Best Carrot Year Yet

First batch of carrots!  Purple Dragon, Scarlet Nantes, Atomic Red, Kuroda, and Jaune Obtuse du Doubs.  This has been, by far, our best year for carrots.  The change in when I planted them (early, at the same time as the beets and peas) and how I planted them (in rows, rather than en masse) made for a much improved germination rate and for easier weeding.  The Purple Dragon and Jaune Obtuse du Doubs are the largest.  The Atomic Reds always seem to be the slowest to grow, but I like their colour (which is far more pink than red), so I sow some every year.

I harvested the Green Macerata cauliflower a few days ago. The heads were small, and most had leaves growing up between the florets.  It was fun to experiment with growing this, and maybe it would do better in another part of the garden, but I don't think I will grow these again.  The plants are very large, and the "reward" - food output - is very small by comparison.

A few days ago, R. happened upon a very good sale on grapes.  He came home with 10lbs of them, and went on a juicing spree.  The juice is very mild and refreshing, but very sweet.  It would be nice to make ice cubes with the juice and use them in soda water. 

Two Magpies Walk Into A Bar...

Okay, maybe "a bar" is a stretch, but these two have become very comfortable helping themselves to the stray cat's watering dish on the front step.  They also partake of the kibble we sometimes leave there. 

Leeks (Giant Musselburgh)

The leeks (trimmed up) and the first Gelber Englischer Custard squash.

The first - and only- ripe Snow White cherry tomatoes!  They are much sweeter and tastier than I expected.

Calima and Galopka beans, Giant Musselburgh leeks, Romanesco cauliflower, Snow White cherry tomatoes, Ping Tung eggplant, Early Annie tomao, and a Gelber Englischer Custard squash.

Close-up of the Romanesco cauliflower.  
Fractal.  Psychedelic. Yummy.

The first ripe Cherokee Purple tomato.

Walking up the driveway with leeks in hand, this guy fluttered by and landed on the driveway five feet ahead of me.  He enjoyed the sun and the warm pepples for 15 minutes before moving on.

Rockin' That Fuzzy Robe

Another dalhia has opened!

A few Gelber Englischer Custard squash are starting to form.

Cupcake zinnias

Giant Musselburgh leeks

Green Macerata cauliflower.  The heads are small, and the plants are huge.  Not what you would call an efficient use of garden space, but it is always fun to try growing new things.

Sunflower in the North garden.

The neighbour's kitty accompanying me on my early morning perusal of the garden. Rockin' my fuzzy robe and garden clogs. The cats don't mind, and theirs is the only opinion that matters. Ha!

The corner of the potato patch, where Chocolate Cherry (2) and Snow White Cherry (1) tomato plants are located.  Along the side are some Meteor zinnias.  The cherry tomato plants are loaded with flowers.  I hope the warm weather holds out long enough for us to get a nice bunch of cherry tomatoes.

"Chocolate Cherries", I believe.

"Snow White" cherries.

The Early Crookneck squash plants.  Still waiting for the squash to appear.

This Year's Garlic

I pulled the garlic this afternoon, tied it in small batches, and now have to find a good place to hang them for curing.

There are two varieties, though I don't recall what they are called.  The purple marbled variety is the larger of the two and the skins seem thinner and not very dry.  The white variety has several layers of nice, dry skins even before curing.  That bodes well for long-term storage.

Do You Smell Something Burning?

The town has been in a haze of smoke for the last 2 days due to a wildfire in the region (and possibly from the fires further south in the province).  When I got up Saturday morning, I thought I was seeing thick fog outside the window.  Then I smelled the smoke and noticed the eerie yellow-orange tinge in the air.  The sun was a small, neon orange circle in the sky.  What a strange atmosphere.  This picture doesn't do it justice, but might show how much the smoke obscured the sun (this was taken around 11 o'clock in the morning).

One of the first cucumbers...

...and the Galeux D'Eysines are coming along well...

One of the ball dahlias has bloomed!  Pretty petals, and I love the colours.  

One of seven 4-lb bags of frozen raspberries in the freezer.  We also juiced several pounds so it would be easier to store, and so we can make jelly in the coming weeks, if we want.  We finally just stopped picking the raspberry bushes.  We have more than we need and simply could not find people willing to put in the time and effort to pick for themselves.  The berries on the bushes are small (end of season), very ripe, and are falling off the plants at this point.  I hate to see the fruit go to waste, but there is so much else for me to do, that something had to give.

