August Saturday

In a few days I will be taking a break from gardening, not to return to it until September.  Holy smokes!  Where has the season gone?  This past week there was an overnight low of 2C.  All the things I thought I could get done "over the summer" are not done.  What on earth did I do with all that time?  I present a randomly selected and rather leisurely day of garden maintenance - yesterday.

There was little watering required Saturday morning, thanks to Barry's thorough efforts the day before.  We water everything by hand, which can take a person-hour when everything needs a soak and the tanks are running fast, longer if tank pressure is down or we have to use city water.  I watered a few of the vulnerable front yard perennials and Barry watered the containers later in the day.  Most critical right now are the three newly cut and potted haskap branches that have been working on their root balls for at least three months.

Morning is supposed to be the best time to harvest herbs for drying.  Prior to flowering is also highly recommended.  I can't arrange the latter at this point so decided to at least do the former, cutting a largish sprig of sage with one purple flower on the tip.  The leaves were washed, patted dry and spread out on two dehydrator trays.  Hours later there was almost nothing left of them.  I hope it has mitigated the odor of drying garlic from the previous two days.

The morning harvest also included a few ground cherries, a couple of zucchinis, the first ripe bunch of grapes, two ears of corn, the first raspberry of the final crop.  

Weeding has eased off lately, largely because of the lack of rainfall, I believe.  It would be nice if it is also an indication that I am winning the battle for the garden beds.  Unwanted foliage is still rampant in other areas and I try at least to nab the flower heads before they are ready for flight.  Dandelions are rare these days, but sow thistle and hairy goat's beard continue to plague me.  I pulled up purslane, grasses, pig weed, and a few undesirables that I know well by sight but can't name.  CBC Calgary recently aired some feedback to pesticide restrictions in the city from farmers who say urban weed seeds end up in crop fields and increase their herbicide usage.  This is interesting.  I try to do my part for the Coaldale area farmers, but without the use of toxins.  

Besides the noxious weeds, I also disposed of some of our abundant borage, at least the parts that appeared to be done flowering.  Where there are blossoms, there are bees, which I like immensely.  Nevertheless, any part of the plant with an aphid feedlot gets removed, nectar-producing or not.  Though we don't poison them, we also do not provide an ant-positive atmosphere.  For the most part, I am too late to prevent self seeding of borage for next year; most of the flower capsules were empty.  Unlike sow thistle and field bindweed and deadly nightshade, this is a plant with huge leaves that I will have no trouble locating and removing before it goes to seed next year.

The garden had some midday visitors, a Lethbridge friend with her mother and aunt from out of town.  They lightened our zucchini load by three and left us with two jars of home made home grown raspberry jam.  I'd say we got the better deal on that one.  For a moment I considered the danger pay factor of harvesting zucchini, but raspberries are hazardous, too.

After lunch I returned to the boulevard, where I had been breaking up some old sods to use as a base for a new bed.  The sods came from where the lawn has been replaced on the boulevard and from some parts of the back yard and have been drying in the hot sun for some time now.  They fragmented quite easily.  Not knowing (or not wanting to decide) what to do next for bed preparation, I brought some salvaged bricks from the back and continued the winding border around the elm tree then installed a short brick pathway across a strait in the bed.  We don't have enough bricks to complete the loop and I have no solution to that, other than to use plastic edging until we happen upon some more unwanted bricks.  An elderly woman cruising by with her walker told me I am a glutton for punishment, in reference to my toiling under the afternoon sun.  She may be right; I had to take some ibuprofen for a headache early this morning.  Now the headache is gone and I'm pleased with the progress I see when I look out the bedroom window, even though the project is far from complete.

While I worked on the boulevard, Barry picked most of the remaining basil, some badly slug-eaten, all past it's pre-flower prime, and prepped it for a large batch of pesto.  He used sunflower seeds for the nut component.  We grow enough sunflower seeds that we could have used our own (from last year) if only we could find an easier way to get them out of their tough shells, and before the tiny creatures get to them.

After the tools were put away, we clinked our beer glasses together and toasted the bounty of our garden.  The beer is from the store down the street.  We grow hops, but both plants are male, so no actual hops are available.  We don't grow barley, unless those volunteers from the straw bale are barley.  (We both chewed on a mouthful of the grains and decided they were gummy enough to be wheat.)  I'm not keen on adding beer-making equipment to our already over-stocked household.

The ensuing dinner included dill zucchini with garlic sauce (our zucchini, onion, dill and garlic; imported oil, rice and yogurt), potatoes (ours) with pesto (our basil, garlic, Swiss chard; imported sunflower seeds, parmensan cheese, and oil) and sour cream (imported), beet greens (ours), beet salad (our beets and onions; imported vinegar,, sugar and mustard), and corn (ours) with imported butter, plus curried lamb sausage from the Old Country Sausage Shop.  We are a long way from providing our own meat.

After dinner I meant to write and post this recap, but fell asleep instead (because of a poor sleep the night before, no due to Saturday's modest exertions).  Today is another day.  We have so far watered the works, harvested more zucchini, and sliced zucchini and garlic for drying. Barry is in construction mode, finishing a raised bed he started weeks or months ago.  I should get back to work.

What would William think?

