I love Japanese Eggplant sometimes called “Millionaire Eggplant”. I was fortunately able to purchase six today. They are very small so hopefully they will survive and bare some fruit. They like it hot and so far this growing it is anything but. It was end of the season for “Two Thumbs Up” green house in Pass Creek so they were having a blow out sale - 2 for 1. I got two containers (six little plants) of the eggplant and it was the kind I prefer (double bonus) and I got 2 squashes, Table Queen Acorn and Green Hubbard.
Yesterday I asked Bob to turn my magnificent compost but I had to take out my pepper and eggplant plants first ~ I have them in there to stay warm at this time. I saw the pepper plants but I just couldn’t see the eggplant – did someone borrow it. So Bob goes to turn my magnficient compost with the pitch fork and he says. “Hold on a minute something is stuck on this thing”. It was my very healthy waiting to be planted eggplant – now busted ~ guess what my reaction was – it wasn’t pretty!
Large Gardening Day:
Yesterday I continued to rassle with the rest of those darn Blue Bells and the chick weed in my no-longer-rose garden so I could get the bedding flowers planted. It got done and it will hopefully be spectacular but it was a lot of work – I mean my body doesn’t get that good hurt any more ~ it is more like what now hurt.
Then I moved onto the large vegetable garden. I started to putter in the end (tires) which I planted at least 3 weeks ago. Hmm . . . why isn’t anything coming up? Well the Blue Hubbard is up as well as the Parsley and Cilantro but where are the squashes and cucumbers? So I replanted the Barbra and Zucchini squashes and the cucumbers. We have had so much rain that maybe the seeds floated away or maybe the red wigglers have eaten them?
Then I moved down to the front of the garden and did some weeding. That end is looking pretty healthy and most everything is up and getting to the point of thinning out.
At the end of the large gardening day (I call it that because I put so much time and effort into it) I put my big, comfy cushion on my Muskoka chair and proceed to tell Bob that I think next year I will either plant all garlic where the veggies are at this time (that depends on how the garlic does this year and if I make enough money selling it to make it worth my while) or even plant grass seed. My reason is that there is only two of us, I don’t harvest other than freeze (I don’t even like frozen vegetables and Bob isn’t a vegetable fan for the most part). The no-longer-rose garden is plenty big enough for what we want in fresh veggies and I grow a lot of veggies and herbs on the deck in big pots any ways. I could easily move the two remaining rose bushes to another garden area then till and fertilize the no-longer-rose garden and away we go – easy, less time consuming and a lot less watering and expensive fertilizing. I am not even worried about the Blue bells because I have a plan which I will divulge another time. Bob is not so keen on the idea of shutting down the big vegetable garden since we have invested in a $1,000 dollar electric fence but we can easily move it over to the no-longer-rose garden and have it still be aesthetically appealing. I think I have quite a good and sensible argument.
A few years back Bob built me a couple of raised beds ~ one for various whatever and the other is suppose to be a rose garden.
I worked really hard today in the raised various whatever garden. In the half that is close to my magnificent compost I planted a large beef steak tomatoe, a big Bertha pepper, a sassy red pepper and a few cucumber seeds ~ these are close to the oregano plant ~ hence “Greek Salad” garden. I put the tomatoes and peppers in between assorted chive plants hoping that the deer will not want them since they don’t like chives. I also planted lots of flowers in the various whatever garden: sunflowers (in sunken pots so they don’t rob the soil of nutrients that other plants need) zinnias, pom-pom zinnias, cosmos, calendulas, nasturtium, red rocket snap dragons and marigolds. This was hard work and took a couple of hours but I hope the results will be worth it.
Then I moved onto the rose garden. It looks like most of my roses have died this year as well as some lavender shrubs. I think that it could be a combination of two factors: one is that we had some lovely hot summer like weather a few weeks back then it started frosting again and being chilly. Also in my rose garden I have this weed that I have been battling for years – Blue bells. At least twice a season I take out many wheel barrels full of this obnoxious weed with it’s tubers that grow towards China and I think with the aggressiveness that I battle this weed and the fact that I think it is strangling my roses and lavender has caused the demise of these plants. So again today another battle and to make matters harder it had been raining a lot here for the last couple of days so the soil is very heavey. I shovelled, pulled, tugged, lifted and tossed about in the rose garden for quite a few hours (I am hurting – my back, my bad knee and my hips) but I got it just about done (I had to stop or I was going to pass out). If the weather is nice tomorrow then I will plant lots of different cut flowers in the no-longer-rose garden. I have quite an assortment of bedding out flowers that I think would make Monet want to grab a canvas and paint brush. I have cosmos, zinnias, salvias, asters, snap dragons, nicotina and lobellia ~ should make some lovely bouquets (provided the deer stay clear).
