Squat Tomatoes and The Herbal Bathtub

   June has flown by.  Things in the garden seem to have their feet under them now and are growing in earnest.  Smoke from the wildfires in the region continued to be an almost constant presence for the first half of the month.  Now, it is sporadic; some days are clear, breezy, and fresh with a beautiful blue sky.  Others are thick and hazy, with the smell of smoke permeating everything and a sticky, "close" feeling in the air, similar to humidity.

   By mid-June, all but two of the cabbages were killed by root maggots in the raised bed.  Arhg!  It has been years since we last dealt with root maggots.  The leeks and bachelor buttons in the same bed seem to be fine.  I planted beans (Tendergeen and Roma II) and some Swiss Chard seedlings to fill in the gaps.  It's disappointing that we won't to have lots of home-grown cabbage this year for making sauerkraut and my favourite cabbage roll casserole.

   Some sort of insect has been chewing on the Swiss chard seedlings and, earlier in the month, the newly emerging bean plants.  They even chewed off the tips of basil seedlings, though the basil is pulling through.

   Volunteer marigolds, sunflowers, peas, and squash popped up all over the place.   Cleaning up at the end of the season last year, I stacked plants in a corner of the South garden that is very shaded.  Typically, that corner is used as a compost area, and the plants are put in the bottom of the raised beds when they're turned the following year.  Often, we'll top up containers and raised beds with soil from this area of the south garden, too.  Having so many volunteer marigolds, sunflowers, and peas have come up tells me how mild our winters have become compared to the way they were up until ~10 years ago.  Before, the winters were cold enough to have killed the seeds.  The volunteer squash are growing from the seeds of ones we composted this Spring.  We've had to pull them out when they emerge, but it's been fun to see new ones in the raised beds almost every other morning in the second half of June.

   Around June 13th, R. noticed that the garlic scapes were beginning to develop.  By June 20th, the Porcelain and Purple Stripe varieties (many curled scapes) were well ahead of Rocamboles, which had almost no scapes.  By June 24th, most of the Red Russian, Northern Quebec, and Central Siberian scapes were harvested.  The Brown Tempest, Kiev, and Baba Franchuk’s scapes were just starting to show.

   June 21st, I harvested some scapes and bottled them in brine to ferment.  

 

   Last summer, I canned pickled garlic scapes using this recipe from the Practical Self Reliance blog.  They turned out to be tasty and they stored well.  The recipe is copied out below.

   June 24th, more scapes (a pint jar's worth) were ready to be harvested.  I decided to try a cold-packed/refrigerator version of pickled scapes using this recipe.  I'll know in two or three weeks how it turned out.

The first tomatoes to develop this summer were....

EM-Champion (June 17) 

 

 

Favorie de Bretagne (June 20)

 

 

On June 21, I found another - larger - Favorie de Bretagne on a different plant. 

 

Two little Black Sea Man tomatoes spotted on June 21. 

 

 

June 23 - Reinhard's Chocolate Heart and Mongolian Dwarf were starting to develop little tomatoes.

June 25 - The Hungarian Hearts were starting to develop their first tomatoes.

 

Here are some photos showing where things stand in the garden as of June 25.  (Click to enlarge.)

   North garden:  AmaRosa fingerling potatoes along the bottom left-hand corner, zucchini next, then several rows of snap beans, then the garlic patch in the upper right-hand corner of the picture.  Calendula along the back of the garden, and a Dragon's Egg cucumber plant growing beneath the spiral trellis.

 The garlic patch, in the North garden this summer.

 

   The South garden:  a row of Green Beauty Snow peas (left side of picture), potatoes (Yukon Gold, Norland Red, and Bellanita fingerling), comos, and kale (right side of picture).  Marigolds and sunflowers sprinkled throughout!   A zucchini (Fordhook) and an egglant (Diamond) in the round, blue containers.  Manure tea in the blue plastic totes.

 

 

Kale (Rainbow Lacinato)

South side tomatoes, cucumbers, and dry bush beans.

 

 Tomatoes (Black Sea Man, Principe Borghese) and potatoes beside the North garden wall.