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful. 

 ~William Morris (1834-1896), British craftsman, designer, socialist, poet

Who can argue with Mr. Morris about his rules for the contents of one's house?  Of course, one might quibble over the nuances of "useful".  It would be a good rule to apply to the garden as well, and I think we all strive for it.  The difficulty, though, is the degree of control we have over living things as opposed to, say, dishes and carpets and shampoo bottles.



In the space bordered by greenhouse, alley, south neighbour, and the big box of potatoes we have a random assortment of unattractive items.  Garbage bags filled with leaves and grass clippings.  Pails.  The shredder, covered with an old topsoil bag.  Sticks and stalks accumulating until it is worth my time to drag an extension cord out to the shredder.  Paving stones.  A heap of soil, sods, and clay that had now where else to go.  Cinder blocks that used to border two garden beds, packed with clay and grasses.  Gravel.  Weeds.  None of these are beautiful.  Nor are they very useful at any given moment.  Paving stones keep the muck off my shoes when the ground is wet, which hasn't happened lately.  Some of the material is compost of the future.  The shredder is helpful for several hours a year.The cinder blocks have potential use as a wall.  I console myself with such reminders when moving through this area.  I am also mindful that this is what people see when they stroll down the alley and look past the chain link fence.  Not the lush, tall vegetable garden, but this, and the loose tar paper flapping around the windows at the east end of the green house.  I have no need to impress the neighbours with my landscape design; I would just like to make their journey more pleasurable.  It's tempting to post a note on the fence, explaining the need to sacrifice beauty for utility by times, even though I don't quite believe that to be true.

the wasteland

compost bins

The composter is an exception here.  Its continuing role in converting kitchen and yard waste into soil is always useful.  I believe the symmetry and aged wood are beautiful.  I am fortunate to have a talented and hardworking partner; I would never have built this myself.

A nest built by paper wasps is a beautiful thing.  Not breathtaking, maybe not something you would take time to create for yourself, but so interesting in its shape and blend of colours that results from the collective work of a team with no central direction and a different sort of vision from what I can comprehend.  What do they care about the exterior appearance of it, anyway?  Is it useful?  Useful to the wasps that built it, for sure.  Useful to us only if those wasps kill critters that harm our plants.  It also has negative utility, though.  This morning I suddenly decided to cut back some of the cedar boughs that every year shrink the view out our front window.  Then I realized, hey, there is a nest of wasps four feet from my head, and several are milling around the opening.  They did not seem to notice me or care if I was there, but I ceased my pruning anyway.  There is a big weird-looking gouge in one of the trees now.  The nest is also a few feet from the front door, which could be a problem if and when the wasps do become aggressive.  While I prefer not to be visited by those who want to share the Good News with me, I also don't wish those people to be stung.  Nor the mail carrier.  The beauty of the nest does not balance the pain of wasp venom.

snow peas drying up

Peas are wonderful. They start early and can be harvested over a long period of time. They are not at their best in hot weather, but keep watering them and they will stay alive to produce again under more favourable conditions. It's easy to give up on them, though, because they play dead. Right down to the ground they will go brown and crispy and the caregiver might think there is no way that dead dry stalk can deliver water to the little green bit at the tip. But it does. Even though I know it, I still cut down most of my front yard peas yesterday because they looked so bad. (I am not entirely without hope that they will regrow fresh and green from what I left in the ground.) In the private back garden, I endure the frayed and spotty brown parts, in spite of how badly they contrast with the deep greens around them.  They are still useful for conducting water.  They also serve as a reminder that even though the garden just got going (it seems), it's not too soon to think about the clean up phase.

squash ladder

Left to their own devices, the winter squash vines would have by now tunneled through two tomato beds, crossed the lawn, and ascended the neighbours' six foot fence.  With human intervention, they are instead heaped upon a repurposed wooden ladder.  The vines still attempt to wander.  Three are currently trying to reach across a path to the coriander.  Once the vine is long enough, it is easily looped back onto the ladder and finds something to grab onto within the day.  This way, we are not tripping over vines across pathways and we don't have to go hunting for squashes at harvest time.    The whole structure - ladder and squash plants - happens to be beautiful as well.  Furthermore, if we place our happy hour lawn chairs  by the bee balm, the squash highrise blocks our view of deteriorating pea vines.

scarlet runners all grown up

Not long ago I griped about the slowness of the Scarlet Runner pole bean, how blossom after blossom fell off and left nothing behind on the stem.  Last week I looked at the great towers of intertwined bines, deep green leaves and scarlet flowers and realized that this is one of the most beautiful plants growing in our yard.  Bee balm and four o'clock flowers take up space in the garden and aren't expected to provide us with edibles.  Should I really ask more of this species?  There are a few beans now, small with great potential.  They grow so large that three or four must surely constitute an official serving of vegetables.  Given the beauty of the leaves and flowers, the edible pods are a bonus.  Or, given the delicious pods we eventually eat, the visual appeal is a bonus.  I must remember this in October while chopping up a hundred or so meters of bean bines for compost.

