Welcome to BerryBee Garden, a personal gardening and home cooking blog based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. We share our experience growing Korean vegetables and other garden crops in a short northern growing season, then using our harvests to prepare everyday Korean meals at home.
Our garden reflects the challenges of gardening on the Canadian Prairies. Long winters, sudden spring frosts, short summers, and heavy clay soil influence what we plant and how we care for our crops. Through years of hands-on experience, we have learned to work with these conditions and make the most of each growing season.
BerryBee Garden is where we document what we grow, what we cook, and what we learn along the way.
Our Gardening Story: Growing in Calgary Since 2003
We moved into our Calgary home in 2003 and started growing leafy greens in our backyard. What began as a small home garden gradually expanded to include root vegetables, Korean mountain vegetables, herbs, berries, and other crops suited to our growing conditions.
Gardening in Calgary takes planning and patience. Spring weather can change quickly, summer is relatively short, and the first fall frost can arrive before some crops have finished growing. Our heavy clay soil also requires attention to soil structure, drainage, and organic matter.
Over the years, we have tried different growing methods, improved our garden beds, and built simple greenhouse structures to help protect plants during unpredictable weather. Not every crop succeeds, and some seasons bring unexpected problems. We share these experiences because practical lessons from both successful and unsuccessful attempts can help other home gardeners make better decisions.
Crops We Grow in Our Backyard
Our garden includes several crops that connect our Canadian growing conditions with the Korean food we enjoy cooking.
Raspberries: We started growing raspberries from roots given to us by a neighbour more than 15 years ago. The plants have continued to produce fruit through Calgary's cold winters. Each summer, we harvest the berries for fresh eating and home use.
Deodeok and Gomchwi: We grow Deodeok, a Korean perennial root vegetable, and Gomchwi, a leafy mountain vegetable used in Korean cooking. Both have been part of our garden for about 10 years. Growing these less common vegetables gives us an opportunity to document their development, seasonal care, and use in our kitchen.
Minari: Minari, also known as Korean water parsley, is valued for its fresh aroma and tender stems. We started our plants from fresh stems purchased at a Korean market in Vancouver about five years ago. After bringing them to Calgary, we worked on establishing them in our backyard garden.
Other Korean Garden Vegetables: Our seasonal crops include perilla leaves, Korean green onions, garlic chives, Korean chillies, and cucumbers. We also grow other vegetables and herbs depending on the season and available garden space.
These crops provide the ingredients for many of the recipes featured on BerryBee Garden.
Our Beekeeping Experience: 2015–2021
From 2015 to 2021, we kept honeybee hives on farmland about an hour south of Calgary. Beekeeping gave us another way to observe the relationship between weather, flowering plants, and seasonal changes.
Managing hives through Alberta's changing seasons required regular attention and careful preparation. The experience also taught us that outdoor work does not always produce the results we expect. Harsh winters and the distance between the farmland and our home eventually led us to stop keeping honeybees.
Although our beekeeping days have ended, we continue to appreciate the pollinators that visit our backyard. During the summer, we welcome wild bumblebees and other visiting insects among our flowering plants.
This experience is also part of the story behind the BerryBee name.
What the Name BerryBee Means
The name BerryBee brings together two parts of our gardening experience.
Berry represents the berries that grow in Canada's natural environment and the harvests we enjoy from our own garden. It also reflects the patience involved in growing food through changing seasons and the pleasure of bringing fresh ingredients to the family table.
Bee represents the pollinators that visit our garden and the care required to grow plants over time. Our years of beekeeping also remind us of the close connection between flowering plants, seasonal weather, and the wider garden environment.
Together, BerryBee reflects our interest in growing food, observing nature, cooking at home, and sharing practical experiences with other gardeners and home cooks.
What You Will Find on BerryBee Garden
BerryBee Garden focuses on three connected topics.
Calgary Gardening in a Short Growing Season
We share practical accounts of growing vegetables in Calgary, including soil preparation, composting, raised beds, simple greenhouse methods, planting schedules, harvesting, and seasonal garden care. Our articles draw on our own backyard experience and explain the conditions and methods involved wherever possible.
We also cover Korean vegetables that may be unfamiliar to some Canadian gardeners. Our aim is to document how we grow these crops in a cold climate rather than suggest that every method will work in every garden.
Korean Home Cooking from Garden Harvests
Our recipes feature everyday Korean dishes made with homegrown vegetables and ingredients available in Canadian kitchens. Topics include vegetable side dishes, stews, kimchi, sauces, and meals that use seasonal garden produce.
When a recipe uses a crop from our backyard, we connect the cooking process with the growing experience whenever relevant. This helps readers understand how an ingredient develops in the garden and how we use it in the kitchen.
Seasonal Harvesting and Storage
We also document how we harvest, store, and use our garden produce. These articles may cover keeping green onions fresh, using seasonal berries, preparing homemade kimchi, and collecting plant materials for the garden.
For us, the gardening season does not end when the vegetables are picked. Preparing food, storing the harvest, and returning suitable organic materials to the soil are all part of our home gardening routine.
Our Content and Editorial Approach
BerryBee Garden is a personal blog based on our own gardening and cooking experiences. We aim to publish original photographs, practical observations, and recipes that reflect what we actually grow and prepare.
We share the details that matter to our experience, including growing conditions, planting methods, ingredient quantities, preparation steps, and problems we encounter. Where results depend on weather, soil, or other local conditions, we explain that individual results may vary.
We are home gardeners, not commercial agricultural professionals. Our articles are intended to share practical experience and are not a guarantee that the same results will occur in every location.
We value clear instructions, honest observations, and useful information that readers can apply to their own gardens and kitchens. As our garden changes and we learn more, we continue to document new harvests, recipes, and growing methods.
Get in Touch
We welcome messages from readers interested in Calgary gardening, Korean vegetables, seasonal harvesting, and home cooking.
Email: info@berrybee.ca
Website: https://www.berrybee.ca
Contact page: Contact Us
Thank you for visiting BerryBee Garden. We hope our gardening notes and home cooking recipes inspire you to grow something, try a new dish, and enjoy the connection between the garden and the kitchen.
