Big Ups and Bigger Downs

June 9
The first week of June was miserable. Cold, rainy, an unexpected frost that went to at least -2° C. Most of the week was an entire wash. Most of the 47 pepper plants I had put in were killed in the frost. A few are still struggling and might make it. A friend gave me a few of their extras to make up the difference, but I'm not putting anything warm-weather loving in for at least another week.

New plot is still not tilled as the tiller would not drive forward or in reverse when I started it. Tiller portion ran, just no drive. I took it back a few days later and they fixed it, the pins in the wheels weren't in the right place, apparently, although it was supposed to be ready to go when I picked it up.

I did inoculate a few more mushroom logs, but the logs we were given were so large in diameter, (instead of 4-5", we got 7-8") that I hurt my lower back lugging them around. It's just not starting off to be a good year, I'm afraid.

Other damage incurred in the frosts included the blossoms dropping from my fruit trees, which was truly disappointing as it looked like we might actually get a bit of fruit this year. I'm hoping that none of them were damaged enough to be killed. The leaves on the heartnut trees were quite affected. The potatoes that had come up got frost burnt a bit as well, the tips turning black. I'm hoping that won't affect them much, fingers crossed.

There is a tiny bed I built in the front of the house, by the front stoop. I put it there two years ago to house a couple small hostas and several bearded irises that I split and removed from another bed on the side of the house that was here when we bought it. In the 6 years we've been here, only one iris had ever bloomed so I looked up how to take care of them and read about dividing them. When I dug the bed out I retrieved over 30 bulbs from a tiny 2 x 3' area, which explained why none of them were blooming, they were so over-crowded. So, I gave a handful away, planted some more back in the original bed along with the hosta I had split into thirds, and planted the rest in this little half moon shaped bed in front. The last week has been so defeating, I was thrilled this morning when I was on the front stoop and looked down at that little bed and saw 5-6 flower heads coming up off the irises. I cannot wait to see how utterly beautiful they are. The one time it bloomed we were entirely stunned by the flower, it was so lovely.

So now I definitely feel less disheartened. It's hard sometimes when you grow things to remember that every year there are losses and failures. Nothing is ever perfect and you have to revel in the small joys and take the losses with a grain of salt because no matter how hard you try, there are too many uncontrollable variables here. The positives? The garlic looks fantastic this year, which excites me because we love our homegrown garlic. There's just no comparison from store-bought. My lavender all came back, blueberries and haskap have lots of berries on them, strawberries are blossoming and I have a bunch of volunteer dill where it was planted last year, so I'll harvest those seedlings to plant elsewhere and won't have to wait as long for that. My pansies came back and are in full bloom and are absolutely GORGEOUS. They've been that little bit of color that keeps me inspired.

So, there are positives, it's just a matter of focusing on those.

June 11
Today is June 11 and we are usually well under way with planting by now, but the weather and my back not cooperating, we've probably only got about 10% done. My back did feel a bit better today so I went out and did a few light things, including planting two new rhubarb plants in the rhubarb bed. I also went to Canadian Tire to pick up a stirrup hoe. I've never used this type of hoe before, but I've read that they're very useful for weeding and wow, they definitely live up to the hype. In a motion that requires only slightly more effort than sweeping, the blade goes under the weeds and slices them off under the soil, leaving them on top. I did a couple raised beds in minutes, minus the cleanup of the weeds, but I can't imagine that would add too much time to the equation. So, I'm pretty damn happy with that $30 investment.


June 16
My back is finally at about 90% so I've been back at it for a couple of days. Yesterday I planted 1300+ yellow and red onions. Today I've been at it early replacing the peppers I lost in the frost (about 40 of them) and planting the rest out as well.

June 19
It rained yesterday, which the plants definitely needed. On Saturday and Sunday, I worked away most of the day, planting a number of peppers and weeding beds. Still so much to do but it's slowly getting there.

Erin did discover something exciting over the weekend. She's been checking our mushroom logs quite regularly, since they could fruit any day now. Lo and behold, when she checked a couple days ago she found a little mushroom. She promptly forgot and didn't tell me until yesterday, so they were even larger now and it would definitely appear that our oyster mushroom logs, or at least one of them, are starting to fruit.

June 20
Some beautiful shots of my bearded irises that came with the place. I divided them up into new beds a couple years ago and this is the first time they've bloomed since. There are 3-4 large blossoms on each one.

It was a gorgeous, partly cloudy, day today. Just the right temperature and slight wind, so there were few bugs. Planted some flowers to get them off the deck and keep them from dying from drying out.  I added a few dahlias, cosmos, echinacea, shizanthus and chamomile to the small flower bed and also added a few marigolds around the main berry bed.







I spent the rest of the afternoon mowing the lawn. Not at all what I needed to get done, but it was getting long and for the sake of keeping ticks and the grasshoppers to a minimum, it was the chore du jour.  It did give me the chance to check out the orchard though, the two pecan trees I planted have taken and are putting out leaves. I also have a few cherries on my Montmorency cherry tree and a couple plums on one tree as well.








