Home / Blogs / jillh's Blog /

Wet weather, a few harvests and a zucchini question

Category: Vegetable and Flower Gardens | Posted: Tue Aug 12, 2008 1:34 am

---

We've had more rain here and I think my zucchini are suffering. Some of the little ones (2") are looking soggy and their flowers are knocked off from the rain. If anyone has had experience with this and has some advice (should I trim some leaves so that on sunny days (sparse) they get more sun and get more air to dry them out?) please send it my way!
Last week I picked green beans every other day and we had 2 huge meals. Beets are still making 6-8 2-3" beets every week. Lettuce is done. Snow peas are still producing! If it was a typical summer I think they would be done but it's cool and wet so they are happy as can be and huge. Tomatoes are coming, a handful of ripe cherries daily and one big one that will be ready on Wed. Our carrots are about the size of "baby carrots" from the store so maybe in Sept. they'll give us a good yield.
Here are my pickings from last week:

And here is what I got today:

I decided to have some fun and dug up the 2 potato plants that are in large pots in the yard. They were starting to look wilted, bloomed a while ago and I thought they might be finished. I got these potatoes (and I have already picked about 8-10 from them) and there were still more small ones so I put the soil back on them. If anyone can tell me if that is scab that I have (the skin looks like parched soil in the desert) especially noticeable on the one in the top right, that would be great. These are small to medium size. The littlest is about 2 1/2" long.


Last edited: Tue Aug 12, 2008 1:34 am

This blog entry has been viewed 470 times

---

Some new photos of our progress

Category: Vegetable and Flower Gardens | Posted: Wed Aug 06, 2008 12:44 am

---

I got out and took some new photos of the garden. Here are from left to right:
Snow peas, beans in foreground and snap peas in back (they are short and drying up)


Tomatoes (1 grape, 1 cherry, 2 regular)
Green peppers
Brussell sprouts, carrots
Beets

And some close-ups:
Zucchini

Snow Peas

Up close and personal with the "sprouts". These are the neatest things to watch grow. I had no idea they grew this way.

Grape Tomatoes

And here are my 3 "producing" gardens. Foreground is the raised bed veggies, middle is slightly raised and beyond that is my herb garden.

That is a "first week in August in a Southwestern Ontario garden" view for you.
Happy growing everyone!

Last edited: Wed Aug 06, 2008 12:55 am

This blog entry has been viewed 365 times

---

Here come the beans!

Category: Vegetable and Flower Gardens | Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2008 2:09 am

---

It seems to be green bean time in our garden. This week-end we had them twice and also the first 2 zucchini of what looks like many to come. The snow peas are still producing a small bowl full (maybe 20 pods) every 2 days. I'm really impressed with how well they have done and how many pods we've had. My beets are growing at such different rates that I can pick out 6 big ones for the family to eat once a week and that acts to thin out the rest. There are some orange cherry and grape tomatoes and the kids have had the first truly red ones.
It's amazing how much fun it is to go out there each day and slowly pick my way through all the plants to see what surprises are under the leaves. I love this!

This blog entry has been viewed 369 times

---

Welcome to my flower and vegetable garden blog!

Category: Vegetable and Flower Gardens | Posted: Sat Aug 02, 2008 2:48 am

---

It all started with our wish to lessen our footprint on the planet and with all those beautiful photos in Harrowsmith Country Life magazine.
My husband suggested that we plant a huge vegetable garden. I did some research, read that it is good to "start small" and convinced him that since I would be the one working in the garden I got to pick the size! It turned out to be an 8x12 foot cedar raised bed with 2x8 and 2x12 sides and a 4x4 on top. 4 vertical 4x4 were set into the ground in concrete in each corner and it was all attached to together. Next, sides were made to keep out the weiner dog, kids, bunnies and gopher who live in or around our yard. (It took us a while to figure out who kept eating our tomatoes when we last had them. They all had bites out of the bottoms only....weiner dog...). Some gingerbread from the garage that had never been used added a decorative touch and makes it really pretty to look at.
3 yards of triple mix arrived just before the Victoria Day long week-end, the bed was lined with weed fabric (to keep our good soil from leaching down into the sandy soil below) and I started planting. What seemed like copious amounts of space between plants and made them look even smaller than they were has turned out to be, well, you know, just barely enough space!
I put in tomato, pepper and brussells sprouts plants and carrot, beet, snap and snow pea and bush bean seeds and 5 seed potatoes. 2 weeks later I had to plant more beets and carrots (I used old seeds) and then added zucchini and 4 more tomato plants to another garden that came from the extra soil and wood. I'm glad we have that extra space now!
In early July this is what our garden looked like:


by mid-July it was even bigger!


We were eating lettuce all through June and July and in mid July we had our first full meal of vegetables from our own garden. Here's what we had:

It is now August 1st and we've had 2 meals of beans, 3 meals of beets, the lettuce is finished, the zucchini will be ready to start picking in the next few days, the tomatoes are starting to ripen, there are snow peas every day, enough for the kids to snack on or to add to a salad and we dig up the odd potato just because it's so much fun to root around under them!


The flowers this year are wonderful too. With so much regular rain they are lasting a long time and have huge blooms. Here are some sweet peas:

and my 5 year old garden which is really full this year:



Last edited: Wed Aug 06, 2008 12:59 am

This blog entry has been viewed 1052 times

---

Goto page previous, 1, 2, 3,

Home / Blogs / jillh's Blog /