Garden wrap-up
This was supposed to be published in October when these photos were taken. We had such a warm fall I was still picking strawberries on Halloween! Here are some photos from the garden at that time. I ended up with a pile of tomatoes and had to throw many of them out. Need to plant less tomatoes next year! The pumpkin wasn’t mine but I included its photo, as well as my contacts I wore for Halloween, just for interests’ sake.
I did get one cucumber but so late in the season that it was tiny. My onions didn’t grow any onions so I won’t attempt those again. I’ve planted some spring garlic that I hope will give some nice heads next summer. Next summer. Only 6 months away but yet it feels so distant….
And the bounty continues…
The tomatoes just keep on giving. Same with the zucchini. Note for next year: plant less tomato and zucchini plants! I haven’t even started on the carrots yet. They’re delicious but grossly deformed. How do people get straight carrots???
The tomatoes have arrived
Yes, the long awaited day has finally come and my tomatoes have decided to turn from green to yellow. The red ones are still staying stubbornly green despite my coaxing and my daily survey.
These little yellow tomatoes are dainty sweet and delicious. A real treat!
Things I found in my garden this morning
This morning was the first time in a while that I actually paid attention to my garden. I went through it with all intentions of ridding it of the weeds and it was my attempt to try to tame it again. As I was watering the zucchini plants, I found this thing hanging out:
I need to eat it tonight since there seem to be at least a dozen more smaller ones that need to be eaten before they become behemoths!
I also found my first hot pepper!
Which makes me very happy. I kept looking around to see what other new developments are taking place. Apparently the green beans are doing well.
And the tomatoes and the herbs were looking lovely in the morning sun after being watered:
My white oriental lilies have started to bloom. For anyone who doesn’t know this about me, they’re my absolute favorite flower. Their scent is filling up my backyard. I was mowing the lawn and I kept getting whiffs of the almost vanilla-like smell. Mmmm.
It looks like the sky is clouding up so I think I did well to get out and do this yard work while the sun was shining.
And now to search out really good zucchini recipes. Any suggestions?
What to do with a monster garden?
Now that I’ve finished writing the bar exam and am settled into working life, I think I’ll make an effort to actually start writing more…The lilies I planted turned out nicely over the summer and I received some sunflowers from a friend as a birthday gift.
I’ve been so busy with work, the bar exam and sailing that I haven’t spent any time in my garden since, oh about July 19th. I finally took a wander through today and realized that I don’t have just a garden, I have a monster garden. Everything seems to be growing into enormous plants. I also have tonnes of lettuce that needs to be eaten! Things should calm down for me now and I think I can get back into my routine of eating a salad every day from my garden. As you can see, I have a few very large bushy zucchini plants that are already giving several zucchinis. One is a foot long and I finally picked it. I think I’ll make pasta sauce tonight with it… unless some other type of inspiration hits me.
The corn and the green beans are doing well. I have 5 ears of corn… just enough for me 
The tomatoes are also starting to come out. The tomato plants are about 4 or 5 feet tall so it feels like a jungle when I’m trying to weed around them.
And here is a photo of my monster cabbage, the monster swiss chard and the enormous kale along with the very tall broccoli plant. No sign yet of broccoli or a cabbage but I’m hoping they’ll poke their heads out soon.
The strawberry plants I bought have been spreading out and making several little baby plants. I have been getting a fairly steady stream of strawberries all summer long. And more keep coming. Yum.
More mini tomatoes. I think I’m going to have quite a crop of tomatoes!
I’ve been spending my weekends sailing in Lunenburg with my family. We had a race weekend in July out of Lunenburg, then the NSSA Race Week was held the first week of August. I don’t have many photos of this (I should have taken more!). Here are a few shots of the small boat races in Lunenburg. I was sitting at the Fisheries Museum having a drink.
One night in Hubbards during Race Week there some interesting weather. The day had been rainy and full of thunder and lightning. I was at work so I didn’t race that day, but I drove down after work for the evening festivities. On the way down, I drove through a few rainshowers where the rain was falling so heavily and steadily that it felt like I was trying to drive through a car wash. When I’d get through the darkness and rain, I could see one side the sunset and on the other side more heavy dark rain clouds.
