Looking Back - 2014

Now that the main gardening season is coming to a close, it's time to take a look back at what worked, what didn't and how things can be improved.

SUCCESSES

Onions - the best crop ever!  Huge onions and only 2 transplants failed.  In view of what I discovered when I turned over this bed after harvest, I'm not sure why the onions were so successful.  The bed was full of cedar roots!  Perhaps it was the soil itself.  Last year this bed held tomatoes.  The tomatoes themselves weren't that successful mainly due to the fact that the varieties I chose weren't what I really wanted.  A lot of tomatoes fell and were turned into the soil.  So perhaps this bed got some extra nutrients other beds didn't.  Likewise, the shallots and multiplier onions were also good crops.  I have a nice basket of fat shallot bulbs and lots of multiplier onions to start next year's crop.  In addition, I planted 5 multiplier bulbs in the winter bed as an experiment.

Tomatoes - again, the best crop ever.  This time, I'm crediting the success to the varieties I grew.  Principe Borghese always gives me lots of little tomatoes for dehydrating.  Classica turned out to be a good producer as well.  The star of the tomato bed was Health Kick.  I have lots of packages of roasted tomato sauce in the freezer, 2 batches of salsa tucked away in my canning shelves and plenty of dried tomatoes in the pantry.  I'll be growing more Health Kick plants next year - not so much for myself, but because those I gave plants to had similar successes and would like more plants.

Squash - 4 Waltham Butternut plants gave me an abundance of squashes - 20 to be exact and 2 more that may yet ripen before frost.  Next year I might grow squash in the compost bin as I'm going to stop the Three Sisters experiment - more on that later.  Although my husband is not crazy about squash, I love it.  The squashes I have will keep nicely and at Thanksgiving, I'll be using at least one to make butternut squash pie which beats pumpkin pie hands down.  Recipe at a later date!

Swiss Chard - I grew about 5 each of Bright Lights and Silverado.  The Bright Lights plants have huge, colourful leaves, much bigger than the Silverado, so the production is much better on the Bright Lights.  I'll be keeping the plants through the winter.  These 10 plants have given us lots of meals and bunches to give away as well.

Strawberries - This is the first year I can really count strawberries as a success.  This was mainly due to the fact that the raccoons didn't discover them and we netted them against the birds.  We had many lovely desserts of strawberries and ice cream!  The variety is Totem and they are in one of the 4x4 beds.  This fall, I'll have my husband weed-eat the leaves off them, give them a good drink of fish fertilizer and the last of the SeaSoil so that we can have a good crop of strawberries next year.

Grapes - again, this is due to the fact that we beat out the raccoons.  This is only the third time we've done it and I can't hazard a guess as to whether next year we get a crop.  I have one quart jar full of raisins in the pantry and 6 trays in the dehydrator.  And there are lots more waiting their turn!

DISAPPOINTMENTS

Potato Grow Bags - I went into the experiment with high hopes, but this hasn't worked out.  I think growing the plants so close together doesn't give them enough nutrients.  Also, it was difficult to keep sufficient moisture on them.  I will grow potatoes again, but I'll grow in them in the raised beds instead.  We particularly liked Pacific Russet (for baked and mashed potatoes) and Seiglinde (wonderful for potato salads) and were disappointed in German Butter but perhaps that's because they were grown in the bags.

Beets - not sure why they didn't turn out the way I'd hoped.  A friend tells me her beets were disappointing, too.  Perhaps the soil wasn't rich enough.  The beets were small and didn't grow well at all.  I'll prepare the soil better next time.

Parsnips - the germination rate was very poor.  I was using year old seed and perhaps parsnip seeds don't keep well.  I'll buy new seeds for next year.

Herb Pots - another experiment that didn't turn out as I'd hoped.  It seemed like such a good idea to grow these closer to the kitchen, but I think they'd all be better for being in the ground.  I think that our deck didn't receive enough sunshine for the plants.  I'll stick to flowers on the deck in future!

Three Sisters - another experiment that I thought was working out well, but in retrospect have decided that the three plants are better off on their own.  The corn did okay except that because I was growing it with other plants, I didn't seed as much as I would have liked to.  The squash was very happy.   The beans were disappointing.  I hardly got any for picking as they were too hard to find in the foliage.  I think that next year I'll use half a bed for corn and grow a few beans in amongst them just for the stability they provide.  Squash will grow elsewhere.

