What’s Up & Adventures – May 2022

Welcome everyone to the May 2022 recap for the What’s Up & Adventures! Honestly, there’s no adventures at this point. My life is very much just getting ready for the new arrival to our family. Of course, there was 2 little things that did happen which was rather fun but most of it was just trying to do a lot of restructure to our home (which I won’t be showing here) including a lot of deep cleaning throughout the weekends. So, as usual, we will start with some little “adventures” and then hop into the What’s Up portion which should be a lot more entertaining, I suppose.

Annual Garden Haul

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While we struggled in our decision between whether to have a garden or not this year since we have no idea what to expect in the coming summer months, we eventually decided that we would do a little container garden! Its a step down from the normal which would be to raised garden patches but we figured this would at least be in our face and easy to maintain plus when things get hard, we can add self-watering systems to it. Plus, we chose pepper, patio cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, romaine lettuce and leaf lettuce which are all fairly low maintenance from past experience. We did also pick up a rose that has yet to go into the garden. If we do have time though, we are shifting around the berries, notably the blueberries were are getting murdered by these rogue vines that we just can’t seem to get rid of.

Baby Shower

I’m not going to bore everyone with the details of the gifts since we had a little family gathering for the baby shower. The highlight of the day did go to my sister-in-law who made us this beautiful cake from scratch and it took her a whole 4 days to put it together from the cake to the fondant decorations. Its pretty impressive and a lot of appreciation for what she did for us.

WHAT’S UP – MAY 2022

*Highlighted titles are my recommendations*

Books

Currently reading: Nevernight

Not going to lie that reading isn’t on my top priority as I shift back to working from home a little bit more. Plus the wonderful fatigue is back to visit me so its been a little hard to focus. It doesn’t help that I was having a hard time getting into Nevernight so the game plan right now is to put it down and start something else since I wasn’t supposed to but still ended up picking up 2 books as a little treat for myself. I will probably start one of those shortly.

Movies

• Uncharted (2022, Review)
• Lupin the Third: The Castle of Cagliostro (1979, rewatch)
• Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020, Review)
• Only (2019)
• Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind (1984 rewatch)
• SPF-18 (2017)
• Last Moment of Clarity (2010)
• The Outcasts (2017)
• Basic Instinct (1992)
• Kate (2021)
• A Perfect Pairing (2022)
• Agatha Christie’s Crooked House (2017)
• Lie With Me (2005 rewatch, Review)
• Deep Blue Sea 3 (2020)

May has been a decent movie watching month as I got through some of more unknown titles on the list as I continue trying to work through some non-Netflix films in case they happen to leave. Unfortunately, nothing too exciting for the most part although The Outcasts was a pretty fun discovery for a teen coming of age film whereas Last Moment of Clarity was a real disappointment. I did catch up with 2 films that I’ve been meaning to watch for a while: Basic Instinct and Kate and they were pretty good as well. Much like Deep Blue Sea 3 actually was a silly but still rather entertaining sequel compared to the second film (which isn’t that hard to beat since that one was pretty bad).

TV

• Conversations with a Killer: The John Wayne Gacy Tapes (2022)
• Who’s The Murderer (Season 7)
• Love Death + Robots (Season 3, Review)
• Who Rules The World (2022)
• The Circle (Season 4)
• Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Part 1, Review)
• Stranger Things (Season 4 Volume 1)
• Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Part 2)

Currently binging: Yes I Do (Season 3), Infinity and Beyond, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (Part 3)

This past month’s TV adventures has been pretty decent. For the most part everything was very entertaining. With the release of Love Death + Robots Season 3, which was a fun ride and over at Movies and Tea, we’ve already released our latest After Hours episode for it HERE, and then the month ending with Stranger Things Season 4 Volume 1 (2 more episodes to follow on July 1st), its been one heck of a trip. The Circle USA Season 4 was a real trip as well with some fun little twists added in much like Netflix acquiring a really good Chinese drama Who Rules The World that is very much worth the watch. As for a end of month little binge, I started up Chilling Adventures of Sabrina and working through all the seasons. Who knows, it might be a first step before going back to continuing Riverdale next…

Games

• Unpacking

Gaming was fairly tame. While not listed here, I’ve been playing Crazy Diner on mobile which reminded me of the nostalgic days when I used to play Diner Dash on PC. At the same time, I’m working through the Xbox Game Pass catalogue and finally got around to playing Unpacking. I am trying to get a review up for that on Game Warp’s blog but I really just wanted to see how an unpacking game got all these nominations especially in terms of narrative. While I can see where a lot of it comes from and the deeper meaning to it and it is surprisingly easily to get sucked into it where I finished it in one sitting as its 3-4 hours long, the experience is really not for everyone and probably some people might find it rather pointless perhaps.

That’s it for this month’s Adventures & What’s Up!
What have you been up to?

My July Adventures!

In the blink of an eye we’re past the halfway point of 2021! It’s wild how quickly this year has been flying by. I can’t say that there’s been exactly any particular adventures as it seems for myself to be a month that didn’t technically go so well on one side but still there’s some pretty fun stuff to share. Let’s just jump right in!

Staying Active Update

July 1st Walk 4.63km 50mins
July 1st Evening Walk 1.43km 18mins
July 3rd Walk 4.39km 48mins
July 10th Walk 1.42km 18mins
July 11th Walk 1.41km 18 mins
July 17th Pool Workout
July 18th Walk 1.45km 18mins
July 25th Pool Workout
July 31st Walk 4.75km 51mins

Not a whole lot to report back on staying active. I got plagued with pains and all sorts of fatigue during the month so as much as I tried to keep up with walking and staying active, I fell apart a little as the walks went a little shorter. I still tried to stay active but more doing pool workouts, which to be fair was one of my goals in last month’s staying active update for this month. Can’t say its a complete fail, right?