   

   I bought way more fingerling tomatoes than we had space for in the main gardens. Bags and totes to the rescue!  R. tried a growing technique he learned about online and it seems to be working well.  The bags and tote - all with drainage holes in the bottom - are sitting on top of 5 inches of compost and old leaves.  This allows for better drainage and the roots of the plants are able to grow out of the bags and into the compost, accessing additional nutrients.

 

   Potatoes, dry bush beans, the neglected flower bed, and a Moonglow tomato.  It looks pretty ratty right now.  Health issues are making it a real challenge to maintain the garden as well as I'd like.

   The poppies started to open the last week of June.  These are a mix of Ladybird poppies (red with large, black spots on the petals) and a frilly-petaled version of the same.  Today (June 27th), a few Frosted Salmon peony poppies are beginning to show.  They should open in the next week or so.  It's a gorgeous variety, and I'm looking forward to them blooming in all their glory.  :)  

   Fred's Tie-Dye tomato (a dwarf variety) and dry bush beans (Weiner Trieb and Early Warwick).

 

Diamond Eggplant

   Galeux D'Eysines squash (C. maxima).  There are also a few sunflowers (deliberately planted) and peas (volunteers) growing in this bed.  An Early Yellow Prolific summer squash is growing in the white container.

   More AmaRosa fingerling potatoes in the white container, onions in the bed beside it, then Mongolian Dwarf tomatoes and dry bush beans (Coco Jaune de Chine), then Principe Borghese tomatoes and Heritage Mix dry bush beans (they will have runners, thus the stakes).

 

   Mongolian Dwarf tomatoes.  I'm glad I decided at the last minute to include these in my 2023 tomatoes.  They grow close to the ground and seem to grow "out" rather than "up".  No staking is needed.  Had I known how much they would sprawl, I would have spaced them further apart.

 The calendula (Pacific Beauty Mix) are about to open.

 

   To my surprise, the Favorie de Bretagne tomato plants have a growth habit and appearance similar to Mongolian Dwarf!  I caged them, expecting they'd grow 2.5 feet tall.  There are plenty of flowers on these squat plants.  There must be more than one strain of this variety.  Some descriptions I have read resemble what I see in my garden.  Others show plants that are 2-3 feet tall.  Some show fruit that are very oval/rounded, while others show fruit that is pointed and elongated (this is what I have).

   The East garden:  tomatoes along the edge closest to the driveway (Favorie de Bretagne, Fisher's Earliest Paste, and Petrusha Ogorodnik), then several rows of peas, an Uluru Ochre tomato in the near corner, and a Dragon's Egg cucumber beneath the spiral trellis.  Calendula and strawflowers are also planted in this garden.

 

 

   The strawberry bed (with rosemary, a dahlia, a Favorie de Bretagne tomato, an aster, and buckets of aged manure/dirt around it).

 

   Some of the strawberry plants we bought this year have such pretty flowers - almost like tiny tea roses.

   Behind the house: cosmos and Fernleaf dill in the round container and Bush Delicata squash in the raised bed behind it.

 

 

   Gaspé Flint corn in the foreground (it started showing silks June 26th), Principe Borghese tomato in the bright blue container, and cinnamon basil, curly kale, and some struggling Swiss Chard seedlings in the dark, round container in the back. All but the corn are growing in partial sun, so we'll see how they do in the long run.  In the black bucket on the right side of the picture is one of R's potato experiments.

 

   The shaded herbal bathtub.  Top left (round, white pot) Corsican mint.  Right side of tub, a red begonia.  Planted in the tub: kale, a nasturtium or so, Indian Tea mint, and Chocolate mint (I think!)).  Along the front, L-R: marjoram, Mojito mint, oregano, Woolly thyme.  In the small, tan, square container on the left corner of the tub is a bit of Woolly thyme that is waiting to be potted.

 

   This, ironically, is mint from a tranplant I overwintered and several times thought wasn't going to make it.  It's thriving, now!  I can't recall if it is chocolate mint or lime mint.  A focused sniff-test might be in order.

