Strawberry-Rhubarb Jam

The last two weeks in the yard have been pretty quiet, involving weeding, succession seeding, and a battle with some ants in one of the garden boxes. The rhubarb out front has recovered from last year's drought enough for me to take some stalks.

I've made strawberry-rhubarb pie filling before but I've never tried it as a jam, so I found a recipe online and some frozen strawberries and away we went.

Maybe a bit sweeter than I might like my jams, but it definitely tastes good. Texture is basically a soft spread, not all that different from stewed rhubarb. Might be good on pancakes on a cold, winter day. I'm going to try Saskatoon-rhubarb jam later in the season. Sounds gross but the pies we've tried with this combination are amazing.

The flowers we bought seem to be doing very well in the planters and pots. Keeping them wet in the early heat is quite a job.

The raspberries are all in bloom, to the delight of the bees.

The chives have also flowered like crazy out front beneath the plum tree.

In more exciting news, it looks like the plum tree has set a small number of fruit after a very pretty blossom this spring. Hopefully it will see these through to the fall.

I was wandering the back alleys of the neighbourhood the other morning and noticed some of my neighbours have put up this lovely grape trellis and plants the base on both sides with a huge strawberry patch. Very pretty!

This week, I need to do some thinning of the carrots and the beets and hopefully harvest some lettuce for salads.

Tulips, peas and potatoes

 Alright, I missed a week or two of updates due to some travel but am now back on track.

We had a great year of bulbs, which are finished now. I'll definitely be putting a few more in this fall.

All of the seedlings have now gone outdoors, with mixed success. Most of the squash made it except a few that I was clumsy with. These I replanted with direct sown seeds.

We also have most of the flowers in the ground. There is still room for a few more, I'd say but I'm going to wait for some end of season sales.

The rest of the spring flowers are just about finishing, It was a great year for lilacs as well as lily of the valley. I have had to start ruthlessly removing some as pit spreads so aggressively.

The peas are up and I have been working hard to keep them free from weeds. I have been having good luck in the far corner of the yard growing clover footpaths (mostly through selective weeding) and the peas are right here so they have gotten more attention than usual.

The basil has all survived transplant, which is amazing. Usually I lose half of the seedlings to shock or various other woes. I did have a lot of casualties among the cantaloupe and the cucumber transplants and I had to go buy a few replacements.

The radishes have come up up nicely and the beans are starting to germinate. No sign of the asparagus this year. Oh well, it was never really done that well for me (maybe the soil is too clay-y) and I think I'm just going to give up.

The garlic is almost a foot tall already. nice to have some early signs of success. we've also managed to finish the garlic scape pesto I had in the freezer so I may do a batch again this year.

I was also happy to see that the potatoes have started to pop up. Yay!

I ended up reseeding the carrots (maybe I used old seed?). In better news, the beets seem to be coming up (finally!) and the tomatoes all see to have survived their transplanting. Whew!

Fruit blossoms, bulbs, and planting

 This week was probably the height spring blooms in Edmonton.

Above, plums; below saskatoons.

The cherry tree was also in full show and I'm hopefully we'll get a good crop this year. The apples (not shown) are just starting to bloom.

The tulips also all popped.

In more prosaic gardening, I have been putting out the seedlings we grew. The tomatoes got way too leggy so I ended up putting them in on their sides in the trench method. Six went in out front and six in the back to climb up the deck railing.

These were a mix of cherry tomatoes and larger ones (mortgage lifters, I think).

I also put the squash, green onions, and the basil out. I didn't get a chance to harden off the basil as much as I wanted so I gave them each a mini greenhouse and some leaf cover for the first few days to lessen the shock.

 

I have a few squash left to plant. I also finished the seeding, including a bunch of sunflowers. The cucumbers and cantaloupe will sit inside for another couple of weeks before I put them out (they are more prone to dying when transplanted!). The last of the planting will be a bunch of flowers, maybe in a week or two.

Plums, bulbs and compost

Not huge changes in the garden this week, but spring is proceeding. Both plum trees have flowered (at the same time!) so I am hopeful we might see some fruit this year. The cherry tree is also budding up.

