AN OVERDUE UPDATE

Hello folks!

Sorry for the large time gap since my last post - I broke my laptop cord and haven't been able to use my computer at home. This post is being brought to you from work! (After hours, of course)

I have a great update today...

First of all, everything has dried out since my last post, yay!

And as for the veggies, the tomatoes are doing awesommmmmme!

The peppers have made a FULL recovery from their black days and are getting MUCH bigger! Most are also putting out a few flowers now, as you'll see below.

 

 

The peas seem to be growing REALLY slowly, but they're making their way up the tepees. Next year I'll start my peas much earlier! My neighbours' peas are already taller than me and have peas all over them! Jealous.

 

 

 

 

Here we have some nasturtiums, a squash plant in the tomato cage, and behind that some melons. Again, the melons seem to be growing slowly and are fending off cucumber beetles, so not sure I will get any melons this year. I started the melons way too early this year and stunted them when I planted them outside - they don't like to sit in pots for too long. Next year I'll pay more attention to when I plant things instead of getting too excited and planting everything in March!!!

 

 

A better look at the melons

Here's a picture of my poquito squash, it's big! I had the white fabric covering it to protect it from the cucumber beetles but I took it off so that the flowers could get pollinated.

 

 

 

It has 3 tiny squash on it! Not sure they all got pollinated and/or will grow into full squash, but still exciting!

 

 

The kale is doing great ever since I put down eggshells... maybe it was slugs eating it before?

 

 



 

Oh here's something new I haven't given an update on yet... remember the spiny cucumber seeds that Natasha sent to me from the UK? Here's how the achochas are doing! (or the achachachachas as I like to call them). There are 2 of these growing at the front of the garden in front of the tomato bed.

 

Also covered with fabric to protect from cucumber beetles







 

What else what else...

 

Ah yes, finally a morning glory has started to wrap it's way around the gazebo! This also seems to be growing SUPER slowly, but I'm hoping it will take off now...  I did have two moonflowers ready to be planted out as well, but I accidentally left them in my car the other day and they dried out to a crisp (confession - it wasn't really an accident, I did it on purpose, I didn't realize they would get THAT dry though. Stupid me)! You can also get a glimpse of the cucamelons on the netting in this photo. I've avoided updating on them because they look like craaaaaaap. But they're sort of making a comeback so maybe we will get cucamelons after all/I will post on them next time.

 

 

 

 

And last but not least... the beans! Also slow, but hopefully they make something of themselves soon. You can also see all the random lettuces and the onions in the front bed. One of the onions is actually flowering right now. Anyone know what I'm supposed to do about that? Help me Google.

 

 

My neighbour is growing a field of corn across the road. I hope they will share :)



 

That's about it for this time! Not sure when I'm going to get a new power cord for my computer, but hopefully I don't procrastinate as much between now and the next post. Oh wait I almost forgot! One more thing!

 

Check out the over-wintered jalapeno! He's winning Best in Show in the garden right now - I counted 37 peppers on him the other day! YIPPEEE! He's a jalapeno MACHINE.

 

 

 

 

I'll leave you now with a shot of the whole garden to date. Happy gardening!

 

 

 

 



THEY WEREN'T KIDDING

Tomato Island

Wow, when they said this area flooded I really had no idea just HOW MUCH water they were talking about. Holy crap does it ever flood! But not to worry - the pathways might now be rivers but the planting beds are raised, intact, and growing wonderfully! (And so are the weeds, unfortunately...)

The tomatoes are looking AWESOME. I'm not sure whether it was just time, the rain, or my excessive amount of blood meal and fertilizer (or maybe a combination of all three!) but these guys could't be more perfect right now.

Now that's a good lookin' tomato plant!

The kale is doing better since I put down some eggshells - or maybe the rain has kept the bunnies away, not sure:

Kale with only minor nibbles

The tumbling toms are doing great as well.

