The Game is Afoot!

May 21, 2017
Beautiful weather today. Sun is out, nice breeze, temperature is perfect although I am getting a bit warm in muck boots and jeans. I love this time of year as all the perennials emerge and start to flower. Asparagus, rhubarb, chives, oregano and sage are all up and doing well. We've eaten a couple pounds of asparagus, several handfuls of chives and the others are ready to harvest whenever we need them. Parsley, sage and thyme are right behind. Haskap bushes and strawberries are all flowering and will be fruiting soon. Ornamental perennials on our property are all coming back. Between the peonies, wild iris, bearded iris, daylilies, as well as the forget-me-nots that readily self-seed, the yard should be filled with color in no time.

Unfortunately, the lawn is still very soggy in the lowest points which is where most the raised beds sit. I have to remedy that in the fall and put some type of water diversion in so we don't have this happen every year. There is generally 2-3 inches of standing water in April and May if it rains much.

First up today, now that cinder-block borders are completed with Quikcrete and flowers, was to clean the 4' x 20' cinder-block bed that the carrots are going in. It was quite a bit of work for a solid hour. I'm doing no-till as much as possible, so first tossed the soil with a broad fork. I dug up lot of perennial grasses and other nasty weeds, including a bit of horsetail on one end. Basically, I just stab the fork in a few inches and rotate it a half turn every square foot or so. It's quick work and loosens up all the roots of the weeds. Carefully removed those and shook out all the soil I could from the roots. Smoothed the bed and it's all ready for planting the carrots.

Bed before weeding and prep

Bed after weeding and prep

After a quick snack and some hydration, I was back at it, cleaning the Jerusalem artichoke bed, pulling out the dead roots from last year's plants and replanting any bulbs that came loose. I planted only 8 bulbs last year, and you can already see at least twice as many shoots as that coming up, so they are definitely spreading.

It seems I'm always trying to find the best way to sow carrots. The first year I grew them I just broadcast the seeds over the area liberally. This worked well, but used a LOT of seed and required a lot of work thinning them later on. Last year I used my seeding square, which advises sixteen carrots per square foot. This resulted in a small crop, and I had more success and higher yield planting with the previous method. So, this year I'm trying a third method. I'm making rows 3" apart and will thin the row as necessary. This will require a bit of work, but less thinning and I think it should be a happy medium between the two methods. Fingers crossed. I must say, using this latest method I used very little seed. The varieties I'm growing this year include Scarlet Nantes, Rainbow, Yellow, Lunar (white), Atomic Red and Purple Sun. I finished about 2/3 of the bed before supper was ready. Asparagus fresh from the garden, fiddleheads foraged locally and purchased downtown and new potatoes. After supper, I watered in everything I had planted and called it a night.



May 22, 2017
Late start today as it was a holiday and Erin had the day off, so we slept in an extra hour. I hit the garden as soon as I got up and finished planting all the carrot seeds I had left. I still came up short of filling the bed, so I'll grab some more tomorrow at Mr. Tomato.

Next up, cleaned and prepped another bed for beets. I chose three varieties of beet to grow this year. Early Wonder is a variety I'm growing mainly for their greens. Beet greens is another vegetable I grew up eating a lot of and is probably my second favorite after fiddleheads. We're also growing Chioggia, a delicious variety that is unique in that if you slice it, you'll find it has a bulls-eye pattern inside. Finally, Touchstone Gold, a golden yellow variety that I haven't grown before and am looking forward to trying.

After the beets were planted I watered both the carrot and beet seed beds well. My next task was to work on removing the horsetail from the shorter asparagus bed. It's everywhere in it and very time-consuming to take it out. I worked for about an hour and got about 1/7 of the patch done or so before my back was done. We noticed last night that it has moved to the lawn as well, which is alarming, but I can't obsess over that right now.



I had about an hour left before I had to get ready to leave for a previous engagement. I used the time to pot up Mom's petunias and some violas, and to water the seedlings on the deck.


