This first video from Gardening in Canada is a bit more generic – a look at what gardening supplies are worth getting at Dollarama.

For those of you in the US, I’ve been told that your Dollarama stores have a LOT more than ours do, but I’m sure there are at least some overlap.

Personally, among the things I’ve found there that I’m really happy with are their ground staples, the wire twist tie spools with built in wire cutter, and their metal stakes. Especially the metal stakes! We’ve also tried their “instant raised garden” which, while somewhat small and quite shallow, turned out to be remarkably durable. Same with some grow bags we got from there. They also have a type of spray bottle suitable for misting plants that are really good quality, but I find they tend not to be in stock as often as the cheap versions. We can’t seem to have enough of those, both for use as misters for plants, and on the stream setting to deter cats from things!

This next video is from MI Gardener. It’s not relevant to most of us in Canada right now, but we’ll be there in a few weeks!

I hope.

Talk about intense planting! The concept of making sure there is no exposed soil is similar to how square foot gardening is planned out. He’s just doing rows instead of squares.

I do find it amusing to see him out there planting, while it’s snowing! Of what he’s planting here, the only things we will be doing are carrots and spinach. I think we’ll be skipping the beets and radishes until we get further ahead in improving our soil, as the last few years have not been good for either of them. We also will probably not do lettuces, though we should have some self sown greens show up. We found they got bitter very quickly for some reason, even though they weren’t bolting.

With some of our raised beds, they are sheltered enough and get enough warm sun hitting them that we might be able to plant cool weather crops nice and early. Especially if I can find some of the plastic drop cloth GIC mentioned, to help warm the soil up faster.

Looking at our 10 day forecast, we’re supposed to get a bit of snow tonight, and the high over the next few days are supposed to hover just above freezing, but a week from now we’re supposed to go into the double digits. Not only that, but next weekend, our overnight lows are supposed to stay above freezing! Just for a couple of nights, though. After that, the overnight lows are expected to stay below freezing until May. Most things can’t be planted until the overnights lows consistently stay 6C/43F or warmer. Of course, it would be better to plant based on soil temperature, but we don’t have a soil thermometer.

I am so itching to get to work out there!!!

The Re-Farmer