When I was growing up, until I was about ten or eleven, we had a vegtable garden every year. One of my earliest memories is getting in trouble for stealing baby carrots from the garden and harvesting raspberries that would be turning into yummy jam. It was A Lot Of Work so it's probably no coincidence that gardening was put off after all the free labour (ie my siblings) moved out. Luckily we have relatives who plant way too much for themselves and we still raid their gardens.

But we were never entirely able to let go of digging in the dirt and even today I sit here with three tomato plants housed in terracotta planters.

The Canadian growing season is short. We plant around May 2-4 weekend and do a little weather dance to ward off the late frost. Our Thanksgiving comes more than a month before the American holiday because we harvest our crops before our much earlier frost. What we garden, how we garden and where we garden varies from coast to coast but, perhaps in defiance to our long winters, in the summer we simply must grow things.

On the west coast, Jon and Beth are chronicling their dream of moving from BC to Bergen to become farmers. In the meantime they are satisfying that growing urge with a plot at their community garden and growing in their house with the left of a grow light.

On the opposite cost on the island of Newfoundland, Jeanette blogs at Illustrated Life about why she's putting in a garden.

Rising costs of fuel will drive up food costs, especially here, as everything is flown or trucked in. It would not take much in terms of shortages, trucker strikes or climate change to make a huge impact on availability of fresh food. So my aim this year is to become as self sufficient as possible and grow as much as I can which I can then process, bottle, freeze etc. Besides making economic sense, I also know just what I am eating and how it was grown.

In western Canada Alana provides some Prairie Home Therapy and ten steps to plant tomatoes.

Step One.
Agonize about the containers.

Step Two.
Stop worrying.

I just wanted to gobble up and move into Asseragirl's garden. If you are in the market for an Organic Weed Killer she's got one for you.

I have to admit both Knitty, Vintage, and Rosy's Toronto garden and reading tastes. It's not every day you find a blogger longing to sit and read Persephone Classics in her garden. Amy's Garden is peppered with literary references and out of print gardening books.

I hope that someday I'll live someplace where I can plant a garden as big as the ones I grew up with. For now I'll just look at gardens online and dream.

Contributing Editor Sassymonkey blogs at Sassymonkey and Sassymonkey Reads.