VEGGIES THAT NEED IMPROVEMENT

Asparagus - my plants are nearing the end of their productive lives.  I have 2 beds a couple of years apart in age, the oldest of which is probably about 16 years old now.  We'll pull up them and replant with new stock after enriching the bed.  Then next year, we'll change the other bed.

Beans - while the beans were productive, my bean rack is too tall for me to reach them.  I'd like to set up some kind of arbour for the beans to grow on so that it will be easier to pick them.

Peppers - the main problem here was the soil in the pots.  One pot had some of the soil I used to fill the potato grow bags.  This plant (a cayenne) grew well and produced lots of attractive red peppers.  The other pots had a different brand of soil and you can really see the difference in the health of the plants.  The plants that were in the raised beds grew well.  Next year I might set aside half a bed for peppers and create some kind of plastic tunnel over them to give them more heat so they produce earlier and last longer.

Time to Harvest the Garlic

Recent family events have put the garden on hold and there has only been time to water and grab a few items for dinner.  The garlic has been waiting patiently for its turn to be harvested and today I finally had the time.

I've been allowing the ground to dry up which will help the garlic bulbs in their curing process.  The dry ground made it easy to pull up the bulbs which I stacked in 2 piles to keep the varieties separate.  They mostly look a good size - not like last year's production which was a bit on the small size as that bed hadn't received the SeaSoil that this bed did.

Once the garlic had been all pulled up, I separated them into 4 sections and tied them with twine with a loop at the top.  This year I've hung the bundles on the end of the woodshed to dry in the shade.  They'll be out of the sun, but get lots of drying breezes.  It's important not to leave the bulbs drying in the sun, but to get them into shade as soon as possible.  This is the opposite of onions, which you cure in the sun first, then once they have nice papery outer skins, bring them inside to finish curing.  And for both garlic and onions, never wash the dirt off.  Allow it to dry completely for a few weeks and then you can trim off the roots and tops, and then brush away any remaining dirt.

The Three Sisters Garden is growing apace!  Four butternut squash seeds are certainly taking up a lot of room and are even starting to scramble down the bank towards the pond.  I see lots of little squashes forming on the vines.  The corn is tasseling out nicely and flowers are forming on the beans.  The two old wooden beds will definitely have to be replaced this year as the wood is rotting out.  A good project for winter.

Things are exploding!

We are in the middle of a little heat wave.  People in regions that are used to hot summers will laugh but 32C is pretty hot here on the coast!  The garden, however, is loving it.  I'm out there watering twice a day just to make sure that everything is happy.  This year I've abandoned my watering systems in favour of hand watering.  Now that I have more time to devote to the garden, it makes sense to pay more attention to what actually needs the water.  Early in the morning when the garden is still in the shade seems to be the best time with a selective top-up in the evening.

Copra Onions

I think these must be the best onions we've ever grown.  It's only the first part of July and already they're bulking up nicely with no sign of slowing down.  This bed had tomatoes in it last year, received lots of SeaSoil and had a good dusting of homemade fertilizer before the seedlings were transplanted.  We only lost 2 seedlings and none of the plants show signs of going to seed, which is the result of a cool, wet spring. So far this year, we've been fortunate.

Corn and beans!

The Three Sisters Garden is a veritable jungle!  There are only 4 squash plants in the beds this year and all are positioned to sprawl out of the bed - which they are definitely doing.  I see lots of little Waltham Butternut Squash forming.  The Fortex Beans are scrambling up the corn stalks and they're a much better choice than the Italian heritage beans, having smaller leaves.  Hopefully they won't break the corn stalks.  The Italian heritage beans are starting to form flowers, so it won't be long now before we can have beans for supper!

Sweet Millions

The tomatoes are also very happy with the heat.  Sweet Millions has fruit starting to change colour.

Classica Tomato

All of the tomatoes have heavy crops and I can see some busy times ahead processing the bounty.  Both Classica and Health Kick have lots of tomatoes and while both are bush varieties, Classica seems to be a bit more compact and the fruit are more elongated.

Cantaloupe

I placed a piece of fencing behind the cantaloupe which is growing in the compost bin.  This way, the vines will climb up the fencing and the fruit will be much easier to find and keep clean.  Here, too, small fuzzy balls are starting to take shape.

I pulled out the snow peas yesterday and we carefully removed the zig zag fence so as not to damage the sunflowers.  Several were staked as I'm not sure how stable they will be now that the fence has been removed.  Then I transplanted 2 of the peppers to this bed and today seeded kale for a fall crop.  If the wood bugs leave the seedlings alone, I'll transplant them to the small bed that had Seiglinde Potatoes in it.  When the garlic has been pulled - in a week or so - I'll plant a fall crop of snow peas in their place.