rhubarb fixer-upper

Before Costata romanesca, there was another backyard monster known simply as Rhubarb.  It held a choice position in the sunny southeast corner of the big garden and received the overflow from the carport roof when the water tank was full or the torrent was too fast for the intake.  Rhubarb was a vigorous sprawl of shiny deep green leaves on thick stalks.  I tried to give it some distance when planting other things, but it never seemed to be enough.  Whatever I picked of it last year, most went into the freezer and has not been seen since.  Not useful to us.  Hence, Rhubarb was moved to the boulevard where its grand leaves would delight passersby and its tart stalks could be enjoyed by neighbors with alternative taste buds.  Alas, the move was not a good one for Rhubarb.  Losing a good chunk of its root system (if you have ever moved a rhubarb plant, you'll know the choice is between renting an excavator and breaking the roots) could not have been good for it.  The water supply has been far inferior, and it is in a much windier spot now.  Who knows what the previous tenants of that bed, sunchokes, did to the soil.  The leaves are small, dull green, and get rather chewed up in the course of their short lives.  First I determined that Rhubarb was not useful, then I relieved it of its beauty.  It must go.  I hope I can find a good home for it.


What would William Morris think of all this?  One look inside our house and he would know there is little hope for the garden.  But if not for his sage advice, it would be even worse.  I will not give up.

Your daily squirm

About once each year we find a large and revolting larval form on the property.  This year's catch is a tomato hornworm, found by Barry this morning on the concrete patio, nowhere near the tomatoes.  It is 7 cm long, firm and leathery to the touch, and enjoys doing laps of whatever it is trapped in or sticking its head in the ground when permitted to roam about the lawn.  Unfortunately, the grotesque undulations of its locomotion can't be conveyed by the still camera.  If some lucky bird hasn't snapped up our hornworm by morning, maybe I will get a video.

New arrivals

This week's babies:

scarlet runner

We have a Scarlet Runner bean.  Yay!  The wait was not as long as I had thought it would be.

san marzano tomato

It is literally a pain in the neck to search for emerging tomatoes.  However, I doubt if it is much more than a week since fruits began forming on any of our tomato plants.  Every variety planted has some now, which is a wonder since some are supposed to be earlier than others.  Not all individual plants are bearing fruit yet.  The greenhouse San Marzano just grows more luminous green foliage.  It might need a little more stress.

early ear of corn - dazzling in the morning sun

We turned our backs on the garden for two days and returned to find several tufts of silk erupting from the corn stalks.  This is exciting, given my poor track record with corn.  The plants are also the largest I have ever grown, with the tips of the flowers already up to (don't laugh) my shoulder.

strawberry offspring

This was a little more than a week ago.  The strawberries seem to have shut down fruit production in favour of sending out runners, a great confusing tangle of them, in fact.  Where feasible, I cleared away the mulch to help the plant find a place to root.  Still, I pressed 26 of them into small containers with potting mix, and might yet do some more.  Many of these young plants are destined to live in other beds; using pots will cause less root disturbance for them when it's time to move.







On the menu:

We have recently added Maxibel fillet beans and Orca beans to our 50 foot diet.  Last night Barry made a delicious pesto using our basil, garlic, and beets greens (plus imported ingredients).  The beet roots are waiting for a suitable time to be steamed to the succulent tenderness we achieved with the last batch.  The garlic was not a clove but a small spherical bulb that had grown from a bulbil planted last fall.  We will harvest these sparingly until the regular bulbs are ready.

Every day we shell a pile of pea pods.  Can hardly keep up with eating them.  The snow peas aren't doing so well in the heat, but we keep them alive so they can produce again when the days cool down.

Though the strawberries are almost fruitless right now, we have had three from the new yellow alpine strawberry.  It's difficult to tell when they are ripe.  Raspberries have taken over the fruit supply nicely.  One variety is waning, while another plumper variety is coming on stream.

We cooked up a mess of parsnips last weekend.  It's not traditional parsnip harvesting time, but these were getting to be a bit of trouble.  A couple of them appeared to be inhibiting a Tigerella tomato plant.  Others were too big to live in the pathways and some were giving aid and comfort to the enemy - sow thistle.

Recent discovery - radish pods are edible.  We find they are better raw than cooked, better young than old.  This is excellent news, since we have never been able to grow radish roots in the summer.  Now we can relax while they bolt and enjoy the pods instead.

Still eating zucchini.

Three's a crowd

Interesting feature of Hope Seeds seed packages: the are printed with a description of the intended outcome ("nutty flavour", "green ribbed skin"), especially in regards to the edible parts, but no instruction regarding what to do with the contents of the package in pursuit of achieving that outcome.  Most seed companies will tell you at least when to sow, how deeply, how far apart.  Hope Seeds assumes its customers are experienced gardeners, or at least interested enough to have read up on the basic requirements of infant vegetables.  Here are some quality seeds; go for it, they effectively say.  With a few years of gardening experience and a working knowledge of The Vegetable Gardener's Bible, I can cope with this, generally.  I could have used more guidance with the zucchini seeds.  Or I might have kept better records last year, the first time I raised Costata romanesca.

