Slow Going

June 4, 2017
Woke up to yet another cold, gray, rainy-looking day. Although the rain did hold off in the morning, it was just too frigid to face going out, so I stayed inside and worked on last week's blog instead. It did warm up a bit in the afternoon so I went out and started weeding the second bed of the in-ground garden. Once finished I started planting it, first with 15' sq. of yellow beans. Next a variety of lettuces, including Butterhead, Black Seeded Simpson, Red Leaf, Jericho, Skyphos, Beleah Rose, New Red Fire,

We have a frost warning in effect for tonight. I took a bunch of sheets out and covered the garlic and herb beds just in case. Fingers crossed nothing is affected.





June 5, 2017
Beautiful day out if you're inside, but outside it's freezing and very windy. Sun is out though so off I went. Planted the rest of the bed I started yesterday with the rest of the lettuce, some Claytonia, celery, onions and shallots. I threw in packets of onions and shallots from seed. Likely they'll only result in green onions and small shallots, but who knows, if we have a late frost we may get some storage bulbs.

Short day due to the cold, but I was happy to get some planting trays, pots and plastic cups washed out and left them in a pile on the lawn to dry out. I'll stack them up tomorrow and they'll be ready to go for next year.





June 6, 2017
Forecast is looking up but as luck would have it I've managed to catch a cold. Good news is, with my diet, colds are generally pretty minimal compared to when I was 130 lbs heavier, smoked, drank and ate meat, dairy and processed crap. Now it truly feels like my body can properly heal itself when I'm sick, and that's a really good thing.

Off early for my coffee and heading out to the in-ground garden today. Clock is really ticking loudly now, so I need to get everything in the ground, weed mat down, beds in place, filled and planted, mulch reapplied to paths, fruit trees planted...I definitely shouldn't be bored.

I cleaned the third in-ground bed. There are eight in total, so almost halfway there.

June 7, 2017
Gorgeous day today so I was out early, potting up planters of petunias, the last of those are finally all in place. Next up I worked on the bed I cleared the day before, adding compost and raking the bed to ready it for planting.  Erin came home from work early at that point, which did totally mess up my workflow for the day, but was nice to spend the afternoon with her instead.



Back out in the garden in late afternoon, I planted some Dragon Langerie pole beans around a round trellis I made out of a concrete reinforcing panel and some zip ties. I pressed the trellis snugly into the ground with my foot and then planted the beans every 3" around the inside and outside. This is my first year growing these beans and I'm excited because they are supposed to be delicious and very beautiful, having a mottled purple and cream coloring. After the beans, I planted 21 broccoli plants and then rounded out the bed with 6 buttercup squashes. I spent the last half hour before dark being eaten alive by black flies and watering a few things since we haven't had rain for a couple days. Carrots, beets and radishes are all starting to pop up.

June 8, 2017
Erin home again today, and I woke up at 6am with a wicked migraine, so we slept in a little today. Supposed to be a scorcher (high of 28° C / 82° F) so I have the AC preemptively cranked. I'm sure I should be out weeding right now instead of writing this, but my coffee is hot and the day should be a long one. I was panicking this morning about being so behind. Erin reminded me that it's been freezing all spring, everyone is behind. I did call the guy at City Mower Repair and he said my ride-on is fixed and he'll drop it off today or tomorrow. So at least I can finally tackle the hay field my backyard has become. Should be pretty quick work with a shiny, new, sharp mower blade.


June 9, 2017
Rained off and on all day. The day ended on a high note anyway when they dropped off my mower at 5pm. Too late to mow, but good to go first thing tomorrow morning.


June 10, 2017
Chilly in the morning but warmed up quickly and it was a beautiful day to mow, which was desperately needed. The grass was almost waist-high in places and mowing was very slow. Looks so much better now though and we won't have to worry about the bugs so much. We had plans for the evening so didn't even get into the garden. Having that darn lawn mowed is a total win for the day though.

June 11, 2017
Gorgeous day today. We got up pretty late due to staying out late the night before. By the time I got into the garden it was 31° C / 87° F. I dug out the next in-ground bed, added compost, prepped the bed and planted more buttercup squashes, a couple pumpkin plants, Delicata and acorn squashes, and about 18 square feet of basil. A lot of basil, one might think, but we love it fresh and use it in salads and sauces and for pesto. I'll also be chopping a lot to preserve in water and freeze in ice cube trays to use in cooking throughout the winter.