May 23, 2017

A day of rest. I needed it. We did go to Mr. Tomato though to buy more carrots seeds, some shallot sets and more basil because we love basil and every time we see a new variety we don't have, we can't help ourselves.

May 24, 2017
Up and at it early today and feeling a bit refreshed. The deck is getting quite crowded with plants in various stages of hardening off. I probably won't get most of them in the ground for two weeks, but at least they'll be out here getting full sun, ready to go. The tomatoes and peppers will be the last two be hardened off, and I'll start doing that in a couple days. Sipped my coffee inside and trimmed the fennel that I foolishly started in March. Not sure why I had it written down to start then, but it definitely was too early. It was 2' high until I just cut it back and trimmed off all brown leaves. My hands smelled deliciously of licorice once I had trimmed them. I hope we get some bulbs this year as I've only tried using the leaf. Last year was the first year I grew it and although the plants got 6' high or more, there really wasn't much for a bulb on any of them.

Beautiful day outside, sunny and a nice, cool breeze. My favorite kind of day. Planted the last 9' sq. of carrots and started digging up the cinder block bed that used to house the mint. We rarely use mint and it's spread quite a bit so I'm digging it up and putting one small bit in a pot. I'll build a little 2' raised bed for it by itself, once I've finished putting in the rest of the garden.

Came in for a fast breakfast of watermelon and called a repairman to pick up the ride-on mower. He's coming tomorrow and when he told me that it filled me with joy. I was on such a high that I called the guy at the local organics place while I was at it (been waiting for a call back for a week). He called me back and told me I should have my load of compost before the weekend. I decided to forgo any more potting soil with the peat in it so as to not have more acidic beds. I'll buy coconut coir instead, which is much more sustainable anyways and I can just mix that with the compost and it should be a great medium. The weeds are just enjoying the peat way too much for my tastes.

On my way back out to clear out the mint, I decided to clean out the hanging pot that's on the deck. We picked out flowers for it the other night at Mr. Tomato, a pretty dark pink begonia, surrounded by three lobelia with tiny white flowers on longer vines.

The bed with all the mint was a nightmare, but I got the first half of it done pretty quickly, despite a chilly wind coming up, clouds rolling in and it starting to rain. Took a break at that point to run to the store for water, dog food and a Timmy. Had my coffee and a quick lunch and went back out to finish cleaning out that bed. Finished the second half in an hour and a half. It was a very tedious and time-consuming job as the roots of the mint had traveled throughout the entire bed, some even outside of the bed in the mulched path. Once it was done I raked the soil flat and smoothed with my hands to ready the planting surface. Saved one sprig of mint from the pile and potted it in a 5" pot. Should be plenty to get it started up again once I decide where I want it. I must say, this job was one of the better smelling ones I've done thus far this year.

Before

After

So, this is what was left when I was done. I saved one nice, healthy sprig of it and re-potted it in a 5" pot. Should be good there until I get a small bed built just for it or a large pot. I'm inclined to go with the latter, I think.








You can see all the mint roots I pulled out of the bed below.

I'm very pleased with the biodiversity in the garden this year, even early on. I came across a number of spiders, worms, beetles, centipedes, and even a few June bug larvae while digging just this one bed.

By the time I was finished it got even grayer and colder so I called it a day early. Hoping to get more planting done tomorrow!



May 25, 2017
Up early again, but off to a chiropractor appointment first off the bat. I've discovered over the last year that at my age (48) and height (6' 2"), that a good chiropractor is an invaluable resource in your health and wellness. A year later, she has me in much better shape and I'm quite sure have "grown" back to my original height now that I'm standing straighter. I do get sciatica, apparently from a tilted pelvis, so she puts that back in place monthly along with one rusty spot in my mid-back and I'm good to go. Just with this last week of work I can feel my back and shoulders getting so much stronger, so hoping that will help resolve my problems down the road.

