There’s something kind of beautiful about a garden journal.

Not the polished kind you see in magazines or perfectly curated YouTube thumbnails with immaculate raised beds and harvest baskets that look staged for a cooking show. I mean the real kind. The dirt-under-the-fingernails kind. The “I honestly have no idea if this is going to work” kind.

So this post is a little different than my usual ones.

This one is mostly for me.

A record of what went into the ground during the spring and summer of 2026 so that years from now I can look back and remember what thrived, what struggled, what got eaten by bugs, what exploded with growth, and what probably should never have been planted where I planted it.

But if you enjoy gardening, dreaming about gardening, or just like seeing what someone else is trying in their little corner of the world, then I’m more than happy to share it with you too.

This is our very first real garden season with the new setup, and honestly, it feels less like building a garden and more like building a future. Every seed feels like optimism. Every transplant feels like a tiny gamble against weather, slugs, deer, drought, and my own questionable decision-making.

And somehow…that’s part of the magic.

Some things are well on their way, others are just getting started and some have not sprouted. The ones marked “(still not sprouted)” have been started 2 or 3 times already so I am thinking that I just got bad seeds.

So here it is. The official 2026 garden log.

Vegetables

Potatoes

• Red potatoes
• Yukon Gold potatoes

Peas & Beans

• Sugar snap peas (seeds didn’t take well, picked up 18 plants from greenhouse)
• Marvel peas
• Green pole beans
• Calypso bush beans
• Dragon Tongue bush beans
• Tri-colour bush beans

Root Vegetables

• Danvers Half Long carrots
• Multi-coloured carrots
• Red beets
• Radishes
• Red onions (did not do well but hanging in there)
• Spring onions

Brassicas

• Broccoli x6 (starter plants, not seed)
• Cauliflower x5 (starter plants, not seed)

Corn & Cucurbits

• Sweet corn (35-40 plants)
• Cucumbers (sprouted very slowly 6 plants, got 4 plants from greenhouse to get a head start)
• Pickling cucumbers (sprouted very slowly, 4 plants)
• Mini squash x5
• Mini melon (failed to germinate)
• Sugar Baby Watermelon (4 starts from greenhouse)
• Cantaloupe (2 starts from greenhouse)
• Zucchini x7

Peppers

• California Wonder bell peppers x4
• Cayenne pepper x1
• Jalapeño peppers x2
• Banana peppers x2
• Unknown mystery pepper plants x2
• Jimmy Nardello peppers (hoping for x4 after the cat annihilated the first round)

The Jimmy Nardellos deserve special mention because apparently my cat decided they were a delicacy. I replanted them out of stubbornness more than confidence, so we’ll see what happens.

At one point I had so many extra pepper and tomato starts that I ended up giving away close to 35 plants at work. Even after that, I still somehow managed to plant a total of sixteen tomato plants in the garden.

I may have a problem.

Tomatoes

• Cherry tomatoes x3
• Gold Nugget tomatoes x2
• Pink Brandywine tomatoes x2
• Old German tomatoes x2
• Manitoba tomatoes x2
• Early Girl tomatoes x1
• Mortgage Lifter tomatoes x3
• Grape tomatoes x1

If all of these produce well, I suspect future Rob will be buried under pasta sauce, salsa, roasted tomatoes, sandwiches, and complete tomato exhaustion by late August.

Greens & Herbs

Greens

• Romaine lettuce (all over the garden in open spots)
• Buttercrunch lettuce
• Leafy Green lettuce
• Spinach
• Kale

Herbs

• Oregano
• Lemon thyme
• English thyme
• Rosemary
• Tri-colour sage
• Purple sage
• Pineapple sage (smells divine!)
• Parsley
• Dill x2
• Chives
• Garlic chives
• Chamomile
• Lemon Balm (chosen by Sarah)
• English Mint
• Mojito Mint
• Basil

There’s something deeply satisfying about stepping outside and cutting fresh herbs straight from the garden. Even brushing against them while watering releases that smell into the evening air. That alone makes them worth growing.

Flowers & Companion Plants

• Marigolds
• Zinnias
• Nasturtiums

Partly for pollinators. Partly for beauty. Partly because gardens should feel alive and chaotic and colourful instead of purely functional.

And honestly, nasturtiums might be one of the happiest-looking plants on Earth.

The Berry Oasis & Orchard

One of the things that made us fall in love with this property was that so much of this was already here when we bought the house. It didn’t feel like moving into a yard. It felt like inheriting years of care and patience from someone else.

Already established when we moved in:

• Four apple trees
• One plum tree
• One peach tree
• Raspberry patch
• Blackberry patch
• Rhubarb

Added by us this year:

• One brand new cherry tree
• 3 new heritage raspberry bushes
• Three Saskatoon bushes
• Three blueberry bushes
• Strawberry patch

The cherry tree is still very young, and we fully expect it to ignore us for the next 3 to 5 years before giving anything back. Fair enough, honestly.

There’s something strangely emotional about planting fruit trees and berry bushes. Maybe because they’re an act of patience in a world that constantly demands immediacy.

You plant them knowing full well they may take years before they truly give back.

But one day, if all goes well, there’ll be shade under those branches. Fruit in baskets. Bees everywhere. Maybe grandchildren running through them someday. Who knows.

That’s the thing about gardening. It quietly teaches you to believe in tomorrow.

Now comes the fun part: seeing what survives my learning curve. I do have some experience gardening. I can still remember helping my mom in the summers as a kid, back in the mosquito-filled prairies of Manitoba, even if I probably dreaded it at the time.

Since then, I’ve grown things, both small and large, everywhere I’ve lived as an adult, from Prince George to Kelowna to Langford.

But here in Sooke, this feels different than anything we’ve attempted before.

This isn’t just a few pots on a patio or a small backyard garden anymore. This is our first real attempt at building something closer to a homestead. Something sustainable. Something rooted. And honestly, that makes every success a little more exciting…and every mistake a lesson worth learning.

Some things will thrive. Some things will fail spectacularly. I’ll plant too close together in places. Underestimate how massive zucchini plants become. Forget where I seeded something. Lose battles to slugs. Win a few battles too.

But standing out there in the evening, dirt on my hands, listening to the birds while watering rows of tiny plants…it already feels worth it.

And if nothing else, this post gives future me a record to look back on when I inevitably say:

“Wait…what did I grow that year again?”

I’ve written several times now about trying to step away from the computer more. Trying to unplug from the endless scrolling, the constant noise, the feeling that life is somehow always happening somewhere else behind another screen.

And honestly, this garden has become part of that journey for me.

Being outside every single day, digging in the dirt, walking barefoot through the yard in the evening sun, listening to birds instead of notifications…it’s more therapeutic than I can properly explain. There’s something grounding about it in the most literal sense of the word.

Even building the garden itself with my own two hands has felt deeply rewarding. Hauling soil, building beds, setting up irrigation lines to make watering easier, standing back at the end of the day exhausted but proud of what was accomplished. Some of these recent days out in the yard have genuinely been among the best days I’ve had in a very long time.

Maybe that’s what I’ve really been growing out here all along. Not just vegetables or fruit trees. Maybe I’m trying to grow a quieter life.

Remember, you only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough. Step outside, dig into the earth, listen to the bees, breathe in the scent of tomato vines in the evening sun, and I’ll catch you next time.

Much love,
Rob ❤️