The rhubarb has its ups and downs, but this one seems to be taking off pretty well with little to no damage.

The beans and lettuce are growing... soon enough they will start climbing the string poles!

Gnomie is camera shy

The nasturtiums have exploded in growth over the last few days. They loved the rain!

Slowly but surely, the peas are doing their thing up the tepees, I need to add more string, some of them are getting a little bent and crooked and tangling up around each other. I'll do that this evening.

I am so so so happy that the peppers seem to be on the mend! The black is fading, although some of the lower leaves are still sort of yellow. The new growth looks great though and they are slowly getting bigger. Phew! I thought for a while there I might lose them all...

The jalapeno plant is putting out its first peppers, I should be able to pick these guys in another week or so! I gave this plant and the sweet pickle pepper plant a good spray with epsom salts dissolved in water the other day, which gives the plant a boost of magnesium in order to set more flowers/fruit.

And last but not least, the squash! I covered up my squash plants to protect them from the squash bugs and cucumber beetles, because this is what happens if you don't:

Oops

That's actually the cucumber that I just planted out on Saturday. Sigh. I guess I should have covered it up too. Oh well. Here's what the squash look like with their bug nets.

Hopefully this will do the trick! Next year I'll set up some actual row covers, but for now this is fine. The fabric will stay on until they start to flower, at which time I'll either have to hand pollinate them and put the cover back on, or take it off entirely and let the bees and butterflies do their thing. I haven't decided yet, I guess I'll wait and see how bad the bugs are later on.

Despite the flooding, I am super happy with the way the plants are growing now. Maybe they just needed some time to get established (or maybe it was the entire container of blood meal I sprinkled around). But I AM glad that I built the beds as high as I did or else this whole garden would be swimming and I'd be crying over my months of plant growing gone down the drain.

It's also a good thing that I have a great pair of rubber boots!

BACK ON TRACK

I am happy to report that after a solid 3 days of rain, the garden is looking much better than in my last sad post!

First of all, let's take a look at my neighbour's plot. This is what happens when you ignore the advice of gardeners that have been at the KAG for 30 years, and don't make make your beds raised in an area that is prone to flooding:

lol sucks to be you

That puddle is a good foot or so deep. It's hard to tell how wet the actual beds are, but with that much water on the ground I can only imagine that their plant roots are swimming right about now. Only time will tell if their garden survives. And if it doesn't, I'll chalk it up to karma, because these people are pretty rude and probably deserve to have a flooded garden :)

Anyways, back over to my plot!

Here she is in all her rainy glory on Tuesday evening. I really need to do something about that junk pile in the back. It's a bit of an eyesore..

Note the nice big kale plant on the left - this is the only picture I have of it. Oops.

As you may or may not have noticed, I only have two hanging tomato planters left. The other two are sitting on the ground because either something chewed completely through their stems, or they rotted and just broke off. On two different days I went to the garden and found the plants hanging limply by a thread. Oh well... at least I still have two more. And they are doing great - a nice deep green and flowering!

The tomatoes in the ground are also looking much better since my last post. I had given them some blood meal and a good watering with fish emulsion, so that plus the rain seems to have turned them back to a nice green colour. I also planted some marigolds around the bed which are supposed to keep pests away. I'm not sure if that really works, but at least it looks pretty. I've also planted cardinal basil at the end of the beds which are good companion plants for tomatoes - apparently planting these together improves the tomato's flavour. The empty bed on the right hand side is awaiting more tomatoes that are still sitting on my balcony right now. I'm not really sure what I'm waiting for, I should really get around to planting those!

The bed to the right of the tomatoes is where the onions and lettuce are currently growing. These onions are my favourite thing in the garden right now - they're unstoppable! No matter what I do they just keep getting bigger and fatter. I have no idea what is happening underground though... I am not an experienced onion gardener. This was a random kitchen experiment. Am I making more onions? Or just growing these green sprouts? I guess I'll find out at the end of the season. Either way, I'm going to have some delicious omelettes.

