Pumpkins In The Garden

For those of you who have a garden and some pumpkins that you want to get rid of after Halloween, how about composting the pumpkins in your garden soil.  Make sure to remove ALL seeds and the stem and just leave the pumpkins there to compost.  If you forget some seeds, you could have a pumpkin patch next year.  They may grow.  The stem of the pumpkin will not decompose at the same rate as the rest of the garden.

Should you want to roast the pumpkin seeds, all you have to do is wash them.  Get rid of the extra pumpkin pulp and then spread the seeds onto a non-stick baking tray in a 300 degree oven for 60 minutes.  Make sure to keep an eye on them and stir them around the baking tray often.  We add a little oil and some salt but you can experiment with different flavours.

Another Gardening Season Has Come To An End

Well, the garden is over for another year.  I pulled it out last night.  With the cold nights, nothing is growing anymore so before it gets too cold and rainy I pulled the plants out.  It was a really good growing season and the planning will start for next year.  See you next spring!!!

More Beans

Just some more beans from our garden.  Not much left still growing now just the beans, tomatoes and two cauliflower.

Our Garden's Last Gasp - September 15, 2015

After ignoring the garden for a few days now, I went out to see what was left.  I found one bean and then pulled back the plant and found about 30 more beans.  I'm sure there are more that I didn't see but this is what I picked today.

I also found a cucumber.  It's suppose to be a long English Telegraph cucumber but I highly doubt that they have the right tag for this variety.  It's not anything more than a pickling cucumber.  I also found a few tomatoes.

Cauliflower, Tomatoes & Cabbage

 Well now that we are in the month of September, it's the beginning of the end for our garden.  I picked two of our purple cauliflower.  They really didn't get all that large.  I'm not sure why.  There are two more regular white cauliflower out there.  Why in a four pack of cauliflower plants were two purple and two white I will never know.

Here you can see another cabbage.  It tasted good but again it was small.

This evenings entertainment was pulling out some of the dead plants out of the garden.  All we really have left now are the tomatoes and some of the weird beans that we really don't like.

Cabbage Part 2 - Aug. 27th

So our first cabbage that we picked wasn't edible.  It had some sort of rust on the leaves.  The second cabbage we ate last night.  It was really nice and tasty.  I would have liked the inner leaves to be as green as the outer leaves, but that's ok as long as it tasted ok.  I made sure to soak it in salt water to make sure we didn't eat any bugs, but it came out clean and there were no bugs after we cooked it either.  Two down and two to go.  Next we should try a cauliflower.  I haven't picked any as they are still really tiny.  I don't understand why they didn't get as big as the broccoli.  We ate the second crop of broccoli last night and some of the beans. 

Our First Cabbage

We finally picked our first cabbage.  It got big but it had some sort of rust on it.  We aren't going to eat it.  It's so sad.  There are three more out there that we will try to see if they are edible or not.  Fingers crossed!

Just A Few Things I found In My Garden This Evening - August 23, 2015

I went out to water the garden and look what I found:  Lots of tomatoes, some of the mystery beans, one cucumber and and four zucchini.  I say that was a pretty good haul.  I actually had to go in to get something to bring it all in. 

Does anyone know when is the proper time to pick cabbage?  We have four of them but I'm not sure how big they get or what time of the year to pick them.  If you know please let me know.  Thank you.

What Did I Find In The Garden Today?

I was hearing on the news that we are suppose to be getting some nasty weather later on today, so I thought I'd better get out in the garden and see what was there.  To my surprise there were three cucumbers and a lot of tomatoes.  Now I know that the tag on the cucumbers to not match what is actually growing out there.  Those do not look like Long English Telegraph Cucumbers.  Those are the kind of cucumbers you use for pickling.  Oh well at least we got something.  The ground really needs some rain desperately.  We had some yesterday, but it was soaked up instantly.

Heatwave And A Cucumber

So we are into day 4 of our heatwave and it was over 100 degrees.  We've taken to watering the garden twice a day to keep it alive.  We really need some rain desperately.

On a happier note I've picked my very first cucumber.  We tried the beans and they aren't bad (if you like beans).  The other thing is a pea and then various kinds of tomatoes.

Beans and Zucchini - July 28

We are experiencing a heatwave this week.  The garden has been a little dryer than usual so I've had to water it twice during the day.  Once in the morning before work and once in the evening until Mother Nature graces us with some rain.

I took a walk through the garden and found these two nice zucchinis and my very first two beans and a bunch of cherry tomatoes.  We have some cucumbers but they are still very tiny (the size of my baby finger).  I hope they start to get bigger soon.  Well, that's it for now.

Broccoli, peas and tomatoes - July 26

 Welcome back to the backyard garden.  We've been away for a week and had our neighbour's looking after the garden for us.  There were 3 heads of broccoli that we picked.

 An entire basket of peas.

 A few little baby cauliflower plants.