Gardening Update

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The abundant rain season in July has really done favors for the garden. Sure, we had a few really hot days but the good amount of rain meant everything’s growing pretty nice and harvests are coming in. Its been a few years since zucchini harvest has been any good but this year is looking nice. The new raised garden is doing great as well for the eggplants and we’ve harvested a few as well as the little cherry tomatoes which we have a rather sweet variety. Even the cucumbers are starting to do okay. We got one but there’s some more that are almost close to harvest as this post goes up.

The other big project was getting the front yard looking good as I’ve truly neglected it a lot. My mom had given me some plants from her garden and hoping to find the spot for it after I tidied up the front, we got to work and planted in the new plants (both front and back but didn’t take a closer picture of it) but also added in the mulch and bought a new hydrangea plant to create some symmetry in the front yard. The picture above only shows one portion of the front yard. The garden is doing really well. The next part is to get rid of the pesky vines at the back and added some more mulch to my bee garden and finally figuring out a bee bath probably. In time, it should be done.

2nd Dose of COVID-19 Vaccine

I got my 2nd dose of the COVID-19 vaccine at the tail end of July. While the first dose basically had no side effects other than arm pain, the second dose was pretty intense. Headache for 3 days and muscle pain for 2 days really hit after the first 24 hours passed. I affected productivity and life in general so I resorted to calming teas whenever I wasn’t at work and sleeping earlier since I try to stay away from painkillers in general.

Fantasia International Film Festival 2021

Like previous years, around this time is coverage for Fantasia Film Festival. This year is no different. You can expect reviews for Fantasia going up as soon as today. This year is the 25th edition and the film rundown is looking fantastic. I have a pretty ambitious schedule so fingers crossed that I can get the coverage done. I believe the virtual platform is geo-locked to Canada but if you are in Canada, you should give its extensive film schedule a look.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for the July adventures!
Not a whole lot of adventuring in general but things are getting done!

TV Binge: The Big Flower Fight (Season 1, 2020)

The Big Flower Fight (Season 1, 2020)

Hosts & Resident Judge: Natasia Demetriou, Vic Reeves, Kristen Griffith-Vanderyacht

Ten pairs of florists, sculptors and garden designers face off in a friendly floral fight to see who can build the biggest, boldest garden sculptures. – IMDB

Netflix comes up with a lot of reality competition shows and a lot of times, they do work for the most part and then sometimes, we have shows that make us wonder whether there is an actual market and who else is watching it? The Big Flower Fight is one of those shows where I did enjoy watching it because I’m a big fan of flowers, plants and gardening in general but then I’m wondering how many of us have that ambition to go and make some relatable garden sculptures like these 20 people are doing over 15 hours. However, what makes its fun is that competition element and the whole different themed weeks which bring in different types of flowers and plants that give it that educational element.

If we take a look at the hosts Natasia Demetriou and Vic Reeves, they do have a nice humorous charm in their hosting style. There’s a lot to love about how they approach each stage. Sometimes, its a big over the top but it does feel like its in the context of giving this tense competition process some kind of relief. I think other than the hosts themselves, the judges themselves deserve some discussion. I’m not an expert at these renowned event florists and landscapers and horticulturist so none of these people mean anything to me and they could be saying anything in terms of their vision and what is being done to judge it, but if anything, it goes back to expanding our knowledge in this field. At the same time, they also share a lot of knowledge on the different plants available in the nursery that fit the theme on hand. The resident judge, Kristen Griffith-Vanderyacht is also quite a fun addition because he has some charisma and character that it brightens the show and his views are rather interesting as he looks at each of these sculptures.

Just like baking shows and whatnot, while this feels definitely more of a niche market, it gives a platform to a different group of people around the world who has a passion for different types of planting from urban indoor gardens to event florists to artists as their outlet and a chance to show the world their skills. For that, The Big Flower Fight does a really good job. Life’s about learning new things. Just like a fraction of anyone is going to join into Hyperdrive or Ultimate Beastmaster, the same goes for The Big Flower Fight where its mostly a learning process. In the end, garden sculptures is something of an art/exhibition piece. Everyone’s interpretation and execution as the show goes along sheds some light on how they use their plants and the whole process of giving them alive. I’m not going to go and plant a garden sculpture anytime soon (or ever) and while I question how popular this show actually is and how many people are turning this on, its a unique angle to focus on and one that I’ve had a rather fun time watching as its not only about plants but also about the engineering behind each of these structures and sculptures and the balance that it achieves. There’s quite a bit of finesse, knowledge and skills needed to do all this.

Have you seen The Big Flower Fight or at have an intention to watch it?

My April Adventures!

As we step into April, the world is in a surreal state with COVID-19 running out lives back to the safety of our homes for those who aren’t essential services and/or can’t work from home. I don’t want to talk too much about it on the other posts but as Adventures is more of a personal offering, its hard to not touch on it. I’ve been saying whenever I mention this that its important to stay positive and with that said, we look at the pros of the situation (despite all the bad) and that is we learn to appreciate and be grateful that we still have this blogging community to hide away from the surreal reality surrounding us.