June 21
Another gorgeous day today, less windy and cloudy than yesterday. Went out and finished planting brassicas, did a little weeding and set the boundaries for the new in-ground garden.  I planned 23' x 28', but it's a bit bigger as I was measuring alone and was in a hurry to get it done. I did the first once over with the tiller but it's going to need many more passes in both directions before it's ready to plant.

June 22
The whole family was at it today. Erin had the day off so she weeded one and a half of the in-ground beds, no easy chore as they're really over-grown. Jody came over and dug a hole for one of the Asian pear trees. I noticed I have aphids in the orchard, so I'll have to address that soon. I did some weeding, planted flowers and more brassicas, and did a lot of watering since it had been a few days without rain.

June 27
Blogging and gardening is hard. I'm so busy this year that I'm having a hard time keeping up with writing down all the goings on. Still plugging away, even though it's almost July and the garden is only about half in. The weeds have taken over the in-ground garden, but I did get the two beds that had been weeded tilled up and raked. I was pretty thrilled with the tilther mode on the tiller. You can set the depth of the tines so that it only tills up the top couple inches, which is perfect for what I want. To do a full, deep tilling yearly just serves to mess up the soil structure and the micro-organisms within. With those beds prepped, I planted 18 zucchini plants, a couple fennel and 10 celery plants. Jody came over and dug another hole for another tree. Today I went out and planted another 14 summer squash. I also cleaned out one bed that cucumbers are going in. I had dill in that bed last year and I spilled a lot when harvesting the seeds. Happy accident that was and now I'll do it every year. The seedlings were about 4-6" high, a much better start than planting them from seed purposely. I pulled probably 20 nice ones out, I only used 10 and then potted up a couple cups of them for friends.

June 28
Rain day. I tried to get out before it started to plant a bed of tomatoes but didn't make it in time. We had a good, long, steady rain though and it was badly needed. Plus, my leaky hose finally burst yesterday, so I'm extra grateful for the help today. Now I need to find where I put the replacement hose and quickly. The forecast shows thunderstorms tomorrow, but a week long heat wave will follow.

June 29
It was still raining when I woke up this morning, but the sun was out and shining by the time I finished breakfast and coffee. I headed out to sort the tomatoes, which are beyond leggy at this point, some of them are 2' long or more, so they need to go in the ground ASAP. At this point, I'm a month behind, in an area where we barely have 120 frost-free days for a growing season. This fact is definitely enough to completely make me give up hope, however I'm going to keep plugging away and putting it in. Maybe our first frost will be a couple weeks late this year. Maybe the weather or the mycorizzhae will kick things up enough notches that this extra month or more of planting won't matter. Who knows, but I'll only find out by trying.

Headed out to plant tomatoes but had to plant an Asian pear tree first as Jody had already dug the hole for me. Wasn't quite deep enough so I had to dig deeper and the clay was pretty compacted so I added half a bag of worm compost to help break it up a little. Put the tree in, watered it. By the time I was done that the humidity had just about done me in. I went inside to change into shorts and cool off a bit. After a quick snack and a glass of water I headed out to get the tomatoes done. I planted one bed of the Opalka variety and another with 5 Orange Roussoulini, 2 Amana Orange and 1 Black Sea Man. I finished just in time to make it in before the thunderstorm, so they're all watered in nicely as well. I planted each seedling on its side,  in a long trench as they were quite leggy. The buried stem will grow roots and make for a very strong plant.  as deep as I could. I also added a mix of bone meal/epsom salts and some mycorrizhae to the trench before putting in each seedling. Overall a much more productive day than I've been having lately, so I'll take it.

June 30
It was supposed to rain most the day, so I took the opportunity to head to Rogersville (a small town about 40 minutes away) to the Mr. Tomato main store, since we had yet to visit this year and try to make it there at least once every summer. Once we were there I grabbed more beet seeds, as well as several rosemary plants, a lemon balm, a curry plant and some flowers to fill our hanging pot with. Sadly when I arrived home I realized the hanging pot broke in the winter cold and ice and I'll have to pick up a new one once the holiday weekend is over.

I filled another bed of beets and continued weeding for the remainder of the day.


July 1
It was Canada Day, but the wife had plans so I had lots of time in the garden.  I cleaned two more beds and planted the remainder of the tomatoes, which included 4 more Black Sea Man, a new variety I'm trying this year, along with a new cherry tomato variety called Sweetie. The second bed I filled with two of my favorite cherry tomatoes, Gardeners' Delight, a large cherry that is prolific and tasty, and my favorite tasting cherry tomato, Black Cherry.

Once the tomato beds were complete, I cleaned, raked and planted the last bed of peppers. Finally, before bed I took the tiller and worked on the new garden a bit. The soil is hard packed clay, so it's going to take awhile to soften it up. I need to wait for another rain now before I can make much more progress on it. The good news is that everything that is going in that bed, is already planted and doing very well in small pots, the only thing going in that garden from seed is the beans, and those only take about 60 days to mature, so we have some wiggle room there.

July 3
Yesterday was a scorcher, so I didn't get a whole lot done. A bit of weeding here and there and lots of water breaks was about all I could manage in the heat.