The pickled scapes recipe mentioned earlier in this post:

 

Canned Pickled Garlic Scapes (printable recipe).

Ingredients

• 1 pound garlic scapes
• 2-3 teaspoons dill seed, one teaspoon per jar (fresh dill can be used, if preferred)
  
• 1 to 1.5 teaspoons whole peppercorns, 1/2 tsp. per jar
• 1 to 1.5 teaspoons whole coriander seed, 1/2 tsp. per jar
• 1.5 cups apple cider vinegar (some people prefer to use white vinegar)
  
• 1.5 cups water
• 2 tablespoons pickling salt or kosher salt 
• red pepper flakes (optional) 

Instructions

1. Start a water bath canner and bring it up to a boil.
2. Trim each end of the scapes, removing the blossoms and reserving them for another use, and trimming the tough bottom end off.  Start with a single scape, and trim it to the size of your jar, fitting it in with just over 1/2 inch of headspace.  Use this as your measuring stick, and trim the rest of the scapes to the same length.
3. Pack the scapes into pint or tall pint and a half mason jars.  Add 1 teaspoon dill seed and 1/2 teaspoon of peppercorns and coriander seed to each jar.  For spicy pickles, add 1/4 to 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (optional).
4. Mix the water, cider vinegar and salt together in a pot and bring to a boil.  Stir to incorporate the salt.
5. Pour the hot vinegar brine over the garlic scapes in mason jars, filling to within 1/2 inch of the top rim.
6. Seal with 2 part canning lids and process in a water bath canner: 10 minutes for pints and 15 for pint and a half or quart jars.
   
7. Wait at least 2-6 weeks for the flavors to infuse before eating. 

 

Oy Vey - The Month That Was May

I am late getting to an update for May.  What a busy and unusual month.

Here goes.

HEAT

   May, especially for the first 2-3 weeks, was unusually hot this year.  Several days brought us temperatures in the high 20s/low 30s and we had only two days of light rain (more about that below).  On the upside, the heat allowed us to get an early start on the garden.  The tomato and eggplants were transplanted into the garden May16th and 17th.  The garlic was sprouting through the patch's mulch layer by April 30th.  Snow peas, carrots (planted May 7th), potatoes (planted May 9th), and some of the beans (planted May 13th and 17th) were sprouting around the Victoria Day weekend.  Most years, that is when we are just beginning to plant those things.

FIRE

   The wildfire season started early this year and with a vengeance.  Northern Alberta and northern BC had several large, out-of-control fires that necessitated the evacuation of a number of rural and remote communities.  Our community served as a destination for evacuees and was a base for ESS services.  (And this continues, as wildfires threaten more communities, like Tumbler Ridge, this month.)  We functioned in a blanket of haze from those fires during most of May.  Some days, fine ash covered the transplants that were hardening out on our front step.  The smell of smoke was pervasive, almost constant, and at times, very intense.  Most days, we could still work outside for short stretches, but some days, we had to remain indoors with the windows and doors shut.  May 19th - the day we planted the pea patch - was the worst.  Here is an excerpt from an email I wrote that day:

 

"I planted some kale this morning, and we just came in from planting the pea patch around 2:30pm.  Holy cow, is the air ever thick with smoke.  The worst we've experienced in the last 2 weeks.  Even inside the house smells like a campfire.  Our visibility markers keep changing  ("I can see xyz down the street from the house"..."Okay, not anymore, but I can still see so-and-so's garage"..."opps, not now"...).   The sky is grey and the light is a weird, dark orange/grey.  If there weren't fires happening, you'd be convinced that a tornado or major hailstorm was heading this way, from the colour of the light/sky. 

 

You know when you open a wood stove or go to poke around the fireplace, but the draft isn't quite open?  That wave of smoke that comes at you and the intense smell?  That's what we're going about our business in today, except you can't just wave the smoke out of your face; it's everywhere.

 

Quite a number of evacuees are in town now.  The main arena/events hall has opened as an evacuee centre and I expect many of the hotels are full."

