Garden Update (a few too many pictures!)

My garden looks OK this year.  Last year was dreadful.  The spring was so wet and cold and it persisted for so long that I had a lot of seeds rot in the ground.  I reseeded carrots and parsnips 3 times to no avail.  Then it was wet and warm. A few things that had germinated just went mouldy.  I never saw so much mould in my garden.  This year is better.  It's been cooler than last year overall, but a more normal amount of rain has fallen and we've had a few warm days.

We'll see what the coming weeks bring in terms of warmth and precipitation, but for now, things are perhaps a bit slow, but overall not bad.  In the meantime, I thought I'd share some pictures of how it's going so far.

Here's the view outside the front door.  There are some new perennials still waiting to be planted, but the hostas are putting on a lovely show and the astilbes are getting ready to bloom.  I'm pleased with the clematis on the right as it has a lot more flowers than it did last year.

My front step containers have been planted for a couple of weeks now and they look reasonably good, I think.  They should get a bit more colourful as the weeks go on.  I definitely did a pink/purple theme this year.

My climbing rose looks really lovely right now.  Lots of blooms.

This yellow rose isn't a climber and it's very thorny but pretty all the same.

Another lovely blossom.

Here's a closer look at that clematis - such a lovely colour!

I have some pots out on my back deck, including some cleome in the foreground that have yet to be planted out.  My dwarf citrus plants are all outside now.

Nasturtiums, Asiatic lilies, and a patio tomato.

Colourful coleus with gazanias, geraniums and citrus in the back row.

Here's my autumn sweet clematis which won't flower until the fall but is putting on a lot of growth this year, which makes me very happy. I haven't yet planted the coir-lined chair yet.  It'll probably get a few little annuals in it.

My grapevine is planning world domination.  In the fall I think I will do a hard pruning.  This year the harvest looks promising though, if the raccoons don't get it first.

One of my veggie raised beds has become a perennial 'holding bed' until I decide where to put things.  It has some Canterbury bells, some threadleaf coreopsis, astrantia, hosta, phlox, and such, waiting to be planted elsewhere.

My older raised beds are having some structural issues.  I have to figure out what to do here.  These two beds haven't been planted.  I might transfer the soil from the one at the far left to the one on the back where my potatoes are this year.

This is carrots and Swiss chard.  I've had to replant 2 rows.  I think the seed was old.  I left a few sunflowers in place that were kindly planted by squirrels or chipmunks!

Here I have cucumber (left), rows of parsnips (middle) and squash (right).  The squash will tumble out of the bed and grow all over.

Here I have cucumbers, bush beans, lettuce, and kale.  And weeds.  Ha!

I have a great volunteer squash plant in one of the compost heaps.  We'll see what that produces.

The blackberries were incredibly floriferous this spring, meaning a good harvest this fall.  Best since I've lived here.

I planted asparagus for the first time this year, in this bed.  You wouldn't really know it because it's now got some potatoes that I didn't plant but must have missed harvesting last fall, and a lot of weeds, but...

...here's one of the asparagus plants closer up...they are very fern-like.  You can't harvest asparagus until it's had about 3 years to grow, so this is a long term crop.

The tomatoes in the greenhouse are looking good, and there's a squash volunteer in there as well!  I left it in place to see what it would produce.

Tomatoes - recently weeded by my very helpful university student whom I have hired for some work this summer to help me keep up with garden tasks.  

My plum tree is having fruit for the first time ever, so I'm really excited about that.  I'm upset because 2 of my 3 plum trees have black knot fungus, which means I shall have to cut them down, but I hope the third one will stay healthy.

My second greenhouse, which used to be the duck house, has melons, herbs, zucchini, and a few more tomatoes.

I have some lovely geraniums blooming.

The peonies are almost finished now.

The bees are happily harvesting from the comfrey flowers.

My first few daylilies have bloomed in the past couple of days.

