1st Cucumber - June 27, 2014

Welcome back to my garden blog.  This evening I've finally picked the cucumber.  I was worried that the animals would get to it.  It looks like there are about 4 more little ones out there.  The plants have now outgrown their cages and I had to put a garden stick for one plant and the other plant is climbing up the trellis for the peas.



I hope you all have a great weekend and get out there and plant something.

Cucumbers, Zucchini and Tomatoes - June 24, 2014

 Good evening and welcome once again to my garden.  Here is a better photo of the incredible cucumber.  Can anyone please tell me how do I know when it's a good time to pick it?  I've never grown this variety before, so I have no idea how large they get.

 Here you can just see the start of my very first zucchini.  It's time once again to get out all of my favourite zucchini recipes.  If anyone wants to send me their favourite recipe I'll give it a try. 

Here is a larger view of part of the garden.  Someone asked what the green netting at the back is for.  If my peas start to get taller it's suppose to allow them to climb up the netting.  So far one of the cucumber plants has started to climb up the netting.

Well, until it stops raining, That's all the photos for today.

Happy Summer - June 21, 2014

 Happy Summer to everyone reading this.  The garden has been planted for just one month now and already the plants have grown really well and we actually have a cucumber.  To be specific we have a Long English Telegraph Cucumber.  It still has a lot of growing left to do but I have never seen a cucumber this early in the season before.

 If anyone is wondering what the flowers that are growing in between the plants are for, they are Marigolds and they are to keep the bugs and animals away.  It doesn't keep everything away because something at two of the Marigolds.

 Here you can see some of the Early Girl Cherry Tomatoes.  Almost all of the cherry tomato plants have at least a few green tomatoes on them now.

 Here is what's left of my rose bush.  That empty spot beside it use to be my Queen Ann rose bush.  I'm really sad that they didn't make it through the ice storm.

We also have some strawberries there as well.

Here you can see my two Hosta plants that are about to bloom.  As you can see they are very happy with our beautiful summer weather.

I really hope that by reading my blog you get inspired to get outside and plant something.  It's so important that our kids know where their food comes from.  Farming is so important.  Until next time go out and plant something.

More Storms, Roses And Strawberries - June 17, 2014

 Another hot and muggy day and more nasty thunder and lightening storms.  So far two of them.  Just before the noon hour a storm came up so fast that four golfer got hit while out on a golf course.  They didn't have time to get inside before they were hit.

Then again tonight as we were eating dinner the sky got really dark and the wind picked up and then the torrential downpour along with the lightening and thunder.  A tornado ripped through Angus, Ontario.  It's still very dark out and I have a feeling we're not done yet.


Here you can see the very first rose that opened yesterday.  In the next few days there should be a few more.  This is the only rose bush that survived.







Here you can see some of the first strawberries that I've picked.  The birds got most of them though.  They are very tiny this year, but oh the taste is amazing.  The strawberries you get in the store are horrible compare to these.

Thunder, Lightening, Heavy Rain, No Power, Oh And Squash Plants - June 12, 2014

So last night we had one heck of a nasty storm.  Intense thunder and lightening that was so bright you could see it even when my eyes were closed.  And then the rain came down.  It came down hard for so long that our neighbourhood looked like we were living on lakefront property.  The water inched up from the flood on the road, onto the grass and into the hydro vault that shorted out.  For the next 5 and a half hours we were in the dark.  I had flashbacks to this winters ice storm.  So I called our power company to report the outage and they were telling us to go to their website.  Um exactly how am I suppose to do that when the power is out?  You can't get anyone to speak to in the middle of the night either.  All you get is a recorded message basically saying that they have no clue when the power will be back on or what the problem is.  I called back in the early morning and heard that the power would be on by 7:02 am......that's nice seeing as it's 7:30 am and we still don't have power.  You feel so isolated when the power is out and you can't listen to the news to find out what the problem is.

Sorry I got off topic.  We finally found some squash plants at Canadian Tire.  They are called curly top squash.  I will cross my fingers and hope for the best.  I still can't find broccoli or strawberries.  I think the plants I have are doing really well though.  The peas are getting taller and the zucchini has tripled in size since planting and the tomatoes have flowers.  The one thing that isn't doing very well are the marigold flowers.  I planted them as a bug deterrent and oddly enough the bugs are eating the flowers.  Ok at least they are acting as a decoy eating the flowers and not the plants.  Well, that's all for now.

June 6, 2014 - Sprouting Peas And Flowering Cherry Tomatoes

Last night I went out to water the garden and I am happy to report that the peas have finally started to sprout.  I think the problem may be that I planted the seeds too deep.  Oops!  Live and learn.  I didn't want the birds to eat them.

The cherry tomato plants have got flowers on them already.  This is really exciting!  We've had a lot of very hot weather but in the last two days it's been much cooler.  I think the plants do much better when it's in the low 70's.  They seemed to have grown faster.  The zucchini and cucumber plants have tripled in size.

Some of our strawberry plants actually have tiny strawberries on them.  There aren't many plants left after the horrible winter.  I tired to buy some more plants but nobody seems to have any.  The plant selection at the garden centers this year has been extremely limited.  (photos of my garden to follow later tonight)