It's almost time for Pickles!

In truth, I despise pickles. I hate their texture, I hate their taste, I hate the way they look. I am not a pickle-fan. I do love cucumbers though, and salty cucumbers - so go figure! I also really enjoy making pickles. This year I planted both straight-8 cucumbers for eating and calypso for pickles.

Last year was my first attempt with canning, and since everyone is still alive I actually bought myself some real canning equipment this year & I'm all ready to go for it! I had some wonderful videos I followed last year that I have now lost the link for, but You Tube is filled with way more then just pirated movie clips and music videos. There are tons of how-to videos from regular people, lots with really great information. Basically you need a pot, some jars, a few tea-towels and a jar lifter (learned that one the hard way!) in addition to the contents of your jars.

All I can really offer it the moral support as I'm still pretty new at canning. Go for it! It's really not as scary as you think it's going to be. You can impress all your friends and family as well as saving all those veggies from the garden that otherwise would go to waste.

Sunflower Update

My sunflower, oh my sunflowers, I love you so. With the perfect growing conditions we have had this year (lots of sun, just enough rain, nice and hot) my sunflowers are now well over 7' tall and higher then my porch roof. Which only leaves me wishing I had grown something in between the size of the sunflowers and the strawflowers, other then a few Jalapeño plants which are still quite small. Oh well, next year!

One of the many amazing properties of sunflowers is the wealth of little creatures they feed. There are the aphids which happily snack on their juice (instead of my vegetables, I have no aphid issues in my veggie patch!), and the ants which tend the aphids. Then the lady bugs who also enjoy the aphids, in a different way, if they can get around the ants. Then the bumble bees, who enjoy the nectar (you can see them in both pictures with their back legs covered in pollen), I have no fear of bees and I'm very happy to see them as they are struggling these days. Then lastly there are the chickadees who come and visit me in the fall and pick most of the sunflower seeds out of the heads so they can bulk up for the winter.

Plus the flowers themselves are quite showy and beautiful.

Of Babies and Things

One of the greatest gifts from my vegetable garden is the bounty of baby food available for my sweet little 7 month old. Yes, 7 months is a little early for solid foods (I'll level with yah, he started them at 4 months ) and especially to be eating non-pureed foods; but both my boys were early & BIG eaters.

For a quick meal I zip out to the garden, grab a zucchini, put a pot of water on the stove, wash then slice the zucchini, quick steam, cool them in cold water & hand them over to the babbling little guy who happily stuffs his face full. When he was smaller I'd blend everything really quickly in my blender for a nice puree, but once those teeth started coming in he really wanted something to bite down into.

He's been eating green beans, carrots, lots of zucchini but his favourite are the Lincoln peas. I got SCREAMED at for not planting enough when he ate them all in one meal and decided he was still hungry. Unfortunately with the heat this isn't really the best time for peas, but I decided to throw some more into the garden under the shade of the beans and just hope for the best. Once we get a little closer to fall I will plant a whole bunch more.

It is an amazing feeling to deliver to your child something you grew in your own soil just for him; after all I grew him too.

Sparse? ... SPARSE?

My husband actually accused my garden of looking "sparse" this year!! I couldn't believe my ears & quickly corrected him saying it wasn't that it was sparse, it's that compared to last year everything is organized and tidy! He did concur but on further reflection, I'm afraid he's a little right.

I had a great plan set out for my succession planting, and then (as I had really planned) I didn't follow it and just went with what the garden told me. I found out I was eating less salad then I did last year, so I planted less, leaving a ton of extra space at the end of the garden bed. Plus with the warmer weather I found the lettuce I had planted was growing quickly enough I could double up on the space as I harvested (sewing new seeds in the sections were the lettuce was just about ready to be eaten).

My beans are more then over-flowing their bed, but I put them against the back fence so they are very easy to contend with. I actually ran out of bean seeds, mostly because they were the most fun for the kids to play with, and partially because I spilled a whole bunch in our driveway. So there is another gap at the end of their bed I attempted to fill in with transplanted carrots with scummed to the heat.

I decided to forgo putting corn in the vegetable garden and sew it in the field beside the house, combined with a heavy pruning hand with the dill, I have almost nothing, except a few beans, growing vertically in my garden this year. Also the squash usually growing in and around everything isn't invading the patch this year, they are also in the side field. The cucumbers are nicely contained in one of the smaller beds, along with an enormous zucchini plant, they are just sort of tucked away in the corner.

These empty spaces between my veggies are annoying me to no end. To a gardener, there is no greater sin then wasted space! But now isn't really the time (with the great amount of heat we've been having) to put in the few things I had reserved for a fall harvest. So for now I'm keeping these spaces covered with newspaper to keep down the weeds and I will have to come up with a better space-use plan for next year. Maybe with a few different kinds of vegetables! Swiss chard? Brussel Sprouts? Broccoli? No, I better find something we'll actually eat.

