It's Father's Day on June 21st, and what better place to celebrate the fathers in our lives than in the garden. 

Now that gardening - especially vegetable gardening - is making such a comeback, I love watching Dads and their kids come into the store.  The little boys rush immediately to the fountains, putting their fingers in and anything that might float.  I never know what I will find in the water after a visit.  The little girls try on the gloves and look longingly at the elephant watering cans.  The Dads do what men generally do - find what they want and efficiently buy it!

Gardening is such a great activity with kids.  You spend time together outside, and you both learn amazing things about nature and each other.  Gardening is the perfect Father's Day activity!  And at Dig This we have lots of terrific gifts for Dads ... and their little helpers.

Enjoy spending time with your Dad this June 21st - or if you're the Dad, spending time with your family.  In a garden, of course!

Elizabeth Cull, Franchise President

I don't know about you, but at this time of year I inevitably find myself staring at some garden bed wondering why I didn't put in more plants that flowered now.  The tulips are fading and my summer bloomers are not quite ready to provide that shot of colour and interest I'm looking for. 

I once read that the best way to have year-long blooms is to buy a flowering plant from the nursery every month - that way you'll be sure to have blooms all year long!  Another quick way to add colour is to use containers.  For example, I recently moved my overwintered geraniums out of my greenhouse and stuck the pots into the greenery in one of my yet-to-bloom flower beds.  Voila!  Instant colour.  You could do the same with plants from the nursery - pot up a container and tuck it into a bed.  What could be easier?

You can also use container-grown plants to put a plant in a spot where it otherwise wouldn't be happy: a moisture-loving plant in an otherwise dry bed or a zone 9 or 10 plant that certainly wouldn't make it through our winter.

If you’d like some tips on how to plant up beautiful containers, go to our Newsletter Archive at http://www.digthis.com/newsletterarchive  and search for the May 2007 newsletter.

Here’s some advice to make sure your containers – once planted – thrive!

Water Regularly.  Watering can be a bit of a balancing act: too much or too little and your plantings will suffer. Water containers thoroughly when the soil surface becomes dry to the touch. During the hottest part of the summer, this can mean watering at least every day. Avoid watering at the end of the day. Without sunlight and warmth to evaporate moisture on leaves, the foliage stays wet longer, making it more susceptible to foliar diseases.

Feed Your Plants. It’s best to use a soilless planter mix in containers, but these mixes lack nutrients. So don’t forget to provide a regular dose of fertilizer. Add a slow-release balanced, granular, organic fertilizer to the potting mix at planting time. This will slowly feed the plants for the next few months. Because container plants are heavy feeders, feed them during the growing season with water-soluble fertilizer. Mix the liquid fertilizer at half strength—because the soil already contains granular fertilizer—and apply it at watering time every two to three weeks until the end of the season.

Deadhead and Prune.  Give your containers a good primping every week or so. Deadheading faded blossoms and removing damaged or diseased leaves and stems not only keeps plants looking good but also keeps them productive and healthy. Deadheading redirects a plant’s energy from seed production back into flower production. When snipping off blooms, cut flower stems back to a leaf node or main stem.Removing problem leaves back to the main stem is also important. If an entire stem is damaged or diseased, cut it back to the nearest healthy growing point or all the way back to the base. Some plants grow more vigorously than others, so cut aggressive plants back to size to keep plantings balanced. If your pot is getting crowded, remove a stem here or there to be sure the container gets enough air circulation to stay healthy. If you have the opposite problem and your planting is not full enough, pruning the tips of a few stems back a bit will encourage them to bush out.

Elizabeth Cull, Franchise President
 

What? Can it really be time to think about my winter vegetable garden? I just got the tomatoes and cucumbers planted for the summer!

Yes, it is time. Beginning in June and carrying through to September, you can start many vegetables that will go on producing for you right through the fall, winter and into the early spring.

In our mild coastal climate, we can grow some vegetables all winter without protection – and a few more with a bit of cover. You will be eating these vegetables throughout the winter, so they must be full size by Halloween as not much growing takes place after the end of October.

From mid-May to early June, start leeks and Brussels sprouts. In June and July, plant winter cabbages. From mid-July to early August, plant kale, beets, Swiss chard, and radicchio.

Lettuces, like Winter Density, and spinach and cilantro can be seeded continuously right through to the end of the summer.

Other vegetables “overwinter” – meaning that you grow them a bit in the summer and fall and let them rest for a bit to continue growing in the early spring. Certain varieties of onions, cauliflower and sprouting broccoli do well grown this way.

