Greens in April!

Evidence of spinach in April! My spinach and arugula, which were planted in March have sprouted and are currently about 2" tall. If this trend continues, we will have fresh greens ready to eat before Victoria day. Un.believe.able. I'm going to start beans this week under glass. On the negative side, it appears that my currant scions are no longer living. They still exhibit a bit of green in the bud, but they have not sprouted, unlike the mother plant which is nearby. We'll see about this as the days go on.

Here's to an early start!

March Miscellany

It's March, and we've had a superb stretch of weather. The snow is completely off of our garden and the earth is bare. The loss of the snow has revealed that the little black currant scions that I cut off and planted last October have made it through the winter with buds intact. Here's a picture of one of them:



It doesn't look like much beyond a dead branch, but if you look closely you can see the buds with hints of green in there. We'll see how they progress. One other thing that I'm trying this year is a cold frame. Here's how it looks:

The idea behind the cold frame is that you use the sun's heat to warm up the ground enough to plant some colder weather vegetables and extend your growing season. I'm going to try to start some spinach next week.

Garden 2010

Food fotos from Wildmint Garden

Maroon on the outside...

Cosmic on the inside! (that one's about 4")

See what I mean about the whole bullseye on LSD thing?

One red tomato, one green, two zucchinis

Disease and pest

I've got some septoria leaf spot on a few of my tomato plants. One Manitoba has been decimated, and the other is on its way. I'm going to have to take them up, and I suppose I'll just have to do fried green tomatoes. The reason, I'm certain is a combination of cool, wet weather with fairly intense tomato planting. This is one of the downsides of square foot gardening. Like a packed city, disease spreads quickly.

Also, while the dry weather has meant the slugs have slowed down (not ceased), there are still earwig issues in the beans and stinkbugs (which come in many shapes and colours) are in many places. I'd like to import a few toads but squishing works for now.

More goodies

It's been hot and dry here the past 4 days or so, and the garden is finally enjoying a reprieve from the cool, damp, weather we've been having. The tomatoes are turning red, zucchinis are growing well, and the cucumbers are starting to hit their stride.

Tonight for dinner we had zucchini (the first full sized from our plant, four more on the way), four small Manitoba tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette (they are very, very tangy; they would probably be improved with a bit of sweetness in the vinaigrette, or perhaps no vinegar and merely olive oil alone) , our first cucumber picked off the trellis (note: cucumbers should not taste like water; they have a distinct taste which reminds me of the smell of freshly weed-whacked wildflowers after a rain; same for zucchini's just different flowers), a whack of yellow rocdor bush and also jeminez pole beans (which are very, very good. Better even than the rocdor yellows. It is like eating fresh, buttery green silk. I kid you not.), a couple of cosmic purple carrots (which are really only cosmic in the Woodstock era sense; the longest was six inches, the other about four inches. They remind me of a psychedelic bulls eye when cut cross-wise); I would grow them just for the visual aesthetic alone.

Judging from the look of things, we're soon to be up to our eyeballs in tomatoes and zucchinis. Suits me just fine. I'm keeping track of yields on our house calendar and will post yield information at the end of the month.

Informal tally

I'll get actual weights and worths in the future, but here's a rough estimation of what we've pulled from the garden thus far:

Yellow beans: 8 crops and counting
Pole Beans: 1 crop and counting
Snap peas (snow peas): 3 crops and counting, despite heavy losses from the damn slugs
Swiss Chard: 6 crops and counting (and delicious)
Beets: 1 crop + greens
Tomatoes: 1 tomato. Had it last night. Was watery and not all that good, actually. Too much rain. Zucchinis: 1. Again, too much rain, not enough heat.
Cucumbers: None yet, though the vines are producing flowers and some small fruit.
Carrots: none.

Pictures of deliciousness

These are a few pics of some of the produce our little patch has produced this year. From the top, you'll see:

a. Beet greens (the beets themselves were about the same size as plums and, as Nicole says: "succulent." They didn't make the pic because they were being cooked already. We ate them with a touch of white vinegar and butter. And yes, they were succulent). I steam the beet greens which are also very tasty. Similar to swiss chard, actually, which makes sense as the two plants are related.

b. The first, and slightly smaller than average picking of our yellow rocdor bush beans. We've had eight crops of these and counting. They're delicious as well; slightly buttery and not a tad bit stringy or tough, they are very tender. Our neighbours, friends and colleagues are benefiting from our surplus and so are our paletes. Suffice it to say that 3 square feet of beans planted in 3'' squares produces ample reward for the amount of work. I haven't had to weed them since the second or third week; their crowns shade out the weeds.

c. the lovely shape of a rocdor yellow bush bean. It's a very attractive bean. Slender, and gently curved.