I sold one bag of frozen berries last night and hope to sell a few more to make room in the freezer for the coming beans, peas, and tomato sauce.  If nothing else, it gives us a little grocery money for the hours of picking we've put in!

First ripe tomato of the season.  :)  This is a "Bonny Best", a small canning tomato.  One of the Cherokee Purples is also looking great.  All the rest of the tomatoes are still green (typical).

The marigolds were very late starting, but have finally found their legs.

We picked a few crabapples to juice as an experiment.  The juice is tart, but sweet enough to drink and can be used to make jelly.

Crabapple juice, still warm.  This one batch of crabapples produced 12 cups of juice.

Once chilled (or frozen), the crabapple juice takes on a soft pink colour.  This would make such a pretty jelly!

The first picking of Red Swan beans...

...and Galopka beans...

...and Calima beans.

Garlic rounds (Kiev) that grew from some of the bulbils planted last fall.  (The update is at the bottom of the page, here.)

Slug Hotels

Worst cabbage year ever. 


I knew the green cabbages looked rough this year and that we had lost a bunch to root maggots, but I was not expecting the damage I discovered this morning.  There wasn't a single cabbage worm to be found (if anything goes wrong, it is usually the presence of worms).  Rather, the cabbages were full of slugs.  Slug hotels.  In my garden.  

Big chunks are chewed out of the bottoms of them.  There are slugs and slug poop 4 and 5 layers in.  It doesn't help that this cabbage variety doesn't have tightly packed leaves.  The wrinkled gaps serve as cool, spacious lounge areas for them.  They certainly looked relaxed, as I was scowling, peeling back layers and flinging the squatters out with my knife. Only two cabbages had anything resembling roots left on them, but the roots were only about 3 or 4 cm long.   Most of the stems gave no resistance at all when I pulled them. In past years, they were so strongly rooted I had to dig the stems and roots out with a shovel or leave them until the following Spring because I couldn't pull them by hand. 

I left four on the step that are past saving.  Four small ones are soaking in a sink of salted water. If I start processing them and they are full of holes and slug poo that needs to be scrubbed out with a toothbrush leaf by leaf, then the whole lot is going in the compost bin. 
  
Arhg.

Crabapple Glory

Thanks to all the rain early in the season, this crabapple harvest just might rival the excellent raspberry harvest we've had this year.

I don't know what variety of crabapples these are, but I love their appearance when they are ripe:  a pretty, rosy pink-red.  They are tart, but sweet enough to eat on their own.  Now that we have a steam juicer, I think we'll take a stab at making crabapple jelly.  Just a few jars, though.  The majority of the crabapples will hopefully be snapped up by - and preferably picked by - others who would like to have them.


It is a challenge to get a good picture of the entire tree, as it is so oddly shaped.  A few incidents of enthusiastic pruning by R. over the years have left it lopsided. For better or worse, I gather another pruning is in this tree's near future. 

Several of the branches are so heavy with fruit, they almost touch the ground.

Behold, An Eggplant!

A Ping Tung eggplant has made an appearance!  I only grew two eggplants this year, a Ping Tung and a Black Beauty (which doesn't have flowers yet).  The Ping Tung seems to love the pot it's in and it's location next to the fence.  It is covered with flowers now.  After last year's failed attempt at growing them in-ground, it looks like planting them in large containers is the way to go for us.

Dahliettas

These are Red Swan beans (snap/bush).  A friend ordered them from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and shared a few with me so I could try growing them.  What a neat colour!

I think it's time to rotate the gardens.  Here is the North garden around this time in 2015, looking lush...

...and here it is this morning.  The broccoli plants have given us all they are going to give us this season, but I couldn't bring myself to pull them quite yet.  The garden looks sparse enough this year as it is!

Bee, Lou, Tragedy, and Triumph

Brief notes from this morning's perusal.

The dahliettas are starting to open.  This little guy seemed to be enjoying them.

Lou, supervising from the fence.

One of my Early Annies snapped under the weight of it's fruit.  It is a determinate variety, so I though it would be safe to leave it unsupported.  Opps.  :(

On the upside, a Cherokee Purple is ripening nicely.