So I just planted my garden tonight
I know you're all laughing...I'm in Edmonton, Alberta, so zone 3, plus we had a very late spring this year even for us. Plus, my dad JUST built me my raised beds and filled them with dirt yesterday, so today I planted. It was about a week late even for here (although my mom never planted before May long weekend which for us was last weekend). I'm so excited! I haven't had a real garden in years...when I was with my ex we never had a proper yard, and I did all the yardwork and just when I would finally get a garden in, we would move. Then I split with my ex and haven't had a yard of my own for 4 years...until this year! Although it IS a super tiny yard...but it's MINE.
Anyway, I have 3 4'x4' beds (12 inches deep). I'm doing square foot gardening...sort of. One box has 16 squares but the other 2 only have 4 squares because of what I wanted to grow. I didn't start any seedlings because I wasn't sure if my dad was going to build me the raised beds or not (he JUST retired 2 weeks ago) so I only could plant things that would grow in a short amount of time in our cold climate. One whole box is carrots, LOL, since we all love carrots so much and they are SO expensive at the farmer's market (and the grocery store ones taste like crap). 3 kinds - a super early heirloom kind, and your typical scarlet nantes, and purple carrots!
I'm also attempting onions for the first time ever. I'm excited about seeing bees and wasps this spring already, because in the past I've had numerous zucchini and cucumber disasters due to no pollination. I'm attempting zucchini again, and I bought a hybrid super early cucumber that doesn't require pollination - I chose this one due to previous disasters. It seems a little late to start from seed, but last year I had 2 cucumber plants from the greenhouse - I was container gardening - and I started a couple from seed, and the only cucumbers I saw were from the seeded ones, so I think it's better to do that (it's certainly cheaper!)
I have several types of lettuce, and watercress (can't find it in stores, and have some recipes with it). Oh, and beets...last year I tried container beets and it didn't work out at all...they were stunted. So, crossing my fingers it works this year (bought an earlier type too). I'm trying swiss chard for the first time ever. My youngest daughter is crazy about radishes, so we planted those too.
I also have some container plants too - I'm starting a herb garden and so far have a zillion kinds...and the obligatory tomato and pepper plants. I also planted some scarlet runner beans in my front flower bed. One item I won't be planting this year is potatoes. I did the potato sack thing last year and had 3 beautiful plants in 3 sacks. Huge plants...they all flowered too. And all I ended up with was a bowlful of small potatoes. I can't find any good seed potatoes that are early (everywhere is sold out because I was late to shop...because I didn't know I was going to have a garden for sure...) so no potatoes this year.
I'll take pictures tomorrow. My dad did a nice job of the boxes. Sorry this was so long, I'm very excited and I have no one IRL to share my excitement with. No one around here gardens, it seems.
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right up until the point the clouds explode. Here's one of my favorites:
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But it wasn't too hard this year. My dad did the heavy lifting, and my kids helped me plant! It was actually a lot more relaxing than usual, now that my kids are old enough to help out. Even the youngest planted her radishes perfectly.
One year, I dug up a huge part of the lawn on my own, mixed in compost, manure and peat moss to break up the clay-based soil and did it all by hand with a shovel and a hoe. THAT was back breaking work. We moved the following year. 
