Monday, December 27, 2010
2010 Round Up
Harvest Monday
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Lasagna Gardening
Garden bed ready with old plants pulled out and set aside to be thrown back on in layer 2
Sunday, October 03, 2010
Harvesting the root vegetables
I harvested some of the beets too. I don't really know when they need to come out, but the greens have been turning brown in patches, and I love eating them so thought I should pull some out while they're still good. I don't have anything to do with the rest of the beets yet, so thought I might as well leave them in for now? Do I need to pull them out before it frosts?
I've been gradually pulling up carrots here and there, and thought I'd pull a few more earlier this week. Eek! I pulled up a few that look like this, and figured I should get them all out of the ground asap. (Why do they split like this?)
Thursday, September 23, 2010
Lots of Green Tomatoes
The fall garden still has some good stuff going on. Lettuce is still coming, and carrots and beets are still putting in some time in the dirt. I planted these bush beans in mid-August, just for the heck of it but not really knowing if the'd have enough time to produce before it got cold. They seem to be coming along alright, and little teeny beans are growing a bit every day.
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Friday, September 17, 2010
A girl after my own heart
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Harvest 2010... so far
For a $200 setup cost, it's kind of a dismal return, and I can't count the $80 in fruit against that cost because the trees were already there.
The most cost-effective crop has been lettuce. Go figure. With three successive plantings I've managed to keep us in lettuce and mesculuns continuously since the first picking in mid-June, and have even given some away. Next to lettuce, zucchini, potatoes, broccoli, sweet pepper, and snap peas have all saved us between $3 and $5 at the grocery store. Eek, that sounds so sad. But you know, I'm pretty sure I can harvest a lot more of everything next year. Maybe $10-15 worth for each, and that would really add up.
Don't get me wrong, the real purpose of the veggie garden is not actually to save money, although that would be pretty cool, but to eat lots of healthy foods grown locally, and well, for fun. I want to keep track of the economics of it to have a realistic view of vegetable gardening. I didn't want to be just an idealistic foodie, and it helps to put things in perspective to know that I spent more money than I saved on the garden this summer. With all the labour involved in addition to the cost, what on earth is the point? The point is food security, and learning basic skills for sustenance, and because I love it.
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Book Review: "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"

Wow that was all one big paragraph. Deep breath. Since the European Earwig's Rampage of Destruction, I have not felt discouraged nor felt my energy for the garden waning, but this book gave me a jolt of inspiration I didn't know I could use. If it's possible to be more into the garden than I was before, well I am. Thanks Barbara Kingsolver. I have forgotten all the quotes I was going to write out in this blog for you, so you'll just have to take my word for it and read this book!
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Harvest Monday
We got back from a weekend away on Monday afternoon, and after a patrol of the garden I had Big News and a harvest of a salad for my lunch today.
The Big News is that the mystery of the rotting zucchinis is solved. It was blossom rot that was causing them to ALL rot at a certain size. Thanks to the advice of a friendly farmer I talk with through work, I tried plucking off the blossoms from the ends of the zucchinis, and bada-bing bada-boom, suddenly the zucchinis have doubled in size and are not rotting at all!
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Letting it all go to seed
Sunday, August 22, 2010
The Case of the Jalapenos without Spice
In other news I trellised the cucumber in a pot because I read that they produce better when trellised. And I have to say, "bush" cucumber or pea for that matter, is a total misnomer. They should be called "short", because you still need to trellis them, especially the peas, which I didn't realize until too late.
The first of the tomatoes are ripening - the ones in the sunny spot. After my last post I did a major prune on the tomatoes, thanks to Christine's encouragement and link to a video on how to do it. They look rather naked now, but I think it's what they needed. I'm already plotting how I'll do things differently with the tomatoes next year.
Elsewhere in the garden, the third planting of lettuce has been picked twice now, and there is one broccoli crown left, with little shoots sprouting on the plants where I already cut the crown. The zucchinis are rotting, which I think must be due to lack of sun. I've started watering them less so we'll see. Beets are actually looking okay after a rough start, and the carrots are fantastic (we've eaten a few that I've thinned). I planted a third try to spinach and a cat or racoon already dug up the patch and pooped in it. Maybe some will survive.
I am reading Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle right now and am totally absorbed in it. Book review to come!
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
The case of the mysteriously different tomato plants
Friday, August 06, 2010
Broccoli salad and plans for plum jam
Green beans from the little white pot (planted another bunch in the garden, and will see if they have time to fruit before the summer is over)
Friday, July 30, 2010
Things I can't believe are growing
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Apples for Pie
We have 5 lb peeled, cored and sliced apples in the freezer now, and I don't know how much more to go. Maybe we dealt with a third or so. I'd like to dehydrate some, and maybe use some fresh for baking if it's not too hot out. I wouldn't mind canning some apple sauce, but I'm not sure it's the right apple because when I did a small test batch, I realized that a LOT of sugar has to be added to take the edge of the tartness.
The yellow plums are going to be ripe any day and we're not sure what to do with those yet. We'll eat as many fresh as we can and give some away, but I'm sure there will be more than we can eat. Any ideas?
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
It's a Jungle out There!