July 4
Up early today as the wife was leaving for a trip. Hooked up the new hose we picked up yesterday and watered everything before the midday heat gets here. It's supposed to be hot for a couple more days and then drop to something a bit more temperate, thankfully.

I weeded the next in-ground bed to prep for the beans. Planting very late, but beans don't take a lot of time, so that just means we'll have beans later than usual. The in-ground garden was left last year, weeds and all, due to illness and just not being able to get out and do proper clean-up. Lesson learned for this year and I plan to clean up well after harvest this time. I also plan to tarp the in-ground garden and also the new plot I tilled up, with silage tarps over the winter so the weeds won't pop up and I can just pull the tarps off in the spring and go.








After that bed was cleaned and prepped, I planted sweet potatoes in a raised bed. I didn't plant them all because I still have a few fruit tree/bushes heeled in there, but about 3/4 of them were planted. The rest will go in as soon as I get those fruit bushes in the ground. Very impressed with how growing my own slips turned out. You can see from the picture the nice, healthy root system that developed.













I took a long break to make supper, eat, have a nap, and so on during the hottest part of the day. Back out around 5 and I planted the bed that I wed that morning with green and yellow beans. Watered the cucumber bed because it looked dreadful. Lost a few plants I think. The soil was very hot and not very deep there, I watered it very well and most the plants perked up. Still lots of plants in the bed so I wasn't worried about losing a couple.

July 5
Another hot one today, but a nice breeze at least to make the heat a little more bearable. I had to mow and run errands today, so not a lot accomplished. I did pick up a load of mulch and my son unloaded it for me and lugged it back to the raised beds and orchard so it would be ready to spread out.

July 7
It rained yesterday, so I didn't get a whole lot accomplished. It's an absolutely gorgeous day today though, so looking forward to being outside all day as the temps are mild and there's a nice breeze as well. Planting a couple more raised beds with potatoes today. I was going to put them in the new garden, but have to wait for more rain as the clay soil is like a rock and very tough to till. I also broke a shear pin on the tiller that I need to replace. Before I start that though, I'm off to mow the paths in between the beds that aren't wide enough for the ride on. Most are mulched, so it won't take long.

Mowing completed, I prepped two raised beds and planted more potatoes in each.

July 31
No updates as we had an illness and death in the family. I was still working most days, but too distracted to post any updates. All the raised beds are now planted. Most the new garden is planted. Last two rows will house beans for drying and the leftover potato seed. Pretty late to plant potatoes, but it should serve to lengthen our harvest for them. At the very least, we'll have lots of yummy new potatoes in the fall. The new garden measures 23' x 28' and has seven 30" wide beds with foot-wide paths in between. This year I planted mostly squashes and melons in it, but next year it will be the market garden.

The in-ground garden has 3 out of 8 beds prepared. The weeds in it are insane, so it's taking the longest. The only things left to plant are lettuces, radish, peas...all things that grow pretty quickly so we should still have a nice fall harvest within the 9 weeks of growing season we have left.

We harvested the garlic scapes a couple of weeks ago, a bit late, but they were still very tasty.














Today I harvested 11 lbs of Roko potatoes. They weren't quite ready, but the tops were showing signs of blight so I pulled them out before they affected the other potatoes, or worse, the tomatoes.

Things should be picking up next month as the harvest starts to roll in. I'll be sure to get out there and take lots of photographs for next update!

Who Broke Mother Nature?

April - May, 2018
April continued March's unpleasant weather for the first two weeks, but we did seem to have as much rain as we did snow, so there wasn't much accumulation. This last week has been gorgeous, the weather improving greatly and the sun seems to be shining most of the time these days. I'll take it. After the long winter I feel very much like those asparagus sprouts poking their way through the soil, like I've had the longest sleep ever and it's time to get going and get it done. The snow is mostly gone in the front yard, the large in-ground garden is two-thirds clear and the two strawberry beds by the in-ground garden are both clear, as well as one asparagus bed and the rhubarb. All good things to be clear of snow, as they should all be starting to grow very soon. Asparagus is one of the first things to pop up every year, but we had asparagus beetles last year so I need to get out there and clean up the dead fronds from last year as they'll house this year's eggs.





I found these nifty mini-greenhouses at Canadian Tire. They aren't terribly high-quality, but for $50 a pop, they'll do the trick in a heartbeat. I bought three and I'm excited to have a place to start hardening off plants earlier. I've used them for a couple days now and they get nice and warm inside, getting up to 34°C yesterday in the afternoon.












The greenhouse has four shelves, each shelf will hold two standard sized trays, as well as two or three 5" pots. I'm not sure how they would fare in high winds though, so I weighted the bottom shelf down to secure everything well. The last thing I want is all my alliums and brassicas flying off the deck into a giant pile of wreckage.









Other exciting news I forgot to mention in my last blog post, my logo was completed in January and I have my business cards done and ready to go. I was very specific with direction, but the designer also had a really good vision of where I wanted to go with it. I absolutely love how it turned out.

