Bedding plants and potatoes

The first round of seeds survive their transplant and the tomatoes are happily sunning themselves in the window sills.

This week, we transferred the second set of seeds from the tiny greenhouse Jess has to their interim homes. The butternut squash came on hard!

The basil also looks good. This will fill in nicely in the raised beds in the back.

We then planted a bunch of melons, pumpkin, and cucumber seeds as a third round of starts. Once these are germinated, we'll then start some corn. We did put a few seeds in. Jess did the onions while I put in some spinach.

Meanwhile, the potatoes were all "TAKE ME TO THE SUN!" so we dug up one of the front beds and dropped them in. These are most blue caribe and a few sangre that I saved from last year. All told, we have about 60 potatoes in the ground.

I also got ambitious out front and moved some raspberry suckers that were invading a bed and then cut down two thorny gooseberry bushes, burning the clippings. After several years of trying to like them, I found I just don't care for gooseberries and the thorns are a huge pain to garden around.

I have one more weekend of Jessica's labour before she's off to the mountains to work for the summer so I'll need to figure out what I can use her for. Maybe some work under the deck? Or possibly doing some late trimming of the top of the apple tree.

Arch for vining plants and some pea trellis

The yard is starting to wake up. Early plants, like these chives, are already up and growing. The rest of the yard, though, is still pretty out of it, which means there is some time to finish some big projects.

Last year, we finally had some success with melons, grown along the south side of the garage. We built the two beds on the right (below) last fall to extend this hot zone in the yard a bit. Our plan this spring, was to built an arched trellis between the beds that vining plants could climb. In theory, the fruit (squash, melons) would hang down below the arch into the walkway area.

I bought some steel electrical conduit and fencing and roused Jessica Saturday morning. We needed to get his done before she took off for a summer in Banff. After a bit of an explainer, she put up most of the posts. We then tackled the trickier task of cutting the fencing and installing it over top. 

Skipping past the swearing and grunting stage, the end result was this:

It is a bit hard to see the arch but this picture gives you a better sense of it. We're calling this the gitmo garden, cause we'll be able to gitmo plants in these beds. And also because it looks like a prison. I'll post pictures this summer with it coverd in vines.

With that done, I recruited Jenn to help me string up some plastic pea and bean trellis on Sunday (it was almost +20C!). I decided to do the whole inside of the south fence this year (>100 feet) and had to buy second bit of 50-foot trellis (you can see it unfurled below, sort of). We managed to get it installed without anyone getting too tangled or shirty. 

I've been slowly cleaning up the rest of the garden beds while the soil is still moist and soft and that's the plan for this week. I also got the rain barrels up and seated. If I get time this week, I'll go in search of some onion sets and pea seeds.

Spring arrives!

As it often does, spring came hard this weekend. On Good Friday, there was 12 inches of snow in the yard and I had to shovel my way to the fire pit to burn off some clippings from last year.

By Sunday, it was +18, the snow was almost gone, and we were eating on the back deck in shorts. This meant we could start on a few garden projects. First up was a trip to the equine centre to get some compost for the bed we'll be planting corn in this spring. Note for next year: white pants are not ideal for shovelling compost.

We're still likely eight weeks away from planting corn, so we just dumped the two loads of compost on the bed and spread it out. I'll spent some time turning it in a bit as the ground thaws more.

Jess started tomato seedlings in her room about three or four weeks ago and they were ready tp transplant into containers so we did that one evening. This year, she's labelled the tomatoes, which will making gardening a bit less of a mystery. A few stupice and blush tomatoes, then a bunch of larger red and black tomatoes. She plans to start basil next. She'll be off to work in Banff again this summer so I'll be responsible for getting these into the ground.

I spent a lot of time cleaning up matted leaves and generally tidying the yard. I also fiddled with the water bucket arrangements (going to try a chain drip this year) but need the ground to thaw some more to level the wooden bases. Only a few early tulips have appeared.