Late start today as it was gray and freezing out. I stayed inside toasty warm and made some amazing refried beans and Pico de Gallo for burritos instead, going outside only for some green onions that overwintered. I did take advantage of the down time to make a few calls I had been putting off. First one to the lawnmower repairman to fix the ride-on before I have a hay field in the backyard. Explained the situation (blade bent, can't move mower out of shed) and Bill with City Mower Repair said they'd be down to pick it up. I also called the local organics place about my load of compost. He said I should have it by the weekend, but I'm guessing it will be some time next week.

Tulips are blooming and absolutely stunning!

By 2pm it was a little sunnier, though still very windy and chilly, so I set out to do some weeding. I cleaned out one bed and planted the kale. I didn't grow enough so will go to Mr. Tomato to see if they have a kind I'm not growing already. I'm planting Blue Scotch Curled, Lacinto and Scarlet kales this year. Hoping to grow a lot so I can dry and powder it along with other greens for my own homemade "greens powder" to throw in smoothies, soups, casseroles, sauces, or whatever for some added nutrition. Also hoping to eat a lot of baby kale in salads and to dehydrate a few loads of Cheesy Kale Chips for our snacking enjoyment. About halfway through planting the kale, the repair men showed up for the lawnmower. They couldn't get the blade loose so had to leave again to get a dolly to help them get it out of the shed. I finished planting the kale and prepped another bed for cauliflower before I got too cold and went inside for a break.




Mower guys came back and loaded up the lawnmower. HUGE load off my mind. Plus, I miss my ride-on. One of my all-time favorite summer activities is mowing the lawn. I know, it's insane, but I get to circle the yard like 50 times, viewing all the beauty we've created over the summer and years past as well and it just makes me blissfully happy.

I sat and pulled more horsetail out of the asparagus bed until Erin came home, then headed in again out of the cold.




May 26, 2017
This weather is for the birds. Actually, I'm quite sure they aren't overly thrilled with it either. Gray and freezing again today. Supposed to pour later so I'm taking the day off. Probably just as well, at the end of the evening last night I had terrible pain when walking. Took off my shoes/socks to reveal a huge, broken blister on the bottom of my left foot. It's very sore, hoping it will heal up quickly as I have way too much to do for that nonsense!

For today though, it's rest and coffee!





May 27, 2017
We got up a little later since it's Saturday and still raining. It was supposed to clear up in the early afternoon but didn't until suppertime. I finally went outside and finished planting the kale, then planted Bright Lights and Rhubarb swiss chard and some rutabagas.

Once that bed was complete, I started on the bed I had removed all the mint from. I planted a bunch of different varieties of radish, leaving room to start more in another 3 weeks so we'll have a staggered harvest. Varieties I'm growing this year include a couple of tried and true ones, French Breakfast and Cherry Belle, as well as new varieties of radish; Sparkler White Tip, Triton Purple Stem, Hailstone, Daikon, Watermelon. 7 varieties of radish. Will I sound even crazier if I tell you I don't even really like radish that much? I do enjoy the French Breakfast as they are a bit milder, and I've started to enjoy the Cherry Belles sliced thinly in salads, but they have quite a kick to them. I am looking forward to trying the rest. Perhaps I just haven't tried the perfect variety that will make me fall in love with radishes forever.







Before calling it a night, I took a walk around some of the beds to check on some things. The Kent strawberry patch is winding up for a record season I suspect. Flowers are out and there are huge clusters of very large flowers. They look quite vibrant and healthy. The Alpine strawberry and Pineberry patches look good as well. Really looking forward to sun-ripened strawberries again this year!

The perennial herbs are doing well. Parsley is coming back in both spots where I have it planted and the oregano is going like gangbusters.

As I passed the horseradish, on the way to check out the garlic progress, this beauty caught my eye. A horseradish flower. I've never seen one before. I looked it up and they look a bit like onion flowers when they bloom. Very exciting to see something new!

Garlic is looking fabulous after a rocky start with the huge temperature fluctuations we've had for the last two months. It's about a foot high at this point. There were two full beds planted and a few cloves in other spots. This bed survived our horrid up and down spring weather, but the second bed didn't fare as well with the cold, the plants in the middle of the bed died. So, we'll probably have to purchase seed again this year but as long as we have enough to eat, that's the main thing. Once you have garden-grown garlic you just can't go back.

