Corn!

Now that we are deciding that while the real estate market on Vancouver Island is hot, hot, hot, on our tiny Gulf Island, it's not, not, not, I'm becoming resigned to the strong possibility that we will be staying here for the near future.  And that's not a bad thing!  We love the peace, security and quiet of our little island and have a lot going for us here.

And with this in mind, my enthusiasm for gardening - which had cooled somewhat lately - has returned full force.  It was time to start the corn!  I start my corn in the potting shed.  This allows me to start it earlier than I would outside which is a help when growing the sweeter varieties which take longer to mature.

I purchased extra deep potting trays from Lee Valley some years ago, and they work really well for corn which sets long roots and doesn't particularly like them disturbed.  Each tray has 36 sections, which is enough to give us a few good feeds of corn - that's all we ask for!

I fill the corn tray with a good potting soil, shake it to settle the mix and then add a bit more on top to fill the sections.  Then I place one seed in each section and press down with my index finger to just past the first knuckle.  More soil goes on top to cover the seeds.

The tray get a good watering.

Finally a plastic lid goes on top to keep the heat in for germination.  I will wedge pots at each side just in case a mouse decides to check out my seeds.  One year I had to give up on starting corn in the potting shed as mice came in and ate every seed!

The seeds will sprout quickly and just as I'm starting to see roots popping out the bottom, I'll plant them in their new home.  A covering of Remay cloth will keep them warm until summer is firmly in place.

Corn planting done, it was time to water the rest of the garden and do a few chores.  I like the early mornings for garden work.  Watering - which I prefer to do by hand - gets plenty of time for the moisture to seep down into the soil.  I take this time to thoroughly inspect each crop and adjust care as necessary.

I planted the beans a week ago.  This year I didn't move the bean structure as we weren't sure what our status would be.  It doesn't really matter with beans as they're happy to continue building up nutrition in the soil.  We'll move it next year.  I planted the beans at the base of the structure, 5 beans to a structure wall, protected them with water bottle collars and supplied each seed with a bamboo pole to help it reach the structure walls.  And yes, I haven't removed all of last year's dead bean vines.  They will eventually break up and fall down all on their own.  I am "The Messy Gardener" after all!

This morning I could see that the bean seeds have germinated with a lively green sprout showing in nearly every collar.

Finally I potted up the 2 remaining tomato plants which are destined to go to a friend who is still away on a trip.  The plants went into gallon pots and will now live outside with the rest of my tomatoes until the friend returns and can take them.

The only plants left in the potting shed are the peppers and a basil, all of which need hotter weather before they can go outside.

Planting Tomatoes - Early!

This spring has been a warm one so far - lots of record-breaking temperatures.  And since no one seems to want to buy our house, today I stuck the tomatoes into the ground!  Usually I plant them out around the 24th of May, but when you have steady nighttime temperatures of around 10 C, you can set them out.  And my plants were getting quite leggy in the hot potting shed!

To combat the legginess, I dug the planting holes to the bottom of the concrete beds.  I trimmed off the lower leaves from the stems and snugged 2 big shovelfuls of screened compost for each plant.  Each plant got a good watering at this point.

Then I filled in the holes gave them another water and fitted a large tomato cage over each plant.  These 6 plants are Health Kick - a determinate tomato that doesn't grow too tall, but produces heavily and needs strong support.

The tomatoes are already sporting flowers!  I have cherry tomatoes planted elsewhere in the garden - Gold Nugget, Sweet Million and Yellow Pear.  A friend traded plants with me and an Indigo Rose (another cherry) will sit in a 4x4 bed with a Gold Nugget. The rest of the bed the Health Kick are now occupying will be planted with peppers - Anaheim, Ancho, Jalapeño and Hungarian Hot Wax.  The sweet peppers - Gypsy - will go in the 4x4 bed with the cherry tomatoes.

The rest of the garden is doing very well.  Snow peas are scrambling up the zig zag fence.

Lettuce is ready to pick.

And this lovely Iris should really be owned by someone who is into growing flowers - my efforts these days are all about vegetables.  It's called Thriller and is an amazing colour!

Invasive Cedar Roots!

One of the reasons for gardening in concrete raised beds is that we have nearby cedar trees.  They are thirsty trees and the roots are continually seeking out moisture and nutrients.  Before we put our compost bin on a concrete base, the cedar roots were in there immediately!  Concrete raised beds with concrete bottoms and drainage hoses solved out gardening problems.  Well, at least we thought so!

Unfortunately,  the cedar trees managed to find tiny cracks in the bases of two beds.  This means that each year before planting, I have to dig out the areas of the beds they've managed to broach and cut out the roots.  They do manage to re-establish themselves, but at least I've minimized the damage.

Today I tackled the first bed.  This one grew a super tomato crop last year and this year I'll be planting onions in it.  The roots are all coming up the one side of the bed, so I dig all the soil away from that side and expose the roots.