Working From Home

There’s not much to say about working from home other than the fact that April was a crazy month. March was just adjusting to working at home and then April hit so hard because staff decrease and I had to work a 2 person workload. Luckily, I had some help as I slowly got the office set up with the printer and getting new cartridge and stuff that took longer than usual to arrive because of the current situation. I’m starting to realize how hard it is to work non-stop for such a long time. Luckily, April is over and my staff will go back up to almost normal so I can work through May, hopefully more peacefully!

Game Warp Podcast
(& Learning About Headliner)

Game Warp is slowly coming back to life as we settle through our direction and how the shows that we’d like to do in the coming while. Our latest podcast is a review discussion on Life Is Strange 2 which recently won the BAFTA Games Award for Best Performer in a Leading Role with its character of Sean Diaz. We did record this before the whole awards thing so its just a coincidence that we released it at the same time.

As I struggled through how to structure the audio podcasts to be more appealing, my wonderful co-host told me Headliner which is how I made this video. Learning about new things is one of the fun things about blogging and podcasting. Hopefully you like the podcast! Of course, you prefer the audio version, you can find us on Anchor and a ton of other platforms.

Right before this post went live, we released another episode for Game Warp as a list/discussion piece on Greatest Female Characters as well as listing our favorites.

Garden Coming Alive

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This might be an unusual time but we can still be grateful for the little things like the #garden coming alive. The #perennials are starting to peek out of the ground . #spring #gardening #sedum #rhubarb #greenonions #tulips #plants #backyardstroll

A post shared by Kim (@tranquildreams) on Apr 4, 2020 at 1:26pm PDT

I do have a bunch of pictures for another Instagram post but then I never go around to posting it up. The garden is indeed coming alive and much more vibrant than the beginning of April. Blueberry is starting to show signs of life along with raspberry and strawberry. The trees are coming back as well. Then we have the perennials especially the new ones last year in the bee garden are mostly all coming back! I promise to share pictures soon on Instagram!

Movies and Tea Podcast

Nothing like blogging more and recording more for podcasts during this time. Movies and Tea is releasing on a good schedule now as we are having a decent backlog! Its all thanks to my awesome co-host Elwood who gets all these shows edited and released, of course! Ang Lee season is almost over. Above is the penultimate episode of Ang Lee for Lust, Caution.

On other news, which I hoped to share with you all this time around, Movies and Tea Podcast will be on Youtube soon. Its a new avenue and will be done with Headliner in the audio format as well. The channel is set up but its mostly putting up all the archive episodes gradually. I’ll give an update in May for sure!

New Objectives

Everyone is trying to make the best of staying at home as something that they are tackling. I’m sure when you flip through your feed that you see a ton of your own friends tackling baking, cooking, entertaining others through music, streaming, etc. For myself, I’m more of an introvert and while I did say that I would stream if I got to work at home during this ordeal, things didn’t quite turn out that way, as explained in my “Working at Home” section above. However, I did set myself a new goal and that’s to pick one song to play on the piano really well (maybe not perfectly since I’m far from that) but be able to play it and sing at the same time. I’m mostly doing separate practicing right now: piano and singing done separately but soon, I might be able to start putting it together. The song that I picked is Encounter by Stefanie Sun, which is one of my favorite songs and I used to sing it well enough but singing is a tad rusty nowadays. Call it practice or whatever but its been really fun doing this.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this April Adventures!
What adventures, right? Shameless self-promotion is what this mostly consists of!
I’ll try my best to get a better routine down in May once I have more time!

My Weekly Adventures: Hiking, Grand Prix and Food!

Its mid-June now! Summer is just around the corner although the weather probably doesn’t really feel like it much. Its been feeling very spring lately, which is normal but its been a while spring has lasted so long. Either way, enough about the weather. With the season well underway, we’ve been keeping ourselves eventful while different events have been showing up as well. I’ll wrap up with a little gardening update.

Hiking: Parc de la Yamaska

June kicked off with our walk in Yamaska National Park. Its a casual walk along a fairly flat walk also set for cyclists as well. Its one thats great to kick off the beginning of the season. You can see the full recap HERE.

Grand Prix in Downtown Montreal

As usual, Grand Prix landed in Downtown Montreal last weekend. Its always a busy weekend. I ended going with my mom for dinner at Noodle Factory in Chinatown and then heading to see the stuff going on on Peel and Crescent Street. This year was pretty disappointing. It felt not very special with not a lot of cars in general being showcased. It was kind of boring..although the music performed on the Crescent stage was probably the best show I’ve seen so I believe the line-up might be the highlight.

Hiking: Mont Chapman

Being the hiking crazy people that we are trying to be and working hard to keep up with it as much as we can before any potential things with events all pan out in July, plus the weather being cooler works well for those long hikes. After some long debate, we ended up going to the Eastern Townships in the middle of nowhere on a mountain hiking trail that we found called Mont Chapman. I have a few good things to say about this, mostly how challenging it was and how I somewhat disagree on the difficulty level they put it as and well, some complaints as well about this location and warnings/suggestions I’d give on this hiking track. That is coming up very soon in the hiking recap for this one. 😉

E3 2019

As usual, we had our E3 2019 off site coverage over at Game Warp. I talked about it over at the What’s Up segment this past week. It did set the course off over here a tad bit but other than some late posts, most of what I wanted to do still stayed relatively on track. You can find all the written recap coverage on Game Warp blog HERE.