I certainly did enjoy my well deserved bath with a muscle soak of epsom salt stuff that Lindsay and Jeff gave me for my last past birthday. I think that the soak must have of worked as I really do feel better.
I will post some photos when the show starts.
I probably should have gone back to see what I have blogged about the garden last but I am here now and will wing it
I am almost finished with the vegetable garden. A lot of stuff I had to wait for the weather to warm up for the plants that need the warm weather. About two weeks ago I planted some cucumber, different squashes, and herb seeds in tires at the back of my front garden. The Blue Hubbard squash is making an appearance (seeds that I harvested last year) and the coriander and parsley as well. Pretty much all of the other veggies are up except for the Swiss Chard (seeds that I also harvested my self).
This past weekend I worked on the deck. My decor this year is mostly brightly coloured petunias inserted in the wall planters with a few seeds of Marigolds and Nasturtiums. I did do a few urns similar but mostly I have put veggies in my deck pots. I have pots of Eggplant, Zucchini, Cucumber, Tomatoes (hanging baskets of tomatoes too as well as herbs), Green beans, Peppers and Rosemary. In some of my wall pots I have single serving size butter lettuce, peas, Roma tomatoes, basil, parsley, thymes, oregano, mint, carrots, Swiss chard and whatever else I so fancy to see if it will grow in a pot.
In the next couple of days I need to get to my flower beds. The flower beds on either side of the compost I am going to put some more tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers (Greek salad) upside the compost for nutrients and warmth. I will put the usual annuals on the outsides of these beds ~ Snap dragons, Cosmos, Calendula, Zinnias and Nicotina ~ bright coloured cut flowers.
It was still a little chilly and rainy today but I decided that some of my tomato plants and pepper plants needed to get into their bed for the summer. When I went to get a good couple of scoops of compost for my soil blend I was taken back by the steam that literally rose from where I extracted the compost . . . the compost was actually very warm. I mixed that with some high end potting soil and a little volcanic ash. Hopefully with the still chilly nights the newly planted tomatoes and peppers will strive.
While walking Bailey on our path that leads to the mountain while passing the garlic garden I noticed that some of my garlic had yellow leaves. Oh-oh, that is not a good sign – it means mold. That also means I have to get that stuff out before it wrecks the whole crop. Another thing to note is that at this time it is only the garlic that I got from the Garlic Festival last year that is moldy – hmm. Thankfully (at this time anyways) the rest of my garlic seems to be doing very good – that would be the garlic that I got from an organic garlic grower in Shore Acres (John Johnson from the Nerve band) – it is just as beautiful as can be! So I dug out all the garlic that seemed to be in moldy shape (and was it ever), then I tilled the whole garden between the rows of lovely garlic. Holding the gas lever on the tiller for such a long time really put my hand into quite a funk – ow – I can barely move it. It is OK now – aging sucks!
Bob told me that he wanted me to grow lots of cucumbers this year. I sent away for some seeds from Thompson and Morgan for container growing cucumbers (and other vegetables too). I have about 15 tires inserted into the back part of the front garden. I has been fairly hot the last couple of days (and I don’t think it has been frosting in the mornings this week) so I figured that the tires have heated up enough to take a chance on putting seeds into them. I planted two tires of cucumbers, one tire each of Barbara squash, Acorn squash, Blue Hubbard squash and miser Zucchini (also from Thompson and Morgan seed company). I did one tire each of curly leaf parsley and cilantro. To prepare the tires I turned the soil then put in a sprinkle of Volcanic Ash, new Sunshine Mix #4 soil, organic sheep manure and some organic matter from my fabulous compost. As I was preparing each tire I didn’t come across any worms. My good friend, Patty, grows Red Wrigglers and often shares them with me. Off I trotted to my fabulous compost in search of Red Wrigglers for my newly prepped tires. It took a bit of muscle but I found them so each tire got a handful of organic matter with some juicy hard working Red Wrigglers.
Last weekend we went to Kelowna to see Lindsay and Jeff and Willow and their beautiful new home. They took us to the farmers market on Saturday. I came across a guy, Dean Dack of Classic Compost, and he gave me his spiel on Volcanic Ash and how much my garden and my health would benefit from it – that I would grow big, bad, mean tomatoes. I was sold so I bought a bucket of the stuff – and you know what they say about tomatoes – two things you hope to have in your life is true love and home grown tomatoes.
I put a few Zinnia seeds and Calendula seeds amongst various parts of the garden to attract good hardworking insects.
Finally ~ an Asparagus spear has appeared. I am so excited – it looks beautiful. As I was planting more peas I stupidly stepped on my long awaited asparagus spear – so I plucked it off its stock and gave it a rinse and ate it – OMG – it is so delicious! I can hardly wait for the rest of the crop to show up.
