After a beautiful weekend in Cochrane, many people are itching to break out their soil, mulch, and tools to kick-off gardening season.

Andrea Heembrock from Anything Grows in Cochrane says it’s always good to look into what you want your finished project to look like. “I think the best thing to do is to start planning. What you are going to use your space for in the back? Do you want to grow your own food this summer? Do you want to just make it a nice relaxing oasis for you and your family to enjoy when the weather's nice?”

“I think once you know that, then you can begin to look into what materials you're going to need from the local garden centre. If you're going to build a vegetable garden then you can come in and check out all the new starter vegetables that your local garden centre will have.”

While we have been sitting on the plus side of the thermometer for close to a week now, Heembrock says we should not be in rush to get plants in the ground. “It's a little cool out, it is Alberta. There's a fool’s spring, as Albertans affectionately call it and it's very possible that we still get a frost.”

On average, the end of May is the best time to plant, due to the ground taking that long to defrost after our winter.

Last summer saw more and more Cochranites grow a green-thumb, and Heembrock expects this year to be even busier. “There's a lot of people that are wanting to grow their own food or to decorate their house up with beautiful house plants. A lot more people are choosing to do yard renovations and there are more people that are learning how to build beautiful blooming flower beds. We've seen a huge increase in shoppers and gardeners, and we're super excited because we have a staff full of people here that are, you know, very knowledgeable when it comes to gardening and something that we all have a passion for is helping other people find joy in the same thing.”

“But it also means that there have been higher customer volumes at our store earlier in the season. If someone's looking for seeds, or they want to get their hands on some of those, you know, starter vegetable plants. It's good to pop in and just at least scope it out a little bit early because we anticipate that there's gonna be some stuff that we sell through earlier in the season.”