It's now the end of April and the snow is almost gone. Over half of the raised beds are uncovered and ready to be planted as soon as they dry up. Everything is still very wet and there is a good 4-6" of standing water in some areas of the yard.




May 7 and the weather is finally looking up. I have a few beds cleaned out, but the weather just hasn't allowed for much work and the yard is still very muddy. That said, the forecast looks better for the next week or so, hopefully things will dry up quickly with a few sunny days.

Today I'm headed out to dig up some Jerusalem artichokes for someone in the garden club that was looking for some to plant. I should have lots, so thought I'd harvest a few for her and a few to eat since we have yet to try them. The bed needs to be cleaned of last year's stalks and some compost tossed on top, so harvesting a few while I'm at it shouldn't take much time.



May 8
Every muscle I own is on fire today and I feel almost as exhausted as I did when I went to bed. I ended up getting a good bit done yesterday. I took advantage of the visitor stopping by for the Jerusalem artichokes and cleaned that bed while I was harvesting. I half filled a paper bag of smaller ones for her to plant and another of larger ones for us to cook as we still have yet to try them. After that bed was cleaned and topped off with compost, I proceeded to clean two more beds.

My big find for the day was in last year's garlic bed. As I was pulling out the weeds and getting that bed prepped, I noticed a few clumps of shoots sticking out. I pried them up and was surprised to see a little bulb on the end of them like an onion. Still not cluing in, I smelled one. Ah-ha! It was garlic, baby garlic to be precise. I must have missed a few scapes when I trimmed them last year and they went to seed. That's what I call a happy accident. I was planning on purposely letting a few go to seed this year so I could try green garlic, and now I don't even have to wait a year! Green garlic is supposed to be somewhat like green onions, but garlicky. Milder than garlic though and more tender than garlic scapes. I probably pulled up 30 of them and tucked them into the empty spaces of the herb bed. We should be able to harvest some in 30-40 days.





Week of May 14
Working away slowly, I don't know why I find it so hard to get in the groove some years. Everything will get going and be fine, but it seems every year I feel so far behind and this year it's causing me to panic a bit. Trying to concentrate on a small handful of tasks at once, then moving on to another handful. Looking at the big picture very often at this point, doesn't prove helpful.

I purchased a couple more blueberry plants over the weekend, one Patriot and one Bluecrop. I'm going to add those to the food forest once my trees arrive from Greenbarn Nursery.  I cleaned one of the 20" deep beds of horsetail. It took hours, but the sweet potatoes are going in that bed and I wanted to get it prepped well so it wasn't filled with horsetail. In most beds I just snip them off as they poke through the soil, but I've accepted the fact that sometimes I'll need to clean the beds completely.

The garden centers are opening now; I'm hoping to get some marigolds and petunias soon. I planted a few marigolds from seed, but until I have a greenhouse, I'll always have to buy extras. I didn't plant any petunias from seed this year as I totally forgot them when making my seed orders. I went to one nursery on Monday, but they didn't have much yet, so I decided to wait until next week to hit them all up. As much as I try to grow all I can from seed, there is always something forgotten or something that died during the process of growing/hardening off. Hardening off is the toughest stage for me. I'm far too impatient and tend to fry things because of that. I'm taking extra care this year to set timers, take my time and allow lots of time to harden things off before they can be planted. All that said, I think I did fry my cabbages, so I'll need to buy some of those as well and possibly some ground cherries. My ground cherry seedlings just didn't seem to do well this year at all.

My seed potatoes arrived on Tuesday. 22kg in total, 5kg each of Shepody, Roko, Sieglinde, and Kennebec. I also bought a sample 4-pack variety of fingerlings which included Linzer Delikatess, Pink Fir Apple, Banana and French Fingerling. I planted one bed of Roko on Tuesday, it took only about 1/2 the bag, so it would appear I ordered too much. When I told Erin, thinking I would sell the extra, she said "Well you're getting a tiller." So, I guess that means I'm putting in a small potato field as well. Will make for a good harvest at least.



Today is Thursday and I headed over to Canadian Tire as they had a big sale and plants were supposed to be 10% off. I got there nice and early and picked up a variety of petunias to plant for my mother like I do every year, some marigolds for the garden and a blueberry and shrub cherry as well. Once home, I potted up the petunias in some nice, rectangular planters that Erin got me for my birthday and set them on each side of the walkway to the deck. I put what was left in another container and watered them all well.

Next up I cleaned what was a bed of kale last year and planted the Kennebec potatoes. I used about 3/4 of the bag this time, so I'll plant the rest once I till up a spot for all the leftovers.

Another bed of carrots planted and I cleaned a bed of horsetail. I let one bed go last year that got out of control and that couldn't have been a more enormous mistake. The plant established itself to the point that last month it put up hundreds of spore shoots. Since I wasn't aware of what they looked like yet, I didn't know what I was looking for. I sure do now after seeing that bed. I had to carefully cut and remove them all, many had already opened and released their spores, so I'm sure that will be a nightmare down the road.

