Garden things

As documented on this blog, last year was my first time trying to grow a vegetable garden. Some things went well, some not so much, but I learned from my own trials and errors and from the valuable advice of experienced gardeners.

My second year with a vegetable garden is going quite well. Again, some things didn't work out as I wanted, but other things seem to be very good successes!

Vegetable garden 2013

I have green and  yellow beans which I sowed a little late, so they are lagging a bit behind. Similar issues with the peas. I sowed them in pots but took way too long to transplant them, so they didnt get very big. My romaine lettuce grew nice and big, however, and we enjoyed many fresh leaves before the last 2 heads went in bloom.

Last year, I had one kuri squash plant. It was an awesome discovery for me, as I absolutely loved the taste of this beautiful deep orange squash in soups, cream soups or just as an accompanying vegetable to a meal. This year, I planted 2 plants in stead of one, and they seem to be doing very well! If all goes well, I will harvest more than double the amount I had last year. (Well, I only had 3... )
The picture below shoes 2 of the young squashes. They will become a deep orange colour as they grow bigger. 

Young kuri squash

Zuchini, which we had way too many of last year, are not doing nearly as good this time around. I only planted 1 plant, but it's being a bit invaded by my pumpkin plant, which is totally and absolutely thriving! It is the first time that I try growing pumpkin (as in real halloween pumpkins, you know!). I'm really excited about the possible outcome!

Halloween pumpkins in the making!

Another thing being a bit invaded by the pumpkins are some special kinds of beans, which I don't know the name of in English. I have 3 different sorts cramped between the huge crawling pumpkin plant and the very tall sweet corn. Thankfully, I also have some in a huge pot somewhere else in the garden, and those are doing very well! (they taste awesome too!)

Finally, the corn! Last year, I ended up with - I think it was 3... - very pittiful corn plants, and didn't eat a single corn cob. This year is much better. I have 6 very healthy corn plants that grew tall and green and are starting to form cobs! It will be interesting to see if the cobs will be full and nicely formed. 

In the greenhouse, my tomatoes are having a bit of a hard time. They get something called "blossom-end rot", which, as far as I understand, is caused by a lack of nutrients. :( So that's a big disappointment. However, I'm working hard to try and save the tomatoes that are on the way now. I am hoping this organic fertilizer I got will help the matter.

On the other hand, my mini cucumbers are doing great. They are delicious and provide perfect little snacks when I'm working in the greenhouse. :)

Chilies "Apache" and Jalapeno are also doing great! I am very happy with my chili plants this year. They look really good. I'm thinking of trying to keep them in the house over winter. I read that this is possible! We'll see... 

Apart from plants growing and cucumbers, lettuce and beans being eaten, there are also things going on in the yard, as always... 

The compost corner has been upgraded to a paved compost-and-branch-and-such-things corner. A place where we can put non-compost garden "trash" until we can bring them away with the trailer, and of course where we still have our compost bin. 

Paved "compost corner"

The stones we used to pave the area are recycled from the terrace by the greenhouse. We are about to lay new stones, so in stead of getting rid of the old ones, we used them to pave this corner. Nothing like recycled stones to pave a compost corner, don't you agree? :) 

The plan is to have bushes an flowerbed around the area as a wall to hide the corner from view. We will also eventually build a second compost bin to make turning and things a little easier. 

Field stones are also useable in the garden. I had field stones around some of my flowerbeds, and I didn't really like the look. I wanted something more open / less framed. But I had another plan for the stones I removed. 

Field stone path

Since I removed the fence around the terrace by the house, I have been walking directly out through the flowerbed in stead of going around it. Going around was a detour when one wants to go to the garden patch or the compost corner. So I decided to make the new path "official" with stones. The flowerbed will all be rearranged anyway, so that was the first step!

And what do we do when we've enjoyed our garden during the day and made improvements and all that? Well, we sit outside during the evening and observe the night life waking up for its shift!

Mr. Hedgehog came to say hello... 

Hedgehog

... And the bats come out for their insect hunt. 

Bat, july 2013

There's no where like home... I love my house, my greenhouse and my garden!

Greens

After a busy (but successful!) final exams season, followed by one delightful week in Mallorca, I am BACK! I am on summer vacation and plan on enjoying a huge amount of time in my greenhouse, my garden and at the creativity table.

We have been so busy on the greenhouse project that all the so-called flowerbeds, as well as both the terraces are totally overgrown with weeds. So the cleanup of these is definitely high up on my to-do list. Thankfully, things are going very well now in the greenhouse. My very nice neighboor took really good care of it in our absence (and fed my cats!). I was delighted to see how much everything had grown in just one week! (the plants, not the cats)

Greenhouse is really getting green!

Some 8 varieties of tomatoes, 2 varieties of cucumbers, Apache chilies, jalapenoes, bell peppers, sweet peppers, a few different sorts of herbs (including a lot of basil, green and red) and a few more things are all doing really great! I've eaten my first mini-cucumbers, some red juicy strawberries and beautiful lettuce already.

Inuksuk found its home!

Pick-and-eat lettuce and strawberry leveled pot. 

I don't have many flowers, but can definitely see that I will be looking more into that next year.

Meanwhile, the vegetable garden is also picking up in pace. I've tried sweet corn again this year and it seems to be doing much better than last year. I started it in paper pots and carefully tranplanted them a few weeks ago, trying not to disturb the roots. 

The red kuri squash and pumpkin plants took a while to "feel home" on the veggie patch, but also seem to be growing now. 

The romaine lettuce is beautiful, as are the onions!  Today, I finally transplanted a zuchini plant, some interesting kinds of beans I received from my good friend and some peas, which I all had started a few weeks ago and just never had time to transplant. 

Veggie garden. Corn, beans, squashes, onions, lettuce, peas. 

If you guys remember well, last year, my husband and I built a compost bin. I have been using some of the resulting compost to enrich the soil on the patch, which came from the hole we dug for the greehouse, so wasn't the very best soil for a garden. This seems to especially have made a difference with the corn. It went from a pale green to a nice healthy green, and more than doubled in size since I added compost around the plants. :D

Following advice from the experienced, I started covering the soil with cut grass to help retain some humidity. The only problem is that our lawn mower is specially made to cut grass in tiny tiny pieces so that we don't have to pick it up, and it feeds the lawn at the same time. (it is called Bio-cut). So it makes it difficult to find enough grass to cover the whole garden patch. I have to go along the bicycle trail behind our lot! 

That's it for now.... happy summer everyone!