.

Phil and I planted a garden since the day we met 13 years ago and through almost ten years of marriage. Anyways, due to the crisis, the world is going through now why not take the time to plant a beautiful life in the garden, it's the best place to spend time with each other.

Phil searched on the internet and found a way to plant seeds in a Ziplock bag. All you need is a tray, spray bottle, scissors, soil, paper towel, tweezers, planting containers and planting seeds.
All you have to do is you take a paper towel that's been cut to the size of the ziplock bag, spray the paper towel lightly with water. Then fold your paper towel in half with the seeds inside and insert it into the Ziplock with delicacy. The next step is to have an area in front of your window that gets the most sunlight and leaving on a flat surface, or you can get a thick string with clothespins hanging it across your window. Let it sit there for 4 to 6 days, checking if the roots are starting to grow.

Then when you notice that the root is growing, use tweezers or your lovely fingers to lightly grab the seed with the root. With caution, plant the seed into 3/4 cup of soil in any plastic or recycle containers of your choice that have holes on the bottom. Dig a little hole in the soil to add your seed with root facing the bottom, cover lightly with soil and spray with water gently over the top. Add the seeds by separating them a couple of millimetres apart.

Then each day in the morning you should continue to spray it with water as it grows. Make sure you put your lovely creation by the window to get sunlight for your garden to grow. It has been a wonderful experience growing our lovely garden every spring.

As time passes, your plants will grow. Once the risk of frost is gone, it is time to transplant your plant into your outside garden. Take your container with your baby plant and move it to the garden.

Dig a hole approximately the same size of the containers and gently remove the plant. Insert the plant with all its wonderful roots into the new hole that you have just dug. It's ok if you take a lot of soil with you as sometimes it's gets stuck to the roots. Once inserted into the new hole in the garden, bring more soil to the new plant to make sure that it's nice and full in the hole. Add water, and enjoy watching your wonderful creation grow.

After a few weeks of watering daily, your plant will grow. With plenty of sunshine, water, love and even some great companionship, your plant will grow big and tall and eventually will create beautiful flowers.

If you are planting flowers, enjoy your beautiful creation with a wide arrangement of colours and, of course, the smell. Flowers can give out lovely aromas, and every flower has a different scent, so make sure to try many different varieties.

If you are planting fruits or vegetables, your flower after a few weeks will slowly start to create a little spot. The petals from the flower will fall, but don't be sad because that little spot that appears will continue to grow and, after some time, will grow into a fruit or vegetable. You can slowly watch all your hard work grow into some wonderful food that you can soon enjoy.

After a few weeks of watering daily, your plant will grow. With plenty of sunshine, water, love and even some great companionship, your plant will grow big and tall and eventually will create beautiful flowers.

Once the fruit or vegetables are fully grown, you can finally harvest. Remove with care and enjoy the fruit of your labour.

Sometimes your plant will die, and sometimes it won't grow, but don't be disappointed because that happens to all of us.

All plants have different aspects to them that help them grow better. We learn a little more every year on how to plant better, and with patience, love and care, we will slowly become wonderful gardeners, and that will help us go through life.




Story and Photography by
Catherine Molina-Ross and Philippe Ross