Damages

It really wasn't that bad. Of course the beans got hit.

But not hard enough to kill them.  I picked all the beans off the plants in one last ditch effort to store some away for winter, but there are still flowers, and the bumbles seem to be ok, so maybe...

The pumpkins that were under the greenhouse wall took it hard.  I cut them off and harvested the pumpkins.  Leaves went to the birds.

The potato plants were done, so I dug them up.  Best potato harvest ever!  I only planted one short row of potatoes- a few white potatoes that had eyes, a few Russian bananas that I saved from last year, and one 5 pound bag of yukon gold that I got free from the hardware store late in the season.  They were giving them away because it was really too late to be planting potatoes- or so I thought!

I hilled the row once this summer, when the plants weren't very big, and then I ignored it until the frost.  I filled two five gallon pails with potatoes.  I am stunned.  What was different this year?  I planted late- and I was lazy.  I threw all those seed potatoes in the ground as they were, never even cut one in half!  As I dug them out, I almost 'harvested' a couple of the seed potatoes too.  They were still pretty solid, and I think they grew through the summer.  They certainly did a better job of feeding those plants this way!

Notes for Next Year:  Plant potatoes after black fly season, leave the seed potatoes whole, hill once and ignore.

The rest of the garden held up ok.  Even the lettuce and swiss chard survived.

Inside Greenhouse #3, the beans got a bit of damage.  Too close to the wall, and I hadn't fixed the plastic that didn't quite reach the ground yet.  I was holding out for the hammer tacker to come on sale.  Husband picked me up a new staple gun after the frost, so greenhouses are fixed now. 

Pumpkins inside were fine.

Greenhouse #1, which I expected to be the worst, held up well.

There was a big hole at the back, and the plastic was off at the top both front and back.  The cucumbers took a little curl, but since the rest was mostly brassicas, they did alright.

The broccoli is loving the cooler weather.  It sprouted about 6" this week, and the first head is forming.

Greenhouse #2 was in the best shape, and only seems to have slightly curled cucumber leaves near the roof.  The tomatoes and peppers were fine.

This week's forecast has a couple of 0°s overnight and a -2°C.  Depending how many hours we hold those temps, it may be the end.  I'm adding pop bottles filled with water between the plants in the greenhouses.  It might be enough to pull us through this cold snap.  Better weather is expected to return in a week or two.

I'm also picking and canning like crazy.  You have to check out my "Summer Sauce" I've been working on.  It tastes deliscious and it's a great way to make use of all those odds and ends from the garden- like the cucumbers that we just can't eat fast enough!

Garden Update

The harvest is still coming in.

Mixed bowl of calendula, plantain and comfrey, tiny carrots, bucket of eating cucumbers, peas, swiss chard and spinach, pickling cucumbers in a row, dill, lettuce, free potatoes, pepper, rose hips.

The mixed bowl has become a healing salve for cuts and scrapes.  The potatoes are from a few volunteer plants that sprung up in the garden.  The plants were starting to yellow, so I dug them out before I misplaced them.  The rosehips have been added to berry juices through the summer, and now I'm picking for a batch of wine.

Side view.

 I'm quite pleased with my garden this year.  Despite the late spring frost, and still waiting for green beans, it's been quite productive.  A lot of puttering, and small batch canning, but more fun than work.

Crazy tomatoes and cucumbers in greenhouse #2.

 Cucumbers have been fantastic.  Every few days I make another batch of dill pickles, and we've had so many eating cukes (Straight 8's) in the last few weeks, I've started giving them away.

Cucumber vines all the way to the roof! (8'!!)

 The question is, how am I going to harvest them way up there?

Pollinators enjoying the still unidentified flowers.

 And in greenhouse #1, the sunflowers are reaching for the sky.

This one hit the roof and kept growing.  It would have been about 10' tall!

Greenhouse #3 is growing well.  I added a couple of buckets of water to help regulate the temperature over night.  The other greenhouses have buckets of water in the corners.

Greenhouse #3, pumpkins, melons, sunflowers

Tiny watermelons have finally appeared.

Greenhouse #3, watermelons, nasturtiums, green beans

Green beans are still flowering, still no beans!

