Bea, Smokey, Smores, and The Garden

    An end-of-August garden update from BC.  Thanks to R. for pictures and notes.  (And behold, his loving assistant below, Bea.) 

 

 

   One big zucchini is left on the plant.  I gather it wasn't a stellar year for zucchini, but R. harvested enough to put some aside (dehydrated slices) for winter soups.

 

    Whoa!  Those are some ginormous zucchini!  What a beautiful colour.  I don't know if these will still be good for eating, but if not, then R. should be able to save seeds from them.

 

   The onions (yellow, white, and red) had a hard time this year and were still quite small when harvested this week.  They're large enough to process, though, so they'll either be sliced and deyhdrated or chopped and frozen.  I bet that will be an eye-watering task, as it sometimes seems the smaller the onion, the stronger it is.  My eyes are stinging from here.
 

   While most crops struggled with the heat and drought this summer, the Chocolate peppers loved it!  I don't think we've ever had sweet peppers do this well.

Pineapple sage, going strong.

 

Sage, rosemary, peppermint, and pansies.

 

 

   I was surprised with the news that we have two new furry friends in the family!  Meet Smores (brown and white, in the foreground) and Smokey (black with a white-tipped tail) .  These little doelings are staying at my in-law's place and have a fanastic little house all of their own.

 

Deluxe goat house

   The poor shelling peas had a rough summer and the yield was very low.  Hard to expect good yields from plants that were roasted by the heat.  Where there's life, there's hope, though - check out the new shoots that came up in the last little while.

 

    A good number of the tomatoes are ripening and doing okay despite the summer's extreme heat and the hail storm earlier this month.  It looks like more are ripening on the vine this year than typically do.  

Maglia Rosa

 

 

You can see the hail damage on these tomatoes (EM-Champion - click to enlarge).

 

Bellestar

 

Bellestar

 

Assessing The Damage

  R. sent some pictures of the damage to the garden that resulted from the storm on August 5th.  Between this summer's heat, drought, high winds, and then this storm, things are looking rough.  

   Starting with the tomatoes on the south side of the house...

  

   The Bellestar tomatoes planted by the North garden along the rock wall sustained the worst damage from the hail.  Many of the tomatoes are pitted and scarred as a result.  The ones that rotted have been removed.  Hopefully, the remaining ones can be processed for sauce, if nothing else, and some seeds can be saved from them. 

  

Blossom End Rot has been an issue with some of the tomatoes this summer as well, especially Bellestar.

Ripening Maglia Rosa tomatoes

Swedish Red dry peas.  R. told me that he discovered that one of the pods had been shot through by a pellet of hail, cutting it clean in half.

 

 

Mint gone wild.  I'm praying that none of it suckered or seeded into the ground...!

 

One last zucchini

The potatoes have held up well.  I'm eager to see if the harvest is as abundant as the above-ground foliage.

Balcony "Garden"

My balcony gardening experiment in Halifax has gone as follows...

May 14

   I potted up the seedlings on the 12th and put them on our neighbour's balcony yesterday.  The seedlings started in water-jugs looked great, but had almost no roots.  The seedlings started in the Lee Valley kit had much more developed roots.

   Once the weather has warmed up, I'll start some nasturtiums and transplant the pansy seedlings as well.

 

 

Update (June 24th)

 

July 15 - the 'garden' is coming along, though in some respects, not as I expected.  The pansies are doing poorly on both our balcony and the neighbour's (even though she gets more sun). The Chinese cabbage started off beautifully, but some now looks like it might bolt (I have already pulled out one).  The red cabbage is doing well and looks hardy.  The nasturtiums have come up.  They're a bit leggy, but look healthy.  Some of the parsley looks excellent, some looks like it's barely hanging on.  The kale and chard look pretty good.  I hope they experience a growth spurt in early August so we can start enjoying in salads and stir-fries.

 

August 2 - Well, at least my intentions were good!  

   The Chinese cabbage has either been stunted in growth or has bolted, so I pulled all but one.  None of the pansies (which usually grow without effort, like weeds) were doing well, so I pulled them all and used the dirt when we divided and repotted Mom's big fern.  The large container of parsley I will bring down from the neighbour's balcony to ours, as it doesn't seem to be doing any better there than the small pot of parsley I have growing on our balcony.  The kale, chard, and nasturtiums are coming along so I haven't given up on them, yet.  The only thing that looks hardy and healthy is the red cabbage.  I wish I'd planted more than three, now!

August 16 -  After pulling and composting some more things that either weren't growing well (pansies) or got eaten (kale) by bugs (possibly earwigs), I'm down to a few small kale plants, 3 red cabbage, a few very small Swiss Chard, spindly nasturtiums, and parsley.  Note to self: unless you're in a south-facing, preferably corner apartment unit, vegetables might not be the best things to attempt to grow.

It was worth a try.  Live and learn!

 

 

And Then It Poured

    After weeks and weeks of high temperatures (including two heat waves) and almost no rain, a thunderstorm passed through the Peace Region last night.  It brought with it a heavy, sustained downpour and hail.  The potato plants ended up surrounded by little mounds of hail, and the alley behind the house turned into a small river.  Fortunately, the ground was so dry that most of the rain was absorbed, and there was no pooling in the garden plots.  I'll know later today whether the hail caused the plants any damage.