To see what can be planted each month of the year, go to our website at www.digthis.com, and click on the link "Check Out Our Planting Chart".  This chart is provided courtesy of West Coast Seeds. 

For more information, visit one of our stores and pick up a free copy of the West Coast Seed catalogue or talk to our knowledgeable staff. You can also purchase Linda Gilkeson’s excellent winter gardening book Year Around Harvest: Winter Gardening on the Coast.
 

The City of Victoria is reknowned for its gorgeous hanging baskets.  Every summer - in early June - close to 1,600 hanging baskets are hung from lamposts in the downtown area.  Now that the weather has warmed up, you can create your own "City of Victoria" hanging basket with a moss-lined basket and a selection of colourful annuals.

 The traditional Victoria "sunny" hanging basket contains 25 plants including:

- 1 Viscaria Oculata Choice mix
- 3 Lobelia “Fountain Blue”
- 3 Lobelia “Sapphire”
- 3 Lamium Galeobdolon “Variegatum”
- 3 Tagetes “Lulu”
- 3 Tagetes “Gnome”
- 3 Geranium “Shirley Clarete”
- 3 Petunia “Rose Madness”
- 3 Schizanthus “Hit Parade”

For a shady basket, consider alyssum, fibrous begonias, fuchsias, ivy geraniums, hedera, impatiens, lobelia, and trailing ivy.

For more information check out the City of Victoria’s hanging basket brochure at http://www.victoria.ca/cityhall/pdfs/compar_prknrsy_hngbskt_brchr.pdf

Here are some tips on making your own hanging basket

1. You can use any hanging basket lined with moss, wool or coir fibre, but we like the moss ones best as they are easiest to plant through. A larger basket holds more plants and retains moisture better.
    
2. Put a saucer or small circle of plastic in the bottom of the basket to retain moisture. Cover the bottom of the basket with a lightweight potting soil and plant your first layer of plants.
    
3. After each layer, add more soil and a scattering of slow release fertilizer and polymer crystals to retain moisture.
    
4. Water thoroughly and let your basket harden off by putting it outdoors during the day, but protecting it at night.
    
5. Keep your basket healthy throughout the summer by watering and deadheading regularly. 

Here's the perfect Father's Day gift - an Adirondack Chair.  The perfect chair to relax in after a hard day at the office or in the garden.  Made of Western Red Cedar, here on Vancouver Island, it comes in an easy-to-assemble kit form.  Get a leg rest for extra comfortable lounging and a side table to hold nibblies and drinks.

Dig down a little into your soil and you may be surprised at how dry it is.  Containers are even more prone to drying out.  Watering is the key to healthy, lush plants, but you don't have to be a slave to watering!  Here are a few things you can do to lessen the load.

Use saucers to save water for later. I often place saucers under containers that are located in hot, sunny locations to help the soil retain moisture longer. The saucers also help when the soil is so dry that water just runs off the surface. By having water sit in the saucer, the overly dry soil has a chance to wick up and absorb the moisture. I avoid placing saucers under pots that are located in shady sites as they can keep the pots too damp, thus killing the plants. For the same reason, I also remove the saucers during particularly rainy spells.

Choose the right pot.  The type of container you use also influences how often you’ll need to water. Terra-cotta pots are porous and tend to dry out quickly, while glazed, plastic, or metal pots hold more moisture.

Mix in some magic crystals.  Soil Moist or other moisture-retaining soil additives can minimize the need to water. In years with excessive rain or with pots located in shade, however, the soil tends to stay too moist.
 

This year marks 25 years since Dig This opened for business in the basement level of a building in Bastion Square.  Started by the need to find quality tools and gardening accessories, Dig This has grown to become BC's leading gardening and outdoor living store.  Nominated for the Best Place to Decorate the Outside of Your Home, Dig This is happy to have so many loyal customers on Vancouver Island and across Canada and the US.

To celebrate, we are going to have a number of great savings events in June, July and August.  Watch future newsletters for full details.

Plus each store will host its own event during the summer or early fall to mark our birthday.

Dig This Oak Bay is challenging all tomato growners to grow the tastiest tomato ... and prove it at a tomato tasting in late August.  So if you are growing tomatoes, submit yours and win a $25, $50 or $100 gift certificate!

Dig This Market Square is planting a demonstration "lasagna" garden in the square.  Our greenhouse is already up and over the next two weeks we will be planting a variety of vegetables that anyone can grow in an urban environment - whether you have soil or not!!

Details of other store events will be found in future newsletters.

There's still time to plant tomatoes and our stores still have a few organic, heritage tomato plants for sale.  All tomato seeds, pepper seeds and eggplant seeds are 25% off.  You can easily store these seeds for next year by putting them in a zip lock bag in your freezer. 