Soil pulled from the side of the bed to expose the roots

Once the roots are visible, I cut them off with a knife.  Then I can shovel all the soil back in place and the bed is ready for another year.

Sneaky cedar roots creeping in!

A pile of cedar roots removed from the raised bed

In the next day or so, I'll do the second bed.  This is the last one we built, but the cedar roots got into it right away.  It's been a very wet winter so far, but when I turned over some of the soil a couple of weeks ago, it was quite dry underneath the top - that's the cedar roots!

And now on a happy note!  A number of years ago, I brought home some camas lily seeds.  I scattered them on the rocky hillside below the garden plateau.  The first year I saw a few brave green spikes but forgot all about them.  I've never seen flowers yet, but this year there are lots of camas lily leaves.  Maybe this will be the year we see flowers.

Camas Lily leaves

This hillside is wild and we just cut down the weeds and grass when it gets too high.  It never gets watered.  But there are the camas lilies just below the top!

Garlic Planting 2015

I started this blog in September 2012 with planting garlic.  The purpose of the blog was to provide myself with a diary of work in my garden.  I had tried many methods of keeping track and all had failed.  This was my last resort to log garden activities - successes and failures - and I started with garlic.  Three years and one month later, I'm planting garlic again.  I'll save the retrospective for another post and just get on with the garlic!

This year, the garlic is being planted in the bed that previously was home to onions - NOT an ideal decision on my part, but this bed was good and rich.  The onion crop was outstanding.  This bed is the only one that is totally free of planting and was going to be topped with good old SeaSoil, so we'll just see how we get along!

First the bed was turned over and raked.  I got the bulbs ready having saved the best bulbs from this year's harvest.

I set the bulbs beside where their rows would be.  This year I planned to have double rows of each variety and since I don't think I really grew enough last year, I have 8 bulbs to plant.  Hopefully that will be enough. In the picture above, from the top are Leningrad, Czech, Spanish Roja, Porcelain and an unknown variety I've been growing for years.

I carefully peeled back the papers and gently pried out the cloves, setting them in place and then pushing them into the ground just up to the top of the clove.

Finally, a wheelbarrow load of SeaSoil was raked over the top and the whole planting left to soak up the winter rain.  Garlic doesn't like competition from weeds so it's important to give it a good mulch.  This year's planting takes up just over half of one concrete raised bed.  In a few weeks I may find the first brave green spikes thrusting up through the mulch.

A few cloves were determinedly stuck together and these were brought into the house for consumption.  In spite of the poor garlic year in which many people bemoaned the poor garlic harvest, Leningrad and Porcelain have produced magnificent cloves.

Garlic taken care of, a quick look around the garden showed that the Brussels Sprouts are finally starting to form.  Whether or not they'll be ready in time for Christmas - who knows!

Bright Lights Swiss Chard is delighted that the cooler weather is here and looks just as beautiful as it tastes.

The heritage Italian beans had been harvested and brought into the potting shed to start drying.  Today I brought them into the house to finish.  It won't take long to complete the dehydration and then I'll shell them and store them away for planting next year.

Garlic and Onions - When to Stop Watering

Each year I stew over this subject.  Onions are simpler, but when to stop watering the garlic always makes me think.

GARLIC

Garlic plants at the beginning of July

My situation is outside the norm since I'm vegetable gardening in what amounts to a giant container garden.  Not only that, but this year's extreme early heat and lack of rain makes the situation more complicated.  I've been keeping watering longer than I normally would because things are drying out so quickly.  If you stop watering too soon, the garlic won't fully develop.  If you water too long, you run the risk of the garlic splitting the skins - which I've definitely had happen in the past!  The drying foliage is only one indicator.  I've also been keeping watch by digging up a couple of bulbs.

Test bulb

Two days ago, the bulb I dug up looks to be ready.  The cloves are clearly defined under their paper wrappers.  I've therefore stopped watering the garlic which will sit in the ground for a couple of weeks before I dig it up.

I recently learned another tip in garlic harvesting.  I've always pulled up the garlic, but a recent West Coast Seeds newsletter talked about carefully digging it up so that the bulb is not harmed in any way. After the garlic is out of the ground, I always tie and hang it out of the sun to cure.  When good and dry I cut off the stems and roots, then store the bulbs in open paper bags which I put in a cupboard on an outside wall.  And of course I always save the best bulbs for planting come October!

ONIONS

This year I grew 2 varieties.  I always grow Copra which is such a good onion and keeps so well, but thinking that not enough seed germinated, I bought a bag of yellow onion sets which were planted in the same bed.

2 varieties of onions growing in the same bed

Naturally, the sets have matured much more quickly than the plants grown from seed and a week or two ago, the yellow onions started to fall over which is a sign that they're maturing.  The Copra onions are still stiffly upright and have some time yet to go so they're receiving a good watering every day.  I have now stopped watering the yellow onions and will pull them up in a day or two.  Unlike garlic, onions can be dried in the sun.