Costata romanesca zucchini - a nice little summer squash

zucchini encroaching on ground cherry

Barry made this raised bed out of 18-inch square paving stones, two wide and five long, so about 7.5 x 3 ft. I thought I would put five zucchini plants in it.  Remember how good those Costatas were last year?, we said.  The VGB gives 18 inches as the spacing for summer squash plants; theoretically, we could have had ten here.  As I mentioned a few weeks ago, only three survived to be transplanted.  This was fortunate.  It took a bit of work on Google's part, but this morning I finally found a site that advised 4 feet between plants of this variety.  So the capacity of this bed is more like.....two, and that allows for a fair bit of touching.  This ground cherry was planted more than 3 feet away from the zucchini that is now muscling in on its territory.  When I thought the zucchini must be as big as it was going to get, I poked a few onions sets into the soil and scattered some carrot seeds in the gap that remained at the end of the bed.  I hope onions like shade.

ground cherry benefits
 from outside assistance

At the other end of the bed is another ground cherry, which is not visible in the top photo due to the massive zucchini leaves that cover it from all directions.  I admit to not leaving enough room between it and the nearest zucchinis, only 1.5 or 2 feet.  The ground cherry should grow to be about 3 feet high.  I pictured it towering above the lowly zucchini leaves that would settle down on either side of it, completely forgetting that these leaves fan out from the ends of tall stalks and would have no trouble getting between a ground cherry plant and the sun.  The fencing worked for a while.  I even beefed it up a bit yesterday with some slightly larger fencing.  Look at all that sunlight on its leaves.  But see also how very small it is next to its rival.  This was poor planning.  I feel the aggression, too.  The stalks are stubborn when I try to push them out of the way, and are covered with sharp spikes.  Any day now those east side leaves are going to tear right through the row cover on the adjacent bed.  The seed package should mention that Costata romanesca does not play well with others.

fruitful vegetable

We harvested three fruits today, almost 3 kg in total, and consumed less than half of one for supper.  More are on the way.  Friends, neighbours, colleagues, have I got a tasty treat for you.  No, really, it's better than the usual zucchini that everyone else tries to unload on you.  Why do we have even three plants?  Next year, two maximum.  In the meantime, we have discussed donning falconer's  gloves and removing the odd leaf that is causing a problem.  We do understand that it will take out a good 200-300 square inches of photosynthetic surface per leaf.  We're just not all that worried about maintaining current productivity levels.

Not full of beans

scarlet runner blossom failure

See those vertical green bits sticking up from the flower stem?  See the lovely bean pods developing at the tips?  No?  Neither do I!  This happens every time we plant Scarlet Runners.  Weeks, months (I don't know how long; I'll pay more attention this year) of red blossoms shriveling and falling off the plant, leaving nothing but a blunt useless stub behind.  Why? I ask.  Answers from the interweb brain trust: 
No pollination.  But there are bees and other insects around, and the other beans are making pods.
Too hot.  That would be a great explanation for this instance, but it's not always hot at the start of the blossom run.
That's just how these beans operate.  Now there is an answer I can cope with.  Not my fault.  Nothing to do but wait, which will be easier once I have scientifically determined when I can expect the first pods to form.  (It's easy to stop looking for beans and suddenly one find a 10-inch bod dangling inside the pyramid of vines.)  I would like to know why they operate this way, though.  Doesn't seem proper.

orca bush beans

The Orca bean plants appear to be struggling with the heat (limp, yellowing leaves), yet still manage to produce velvety little pods by the time the blossom falls off.  Same goes for the Maxibel French Filet beans over the pea fence and the Ina's White beans across the path.  Full of beans they are.  The Rattlesnake beans haven't even opened any of their purple blossoms yet.  Spending too much energy fending off slugs, maybe.  I have been trying to alleviate the slug nuisance, hand picking them in the dewy early morning and sending them to slug heaven (a plastic yogurt tub with a hole cut in the lid and a cm of kosher salt in the bottom).






Pole beans are generally good about winding around whatever they were planted next to.  They sometimes need a little persuasion to stick with the pole instead of going for that nearby stalk of dill.  One might insist on climbing the pole two over from where it was planted.  Their reasons are unfathomable to a human, but I'm sure they are valid in their own way.  Climb which ever pole you like, as long as it is in the same bed as your roots.  It does get crowded at the top where the poles come together, which may explain why a bine would reach out for new territory.  Of course, this one may just be grape-curious.

single bean bine seeks grape vine for mutually supportive relationship

Crispy critter

Since when is 30C considered hot?  I thought it was a normal summer temperature.  We have been watering the vegetables during this warm, dry spell, but I expect the perennials to last a few days longer with their deep roots and whatever climatic adaptations they should have if they are sold to southern Albertans.  First year transplants are an exception; I have been fussing over this year's newcomers.

july 2

This dwarf astilbe was introduced last year.  It shriveled up early, well before the end of summer, and I was surprised to see it return in the spring.  It remained small and low, no flowers expected this year, but looked healthy, until Tuesday.

july 12

As is turns out, astilbe is a shade plant.  I guess I placed it thinking the spot qualified as partial shade; it's time to re-examine that.  This spring's caterpillar activity has made the front yard a little sunnier.  Had I remembered the shade preferences of my plants, though, I might have taking more care to see to their water needs through these extra warm days.  My bad.  The garden needs a little more idiot proofing.

Thanks, Mom!