I may not enjoy the hot, hot days, but the garden certainly does!

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.

Three Sisters - Year 2, Planting Beans

Today has turned out to be a gorgeous hot day - in spite of the weatherman!  We were forecast to be cooler today and indeed, this morning was breezy and cool, but the wind died down and this afternoon it's lovely and warm.  As we're expecting at least a week of nice weather, time to plant the rest of the beans.

This year, I'm not planting nearly as many beans with the corn.  I have the Italian heritage beans planted in two spots elsewhere, but this year I'm planting Fortex beans in with the corn.  This is a bean I've grown every year except last year.  It produces an abundance of filet beans about 10" long which freeze well.  While the vines are vigorous, the leaves aren't nearly as large as on the Italian heritage beans and since I'm only planting 6 beans per bed, there shouldn't be nearly as much strain on the corn.

The corn germination has been quite disappointing.  As noted earlier in this blog, I usually start the corn in the potting shed and transplant it.  A mouse (or mice) destroyed all my Bodacious seedlings so I've had to plant directly outdoors and then didn't have enough corn seed left to completely plant the beds.  A final row was seeded with Peaches and Cream.  I now have 34 Bodacious plants and 15 Peaches and Cream.  As I'm not saving seeds, there should be no problem growing the two varieties together.

Bean seeds protected with a water bottle collar

To plant the beans, I pulled back the Remay cloth and seeded 6 Fortex beans per bed, 3 on each side.  Four of the seeds were protected with water bottle collars and 2 were planted without.  It's an experiment!  As I pushed each seed into the ground I could feel how hot the soil was - perfect! While planting the seeds, I discovered an extra butternut squash plant.  I had seeded 2 seeds per pot when I started them in the potting shed and once they were up, discarded the weaker one.  I guess a seed was late coming up!  One of the beds has a bare spot at a corner, so - waste not want not - I transplanted the little squash there.

Three Sisters beds with the transplanted squash seedling in the closest bed bottom right

Now the Three Sisters beds are complete.  For now it's just wait and watch.  For the next little while, I'll continue to cover the beds with Remay cloth at night and remove it during the day so that the soil can get nice and warm.  Next year these beds will be dismantled as the wood in these old beds is rotting.  We'll replace them with one big concrete raised bed but this time without a bottom as cedar roots don't seem to have reached this far - yet!

Three Sisters Year 2

Last year, the Three Sisters garden was quite successful and so warranted trying again - with some changes.

This year, I planted the corn in the potting shed as I've done for years now.  As can be seen from earlier posts in this blog, mice have decided I'd given them a banquet!  I therefore had to plant the seeds directly in the garden and after trying twice in the potting shed, didn't have enough Bodacious corn seeds to fill the beds.  Unable to find any of that seed, I planted a row of Peaches and Cream.  It will be a week later than the Bodacious, but this year I'm planting my rows in diamond pattern so hopefully if they tassel out at different times, there won't be much of a problem with pollination.

Remay protection on cool days and at night

The first seeding of corn is up and about 4" high.  I'm covering it at night with Remay cloth and opening it up during the day.

Remay off on sunny days until the weather is reliably warm.

At the same time that I planted the corn, I set out 3 butternut squash plants.  2 of these are at the south ends of the beds and 1 is in the centre.

Bodacious corn seedling

As I said above, the corn is about 4" high now.  When it reaches 6", I'll plant the Fortex beans and protect them with water bottle collars.

So what am I doing differently?

Last year the beans were so lush and heavy that they broke the corn stalks.  This year, I'm growing Fortex beans in the corn.  It's not as big-leafed as the Italian heritage bean which I'm growing elsewhere.  I planted it at the same time as the corn last year, but this year, I'm giving the corn a head start - which I was supposed to in the first place.

Last year, I grew too many squash plants and the ones at the back of the beds didn't do nearly as well as the ones in sunnier spots.  This year,  I'm only growing 3 plants and all are placed in the sunniest spots.  In addition, I didn't seed corn to the end of the beds at the inside where the 2 beds meet.  Hopefully this will give the squash enough room to grow.

I grew zucchini in the tires at the back of the bed last year.  This year, the zucchini is planted in a concrete bed in front of the Italian heritage beans seeded at the bean rack.  I'll plant impatiens in the tires as they like a bit of shade - and we always need flowers in our lives!