This is last year's garlic harvest. Successful, but the bulbs were quite small, I suspect due to lack of water since we had a dry summer and I didn't provide much supplemental watering. A lot of people asked me what on earth we were going to do with all that garlic. I did sell a pound to friends, but we ate all the rest. We use probably 3-4 bulbs of garlic a week, minimum when we cook. Currently there are about 10 very small bulbs of garlic left. We will likely have to purchase from the grocery store for a month before this year's harvest, but we came close to having enough for the whole year! 

516 cloves in total

2016 garlic harvest

Then the Sun Came Out

So, I learned a valuable lesson this week...about blogging, not gardening. I meticulously kept writing each day as I worked away, every time I took a break or came in for a glass of water I would sit down and update. I was really happy with this week's entry and then, as I was adding images, I was trying to line two of them up and all of a sudden, all the text disappeared. I hit undo, but something happened and the damn thing AUTOSAVED. Multiple frantic pressings of the "Undo" button resolved nothing. Blank screen. I was crushed. I'm still slightly crushed, it was loads of work and just POOF, gone. Lesson learned. I'll back every single thing up from now on.  

Now in short, I'm stuck with a blank blog for the week so I'm going to do my best to recap everything. It won't be the riveting play-by-play it was before I cleverly erased the whole damn thing, but well, there's something to look forward to next week, right? In the meantime, here's what went on!

May 14-15, 2017

Sunday, it rained quite a bit, so the day was a wash. Monday was still very wet, but not raining so I planted a few flowers. I also finished building the stand/trellis for the mushroom logs. The lads at Backyard Mushrooms said we should lean them up against the shady side of a building, but since we don't really have a good place like that, I rigged this up for them. I guess we'll see how it works.

A lot of things arrived in the mail this week, starting with my seed potatoes from Eagle Creek Farms. Three of the varieties I ordered are new ones I haven't tried before. Sangre is a variety we grew last year with good results and we enjoyed the flavor of them. They have red skin, white flesh and were quite tasty. There are 5kg of each variety. No clue where I'm going to put them; hoping they call about my soil/compost delivery soon! The other varieties are Eramosa, Carlton, and Arizona.

May 17, 2017




On Wednesday, my professional grade weed mat (3' x 300') came, along with this nifty little item. It's called a Hori Hori and it's my new favorite garden tool. This one is made by a company called BlizeTec and it seems to be of very decent quality, especially for only $22 CDN on Amazon. The blade is 6" long and handle probably another 4". The blade is marked in inches and centimeters and one edge of the blade is serrated, making it easy to cut through thick roots and grass. The shape is perfect for weeding as well and it comes with this nice little canvas sheath. I really put it through its paces this week and it appears to be a rugged little tool.

The Hori Hori came just in time for my biggest project this

week, fixing up the cinder-block beds. The worst thing about concrete beds is also the best thing about the cinder-block beds...the holes.  While the holes are quite lovely to plant herbs or flowers around the vegetable garden in the middle, I don't plant in all of them and in the ones I don't plant in, perennial grasses grow like wildfire. Every year I have to dig the weeds out of them for them to look clean and neat and to keep said weeds from spreading through the garden itself. So this year as I began the process, I started thinking about how to make it leaner and decided I would just fill in 2/3 of the holes with concrete, leaving spaces for herbs and flowers intermittently. It was a big project to dig the holes out and I lugged over 700lbs of concrete over the last week or so, but it looks very clean now.

My sweet potato slips also arrived on Wednesday from Mapple Farm. Too early to plant them, but that's okay since they'll need to be hardened off (set outside gradually until they are used to the wind, heat, cold and direct sun). 

I purchased two dozen Carver and Georgia Jet slips and one dozen of the Japanese Yam variety. I unwrapped each and placed them by variety in three jars filled with water until they're ready to plant. I hope we harvest some decent sized ones this year. I'd like to start growing my own slips in the spring to reduce costs.