Sometime in the last decade, my mother began writing a cheque on my birthday equal to the number of years that I had managed to survive outside the womb.  The cheque arrived this week, but I knew it was coming and did my shopping on the weekend. Here is what a woman of my age can buy with her birthday money:

Creeping lamium (L. maculatum 'Pink Pewter')  A spreading patch of small silver leaves with a narrow green edge.  salmon-pink flowers appear in spring, then continue off and on until fall. Fairly tolerant of dry shade.  ~jeeperscreepers.info

Single painted daisy (Tanacetum coccineum Robinson's mix) Foliage is bright green and ferny with upright stems bearing loads of single yellow-eyed daisies, in shades of white, pink or crimson red.  ~ Heritage Perennials

Alpine strawberry (Fragaria vesca 'Yellow Wonder)  A unique and rarely offered yellow-fruited form of the European Wild Strawberry. Tiny white flowers appear all season, followed by small cone-shaped creamy-yellow fruit, the tastiest of all strawberries.  ~ perennials.com

Rock soapwort (Saponaria ocymoides) Smothered in stunning pink flowers at the ends of the stems from mid to late spring.  Its round leaves remain emerald green in colour throughout the year.  ~Northern Classics

Variegated periwinkle (Vinca minor 'Ralph Shugert') Forms a dense mat of glossy dark green leaves edged with white, and a display of bright blue flowers in spring.  Tolerates dry shade.  ~ Heritage Perennials

Fern-leaf bleedingheart (Dicentra 'Candy Hearts')  Forms a vigorous clump of powdery blue-green leaves topped by clusters of delicate dangling heart chaped flowers in a dusky rose-purple shade.  ~ Heritage Perennials

Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia) A vigorous spreading groundcover, useful in difficult shady situations.  Forms a mat of bright green leaves studded by yellow flowers in late spring.  Best as a lawn substitute.  ~jeeperscreepers.info 

Daylily (Hemerocallis 'Stella de Oro) By far the most popular Daylily selection of all time.  Forms a dense clump of grassy green foliage, with upright stems of fragrant, golden-yellow trumpet flowers.  ~ Heritage Perennials.

Moss phlox (Phlox douglasii 'Crackerjack')  A low mound or cushion of dark green needle-like leaves, smothered by tiny flowers in late spring. Very compact variety, with a grand display of bright starry magenta-red flowers.  ~ rockstarplants.com

perennial birthday gifts

A few specimens didn't look great, hence the group photo instead of individual head shots.  They may not look like much, but give them time.  See below what happened to my little bloody dock from one year to the next.  Perennial plants are a good investment.  Thanks, Mom.  

bloody dock 21-07-11

bloody dock 24-06-12

Last year I spent the birthday money on plants, but not at a typical garden retail outlet where customers generally leave with labelled pots.  Through no fault of my own, I was late getting to a sale of native plants at the museum; they were starting to pack up.  So I quickly yet thoughtfully chose ten plugs and brought them home.  Hours later, I thought I still knew what five of them were, and was fairly certain I knew which five others I had chosen, but did not know what was what.  Still don't.  One flowered this year and evidently it is fleabane.  I would not have chosen fleabane.  Only the Jacob's ladder and blue-eyed grass are for sure now; the rest - I forget what I even thought they were at one time.  It's okay to have a few mysteries.

As a gardener, my gratitude to Mom extends beyond her support for my plant shopping sprees.  From as early as I can remember, we had a vegetable garden on the hill that sloped down from our house toward the Northwest Arm in Halifax.  There was a large rectangle here, a smaller one over there, a couple of more squarish patches.  We (I'm sure I helped sometimes) dug through the soil with a fork each spring, tossing out the numerous rocks hat had floated to the surface since the previous spring.  We planted in straight rows across the beds, leaving the prescribed space between rows and mounting the seed package on a stick  to announce the coming vegetables.  Beans, peas, beets, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, corn, radishes - I believe we grew all that, and more, but I can't remember.  Marigold transplants were placed at the periphery to foil insect pests.  Rhubarb sat at the top of the large bed.  Raspberries were eventually installed on the other side of the yard.  I think we had asparagus at one point.  We had a compost pile; Mom even made compost tea back in the seventies.  I don't recall weeding or watering the garden. or even harvesting.  Maybe I didn't help out after all.  Maybe I learned nothing about gardening from the family garden.  Today I dig as little as I can, arrange plantings more in blobs than in rows, and leave "weeds" in the ground until I'm sure they don't have a role to play there.  My present garden is chaos compared to what I grew up with.  Regardless of the variation of style, though, I think the most important bit was being socialized toward growing food.  What my parents gave me was the notion that having a vegetable garden is something you do, like going to church and reading at bed time.  It's normal.  It's expected.  It's simple.  Thanks, Mom and Dad, for giving me that.