G#!@ &$#@ BUGS!!

When you decide you're going to be an organic gardener you really have to go at it whole-hog. Of course there is nothing wrong with deciding to use pesticides if that's what's right for you, but if you want to make that commitment to organic gardening that sometimes means grinning and bearing it when the bugs win. It started with just a few tiny holes in my cauliflower leaves, then my Arugula developing a few love-bites, then a little more off the cauliflower, and total inhalation of the Arugula. The holes in the cauliflower aren't going to kill the plant, but they do reduce the production capacity and make for smaller vegetables. I can deal with a nip or two of of the outer-leaves of my lettuce, but the Arugula was completely inedible, it was terribly sad smelling that sweet peppery aroma as I ripped them out for the compost. *sigh* They smelled SO good!

The best organic way to prevent bugs is proper crop-rotation and distribution. I know for next time the flea beetles suspected of being the culprit will attack both cauliflower and arugula, and now I know for next time to plant them further apart (in this case they were about 3', next time, either sides of the garden!). I later found cabbage worm in my cauliflower! BOO HISS! A floating row cover would have prevented them from being laid on my lovely vegetables.

The best organic way to treat for bugs is a soap and water solution. You use 1 part liquid soap: 4 parts water in spray bottle and it really knocks the bugs on their bums. You do need to keep it up every day, also you need to be careful not to burn your plant's leaves (especially with lettuces!) with too much soap.

Birds like my Strawberries? What a surprise!

This one it totally on me! I lost my entire first crop of strawberries because I didn't plan ahead. We live in a wildlife rich area. There are a pair of robins who visit my garden quite regularly with their chicks, I quite enjoy seeing them. Until they started eating my strawberries, then I wasn't so pleased.

The solution was quick & easy! Bird netting. Instead of just throwing them over the tiny plants, I had my husband build some stakes from each side of the bed to keep the entire netting elevated over both strawberries. This makes it easier for me to access the plants under the net (strawberries & my lettuces) as well as prevents the birds from landing near the berries and just poking their beaks through the netting.

Originally I went out looking for a floating row cover to do double duty of keeping bugs off my lettuce, the lettuce cool, and the birds off my berries; but I learned something, big-box garden centre employees don't know what floating row covers are and will look at you like you have two heads when you ask for them. At least that was my experience. Oh well, the netting works just find and the berries are SO good! As an added bonus it keeps the cats out of the garden, but I have very little issue with them pooping in there after chasing them with the hose a couple times.

Preventing Weeds

I'm trying a few different weed-reduction solutions this year. Already the raised beds have made segmenting my work so easy I can go out to the garden with 30 minutes of spare time and pick one spot to weed and feel like I've accomplished something. You can purchase landscaping cloth from your nursery or garden centre. There are lots of different kinds, both plastics and biodegradable options, which you lay over your bed then cut slits into for you veggies. I wanted something cheaper (/free or almost free), so here are a few DIY options.

Grass clippings
These work well because they add back nutrients to the soil when they decompose, they also make for a nice mulch to keep the water in. I did find they haven't kepts the weeds down as well as other methods. I am using them both in my potato box as filler instead of soil (for the potatoes to grow in) and around my celery to try and blanch it. You have to be careful when selecting grass-clippings as your weed-supressor because they can create areas of anaerobic bacterial growth (where no air is getting in) and can hide harmful pests. My determination: proceed with caution.

Plastic Garbage Bag
If you live in a hot climate this is not a good idea, you are going to cook your plants. In Ottawa, it's a perfect solution for heat-loving vegetables. I used this in my pepper bed to heat up the soil, then when it was time to transplant I cut slits and grew. I was planning on removing the plastic eventually but it's worked so well I haven't needed to. I did throw a little dirt on top of it to prevent too much sun-absorption as the weather got warmer. It completely blocks out all the weeds so they haven't been a problem at all in this bed. My determination: use selectively.

Newspaper
The best way to use newspaper in a weed-suppression function is to create a garden lasagna (I didn't make that up!). I use it around my beds to keep the weeds down where I haven't put any veggies in yet. And it works really well. It keeps all but the strongest weeds (such as my poplar) from growing, and ensures that when I'm ready to plant, I just have to remove the paper & seed. Plus most newspapers use a soy-based ink now, so you're adding something to the garden that isn't going to add any harmful bi-products. The only problem, it does tend to blow away so I always make sure I keep some soil on top of my paper. Plus you're recycling and if you pick up free community papers or get yesterday's paper from the stand - it's 100% FREE. My determination: use everywhere, but weigh down.