Finally got the winter squashes and melons seeded, just the summer squashes and cucumbers left. They'll probably go in the ground a couple weeks late, so good that they'll be started earlier instead of just direct seeding them like I usually do.

May 22
We were finally able to get into the woods to pick up the logs for the shiitake mushrooms over this past long weekend. Today I started getting them inoculated. The logs were cut back at the end March, before the trees had budded. Then they were left for a few weeks to let any natural anti-fungal agents in the tree dissipate. Once back home, we cut them into 3' sections and the ends are waxed. This will keep the moisture in the log, which is necessary for the mushrooms to grow.




Tools required for the project included a stiff brush for cleaning moss and lichen off the logs, an angle grinder that is fitted with a special bit attachment, plunger tool for packing spawn into holes, a paintbrush for coating ends and covering holes with wax and a rice cooker to keep the wax warm while in use.

Shiitake sawdust spawn

Holes are drilled every 5-6" in a diamond pattern, all around the log. The plunger tool is then used to pack some spawn into the tube of the tool and then to fill the holes. Once the holes are all packed with sawdust spawn, the wax is painted over each hole to keep the spawn in place, as well as to protect it.

Inoculating the logs

I don't really have a great shady spot in my yard ready yet, so I put down a bit of carpenter's paper and set the logs in a log-cabin style stack on the side of the house that gets very little sun and also very close to the water hookup. I'll have to make several stacks, but this seems to be the best place for them for now.





May 25
Another couple beds weeded and planted over the last couple days. The weather is still not cooperating. A couple days ago I looked out the window to see this:

Then yesterday it was beautiful out. Temps are still dropping to close to freezing at night and the temperature fluctuations are making hardening off very challenging this year.


May 29
Feels like I'm getting more behind than ahead. Yesterday was finally the first really nice day we've had. I took advantage and got the shallot bed prepped, added some soil as it was getting low and planted half of it before dark. So far, that makes two carrot beds, two potato beds and a beet bed planted. Seems like there should be more done than that, but I've been so busy cleaning up from last year that not much else has gotten done. I'm sure things will move more quickly now that some nicer weather is here.

Spent the morning planting the shallots and leeks. I didn't plant quite enough shallots, so the leeks mostly fit in that bed as well. I threw a package of extra leeks that I got on closeout the previous year into a 5" pot, so I have lots of leeks this year. Probably not the best thing to have extra of, as they don't store well like shallots, garlic or onions, but they can be left in the ground through frosts and harvested late, and I can always chop them up and freeze for making vegetable broth, if nothing else. They won't go to waste!




My fruit trees that came last week really need to go in, so my next task was mowing the lawn so I could get started. I didn't want to be back there in calf-high grass with all the bugs. I also need to move two blueberry bushes and plant a haskap that's lived in a large pot for going on three years now.  While I was back in the orchard I took a few pictures of the blossoms. Pear, cherry and plum trees are all flowering.

May 30
It was an absolutely beautiful day today, so I was happy to get out in it. I've been dreading digging holes for the trees but had to break down and start today. I planted two Taylor pecan trees in the far back, by the heartnut trees as the nut trees will be quite large. Digging was slow and painful as the ground in the far back orchard is solid clay. I crumbled up what soil I could from digging the hole, threw the larger pieces of clay into the woods, and added some bagged worm compost and mycorrhizae when I backfilled. The black flies were very bad, despite a nice wind, so I decided two trees was enough to plant today.

Next, I sorted the peppers on the deck and pulled out all the Lipstick variety and cleaned the half bed those are going in. The other half is currently filled with garlic and a lovage plant. I added 15 Lipstick peppers to the bed, planting each with a tablespoon each of bone meal and Epsom salts, as well as a teaspoon of mycorrhizae.

At dusk I unloaded some firewood so I can pick up the Husquvarna 17" tiller I bought to break ground on new beds.

May 31
I woke up with a very sore back from all the clay digging yesterday. Hopefully it will work itself out once I get at it today. It's supposed to be very hot this afternoon (29°C / 84°F). We went to Canadian Tire first thing this morning to pick up the new tiller and grab a few things. I spent an hour organizing the peppers by variety as they were all mixed in the trays. I cleaned, raked and leveled the bed and planted Golden California Wonder, Coral Bell and Golden Marconi, all sweet pepper varieties. It took me a good 2 hours to plant the bed, though I did come inside to cool off a couple times.

During a cool-off break, I read the tiller manual cover to cover. I'm excited to try it this weekend, hopefully.

At dusk I started planting the cabbage/cauliflower bed. My cabbage seedlings didn't do very well this year, so I went to Mr. Tomato and grabbed a couple 4-packs of early cabbages, as well as a couple of rhubarb plants that will go in the rhubarb bed.

That wraps up the spring season, not the best we've had...very possibly the worst. Just have to keep plugging away. Looking forward to a sunnier, warmer June and July!

One Year In

January - February, 2018

I've been busy making as many necessary purchases as possible for the 2018 growing season. Along with the mushroom spores and inoculation equipment, I've completed and received my 3 seed orders from MI Gardener, Pinetree and Vesey's. I ordered seed potatoes to be delivered the first week of May, from Eagle Creek Potatoes. I decided to try some new varieties this year, including a mix of fingerlings, as well as 5 kg seed each of Sieglinde, Kennebec, Roko, and Shepody varieties.