"What's Goin' On" and on

carrots with onion buffer, plus rogue dill and parsnip

Don't plant carrots and parsnips together, says The Vegetable Gardener's Bible.  These warnings don't tend to define "together" very well.  I try to put the bad companions in separate beds, but sometimes it isn't practical, so maybe I sow a row of lettuce (that great peacekeeper that is everyone's good companion) between the enemies and hope that's enough.  Both carrots and parsnips are comfortable with onions, ergo a double line of yellow onions between should stifle animosities.  This bed of carrots was sown sometime in April and has attained lush ferny tops.  In June I realized this was all I had planted for carrots (I wait to see what spaces are left after transplants and then forget) and started hunting around for small patches to sprinkle a few seeds - between tomatoes on the south edge of one of their beds and in the pea/bean/shallot bed, again placing a buffer (the carrots themselves this time) between two bad companions.  Just a few days ago I opened several packages of seeds of various varieties and ages and scattered them around the onions in the zucchini bed.  Besides these, there are a few volunteers around.  Like the parsnips, some might be in their second year.

corn and carrot flowers

Last fall I did leave one patch of tiny carrots to become this year's seed carrots.  They are huge and already flowering, dwarfing the adjacent corn stalks.  We have grown corn three times in the past and have had one or two good ears in all.  It's not the region - Taber, 50 km away, is famous for it's corn.  It has a Corn Fest in August.  I have gap-toothed corn and earwigs.  Too stingy with the fertilizer, perhaps?  Apparently unable to learn from past experience, I am again growing corn, with the seed variety that didn't work out before.  A vacant garden space with no plan for it, a box of leftover seeds (I can't just throw out perfectly good hybrid seeds) - what could be the harm?  It looks good so far, though already leaning from the high winds.

sunchokes

Sunchokes are already at shoulder height and leaning out into the pathway from one of their beds.  That group is so thick I have given up searching for weeds.  It might be just a solid block of tubers below the surface when we start digging them up.  I look forward to seeing how tall the stalks get this year.  The plants in the other bed, the former everlasting sweet pea bed, are the same height, not quite as dense.  Sweet peas keep trying to regain their place and I keep pulling off whatever growth I see.  Now that the sunchokes are getting bigger, though, the sweet peas will find they can get a lot further undetected.

raspberry thicket

As for fruits:
Haskap berries were tart and delicious and are now done for the season.  I prefer the larger berries of the short Cinderella variety and wish it would grow into a bigger bush.  It does have a rooting pot on it, so I hope to have a successful clone plant by the end of the summer.  There are also two rooting pots on the Berry Blue and one on the new Borealis.  The latter should be removed because the branch has clearly perished.
The first ripe strawberry was spotted June 15 and the first raspberry June 28.  There is a big feed of raspberries to come, if we dare enter the thorny mess that has developed.  The task becomes more intrepid when bees are pollinating flowers of the later variety of berry.  No Nanking cherries, no apples, no pears.  We don't know why.  Very sad.  The forecast for grapes is still good, as long as Barry can hold off the hordes of hoppers.

thyme and sage, and chamomile

A few small sage and thyme plants started in 2011 were uprooted from their original location and placed between the chives and walking onions last fall.  All survived the winter and are flowering now.  Some chamomile seeds have landed in the same area and will be allowed to grow as long as the flowers are not in the way; we don't want to risk stepping on bees in the pathways.  Dill is again everywhere.  I went on umbel patrol three days ago and will have to make another round today, even removing entire plants.  Cilantro self seeded itself generously last year.  It's a fragrant stroll past that bed as the leaves release an aroma from the lightest touch.  Somewhere on the interweb was a suggestion to freeze herbs in olive oil in ice cube trays.  Worth a shot.  A new herb for us this year is rosemary.  One year I started rosemary from seed and always had difficulty finding it after transplant  because it stayed so small.  This year I again started with seeds, but cleverly placed them in a large pot instead of the ground.  The two are still less than an inch tall, but they won't be accidentally weeded.  Nevertheless, we picked up a larger plant, maybe eight inches tall, at Greenhaven, to fill a container vacancy (the store was out of tomatoes and cucumbers at that point).  It's a "tender perennial".  Guess we'll find out how tender next spring.

garden cress going to seed

Miscellaneous:
Rhubarb is viable on the boulevard, though not nearly as large as it was when it lived by the water tank overflow in one of the sunniest parts of the back garden.  The two uprootings may not have helped.
Lettuce has been great, but is reaching for the sky.  More has been sown, in faint hope of tender summer leaves.  Cress bolted ages ago, yet it looks lovely leaning against the squash ladder with its tiny white flowers.  I just can't remove it yet.

giant self-seeded radishes

Radishes planted early in the front yard went straight to seed.  Those few planted among the peas in back have been fine.  A couple of volunteers dug up in the tomato bed are outstanding.





Have I covered all the edibles now?