Melons and Strawberries!

May can be such a variable month!  This morning it was pouring with rain and chilly.  This afternoon the sun has come out and it's HOT!  Actually pretty good weather for getting a number of chores done indoors and out.

After we cleaned out the pond filter (whew!  stinky!) I planted out the melons.  I grew them in the compost bin last year and am doing the same this year.  I am, however, preparing a little better.  The wood bugs attacked the young plants last year and I almost lost them.

This year I dug holes in the compost and filled them full of potting mixture.  I transplanted the young melons into the mixture, firmed and then carefully put a water bottle collar around each, then applied a generous ring of diatomaceous earth around each one.  That should keep them safe!

Strawberries are forming and some of the berries are getting quite large.  Keep your fingers crossed that the birds and raccoons leave us some!  The last time I grew strawberries, I protected them with special bird netting cages.  Just as the berries were ripening I went out one morning to find all the cages thrown off and no berries left.  Raccoons!  It was the same for the grapes and hazelnuts.

The beans are lapping up the heat.  The beans on the rack were started in the potting shed and are ahead of the half barrel beans.  They're starting to form vines which will quickly scramble up the rack.

The half barrel beans aren't far behind though, and they got a good dose of pond filter water to help them along.  All in all, the garden is coming along well.  I planted out the last of the corn today - Peaches and Cream as I'd run out of the Bodacious seed.  So the Three Sisters bed is mostly Bodacious with one row of Peaches and Cream planted 4 days later.  When the corn is 6" tall, I'll plant Fortex beans.

Getting Ready for Tomatoes (and other stuff!)

It's almost time to plant out the tomatoes.  Our nights are almost consistently above 7 degrees C and warm days are coming - after a couple of cool rainy ones, of course!  The bed for the tomatoes has already been prepared with a couple of wheelbarrow loads of SeaSoil.  I've decided to plant fewer tomatoes in the bed and only the ones which I'll use for dehydrating and sauces/salsa.  I already have a couple of cherry tomatoes in large pots on the deck and a half barrel in the garden will be home to a Sweet Millions tomato.  So that makes 10 tomatoes going into a raised bed - 4 Health Kick, 2 Classica and 4 Principe Borghese.

Tomato bed ready for plants

I dug the holes for the plants and placed 6' stakes beside each hole.  I'll add a cup of homemade fertilizer to each hole and work it into the soil before planting.  The stakes will be the foundation for a framework of bamboo poles lashed to the stakes.  It makes a surprisingly sturdy support for the tomatoes.  Initially I'll put hot hats on the newly transplanted tomatoes until the days and nights are consistently warm enough and then water lines and tomato cages will be set in place.  Then it's just waiting for the crop!

After reading about all the food shortages which will be coming our way, we decided to be pro-active.  We will already be growing beans in the Three Sisters Garden and I'm going to put up the framework my husband made for me to grow my Italian heritage beans on.  This year I'll plant Fortex beans in with the corn.  The vines aren't as heavy and vigorous as the Italian heritage beans and perhaps I won't have broken corn stalks this year!

A bean barrel experiment

I'm setting up for a third bean garden and this one will be in a half barrel.  I set in a tripod of 6' stakes and joined them to a nearby fencepost with a long, thin piece of wood. I've planted 6 of the Italian heritage beans here and will grow these ones for dried beans.  These dried beans will be the seeds for next year as well as a store of dried beans for using during the winter.  Cheap protein!

The pond from the back looking to the house

I also did a little work around the pond.  The steam leading to the pond had to be relieved of its pebble bottom as it was causing the water to spill over the sides of the stream.  I'd just left it beside the stream and of course, it's created a huge mess as the grass has grown up around it which I've made a start at repairing.  The pond is starting to come into its own with 3 Japanese maples around it. I'm particularly pleased with a self-seeded bullrush which appeared 3 years ago.  I recently saw hummingbirds taking fluff from an exploded seed head for nesting material.  Now if only the redwing blackbirds would come, the pond would be complete!

The Seeds Are Here!

Seeds for the 2014 Garden

So that must mean that spring is fast approaching.  At least I'll tell myself that.  It's the end of January and there's still a lot of winter left.