The raspberries on the south fence line should produce this year (finally!). I'm going to top seed with clover to try and cover some of the bald patches.

The eastern side of the fence (facing the alley) had thawed enough that I put up a pea trellis. Eventually I'll plant scarlet runners here.

Until then, we can enjoy some early peas (ate the fancy new gardening knife stuck in the ground). I also went out and bought some more supplies for more elaborate trellising for melons and squash in the back yard but the ground needs to dry out a bit before I start to assemble that.

I'm committed to more frequent posting this year, with goal of 20. We'll see. The new neighbours are also talking about doing a garden in their yard so I'm keen to see what they do.

End of season wrap-up

Alright, with the garden basically to bed for the year, I now have time to catch up on posts for the past month!

We spent a fair bit of time filling buckets with horse manure at the equine centre and then bringing it home and replenishing the garden beds. You can see the steam coming off the pile in the photo below. Jenn and Jess were troopers. We made a lot of trips.

We had good results, including this crazy cucumber.

The cantaloupes were a success (after years of trying) and I'm keen to try a different melon next year. Maybe also a corn field out front.

We had a pretty good harvest of pumpkins (which were also fun to grow). We have half a dozen jack-o-lanterns this year and maybe a dozen of the smaller baking pumpkins. We'll do another pumpkin patch next year in a slightly sunnier spot.

The frost held off until very late October so we had to harvest the second apple tree before it frosted. I made a lot of apple sauce and it had a very nice pink hue to it. The apples were also great eating fresh.

We had a lot of fires this autumn as I burned up twigs, branches, and old tax records and boxes.

Jess and Jenn harvested the carrots. Some were as big around as her wrist.

We also broke the banking converted two in-ground beds at the back into slightly raised beds. My plain is to put a wire arch between the beds (where Jess is standing) and grow vining plants (cucumbers, melons, etc) so the fruits hang down under the arch and are off the ground. The rest of the beds can be hotter veggies (papers, basil).

The tomatoes went on and on and I finally just had to cut the plants down so we could get on with prepping for next year. We're still eating tomatoes and have given pounds and pounds away. More red tomatoes next year, I think.

I dried a bunch of the smaller tomatoes and they are a nice snack. I also tried drying pineapple, which was a big hit.

I still have some berries to jam but did two batches of raspberry and one small batch of haskaps. Very tasty and looking forward to bigger harvests next season. We ended the year but putting a couple of hundred new bulbs in at the front for some early spring colour.

Overall, this was a great year. The heat was great for the plants but meant the water bill was huge. I finally broke down and bought a fan-shaped sprinkler for the front bed. There is still no snow so I will continue to putter outside. The leaf rake calls! 

Apples, garlic, carrots

We're headed into harvest season so I have called out reinforcements. Jessica was up the ladder to pick the early apple tree.

We ended up with 60 or 70 pounds of apples and most were of good size.

A bunch went into crisps that are either in the freezer or in my belly.

I dried 18 apples in the dehydrator, filling five one-litre jars.

I then sauced about seven litres full. We'll do more saucing and some apple butter with the second tree after a frost.

Watching the weather. we've also started doing some selective harvesting. We pulled in the ripest half of the cantaloupe harvest. The rest need more time on the vine.

We also culled about a third of the tomatoes. There are still lots on the plants but this will be plenty if we get an unexpected frost.

 

I harvested a bed of potatoes during the week then amended the soil and graded it for garlic next year.

 

Jess got pressed into some stoop labour to get sixty cloves in before the rain last night.

Jenn has been helping me dig carrots.

The carrots are crazy-big this year.

Jenn also helped me pull down the pea trellis on the inside of our fence and till the soil a bit. On the outside, I cut a small new bed for next year to run some scarlet runner beans up the outside.

Hopefully, we'll get a long enough fall that I can get ahead on some of the processing before we have to pull the tender stuff.