Shopping Haul: Prep for Bridesmaid Duty

Its a week until my best friend gets married. I decided to take care of my hair and make-up so I had to go hunt down some stuff since I don’t normally put on make-up or do my hair in any particular way.  I did also get a curling iron which was on sale. I have a general concept of how do it and its going to simple but still match with the dress. Anyways, lots of new things that I’m trying out here so I’ll have to do a test-run at some point before since its a fairly early morning.

Gardening Update

First part of the gardening update is planting in the flowers that I didn’t get around to plant the last time. Its not too obvious but I ended up putting the Hibiscus into the patch because I lost my chrysanthemums. And then in the other patch, I pulled up some of the other plants that was there that wasn’t looking too healthy and put in some foliage and the Monarda (Bee Balm).

Cabbage, Marigolds & Lettuce/Kale

Vegetable Garden

Kale, Tomatoes, etc

The vegetables are all in. The garden is now all planted. The cabbage/marigold containers are growing very well. At the same time, the kale and the lettuce containers are also growing incredibly fast and pretty much ready for the first harvest. As for the poor tomato plant that was supposed to be hanging, it looks so miserable even through the last few rainy days.

Restaurants

The restaurant that my mom and I went to was Noodle Factory in Chinatown. We got some pan-fried dumplings and then some fried handmade noodles. They were pretty decent.

Labothery

A new bubble tea concept place opened up in Quartier Dix30 called Labothery. I will do a more elaborate post for it soon. Its a neat concept but as with any customizable ideas, the price increases accordingly.

Cute Kitty Pic

That’s it for this Weekly Adventures!
Its been a fun two weeks even though a bit busy as I was working out some press pass application also! 
Events are coming up in Montreal so I’m hoping to get ahead with some posts.

Gardening #4: Signs of Harvest

Its taken a month to get the next gardening update in but here we are!

The main reason is that I haven’t done much gardening and there really hasn’t been much to update on. Most of my blooms from spring lasted quite a little while and now that summer is here, the garden is flourishing especially with the crazy amount of rain we got before the last few days of extreme heat.

Without further ado, lots to talk about. Let’s check it out!

Water Garden

Compared to the 4 leaves it had when I first got it, this lovely water garden (aka. my one water lily) has a ton of leaves and two flower buds. Of course, one of them is blooming. I was so happy to see that I wasn’t doing anything wrong and taking good care of it. Its so nice to see during the day when I wake up and look outside that its thriving.

Front Garden

On one side of the garden, my Dianthus actually is blooming finally. It took long enough. I probably am thinking of moving it and replacing it with a row of hostas or something because this spot just lacks so much sun and along with bad soil that is still taking time to be better, its just making this grow so slow. My neighbors’ hostas were blooming at least a week before mine and they look like a few times bigger. However, I’m still trying to figure out what my big reno work for the front yard is so I’m hesitant to just move a plant and then have to move it again the year after.

 

Another reason to redo the front is that my flower patch is starting to look really overgrown. I think its just that, in terms of flowers. I have flowers that open in spring, summer and fall which works great but then its so dense around. I just need to sit down and figure out what I want to keep. However, looking at all the flowers right now, I’m really happy. Obviously there is the Crimson Star as always but I do kind of want to move it now since its just out of control big.

Then we have these two. The roses were planted last year in this spot and I was worried that it wouldn’t make it but its small and cute but still managed to get 3 flowers bloomed. I’m so happy to see the touch of red. At the same time, the newcomer this year is this furry little plant and its also starting to bloom. I don’t think this is in the right spot but once I open up my side garden when its not suffocating weather for the bee/butterfly garden, this will go right in there.

Backyard

Not a whole lot of change with these two except for just growth. Yeah, look at the raspberries. Apparently trimming it makes it grow even more out of control. Sad part is that we never got around to the strawberries but we fed a lot of happy bunnies. I’m not too mad about it. I’ve just accepted that its a reality. We are thinking of putting in some fences around it but its not going to make a difference.

As for this little patch, I just opened up this year. Its actually looking alright. Everything is growing a little slow and I think it has to do with the soil quality. Nothing has died yet and I can see the little Cone Flower at the end still growing strong. Its not as big as the one in the back and nowhere near it, but once it adapts to its move, it should do much better next year (provided it survives).

Container Garden

Lettuce #1

Cucumber

Herb Garden

Cucumber & Kale

Lettuce #2

Kale & Lettuce

Bell Pepper

Kale

Mosquito Repellent Garden

Magnolia

Petunias

We are lucky that we got a ton of lettuces this year because after the first harvest, we lost two already from the cucumber pot. However, everything else, particularly the kale is thriving. I have some lettuce coming back. My new non-lazy watering strategy is making everything grow beautifully. The cucumbers are looking fantastic. Actually they have a lot of flowers and some cucumbers forming so fingers crossed that we’ll get some harvest soon-ish, but not going to count my chickens before they hatch. We literally have kale feasts now. Its just way too big and we can’t eat it fast enough. The biggest success is that the bell peppers experiment turned out the the container one is doing much better. The picture is dark but if you squint really hard, you’ll see that there are two bell peppers growing. At the same time, this mosquito repellent garden is looking the best in the last few years. I’m really happy with it.

