Planting completed

Alright, after a fairly chaotic spring, we're back in the yard and pretty much everything is planted out.

While this is a time of hard work, let's start with the fun stuff: all of the spring blossoms. Above, we have plums and below some small tulips.

The saskatoon bushes are also in full bloom.

And the cherries have just started. The cherry tree has a crazy number of blossoms this year so I am hopeful for a bigger crop.

The haskap bushes are still flowering but we also have the start of berries.

The front yard is also full of tulips.

I've spent several hours each day on various projects, including some soil amendments, weeding and seeding. I did stumble across the first of the potatoes to push up a shoot.

I'm also almost done removing the dead canes from the raspberry bushes and burning them. I hope to have the energy tonight to fire the last of them. Then I can get to weeding around the base of them.

I suspect, over the next few days we'll see some more seeds begin to emerge (the kale has just come up). We did have a touch of frost last week and a few of the tomatoes, a basil plant, and some marigolds look slightly scarred. Hopefully, they will come back.

Spring!

Spring has finally arrived and enough snow is gone that I can get out into the garden again. These daffodils were a pleasant surprise when I started poking around in the back yard.

The dog has been moderately interested in my puttering and providing useful supervision.

The chives are up (the first useful green, as usual) along the side of the house and I have been slowly shifting leaf litter to expose the soil in the beds I'd like to start early so they warm up a bit. We've had 20 degrees already so I hope to get spinach and peas going soon.

I built three raised beds last fall in the hottest area of the garden. Yesterday, I repurposed some old metal conduits and some monofilament netting to make a pea trellis on the western edge. When the pears are done I am hope to train some cucumbers up it. This went up fairly easily with the exception being the monofilament's tendency to catch on everything (especially my shoe treads) resulting in several Gilligan moments of entanglement.

Up next: We're off to the manure piles at the equine centre today for a bit of poop and then I hope to get some pea and spinach seeds in the ground before the weather turns. 

Prince of Orange potatoes!

The first frost hit about a week ago and we pulled in all of the tender stuff just before. I've since been working on the root vegetables, with the dog carefully watching my every move in case a carrot happens to fall out of my pocket.

We had an interesting harvest of squash, much of it of mixed parentages. These are curing in the dining room.

I also pulled the last of the tomatoes, basil, peppers, and the melons.

The cantaloupe were very small this year because July was cool and I'm not sure of they will ripen enough to eat before they rot. I think next year I will try something different in this bed. Maybe cucumbers?

In the interests of time, I just froze the basil in oil and have been pulling out a puck every time enough tomatoes come ripe to warrant a salad.

The autumn has been gorgeous around the neighbourhood!

Jess has been helping me convert two in-ground beds into three raised beds. 

I finished these late last week, filled them, and got the garlic (110 heads) planted for next year.

This involved a trip to the manure mounds. I will top dress with compost when it come available next spring.

This morning, I went out and dug the last five potatoes plants. These are Prince of Orange potatoes and the harvest was crazy. one plant gave me 32 potatoes! The others each had in the 20s.

These were not small potatoes, either. I think they did well because I watered aggressively, it was sunny and the soil was pretty soft.

I will definitely do these again next year!

I still have a bunch of carrots to pull and process as well as some more end of season work in the beds. Hopefully, I get another two weeks to putter in the yard before the snow flies!

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.

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).

New fence and fruit blossoms

May has been a month of pretty unsettled weather, with lots of rain and cloudy days. The water has been a real boon. The plants could use some heat, though.

I've managed to get everything seeded, including the corn yesterday. The garlic has been shooting up in the front yard but no sign of potatoes yet. Lettuce and beets are up; carrots remain MIA.

We spent some time last weekend completing the fence around the back yard (it has always been open on the north side of the house). 

Overall, a pretty successful project that was very expensive because the price of wood is crazy ($140 to do a 5x5' section and I already had the screws).

The fruit trees all survived the winter and are in blossom. I'm keen to see if the cherry and plum yield any fruit this year. The dwarf apple in the back is loaded with flowers, which is a good sign.

I've been aggressively weeding in the wet weather, trying to get at the roots of the crab grass and the creeping bell flower. I've also knocked a bunch of smaller home repair projects off the list. If the lathe holds off, I'll burn the last of the raspberry canes tonight!

Pumpkins, scapes, and berries

We're back from a week's vacation to find the garden has very much grown! The pumpkin patch has really jumped up and I'm hopeful for some good-sized squash this fall. I also had to retire a rain barrel and ended up running the eaves into the pumpkin patch. Happily, I managed not to cut myself on the sheet metal.

The garlic scapes needed to come in so I cut 40 or 50 this morning, blanched them and then froze them for future use. 

I also cleaned off most of the Saskatoons and put a gallon away in the freezer. The raspberries are just starting to ripen so we've been eating them fresh with ice cream and I've been putting some away in the freezer for jamming. It looks like we'll have a lot of berries this year.

It looks like we'll also have a good crop of tomatoes and even a bunch of bell peppers. I wish the watermelon would grow a bit more and set some fruit. That might be a bust this year. The corn is also looking a bit behind. Maybe it is not getting enough sun so I'll try a different bed next spring.