When I finally made it to Hubbards, the rain had stopped and the rainbows started appearing. On one side there were rainbows amidst the thunderclouds and on the other side was this interesting sunset with these neat clouds:
Race week was extremely fun this year and I managed to take part of Friday off to race. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how nicely this summer has been turning out. I’ve managed to make the most of every weekend and I feel like I’m actually on vacation during the weekends. I think that if I had to stay in the city it would feel like more of a normal weekend instead of a vacation. I need to keep making sure that I get out of town on weekends!
And now I’m back in Halifax with a sunburn, tan lines from my sunglasses and dirt under my fingernails from (finally) weeding the garden.
I also think that my next destination for a trip will be Columbia. Or Brazil. Obviously I can’t take any other trips until next spring, but it’s fun to plan something….
Summer has really arrived
We’ve had a streak of sunny days, perfectly timed to happen on the long weekend. I’ve been laying out in the sun while studying for my bar exam and have received some sunburns which will turn into a lovely tan
My mother was visiting last week and did wonders with my garden. She weeded the garden, planted more vegetables and generally fixed it up cosmetically.
My strawberries are turning red and I’ve been allowing myself one a day. The peas are growing though they’re not quite ready to be picked and I’ve been eating one large salad a day with freshly picked lettuce from the garden. It’s such a great feeling to go out and pick my lunch every day.
The lesson that I have learned is that the weeds grow so much faster than the vegetables and the garden is large so I’m always playing catch-up with tue weeds.
Yellow!
It seems that the dominant colour for the flowers I’ve planted is yellow. Funnily enough I don’t mind. I’m hoping that the lilies are white though, just to have some sort of palette.
I picked my first bouquet from my garden and the flowers are proudly sitting on my dining table.
April showers bring May flowers
It has felt like it’s been raining for weeks. It was pouring rain for the last few days interspersed with short bouts of sunshine. But if the old saying that ‘April showers bring May flowers’ holds true, then we might be in for some flowers and sunshine in the next few days since May’s arrival is coming up soon!
In between rain showers today the sky cleared up and the sun made a valiant attempt at shining. I went out to plant some more seeds (lettuce and kale) and to dig up the weeds that have grown in the last week.
As I was puttering away, an enormous earthworm pulled itself out of a hole in the ground and started moving away from me. It was obvious I had disturbed it. I swear that fully stretched out it mist have measured a foot!
As this was the biggest excitement of my day so far, I took a photo of it and decided to write this post: dedicated to the foot-long earthworm. Enjoy.
Perhaps spring has arrived?
The weather here has been somewhat rainy and still quite cold at night. I’ve been working in the garden off and on but stopped completely while I figured out whether I wanted to bring in soil to replace the garden soil. I live in the north end of Halifax, a part of town that used to be very industrial. The Ecology Action Center came out with a report showing high levels of lead in the soil and so I had to decide whether to order and pay for new soil or whether to trust that this soil is ok. After doing more research and considering the options, I decided that I would just get my soil tested but plant my vegetables in it this year. The cost of delivery was high and I had already put several bags of good clean dirt in last fall when I created the “lasagna garden”.
I rent this house but am planning on staying for a few more years. I wanted to expand the garden since I had basically used a small corner of the enormous backyard for herbs and some other plants (tomatoes, lettuce, kale). My backyard was a lawn, fully covered in grass, and I’d spent hours in the summer trying to get the turf out. I read Elizabeth Peirce’s book and was inspired to create the lasagna garden, a way of expanding the garden which is both eco-friendly and perfect for the lazy gardener! I spread out the cardboard over the grass, covered it in a mixture of soil, manure, compost, seaweed and fallen leaves and let it sit there over the winter. I don’t think I covered it well enough – I think I needed a lot of dirt – because once the weather warmed up, I noticed all the weeds growing up through the covering. The grass was dead but the weeds were alive and strong.
I’ve been slowly working my way, digging up the grass, uprooting the weeds and creating slightly raised beds. I managed to get a load of seaweed from the shores of Bluerocks which I spread between the rows. Once the plants start coming up, I’ll put more around them to cover that soil.
