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!

In Transition

I haven't written in a while - partly because life has kept us busy - but mostly because we have decided that it was time to move.  After dealing with my Father's estate my husband and I realized we didn't want to leave our children with the problems associated with sorting out and selling a property that required ferry trips.  We would also like to downsize the amount of land we have to upkeep.  Moving seemed like the obvious answer.  And we wanted to make the move while we were still healthy and strong enough to organize our own move.

Coral bark maple and King Edward currant

This has not been an easy decision.  We are very happy here.  It's a private, secure oasis in a busy world that is increasingly unsafe.  We put our property on the market with the thought that it might take some time to sell - and that would be fine with us.  Therefore, the garden must go on.

Our priorities for a move will sound strange to many people.  My husband needs somewhere for his woodworking tools - somewhere big!  I need a level, sun-filled yard for my vegetables with no near-by cedar trees.  Oh, yes!  And a house!

I have already started a number of seeds under lights in the house - Copra onions and Bandit leeks - and they have been moved out to the unheated potting shed to join lettuce - Black Seeded Simpson, Drunken Woman and Red Sails, Kale - Improved Siberian and Lacinato, and Santee sprouting broccoli.  I also started my tomato and pepper seeds.

In the tomato line this year I'm growing my Health Kick plus a variety of cherry tomatoes - Yellow Pear is new at my house but comes with high recommendations,  Principe Borghese, Sweet Millions and Gold Nugget.  Unfortunately, in my haste to get the tomatoes planted, I double planted the Sweet Millions and Gold Nugget seeds!  However, once they get growing I know I won't have any trouble telling them apart.

Starting transplanting

Today the tomato seedlings were getting leggy enough that it was time to get them out to the potting shed.  Tomato seeds need heat to germinate, but once they're up, they can take cooler environments.

Plant tomato seedlings deep - almost up to the seed leaves

As always, when transplanting tomatoes, I plant them deep.  That gets rid of the legginess and provides more rooting area which makes for a stronger plant.  I put a small amount of potting mixture in the bottom of the containers and then insert the seedling as far into it as I can so that just a small length of stem is above the soil.

Transplanting finished the seedlings can enjoy a sunny spring day

Transplants finished, everyone gets a good watering with 20-20-20 dissolved in the water.  Later this afternoon when the potting shed is no longer in the sun, I'll put a plastic cap over the tomato seedlings.  This year, with a possible move in mind, I've put all my seedlings in 6-pack planters.  This takes up less space and I can easily transplant again into larger pots if necessary.  Spring gets going into high gear once again!

Tomatoes, Peppers, Celery and Mulch

After several cloudy but warm days, the sun has come out and we have a hot dry spell ahead of us.  It's time to give the tomatoes some TLC.

The tomato bed was prepared a couple of months ago.  Several wheelbarrow loads of SeaSoil were added and turned in.  The poles for the framework were put in place and holes dug by each pole - 10 in all.  Each hole was given a cup of homemade fertilizer which was watered in.  The bed sat like this and waited for the nighttime temperatures to be reliably 10C and a couple of weeks ago, that criteria was reached.  The tomatoes were planted in deeply and a week later were tied to the poles.

Today I trimmed off the lowest sets of leaves.  This is a prevention measure for when water splashes on the soil, carrying disease to the plant.  There won't be a lot of soil splashing on my tomatoes because they are mulched.

Every fall, we rake up the maple leaves below our house.  They sit in a pile getting good and wet all winter.  When spring comes, my husband puts them through our shredder and the resulting fluffy goodness is applied to plants that could use a mulch.  It's been very dry around here lately, but when I dug into the pile, the chopped leaves were nice and damp.

After trimming the tomatoes, I applied a good 3" of leaf mulch.  When the plants get bigger, I will probably trim off more bottom leaves.  The mulch keeps the ground nice and moist, which is an important thing for tomatoes.  They need a constant supply of moisture.  They don't want to be waterlogged, but they do need the soil to be consistently moist.

All of the tomatoes are forming flowers now.  My daughter, who is relatively new to vegetable gardening, asked if she should remove the flowers from her plants.  She was concerned that the plants weren't big enough to support tomatoes.  Leave them.  As the tomatoes form, the plant also grows.  If it has proper support, it will easily bear the weight of the fruit.  Since all the plants in this bed are determinate, I won't be pinching off side shoots either.  Gold Nugget (above) is always the earliest to flower in my garden and we love the little sweet yellow morsels.