I finally tried some of the sweet potatoes we had harvested in September. They were still firm, storing perfectly and were completely delicious. Much sweeter and tastier than the ones you get at the grocery store. Unfortunately, I waited too long to order slips this year and they are sold out. Instead I bought some sweet potatoes at the grocery store and put two in water, and two in soil to try to grow my own slips. I'm trying both methods since this is my first time growing them. Once I see which method works best, I'll use that method going forward.

After a about 10 days in the soil I had one slip on one of the two potatoes in the tray, the other has yet to sprout. The ones in water have provided 3 slips from one potato and the other has a spot where you can see a slip will be growing soon. So far, both methods have been successful. We'll see by the end how many slips I get out of each method. Once they are large enough, I'll pull them off and put them in water to root and wait for the potato to grow more. Hoping I'll have at least enough to plant out one 4' x 8' bed by June.

My first order for fruit trees has gone out, including two pecan trees, three varieties of Asian pear, two Goji berry bushes and three Seaberry (Sea Buckthorn) bushes (one male, two female). These will be shipped from Greenbarn Nursery the first week of May. Hoping to add some kiwi vines and some gooseberry bushes from Cornhill Nursery after those are planted. Trees cost anywhere from $40-100, depending on the variety and fruit shrubs and vines are usually $20-50. At that cost, filling up the food forest would be very costly. My plan is to propagate everything I can in order to fill the food forest with plants as cheaply as possible, especially the sea buckthorn. Sea buckthorn is a nitrogen fixer and will serve the purpose of not only providing nutritious berries for sale or personal use but will also feed the soil to benefit the other trees, plants and shrubs that surround it.


Onions, shallots and leeks were planted from seed the first week of February. I've struggled previously with growing large numbers of onions from seed with such limited indoor space, though I do usually have very good luck with the onions themselves, growing to a decent size and storing very well. The exception was last year when I forgot about the tender seedlings on the deck, the very first day I started hardening them off and I completely fried the lot. Red and white onions, three varieties of shallots, and leeks all gone in one careless afternoon. Lesson learned, the hard way. We really missed them throughout the winter, but I have a renewed determination to grow fantastic ones this year. I usually seed onions thickly in 5" pots, let them grow as much as they can and plant them, one by one, once the ground is workable. Very time consuming and tedious work, although the results were good, I still didn't get huge onions.

Over the winter I've been watching Charles Dowding on YouTube, who is quite the amazing gardener and he's totally sold me on no-till gardening. This is pretty much what I did last year, more out of time constraint and necessity than intention, but it worked well and I'm happy not to have to do the extra work. I am also happy to sell my hardly-used Mantis tiller and buy fruit trees with the proceeds! So, yes, back to Charles Dowding. Charles plants his onions in trays with smaller cells, about an inch in diameter, putting 5-6 seeds in each cell. When it comes time to plant them out, he doesn't separate the seedlings, just plops one of the plugs with 5-6 onions in each hole. He then advises as they grow you should harvest green onions until there are 3 onions in each hole, then let those bulb up to harvest for storage. It sounded brilliant to me, so I'm trying that method on for size this year. So far, they seem to be growing well in the small cells.

I started peppers at the same time as the onions, which will seem early to some, but I do a radical pruning once they're about six inches tall, so the extra time is useful to grow them back up to a decent size before planting them out. I grew so many peppers last year and had such a fantastic bumper crop that we enjoyed in so many ways. This year I added even more pepper plants to the garden plan, including Big Red, Lipstick, Golden Marconi, Early Jalapeño, Anaheim, Ancho, Sunbright, Chocolate Beauty and Super Thai, as well as new varieties: Coral Bell, Golden Cal Wonder, Serrano Chili, Tabasco, Banana Peppers and Pasilla Bajio.







March, 2018
I'm looking forward to this being the last brutal month of winter. Unfortunately, it seems to be focusing on the brutal part. By end of February, the snow was near gone, we'd had a lot of above zero days where most of it had melted. As of today, March 12, we've had 3 storms since and at least 2' of snow. My fruit trees that were almost completely visible are now more than half-buried again.


Some good things though, we've found resources to get both our birch trees for the Shiitake mushroom area we plan on installing, as well as wood chips for the food forest. We purchased enough spawn and equipment to hopefully inoculate 50-70 logs with Shiitake spawn. We'll be clearing a spot in the tiny forested area we have on our property and arranging them there, along with the 7 logs we inoculated last spring at the mushroom course we took. It will be a lot of work but will keep me busy while the rest of the garden dries up. Then if all goes well, we should have some shiitakes for sale and lots for our own personal use by next summer.




