Book series offers practical advice on prairie gardening
As spring has finally arrived, all those Calgarians who have been occupied with sourdough starters and other new pastimes are turning their attention to the yard. It’s slightly too early to plant delicate crops outdoors but you can certainly get a head start with seedlings inside.
To that end, two Calgary gardeners have teamed up on books geared toward prairie gardeners and the unique challenges experienced here.
Both master gardeners, Janet Melrose and Sheryl Normandeau have released the first two books in the Guides for the Prairie Gardener series.
The Prairie Gardener’s Go-to for Vegetables and The Prairie Gardener’s Go-to for Pests and Diseases are Q&a-style resources meant for gardening zones 2, 3 and 4 (all of central and southern Alberta).
“It’s not Calgary-centric per se. Sheryl comes from Grande Prairie and I’ve gardened on three continents: from the Caribbean as a child, to England and Edmonton, which is another world when it comes to gardening,” said Melrose, a horticultural therapist and educator through her company, Calgary’s Cottage Gardener. Her co-author, Normandeau is also a horticulturist, gardening author and founder of the Alberta Gardening Facebook group.
“It’s Canadian prairies centric. Calgary does run as a theme through it in that if you can garden here, you can garden anywhere.”
As anyone who’s tried to grow tomatoes in hail-prone Alberta or nurture corn through cold rains, finicky weather poses many challenges in the prairies.
The Prairie Gardener guides offer tips on planning, planting and growing gardens, and troubleshooting pests and diseases. Geared toward both newbies with a million questions and experienced gardeners looking for some tips, the series has answers on everything from seeds and soil to trees, weather, pests and pots.
“One of the reasons we wanted to write these books is we get so many questions through our work. ‘Why did this happen?’ ‘How do I deal with that?’ We wanted to write about the things that people are interested in. It’s meant to be relevant to all kinds of gardeners,” said Melrose.
The Prairie Gardener’s Go-to for Vegetables covers common questions about cultivation, preventing frost and drought damage, harvesting and storage.
Learn when and how to transplant seedlings, how to prune tomatoes and how to minimize problems like woody radishes.
The Prairie Gardener’s Go-to for Pests & Diseases covers all the usual suspects such as weeds, insects, birds, rodents and the neighbour’s roaming cat.
The book offers solutions to a variety of issues plaguing your little patch of produce.
The books are available at Pages on Kensington, Shelf Life Books, Chapters Indigo and Amazon.ca.
There are also plans for further books in the series, potentially covering perennials, small space gardening, herbs, fruits and berries and even lawns.
“Having a series of books allows us to evolve,” said Melrose.
“Every six months I find something new and that informs my gardening as well, so we’ll probably see an evolution happening throughout the series as well.”