This weekend I took the very first step in having my own garden.

Yesterday morning I went to the City of Toronto Commissioners Transfer Station and picked up two totes of leaf compost. Compost improves the quality of soil by improving its structure and texture and enabling it to better retain nutrients, moisture, and air. And best of all, it was free! Yay!



This morning I bought some potting soil, little peat pots and tomato, zucchini, green bean and cucumber as well as some everlasting pea lathyrus and wildflower seeds. While I would have rather made the potting soil and harvested the vegetable seeds myself, I didn't want to bite off more than I could chew to start. Imagine my disappointment when I found the tomato seeds were double packaged...

The seeds were small, but it still seemed silly.

Because I had no real idea what I was doing, I generally followed the directions on the little pots. I started by mixing the potting soil and compost in about a 50/50 mix and filled the little pots. I then 'watered' them to the point the sides of the pots were wet.

Dry and filled

I then put 3 or 4 seeds in each pot, covered them with more soil/compost mixture and watered them thoroughly.

These are four of the everlasting pea seeds (if you can find them)

Covered with soil

Watered thoroughly

I have them all stored in the lid of a rubbermaid on top of my book shelf for now. They're supposed to stay warm until they germinate. Then I'll have to find  them a spot in the sun so they can grow until I put them into the ground.


I'm probably about a month behind on this process, but better late than never. Keep your fingers crossed! (and stay tuned)