I mulched 2 beds today.  The second bed to be treated was the one containing peppers, lettuce, celery and garlic.  The garlic has been mulched all winter, so this portion was fine.  As this particular bed was the last long one we built, it is also the one containing the least organic matter.  I've been finding that the top dries out quickly and water just runs off it.  Mulch will take care of this.  After weeding and watering, 3" of mulch was tucked in around the plants.

Mulching is an excellent way to treat celery, which wants lots of water.  I carefully tucked handfuls of mulch around each plant, burying them up to their leaves.

Commercial growers blanch their celery, and while I'm not planning on going to extremes to get pale celery, the mulch will do some of this naturally and keep the plants moist at the same time.

Working in this bed gave me a good look at the garlic, which is now producing scapes - yum!

And that brings me to another question my daughter had for me.  She was concerned about the uneven growth in her garlic.  I reminded her that she'd planted several different varieties - as have I.  Some of her plants are really tall and others relatively short.  She was concerned that perhaps some of her soil wasn't as fertile as other patches.  Not the case at all!  In the picture above I have 5 different varieties growing and it's easy to see that there are different growth patterns.  I have to stress that there are NO DUMB QUESTIONS in gardening.  We are all - even master gardeners, of which I am definitely not one - learning all the time.

April 2015 - Unseasonably Warm!

In all the stores selling vegetable plants you can see tomatoes, peppers and basil for sale.  With the wonderfully warm weather we've been getting this year, it's very tempting for a novice gardener to put these plants outdoors - after all, if they're selling them, it must be okay to put them out, right?  Not so.  These plants don't go outside until we have reliable nighttime temperatures of 10C.  And as for the basil, you don't dare plant it out until June as it's very touchy to cool weather.

My tomato and pepper plants are happily spending their time in the potting shed.  I'm not worried if the tomatoes get a little "leggy" as I can plant them right up to the bottom set of the first true leaves.  In the meantime, I'm making sure that their new homes outside will be ready for them when the time comes.  I've always known that tomatoes and potatoes are from the same family, but I recently learned that peppers come from this family as well.  This totally blows my garden plan right out the window as you shouldn't really plant these in the same bed in successive years.  Crop rotation means that you should wait until at least one year before planting in the same bed as a family member again.  So it's back to the drawing board!

The onions and leeks have now been planted and as I don't think I'll have enough Copra Onions from what I seeded, I picked up a package of yellow onion sets to fill up the bed.  This year I've planted Chinook Leeks in addition to Bandit.  Chinook are a summer harvest leek while Bandit is good in the cold weather.  Both are protected by pieces of fencing in case cats decide to try out the lovely loose soil!

The leeks are looking wonderful.  Last year I purchased 3 bulbs from Salt Spring Seeds to go with those I've saved from last year's harvest.  Leningrad, Czech and Spanish Roja are at the right of the garlic bed.  Leningrad has enormous cloves - there were only 4 on the bulb!

This year we took out one bed of asparagus and replaced it with new rootstock.  The older bed that remains is starting to show the first new spears and I've already helped myself to one delicious snack of raw asparagus!  The tiny seedlings at the left bottom of the picture are dill seedlings.  I finally have dill volunteers established in my asparagus after years of trying.  They are good companion plants and the dill keeps away the asparagus beetle.

In the snow pea bed, the young plants are just starting to climb their zig zag fence.  Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce plants have been nestled in the gaps.

When I turned over last year's Pacific Russet Potato bed, I discovered that one plant hadn't been dug up!  I found at least 9 lovely potatoes which had already started to sprout and moved them to a new home.  7 of the 9 plants are above the ground now and doing well.  We were very impressed with this potato last year and are delighted at the jump we've gotten on the potato season.  Another bed has Seiglinde Potatoes planted from purchased seed potatoes.

All in all, the garden is doing well.  It's very tempting to push the season and set out plants early, but I'm trying my best to avoid the urge.  And May isn't that far away after all!

Potting Up

Yesterday I finally got around to potting up little transplants.  I'm growing a lot of tomato plants for friends this year and have moved the tiny seedlings out to the potting shed.  Tomato seeds need heat for germination, but once they're up, they can take some cool temperatures.  With night time temperatures starting the move up, the potting shed it the place for them so they don't become too leggy.