Last week I planted seeds in Jiffy pots and have enjoyed watching them grow. They didn’t get enough light last week so some have sprouted tall and thin. I still have hope for them. I also made the classic (I’m hoping it’s classic!) beginner’s mistake of not marking out what seeds were in which pots… meaning that I have 50 little seedlings and no idea which are herbs, which are tomatoes, which are brocoli or rapini or hot peppers. My plan is to put the tomatoes and hot peppers in pots so that I can move them around and bring them in if I have to, while the brocoli and rapini and kale will be planted outside in the main garden and the herbs will be separated into “herbs to be planted outside in the garden” and “herbs to be planted in pots and grow on the kitchen windowsill”. I planted two pots for each herb in order to accomplish this. As you can tell from the picture below, some of the pots have way too many little growths but I don’t want to thin them until I know what it is! It’s quite a pickle.
These are the seedlings that sprouted too tall and thin. I’m trying to give them more light so they strengthen up again and develop leaves. I still don’t know what these are exactly.
The crocuses I planted last fall have begun to flower and it’s a nice feeling to walk outside and see little bursts of colour. I transplanted some daffodils from my mother’s house and planted them in my yard. The owner of the house had only grass in her backyard but I’ve been planting flowers to brighten things up a bit.
I was also waiting to see what plants would come back from the herb garden I planted last year. The chives are coming up strong and happy and behind them the thyme and the oregano are also making a comeback. Very exciting.
I’m looking forward to having these lilies bloom. I love the smell of fresh lilies and I usually buy a few stalks from the Farmer’s Market on Saturdays.
This is what the garden looks like now. Raised beds with seaweed mulch between the rows. As I was working in the soil yesterday trying to dig up the last few weeds and the last bit of grass pieces, I found myself getting unusually happy every time I came across a big fat earthworm. I was happy to see so many. I also saw several skinny short yellow worms – no idea what they are but I’m hoping they’re friends rather than foes… I spent the majority of the afternoon yesterday creating the garden and then planting seeds. I put in carrots, peas, squash, mesclun mix, arugula and bronzehead lettuce.
Lola the cat also enjoyed being outside. She keeps me company by chasing leaves around as if they are mice. I sometimes think she actually believes they’re mice since she’ll walk into the house proudly and drop her prize on the kitchen floor, looking very sad and disappointed when I pick it up and throw it back outside. She hasn’t discovered the joys of pooping outside, which I hope she’ll never learn, which means my garden is safe from her. I can’t say the same about the neighbourhood black cat named Johnny who seems to have decided that my garden is the ideal place to drop his…droppings. It’s disgusting when you’re digging in the dirt with your bare hands and you come across a foul-smelling mound of cat feces. I need to find ways of keeping Johnny out of the garden. Any suggestions?
The other problem that I’m encountering is the high level of garbage that ends up in my backyard. Maybe it’s the wind streams but there’s always lots of paper and plastic and even cigarette butts that cultivate in my garden. I keep trying to pick them up when I see them but there’s always more that keeps floating around. Where is it coming from? I thought Halifax was a pretty clean city but this is leaving me to think otherwise. The garbage collects in my driveway and against the garage next door and no one picks it up.
This is just the beginning for my garden and I’m learning as I go on. The “Grow Organic” book by Elizabeth Peirce has been a big help with the tips and suggestions for growing herbs and vegetables in Halifax and I have a few other gardening books that I use to look up different points. My mother and my father’s girlfriend are resources that I utilize often as well.
Sunshine and coffee
Things I like the most: sunny days where you have the luxury of time to enjoy them fully.
Walking outside in the sun, listening to music and feeling simultaneously the heat from the sunshine as well as the coolness of the early spring wind on your face. It’s the duality of spring.
I came to the Paperchase Cafe after a meeting I had was canceled. The cute guy behind the counter made me a delicious mochachino with a smiley face in it!
I also received a lovely bouquet of lilies from someone who loves me which are starting to open and are filling the house with fragrance. Lovely.