More "What's Goin' On"

peas in cages in the back yard

Snow peas have been on the menu for less than a week.  Plantings were staggered by probably 3 or 4 weeks - March 31 in the front yard and twice in April in the back (wish I'd made notes at the time) - and the pods all came out at the same time.  I have seen this with pole beans before; I finally give up on the first planting, poke some more beans into the ground, and watch them all come up at once.  Lesson learned: peas can be sown "as soon as the ground can be worked" (March), but they won't feed us any sooner than if we sow in late April. Any fine weekend in between will do. Strong wind a few days ago knocked over the vines that had grown beyond the tops of their cages. They are still alive and well, but won't stand erect again and are going to get all tangled up in themselves now. Barry has been picking the pods and reports that front yard pods are smaller than backyard pods. Less sun, more wind, shallower soil - I'm glad they are doing so well. Shell peas in cages have blossoms now, those on the fence, sown later do not. They also haven't climbed nearly as high, a difference I am not sure is due to their respective ages. I'm curious to see if the two groups eventually reach the same height.

scarlet runner beans

There are six pole bean structures this year, the most we have ever had.  New poles had to be found.  Though I did anticipate using the stalks of a few tall sunflowers from last year, they were  broken before I had a chance to get them out of the ground.  They grow in the alley, so are vulnerable to misfortune at the whims of deer or other creatures.  I'll try pulling them up before winter this time around.  Meanwhile, I'm trying out some lengths of plastic conduit (used as row cover support last year).  They appear to be acceptable for climbing, but don't contribute to a stable structure.   Anyway, I sowed two structures with scarlet runner, three with Ina's white, and one with rattlesnake beans.  The first two are well underway, winding toward their respective peaks and revealing petal colour in their axillary buds, while the rattlesnakes are slower, just starting to find their poles and having rudimentary buds.  There was a bit of a slug problem in that area.

scarlet runner bud

Bush beans - Maxibel French Filet and Orca - grew up fast and are now looking crowded on opposite sides of the pea fence.  Those were sown in May and and the buds are about to open.  Yesterday I filled an empty spot at the end of the Swiss chard with two rows of each.  I'm pretty sure there is enough time.

garlic from bulbils

garlic from cloves

The garlic patch has three sizes of plants this year.  I haven't a clue what the varieties are (they could all be the same one), but they are different stages that were planted last fall.  The smallest are from bulbils, the seeds of the flowers (or scapes), the medium stalks are from teardrops, the root bulb that grows the first year from a bulbil, and the largest are grown from single cloves.  I pulled up one of the latter recently and wish I hadn't.  It was interesting to see the tiny cloves forming inside the root bulb, but now we won't have that full-sized bulb in August.  The teardrops should produce small bulbs.  The bulbils may even produce small bulbs instead of teardrops.  It depends on the variety.  Surprises await.  Scapes are growing and curling on the two larger groups.  Today I cut a few that had done a full circle and will try them in an omelet tomorrow.  Generally, leaving the scapes on is expected to reduce bulb size, because plant energy is going into making bulbils instead of bulbs.  I will leave a few scapes in place and check whether this is true for my garlic.  Plus, I want some bulbils.

walking onions

Also in the allium group, we have yellow onions, shallots, chives, and walking onions.  Yellow onion sets were poked in the ground between carrots and parsnips in one bed (see the Parsnips post) and much later inserted into the area left unclaimed when some zucchini plants failed.  The later ones are still less than finger height, and may, like the ground cherry, require some protection from encroachment.  Shallot seeds went into the end of a raised bed meant for peas and beans.  The legumes still followed, cutting short both ros of shallots. I'd say only half of the seeds germinated and they are now a few inches tall, thin and delicate, like baby chives.  Onions and legumes are said not to be good companion plants, but we have volunteer peas coming up among the garlic and neither are visibly suffering.  Chives and walking onions carry on beautifully, tough perennials that they are.  The chive flowers have mostly lost their colour and the walking onions have scapes on scapes.  Very interesting formations.

We also have two onions in a container: one was found this spring in last summer's onion patch, the other had begun to sprout out of boredom during a long stay in my father-in-law's refrigerator.  That one has already made a scape, the other is just being.

More to follow.....

Time now for "What's Goin' On"

The post title is amusing only to those who received cable tv channels from Maine in the 70's and 80's.  If you are hoping to read about upcoming events at the Bangor Mall, you are going to be sorely disappointed here.

It's just over a month since my hasty post about what was going down (and coming up) in the garden, so here is an update.

Tomatoes were all transplanted by the first weekend of June and all except one have survived the onslaught of flea beetles.  Another one, planted upside-down, appears to have succumbed to a broken stem suffered during high winds.  All others are looking sturdy.  They always look terribly weak and vulnerable after transplant and toughen up incredibly fast.  They have already had their first axil pruning.  Peppers, melons, cucumber and basil are all in containers.  I've put one container of watermelons, one of peppers, one tomato in the greenhouse to see how they like it there in the summer.  All potatoes successfully sprouted and have blossoms already.

defiant tomato

potato bed june 24

costata romanesca
 june 9

Only three zucchini plants made it to transplant and they are now hanging over the sides of their bed.  (The grim hue of the early photo is a result of me forgetting I'd been playing with the white balance on my new camera.)  I'd better remember to measure the full grown diameter this year; one plant has already shaded the ground cherry I thought was a reasonable distance away from it.  Fencing and a guard iguana have been installed to protect the ground cherry.

costata romanesca june 28

red kuri getting a grip

Four winter squash plants made it to transplant: one Uncle Dave's Dakota Dessert and three Red Kuri.  We got one large and excellent Red Kuri gourd last year and would like to have more.  Uncle Dave's is there for back up.  The squash ladder worked out okay in 2011, but had to be moved for the sake of crop rotation.  Squash are in the "heavy feeder" group.  In moving the ladder, I also turned it, for some reason I don't recall, and the plants were place on the south side of the mesh they are meant to climb.  Of course they all tried to vine south, away from the mesh.  I applied some encouragement yesterday and hope they soon get a better grasp of what they are supposed to do.

beets and chard undercover

Beets and Swiss chard are lush and almost blemish free in their covered bed.  It's not a tight seal, but enough to drastically reduce access for leaf miners.  It has been years since we have been able to just rinse and slice the Swiss chard without first tearing away the scabby bits.  With the row cover protecting it from heavy rain and pests, we barely need to rinse it before eating.  Downside, the bed would look more beautiful without the cover (but only until the leaf miners found it).  The section with beets (foreground) has grown especially bulgy. I might have to start eating around the edges.