Tomato and pepper seedlings in their temporary new homes

I always put the transplanted tomatoes deeper in the soil.  They will create roots on the buried stem, making the plant stronger and also making them less leggy.  More detailed directions on potting up tomato seedlings can be found in a March post from last year. At the same time, I potted up pepper plants.  They've been in the potting shed for a week now and are doing well.

My big problem is with pots.  I love to give away plants, but it's leaving me a bit short of 4" and 6" pots.  I'll have to ask for some pots in return!

Victoria Celery

This year I'm growing celery for the first time.  I carefully transplanted a dozen tiny seedlings into 6-pack planters and they have all survived.  Naturally, the ones left in the starting pot are ahead of them, not having suffered the shock of transplanting.  I may set out some of those as well as there are lots to choose from.

Lettuce Seedlings

Lettuce plants are also doing very well and I'll probably be able to set them outside any day now.

Red Currant volunteer against the potting shed

Today the weather is glorious, in spite of a dismal prediction.  The blue orchard bees are starting to emerge from their winter homes and the red currant is loud with the noise of pollination.

In the pond, the water marigold is coming into full bloom.  Fish are starting to come up for food and all the aquatic plants are waking up.  Spring is definitely here!

The Winter Bed

This has been an awkward year for the garden.  Just when it was starting to kick into high gear, life got in the way.  What with one thing or another, there just hasn't been the time to devote to the garden.  And this year, the name Messy Gardener really applies!  The vegetable beds have not been weeded properly and I haven't been able to take full advantage of the produce.

Today, however, it was time to start thinking ahead.  Time to get the winter garden in gear!  The bed that had the onions has been designated as the winter bed.  After the onions were harvested, I turned over the bed - and discovered that the cedar trees around my garden have managed not only to find a way in, but have widened those cracks and taken full advantage of the lovely soil in the bed!  It took a lot of hard work to cut the roots away and pull them from the soil, but it was finally done.  The combination of a very dry summer and cedar roots had left the soil very dry, so I've been watering this bed to prepare it for the plants to I'd planned to install in it.  A lazy woman's purchase 6 Red Russian Kale and 6 Red Sails Lettuce were bedded in as well as multiplier onions from this year's crop.

Kale and lettuce plants for winter use

This bed was also designated for garlic.  I went in with my daughter to buy fresh garlic bulbs to augment three of the best bulbs from this year's harvest.  First the soil was prepared - a good litre of my homemade fertilizer was worked into the soil.  Then the cloves were planted with the new varieties - Spanish Roja, Leningrad and Czech - being labeled for future reference.  There are now 52 potential garlic bulbs nestled down in the soil.  Then the whole bed was mulched with what is left of the SeaSoil and watered well.

Bright Lights Swiss Chard

In spite of my neglect, a number of things are doing well.  This has been a good year for the Swiss Chard.  From only about a dozen Bright Lights and Silverado, we've had lots of meals and it should do well through the winter as well.

Cantaloupe

There's one enormous cantaloupe and a number of smaller ones.  I won't be growing them again, but we'll enjoy what we have for this year.  I'm not sure what I'll grow in the compost bin next year - perhaps squash.  The Waltham Butternut has been excellent this year and if it gets the benefit of a compost bin next year, it should be even better.

Liberty Apple

Now that we're in September, the apples are coming ripe.  Our favourite has always been the little Liberty tree.  Beautiful crisp, tart little apples with brilliant red skins.  This tree was originally nearer the house.  Overshadowed by big trees and well nibbled by deer, when my husband suggested moving it, I didn't give it much hope.  It's thrived, however, and every year is so loaded with apples that the branches touch the ground, even after rigorous thinning in the spring.

And finally, on the flower side, the autumn crocuses are in full bloom.  They are always such a surprise!

I'm hoping that next year's garden with be able to benefit from more care than this year's garden got.  And with gardening it's always, "Next year, I plan to......"  With a garden, there's alway hope.

It's All About The Food

I have to start with a small back-story.  Many, many years ago I attended a friend's "kitchen-themed" shower.  I’d spent a lot of time over my present, picking out a collection of things I knew a new housewife would need – seasonings, baking powder, baking soda – things in that vein.  When she opened my present, the bride-to-be glanced at me with a smile on her face and said fondly, “Ah, practical Pat!”  At the time I was a bit insulted, but now I know that’s exactly me.