On our trip, I had a few gardening-related experiences and thoughts. On a walk through Vananda on Texada Island, we encountered the most beautiful vegetable garden I have ever seen. So lush and organized, like a quilt of food to come. Apparently Texada is ideal for growing vegetables because of the lime in the soil and a warmer, dryer climate than nearby Powell River.
In most cases it seems the homesteads only lasted for one generation, and there's barely a trace of them today. We scrounged around one site in particular, (Mike's Place in Melanie Cove that's described in The Curve of Time), and although we could pick out a few remaining apple trees covered in moss and on their last legs, and a few remnants of the rock terraces Mike built, we were amazed at how, in 80 years, there was virtually no trace. What hard work it must have been, and how sad I felt, to see it all but disappeared.
Back to my urban homestead, Yukon Gold potatoes that I planted in the little coffee sacks (pictured in this post) were dead when we got back. The big sack with the Red Chieftains is still going, so I wonder if the little sack got too dried out in the hot weather. Well I dumped out the sacks into a wheelbarrow and rummaged through for the potatoes. A sad little harvest, but it will do for one supper I suppose.
How are your gardens doing?
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Off the Dirt for 19 Days
Monday, June 28, 2010
June Tally: $6.75
Between the peas and lettuce, I'm estimating we've reaped $6.75 of harvest so far. Pretty minimal, but it's still early, and I'm a rookie.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Suddenly there were Peas
Friday, June 11, 2010
Garden Aesthetics
Looking at other people's gardens is perhaps even more thrilling than looking at my own, and I just had a cyber tour of Sustainable Eats garden in Seattle. Then there's Garden Therapy in Vancouver and the before and after pictures. Oh why didn't I take a before picture here when it was a mound of dirt, garbage, and the full range of invasive species?
Monday, June 07, 2010
From earwigs to slugs and snails
The European earwigs appear to be gone, and now the slugs are eating my pea leaves and the snails are eating the dahlia I bought. I am coping with slugs and snails and feel that I will pull through this latest invasion without too much of my spirit crushed. It is heartening to hear that expert gardeners also experience losses and setbacks like the dying cucumbers and pole beans that didn't come well in the modern victory garden. I made a trap for the slugs in an old yogurt container filled with yeasty water and found it dug out and overturned by my suspected feline trouble-maker. I put a ring of crushed egg shells around the dahlia and it seems to have kept the snails away last night. Either than or they didn't bother coming back because they'd already completely defoliated the thing and even nibbled on the flower.
Otherwise things in the garden are coming along, slowly with the cool weather. Lettuce should be ready to pick for a small salad soon.
I may not have mentioned yet that we have a giant walnut tree in the yard. As a result of dealing with the harvest last fall, there are cast off walnuts pretty much everywhere, being collected with leaf debris and used as mulch, or tossed in the compost and also ending up the the garden. So now we have little walnut trees popping up everwhere. I've put three in pots to grow them just as a fun experiment, but the rest I have to pull up. Check it out.
Another lovely surprise is the first borage flower today. Thanks for the plant Sonja.Tuesday, June 01, 2010
Lawn Treasures
I have poppies popping up outside (free seeds at the community garden), marigolds that survived the earwig rampage of destruction about to bloom, and then I went on a wee shopping spree at Buckerfields on the weekend. Lavender, a dahlia, status, allysum, and heliotrope (the last two for the shady patio in the back. Oh, and the sweet peas I planted ages ago are about six inches tall now, and we installed a trellis on the sunny patio for them to grow up.
But pictured below, are the tiniest, cutest little pansies that I found in the middle of the lawn, managing to flower between mowings to announce their presence. I quickly extracted them from the lawn and planted them in a flower bed. Aren't they amazing? There are two plants, and they're each about 3 inches tall and have lots of blooms.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
European earwig goes on a rampage of destruction
It's been about a week since I first noticed something missing. Something being an entire marigold plant (a little one that I'd just planted outside after WEEKS of nurturing it under the growlight). Then the next day another one gone, and the next day another. Since I'd only planted three in that little spot, I guess I thought when they were done with those three marigolds that would be it. Nope. Then the jumped the retaining wall and started on the next two. Saturday morning we went away sailing for the long weekend, and in a last ditch effort to save the biggest and last remaining marigold, I put a toilet paper role around it. At this point I figured it was rodents chewing the plants). Well that did absolutely nothing to keep the leaf chewing at bay.
In fact, now that I know it's the European earwig (or at least it's the best match on this website), I've realized the toilet paper role actually attracted them rather than kept them away. At least it allowed me to figure out what was going on, because when I took the toilet paper roll away the dirt moved and I found these.
In the meantime, they got the carrots, broccoli and radishes, and may be responsible for some chews in the beets and spinach. They seem to have left the lettuce, peas and cilantro alone, if that's any consolation.
Oh and some neighbourhood pet left a big poop in the spinach. Where is the justice?
Well I am not going to let the European earwig get the better of me, so I have laid traps, as the helpful information from McGill University told me to do. Traps of beer. That's right. I thought that was a better first option compared to making a "bug juice" of blended earwigs and water to spray on the other earwigs.
Not all is lost, but my spirit is dampened. Has anyone dealt with these bugs before? Do you think I have it right? Are these indeed European earwigs?