May 18, 2017
Thursday was a glorious day.  The sun was shining and it was finally warm. The garden stores here all opened this week and I'm like a kid in a candy shop in those places. "OOOo...chamomile...ooooo echinacea....oooo raspberries. Yes, I know we have raspberries, but not this kind!" If you garden, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

Beautiful day. Raised beds in foreground waiting to be placed once low spots are dried out.

I got up early and headed off to Mr. Tomato, one of our favorite local spots as soon as they opened. Their main store is located about 40 minutes away, in a little French town called Rogersville. But, they also have a small portable store that they erect in the grocery store parking lot here in town every spring, usually after Mother's Day. The best thing about Mr. Tomato is they are in the middle of transitioning to organic, so everything is pesticide and chemical free. I wandered around their greenhouses for awhile, stopping to smell the petunias for a good 30 seconds and gently rubbing the leaves of all the herbs and smelling them.









I was well behaved this time and only spent about $15 on marigolds. I did start some from seed, but they aren't hardened off yet and I don't have nearly enough, so I thought I'd buy a couple varieties I don't have, so I can save the seed for next year as well.










Once I returned from Mr. Tomato I planted a few flowers and then set to working on the Kent strawberry bed. The runners went a bit crazy last year. There are rogue strawberries that have escaped the garden and are now growing in the mulch in the path. Some even made it all the way to the in-ground garden. I removed a few of them, tossing them aside when it occurred to me what a complete waste that was. So I took the plastic containers that my marigolds came in and started potting up strawberries. Once I filled those there were still so many so I filled a bucket with dirt and tossed another 15 or more in there. I'll see if anyone wants to buy them, if no takers I'll just keep them in buckets until I get a bed built and I'll fill another. It's not like it's possible to have TOO many strawberries.

We went back to Mr. Tomato after Erin got off work and purchased a few more flowers and four trees; one Montmorency cherry, one Liberty apple, one Mont Royal plum and one Summercrisp pear. I'm working out a labor exchange with my son, trading tree-hole digging services for rides to and from work.

May 19, 2017
Friday morning I got up and went straight back to Mr. Tomato as I realized while surveying the trees we purchased the night before, that we had somehow gotten two Summercrisp pear trees and the Montmorency cherry was no where to be seen. I didn't bother taking the second pear tree back, so just went back and grabbed the cherry.

I set to weeding one of the worst beds when I returned. If you haven't heard of horsetail weed, consider yourself lucky. This nasty weed appeared last year and seems to really be making a run to take over. It spreads via spores and rhizomes, making it very invasive. I've done a ton of research on it and the main suggestion on how to treat it is unanimous...Roundup. Yeah, no way that's happening on my farm. So the researching continued until I found one blog post from what seemed to be a fairly seasoned gardener. He advised that horsetail thrives on poor, acidic soils and that if you treat with lime and keep improving the soil as well, they will eventually go away. Until this happens though, you need to snip off any weeds that do come up with scissors, under the soil line an inch or two. Weeds should be placed in a plastic bag, tied up and put in the trash. If you do this regularly, it does seem to keep it under control.

So, we'll treat all the beds with agricultural lime this year in the fall. I'm sure the soil is quite acidic due to the peat content. I'm getting a load of seafood compost in addition to potting soil this year, so I'll be topping off all the beds with a couple inches of compost as well. Hopefully a few years of doing this will help eradicate the horsetail.







During the afternoon we had some friends stop by. I had seen them earlier that morning when picking up the cherry tree and they had asked if I wanted a couple of high-bush blueberry plants. Of course, I said "Sure!" and agreed to give them a home. They were very well established plants and I was very grateful to receive them.











For the rest of the evening I planted flowers and finished filling the cinder-block beds with marigolds, phlox and pansies. I don't know why but I'm always able to get more done after this task is complete. I think it's having something pretty to stop and look at as I'm toiling away.

May 20, 2017
Saturday was another gorgeous day, but unfortunately I didn't get into the garden much on Saturday as we had other things to do. We got up fairly early and went to the Chatham Farmer's Market in search of sushi. The vendor that sells it wasn't there this week, so we came back home sushi-less and enjoyed our coffees instead. I was in and out of the garden a couple of times, but only a few menial tasks accomplished. One bright highlight of the morning is we noticed that the tulips are starting to bloom finally.