Concrete raised beds can grow a lot of food

When we first bought this property and started landscaping the grounds, it was esthetics I was concerned about.  My husband and I were both working and with the travelling time, there wasn’t much left for gardening.  I planted perennials and shrubbery.  Eventually we began thinking more about providing some of our own food and quickly learned that our rocky property wasn’t ideal for vegetable gardening.  Concrete raised beds became our way to get around the negatives of our property and the multitude of cedar trees in the forests surrounding us.  Lots of information on how we built these beds can be found on this blog. 

Some of our own potatoes - German Butter and Pacific Russet

As time has gone by, growing our own food has become the focus of our gardening.  We are fortunate to have access to lots of irrigation water – an extremely precious commodity on the Gulf Islands – but it has made clearer where our priorities lie.  Landscaping has shrunk to what shrubbery can survive without watering.  The majority of our efforts have gone into practicality – what we can eat.

Today’s climate situation has made that even more important.  British Columbia, Canada has come to rely too much on other areas of the continent to provide our food.  Now that those areas are experiencing weather hardships – drought, unseasonable cold, unseasonable hot and floods – it’s more than ever vital that we get back to supporting ourselves.  Unfortunately, a lot of extremely valuable farmland has been turned into housing and has now vanished.  At one time, British Columbians produced the vast majority of what they needed.  Now only a tiny portion comes from home with the rest being imported from the United States.  How are we ever to get back to being self-supporting?

Lettuces and swiss chard not only taste good - they look good, too!

We think it’s important to take on some of this burden ourselves.  We need to either grow our own if possible, or support those locally who can.  On our little island, a excellent little market garden, jollity FARMS,  has been created in the last few years.  Right now they are selling subscribed boxes to locals and the excess produce at the farm a couple of days a week.  They not only sell vegetables, they also sell bread and meat that they produce as well.  If we weren’t growing our own, I would definitely be subscribing!

So how can we help ourselves? 

A cascade of Sweet Million cherry tomtoes

Start by growing what is most useful to you.  Do you eat a lot of salads?  Lettuces and green onions take up very little space and look attractive.  A small investment yields a big return.

Herbs in pots on the deck

Use up every little space.  Pots on a deck can grow vegetables and herbs.  These days, plants are developed especially for container gardening.  Tomatoes are even grown in hanging baskets! A friend sent me a picture of a square planter that had a colourful variety of lettuces in it.  Very pretty and very practical!

A variety of pepper plants

Grow what works for you.  Can’t grow spinach?  Wood bugs eat mine as soon as a seedling pokes its head out of the ground.  Try swiss chard instead.  Or start the seedlings elsewhere and transplant as soon as they can withstand the bug onslaught.

Cantaloupe!

Think outside the box.  A friend found some large rope-handled plastic tubs on sale for a terrific price.  She drilled holes in the bottom and is growing a wonderful crop of potatoes in them.  We turn half of our 2-bin compost box over to something each year.  This year it’s cantaloupe again, and we’ve used it for tomatoes and squash in the past.

Copra onions take up one full raised bed

Think about winter storage.  We grow our full year’s worth of onions in one raised bed.  Same for garlic.  Some crops can be left in the ground and harvested as you need them.  I leave my leeks out and use them until spring.  Other friends leave potatoes and carrots in the ground – which you can in our mild climate.  I imagine they probably stay in much better condition that way.  Perhaps a mulch on top would help, too.

This year's Three Sisters Garden

Remember to put back what you take out.  Intensive gardening can be hard on the soil.  You need good quality compost and organic fertilizer of some sort to replenish the nutrition.  This year I’m also applying a liquid fish fertilizer to my crops and have already noticed a difference.  My Three Sisters Garden also fulfills this as the beans put nitrogen back into the soil.  The vegetation gets chopped up and composted at the end of the season.  We also collect leaves in the fall, which are run through our shredder and then used as mulch.

I apologize for the long lecture, but this subject is very important to me.  We need to rely less on others to feed ourselves.  If we don’t, the end results could be catastrophic.

Second Seedings

The garden is almost full now.  Today I seeded seconds of 6 vegetables and first seedings of 2.