The hostas are doing very well this year, even the little ones that got planted at the end of last year.

There is a riot of foxgloves, and when I stand near them, I can hear all the bees buzzing.  The bumble bees love the foxgloves.

I put in some new astilbe and daylily this year, as well as calamagrostis ornamental grass.

And it looks like the black currant harvest will be reasonably good as well, which it wasn't last year.

So all in all, I'm happy with the garden, and hope it will continue to thrive.  I wish I had more time to spend in it!

A little harvesting

 Today I harvested some of this year's garden bounty.  It has been a cool summer, at least in my opinion, and not a great year for the garden.  It was also very wet.  The cabbages started to form heads but then just went slimy and rotted.  Things are already slowing more than in previous years, based on my pictures, and they never got as far as they did in previous years either.

Fortunately, the greenhouse stays warmer and the tomatoes are finally yielding.  Here's an assortment of tomatoes I picked yesterday.  There are black cherry, jaune flammée, big rainbow, yellow brandywine, sunrise bumble bee, and probably a couple of others.  I've already made some roasted tomato sauce for freezing and I'll be doing some dehydrating.  There are a couple of cantaloupes in the greenhouse that look like they might ripen before first frost....I hope so!  You can see a little bottle of Monin hazelnut syrup for my coffee in this picture - I'm not using that on the tomatoes.  It just lives on the counter near the kettle.

The rhubarb has had a very good year, and I harvested quite a lot in the spring.  It slowed in the midsummer, but is doing very well again now.  Here's some I chopped and froze today.  There were two more large size freezer bags like these yesterday.  I also made a crumble with some yesterday and made stewed rhubarb and plums that I'll be enjoying with my breakfast yogurt this week.

I also harvested some potatoes today.  I don't grow an awful lot of potatoes because my province is a potato region, so I can always get local potatoes and they are usually very well priced.  However, it's fun to grow some of my own as well.

This is the second year of actual production for two grapevines that I planted 3 years ago.  The first year they just got planted and didn't do much.  Last year they made some grapes but unfortunately the raccoons cleaned them off the day before I was going to harvest them.  This year, they have done really well.  Here's how they looked in August on the arbour.

I decided I would be very proactive about harvesting them, so I've cut some before all of them are fully ripe.  It won't matter because I'm going to make some jelly with them.  They are a mix of Beta (a table grape) and Marechal Foch (a wine grape).  The Beta grapes are larger than the Marechal Foch.  I'm not sure about their "typical" sizes.  It has been a very wet summer so I would have thought they got enough water, but maybe not enough heat to achieve full size.  Anyway, I've clipped some that seemed well on the way to ripeness, just in case the raccoons show up and pull off the same stunt as last year.  

Here's hoping that another week or so will allow for more ripening without raccoon interventions!  

Garden Update: Raised Beds and Containers

I seem to be doing a lot of garden update blogs recently, but that is the topic of most interest around here lately, so that's what you get!  It's also a nice record keeping method for me so I can remember next year what I planted where.

My raised beds are, so far, a great success.  I'm really pleased that I had them installed this spring.  All six beds are full of edibles, and edibles-in-progress.

Bed Number 1
This bed has two rows of beets (Crapaudine and Fuer Kugel) that are coming along nicely.  Then there are two rows of parsnips (Half-long Guernsey and Javelin)) that are slow, as parsnips usually are, but still coming.  The pak choi (Pechay) grew very well and then all ripened at once and I didn't get to it all before it bolted.  I'm thinking of planting another row of it since it's quite quick, but some of it is still in the back of this bed.

Bed Number 2
This bed was off to a tough start on the rows of herbs in the front.  Nothing germinated first time around, probably because our spring was so cold and wet.  I re-seeded and I have 3 successful sage plants coming along (and a purple sage that I purchased as a transplant).  I have 6 flat Italian parsley starts from a friend which are doing well.  I have two rows of basil on the far left that are still coming along slowly.  I had to re-seed that twice.  I'm growing mammoth and regular basil.  If I'm lucky I will have enough for a couple of batches of pesto before fall.  The peas, variety "Golden Sweet" are doing very well at climbing the lattice.  They are not flowering yet but hopefully soon will be.

