Finally! Something other than greens. This week marked the first garlic harvest. A couple of weeks ago, I noticed that my garlic (about a dozen heads grown at the community garden) had a major case of rust. Rust is a fungal disease that looks exactly like – you guessed it – rust.
Not having personally encountered rust before (another day in the garden, another disease!) I turned to my trusty friend, The Organic Gardener’s Handbook of Natural Pest and Disease Control, an incredible and thorough resource. Unfortunately, it delivered bad news. Rust, it said, often affects yield. (What?! No garlic harvest, after giving it space in my garden since last October?). The best remedy? Avoid planting members of that plant species where the rust occurred; the spores can be carried in the soil. That means no alliums in my community garden plot for for two-three years. Bummer.
This, my friends, is rust. (Actually, this was in the early stage. A week later, almost the entire crop was orange.)
My garlic wasn’t quite ready (garlic is ready to harvest when the bottom three-four leaves die back; only the bottom-most leaf was brown on mine), but I decided to chance it, rather than let the rust take over.
I’m glad I did. Here’s a shot of one of the heads – ‘Russian Red,’ I believe. It’s a respectable size and is drying nicely. I’ll just give it a week or so until the skins are dry, and then, look out! I’d better stock up on mouth wash.
Okay, I’m a little late for Harvest Monday. But Harvest Tuesday sounds just as good, no?
Not much new to report in the way of new edibles this week. I’m still harvesting salad greens by the bucketful (well, bowl full, at least): endive, various lettuces, beet greens, radishes.
We’ve also been eating a lot of sugar snap peas, broccoli raab, and steamed beet thinnings (those seedlings pulled to make room for others to grow). Broccoli raab tastes just like broccoli but – bonus! – it is ready much sooner because you don’t have to wait for a big head to form (it produces multiple little heads).
The ‘Sieglinde’ potatoes are flowering, which means I can basically start harvesting baby potatoes any day – yay!
What are you harvesting now?
You can see what others are harvesting on Harvest Mondays, hosted by Daphne’s Dandelions.
On hot summer evenings, our recently-renovated back patio is where it’s at. It’s private (well, as much as it can be in an urban setting) and peaceful (well, as much as it can be with kids playing street hockey a few feet away, and neighbours who love karaoke and mah jong). After a long day, when Lila is finally asleep, there’s no better place to relax with a glass of something cold and potent. The sounds and smells of the city just add to the feeling of being in our own little leafy paradise.
It’s also dark. There’s a porch light, but it’s rather ineffective – and does nothing for ambiance. When we redid the garden, installing traditional hard-wired garden lighting seemed like overkill for this tiny (12′x15′) space (not to mention the added labour and cost), so we skipped it. Perhaps that was a bad call, but I’m not convinced.
Like many people, we’re trying to reduce our energy consumption. Candles are a good option, but aren’t great when you want to play an al fresco game of cards. Solar lighting, in which a rechargeable battery is charged during the day by a tiny solar panel (often integrated with the lamp), seems like a logical solution, but I’m scarred by memories of dim, feeble solar lights from gardens past.
In a quest to find out if solar lights have improved, I interviewed Akshata Kalyanpur, a lighting expert at Canadian Tire. (more…)
Hello friends! Just wanted to point you toward my new Heavy Petal Facebook page. Please “like” Heavy Petal and I’ll alert you to new blog posts, offer contests and giveaways, share interesting links and new garden-related finds, and keep you updated on my forthcoming book. That’s it! End of pitch.
‘Garden Babies’ butterhead lettuce poses on my balcony.
Here in Vancouver, summer is a little delayed. While the incessant rain and cool weather has meant stunted warm season crops, rust on my garlic, and pepper plants that are still biding their time indoors, it’s also meant a bumper crop of lettuce, scallions, herbs, arugula, spinach, and peas. In short, I’m growing killer salads.
We’ve been eating green salads every night with dinner, and truthfully, I can’t get enough of them. In winter I certainly do, when I end up eating them just to put some green on my plate. But garden-fresh-herb-topped salad that I grew? Bring it. Night after night.
Tonight’s salad consisted of one head of ‘Garden Babies’ butterhead lettuce (pictured above), chopped scallions, beet greens, sugar snap peas, and a sprinkling of calendula petals, dill, mint, and thyme flowers.
What are you harvesting now?
Another before-and-after post for you this week. This, of course, is a caterpillar, the larva of a painted lady butterfly.
The Very Hungry Caterpillar is one of Lila’s favourite books, so my mom thought she’d enjoy seeing the transformation process up close. Like in a box on the mantle.
A few days after my mom brought over the caterpillars (two, each in their own individual plastic cup), they fixed themselves to the lids of their cups, and transformed into chrysalises. Then we took the lids off and taped them to the lid of a more spacious abode (a plastic salad box).
Another few days passed, and the butterflies emerged! Unfortunately, both chose to leave their chrysalises at night, so we didn’t actually see it happen.
Hello, you! Welcome back – you’re looking better than ever.
That red stuff? Butterfly pee. (Who knew?) We fed them thyme flowers for a day, then let them loose in the wilds of East Van. Far thee well, ladies.
