And That's A Wrap!

Neal and I finished pulling out the rest of the garden the other day.  I needed help as I hurt my back.  We harvested the last of the kale and made a stir-fry out of it.  Lesson learned, next year we'll only plant 2 kale plants not 4.  We really didn't need that much.  I picked the last of the cherry tomatoes and pulled out the plants and the same with the broccoli.

As it's now officially Fall today, here are a few tips for wintering your garden: 

- This is a good time to plant garlic for next year.  It's cool enough for the bulbs to harden before it gets really cold. 

- Make sure to get rid of the weeds and turn the soil.

- Put some of your leaves into the soil when you turn it.  It's food for the soil.

- Soon we will be carving pumpkins for Halloween and they are amazing food for your soil.  Once you are done with the pumpkin, get rid of the candle wax and cut up the pumpkin and toss it onto the soil.  Mother Nature will do the rest.  Important TIP:  When throwing a pumpkin into your garden make sure that there are absolutely no seeds left or you will have pumpkins growing in your garden.

Well, that's it for me until next Spring.

The Beginning Of The End

Well, fall has arrived and it's much cooler.  I pulled out some of the garden last night.  It was really sad.  The zucchini and cucumbers are gone now.  I've left in the broccoli to see if anymore florets will come.  The plants look healthy but didn't produce much more than just some leaves and a little bunch of florets.  It was rather disappointing.  The kale is still going great guns right now and the tomatoes are small but still producing.  Oh and the geraniums are doing amazing now.

All in all this growing season was a bit of a bust.  I guess it was just too hot and we hardly got any rain.  You can water all you like but Mother Nature still does a far better job than I will ever do.

An Update From My Garden - August 23

Good Morning and welcome back to my garden blog.  After an extremely hot, humid and dry summer, it has finally started to cool down a bit.  We got some major rain storms so that our grass is once again green.  The garden is much happier and here are some of the things I picked yesterday to put into a salad.  We have the very first broccoli of the season.  It looks very nice and fingers crossed that we will get a lot more broccoli.  Then we have some cherry and Roma tomatoes.  They taste really sweet and are slowly getting ripe.  Then we have our kale.  We have lots and lots of kale.  So much kale from 3 plants that we are sick of eating kale.  Next year only one plant.

Sadly, most of our zucchini plants did not survive the drought or the zucchini fungus.  One plant after the other shriveled up and died.  It was one of the worst zucchini growing seasons ever.  Another of our failures this year, was our cucumbers.  They flower, you get a tiny cucumber and then they die.  I'm not sure what the problem is, but next year we may have to rethink our placement of the cucumbers or even if we will attempt to grow them again.

Gardening is hard to predict what will and won't grow.  It totally depends on the weather and the bugs.  If we get too much rain or not enough things won't grow.  If you get bugs or animals they will eat your plants.  We plant on a wing and a prayer.

Way Too Many Weeds

So last night I set out to clean up the garden.  The weeds seem to be the only thing doing really well during our summer long heatwave and drought.  I spent over 2 hours pulling this grass like weed from the garden.  I filled up two huge yard wast bags with this grassy stuff.  It was so hot, even after 8 p.m. and I almost passed out.  There is still a little left to do, but really I have absolutely no desire to do this again.  Next year when we plant our garden, I'm going to make sure that the soil we buy says pasteurized.  I'm very sure that the cheap soil that we bought lead to the weeds.  I guess you get what you paid for.

Squash Was Yummy!

We cooked up the spaghetti squash with our dinner last night and it was really good.  All I did, was cut off both ends and then cut down the middle and removed the seeds.  In a glass microwave pie plate, I placed both halves down with water in the glass microwave pie plate and cover with Saran Wrap until soft.  Once it cools a bit, scrape out the inside with a fork and add some tomato sauce.  It was so good.

We also had a salad from the garden.  I cut off some kale, tomatoes, cucumber and added some shaved carrots.  You can't get much more local than that.

My First Spaghetti Squash And Some Chery Tomatoes

Welcome back to what did I pick in the garden report.  This morning I went out and finally picked the spaghetti squash before some animal did it for me.  This just might be the only one that plant produces.  And then I picked all different kinds of cherry tomatoes.  Sadly due to the drought and really hot summer, the garden is doing poorly.  In the last few days we've had a little rain and slightly cooler temperatures but I think that damage may be done.  We're going to need a lot of rain to undo the damage from the drought.

Anyway, I will post more as things start to ripen.

Wow Tomatoes Are Ready - July 7, 20176

Welcome back to my gardening blog.  It's been sunny and very hot lately.  So hot in fact that they are calling it a heatwave.  Apparently the plants are loving it.  Here are some yellow cherry tomatoes and the red one is called Early Girl cherry tomatoes.  The yellow ones are less acidic and sweeter. 

 As you can see, the Spaghetti Squash is still growing bigger every day.  I can't wait to try it out.

 I'm so excited to show you my very first zucchini of the season.  It will hopefully be the first of many.  I've got lots of zucchini recipes to share if anyone is interested.  Yes you can get your kids to eat vegetables if you are good at hiding them in foods they like.  Zucchini chocolate cake anyone!