Currently the food forest is just a tiny orchard with a handful of small trees: two heartnut, one mulberry, three cherry, two elderberry, two pear and a chum (cherry / plum cross). The trees are planted on mounds due to our heavy clay soil and there is grass in between them, so I currently have to mow the orchard. Once the two pecan and three Asian pear trees are planted that will make a total of 16 trees in the orchard, along with several smaller shrubs planted in between (goji, sea buckthorn, haskap, blueberry). The plan with the wood chips is to hopefully get contractor's paper laid down as a biodegradable weed barrier, and then cover that with 5-6" of wood chips. The wood chips will break down over time, the way they do in a forest and my heavy clay soil should, in only a few short years, become a rich, dark humus that will be easy to grow in and that will continue to suppress the grass and weeds.




I'll also add in other layers to the forest, including more small shrubs, lots of ground cover (strawberries, nasturtiums), grape and kiwi vines, blackberries and raspberries, perennial flowers, herbs and greens, red wine cap mushrooms, and lots of self-seeding annual vegetables and flowers. You can probably see at this point why they call it a "food forest". All of this will replace the lawn and be much more attractive and productive than the lawn ever was.


I started tomatoes the first week of March. I had a few seeds left each of Gardener's Delight, Black Cherry, and Amana orange, so I sowed the last of those seeds. New varieties I'm growing this year include Sweetie cherry tomatoes, Opalka, Orange Roussolini, and Black Sea Man. I also planted more herbs, flowers and greens including lemon mint, lemon balm, dandelion greens, sorrel, rosemary, parsley, dahlias, marigolds, chives, cilantro, nettles, and chamomile.

Last to be started this month were the brassicas, which will hopefully be able to go in the ground at the beginning of May. Arugula, bok choy, several types of kale, red and green cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower were seeded along with a number of other herbs and flowers. At this point, there is no longer any room under my three grow lights, so I won't be planting anything else until the end of April, when I seed cucumbers, melons and squash. By then I should be good to harden off the cole crops on the deck.



Overall, it's been a long, tough winter, but that makes the thought of spring that much more inviting. Another few weeks and we should be full into the swing of things. Lots to do this spring and summer, I'm just getting started. Stay tuned!

Winding Down

Chipmunks and birds are enjoying the sunflowers I left in that went to seed.

November - December, 2017
Regular frosts are here, so clean-up is now the main task in the garden, along with planning next year's beds. Planning was a simple thing at first, but the task seems to grow exponentially along with the garden each year. The last couple of years I started writing a list of goals before the season started, including growing comfrey and nettles for my compost, building more beds, improving my frequency of harvests and putting up much more of the spoils for winter usage, plus a few others.







Some of my goals for next year include:

• Add another 20+ fruit shrubs, trees and vines to the orchard
• Build 6" raised beds around the in-ground garden beds
• Further improve my composting by purchasing or building at least two compost bins
• Find load(s) of wood chips for delivery
• Add another 50 shiitake mushroom logs to the property
• "Plant" Wine Cap mushroom spores
• Build fence around orchard and garden

Kale was gorgeous right up until December.

I always make sure the list is beyond challenging, and often do well to get 1/2 to 2/3 of it done, but it pushes me to complete way more than I would otherwise. It feels awesome to check things off the list as well, even when it takes an extra year to accomplish. It also seems to help me prioritize and keep on track. Usually these goals fit into one of two categories, tasks that will reduce workload and tasks that will increase overall yields.

I'm really excited about all of these projects. I'm hoping to plant the last of the fruit trees and shrubs next year. I'm sure I'll add one here and there if I find an interesting variety down the road, but I'd like to see the brunt of them in now, growing and getting ready to feed us. I also want to make sure to plant enough perennials that even if we didn't plant the annual garden for a year, we would still have loads to harvest from the orchard / food forest. The fruit trees will take a few years to start to payoff, but I expect to have loads of fruit to sell, as well as enjoy ourselves, once they do. Planned additions include Asian pear, pecan and apple trees, along with additional pear, plum, and cherry trees to help pollinate the ones that are already in the orchard. I'm especially excited about adding the pecan trees, as pecans are quite expensive here and if we could harvest even a few pounds a year it would save us lots. The same goes for the heartnut trees, which will produce sweet walnuts in a few years.

I also plan on adding lots of smaller fruit bushes, shrubs and vines, including arctic kiwis, blackberries, seaberries, gooseberries, goji berries, cranberries, along with more blueberry bushes and raspberries. Of course, this is going to be a huge expense, but they don't take nearly as long to fruit as trees and once they're producing it will all pay for itself within a year or two.

Compost bins should be fairly inexpensive and hopefully not too much effort. I have a bit of scrap lumber and also some that is going to sit out all winter, so I can always use that to whip something up. I'd like to have a large 3 bin system so I can turn it properly and do hot composting instead of cold composting. Hot composting is much faster and takes a bit more effort as far as layering greens and browns. Greens materials are high in nitrogen, and include items such as vegetable peels, fresh garden debris, grass clippings, manure and coffee grounds. Browns are high in carbon and include things such as cardboard, paper, straw, hay, dead leaves and eggshells. I plan on planting a lot of comfrey and stinging nettle as well, to chop and add to the compost, or directly to the beds as mulch. Comfrey and nettle are both well known for their use in compost and as an organic garden mulch, as they have deep taproots that pull up nutrients from the soil.