I have some old New Zealand Spinach seeds which I bought a number of years ago from West Coast Seeds.  I'm not sure if they're still viable, but I might as well try them.  This is actually a "spinach-like plant which produces masses of leaves" and is very slow to bolt.  It can be perennial on our mild west coast.  I planted 9 of the fat seeds.  If they're a relative of beets and Swiss chard, there are several seeds inside the one capsule.  We'll wait to see if they germinate!

I also planted the last of the Vates Blue Curled kale seeds given me by a friend.  I grew them last year and they're compact little plants with tightly curled leaves.  I like to put a variety of colours of kale and cabbage in cole slaws along with grated carrot and chopped apple.  All the colours and textures make a wonderful slaw.

Second seedings of lettuces also went in small rounds.  Black Seeded Simpson, Drunken Woman and Red Sails were planted again.  All of these seeds - the spinach, kale, lettuces - were all seeded in small rounds marked with tags and will be transplanted to their final destinations when I see how many I have.

Carrots - Royal Chantenay and Scarlet Nantes, Cylindra beets, and parsnips were seeded in rows as these root vegetables don't transplant easily.

All that done, there's not much room left in the garden.  In July the garlic will come out and once I have pickable kale, the old Siberian kale planted last fall will be pulled up.  Hopefully this will provide enough room.  It always seems as if there's too much garden to plant - until you plant it - and then you realize you need more!

First Homegrown Salad of 2014

Okay - I cheated a bit.  The red pepper and cherry tomatoes were bought. But the lettuce, arugula and green onion all came from the garden this morning.

The dressing is a very easy ranch dressing and we like it so much it's what we use all the time now.  The chives and garlic are from our garden.

Ranch Dressing

1/2 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 garlic clove, pressed
chives and other dried herbs to taste

Put all ingredients in a jar and shake up.  I refrigerate it for a couple of hours so the flavours blend.  Keeps for 3 days although it rarely lasts more than a day or two.  Make it 2 parts buttermilk, 1 part mayonnaise and add garlic and herbs - so easy to remember!

Mother's Day in the Garden

May has to be one of the headiest months!  The air is heavy with the scent of lilacs and rhododendrons are in their full glory.

Our Cherokee Chief Dogwood is safely behind deer-proof fencing and looking gorgeous against a blue and white sky.

Many years ago I planted a Clematis Montana Rubens at the base of a cascara tree.  Today the top of the tree is a canopy of pink blossoms.  Too bad it's so hard to photograph!

Corn starting to sprout

A mouse has decided to help himself to my corn seeds!  I have 2 trays of corn planted, which is now starting to come up.  They are protected by a clear plastic dome, but evidently it's not tight enough to prevent a mouse from sneaking in!  One tray has been systematically robbed.  There are a few corn sprouts, but I'm afraid most of the corn in that tray is toast.  The mouse might be, too, because not far from the potting shed I found half a mouse.  In the meantime, I've wedged a pot against the plastic dome for that tray and I'll replant the corn.

The lettuces are almost ready to rob a few leaves from.  Time to seed some more!

The 4x4 beds are all full.  Potatoes well up and I expect some flowers on them soon.  Siberian Kale at the back of the kale bed is starting to go to seed.  Three plants each of Redbor and Improved Siberian will take their place when I pull them out.  In the meantime, I'll just snap off the flower heads.

The strawberry bed is lush with leaves and flowers.  Another month and we could be eating strawberries - if we can keep off the birds!

In the potting shed, tomatoes are starting to get a little leggy and as we have a stretch of wonderful weather starting, I decided to plant out the tomatoes today.  The bed has been ready for a while.  I dug 10 holes to receive the plants and poured a cup of homemade fertilizer in each.  This was worked into the soil, the hole re-dug and the tomato plant popped in a little deeper so that stems can form more roots.

Each plant has a galvanized tomato cage over it and a 6' stake beside it.  Now I'll lash bamboo to the stakes to create a sturdy framework.  This bed now holds 4 Health Kick, 2 Classica and 4 Principe Borghese tomato plants.  As they are all determinate, none of these tomatoes will require pruning.   A Sweet Million cherry tomato occupies a half barrel and 2 more cherries, Gold Nugget and Sweet Baby Girl, are in pots on our deck.  I foresee lots of sauces, salsa and salads in the future!