I ordered seeds from T & T Seeds this year as they carry Health Kick Tomatoes.  I ordered 2 packages of them in case they're hard to find next year.  In addition, I'm trying out another paste tomato, Classica.  Just to finish off, I ordered a package of Pink Swirl Impatiens from the Super Elfin series.  Every garden needs some flowers and these will be great in pots around the pond.

The West Coast Seeds order is, of course, the big one and they had everything I asked for:

Beets - Cylindra
Carrots - Royal Cantenay and Scarlet Nantes
Corn - Bodacious
Kale - Improved Siberian & Redbor
Leeks - Bandit
Lettuce - Drunken Woman (!), Red Sails and Simpson Elite
Onions - Copra
Peas - Oregon Sugar Pod 2
Squash - Waltham Butternut
Swiss Chard - Silverado and Bright Lights
Tomato - Principe Borghese and Sweet Million

So now the planning begins!  Today I turned over another bed and mulched the garlic which is well up.  We checked out the Three Sisters bed which is on its last legs.  We'll be able to get one more year out of it and next year it will be replaced with one long bed which will be at least 4' wide.  I also checked out the bed that has cedar roots creeping in through a crack and sure enough, there are lots!  That bed will have to be dealt with next.  Then I need to sit down and decide what will go where.  Crop rotation is important and root crops need to be followed by non-root crops.  One of the new 4x4 beds will be for potatoes - just enough to satisfy the craving for those delicious new baby potatoes!

Plans!  The bed which is growing garlic will also host some early spring planting and I'm going to try getting some lettuce going now.  I'll start it in the house and once it's up, transplant it to pots in the potting shed.  When they're strong enough, they'll be planted in the garlic bed and protected with hot caps.

In February - that's next week! - I'll start kale, leeks and onions.  Near the end of the month, I'll get the tomatoes started.  I won't grow as many as last year, but concentrate on cherries and romas.  This year I'm determined to get several batches of salsa to go with the pasta sauces.  I also want to grow some on the deck and bought some really big pots from Lee Valley last fall along with special grids to go under them to protect the deck.  They'll grow cherries tomatoes and basil.

This is the really exciting time for gardeners - planning!  Soon enough will come the hard work.

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.

Beans!

One of the things I've learned from the Three Sisters Garden is that I've planted too many beans!  I'll go into all of the things I've learned when the Three Sisters Garden is finished, however, today I'm processing beans.

I normally only plant about 8 pole bean plants and in the past I've always grown Fortex.  This is a bean that produces lots of extremely long, tasty beans which freeze beautifully.  This year, with the gift of seed from my husband's friend, I've grown instead heritage Italian beans.  I put in 16 plants amongst the corn and now realize that's waaaaay too many!  These beans have enormous leaves and I think they're even more vigorous than Fortex.  They've broken the tops of the corn stalks - fortunately corn is finished for the year - and formed a huge mat across the tops of the corn.  It's very hard to grope in the jungle to pick beans!

I've been picking for a couple of weeks now and today there seemed to be enough to process for freezing.  I picked half a big wicker basket full of the purple-splotched beans and carefully left those which are growing on the bean rack I've placed to hold up one of the patches.  Those will be left to mature so I have seed for next year.  I'm sure I'll also discover lots of mature beans inside the jungle when I dismantle it in the fall!

I process beans by first of all topping and tailing, then cutting them up into 1" segments.  I plunge them into boiling water for a minute or two until they turn bright green.  This important step stops the enzyme action which matures the beans.  Most of the purple disappears at this point.  Then I drain them and cool quickly under cold running water to stop the cooking process.  An ice bath, which is how you're supposed to cool them, takes too long and probably uses more water by the time you make huge quantities of ice.  Then I blot them to take out most of the moisture, spread them on cookie sheets and pop them into the freezer.  Once frozen, I vacuum seal them in plastic.  I've learned not to take too much air out of the bags because the sharp points of frozen beans can pierce the plastic.

This is only the first proper picking and there are so many more beans developing as well as lots of flowers.  I think I may have grown enough beans to feed an army!  Next year?  If I do the Three Sisters Garden again, I'll probably only plant half a dozen beans with the corn.  The beans are too heavy for the corn to support more.  I'll probably also bring the bean rack back into use and grow more beans on their own for ease of picking.  In the meantime, we'll enjoy fresh picked beans with our dinner tonight and dream happily of many dinners to come in the winter thanks to the produce of our own labours.

Mid-July Update

Well, maybe it's a little bit past that, but so many things are happening that it's time to record the progress.

