Cantaloupe!

I had originally been going to post about disappointments in the garden and cantaloupe was going to be the star of the post.  I'd Googled "cantaloupe+harvest" to see how you tell when they were ripe.  Apparently the stem starts to separate from the fruit - much as a cake will start to separate from the pan when it's baked - but I hadn't seen any of that on my cantaloupes.  I did pick one when I started to see a little bit of yellow on the netted skins - but it was only partially ripe and totally tasteless.

Then I noticed that one was starting to rot, so a few days ago, I picked the last 2 cantaloupes and brought them in the house.  I'd been going to chuck them, but decided to cut them open first.  Surprise! Beautiful, deep orange inside - and deliciously sweet!

Okay, maybe I will grow them again next year - with some changes.  I'll start them a bit earlier and coddle them in the potting shed longer.  When I plant them out - again in the compost bin - I'll protect the tender stems with water bottle collars.  The damage that wood bugs did to the stems this year probably set the plants back quite a bit.  And I might grow 3 plants instead of the 2 that I grew this year.

This year's crop was certainly pretty meagre when you consider the time and effort that went into producing 2 small fruits, but they weren't taking up room in the garden, so perhaps they're worth another try.

Planting Garlic - Full Circle

It's hard to believe that a year has come and gone.  I started this blog last year on September 12th with the planting of garlic and today, almost exactly a year later, I'm planting garlic again!

Russian, Porcelain (I think!) and my own bulbs.

I had saved two bulbs of my own growing but wanted to get some new ones as well.  Long Lake Nursery in Nanaimo had garlic for sale grown on Gabriola Island - Porcelain and Russian.  Unfortunately they were all in one basket and not easy to identify!  I know that Russian has some red to  the skin of the clove and Porcelain doesn't, so I tried to get 2 bulbs showing red and 2 not.  When the wrapper came off, however, 3 of them look like Russian and the other looks like Porcelain.

Half planted

The bed was prepared several weeks ago by adding a couple of wheelbarrow loads of SeaSoil.  It had previously grown snow peas and they would likely have put some nitrogen back into the soil.  Today I marked out my rows with a good trowel full of homemade fertilizer.  I allowed a row for each bulb and placed the rows of what I hoped were the same variety together.  At least if each bulb has its own row I might have a better idea of which variety that bulb is.  But then, maybe not!  Each row has 6 or 7 cloves in it, gently pushed into the soil root end first.

Garlic all planted and waiting for the soil to settle.

Once the soil has settled with the coming of the fall rains, I'll add a mulch of chopped leaves on the top.  Garlic doesn't like competition and chopped leaves are very good at keeping weeds at bay.

Oregon Sugar Pod II

The snow and snap peas are planted in the bed beside this one and are doing very well.  I'm hopeful that this year I got them into the ground with plenty of time for some production.

Sugar Lace II

I planted 2 varieties, Oregon Sugar Pod II - which I had grown in the spring - and Sugar Lace II which is actually a snap pea.  Now that they are growing, it's very easy to tell which is which.  Sugar Lace has an abundance of very curly tendrils and apparently doesn't even need a fence to grow on.  I'm thinking they won't be as tall as the Oregon Sugar Pod.

Bright Lights Swiss Chard volunteers

And in between the zags of peas are the volunteer Bright Lights Chard, looking extremely happy and healthy.

Zippy Salsa

Salsa!

A number of years ago I started making my own salsa.  I was using a mix made by Bernardin which produced a lovely spicy salsa.  I didn't follow their directions exactly (what else is new!) and added my own onions and sometimes peppers I'd grown as well.  Unfortunately, last year they discontinued that mix and put out a new one which looked very different.  As I didn't have enough tomatoes last year, I didn't bother trying it out but this year, there are lots of tomatoes on hand as well as some great peppers.

My husband's cousin had also been making the salsa using Bernardin's mix and this year she tried the new one but was very disappointed with the results.  She found a new recipe on the Internet, so I decided to search out one as well.  Of course, I tried Canadian Living first and found one called Peppy Salsa which had very good comments and even a video to show you how to make the salsa.

