Shawn, the TV personality, is at it again… this time in an interview with CTV News Montreal’s Matt Grillo to discuss the state of the 2023 gardening season and the cooler temperature we’re having so far this year.
Check out it below!
This spring brings a surprise visit from our friends over at CBC!
Kwabena Oduro and Shawn meet at the Urban Seedling garden center and discuss 5 things you need to know about gardening in spring 2023:
Our very own Shawn appeared on CBC’s Let’s Go with Sabrina Marandola this week to discuss recent trends in grocery prices and growing you own food!
Tune in below to hear the segment.
We will be offering an early bird discount of 10% for returning residential replant clients that book before April 1st. You can contact us to book your Urban Seedling organic vegetable garden today! The first step will be to make your 50% deposit to reserve your priority planting.
For the DIYers out there, now is a great time to start planning your garden. Our organic seed stocks are replenished and we have guides available to help you get started.
Here at the greenhouse, we are looking to start our sprouts over the coming weeks to aim for a mid April plantings. The weather has a mind of its own though, so we’ll be in touch again soon as the season progresses.
We look forward to gardening with you!
The Urban Seedling Team
We’re featured in a blog about urban agriculture in Esplanade Quebec this week along with some other great startups.
Check out the article (in french) here:
Dear Gardeners:
Things are returning to normal and we are fully open once again!
We continue to keep an eye on safety recommendations and will update our operations as necessary.
Come by the garden center to get your spring gardening gear ready or visit our shop online and find what you need there to create your perfect garden escape!
Happy Gardening!
The Urban Seedling Team
UPDATE (2022): We are back to normal operations, with a continued emphasis on operating in a responsible manner. (Masking and distancing as needed)
Dear Gardeners:
As an agricultural service, we are permitted to continue helping you to grow food.
Safety is our primary concern. To keep you and our staff safe:
We will do our very best to provide the materials and services you need to get your gardens going.
Keep calm and garden on!
Shawn Manning
This will allow us to enjoy the workshops outdoors in what will hopefully be some early Spring weather! Follow the event page to keep up with new information and take care of yourselves!
It’s getting close to that time of year. We will be doing the rounds of all the gardens, who have requested our closing service, to clean-up and plant some garlic before the winter. If you have not opted for the service this year and would like to be included in our closing schedule, it’s not too late. We are planning to start closing our gardens around the last week of October and the first week of November, so get in touch with us and we’ll be happy to help you put your garden to bed.
We also still have plenty of fish emulsion fertilizer here at the shop if you are closing out your garden yourself and need to give your soil an extra boost.
Whether you have a closing service or not, it’s time to start thinking about harvesting the last of the food. In the next couple of weeks you’ll want to root through all your plants and squirrel away whatever you can find. It’s time to stock up on the last of the deliciousness and start making jams, chutneys, sauces and soups that can last you for months. Don’t let those still-green tomatoes go to waste either, there are plenty of recipes you can find online for green tomato relishes, salsas, and ketchups that you’ve got to try. Kale goes really nicely with parsnips in a thick and cream potage and those peppers can be pretty nicely pickled. T’is the season for creativity in the kitchen!
It is a well-known fact that children love getting their hands dirty! With vegetable gardens in their schools, children have an exceptional opportunity to learn where their food comes from while developing an interest in growing fresh vegetables. It offers a chance for participatory education in the context of outdoor activities!
The Urban Seedling workshops offer participating schools a complete service from planning, construction, planting and maintenance of their garden. Through this program, we aim to fully involve students and teachers in workshops that focus on vegetable gardening. In addition, we offer summer maintenance services to keep your garden healthy!
We can also customize the workshops offered to meet the wants and needs of your establishment, whether by installing indoor growing solutions, offering additional workshops or proposing new workshop ideas (parent-child workshops, workshops for teachers, etc.).
A vegetable garden is a wonderful way to build relationships with the community, between parents and teachers, and between the children themselves.
1. Garden closing and garlic planting – Late October.
2. Biodiversity: Beneficial insects in the ecosystem – Mid November.
3. Composting: Living soils workshop – Mid December.
4. Garden Planning: Kids plan out what to plant in the gardens – Mid February.
5. Seed starting: Kids set up the system and plant seedlings for their gardens – Mid March.
6. Garden planting: Kids plant their seedlings in the gardens outside – Beginning of May
7. Garden planting and Maintenance: Kids plant summer seedlings outside, learn about garden maintenance tasks – Beginning of June.
8. Harvest party: Harvest all of the vegetables in the vegetable garden and make a huge communal salad – Late September.
The order of the workshops can be easily changed depending on when you choose to implement the program in your school.
We have been getting through our planting and plant delivery service for the fall season. While we do our best to make sure no one is left out it can always happen that a garden may slip through the cracks. If you have a fall planting or plant delivery included in you package and we have not yet contacted you to confirm a date, please get in touch with us at info@urbanseeling.com and we will schedule your garden right away.
We don’t want anyone to miss out on this last season of gardening!
For anyone who is wondering what gets put in the garden at this time of year, I have your answer. Just like in the spring, the veggies that really love the cooler weather are mainly the leafy greens. That’s right! You may think salad season is over, but think again. Kale, Swiss-chard, bok-choy, spinach, and all the other leafy greens love this time of year. You can also seed radishes during these cooler days. It’s not over yet folks!
While planting may not be over, you still need to make sure you harvest as much as you can from your fruiting vegetables that are still producing. We are looking at warmer weather next weekend but you want to make sure you don’t forget about your peppers and tomatoes before the frost comes. Harvesting is as important a maintenance job as weeding and watering but so much more rewarding when you get to literally enjoy eating the fruits of your labour.
It’s gotten really hot out there, so while you’re hanging out at the pool or finding other watery ways of keeping cool, don’t forget your hard working plant friends in the garden. They are going to need some extra love with the garden hose at this point of the season.
Can’t be around enough to make sure your garden is hydrated? No problem, you can always use a watering timer to help you out with that.
Have you noticed brown leathery spots appearing on the bottoms of your tomatoes or peppers? This is called blossom end rot and means there is a calcium deficiency in your soil. Sudden extreme heat and growth spurts can cause your plants to redirect nutrients to the leaves, essentially starving the fruit. Heavy rainfall can also wash the calcium away from plant roots. The solution is simply to add fertilizers that are rich in calcium to replenish the nutrient content of your soil and remove all the affected fruits.
With the hot weather and the productive season of your vegetable garden gaining momentum, you may also begin to see pests that think your lovely healthy plants look pretty tasty. Slugs, snails, aphids, leaf-hoppers and other pesky bugs can be controlled by dusting your plants and soil with diatomaceous earth. It is important to do this during a period of dryness to avoid it being washed away and wasted by rainy days. While this is an excellent natural repellent to damaging insects, it can also keep away insects that are beneficial to the garden, so be sure not to over-use it.