Vegetable Garden

Blueberry

Cucumber

Swiss Chard

Cucumbers

Peppers

Zucchini and Cucumbers

In terms of the vegetable garden, I once again forgot a before and after picture. I just spent Canada Day weekend getting rid of all the horrible oxalis grass covering the entire area. Its one of the reasons I think that the cucumbers are looking yellow and sad. We did go to the Dollarama to pick up a sprinkler hose which is a great addition, except you might want to consider getting it somewhere a little better and more durable. Ours already broke twice so its already having a lot of duct tape fixes. What I can I expect with a $3 product? However, it lets me walk away to water the container garden while it just takes care of the watering for me. Zucchinis are the only one in this plot that has some growing. I’m hoping that it’ll all work out. Everything else is just moving along, except my herbs on the side. The lavender needs to probably be moved but my mint is out of control.

Overall & What to look forward to…

There been a ton of growth here. While there are some losses, its actually doing really well this year. I added in a watering system to the kale and cucumber container because it was just draining too much. Actually the watering systems work really well, especially the past few days when its been record high temperatures of 44 degrees Celsius or something. I do warn that the next update will be in August as we are coming up to Montreal Comiccon and Fantasia Film Festival. It might put a little stop in some stuff depending on the situation. However, I always have my first week of vacation coming up so hopefully we will have some more projects. I have a few goals. Maybe finally opening up my plot but we need something else to happen first which is in the works.

That’s it for this gardening update!
How is your gardens looking? Any harvest?

Gardening #3: New Expansions & Second Garden Haul!

Hello everyone~

Who would have thought this segment still would have stuff going on? Honestly, you all keep me accountable. This year, I want to transform my garden as much as I can and really expand and landscape as I’d have been thinking about over the last year or two. A lot of times ,its just easier to just take action.

I looked back at the previous update 2 weeks ago and I’m happy to say that I did accomplish almost everything I wanted to, except one thing which I didn’t do because I still haven’t figured out what to do with it. Migrating plants in the garden is a little tricky and I want to make sure to only have to do it once and leave it there for a good while. Some plots are still causing me a lot of headache, so as I brainstorm, there should be further changes.

For now, lets take a look at what’s happened over the last two weeks. Most of it happened this weekend….if I’m being incredibly honest!

First Task: Planting Clematis & DIY Landscaping

A few tasks accomplished in this first part! One of the most important things was to plant the clematis. I kept thinking about it and the best place for it was where I had planted it two times before and it failed. Now, I believe that the failure was because the grass and weed took over. With that assumption, I decided to just dig up the grass and create an entire new patch. We had bricks from the previous owners stored under the patio so we took that to line it up. Under the bricks is a deep trench which I read could stop the grass from moving back in. The plant to the complete right was already there.

Next to it is my poor lilies that was in the raspberry patch and I keep wanting to move it and always being too late. I actually bit the bullet and ignored the thorny raspberry bushes and just dug in. Its not looking too hot right now. But I’m going to cut it a little so that it can strengthen, at least I think that could be the solution.

After that is the clematis from the last haul which hadn’t gotten into the ground yet. This was my top task so here we go! I’m hoping that this spot will work, especially since the one year it was successful was also with this white variety.

And at the far left is another migration from the front yard that I talked about last update: the poor little coneflower that was being overshadowed by the hydrangea last year.

Second Task: Second Garden Center Haul

From left to right:
Top Row: Purple/Coral/Red Salvia, Petunia
Middle: Green Bell Pepper, Peppermint Swiss Chard
Bottom: Hosta, Salvia

For the record, I changed the garden center from the last time to see if there was some other variety that I wanted to find so  I went to the greenhouse called Les Serres Dauphinais St-Hubert. Its right here.

 

 

Third Task: Current Updates & Ready for First Harvests

Mosquito Repellent Plant

Herbs: Basil & Curled Parsley

Lettuce #1

Lettuce & Cucumber

Kale & Cucumber

Lettuce #2

Mixed Greens

Kale

Vegetable Garden

Cone Flower

Water Garden

Lettuce Revival

Front yard: Dianthus

Flower Patch

Before the garden haul gets planted in ground, I wanted to do a quick update on everything from last time. Everything is grown quite a bit with the few heavy rainfalls over the last two weeks. The lettuce and kale are ready for first harvest which I will do in the coming week. However, the first thing to harvest is a harsh lesson from inexperience from planting bok choy for the first time. Apparently, Bok Choy doesn’t regrow like lettuce but you could cut the harvest leaves except with the heavy fluctuation in weather, the shock has caused all of them to flower so they have to be harvested completely at soil level. With that said, its why I have more veggies in this garden centre haul above.

I think I want to talk a little about the watering systems that I integrated in the containers. They are doing some great help especially seeing how the plants have grown a lot faster than they did last year. I’m sure the rainfall is a main factor but its kept the soil more moist for longer. Plus, the soil mixture of black, garden top and moisture control soil seems to have helped also.

Fourth Task: Planting the Haul

Petunias and Salvia Container

I know its a bit crowded here but I have planted them fairly close together before and it did relatively well. I’m just hoping that it will work out for the summer.

Salvia

The flower box should have been for petunias instead but of course, I forgot to look at the tag so well, it should still be okay. They look beautiful, mostly because they are my favorite annuals. I usually get the bright red ones but my husband wanted these ones for a change so I thought it would actually match with the current colors in the garden.

Green Bell Pepper – Container Gardening Trial

We haven’t planted peppers before in this current garden. I’m not sure how it’ll turn out. There was a lot of plants so I used one by itself to grow in a container and see how it goes and planted the rest of them in the vegetable garden below.

Replacing Bok Choy row with Bell Pepper & Swiss Chards

Here are the peppers replacing the harvested bok choy. Swiss Chards are the far end. I’m not sure how Swiss Chards are going to work out but it was just a fun experiment and we’ll see how it goes.

