September crops

Not as nearly enough as I was hoping for. Definitely no quantities to can salsa like I planned. Compared to the tomatoes crops we had last year, this year there are only enough to make everyday salads. Oh well. I will be canning apples then!:) Can you believe these plants and fruits came form these: Can't complain about the cucs though. I guess they're totally opposite of tomatoes because look how they thriving in this rainy weather. Both the plants and the fruits:

Garden in July

Tomatoes. Fruits are getting stronger and bigger every day. Just not fast enough:) Hebs. Parsley is out of control this year (due to my own negligence!). Need to plant salad again and more chives. Dill is berried somewhere there, but I gave up on it. I won’t be trying to grow it again. It’s too picky! Cucumbers.Definitely need climbing support, otherwise they start to spread everywhere, like you see on the picture below. But unlike tomatoes, these grow fast! We already had couple the other day - yummy! Cabbage. Trial version. Not sure if it will form into an actual head - somebody keeps snacking on its leaves persistently and I don’t want to pour any chemicals on it to keep them off. So we will see.
Just some wild vine that's spreading over the fence. It's got pretty little flowers and I'm keeping it:) I wish we could have longer summers to enjoy all of these gifts a little longer. But I’m glad I have the opportunity to document it here, on the blog. So I could go back to my garden any time during cold winters and enjoy the greenery anytime I want.
How are your gardens (beds) doing? Are you enjoying fruits of your labour already?

Help! Wasps nest in the shed

Today I was practically chased out of our backyard shed by these very angry wasps (not sure what kind those are). I’m sorry, but as much as I respect Mother Nature and all its inhabitants, these guys have to go!
I blame V. His “They don’t touch me, I don’t touch them” approach clearly didn’t work. A week ago the nest was about the size of an avocado seed. Now this thing has grown into melon size! Obviously it keeps growing and obviously I can’t get to the shed without being stung like today. (the prize you pay for wanting to get closer and get a picture!) Good thing I’m one of those weirdoes that doesn’t mind an occasional wasp bite, but not when it’s done on my turf!
Did you have a wasps nest? Do you know a harmless way of removing it?

Garden progress

We are still not out of the woods in terms of stability around here, but we found a way to cope with life-related stuff - dive into backyard work!
Couple of evenings of outside work and I’ve managed to plant all of my tomatoes and cucumbers that have been screaming at me to get them into a real soil and out of yogurt cups:

 We also installed a rain barrel that I’ve ordered a while back. Feels great not to be wasting drinking water to water plants anymore. With rainy days that we’ve been having – it’s getting full pretty fast.

The progress came with a price though – I’m all itchy from monstrous mosquitos that seem to be blood thirsty even in the daylight. Gotta get us one of those lantern mosquito repellants soon.

Have you tried one of those?

Calling all gardeners

Have you been to this nursery yet?
Well, if you like plants and enjoy greenery, you should definitely check out this place. Their plant selection is amazing. I am going back a bit later just to capture the beauty of their peonies in bloom. Maybe I'll have more luck and get me that gorgeous lemon tree! (they were all marked "sold" this time:()

Sustainable gardening

We are picking up our rain barrel this week and I thought I would share the source with other gardening enthusiasts out there: rainbarrel.ca. There are multiple locations listed to pick up your barrels from. The proceeds from the purchase go to support non-profit groups, schools and organizations.

Art barrel from 2011 auction. Image: rainbarrel.ca.

“Easy” start

For the past couple of days every morning after I woke up, I went straight to our living room window to open up the curtains and let the sun in. No, I’m not THAT into welcoming spring, especially not before that first cup of coffee first. I was checking on how my planted seeds were doing and I was letting the sun in for them to enjoy it.

I’ve planted most of my tomato seeds and some peppers last Saturday - eight weeks before last frost day (May 6th for Ottawa, according to Google). And starting yesterday, I’ve been watching most of the little guys picking through the soil, standing up and making me very happy!:)
But don't be fooled by my over-enthusiastic state. It took some work for this to happen:
1. Shelve
Prior to planting, I’ve asked V to built some sort of a shelve to hold the plants near our biggest, sunniest window. Some grudging on his part later, the shelve was made:) The plywood leftovers from our floor project (still going, as you can see the carpet in the living room hasn't been replaced yet) had found their purpose. The shelve is the width of the window and it has two levels that at first I thought would be too much, but once I actually placed the planted trays onto the shelve, it really wasn’t that big at all. Best part – it can be easily disassembled and put away until next year. Oh, the shelve was supposed to be supported in the middle, so it doesn't bend, but I placed the seedlings so quickly on it, V hadn't had a chance to do it yet.

2. Containers
As for the seedling containers, I mostly used egg cartons, and, as an experiment, I got some single-use aluminum baking trays/forms that were on sale at nearby grocery store. From what I can tell, they are quite awesome – some I used as trays to hold egg cartons and others - I planted seeds directly into. Some even came with plastic lids, that I’ve poked holes in and used to cover the seedlings for the night. To cover egg cartons, I used plastic bags, they worked ok, the only thing is they get wet really quickly and soak already wet egg cartons even more.
When the time comes to pot up the seedlings, I have lots of yogurt/take out containers that I’ve been collecting at work throughout the winter. I really want each plant to have its own place and space:)

3. Seeds and soil
All the seeds came form this little event that I went to earlier this month - always happy to support local farmers and gardening enthusiasts. Potting soil and soil-less mix were purchased at Home Depot. For some seeds, I’ve used a combination of two rather than using just the soil-less mix and it worked.

So that’s my seed story, hope I encouraged some of you to do the same or create your own version and spread it around. It’s a LOT of work, but it’s fun work with very tasty results:)

Seedy Saturday

Great local event that I’ve been lucky to attend and stock up on some local organic seeds, that you could not only buy, but also exchange with other people. We might try that next year if our crops will be successful. By the way, we’ll be expanding our little garden this summer. It won’t be big enough to grow potatoes (someday!) but should be enough for our favourites: tomatoes, cucumbers, some peppers, herbs and salads. I got these giant sunflower seeds, called "Russian mammoth":). Couldn't resist the curiosity and see if they will grow 12 ft high!

I also bought these planting pots made of cow manure to try. Should be good for the plants considering the material they made of:)

Putting beds to sleep

My poor little and big tomatoes! Got a bite from low temperatures these past nights; didn’t freeze completely, but sure don’t feel like ripening out there in cold anymore. It was time to clean up the beds and take down the remaining tomatoes.

 As you can see, there is a lot of ripening to be done, hopefully it will happen indoors, where it’s warm. Otherwise, our green bin will be very full and happy.

How are your backyard/front-yard cleanups coming along? Has anybody planted spring bulbs yet? If you did, how do you keep them protected from those hungry squirrels?

Out of control garden - still a garden

Summer is almost over, as little as it was, I'm gonna miss gardening and having fresh tomatoes and herbs from our little experimental garden:

This is what we've started with in June, just a couple of simple gardening beds:

And this is what 's become of it by the end of August:

Since this was our first attempt at growing tomatoes, we didn't plan very well and run into spacing issues when the plants got bigger:

Next year, we will definitely leave more room to each plant and use sturdier poles for tomatoes. The bamboo poles didn't prove themselves reliable at all. Overall, I'm very happy with the turnout, we haven't spent a dollar on tomatoes, cucumbers and herbs the whole summer.
I'm also gonna give my home canning skills a “go” and try to can some hot salsa.