A couple of weeks back, I received my yearly trial pack of Proven Winners annuals: a giant box filled with six new introductions. Here they are, clockwise from top left: Superbena® Royale Chambray (Verbena hybrid), Golddust™ (Mecardonia hybrid), Lucia™ Lavender Blush (Lobelia hybrid), Supertunia® Pretty Much Picasso™ (Petunia hybrid), Slightly Strawberry™ (Anisodontea hybrid), Superbells® Blackberry Punch (Calibrachoa hybrid).
As I’ve mentioned before, I especially like receiving these boxes of plants because of the surprise factor. Often they aren’t plants I’d seek out in a nursery, but once I find a home for them in my garden, I quickly see their value. That’s been the case with the whole Proven Winners trial program; before I was “forced” (poor me) to find homes for them in my garden, I didn’t see the value in annuals. Now I like them – in moderation – for the instant punch of colour and easy care they offer.
This year’s box of plants arrived once my garden was pretty full up, so I decided to put all my eggs in one (hanging) basket.
This is the first time I’ve made a moss hanging basket from scratch (as opposed to planting into a plastic or wooden hanging basket container). Moss hanging baskets are usually made using a wire frame lined with peat moss, coir, or an artificial liner.
I used a Supamoss liner, which was clearly too small for my jumbo frame, but with a little added moss, it managed to hold in the soil. I don’t have more detailed photos of the process because, wow, was it messy. In a nutshell, starting near the bottom, I poked holes through the liner, inserted the plants, and topped up with soil. I worked my way upward, poking, planting, and filling, until I reached the top. Then I stuck a ‘Tumbler’ tomato in the centre, because apparently I can’t plant anything without it containing an edible.
I wasn’t thrilled with the look of the faux liner (especially with the gap at the top), so I covered the entire thing with moss. And damn, it looks fine.
Ta da! Can’t wait to see how it fills in.
Have you made a hanging basket this year? Share your photos on my new Facebook page!
I just lined up my posts for the week and by pure coincidence they all seem to be before-and-afters. But who doesn’t like a good makeover story?
This story features leeks, the hardy and mild allium. It starts late last summer with the planting of my winter garden. The leeks held strong all winter, really started beefing up in early spring, and eventually started forming seed heads.
But while allium flowers are perfectly gorgeous (look at all the ornamental varieties) I wasn’t growing mine for the flowers.
So I harvested. But what to do with them? Could I do these lovingly-grown leeks justice? Could I do better than the ubiquitous potato leek soup?
Yep. With a flamiche (a French leek tart). I made mine with rustic-style short crust, creamed leeks and brie. Served it all with a (homegrown) green salad in an attempt to counterbalance the fat content of the tart. Easy, impressive, and delicious.
It’s June! The tomatoes are on their way.
In the Pacific Northwest, we’ve just crossed that magical June 1 threshold into the warm season. (Yay!) In theory, June 1 provides an indicator as to when we can begin planting out our sensitive warm-season crops, like peppers, eggplants, beans, basil, corn, cucumbers, squash, and tomatoes, because, heck, summer is just around the corner. In the midst of this torrential downpour, summer couldn’t feel further away, but I know it’s coming. Anytime now. Please.
So we’ve officially entered the “warm season.” But what does that mean?
Vegetable crops are either cool season or warm season. Cool season crops thrive in the cool and damp of spring and/or fall, while warm season crops thrive in the heat of summer. You can find a list of common cool and warm season edibles at the end of this post.
Now’s the time to sow or plant out all those sensitive warm-season crops mentioned above. It’s their time to shine.
But that doesn’t mean you have to immediately stop planting cool-season crops like beets, lettuce, and carrots.
The major hurdle to growing cool-season crops in the summer is the risk of bolting. Bolting is a term to describe what happens when the plant decides its work here is done and it’s high time to start making some babies. It sends out a talk stalk of flowers and stops producing the leaves or root that we want from it. When that happens, the plant is generally past its best-before date. It may not be inedible, but often it will taste bitter, or tough. So obviously, we want to prevent our plants from bolting, which can be hard to do during summer heat waves.
Exhibit A: Bolted chard.
Many cool-season crops are prone to bolting. Lettuces and other salad greens are particular susceptible; arugula and spinach are almost guaranteed to bolt in summer. Beets and radishes are also prone.
The best way to prevent bolting is to make regular sowings, and harvest regularly. That’s because bolting is often triggered by a sudden change in temperature (technically, it’s caused by lengthening daylight hours, but in my experience, temperature fluctuation is the biggest culprit). We can get around that by succession sowing (for example, planting a short row of lettuce, then planting another two or three weeks later) and harvesting regularly. That way, we’re growing in a shorter time period and there’s less chance of the plants being effected by a sudden temperature swing.
Another way to prevent bolting is to provide afternoon shade, or plant in the shade of larger plants. I like to sow lettuce seeds at the same time I transplant my tomatoes, for example, because by the time the tomatoes are large enough to shade the lettuce, the lettuce will appreciate the shade.
(more…)
The endlessly soggy, gray days we’ve been having here on the Wet Coast have me desperately craving sun and summer.
They won’t change the weather, but these cheerful, but eco-friendly plates, bowls, and ice cream “cones” from Shiraleah will brighten any day.
This is the time of year to stock up for outdoor eating, but the majority of tableware designed for outdoor use is plastic. These offer the sturdiness of plastic (they’re unbreakable, and dishwasher safe), but are made with biodegradable bamboo fiber. The fiber biodegrades in less than 10 years, and doesn’t leach. Yay!
Available from ShopInspiredLiving.com.
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