The unstoppable onions and freshly sprouted lettuce

I thinned out the lettuce tonight - it really came up quickly once we had a few days of rain. Unfortunately so did a lot of weeds! When I planted the lettuce seeds I was very particular about what kind of lettuce I planted where, but that's all gone to hell now since I decided to replant some of the seedlings that popped up in different areas to fill in the gaps where no seeds had sprouted. Of course I didn't keep track of what went where, so now I have no idea what anything is anymore. Oh well no biggie. One more thing about this picture - can you spot the morning glory? (it has two V-shaped leaves).

A lot of lettuce ended up sprouting, so I transplanted some of the seedlings to the bed with the pole beans, which have also sprouted over the past few days. And when I say they sprouted, I mean every single seed sprouted. Awesome! Can't wait for these guys to take off and start growing up the strings.

lettuce in front, kentucky blue pole beans closest to the strings

Next update is on the rhubarb, which is also looking great! Nice and green and it's getting bushier. This is a different plant from my last post - the one with the weird spots/possible fungus is also looking better though, but still has some damaged areas. Hopefully it's on the mend.

Speaking of rhubarb, one of my plot neighbours kindly offered me some from his garden tonight since I won't be able to harvest any from my plants this year. You're not supposed to harvest rhubarb the first year so that the plant can get big and strong - only start taking stalks the second year. I love rhubarb so this made me very happy. I think I will freeze it until strawberry season starts and then make some tasty strawberry rhubarb crumble and maybe some strawberry rhubarb ice cream!

a happy gardener!

 Let's see what else... the nasturtiums are growing really well! Nasturtiums are edible flowers that apparently have a peppery taste, although I've never tried them. They're also supposed to deter certain bugs, so they really are a superpower flower! 1) they're pretty 2) you can eat them 3) they're bug fighters. Sounds like a win-win-win to me.

Nasturtiums leaves. I'm not sure how big these will actually get or when they will flower. But something to look forward to!

The peppers were looking pretty miserable in my last post, what with them all turning yellowy and black and all. That hasn't really resolved, but I was told by the rhubarb man tonight that it was probably a bit of frost damage from when it was chilly out last week or the week before. Not sure if I believe this because it wasn't thaaaaaat cold, but whatever. I'll go with it. They do seem to be putting on new healthy leaves though, so hopefully they'll spring back from whatever was causing it. I also planted some marigolds and lime basil in amongst the peppers. Lime basil is my new favourite thing - I imagine it would be delicious added to salsa or even mixed with fruit salad, or on tacos, mmmmm tacos. Hurry up and grow, I want to eat you.

Yuck, muddy pathways. Time for more woodchips!

I forgot to take a close up picture of the jalapeno plant, but it's the one in the foreground above. It already has about 6 peppers growing and there are lots of flowers on it. My fellow gardeners were pretty impressed with my overwintered peppers, I think they're jealous I'm getting fruit already! Below is the sweet pickle pepper which is also COVERED in buds. If all goes to plan this guy will put out a ton of little peppers soon!

Last but not least is the peas. These guys also LOVED the rain this week. Some are starting to wrap their tiny tendrils around the first level of rope on the teepees. I can't wait for them to keep growing and slowly cover the entire thing. It's gonna look so cool! And I will have delicious sugar snap peas to munch on while I garden.

I didn't take any pictures of the melons or squash because they're practically dead and it's depressing. I might go pick up some starter plants from the garden center to replace them, or plant some other things from seed in their place. I still need to sow the carrots, bush beans, and beets as well. I probably should've done that already but meh... there's still time.

That's it for now, I'll try to keep the updates shorter and more frequent instead of these long winded posts every week or so. It takes too long to write this all up at once! Plus I'm at the garden practically every day so there's no reason not to snap a few pics and give a quick update. I'll try to do better :)

Thanks for reading, happy gardening!