Early August Update

   An update from R. on our garden in BC!  While temperatures have returned to "summer normal", it is still very dry there.  The air has been hazy for weeks from the wildfires in the province.  Several of the crops R. planted were negatively impacted by the intense heat in July. Despite regular watering, some of them have just not bounced back or performed the way they would in a typical year.  (We haven't had a "typical" growing year in the past three.  This year, intense heat and lack of rain...2020 and 2019 were cool, overcast, and very wet.)

   The shelling peas (Green Arrow and Alaska) were stunted in their growth and put out far fewer pods than usual.  The Green Arrow pods were also smaller than usual.  I think the goal, at this point, is to snack on the precious few that are till tender and well-formed.  The rest will be allowed to dry out and will be saved as "back-up" seed for next summer.

   This was a day's harvest picked this past weekend.  Normally, a day's harvest of peas would be two or three full buckets. 

Alaska peas

 

 

Green Arrow  (shorter than usual)

 

Green Arrow (peas smaller than usual).

 

 

   The dry bush beans haven't been doing that well in the heat, either.  That's unfortunate - I always look at dry beans as one of the foolproof crops!  We'll see in the coming weeks what the harvest looks like.  In poor growing years, I'm happy if we're at least able to harvest the same amount of seed that was planted so we'll have it to plant again the following year.

   Bea, lounging on a warm water barrel while supervising R's effort.  Tomatoes and lettuce in the background, south side of the house.

 

 Tomatoes in the back, ground cherries in the front.

 

Ground cherries

 

 

   The Swedish Red dry peas seem to be doing well.  At the very least, we should have enough to grow out next summer.

 

 

   The potatoes are thriving.   Fingers crossed that the crop below the surface is as abundant as the leaves above ground!

 

Little Lou snoozing in the tall grass. 

 

 

   The peppers have loved this summer's extreme heat and are doing well.  I started Sweet Chocolate, Shepherd (a sweet, pointy red pepper), and Tam (mild jalapeno) seeds before leaving in late March.  

Not sure which pepper variety this is below...

 I think this is a Shepherd pepper plant.

 

 

And maybe this is one of the Chocolate pepper plants?

 

 

   The Pineapple sage flourishing!  We must pot some of this to overwinter inside again this Fall.  :)

 

 

Fermented Cauliflower & Carrots

 

   The sauerkraut started last week is percolating along, so today I decided to start a cauliflower and carrot ferment.  This method uses a brine that is made and then added to the jar of vegetables, whereas the sauerkraut produced it's own brine after salt was worked into the cabbage before it was bottled.

  Using several recipes as a reference, I combined 2 Tbsp fine non-iodized salt (e.g., sea salt or pink Himayalan salt) in a quart of filtered water to make the brine.  About a quart and a half of brine was used for the two jars pictured below.  Garlic cloves were placed in the bottom of the jars, though I forgot to lightly crush them beforehand.  Hopefully, the flavour will come through, anyway.  If these batches turn out well, I'll try adding grated ginger root to the mix next time.

   Don't you love the owl jar on the right?  (Click to enlarge)  It was a "jackpot" find Dad made at the Dollar Store a few years ago.  He had a knack for finding neat little things like this!

 

 

   July 28 update - bubbles galore in both jars for a number of days, though the amount is much less now.  The brine became cloudy, moreso in the mason jar than the owl jar.  This cloudiness is apparently a normal by-product of the fermentation process.  I was worried for a while!

Looking forward to doing a taste-test on the weekend.

 

 

July 30 - Opening the jar for a taste test was an experience.  Pouff!  What a strong smell!  I don't know if that is from the fermentation process in general, or if it's because of the presence of cauliflower.  In any case, the carrots are crisp and taste very similar to pickled carrots.  The cauliflower pieces still have a nice crunch and are tangy.  Good for snacking, and they'd be nice in a salad, too.  I would ferment both again, though in separate jars, and would add a bit of ginger root to the carrots.

 

Making Sauerkraut

   Yesterday, I decided to take the plunge and try making sauerkraut.  I've had good results making milk kefir and kombucha in recent years, so this didn't seem too daunting.  There are a few different ways of doing it.  For the first batch, I decided to go with a 2% non-iodized salt ratio (2g salt : 100g cabbage).  Pink Himalayan salt was on hand, though sea salt also seems to be a favourite of many people who regularly ferment vegetables.

   I have fermenting stones and "burp" lids at home, but don't here in Halifax.  Trying to improvise weights, I came very close to using marble chess pieces (only the very best for my kraut...ha!), but ended up using decorative houseplant stones from a package that Mom found instead. 

   Updates will be added below as the sauerkraut ferments and the taste-tests begin.

 

 

 

 July 20 - the cabbage is now more yellow than green, as expected.  Bubbles can still be seen in the brine, though the amount of brine in each jar seems to be less than it was a few days ago.

   I ordered some fermentation stones and plastic jar lids online this past weekend (should have also ordered silicone fermentation lids, but I can do without them).  I'm already planning the next batch of fermented vegetables (carrots, cauliflower, and garlic sounds good).

   July 29 - The sauerkraut tastes great!  If I had known it was this easy to make, I would have done so years ago.  I put one jar in the fridge, and am leaving the other out to ferment a bit more.