June 12, 2017
Another beautiful day, a little cooler so it was easier to get things done. With all the veggies that still need to go into the ground, today I wanted to take care of the flower bed, for some reason. I had several dahlia starts I really needed to get planted and off the deck. I finally made enough room on the deck yesterday that I could start hardening off the tomato plants. They were all that was left inside and should be good to plant by next week.  Before I could plant the flower bed, I had to first remove the tulips, that were well past their prime and half the petals had blown off in the strong winds we had yesterday.

I checked on how to store the tulips and then gently pulled them out, setting them in trays of potting soil and then covering the bulbs with more potting soil. I then brought them inside as they need to be stored in a cool, dry place until the leaves die. This puts the energy back into the bulb. Once the leaves die I can pull them off and gently brush off the dirt for storage until October when I'll plant them somewhere permanently.




Along with the Double-X and Harlequin dahlias I planted, I also planted several varieties of sunflower, some Cupcake cosmos and a variety of zinnias. I've also been plugging marigolds in between squash and melon mounds to get those in the ground as well. Once that was all completed I set to watering as we've had quite a few dry days and tiny seedlings will die quickly without water. My hose is supposed to be here by tomorrow. 100', only weighs like 7lbs when no water is in it. I hope it shows up soon, as watering by hand is tedious in a very large area.


June 13, 2017
Another warm one today. The BT (bacillus thuringiensis) I ordered from Vesey's came yesterday so I got out the backpack sprayer I ordered over the winter. It's a Chapin Commercial Backpack Sprayer, model 61900. I had one of the tiny Chapin sprayers previously and it broke on the second use, so I was hesitant. This one had fantastic reviews though so I took the chance. It worked well, once I got it together. For some reason there was no manual included which made assembly more challenging. Once I found the manual online it was pretty easy to put together. I mixed up the BT with some water and sprayed my brassicas in under 10 minutes.  Had a bit left so I sprayed the haskap, blueberry bushes and serviceberry tree. We've had a lot of army worms (aka tent caterpillars aka Gypsy Moth caterpillars) lately so I'm trying to cut the numbers a bit, spraying where I'd seen them last year.





BT is an organic insecticide the affects only caterpillars. You mix the concentrate with water, spray on infested areas and the caterpillars will die within 24 hours of ingesting it. It doesn't affect earthworms, other insects, nor birds if they happen to eat the caterpillars.


After the sprayer was emptied and put away, I set to work on bed #5 of the in-ground garden. Lots of weeding on that end as perennial grasses have snuck in around the edges, as well as a decent amount of horsetail. I cleaned that bed of weeds and half of #6 since I was on a roll, added several buckets of compost raked it in and prepped the bed. I planted six Halona canteloupe, two Oka, two Charentais and two Banana melons. That task complete, I finished weeding and prepping bed #6 and planted five Black Beauty zucchini, five Butta yellow zucchini and two Magda summer squashes.





Erin came home from work so I took a short break so we could go to Canadian Tire and get a dolly to help moving the raised beds as well as the fruit trees. After that we picked up some tacos and headed home for supper. I gobbled down my tacos and went back out to finish planting bed #6. I planted 9 sq feet of Regent spinach, 6 square feet of leeks, and 9 sq feet of red and green malabar spinach. It was absolute torture even though I had jeans, socks, a long sleeve t-shirt and a hat on, I was still eaten alive by the blackflies. I quickly watered both beds in, swatting and stumbling back and forth from the beds to the water tap. Finally raced inside and was quite happy to be done for the evening.