Wood chips...the key to most permaculture food forests. I definitely need to get the chipper going this spring and take care of the pile of brush I collected from last year's big ice storm damage. That won't be nearly enough though, so I also need to find a local tree trimming company that would be willing to deliver a load (or seven) as I need way more than I can chip myself. The plan is to lay down contractor's paper around each tree to further choke out the grass, then add an inch or two of compost and finally top that with the 8-12" of wood chips. Once this is done I can stop mowing the orchard, plus I can start adding other permaculture layers such as herbs and ground cover (strawberries). For those of you that don't know about permaculture layers, the concept is to mimic the layers of the forest:

1. Canopy Layer - Taller trees 
2. Sub-canopy Layer - Smaller / dwarf trees and large shrubs
3. Shrub Layer 
4. Herbaceous Layer
5. Ground Cover Layer
6. Underground Layer
7. Vertical / Climber Layer
8. Aquatic / Wetland Layer
9. Mycelial / Fungal Layer

So far, I've only worked on Layers 1 & 2, but those should be mostly complete after next summer (2018), plus I'll be adding a number of plants from Layers 3, 4, 5, 7 and 9. Layer 9 brings me to my next goal, adding mushrooms to the garden!

As vegans, we eat a ton of mushrooms. I probably buy 2-4 lbs a week, sometimes more. At $5 a pound for just regular white mushrooms, and $6-7 a pound for Shiitakes, Cremini or Portobello, we probably spend $75-100 on mushrooms each month. You can imagine how excited I was when I found out you can grow them right in the garden! We took a mushroom growing course last year and bought a few each of Oyster and Shiitake inoculated logs. The Oysters were supposed to fruit this fall, and we did find one small mushroom right before the winter freeze, hopefully we'll see many more next year. The Shiitake logs are due to fruit in the spring and I'll be adding more Shiitake logs to that clearing, 50 is my goal, though I'd be happy if I can even get 25 done. I'll have to find a source for some birch logs, although I do have three on our property that I'll be sacrificing. Not a big sacrifice though as two of the three are leaning at a 45-degree angle into the yard due to the ice storm last year. I suspect the weight of the snow and ice will only make them worse by spring, so harvesting them for mushrooms will be a win / win.

I plan on planting Red Wine Cap mushrooms at the edges of the food forest once the wood chips are in. I may even use some straw to plant them in if I don't have enough wood chips, but I want to get them started. From what I hear, they are similar to Portobellos, which is great because those are a very "meaty" mushroom and great for vegan recipes. The Red Wine Caps are also supposed to be super easy to grow, as well as easy to identify as they have several obvious traits.



I ordered my mushroom supplies last week from a company in Maine called North Spore. Startup supplies included a set of three tools, two of which are a drill bit and adapter that are used to transform a regular angle grinder (I purchased one of these on sale last fall) into a high-speed drill. The third is a long, skinny metal plunger that you use to fill the holes with the sawdust spawn. I also purchased 5lbs of food grade paraffin wax, which is used to seal the spawn inside the holes after they are inoculated. The three bags of spawn, which include two bags of Red Wine Cap and one of Shiitake spawn will be sent closer to "planting" time, at the beginning of April. UPDATE: They didn't wait to send the spawn as advertised on the website (I was advised it shouldn't say that any more), instead sending it with the tools and wax. I called about it and they advised to just put the three enormous bags of sawdust spawn in the fridge until spring when I use them. Hopefully this doesn't affect the spawn in any way.

The final item on the 2018 list, a fence. A fence is something we've always felt like we needed, but couldn't afford. When we initially started expanding the garden a couple years ago, I contacted a fencing company for an estimate on a chain link fence to go around about 1/2 the property. I was quoted $15,000 and the idea of a fence any time soon, ended right about then. I've been watching a fellow on YouTube lately, (The Gardening Channel with James Prigioni) and in one of his latest videos, he builds a fence and just knocks it right out, complete with a gate that wasn't perfect, but he got the job done. It made me realize that some things (usually building things) that I put off, I need to just jump into and it will work out. Yesterday I spent the day watching videos on installing a chain-link fence and pricing components to build one myself. It will be costly to fence in the whole garden, but will only increase our property value and I figure we can do it ourselves for about $3500. There are several benefits to having the fence installed sooner, rather than later. For one, I can include a large, long pen for the dogs to run in while I'm in the garden. As we make the property more fertile and more inviting with its diversity, the amount of wildlife in the yard seems to increase every year. We haven't had problems yet, but down the road we undoubtedly will and this fence will keep out the deer, bear, fox, coyote and most things. The most exciting thing about the fence though, is it will provide additional growing space all around the food forest once it's completely installed, as the fence can be used as trellising for tomatoes, kiwis, grapes, raspberries, blackberries, cucumbers, etc. 

So that's the not-so-short list of goals for 2018. I'm sure it's possible one or two won't get done but I'm going to try like hell to make as many as possible happen. Either way I'm sure it's going to be another great year on the farm! I really appreciate everyone who has been along for the ride!