BAD THINGS/GOOD THINGS BUT MOSTLY BAD THINGS

I've called this post 'bad things/good things but mostly bad things' because that's pretty much what the garden has been giving me lately, which is why I haven't posted in a while. Let's go back in time...

I planted the melons and squash, set up a pretty wicked trellis for them, and everything was looking super good!

And then things started to go downhill....

Let's start with the rhubarb.

1. Pretty sure this is some sort of fungal disease. I'm going to leave it alone and hope it goes away because I'm not sure what else to do.

2. Definitely not the ideal colour for rhubarb leaves... crap. My guess it nitrogen deficiency, or Google also tells me I may have over watered it (which maybe could have caused the fungal issue too? I don't know, I made that up). So I've stopped watering it and I'll see if anything resolves...

Next up, the peppers. Most of these are doing pretty well (and I should hope so, because I planted 16 of them!) but some are having a few issues. Like this one, that has been pretty much decimated by what I'm guessing are slugs - although I've decided that image is too disgusting - so instead I will pretend that cute little bunnies stopped by for a midnight snack.

There also seem to be a couple that are having odd nutrient deficiency issues (and again, more bunny nibbles). I gave these guys some fertilizer tonight, we'll see if that does anything for them...

Now remember those lovely melons and squash from the beginning of the post? Some unwelcome visitors arrived the other day...

SQAUSH BUGS. Can you see them? There are 2 clearly visible at the bottom where the stem branches, and then another one just below them. There are also 2 more (although out of focus) a little higher up on the right branch. That makes 5 disgusting bugs on one tiny plant. These things wreak havoc. Notice the dead leaf and stem in the foreground and how yellow and unhealthy the rest of the plant looks? Thanks for visiting squash bugs, but you've outstayed your welcome.

This photo is gross and way too large, I apologize.

Turns out these bugs are slow and dumb and don't seem to know how to use their wings, so I picked them off with a stick, threw them in a bucket of water to drown them, and then just to be safe, squished each one until I heard them crunch. It was deeply satisfying.

This isn't the only thing wrong with the melons though, something extra strange has happened to my watermelon and I really don't know what has caused this. It seems to be turning black??

The cucamelons are also having some issues, but I forgot to take pictures of them. They have their own lovely pest problem at the moment, cucumber beetles. Here's a picture from Google for you, so you have the proper visual:

Oops I did it again, sorry.

I'm pretty sure these are what caused my cucamelons to wither away and die last year, so yippee, it's probably going to happen again. Of all the issues so far, this is the one I'm most upset about. I grew 7 plants this year hoping for a bountiful cucamelon harvest but I may not even get a single cucamelon as it stands right now. BOO HOO!

This post is getting really depressing, one more sob story to tell before I move on to the 'good things' part of this post (luckily there are a few!). The tomatoes seem to be turning kind of yellow. Again, I'm thinking nitrogen deficiency, so tonight I gave them a good sprinkle of blood meal and watered them with some fish emulsion. Hopefully that'll do the trick.

Now, let's put these troubles behind us and move onto the good things!

The pea tepees are still intact and the peas have sprouted! They're small, but they're growing...

The over-wintered sweet pickle pepper has loads of blooms:

And the over-wintered jalapeno is already putting out its first pepper! YAY! And can you spot the ladybug? I welcome lady bugs with open arms as they eat other bad bugs, like aphids, and don't destroy your plants (I'm looking at you squash bugs and cucumber beetles).

The onions from my kitchen are also doing exceptionally well, despite having been planted in essentially 100% pure clay:

And last but not least, a few more morning glories have sprouted to replace the ones that were killed off in the cold weather a few weeks ago.

And there you have it folks, the good, the bad, and the ugly bugs. Overall, things are moving along. If I end up losing the melons and cucamelons, maybe I'll get some nice perennial flowers and encourage the bees to visit my tomatoes and peppers,