Purple Salvia in the new plot

Finally the purple salvia in the new plot. I’m hoping it won’t take up too much space and also end up having a restriction from growing too much with the limited space. Some observations for this place. I did try to give everything the space they need to grow so this spot won’t be going any further until I see the progress.

The only plant not in ground and taken care of is the hosta from the haul. I’m working on it right now.

Fifth Task: The Other Bits and Pieces

In case you all didn’t see the Avenue of Daydreams post, I actually had a surprise growth in my rosemary container and it turned out to be the ground cherry. It actually has unpollinated fruit. So I’m going to be moving this out soon since my ground cherry didn’t come back from last year.

Next thing was to move the little lettuce into the container. It has a decent amount of roots now so I wanted to get it into the soil. It might be a mistake since as I’m typing this up, its looking like it wasn’t strong enough. Chances of it not making it is fairly high.

That’s it for this gardening update!
Overall, there’s been a good deal of progress.
For next time, the hosta has to be plants and one of my plants need to be moved.
Aside from that, I do want to start opening up the side plot to start up the butterfly/bee garden that I had been thinking of. 

Gardening 2018 #2: Garden Center Haul

2 weeks or so has past since the first Gardening 2018 post!

Time sure does fly by. I’ve been working hard on weeding and setting up the garden with what I have so far. There is still a ton of stuff to do but Victoria Day long weekend is the staple weekend where I go to the garden centre and pick up at least my first big haul! This year, I went back to Les Serres Jean-Francois Dauphinais.

This place is still one of my more favorite places to go to. I actually also made a quick stop over at Pepiniere Auclair.

Here’s a lovely mosaic of what I did pick up at the center as a starter and after, we’ll take a look at what I’ve planted and other garden updates as a follow-up from the last post.

Lettuce, Bok Choi, Zucchini, Marketmore Cucumber, English Cucumber

Clematis (3rd try)

Basil, Curled Parsley, Lavender, Lemongrass

Geranium Citronella, Kale, Marigold

Water Lilies

Its the first year that my husband was fully awake to go to the garden centre with me and ended up leaving feeling like he enjoyed it. That is the difference of being on graveyard shift and normal shift (at least for him). It was a very different experience and he was a real champ and kept me company and helped me out a few times with the whole gardening thing. A different experience in some ways. This is definitely just the first batch and the two flowers are the only ones currently not planted in ground yet. We have a few little gardening clean-up areas left but my husband has been working on a few little things helping me open up some more of the garden this weekend as well.

Let’s take a look at how everything looks now!

First Part: Front Yard

The flower patch in the front yard definitely has grown a lot more since the last update. Amazing what two weeks could do. Crimson Star still doesn’t have any buds so I’m wondering if it will since its already much later than usual. The tulips are all blooming now and giving some beautiful colorful life to my front yard. Once these end, the yellow flowers in the back should bloom if things go well. Aside from that, it seems that my middle area is not coming back so I’m going to be moving something over that has been cramped up in a corner of the garden forever but I just never found a home for it. Update on that next time for sure!

Moving along, the Bleeding Hearts are looking spectacular. I’ll be posting some cool pictures of it over on Avenue of Daydreams over the next week or two. Its scheduled but I can’t remember when.

Honestly, this sad patch along the front facade of my house did get a nice trimming and yet again, I forgot to take a picture of it since the last time but the Dianthus seems to be coming back. This patch seems like its not having much perennials come back, however, as I walked around this week, I saw, what I believe is, the cone flowers coming back. Its the little leaves in the top right area. I remembered i had moved one there and it was shadowed by the hydrangeas but this year I trimmed the hydrageans so hopefully it’ll successfully come back.

Part 2: Strawberries & Raspberries

Enough said about this area. Its just growing out of control as usual. The strawberries are getting perkier and stronger every year. There are a lot of blossoms. Hopefully the bees are dropping by to pollinate it. As for the Raspberries, I’m trying to keep it under control but it sure looks like, its not exactly making much of a difference. I waited two weeks and already my lily is hidden in these raspberry shrubs already.

Part 3: Container Gardening

On with the container gardening! We are actually have quite a few of these this year despite saying that we’d have less. As usual, the planter for the ledge of the patio full of marigolds. Marigolds naturally repels mosquitoes so that is the purpose of them being at the edge. Talking about mosquito repellent, here is my mosquito repellent container.

Geranium Citronella, Lemongrass and Marigold makes up for my mosquito repellent container. I read somewhere that if you walk by the plant and brush your hands over it, it will help keep the bugs away. I did it on one arm and it didn’t get me but the other arm caught a mosquito bite. Even if its not effective, it still looks pretty nice. One of my prouder planting moments 🙂

A little change here as well. Usually I get a few herbs and plant them in a container garden. This year, we got the lavender that went into the ground right away (at least I chose to do that), leaving these two so I put them into a smaller pot. I’m hoping there’s enough space but the strong one will survive, right? It’ll make it out! *positive thoughts*

Others may hang flowers in their hanging pots but since 2 years ago, we’ve been planting lettuce in hanging pots and let me tell you, they are quite successful usually. This year, we are changing it up and putting 2 lettuces instead of three. Three always ends up one being scrawny and sad so hopefully two will work out for the better. With that said, the lettuce this year was slightly weak and when I was taking them out, two broke off from their roots. I’m currently trying to revive them in water to hopefully sprout back some roots but don’t know if it will work.