You can't see it in the picture above, but at the opposite end of the lattice, there are a couple of tomato plants coming along.  These are "Scotia" variety which is supposed to be an early tomato, which around here means it will be before the end of August, in theory.

Bed Number 3
The third bed is a funny mix.  On the closest end in the picture are two kiwi vines (Actinidia kolomikta) which is commonly called the variegated-leaf hardy kiwi.  This is a kiwi that develops a fruit that is approximately the size of grape.  Originally from eastern Asia, it is hardy to zone 4.  The variegated foliage isn't evident at the moment but it was earlier in the season.  My local carpenter is going to build an arbour for me for the kiwi vines but they are in the raised bed for now.  I'm hoping to get a couple of Actinidia arguta type vines to go with these. Then there are a couple of squash plants, some tomatoes, and a row of tomatoes in the back.  You can also see the "fruit salad" tree on the left side of the picture.

On the other end of Bed 3, there are cucamelon (Melothria scabra) vines just starting to go up the trellis.  Sometimes they are called Mexican Sour Gherkin.  I hope they will produce before the frost!

Bed Number 4
This bed has more potatoes - both Superior and Russian Purple varieties.  Also there are a couple of squash vines and tomato plants.  My zucchini didn't germinate.  Again....poor spring conditions. 

I also planted Poona Kheera cucumbers which didn't germinate.  But, I do have a butternut squash that has recently had its first female flower and I hope that it has been pollinated successfully.  Ignore the cucumber sign.  That's definitely a squash vine.

Bed number 5 is a hot mess.  The Superior variety potatoes are threatening to take over the world.  There is a pumpkin vine that is threatening to take over everything and has even come out the side of the bed and is wandering over towards Bed number 4.  The early cantaloupe vines have sat and done absolutely nothing.  The kale starts that I received from my friend in exchange for eggs have gone berserk and I made a kale and beet greens galette with some of it today. 

Bed 5 is basically a jungle.  Oh, I forgot, there are tomatoes in there too.  I planted a row of violet cabbage but it was quickly shaded out by the kale. 

Bed Number 6
This is the carrot bed.  There are 5 varieties:  Pusa Rudhira Red, Gniff, Black Nebula, Cosmic Purple, and Rainbow Mix.  It looks good.

So far, we've eaten kale and pak choi, but we will definitely be eating more from the raised beds as the season progresses.

We also received a second-hand garden arch from my parents which has been placed at the "entrance" to the raised bed area, and it has two grape vines planted next to it - one Marechal Foch and one "Beta" grape vine.  These are both intended for eating - we are not getting into wine production!

I'm also pleased with how my containers have worked out.  My mom helped me plant most of these in their visit earlier this year, and I'm glad we worked on them together because each time I look at them, I think of her and her help.

There are two box-style containers by the front door that are doing really well.  I got the boxes at an auction last year and I'm glad I bought them.  They work well.  You'll see some diatomaceous earth in the background - that's to stop the ants coming in the house.

We made some hanging baskets that look lovely now in purple and white.

The deck containers are coming along well also.

This one has a "bonus" basil plant in it that I enjoy using in the kitchen!

The herb containers include sage, apple mint, rosemary, thyme, variegated thyme, and some seedling basil.  You'll also see one of those tiny container tomatoes if you look closely!

I bought two purple and pink mixed petunia hanging baskets to support the local high school.  They are looking good, although this one got a drink soon after the photo was taken.

The "night sky" petunias looked great for the first flush of flowers.  Since then, some have been reverting to a more striped appearance with the "night sky" effect on only one or two petals.

The flowers are still pretty though.