I had the tomatoes, onions, garlic and jalapeno peppers thanks to the gift of a plant from a friend.  Jollity Farms proved to be a good source for medium heat peppers, although they didn't have the peppers called for in the recipe.

Six kinds of peppers chopped up!

I bought pepperonchini, Hungarian wax and another red pepper the name of which escapes me.  I got sweet red and yellow peppers from the grocery store.

All the ingredients ready to cook up.

My daughter scared me when she blanched at all the peppers in the recipe so I decided to halve it, which gave me 6 sealed 1-cup jars and a half jar for the fridge.  Now that I've made it and tasted it, next time, I'll do the full recipe.  It's pretty good!  I call mine Zippy Salsa because I didn't make it exactly as Canadian Living's recipe dictated, but here's the link to their recipe:  SALSA! 

Three Sisters - Judgement Day

Although it's been a lovely warm September day, fall is in the air.  The corn is long finished and the beans have all but stopped producing.  Squash vines are dying while the fruit on them is ripening in the sun.  It's time to take a good hard look at how the Three Sisters garden worked out this year and to decide on what changes should take place if I decide to repeat the experiment next year.

Today I took apart one of the beds, all except for a butternut squash which was still growing in the bed.  I was careful not to uproot the cornstalks around it; I just cut them down.  Everything else, irrigation line included, has been removed from that particular bed.  Two very large wheelbarrow loads were removed to one side of the compost bin.

I think that overall, the experiment was successful.  There are definitely things which need tweaking, however.

The corn component worked out very well.  With the strength of the bean vines, it withstood the wind and wasn't blown over as corn has been every year in my garden.  We certainly enjoyed feasts of fresh corn from our garden!

Beans set aside for seed ripening in the sun

The beans were immensely successful - in fact much too successful.  They broke down the cornstalks, luckily after the corn had been mostly harvested.  We had enormous harvests of beans and were very pleased with the quality.  When I took apart one of the beds, however,  I discovered masses of beans which had been hidden in the jungle.

Spaghetti squash

The squash component has been the least successful.  Those plants which were placed directly in the beds with the corn and beans were definitely over-shadowed and didn't produce much.  The spaghetti squash which was planted in the bed between the two corn/bean/squash beds fared much better and there are lots of squashes ripening from this one plant.

Will I do another Three Sisters garden next year?  I think so.  We have plans to replace the old wooden beds with something more durable.  What will I do differently next year?

As I did this last spring, I'll start the corn in the potting shed and plant it out when the night temperatures are about 10 C.

When the corn is about 6" tall, I'll plant the beans outside protected by water bottle collars so that the timing is better and the corn has a chance to make some height before the beans start scrambling up the stalks.  And instead of the 16 plants I grew this year, it'll be more like 8.  I think I might grow more bean plants separately so I can keep better control over the production.

The squash is a puzzle, though.  I'm not sure how I can grow good squash plants in my restricted raised bed situation and next year it might be a Two Sisters garden!  The squash might be planted in one of the new 4x4 beds so that I can ensure that it gets the proper care.

And on a squash note, the cantaloupe is starting to ripen in one side of the compost bin.  I got 6 cantaloupes from the 2 plants.  And here, as well, I have plans to grow cantaloupe again next year, but with changes.  I'll grow the plants in the potting shed for longer and I'll put a water bottle collar in place while they're still tiny.  The wood bugs had quite a feast on the young stems before I protected them this year.  I'm sure it set them back more than a bit.

All in all, the Three Sisters garden was successful.  With minor changes, I'm sure it'll be even more successful next year.

Tomato Retrospective

These days the kitchen is humming with the sound of the dehydrator hard at work.  The tomatoes in the garden are ripening quickly now, but we're also getting some rain and cooler temperatures.  The time of the tomato is drawing to an end.  I now have a very good idea of which varieties worked in the garden and which ones didn't.