As you can see, lettuce and cucumbers are dominant in the garden this year. With limited garden space as the expansion is still in progress, we are doing two cucumbers in containers this year and I did some companion planting research and paired them up with lettuce. Kale makes no difference so I just put it in since they don’t take a lot of space and we harvest them fairly quickly as we like to make kale chips and cook it.

The final two are just individual kale and my variety of lettuce containers. The highlight here is that I’ve rigged the top one with a watering system. To be honest, I don’t think the system works as well. The water goes down a little too fast for it to be useful. The wine bottle method in the bottom is definitely still doing the trick. I’m going to compare the two and see at the end of the season, which works better. Who knows before we observe for a little while longer.

Part 4: Vegetable Garden

The echinacea is back! I’m really happy about that. I did lose one of them but at least one came back so I’m already fairly satisfied with it.

We put up the same fence as we had last year. Its to prevent bunny attacks on my lettuce. This part is the general informal entrance of my patch since you pretty much need to straddle the front trellis to get in. Its not tall but can still be hard to do. As you can see, my blueberries are growing well enough. The green onions are bursting with harvest and there in the middle is a cucumber plant. We needed to keep them near the mesh side and I’ll be getting a trellis to link it to the side.

Continuing to the other side and the full extension. The far left is all herbs. Lemon Mint and Oregano came back and in the center, I planted the Lavender. As for the rows, The first row is Marketmore cucumbers and Kale. The reason for this is to swap things around. I’ve planted zucchini in the front for a few years and its normal to change things around to help the soil replenish nutrients. Second row is all the Bok Choy. And the final row is English Cucumbers and Zucchini.

Part 5: Water Lily/Water Garden Debut

Water Lilies

What can I say? I grew up with a pond in my backyard. Water gardens remind me of my dad. A part of me has always wanted a water garden so I made the effort to get a water lily and try to make it grow especially after my mom gave us these giant clay pots last year which was my dad’s. The water lilies was pretty pricey but I believe if you put them under soil over winter, its supposed to make it through every year. My mom is the expert on that so I’ll get more info from her soon.

And that’s it for the garden!
We have an idea of opening up a few more patches so my husband has been helping me a ton with that!
He makes the progress go a lot faster especially when opposite from my scattered mind of wanting to do everything at the same time, he actually focuses on one task.

Still some research! I’ll update with the flowers being planted in ground.
I just want to make sure that I open a big enough plot so that I can see the Clematis and it will give it the best chance of survival and blossom.
And a few moving plants about the garden coming up and pruning of a few trees.

Seems that this Gardening thing will be a biweekly deal as it currently stands.
I’m just a beginner gardener so its a journey all on its own.

Gardening #2: Garden Center Haul & Organization

Oh how things have changed after only a month! I still remember the update last month. Now, the garden has grown, the grass has been removed from the vegetable garden and we just finish the garden centre visits as well as almost everything being in ground as we wait for a garden project to reinforce the veggie garden. Things are starting to look like how they were last year. There will still be improvements after this first phase is done during the summer but for now, one step at a time.

To start, our haul looked a little like this. You may have seen some of these during previous posts.

First visit was for flowers and herbs as the front yard and containers was ready to go.

Herbs: Basil, Oregano, Rosemary and Pineapple Sage
Flowers: Marigolds, Violas and Dianthus

Then we went to a visit to pick up soil and ended up with more flowers at Walmart which is primarily being used for hanging baskets and patio planter boxes.

The big haul is for the vegetable garden which was this past weekend as well.

Lettuce, Kale, Eggplant, Cucumbers, Zucchinis, Ground Cherry

Lemon Mint

Blueberry plant

The results of this haul at the time I am writing this post is below as we find a hopefully happy medium between container gardening which is for plants that need a lot of sun or partial sun and vegetable gardens. The flower garden is in the front yard. Hanging baskets are also on the patio.

Plants that aren’t in ground yet are the ones below.

You will notice that Phoebe has also gifted me a second variety of blueberry to help with cross pollination to hopefully get more berries. However, anything not in ground right now is mostly because we only have a makeshift fence up right now from last year and we are waiting for better weather to pick up a big trellis backdrop and figuring out possibly a bigger fence. That will be for the next update as everything else gets settled hopefully by beginning of June. 🙂

That’s it for this Gardening update!
How are your gardens looking?

My Weekly Adventures: Vacation, Festivals (and some pondering…)

Welcome back! Its been a month since a proper My Weekly Adventures. This tiime, we’re catching up a little and getting in some updates. You know, actual updates. Last night was Midautumn Festival so yeah, I was planning to do a vlog and get all fancy inserting pictures and videos but nope, not happening for this one yet. But, a vlog is coming up… I hit over 2000 followers in the past week and color me happy. It also somewhat confirmed something about the blog that I have been thinking about for a while now. It kind of puts me in a rut. Give me some time to have those thoughts calmed down and I’ll post up a chat with you all to ask about your opinion on it. That is for probably near the end of the month seeing as right before writing this, I recorded and then deleted it again because I ramble just too much and it was missing the point completely. Things to look out for soon…

Now, back to My Weekly Adventures!

Vacation Time!!

Its funny that this time, we went on vacation, we flew somewhere and then rented a car and ended up doing quite a bit of road trip out and about. Vacation was in Vancouver and Kelowna. Two posts have gone up already. If you are up to date, don’t think that the rest are by days because they aren’t. Some of them might be just by location if there’s too many pictures that I liked. However, pictures are incredibly a lot (they still are) but I just had my phone so I couldn’t go crazy.