 

   Entire communities in both provinces were ordered to evacuate.  That included indigenous communities, some remote, and many farmers.  The farmers didn’t just have to worry about evacuating their families, but their livestock as well.  Imagine the stress.  It was heartening to see people in the region flood social media with offers of help for the evacuees.  Offers of pastureland and barns to house livestock, garages and warehouses to store large equipment that was moved, people offering to foster pets short-term, hot meals, childcare, beds in spare rooms, etc. 

The view looking down the street near our house (May 19th)...

 

 

  The lilac bush in bloom.  (Also May 19th.  This picture was taken mid-afternoon.  That is the sun, not the moon.)

 

 

   Mercifully, we had a day and a half of rain during the holiday weekend (May 20-22).  It cleaned the air - check out the colour of the water in this rain barrel - and helped quell the fires.  They were certainly not extinguished, but at least they became smaller in some areas and the firefighters had a better chance of getting them under control.

 

On a lighter note... 

SILLY BIRDS

   On May 9th, I planted a row of Green Beauty snow peas in the south garden.  I grew them for the first time last year, and they were delicious.  By late May, they were a few inches tall and looking great.

   One afternoon, I took a break from weeding the raspberry patch and headed to the house for a cold drink.  Standing by the south garden, with a serious look on his face, was R.  He wasn’t saying a word and his body language conveyed that something bad had happened.  I was expecting the worst.

   When I inquired, a shocked and aggravated, “The little buggers chewed down the peas!” was his reply.  Not what I had expected him to say, though I was relieved things weren’t as grave as I’d imagined.   He explained that when looking out the living room window moments before, he spotted a sparrow pulling on the leaves of the peas.  He came outside and watched another one do the same thing.  Upon closer examination, it was clear that the sparrows had made quite a buffet of the snow peas.  The entire row was chomped down to about 2 inches in height and most of the leaves were gone.  We were baffled and frustrated.  I’ve been gardening for almost 20 years, and he grew up gardening on his family’s farm.  Neither of us had ever seen or heard of sparrows going after pea plants.  A few colourful expressions of exasperation were uttered that afternoon, let me tell you. 

   An online search about the problem (“Sparrows eating garden peas”) turned up dozens and dozens of results.  Apparently, this is a thing.  A common thing, in some places.  Upon seeing the most commonly recommended solution, I thought, “Nope. Not doing it.”.  Large sections of floating row cover or mesh netting strung over trellis and rows of peas seems like a lot of work and trouble, and we already put a lot of time into staking and trellising peas.  R. found a long section of mesh we used years ago to support a section of Tiger Eye beans and wrapped that around the row of peas, securing it to the twine trellis with small file clips. They seem to be leaving the row of snow peas alone now, though they’ve since taken a few chomps out of snap peas in the main pea patch.  Not to mention taking single chomps out of small cucumber, squash, and sunflower plants.  Twerps!

   The birdbath R. brought home a few years ago sits on a rock wall at the edge of the front lawn.  Sometimes, I’ll spot a mellow, fuzzy bumblebee sunbathing on the rock in the middle of it, or maybe having a little drink.  Sometimes, the surface of the water is covered with pollen (in addition to a month of haze, the air has been filled with tree fluff and pollen) or ash. If it’s set up early enough in the Spring, sometimes we’ll catch a robin or two having an exuberant bath in it, especially if the puddles in the driveway have dried up.

   A few weeks ago, we noticed that the crows who visit the birdbath sometimes arrive with things in their beaks that are destined to be dunked.  They deposit their finds in the water for a minute or two, pick them out again, and then either eat their snacks or, if the objects turn out to be inedible, drop them on the lawn before they fly away.  It’s neat to watch them perform this little ritual.

   Recently, R. looked out the window just in time to see a crow fly to the birdbath with a large, white object in its beak.  It landed on the edge of the birdbath, dropped it in, and flew away.  Out we went and peered down at the water.  There on the bottom sat a great big chicken bone!  Drumstick, I’d say.  Amusing, to say the least.  Was he making a soup?  I guess we’ll never know.