 Finally, here is a Long English Telegraph cucumber.  For a few years now the garden centre has been mislabeling their cucumbers and selling other varieties of cucumbers as English Telegraph cucumber.  As you can see, there's a big difference.

Well, that's all for this edition.  Get out there and grow your own food.  Get your kids involved so that they know where their food comes from.  It's important!

July 3, 2016 - A Few Firsts Of The Season In The Garden

 Good Morning and welcome back to my garden.  This morning I wanted to show you some baby veggies that have been born in the garden in the last few days.

On the right we have two very small Spaghetti Squash that have suddenly appeared.  They seem to get bigger by the day.

 Here you are just able to make our the beginnings of a zucchini.  We have a few tiny zucchini just starting to flower.

 On the right, you can just see a little tiny English Cucumber with the flower attached at the end. 

 Here we have a lot of kale.  We've used it a few times in salads already.  It takes really good and it's good for you as well.

Here we have some beautiful purple flowers from my neighbour's house.  I just love how they decorate my fence.  They really are beautiful.


Well, that's all I have to show you today.  The tomatoes were not very photogenic this morning as they were still in the shade, but we have a lot of baby cherry tomatoes.

June 11, 2016 - Garden Update

 Here is an update of my garden and plants after a major rain storm over night.  We had thunder and lightening and a lot of rain.

Our roses have just started to open up as you can see.  They will be blooming all the way through the summer to the first frost.

 Here you can see the squash and zucchini plants have doubled in size.

 Our kale is almost ready to eat.  YUM!!!

 I'm so excited to show you our first cherry tomatoes of the season.  They are called Early Girls.

Here is the very first baby squash.  Fingers crossed that some animal will not eat it before we do.

One Spaghetti Squash

Today we visited the Brick Works and while I was there I picked up a very nice spaghetti squash plant.  It was a little more expensive than I would have liked to pay, but what the heck you only live once.  Fingers crossed that it grows up nice and strong and give us lots of squash.

The Vegetables Have Now Been Planted - May 21, 2016

 Good Morning and happy 1st long weekend of the summer.  This is the official earliest time you can plant (most plants) and be relatively safe to do so in our zone.  Some seeds and cold weather plants like peas could theoretically be planted earlier as they like the cold weather. 

On the right you can see that my Hosta plants have just started to wake up from their winter sleep.  They emerge from the soil as leafy tubes and then uncurl and become the leaves.  Eventually, mid-summer they will flower if the conditions are right.

 In this photo you can see my cucumbers planted in the back near the fence.  In the front is the broccoli and the flowers are Marigolds.  The Marigolds are "suppose" to keep bugs and animals away because of their bad smell.  I'm not sure exactly how well that works.  In case you are wondering why I've caged the plants, it's to help them grow up and not lay on the ground.  If we get too much rain and the garden floods this will help the plants not get moldy. 

 The middle two rows will be different kinds of zucchini.  In the space at the front I've planted onion from some onions that were sprouting in the fridge.  If they grow, wonderful and if not, it's ok too.

 Here's a full view of the garden.  I've left a little space if I happen to find a squash plant.  If not, it's ok.  The walkways help me to get between the rows without getting all muddy and compacting the soil.

Here you can see the new strawberries I planted a few days ago.  They have a little bit of plant shock, but I gave them some Miracle Grow and water and they should perk right up.  It's suppose to be nice and warm for the next few weeks.

Well, that's all I have to show you today.  I'll post updates as the summer progresses.  If you have any questions about the garden or gardening in general feel free to ask.  I'll be happy to answer.  Just so you all know, the garden is pesticide and chemical-free.

Project Vegetable Garden 2016 Is Ready To Go

Last  night by husband and I went to the garden centre to buy our vegetable plants.  We will have to wait for the weekend to put them in since the weather has just been too cold for delicate little vegetable plants.  So what did we buy?

Tomatoes - Roma tomatoes
                   Yellow cherry tomatoes
                   Plum tomatoes

Zucchini

Cucumbers

Broccoli

Kale

Tonight's activity will be to turn the soil, add new soil and lay down the rubber row mats so that I will be able to walk between the rows without compacting the soil.  Then on Saturday I will get out there and put the plants in.  Within a month or two we should (weather permitting) have vegetables that have absolutely no chemicals on them.  All I add is water and Mother Nature does the rest.  Once everything is planted I will post photos.

New Strawberries Are In

The other day we were shopping at Home Depot and found strawberry plants on sale.  I decided to replace what plants we'd lost during our renovations.  I picked some really nice and healthy looking plants and they are now in.  The nice is that they already have berries on the plant and they are suppose to produce berries all year long.

This evening we will be going to the garden centre to see about buying our vegetable plants.  We can't plant them yet as the nights are way too cold still.  It's suppose to warm up considerably by the long weekend.  Fingers crossed.

1 Week Away From The Planing Weekend

So we are just one week away from when we should be able to safely plant our vegetable garden and what did we get this morning?  SNOW!  What?  Snow in May.  Holy cow that is not pretty.  One day this week it was 23 degrees and today it's only +3.  I am not impressed at all.  It fell and melted very quickly, thank goodness.  It shouldn't have fell at all.  At least my tulips and strawberries can handle a little cold.  I hope everyone brought in their hanging baskets last night.  Many other plants and flowers cannot handle cold temperatures.