Lover's Blend Tulips

Tiny little bee, loaded with pollen from the tulip

Around 2:30 we headed out to Mr. Tomato, but this time to the larger, main location in Rogersville. They have a lot more variety than the little shop they put up in the grocery store parking lot, plus it's a nice drive and it was a lovely day, so worth the extra time. Once we were there we leisurely looked through all the pretty flowers and perennials, walked through the veggie greenhouse and checked the fruit trees out back to see what they had there. After we had wandered around and checked everything out thoroughly, we grabbed a cardboard flat and started filling it with herbs and flowers. I bought two kinds of basil I wasn't growing yet, cilantro, so we'd have some before the ones I plant from seed are ready to harvest and Munstead and Hidcote lavender, since the ones I planted didn't germinate. We also grabbed more violas and Erin bought a sun hat in the gift shop where they have some clothing and other items.  All our goodies in hand, we headed back home.

Once back home, I reluctantly headed out to start up the push-mower. The ride-on is currently out of commission because I hit a rock that had become pushed up above the soil surface, bending the crap out of the blade and making it unusable until we get a new blade on it. Unfortunately, I guess you have to remove the deck of most mowers to do that, and that's beyond my skill level, so push mower it is until we can get that fixed. Took me a couple hours, but I got a great workout and finished the front yard and side lot before I was called in for supper of organic new potatoes, garden-grown asparagus and locally foraged fiddleheads. 

If you've never had a fiddlehead, I'd be willing to bet you're not from New England or Atlantic Canada. They have them in other places, but are the most popular here and in Japan, apparently.

So what on earth is a fiddlehead? Fiddleheads are the young, unfurled leaves of the ostrich fern and where I grew up in Northern Maine, it was both a delicacy and a staple of many families' diets. Fiddleheads are in only in their immature, edible form for about 2 weeks in May in Eastern Canada. Once they start to unfurl they are no longer desirable. In May, for many, the excitement of fiddlehead season is palpable. For some families foraging for them and selling them roadside is a source of extra income. For others, it's a source of food to put up for the winter. 

When I was young, my father would take me to the riverbanks where they tend to grow. He knew all the best spots and year after year we would go and gather garbage bags full of fiddleheads. We would go almost every evening after school/work and on weekends for hours. Processing them was a family affair, Mom blanching and freezing them after Dad and I would clean them, admittedly, mostly Dad. He even invented a device to clean large quantities of them at one time that had a hand crank and a hose attachment so you could rinse them at the same time. The one drawback to fiddleheads is that they are a bit of a pain to clean. They have brown "paper skins" on the sides of the ferns that are bitter if not removed. It's a big deal when you find someone selling really nice, clean ones. We usually froze enough each year to have at least a couple times a week during the winter. Erin and I usually buy 10-15 lbs each year and eat about half fresh and freeze the rest for later in the year, if they last that long. Fiddleheads are by far and away, my favorite vegetable.

I guess the next question if you're not familiar with them is "How are they prepared?" Most people either boil or steam them and then eat them with butter and salt, or sometimes a bit of vinegar. Some people can them or pickle them. I tried them sauteed in garlic last night and as much as a I am a believer that garlic makes everything better, I wasn't a huge fan of fiddleheads with it. I guess I'm a fiddlehead purist, I just like them boiled and drained, with lots of salt and vegan butter. Yum! A fully belly of fiddleheads was definitely the best way to end the week!

A New Year, A New Life

Mulberry Farms is a dream I had last year. A dream I planned on creating slowly, over time, but due to recent circumstances it appears the time is now. I'm ready to jump in. I barely know what I'm doing but I don't care. I'm done with the stress and angst that my old life held and ready to be in the fresh air and take control.