GARDEN NOTES

   The last two summers of intense heat and drought left the strawberry bed with only 4 plants alive.  We bought and planted new strawberry plants near the end of May and heavily mulched the bed with grass clippings.  I also planted nasturtium seeds throughout the bed to help provide some groundcover while the new plants get established this summer.

Here's what's growing in the garden this year:

Tomatoes

Determinate:  EM-Champion, Principe Borghese, Fisher’s Earliest Paste, Petrusha Ogorodnik, Mongolian Dwarf, Black Sea Man, Favorie de Bretagne, Uluru Ochre, Fred’s Tie-Dye Dwarf, Clear Pink Early

Indeterminate:  Reinhard’s Chocolate Heart, Hungarian Heart, Rose de Berne, Sylvan Gaume, Franchi Red Pear, Moonglow

Peas 

Green Beauty snow peas in the south garden, and Green Arrow, Laxton's Progress, and Lillian's Caseload shelling peas in the East garden.

Bush Dry Beans

Weiner Trieb

Early Warwick

Arikara  (older seed – last grown in 2015) 

Heritage Early Mix (d/b with runners.  Last grown in 2017. Listed from earliest to latest to dry:

1) Swedish Brown (prolific, early)

2) Mitla Black (prolific, early)

3) Small White Navy

4) Purple Gnuttle Amish (pretty)

5) Green Hutterite (quite late – most of the pods still firm/damp when I picked them in mid-September before the first hard frost.  The least productive of the 5 varieties in the mix.).

   I planted 5-10 seeds of each of these varieties to grow them out. Some, like Yer Fasal and Orca, I had in very limited amounts.

Yer Fasal  (seeds from 2017. Obtained in a trade. Turkish heirloom.)

Coco Jaune de Chine  (seeds from 2018)

Orca  (seeds from 2022? Obtained in a trade) 

Fiesta  (seeds from 2022? Obtained in a trade)

Tene’s Beans  (seeds from 2020)

Ruckle  (seeds from 2022)

Beka Brown (seeds from 2020)

Mrocumiere  (seeds from 2018)

Bush Snap Beans

My stock of snap beans is older, so I planted a mishmash of varieties; we'll see what comes up.  Provider, Calima, Cantare, Tendergreen, and Roma II.

Potatoes 

Yukon Gold, Norland Red, AmaRosa fingerling, and Bellanita fingerling.

Squash 

Galeux D'Eysines (C. maxima), Burpee's Butterbush (C. moschata), Bush Delicata (C. pepo), Yellow Early Prolific summer squash, and Fordhook zucchini.

Flowers

Calendula (Pacific Beauty Mix), Marigolds (Queen Sophia and Janie Bright), Dahlias (Dinnerplate tubers and Unwin's Mix from seed), Cosmos (Dwarf Sensation, Double-Dutch Rose,  Rubenza), Bachelor Buttons (Blue Boy and Chocolate), Nasturtium (Little Firebirds and Alaska Red Shades), Strawflower (Pastel Mix), and assorted sunflowers (mostly Sunspot).

Greens

Cabbage (Brunswick, Early Golden Acre), Lettuce (assorted), Kale (Lacinato, Rainbow Lacinato, Scarlet, Red Russian, Curly Blue), and Swiss Chard (5 Colour Silverbeet).

Herbs

Parsley (Italian Flat-Leaf), Mint (Mojito, Indian Tea, Chocolate, and Corsican, Chives, Basil (Cinnamon), and Dill (Fernleaf).

Other

Eggplant (Diamond), Corn (Gaspé Flint), Celery (Amsterdam/"Soup" celery), Cucumber (Dragon's Egg), Leeks (Giant Musselburgh), Carrots (Scarlet Nantes, Cosmic Purple, Jaune Obtus du Doubs), and garlic.

 

Smoky day, North and South gardens.

 

North garden, including garlic patch.

 

Raised beds along the driveway.

 

The East garden (snap peas and tomatoes).

 

Mongolian Dwarf tomatoes, a few onions, and beans.