Regardless, we had some good food, beautiful scenery, lovely road trips. The weather didn’t agree with us all the time but we didn’t mind it and just kept enjoying our vacation. We even had a talk about what vacation felt like a vacation. One, bustling cities are a big no-no because we already live in a big city. It is probably the main reason why we really stayed in further out places when we stayed in Vancouver except the one day we went to Stanley Park and Vancouver Aquarium.

Lots of vacation stuff coming up in the next few weeks. I didn’t want to swamp my blog with just that so we’ll take our time with it. 🙂

Festivals!

I did an entire post on YUL EAT festival so you can check it out HERE if you missed it. What more is there to say: Old Montreal, great companies with my girl friends, lots and lots of food, free samples and learning and seeing a waiter race. I’d say it was a pretty fantastic day. I am currently peeling on my shoulders from the huge sunburn I got and thinking about how its been quite some time since I had a sunburn to that extent. Hmm…Need to remember sunscreen all the time. Although autumn is around the corner so sun is going to decrease significantly soon by the time we hit winter at least.

Festival des Vendanges also had a post right HERE. This one is in the Eastern Townships of Quebec located right next to the Memphremagog Lake which is absolutely beautiful to walk along. We had a train pass right behind us (almost because we crossed the street). Odd urban planning structures but that kind of applies to a lot of places. This is a festival I’ve been looking forward to checking out and we finally did so I’m super happy about that.

The Long-Awaited Somewhat Garden Update

At this point, after coming back from vacation, my garden is pretty much non-existent except for a few things. The leeks are still going. I think its almost time to harvest before we lose them all. Lettuce is seeding, which means I can use it for next year. Same goes for broccoli. I didn’t harvest any of the florets in time. We had a few cucumbers but we froze them before we left so that it’d still be good. They are all eaten now so there’s nothing to show you. However, the raspberries are at full ripe state and we’re just harvesting every other day. This was from last weekend.

For the record, that’s a pretty deep tupperware.

Next up is a little surprise discovery in my geraniums, a ground cherry popped up on the side!!

Aside from that, I have completely revamped the side front yard flower patch. It finally doesn’t look like a cluster of a mess. The cure was to pull out almost all the irises. They just spread way too much. Although next year, I am almost positive it’ll be overflowing with these lily of the valley that just ended up popping up in the garden. This is what it looks like after I finally bought some chrysanthemums. Chrysanthemums are perfect for autumn but they are biannual so I have to get them every other year pretty much.

Before winter comes, I just need to separate the roses from the echinacea a little. There’s a bit of shifting on the front yard part lining the front of the house where I need to move some plants around. The raspberry patch needs some serious work to control mint overgrowth, raspberry intensive spreading and strawberries.

I don’t have a vegetable garden here but that will be for the next update. It just has too much overgrown grass that I need to figure out how to control better. And we need to figure out how to fence the garden in but leave room for the pool hose to run along the back without it destroying my shallots.

And one more thing is the clematis finally has lots and lots of buds and as this post goes up, its already starting to bloom.

Apparently we have the late summer-early fall variety so that’s why it is going crazy now. When it all blooms, it is going to be so pretty! You might want to head over to Avenue of Daydreams and I’ll have lots of artsy close-up shots of it!

That is really it. We have lots of raspberries, apples and pineapple sage (which has its own accident). The herbs need to be planted into the ground before it gets super cold. That is the next mission also. Updates next time for that.

Cité Memoire

If you happen to be dropping into Montreal, this is an event I really think is worth your while. All you need is to download the app, have some temporary storage space on your phone and some good shoes to do the walking. Cité Memoire is a concept where it is a history walk around different locations in Old Montreal. There are 30 mins, 60 mins and 90 mins circuits. Both 30 mins and 60 mins have two different circuits each. 90 mins only have one. There is also a Daytime and Nighttime. I have yet to try Nighttime and actually might soon. There are some places that tells you at the stop in a recording with a text (that you can choose to read or not) about the history of the location and the significance and what it has become now with some old photos of what it looked like. There are some spots where you can use your phone and do augmented reality segments where its like a little video. I think the concept is really cool and although I didn’t retain all the information, I did learn a lot about the architecture and the background of some more obscure buildings (not like the Church or Board of Trade or Banks).

Funny story is that I was doing this circuit after work and this Amphitours bus goes by and they are saying the exact same thing passing by the building that I had just listened to the recording for. So you see, all you need are your legs and this history lesson is for free. Plus, Montreal even has set up a wifi that stretches along the entire path so that no extra data fees. I’m not sponsored or anything but this is one of the better ideas Montreal has had. A more detailed post will go up soon 🙂

Midautumn Festival

 Last night was Midautumn Festival and the full moon was ever so bright! I went for a lovely walk with my mom after having dinner with her to celebrate. Here’s dinner and moon cakes 🙂

The one on top is the moon cake I usually eat. The one on the bottom is supposedly Taiwanese Moon cake. I believe I’ve tasted it before and its is actually more fluffy and delicate than the top one but then, I like my traditional lotus paste moon cake. 🙂

That’s it for this My Weekly Adventures!  As usual, here is a Cute Kitty Pic! This is my in-laws cat by the way. She’s one month younger than my kitty. Oh, and she hates me..absolutely loathes me for some odd reason…

Upcoming posts:

•  Cité Memoire
• Netflix A-Z
• Vacation

That’s it for My Weekly Adventures!
Next one will be probably with the Halloween month announcement!!