I've been growing fruits and vegetables organically for a few years now. If you're interested as to how those years progressed, you can see my previous blog: http://atlanticgardener.blogspot.ca/

My wife and I currently live on 4/5 an acre in Northern New Brunswick. It's pretty rural here. It's considered a city, but well... it's pretty rural here. We live on a busy highway, perfect really for a roadside veggie stand. We'll likely do that next summer. This summer I am off work so it's the perfect time to really amp up building everything, getting more trees in and really see how much we can grow and preserve. The garden has grown exponentially each year, adding raised beds, a number of perennials and fruit trees. We started with an in-ground garden of 864 square feet and this year, with the addition of a new garden and another 15-20 raised beds, we should be over 3000 square feet. We also started our fruit/nut orchard last year, planting two heartnut, two mulberry, three cherry and two elderberry trees. I'm hoping to add several additional trees this year. Once all orchard trees are in, I'll start planting perennials throughout the orchard, including mostly edibles, but some medicinal and decorative plants as well. The hope is to develop a food forest throughout our yard, and to see just how much produce we can grow on just 4/5 of an acre.

Currently it's May 14 and we've been well underway starting seeds for a few months now. Living in such a northern zone with such a short growing season, seed starting indoors becomes even more imperative. I start members of the allium family as well as peppers and tomatoes, around mid-February. In mid-March, I planted petunias, dahlias, asters, lavender and marigolds. I also started most of my herbs. I should have thyme, oregano, parsley, and chives come back this year, but wanted to start more along with marjoram, sage, and savory. Everything is growing well thus far, with the exception of the onion family. The first day I set them out to start hardening them off, I completely forgot them. Fried every one. I'm going to try starting some late seeds and planting directly as soon as they arrive. We'll see how that goes. Still hoping for some smaller onions, shallots and leeks, fingers crossed.


This year I tried a new seed seller, migardener.com. Seed packets are only .99 USD and most packets have a comparable amount in them, if not more, than most seed companies offer. Plus, I've been watching the young fellow, Luke, that owns it, develop his channel and business for some time now. It felt good to support him. I purchased probably 45% from him, another 45% from Pinetree Seeds in Maine. Their seed packets usually cost from $1.50 to $2.00 each. I've ordered from them for three years I think now and find them very reliable. I ordered a few packets of varieties that I could not get from these two suppliers from Johnny's Selected Seeds (excellent quality and selection, but pricey), Vesey's, and William Dam Seeds.

I used the same potato seed supplier as previous years, Eagle Creek Seed Potatoes and New Brunswick's own Mapple Farm for sweet potato slips as well as some Chinese artichokes I decided to plant this year. The Chinese artichokes came last week and they are very strange little things, almost bug-like.

Chinese Artichokes aka Crosnes

Drilling holes in birch logs for inoculation with shiitake spores.

We recently took a day trip to Fredericton, which is about 2 hours away, to participate in a mushroom growing workshop. We learned how to inoculate logs with mushroom spawn and each got to take an inoculated log home with us. We also had the opportunity to purchase additional logs at cost, for $20 each, so we took advantage of that and got five additional logs. In total we came home with 4 shiitake and 3 oyster mushroom logs for $225, but the workshop by Backyard Mushrooms was invaluable. The oyster mushrooms are supposed to fruit in fall and then every 2 weeks (not including winter). Shiitakes will fruit next spring and every 4 weeks from then on.

Four shiitake logs on left (birch), three oyster logs on left (poplar).

We're planning a trip to Cornhill Nursery outside of St. John, NB, to get some more fruit trees and bushes, as well as a second order to Greenbarn Nursery in Ontario for some harder-to-get varieties. We'll be adding Asian pears, apples, pears, chums, cherry and pecan trees as well as gooseberry and goji bushes and arctic kiwi vines.

I have a new 4' Jump Start grow light, so I'll be planting squashes and melons soon. The weather has been dreadfully cold off and on, still dropping below freezing on some nights so I've just started hardening off the cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower and kale.

The rain has been a challenge but it's supposed to let up for two days, so let's see what we can get done. Hopefully the nicer weather is on the way and warm summer nights will soon replace these horrid, rainy ones. Fingers crossed!