 Some baby cucumbers.  And Lots of cherry tomatoes that we picked.  Everything is doing really well.  Sadly even the weeks.  I have my work cut out for me in the next few days.

Our First two zucchinis and some tomatoes

Tonight we were looking for a vegetable to go with our dinner and I found these two zucchinis just hanging out in my garden.  One of them went onto the BBQ and it was awesome.  

I've picked two more cherry tomatoes.  The first one tasted very good, but not too sweet.

Our First Cherry Tomato

Welcome back my friends.  Tonight I went out to the garden to water and found this beautiful cherry tomato.  By tomorrow there will be at least three more.

And We Have Zucchinis - July 9

 Welcome back to my garden.  We're into the beginning of July and the zucchini production has begun.  We currently have four zucchini that I can see.  They seem to be playing hide and seek with me.

 You can just see some of the purple flowers that will become our peas.  What kind of peas you ask?  I have no idea because the flowers do not match those on the package.  So we will have some sort of snow peas or sugar snap peas.  Only time will tell.

 Here you can see the start of the broccoli.  All of the plants have a little baby broccoli.  I'm not sure why but the cauliflower just has a bunch of leaves.

 Isn't the baby cabbage cute?  We have four big cabbage and a few smaller ones.

We have lots of green cherry tomatoes, some Roma tomatoes and the yellow sweet cherry tomatoes.

Well I hope you are enjoying this growing season as much as I am.  I couldn't ask for a better year so far.

Beautiful Lily

I just had to share this beautiful photo of my first lily.  I just love the colour.  By tomorrow the others will probably open as well.  I will take more photos of them and share as well.

After The Big Rainy Weekend - July 29th

 Welcome back to my garden once again.  Over the weekend we had a ton of rain and cool temperatures and it seems that the plants really liked it.  As you can see here the flowers have finally opened.

 On the bottom of the photo you can see the start of a tiny zucchini.  There are a few zucchinis on almost all of the plants.  I had better get my zucchini recipes ready because we are going to get a lot of them.

 To the right you can see how big the cabbage has gotten.  Maybe putting a cage around the plant wasn't the best idea.  I only did it to keep the animals away.

 After the rain the roses have fallen over.  I'm hoping once they dry out a a bit that they will stand up again.

 The mystery bean plants are doing amazing.  I can't wait to see what kind they will turn out to be.

I can never show enough photos of my hosta plant in bloom.  It's such a beautiful plant.

Well, that's all for now.  Till next time got out and plant something.

A Gardening Update - June 20th, 2015

 Welcome back to my garden.  I've had to take a small break from posting pictures since we've had so much rain and the garden got really muddy.

As you can see, our rose bush that took a big hit during the ice storm has come back full force.  It's not even in full bloom yet.  I had to cut it way back as there were a lot of dead parts.  It seems to be much healthier now.

 Here I've planted some beans that a neighbour gave us.  I have no idea what kind of beans they are.  He just said that they were broad beans.  I'll post a photo of them if we get any.

 Here we can see my happy Hosta plant in full bloom.  It's doubled in size from last year and is threatening to take over the entire front planter.  It's really pretty and I really don't mind.  Right next to it is a Variegated Hosta that is much smaller and not as hearty but is also in bloom.

 Here you can see that the cabbage is actually starting to look like an actual cabbage.  It's really interesting to see how fast it's growing.

 Here is my broccoli.  In the very centre you can see that the broccoli is just starting to form.  The plant has gotten much larger just this week.

 Here you can see 3 tiny green cherry tomatoes.  I'm not sure which variety they are as the tag has been washed away, but they look like they could possibly be Roma Tomatoes.

 Here are my cucumbers.  The plants are just starting to do much better.  We weren't sure that they were going to survive in the beginning.  Now there is a lot of new growth and all plants have started to thrive.

This plant was donated to me by another neighbour.  It was headed for the garbage but I rescued it at the last minute.  The neighbour was upset that in all the time that he had it, it never flowered once.  I do not know the name of the plant, but if any of my readers know, please feel free to message me and let me know.   After 8 years of growing, it has finally decided to flower.  Eventually when it opens up it will have beautiful white flowers.  It probably won't flower again for another few years.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the stroll through my garden.  If you have any comments or questions please feel free to message me.  I love to hear from my readers.

Backyard Visitor

Tonight as we were getting dinner ready our budgie bird was going crazy.  He saw that we had a visitor to our backyard.  Bugs here was busy eating the weeds in our yard.  Thankfully he was eating the weeds and not my garden.  I let him have some dinner before I chased him away.  I didn't want him to feel too comfortable back there.

 

Here is the garden after we've had some really heavy rain showers.  The plants have now almost tripled in size and are much healthier and stronger.  Even the peas have started to grow and the marigolds have come back to life.  Fingers crossed that the bunny stays away from my garden and continues to eat the weeds behind the shed.