Nasturtium

Nasturtiums are doing great.  I've been harvesting the flowers to make spice.  The leaves and seed pods are also edible, but we haven't tried them yet.  I keep meaning to pick a few to add to salad, but forget when I'm in the garden.

The Algonquin Pumpkins are a win-win-win!  Lots of pumpkins on the vines, early fruiting, and continue to ripen after picking.  My research says to pick when the underside turns bright orange.

Algonquin Pumpkin

Underside of pumpkin

My tiny Far North Melons are also a keeper.  They seem to be stunted, but I think they're supposed to be that little.

Far North Melons

I picked 4 pumpkins and one melon.

4 pumpkins and a melon harvested

The pumpkins are in the cold room, while the melon made a tasty snack!

Far North Melon

Outside in the garden, the potatoes are monstrous.  I haven't hilled them well, and only planted half of a short row, maybe 12'.  Half of them are the Russian Banana that I grew last year, that never got big enough for anything other than seed potatoes.  The other half are Yukon Gold that I picked up free from the hardware store long after they should have already been planted.  The garden beans appear to be at the same stage as the greenhouse beans.

Calendula, Potatoes, Beans

More manure goes onto the fallow side of the garden almost daily.  It should be very rich and healthy next spring!

Manure spreading

The garden sunflowers are much smaller than the greenhouse sunflowers.  I don't remember if I planted all of the same variety or not.

Sunflowers in the garden

Lettuce is still edible, but the outer leaves have started to rot.

Lettuce

Watermelon radishes were not a hit.  Too mild for Husband.  I left them to go to seed, and hopefully the seed pods will make a bigger impact.

Radishes flowering

Mangels are very small this year, probably from lack of rain early in the season.

Mangels

Peas are still producing well.  Shells are harder and rusted now.

Peas

Carrots are small and sad.

Carrots

My Mennonite dry beans were hit with a late spring frost.  Four plants survived and have flowered, despite their stunted growth.  No beans yet.

Mennonite Beans

Swiss chard is coming in now, with just enough to harvest for dinner every 3 or 4 days.

Swiss Chard

Parts of Alberta got snow yesterday.  That usually means we'll get the cooler weather within 2 weeks.  I'm really not ready to quit yet this year (especially without ANY beans!), but I guess it's time I got the greenhouses sealed up tight, and started harvesting the garden more rigorously. 

More Rain

We had a short break in the rain this morning, so I ran out to water the greenhouses.

Weeds, and a few veggies, enjoying the rain.

Except when I got there, I had no water.  Back to the house- did I forget to turn on the hose?  Nope, it's on.  I turned it up a little.

Back to the garden.  No water.  Walk back, tracing the hose step by step.  No kinks.

Raining again.  Forget it.  Go shut the hose off.  Well, there you go.  I guess I forgot to switch the splitter from pasture to garden.  Maybe later...

After three days of rain, and a high of 9°C (48°F) yesterday, I finally gave in and lit a fire last night.  I hate wasting fire wood this early in the year, but shivering all night isn't likely to motivate me to doing anything productive today.

It's our anniversary today.  15 months since Dad died.  I'm ok with the word 'happy' now.  The first year every time someone said 'happy', I either cried or looked at them like they had sprouted another head.  Happy Birthday, Happy Mother's Day, Happy Hallowe'en, Happy New Year...  Seriously?  Happy seemed like such a cruel concept.

I'm still not happy.  But at least I'm not crying.  And I guess you only have one head now.

Pruning

Pumpkin Ville

The first week of August has passed.  I'm a bit behind.  Last year I started pinching off the suckers on the tomato plants on the first of August.  This year, I started yesterday.  We haven't had any frost warnings yet, so, so far, I'm not picking any tomatoes.

I cut the ends off the pumpkin vines.  So sad...  They were doing so great, and buried in the mass of weeds I've seen a few good sized pumpkins already.  Never the less, I need the plants to get serious about ripening the pumpkins I already have, not growing more vine.

I cut the ends off of some of the Far North Melons as well.  Some of them are buried in the pumpkin mess, and I have no idea how they're faring.  I love the sight of the little melons.  They look like tiny watermelons, with speckled skin.  So cute, lol.

I'm not holding much hope for the watermelons.  Still flowering, but I haven't seen any melons starting.  Not much time left now.

