A New Home, New Potager Garden, New Garden Zone

This was originally posted on the old blog on October 7th, 2022, a mere three months after we had moved in. We made so many change right away. Started making the overgrown backyard into the organic potager style food garden that I need to grow food and make the garden usable for our family.

When we set out to do this move, I knew it would be a lot of work. We have moved many times as hubby was in the army throughout most of our married life. Lots of moves, lots of houses, lots of renovations, lots of yardscapes. This is now house number 7 for us. Dare I hope for no more moves in the future?

What I forgot about is all the decisions that have to made when one moves. It is not just the physical moving of stuff, unpacking boxes, which is draining in itself (maybe because we are older now), but is also the endless daily minutia that sucks the time out of your days and drains your energy, too. I am pretty tired of running around to pick up things, and have decision-making burn out. I know it all seems exciting, to make changes, start anew, but there are so many daily decisions to make that I am just a bit frazzled by it all.

Things are finally settling down, time to start dreaming and planning the fun stuff for the home and yard. I have so many different things to tell you about, all the changes in the new potager, the house, everything, but will start with why’s and what’s in this first ever new location blog post.

Long garden beds full of food and flowers, with two greenhouses behind. — *The potager and greenhouses that we left behind, on the island.*

We left our lovely acreage on Vancouver Island, left the lovely yard, the wee garden shop, the greenhouse, the ngp business, the zone 7 garden, all the lovely neighbours and friends in the area. It was such a hard decision to make, a huge move. I loved living on the beautiful island, the temperate weather. I even loved all the winter rains.

We are now living in Central Alberta, in a small town. between Calgary and Edmonton.

A yard with a very large spruce tree in the middle, a pond, some amoeba gardens,, and a lot of rocks. — *The left side (north) side of the new backyard when we moved in. Lots has happened since then, will fill you in on the changes.*

This is kinda/sorta my ‘hometown’. My family has lived here for over 45 years so although I only spent 2 years here as a teen, I have been back and forth many a time over the years. My brother and his family live here, and mom is still here, too, but is in hospice so not sure how much longer we will have her (we lost mom a few months later, but I got to visit her many times before she passed).

We have bought a very lovely house, a bi-level with laundry and everything upstairs so I hardly ever need to use stairs again. We are making some changes indoors and out, will be posting about all those things. I have the loveliest of neighbours, we get together for coffee once a month for a good natter.

The potential of this yard is amazing. Is a pie shaped lot with a wee front yard and a huge backyard for the new potager. We love this new property. It has so many great positives. The back deck is wonderful, runs most of the way across the back of the house. There is a gorgeous shed, a couple of arbours, an apple tree, a Saskatoon, grape, and rhubarb. It is filled with sunshine.

There is plenty of room for my new potager of 2 (yes!) new greenhouses, raised beds and in ground gardens, more (dwarf) fruit trees, plus still tons of room for the dogs to play, too. Hemingway and Berkeley love their new yard… especially the new sod (insert rolling eyes here).

*The right side of the property (south side) the way it looked just as we started making changes. That huge spruce tree had to go, it took up 1/3 of the good sized backyard.*

The weather here in Innisfail during the summer and fall is very similar to the island, mostly hot and dry but we will get occasional rains here, which rarely happened on the island.

Frost and cold arrives earlier but daytime temps are still lovely in October, and sometimes well into November.

Spring arrives a bit later, so I’ll be planting everything a month later (April/May rather than March/April) than I did on the coast. The daytime temps are often warmer than on the island in spring, but the night time lows are in the minuses.

Winters, however, will be very different in a zone 3! I am hoping that the sunshine offsets the colder temps. Damp west coast weather sets into the bones so that it takes hours to warm up, so maybe this sunshine will be fine??? If not, I will hibernate (hah).

The move was made for a few reasons, of course, but mainly due to my health. I needed a smaller property to care for, something less painful for my broken body. Taking care of the acreage, the house, the yard, and the business was too much physically for me, so I was having to hire more help with the yardwork every year.

It was super hard to find yard help during Covid and it really took its toll on me. So, now we are in a place that is smaller, thus easier to care for, and there is a forced down time when the snow arrives. Will use that downtime to do more writing, crafting, sewing.

A curing pathway with posts and string lights, leading from the gate to the front door of the house. — *The pathway to the house from the street at the acreage. I loved this lighting idea we came up with as our block was pitch black with no streetlights close by.*

I truly loved the Nanaimo chapter of my life and will miss many things about living on that acreage, most especially all that space, but this new adventure, this next chapter in my very storied life. It is going to be great. Different but great.

I hope you all follow along and get some ideas on how to make changes on your potager, whether yours is big like mine used to be, or smaller like it is now. I will be posting about downsizing both house and yard, garden information, organic food growing, and info about growing in different zones.

Check out his new corner of my yard. This is my favourite spot. It has a carpet of thyme, an arbour, an apple tree, and the prettiest vine that changes colour in fall.