The daffs are just about done for the year but the tulips are starting, which is lovely.

The birds are also back and singing.

I've been doing a lot of grunt work in the yard. I cleaned up the edge of the south raspberry bed, for example, driving back the crab grass and creeping bell flower. I've also been levelling pathways since the soil is moist and easy to work with and I've been removing grass in the pathways.

The city announced their free compost was available so we grabbed about 90 gallons last week and dressed the beds.

It also looks like we're past the risk of frost so I have been planting. Potatoes are in as are the peas and carrots and beets. I am about half way done the beans. Nothing to exciting yet as nothing has germinated, although I did see a carrot up on the weekend.

This week, I am hardening off some seedlings and also thinking about getting some flowers. There was also another sale on local peppers, so I ran another six through the dehydrator.

Bees, daffs and garlic

There were some encouraging signs in the yard this week. With some rain and heat, the garlic shot up past four inches and I've now put a bunch of leaf mulch around it to try and suppress the weeds and retain some moisture.

I planted the beets and peas this week (after some bed maintenance) and also a large bed of greens (lettuce, arugula, kale, more lettuce, and some ancient kohlrabi seeds). A bucket of self-seeded lettuce also announced itself.

The daffodils are up and the first bees have taken to sleeping in them.

The rhubarb has also returned after a hard year last year due to drought.

Some shots of the beet and carrots beds out front.

 

I'm also seeing some life in the fruit trees, with the cherries, saskatoons, and plums budding up. Raspberry canes are also sending out new leaves and the haskap (below) are flowering.

This week, I have some more bed maintenance to do and I'm hopeful to snag some city compost (went on Sunday but they were cleaned out) to rejuvenate some beds with a bit of a top dressing. The potatoes are chitting in the windows and will likely go in the ground next week. And the first of the squash seeds has germinated in the window sill!

Pepper flakes and sauerkraut

I spent most of this week doing boring spring chores (e.g., loosening soil, weeding while the ground is moist). I also cleaned out and primed the inside of the garage (painting may need to wait until autumn).

I did do a few interesting things. Last summer, we grew some peppers that I dried. I finally ground these up to make red pepper flakes.

I also cleaned out the canning cupboard and decided to make some sauerkraut out of some cabbage we had left over in the fridge.

 

The tomatoes are getting leggy but otherwise doing well. I planted the second round of seedlings, mostly squashes of various types as well as some cantaloupes. 

The bulbs are getting big enough to have flower heads in the sunny part of the the yard and I am hoping the city announced that compost is ready for pick up this week.

Jam and seeding

Spring continues to roll relentlessly forward and most of the snow and ice is gone. Over in one of the community gardens, some crocuses are up.

Our garden is a bit behind that but daffs and tulips are through the soil everywhere that gets a decent amount of sunlight. 

The fall-planted garlic is also up, which is good news.

I've been spending the days slowly readying the bed for spring planting. I rebuilt the planter below the deck last fall (old one rotted apart after 17 years). I'll be growing some indeterminant tomatoes up the trellis and have put in two rows of carrots in front of it.

The planter against the west wall of the garage will host beans (or maybe peas) on the trellis this year. in front, I planted some spinach in recycled cloches. To the left, I made five identical plants just in dirt as a control group. I'll follow up with a third sowing in another week on the far left.

The melon trellis was getting a bit tatty (the twine was just disintegrating in the sun) so I took it down, stripped off the old and put some new on. I may also make two more trellises for the front beds.

Looks spiffy! This bed waits some compost from the city piles once it is available. Unpictured, I have been working the front beds, mostly just loosening the soil with a fork. I also planted four rows (50 feet?) of carrots out there and I bought seed potato (it can wait a few more weeks before going in). The other half of the front beds will need to wait until my arms feel less tired.

Inside, I'm working my way through the freezer. I thawed the second-last gallon of raspberries and made jam on the weekend. We have a stupid amount of it. 

If I get ambitious this week, I will try to deal with the last of it and also muck out the remaining frozen veggies. There are also quite a lot of dried out fall cuttings that need to be burned (yay sitting down jobs).