To be continued......

Parsnips everywhere

the parsnip that started it all

It started in 2008, when I sowed my first parsnip seeds.  I wasn't that excited about it, associating parsnips with turnips, which I don't care to eat.  We dug up most of them the following spring but I left one in the ground to see what would happen.  In spite of my lack of experience, I knew it was a biennial plant and that something would happen.  Very much to my surprise, it grew to be almost as tall as me and branched out with great umbels that grew seeds.  I was in awe of it, much as I had been of bolted lettuce plants the first time I saw them.  It was some time after the seeds had developed sufficiently to produce new plants that the flower blew over in a storm, falling directly south toward the the fence.  No doubt there was a great scattering of seeds that night, but there was also the dragging of the plant off to the compost after we realized the stalk could not be righted.  Still, we had no idea how far those seeds had been flung.

In the spring of 2010, parsnips sprouted from the lawn.  They still do.  They emerged around the two bee balm plants where the flower toppled and along the periphery of that side of the garden.  I let them grow, thinking of them as potential food.  One of the volunteers growing right next to the cinder block border of the garden was our prize parsnip that year.  It was a huge effort to uproot it from where it had burrowed under the brick.  Others weren't worth picking; the next year they became flowers.  We let a few of them go, if they weren't in the way.  We had to remove one that grew to overhang a narrow pathway.   This was due to the ant hazard.  Ants find parsnip flowers to be great range land for their aphid herds.  You don't want to have to brush past a plant where defensive ants loiter at neck height.

What happened with the 2011 flowers, I don't know.  I thought we carefully removed all the seeds before they had a chance to escape.  Still, seeds got around.  The wind may have blown them off when we weren't looking.   2009 seeds from the distributed compost could have germinated.  I wouldn't put it past the ants; they love to carry stuff around just to show off their impressive jaw strength to body weight ratio.  There are now parsnips growing in every bed of the main garden.  I don't think they have infiltrated the new raised beds.

parsnip in bee balm

This is the smallest bee balm plant with a tiny parsnip.  It's difficult when they get in among the roots of perennials.  We pull parsnip leaves from the larger bee balm plants every week.  One even managed to make a flower before we caught it.  The root has to be exhausted eventually, I hope.

parsnips with lettuce

This is one of the beds where I sowed parsnips in 2011.  They did not do well.  I can't tell yet whether these are first or second year plants.  Though it's logical that last year's planting would yield second year plants here, I don't see any sign of a flower yet.  I think it would be happening by now.

parsnips with brussels sprouts

  Now here is a nightmare for some children: two of their not so favourite vegetables side by side.  I feel quite confident that these are growing from seeds this year.  I had snow peas and carrots in this section last year and was weeding like a fiend to keep sow thistle from going to seed here (for all the good that did).  Would have noticed parsnips.  I haven't checked The Vegetable Gardener's Bible to see if these two are good companions.  They are both doing fine.

parsnip with sunchokes

The sun chokes are growing so thick in this bed, it may be difficult to see the parsnip that is happily situated on the sunny side of the rectangle.  It's huge.  For a while I was thinking that anything that got that big that quickly had to be second year.  But I don't remember when this one started.  Another wait and see.  It will be interesting to see how deep it can grow.  The bed was created on top of lawn, so the root only has about eight inches to go before it hits the lovely hard packed clay substrate that we enjoy so much in Lethbridge.

They are found among the peas and pole beans and tomatoes, and growing out of the sides of the mounded beds. They are not fussy about where they grow or how deeply the seeds are planted.   All they need is water, light and space. With all the pests we find in the garden, nothing goes for parsnip leaves or roots. I have come to enjoy eating the roots, especially if prepared with butter and garlic. Somewhere I read that the leaves were edible, but then Barry (after I encouraged him to try eating a leaf) found several sources that say they are poisonous and can cause burns on contact with skin. I always wear gloves in the garden anyway.

parsnips with intent, and onions

I did sow a bed with parsnip seeds in May, from 2009 seeds.  Intended to do more when I figured out where they could go, but never did get it done.  This will not be enough.  Though there is space available, there is not enough growing season left.  Therefore I am leaving all the volunteers in place until they sprout stalks and umbels.  They may even do better than the mass planting, which is due for a thinning.  So why not just shake a couple of flowers over the entire garden in late summer and let them grow where they like?  Mainly because I want to know exactly where to dig for them in the winter, and because once I find a parsnip growing in the spring, it's hard to sacrifice it to make room for a beet, and because they might take over the planet.