In the Three Sisters garden, there's a lot of progress.  Beans are running wild!  If fact they've broken the tops of a lot of corn plants and are reaching desperately for more support.  Thank goodness most of the corn has been pollinated and is developing well.

The beans themselves are quite attractive with purple blotching on the skin.  This might make them difficult to find hidden amongst the thick foliage of corn and beans.  These are a heritage Italian bean - name unknown.  They are delicious and I hope they freeze well.

Most of the cobs on the corn are swelling.  A few have silk that is starting to dry up so it might not be long before we have to start the water boiling!

And as for the squash, I have no idea what on earth I will do with all of them.  The spaghetti squash, in particular, is going to have a lot for me to deal with.  It has vines snaking out all over the place, each one with at least 3 squash fruit to it.

The tomatoes are starting to ripen.  Little Gold Nugget is always the first to ripen although we have eaten a couple of Sweet Baby Girl.  Because these two cherries are so tasty, productive and early, I will probably always have at least one of these in the garden.

Beth's Big Fat Tomato is setting fruit now.  When I was pruning, I inadvertently snipped off a fruit truss!  Fortunately, there are many more to take its place.

Some of the onions are starting to fall over.  This signals that they are approaching harvest time.  Only a few of them are at this stage, though, so we should get some good size from the crop.  So far (touch wood) I've only found one that has gone to seed.  Our spring was warmer this year than last when over half the onions went to seed.

One of the crops I'm most excited about is the cantaloupe.  I'm growing 2 plants in one side of the compost bin as it worked really well for tomatoes one year and crookneck squash another.  At first I was afraid the delicate little plants wouldn't last as wood bugs were munching at the stems but I put a clear plastic water bottle collar on each plant and they are now thriving.

Tiny little cantaloupes are now forming and given the richness of their home added to the protection and heat they're receiving I'm hopeful that we'll get some cantaloupe to eat.

All in all, I'm pleased with the way the garden is developing.  Only the garlic is smaller than I'd hoped for, but then it didn't get any of the SeaSoil.  Everything else is thriving.  So far - best garden ever.

Three Sisters - Beginning of July

Already it's the beginning of July and the Three Sisters Garden is waaaay ahead of schedule!  The corn is well over my head - and I'm 5/8"!

Three Sisters Garden fronted by 3 zucchini plants

The tassels are fully extended now and cobs are starting to peep out of the stalks.

It won't belong before we start boiling the water!

The beans are running riot through the cornstalks and busily fixing nitrogen into the soil.  There are no flowers yet, but I'm sure they'll be present in the next few days.

Beans and corn well joined

Squash vines are escaping the beds.  All of the vines have little squashes forming.  I can see I'll have to find a lot of friends to gift with presents of butternut, delicata, pattypan and spaghetti - as well as zucchini!  We'll never be able to deal with all this produce - especially since my husband is a confirmed squash-hater with the exception of butternut squash pie - recipe coming later.  I'm searching out zucchini recipes and will post the ones which are successful.

Butternut squash escaping its bed

I put a lot of the credit for this amazing growth to a couple of factors:  SeaSoil generously added to the beds and the Remay cloth which protected them at the beginning of the season when the weather was cool.  The little corn plant which was excluded from this protection is considerably behind it's brethren.

The excluded corn plant is drooping to the far left.

 So far, this experiment seems to be an outstanding success.  I'm not sure how it will play out next year since the bed will have to be dismantled this fall - the wood is rotting through as you can see from the picture with the squash vine.  At this point I'm thinking of using all three 4x4 concrete beds to house the Three Sisters Garden for next year.  There's lots of room for squash to roam in back there.  We'll replace the wooden beds with one long concrete bed over the winter.

The corn is as high -

- as my husband's eye!

Three Sisters Garden

The recent spell of cool, wet weather hasn't dampened the enthusiasm of the Three Sisters Garden at all.  The beans have been twining way above the corn and are now looping down to swarm all over it.  This is a big plus because in the past when I grew corn by itself, it would do great and then along would come a big wind and blow the whole thing flat!  The beans will give the bed stability on the framework of the corn.

The squash component isn't exactly sitting around doing nothing either.  We've been picking zucchini for a couple of weeks now.  The other squashes are setting up their vines and are venturing out of the protection of the corn.  I can see that I'll have to direct the vines or we won't be able to get around in this part of the garden at all.

As for the corn, the tassels are starting to poke through.  I can see slight bulges at the sides of the stalks where the ears are going to pop out.  It's the end of June.  I think we're doing fine!