Weird Weather in Canada

We woke up this morning at 6 to find the house toasty warm and all our blankets tossed off the bed. Outside it's a snow melting plus 8 degrees. Weird for mid January. So I went searching around for the weather forecasts in Alberta and BC where our family lives. Alberta is experiencing cold weather into the minus 30's. BRRR! And Vancouver Island, where our kids are hoping to have an early start to the growing season, is blanketed in snow and expecting more in the coming 24 hours apparently.

I realize that we'll return to seasonal weather soon, and knowing my luck we'll get a cold wet spring, so I'm enjoying this brief window of warm weather while I can. I've got my garden planned out in it's most basic form and some of the local seed companies have really different breeds of tomatoes available this year so we're going to experiment with tomatoes, peanuts and some other weird and wonderful things I'm sure. Budget allowing.

I'm hoping to be able to sell some tomato plants at the Farmers Market in the Mall this Spring so I'll need to have the seeds soon in time for early planting. Since I'm not sure that I can have a heated greenhouse set-up outside I'll probably need to get a grow light too and to set it up indoors for at least a part of the time. We'll cross that bridge in a few weeks, it's still too early to start them anyways but I can at least get the supplies ready.

Space for our garden isn't a problem...we've got room both at our house and at a friends acreage. Managing a garden that's in two locations can be a bit tricky so we've got main crops and large quantities at the big garden and our little home garden will have more flowers, salad greens and ornamentals. We've got plans to create some privacy fencing around the yard using tall sunflowers, pole beans, sweetpeas and even a heritage corn breed that can reach 11 feet tall. It should be an interesting year in the garden as we start to learn about growing a garden in a maritime climate on the east coast. We'll record it all for you of course so that you have an idea of what it's like to grow here. I think we might even get the kids to record the daily rainfall and weather in general during the summer.

Kate says her tummy feels weird...she can't say if it's a bad weird or a good weird but she doesn't feel right so she's staying home today. All she knows is that her tummy feels strange. That's part of our problem with Kate...you can ask her if she feels sick and is going to throw up, she'll say I don't know, and then a minute later she's sick. Poor kid. I hope she feels better soon. I sent her back to bed and I'll check on her in a little while.

Look for an interesting list of some of the seed companies in Canada later today.