KEEPERS

Principe Borghese will always be a keeper in my garden.  This plant produces good crops of cherry-sized tomatoes which I use exclusively for dehydrating.  I use the dried tomatoes all winter long in soups, stews, etc.  While it's not very exciting eaten fresh, I have lots of others that will fill this niche.  Principe Borghese is my tomato of choice for drying.

Health Kick is a plant I picked up at a nursery in the early summer.  Its growth habit is tidy and with the coming of the rains, there was no sign of blight on its leaves.  It has had a tremendous crop of good-sized plum tomatoes.  The picture above is a basket which represents about half of the crop of one plant!  Currently West Coast Seeds doesn't carry this variety although I've sent them an email requesting that they consider it.  Mckenzie Seeds does carry it in Canada, so I can buy my seeds there if necessary.  As it's a hybrid, saving seeds from this variety is not an option.  Next year I'd like to grow at least 4 plants in the garden.

Cherry Tomatoes:  I'll probably continue to grow Gold Nugget and Sweet Baby Girl.  Their growth habits are tidy as both are determinates and both provide good crops of sweet-tasting tomatoes for salads and sauces.

REJECTS

I will not be growing Moneymaker and Bonny Best again.  They both were very unsatisfactory.  Bonny Best, in particular, is not suited to my concrete raised beds.  Its water requirements were excessive and the plants were always droopy no matter how much water I gave them.  Both developed blossom end rot which is a sign of insufficient water.  In my opinion they both put too much energy into structural growth and not enough into fruit.  The jury is still out on Honey Bee.  It produced good crops of tomatoes and its semi-determinate growth enabled me to keep it relatively under control.  The question is, however, do I really need 2 yellow tomatoes?  Unfortunately, Beth's Big Fat Tomato quickly fell prey to blight.  This was particularly disappointing because I so wanted it to succeed.

NEXT YEAR PLANS

I would like to have at least 4 plants each of Principe Borghese and Health Kick.  I'll likely also have at least one each of Gold Nugget and Sweet Baby Girl.  I still need a good slicing tomato that will be able to flourish in the confines of a concrete raised bed.  Research!  I need good crops of tomatoes to fill our needs of sauces and salsa.  It's been a couple of years since I was able to make salsa, but if Health Kick works out next year, perhaps I have the answer.  That's it with a gardener, isn't it?  We're always thinking, "next year....."

Insidious Cedar Roots

Here in the Pacific Northwest, the cedar is an important tree.  Tall, majestic and long-lived, the cedar provides superior wood which is light and resistant to rotting.  It's the tree of choice for the long native dugout canoes.  It's not, however, the friend of the gardener!  Cedar and maple roots are always searching for water sources and these two trees are the main reason we went to concrete raised beds.

Today I was preparing a bed for this year's garlic planting which will take place in a couple of weeks.  As I turned over the bed, I discovered the intricate network of cedar roots in one end of the bed.  This bed was one of the first we made - before we realized how important it was to have the exit drain pipes above ground!  I had thought this bed only had one drain, but obviously there was a second one hidden under the old carpeting which keeps down the weeds in the path between two beds.

Exposed roots on the inside of the bed.

Digging out the end of the bed finally disclosed the second drain which showed me where to dig outside the bed to find where the roots were coming in.  I hacked off the roots, which given a few more months, would have completely filled the drain pipe.  My husband has cut out a piece of the old carpeting to expose the drain end and in addition, drilled out what he could of the pipe.

Cedar roots showing on the outside of the drain pipe before being drilled out.

When cedar roots work their way in through the drainage pipes they are fairly easy to deal with.  Not so easy is one bed where they've discovered a hairline crack in the base of a bed.  With this bed, I have to dig it out each year and rip out the roots.  Unless I expose the entire base of this bed, I'll never be free of roots here.  It's a never-ending battle with the cedar trees and their roots will travel an amazing distance to search out the rich soil in my concrete raised beds.