Yellow onions

I'll just leave them on the surface of the bed for a few days.  Then, I'll brush off any clinging dirt and put them on racks to finish curing in the potting shed.  When the necks are completely dry, I'll cut off the stems about 1" above the bulb and trim the roots.  Then they'll go down into our heated crawl space for storage.  I'm anticipating that the yellow onions won't keep as well as the Copra do, and we'll definitely use up these ones first.  Since the bulbs are so much smaller than Copra, it probably won't take long to use them up.

Onions and Garlic are two crops that I would always grow.  They don't require a lot of care and the yield is wonderful.  And garlic is the easiest - the major growth time occurs during the winter and spring when it doesn't even need to be watered!  There's nothing like home-grown garlic and onions!

June in the Garden

It's been a very dry growing season so far.  Since the end of April we have had precisely 7.4 mm of precipitation.  As I noted in July 2013, I now water mostly by hand.  I used to have watering systems in place, but since our garden water comes from an irrigation pond, as the season rolls along, weed grows in the pond and chokes up the nozzles of the watering system.  Plus, I really enjoy watering by hand.  I know exactly which plants need water and it allows me to keep a watchful eye on the garden.  And it's relaxing!

Salvia Forkoahcei next to cattail rushes - it's tall!

Today while watering I was struck by a plant at the end of the pond.  Salvia Forkoahcei came from seed I purchased through Salt Spring Seeds a number of years ago.  It's a rare perennial that gets really large - almost shrublike - and has tall spikes of blue-purple flowers.  This particular bed has received no water other than the above-mentioned rain water and yet it's doing extremely well in very dry soil.  One reference I found mentioned that deer didn't like it.  It has sown little plants elsewhere and I can see that this might be a valuable plant to have in the garden!

Another view of the pond

The vegetables are the only plants that get watered in our yard, and because we are blessed with a big irrigation pond, they are well looked after.  And in the warm spring we've had, everything is doing well and ahead of where they usually are.

The bean arbour with corn in front of it.  Basil in pots

The beans are scrambling up their new arbour and the corn is growing by leaps and bounds.

Suyo Cucumber and Patty Pan Squash

In one of the 4x4 concrete raised beds I planted a Suyo Cucumber and a Patty Pan Squash.  I put a bit of fencing behind the cucumber for it to climb on.  You apparently get straighter cucumbers this way and the cucumber is definitely doing its part to scramble up the fence.

Gold Nugget Tomato truss

All of the tomato plants have fruit on them.  Gold Nugget is always the earliest to ripen in my garden,  and it won't be long until we can help ourselves to delicious sweet little tomatoes.

The celery is doing well.  I'm making sure it gets lots of water so that the stalks don't become hollow. I imagine lack of water would affect the flavour as well as the texture.

We could sure use more rain and none is in the forecast.  In the meantime, I'll keep watering by hand, observing the garden and thoroughly enjoying myself!

Bean Supports

I prefer to grow pole beans.  They take up much less room than bush beans and are so much easier to pick.  I've tried a number of support systems - single poles, tripods, etc.  A few years ago, I asked my husband to make me a portable rack that would fit across our concrete raised beds that could be moved from bed to bed each year.  It worked out very well - except for the fact that he made it 8' tall - who can pick beans that high without a ladder?

Friends have one of their vegetable beds in a big circle.  Wire fencing is formed into a spiral and they grow squash, tomatoes, garlic, onions and beans in it.  It's beautiful and functional.  The beans grow up the fencing and are encouraged to cross from fencing top to fencing top - it makes picking pretty easy!  That gave me the idea to try something similar in my garden.

Obviously I can't do the spiral gardening thing as my beds are already in place and are permanent.  But I could set up framework to make a sort of arbour which could be taken apart at the end of the season and could travel across a couple of beds.  It was worth trying!

The new bean arbour spanning 2 beds.

Yesterday, my husband made up 3 wooden rectangular frames 4' wide and 4' high.  We set them up on the south side of one bed and both sides of the bed next to it.  I had already planted beans earlier in anticipation of the plan.  Next we took the 8' frame from the portable bean rack and set it on top.  Naturally it was a lot more complicated than these few sentences make it sound!

Beans now on bamboo poles - I will guide them to the chicken wire when they get bigger.

Today I stapled chicken wire to the 3 support rectangles of the bean arbour.  As the bean plants get taller, I'll guide them to the wire so they clamber up the sides onto the top.  As the plants will be about 6' above the ground, it should be pretty easy to pick beans.  In theory, anyway!  I guess we'll see.

Tomato Experiment Update:

The plant on the left is the experimental plant.  Much bigger than the one on the right!

About a month ago now, I planted one tomato outside under a plastic cloche.  A couple of weeks later, I planted out the rest of the tomatoes.  I made sure that a plant that had been the same size as the experimental plant was situated right beside it.  My thought was that the plant kept longer in the potting shed would be healthier and more advanced.  It does have more flowers but the first tomato is much bigger and healthier looking.  I sure got that one wrong!