June 18, 2017
Ugh! I've gotten bad about updating, but honestly the weather and my brain haven't really been cooperating. Hoping to get back on track this week as things need to get done pronto. We have a decent infestation of army worms (aka tent caterpillars aka Gypsy Moth caterpillars). They come in cycles and aren't bad most years, but every once in awhile...WHAM! We get a load of them. When I was a kid, I think it was '78 or '79, we had a really, dreadfully bad year of them. Everyone had tin foil around the bottom of their valued trees to keep them out and there were so many that they would drop on you from the trees. Riding on the road on your bike was disgusting as there would be one every square inch on the pavement. I only WISH I were exaggerating, the sound of their hot little bodies going "POP POP POP" on the pavement as you ran over them is ingrained in my brain forever. I've never seen them that bad since, but this year might be a close second. They are everywhere, on the new fruit trees I bought, in my raspberries and I suspect that's what got several of my cauliflower seedlings as the cabbage moths aren't out yet. Fortunately, with the backpack sprayer and BT, they should be relatively easy to control. I've been pretty busy trying to keep those under control and replanting things they've devoured.

June, Feels Like April

May 28, 2017
Erin headed off to work this morning, so I figured I would start pummeling through prepping/planting the in-ground garden. I've worked to raise these beds for a couple years now by just adding more soil and shaping them. It's become time consuming to do every year though, so I'm planning on boxing them in one by one this year. They are 3' x 20' so that won't be the easiest task, but will be worth it and so much easier to maintain once completed.

For now, it was time to clean the first bed out for the peas and beans. The outer edges were very weedy and it took a couple hours to complete, but looked pretty good by the time I was done. I put up my usual pea trellis and a couple of T-posts on the other side. I planted two varieties, Sugar Snap and Cassilis Snap peas. I'm really looking forward to a pile of fresh, young snap peas with some dairy-free ranch dip.

Next, I planted a whack of green beans. Most people around our area seem to prefer the yellow wax beans, which we enjoy as well, but we eat a lot of green beans in soups, casseroles, stir fries and so on throughout the winter.  I'd like to freeze a decent amount for that, hence the 30' sq. of green bush beans on our garden plan this year. The last few square feet were rough as it was close to dark and the temperature dropped suddenly as the wind picked up. We're supposed to start getting warmer weather next week. Really hoping that pans out.

Snap pea, green bush bean and herb bed

May 29, 2017
Another gray, cold day. Sprinkled off and on, but I was just too darn cold to go out for the majority of the day. Instead I spent the day finishing up last week's blog entry and reworking some of the garden plan.


May 30, 2017
A little sunnier, a little warmer. Still not lovely, but at least bearable. I ran some errands in the morning and paid bills. Called about my compost as it most certainly did not show up "before the weekend". Still haven't gotten a call back.

I finally got into the garden at around noon. I prepped another raised bed for bok choy and various greens. It was quick work as I only had to remove a handful of weeds and smooth the soil. I planted Edox lettuce (red/green butterhead), Parris Island (romaine), Tennis Ball (green butterhead), Wrinkled Cress, Vit Mache and both purple and green bok choy.

Spent the rest of my time watering and weeding the garlic.

Green and red cabbages

May 31, 2017
More rain, more cold. Kicking myself now for watering last night. Chilly this morning so dogs and I loafed around until afternoon. Made a quick run to Mr. Tomato for some cabbage seedlings. I noticed yesterday that I don't seem to have very many cabbages planted, especially green ones so I bought 3 flats with 4 plants each and an extra flat of red cabbages as well. Also grabbed some very dark purple violas to go in a pot with the orange ones we purchased previously.








June 1, 2017

Sangre potato seed

It looked more like the dreary same when we got up this morning. Gray and ominous, but it never did rain until.... I wasn't able to get into the garden until almost noon, but once I did things moved quickly. I weeded the horsetail from two beds and planted the Sangre and Arizona potatoes. I only used about 2/3 of the Sangre and probably only 1/2 of the Arizona, so I'll likely need to come up with some space on my garden plan for another 2 beds of potatoes. My compost finally arrived and looks very nice. The coconut coir I ordered should be here next week. I may pick up some perlite to mix in if it still seems too heavy.

Truckload of compost arriving

June 1 already. This gives me a bit of a panic attack, but I have to remind myself that it takes us until June 15 every year to get everything in the ground, so I shouldn't panic.

DON'T PANIC! Where's my towel? I need a towel.