A Little Garden Update

Harvest Tuesday

Purslane, Dill, Long Slim Pepper, Pickling Cucumbers, Radish, Peas

'Cause I never got around to it on Monday.  Not that I'm really into that whole 'Harvest Monday' thing, just that garden chores tend to get put off on the weekends in favour of more manual work while Husband is home.  I harvest throughout the week, but there just tends to be a bit more of a 'glut' on Monday mornings.  Not pictured- another bucket of lettuce, a bunch of mint hung to dry, and my first ever bunch of oregano hung to dry.

Oregano

I made one jar of refrigerator pickles with cucumbers- not enough yet to can, but soon.  I added the purslane leaves to a stir fry for supper, along with a bit of that Long Slim Pepper.  Hot!  Hot, I tell you.  A little bit goes a long way.

Greenhouse #1 Is being taken over by the pumpkin plants.  They're crowding out the Far North Melons.  I gingerly picked up the trailers and rearranged them to go towards the outside.

The neglected, badly weeded outside.  Then I pulled a lot of grass to make things more comfortable for them.

I was pleasantly surprised by the number of tiny pumpkins on the vines already.

Four little pumpkins on this vine alone!  If they make it, these Algonquins will definitely be the way of the future for me.

The Far North Melons are also sprouting tiny babies.  With two months to go, they both stand a decent chance of producing well.

The watermelons are just starting to flower now, nasturdiums haven't flowered yet, and the beans I planted after the frost in June are nearly ready to flower.  There doesn't appear to be much difference between the ones in the greenhouse and the two rows I added outside.

Delphiniums are flowering now,

which keeps the bumbles happy.

In Greenhouse #1 the cabbages are coming along nicely, starting to form heads.

Broccoli and Brussels sprouts are gaining height.  Eggplant is short and the plant is yellowed.  Kohlrabi has lovely leaves, but not much bulk.  Kale is almost ready to eat.  Sugar beets are coming along slowly.

Greenhouse #2 is wild with tomatoes now.  They're crowding the pepper plants.

Both greenhouses' cucumbers are doing well.

The rest of the garden...

Beans, beans, corn, calendula, potatoes and WEEDS!  everywhere!

Fresh manure composting where the first beans were planted.

Peas rocking the fence- some over 5' tall.  Mangels coming along slowly, carrots doing well, radishes getting too big, lettuce doing great, swiss chard slow and pale looking, spinach gone to seed, romaine coming slowly, and sunflowers doing well.  And WEEDS EVERYWHERE!

The weeds seem to be in overdrive this year.  I'm pulling at least two five gallon pails every day, sometimes 5 or 6.  The rain has been generous this month though, and each rainfall sprouts another batch of weeds.  Many buckets have been fed to the chickens, and many buckets are becoming silage for winter feed.  So many more to pull!

Strawberries flowering!  Not too many plants, and they were attacked by a goat before she sold, but maybe, just maybe, I might get to eat one this year!

Growing Up

I spotted my first tomato yesterday.

It's such a tiny little thing.  Promises of more to come!  It surprises me though, since it's on the left side of the greenhouse.

The soaker hose has developed a split which soaks the right side really, really well, but leaves the left side with much less water.  The left side plants are stunted in comparison. 

Harvest Monday

Yeah, I know it's Wednesday, but I harvested and took the pic on Monday.  I'm just a little slow getting things posted these days.

My first garden harvest of 2014, although I did pick the rhubarb once already this year.  Actually, the first time I cut all of the larger stems from the rhubarb, puréed it, and made juice concentrate, then divided it for each jug of juice I made.  I had two large jugs in the fridge the whole time.  Then it occurred to me that if I could calculate how much rhubarb I'd need for just one jug of juice, I wouldn't have so much work at once, and more room in the fridge, and less time waiting for it to grow back!  This was my first attempt, and it was just a touch skimpy.  Two or three more stalks would be just about perfect.

The first picking of the peas, other than a couple to munch on here and there.  Tiny radishes, but Husband might as well eat some now before they're all huge and woody at the same time.  Lettuce is about 4" high, but quite thick, so tender and yummy.  Clover for infused water.

Peas should be ready for picking every 3-4 days now.  Tomatoes, peppers, and melons are flowering.  Replacement beans are about 3" tall. (frost).  Cucumbers should start flowering soon.  The rest likely won't make it this year.