We have some before photos of our front garden. It got so overloaded with perennials that I could not even put a spade or a garden fork in the soil last year even after a good soak. So we have decided to make raised beds and put in some very low maintenance shrubs.
The battle begins . . . where to start? Last fall we put landscaping fabric over the front beds to try to kill most of the tangled mass of perennials. A great deal of plants pushed through the fabric as strong as ever. Bob pulled off the fabric and we both analyzed the gardens. I have a tree that has lovely little yellow flowers in the spring (I can’t think of the name of it at this time) in the middle of one of my gardens. Bob put a pulley type thing on it and attached the other end to his truck to hall out the tree (yes he did cut around the root ball first). After several attempts of pulling the tree and stopping and readjusting the pulley (I am on the tree end trying to make this as painless as possible for this tree) we finally get it out and re-planted it in the front bank among bigger, stronger trees ~ I hope it will be happy and healthy there. In this order Bob did a clear cut with the weed eater and I raked out the mess. Bob got his big tiller going and began to cut the mass of plants – no kidding – it was just crazy, then I raked out that mess – talk about huge, tight balls of roots. Then Bob tilled with my little garden tiller – you got it – I raked out more plant mess. Then I tilled with my little tiller and yes raked again. Bob then measured and cut the ties and placed them down. Then we called it a day . . . outside anyways. Dinner still has to be made, laundry brought in off of the clothes line. I am ready to move into a little house with a little yard. Enough of this crazy spending every weekend all spring long doing back breaking yard work!
Tomorrow Bob will secure the ties with very long nails. We will put in some soil from our tilled back field and let it settle for a week or so. I am going to research about low maintenance, sun loving, tall shrubs.
After the shrubs are planted we will fill in the gaps with wood chips. The front gardens will then be on their own.
I planted two rows each of carrots (seed tape – gotta love that), two rows of red onion bulbs, two rows of last years seeds of red Detroit beets (hopefully they will still be good), one row of radishes (seed tape again – yay), and one row on Swiss chard seeds (so second generation and climatized seeds for my garden) that I dried out last fall.
My method this year of two rows is the tracks that the garden tiller left behind each time I tilled a row so that the two rows are about 4 -6 inches apart. When I would move on to different vegetable then I would leave about a foot between the rows. I also planted some (old) marigold seeds and some third generation calendula seeds (that I dried last fall) at the ends of each row of veggies to attract the good bugs and it looks so pretty too!
I also found some bone and blood meal in my gardening shed so I tilled that into each row (except the carrots – I forgot). I am hoping that with the the tens bags of sheep manure distributed last fall and tilled into the garden and the six bags of sheep manure, five wheel barrel fulls of compost and lots of red wrigglers tilled into the garden this spring that I will have some great veggies this summer.
Yesterday I dug and spread five wheel barrel fulls of compost. The first three barrels was very dry compost without any worms – I was concerned. The next two barrels had loads of tightly wound together red wrigglers which tells me they were all hanging out in a certain area. I distributed the red wrigglers evenly threw out the vegetable garden.
It was a lovely day to be outside so today was the day I started my vegetable garden. It is April 18 close to 22 celcius.
I gently raked the old maple leaves away from the south end of the vegetable garden. Supposedly maple leaves are toxic and not suppose to be put into your compost or on your garden to rot for that matter but I had them just on the perennial flower part of the vegetable garden. There is big pile of rotting leaves in the nearby field so I broadcast my old 2007 & 08 seeds on top of it then I put the raked up maple leaves on top of that ~ maybe something will come of it ~ whatever.
I turned the soil in an 8 by 4 foot area in the south end of the veggie garden just north of the perennials. I planted in one row, half of spinach (’09 Mr. Fotherhill seeds) and half of mixed lettuces (’10 Morgan and Thompson seeds). Next to that I planted three rounds of Little Knight pea seeds that I dried myself from my pea plants last year ~ these Little Knight seeds are supposedly container friendly and do not need to be staked at all. I did grow them in a container last year and found that they should be staked (so this year I will try it again and use one foot garden fencing to see how that works). The ones I just planted in the garden I put upside down tomato cages as a staking ~ if I remember correctly after I did this last year, I think I told Bob that we will have use regular pea staking in 2010~ oh-well, live and learn that is the whole point of the garden diary.
I had dug up three different asparagus roots so I replanted them in the row next to the peas which is where I have lots of asparagus (I hope).
It was such a treat to see so many big, fat, juicy worms in the area that I was working in today.
Everything got a good watering. What I just listed took me approximately 3.5 hours (noon to 3:30). My knee is fairly tender and I am pretty warn out.
I am going to try to blog each time I am in the garden so I can use this as a reference next 2011 season. I will write a new post when ever I plant new stuff but I will comment on the posting of as a progress report on whatever is already planted.