A vegetable garden in Quebec

Last summer, we were here for 2 short months, barely enough time to clean up the overgrown garden and plant a quick vegetable garden of greens.  Here's a post from late June about a delightful harvest of greens.

This summer, we're here for four months, so I'm being a bit more ambitious, and thanks to my gardening companion, have a wonderful expanded bed, in addition to the large container next to the back deck and my wooden boxes.

Wonderful to get them planted in their first stage today, with transplants and seeding.  It's such a short season here, it's interesting to get an idea of what people are planting (tomatoes seem huge, but they're apparently harvesting green tomatoes ahead of the first frost and storing them -- ripening as needed, according to my English library friend). I woiuldn't have thought of that.  She also said that traditional Quebecois vegetable gardeners wouldn't be growing what I think of as cool-season greens -- kale and collards-- although there are lots of broccoli and cauliflower transplants available.

So I planted transplants of broccoli (something hard to grow in Asheville in the shoulder seasons), lots of lettuce, a bok choi, some kohlrabi and cabbage, and then seeded beets, spinach, and a bush-variety of sugar snap peas.  There's kale, mesclun mix, baby butternut squash, and pole beans to come, sowing from seed, along with a few other things.  (I may need more gardening space!)

the container bed near the back deck

another view

my new vegetable bed, thanks to my gardening companion

a pole bean trellis that I created from old fence rails and jute twine