• June is the month for roses, and with roses unfortunately comes black spot and powdery mildew. Remove and put into the garbage (not the compost) all diseased leaves and then spray with 1 tsp. baking soda and 1 tsp soap flakes mixed in one litre of water. Make sure you spray the underside of the leaves too for best results.
   
• Keep deadheading spent blooms and sheer back oriental poppies, hardy geraniums, centura montana, alchemilla, euphorbias that have finished blooming.
   
• Prune back the long, wispy stems of wisteria, leaving about 5 buds on each lateral stem.
   
• Feed tomatoes, peppers and eggplants with liquid seaweed or a good organic tomato and vegetable fertilizer like Orgunique.
   
• Put out squash, tomatoes, and peppers and other plants you’ve already started from seed. If you didn’t have time to start your own tomatoes, we still have organic ones for sale at Keep sowing beans, corn, squash, carrots, peas, spinach, lettuce and greens, and beets.
   
• Remove the seedheads of hard-neck garlic so the plant will put all of its energy into the bulb. These tender tops make great additions to stir fries!
   
• In June, the gardens look lush, but dig down a little and you'll find dry soil. Don't forget to keep plants well-watered until they are established. If you live in the CRD, check out the watering regulations at http://www.crd.bc.ca/water/conservation/outdoorwateruse/bylaw.htm
   
• Continue sowing beans, corn, squash, carrots, peas, spinach, lettuce and greens, and beets.

• And don't forget to plant for a winter and early spring harvest!

If you live out of town and get our newsletter, you've visited one of our stores.  You know we have great things, and perhaps you've wished you had purchased that lovely item when you were there.  Or maybe you did purchase, and now all your friends want the same thing!

Now you can shop online by going to http://www.digthis.com/catalog   Our most popular items are there for shipping world-wide.

Now that the weather is warming up, it's lovely to enjoy a meal outdoors.  If you're looking for a good buy on a quality outdoor dining table, we still have several 42" and 48" dining tables at great prices.

These tables are our popular outdoor "wicker" with a glass top.  Our supplier has changed the style since last year and we still have several tables left in both the natural coloured "mocha" wicker and the darker "java" wicker.  The 42" table is $292.50 - regular price $450.  The 48" table is $308.75 - regular price is $475.

Are you interested in growing your own food on Vancouver Island?  If you are trying to grow some of your own food in a sustainable way, the Greater Victoria Library has been holding a series of talks that promise to be fascinating and enlightening.  The last one is on May 29th.  Phillip Young will discuss growing vegetables in an organic urban garden.  For more information go to: http://www.gvpl.ca/news_and_events/programs/   and click on the link to Home Gardens and Security.

Conservation Holiday at Foxglove Farm: Experience Sustainable Food Production
June 4, 2009 to June 7, 2009
Foxglove Farm on Salt Spring Island
$225 + GST (TLC Member), $250 + GST (non member). Price includes food and accommodation.

Conservation Holidays with TLC The Land Conservancy of BC are a great way to experience special places all over the province. By pulling up those sleeves and participating in stewardship work that goes into caring for TLC’s sites, people learn skills, meet new people and enjoy the outdoors. This holiday will be spent learning and doing tasks such as hand cultivating blueberries, thinning crops such as beets, mulching in the orchard work, harvesting strawberries for market, transplanting starts, making compost, and possibly an irrigation project. Participants will be staying on the farm either in tents or the beautiful log house accommodation.

For more information or to book this holiday: Call 1-888-738-0533 or visit www.conservationholidays.ca

Gabriola Home & Garden Tour
Sunday, June 28th, 10 am to 5 pm
Tickets ($20) at Dig This Nanaimo. 

Hardy Plant Study Weekend
June 19th –21st
Sponsored by The Victoria Hardy Plant Group at the Mary Winspear Centre in Sidney. Speakers include plant explorer and breeder Dan Heims of Terra Nova Nurseries, plant explorer Philip MacDougall, garden photographer Allan Mandell, garden designer Julie Moir Messervy and author Mary Toomey; garden visits and a garden party at Glendale Gardens. More information and registration forms are available at http://www.islandnet.com/~voltaire/HardyPlant.htm
 

Teeny Tiny Garden Tour.
June 14th, 2009.  9:30 am – 5:00 pm
All proceeds go to the Victoria Hospice Society.  This is the 4th Annual Teeny Tiny Garden Tour and your opportunity to visit 16 little gems that prove “small is beautiful”.  This year, two of the Dig This staff gardens are on the tour.  Are we proud or what!!  Tickets available at all Dig This stores.