June 2, 2017
Woke up to pouring rain yet once again. It really is getting to be defeating. On a good note, two of the five 5kg bricks of coconut coir I ordered came, so I should be able to start filling a few beds this weekend. I'm oddly looking forward to moving the enormous pile of compost that came yesterday, and rather enjoy the fact that I've moved two complete truckloads of it in the last two years.












This is the compressed coconut coir, or at least two of the five 5kg packages I ordered. When I add water, each one will expand to 60 L of material. It will fluff my soil up the same way peat moss does, but will do so without affecting the pH of the soil, like peat moss. The other three packages I ordered should be coming next week. Not quite sure why the seller had to ship them separately.







June 3 - 4, 2017
Still more rain, very little garden work. I did have the chance to quickly harvest some oregano that was growing like crazy, as well as a little bit of sage I trimmed off of several plants.

Oregano drying

I used my food dehydrator trays to lay the oregano out to dry. Herbs are a bit too light to dry with the dehydrator itself as the fan will blow them all over once they are dry. They'll dry in 2-3 days just left out on trays. Once it's dry, we'll transfer to a large mason jar and add to it every time we harvest.

Sage drying

Growing our own herbs doesn't save us a ton of money, but fresh herbs are amazing to cook with and we enjoy that a great deal. Plus, dried ones aren't getting any cheaper and they are SO easy to grow, take up little space and provide you with repeated harvests all through the season. Many herbs, including chives, parsley, thyme, tarragon, sage and oregano are perennial and will come back year after year, making your initial investment in the plants well worthwhile.







I started hardening off my peppers this week. I was excited when buying pepper seeds as we had an impressive crop last year and they grew very well using the pruning method I tried. I was a bit startled at how many seedlings there were. Total of 7 trays holding 15 peppers each. 105 pepper plants of various types including Golden Marconi, Early Jalepeno, Ancho, Anaheim, Super Thai, Lipstick, Big Red, Chocolate Beauty, Sunbright and Jimmy Nardello.

I used the same pruning method as last year, as my plants were hardier than ever and had a ton of fruit. Peppers aren't exactly usually a bumper crop in our northern zone, so anything you can do to set yourself up for success is well worthwhile.

One thing I've been really excited about adding to the garden is fruit. I eat a lot of fruit and the prospect of being able to just harvest it out of the backyard is beyond enticing to me. So far, we have raspberries, honeyberries (haskap), high-bush blueberries, and three kinds of strawberries and rhubarb planted. The honeyberry bushes are about 4 years old, and the taller variety is about 4' tall. We harvested a lot of fruit off of it last year and by the looks of the flowers earlier and buds on it now, we should get an even better crop this year. Honeyberries, if you've never had them, look like an ugly, misshapen blueberry when ripe and taste somewhat like a cross between a blueberry and raspberry.

Kent and Alpine strawberry patch

The Kent strawberries are in their third year and are very vigorous. I'm expecting a fantastic harvest after seeing all the flowers that popped up this week. The flowers on the Alpine strawberries are large too, so we should see a good crop there as well. They are much, much smaller strawberries, but very sweet and a great treat to eat fresh out of the garden.

Strawberry blossoms

You can see from the picture to the left, the large clusters of blossoms. Each of those blossoms will turn into a juicy, red, sun-ripened strawberry. I have to admit, last year being our first real harvest, very few of these made it out of the garden, as most were deposited directly into our tummies as we harvested. They were quite amazing. We did manage to keep enough for one small batch of jam that tasted as if sunshine itself was an ingredient. Looking forward to more jam this year!









Our fruit trees are still a few years away from producing much, but so far we have 2 heartnut, 2 elderberry, 3 cherry, 1 chum, 2 pear, 2 plum, and 1 mulberry. I still want at least two apple, one more pear, another mulberry and three Asian pear trees. I would also like more small fruit including more blueberries and raspberries, as well as blackberries, kiwi, grapes, goji and gooseberry bushes. Imagine what a paradise it would be with all those things blooming and fruiting. I do, quite regularly.







I did check the orchard tonight and found something exciting. The heartnut buds have leafed out finally (right image) and found this interesting thing on the tree (left image). I suspected it was a flower, but since I haven't seen it flower before I came in to google "heartnut flower" and I was correct, it's a heartnut flower. So maybe if we're lucky we'll see a couple nuts this year.