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,

PLANTING DAY

YES!!!!

The moment I have been dreaming about since February finally arrived today. There are officially plants in my garden!

Let's go on a tour of what I did today:

Peppers
This large specimen is the beautifully overwintered sweet pickle pepper plant that I grew on my balcony last summer. I kept it in a south-facing window over the winter and occasionally watered it (and by occasionally I actually mean rarely, oops). It did SO WELL and should be putting out peppers very early this year. I also overwintered my jalapeno plant, which is a little more distressed looking... but I'm hoping he perks up now that he's in the ground. He's at the far end of the pepper row. In between the two I planted a variety of other kinds of peppers... 16 plants total! Note that I am using old tent poles as stakes. They're the perfect size and won't rust! I'll add them to the rest of the peppers too as they get taller and need more support.

Peppers planted and mulched

Cucamelons

I started the cucamelons at the same time as the peppers and tomatoes this year - not really sure what I was thinking?! These guys got so big and tangle-y before I could plant them outside that it took me a very long time to detach them all and figure out which vines belonged to which plant. But obviously I managed because here they are! I cut up an old volleyball net to use as a trellis, and tied it to the back of the gazebo. They're already flowering so I expect them to climb the trellis and start putting out cute little cucamelons in no time!

Cucamelons growing on a volleyball net

Tomatoes
My mom gave me 4 of her old "Topsy Turvy" hanging tomato planters, so I thought I'd give them a try with the yellow Tumbling Toms I grew this year. Getting the plants in the planter was a bit of a challenge, as was holding the plant at the proper stem height while trying to fill the planter with potting mix, but again I managed. Once I watered these they weighed about 1000 lbs each. So don't worry, they're not going anywhere! I hung one planter on each corner of the gazebo.

Topsy Turvy Tumbling Toms

I then planted 5 mixed heirloom tomatoes and 4 Roma tomatoes in the one larger tomato bed with the red mulch film (plus some real mulch on top). They look a little lop-sided at the moment as I actually planted them laying on their side, and then bent the end of the plant upright before covering the rest with soil. Doing this allows more of the stem to be buried, which will result in a better root system (all of those little "hairs" you see on tomato stems will actually turn into roots if they are underground!). They should straighten themselves out shortly and begin growing upright.

Tomato bed in action. What a nice looking garden!

This took a surprisingly long time to do today... we're talking a solid 7 hours (who knew sticking plants in the ground would be so time consuming?) so I didn't get all of the plants in the ground... still need to do the cucumbers, melons, and squash, but that will have to wait for another evening this week.

I am also sad to report that the morning glories I was so happy about in my last post didn't survive the cool temperatures we had the past few nights. I meant to go cover them up Friday afternoon (it went down to zero degrees or so Friday night... brrrr!) but I forgot. Today they were all shriveled up. RIP morning glories. I'll have to pop a few more seeds in the ground asap to replace them.

No sign of the lettuce, beans, or peas I planted last week either - again, I blame the cold temperatures. I'm hoping with the warmer weather coming back now things should start sprouting.

Anyways, that's it for today. Here's one final look at the cucamelons and tomatoes, and my relaxing garden chair!

T BARS AND MORNING GLORIES

The morning glories we planted on Saturday were popping their heads out of the ground today! I can't wait for these to get bigger and start wrapping their way around the gazebo.

I've been battling a nasty cold so I haven't done much work on the garden this week, but I did manage to pick up some composted manure to mix into the tomato and pepper beds last night. I also prepped the heirloom tomato bed with the red plastic mulch, which is supposed to yield more (and bigger) tomatoes - something about the sunlight reflecting red back up onto the plants...

Mom and Dad also came over tonight to help pound in some of the T bars that I will be using as stakes and to trellis certain veggies on (the tomatoes, melons, cucamelons, achochas). We also added a stake down the center of each tepee that I made on the weekend. One of them had blown over in the crazy winds we've had in the last few days, so they needed a bit more support.

The red plastic mulch on the heirloom tomato bed, plus the large green T bars that will be used for tying up the tomatoes. Roma tomatoes will be going in the bed on the right - still need to add the plastic mulch over there. 

Tepees with their new support poles, and T-bars lined up along the edge of the garden and in the far left bed (for the melons)

It's almost planting time! I'm thinking Sunday. Temperatures have been cool lately and it's supposed to go down to 2 degrees on Friday/Saturday, so better safe than sorry. So much for getting things out early this year!