Frilly Garden 2012

The Frilly Garden 2012: You win some, you lose some
July 7th, 2012

This is how humid it was here this afternoon. It felt like the rainforest.

Believe me, there’s a garden behind there. I couldn’t get a picture for a bit since the lens kept fogging up.

On to business. I know it’s been about 3 weeks since I’ve updated you all on the garden’s progress.

What have we been doing for 3 weeks in the time we haven’t updated?

This:

And this:

And this:

I know that an update is overdue, but I really wanted to have something great to talk about before posting an update.

Things with the garden have progressed well in some areas, but not so well in others.

I’ll let you see the progress in pictures. The ‘Before’ pictures were taken June 10th. The second in the set of pictures were taken today, July 7th.

Green Beans:

Brussels Sprouts:

Celeriac:

Cherokee Tomatoes:

Corn:

Cucumbers:

Eggplant:

Kale:

Kohlrabi:

Lettuce:

Pumpkin:

Squash:

Tomatillo:

Green Zebra:

Zucchini:

Check this out. Our potatoes. There is no before picture, since they were just seed potatoes buried in the ground. Look at them now:

I know, right? Yowza!

Last, but not least, one of the newest members of our frilly family – jalapenos!

Wow! We’ve had some serious growth! Did you see those tomatillos? Eeee!

We’ve also lost some stuff – the kale, brussels sprouts, and the kohlrabi are toast. Some furry little critter wanted to eat them before they were ready to be eaten. We even went as far as to replace the brussels sprouts, only to realize that we’ve provided a second snack for said furry critter.

Oh well, I love the critters, so it’s OK. We may replace the lost plants with something that will grow really quickly, but we may also just leave those areas empty now.

The good news: our pumpkins, zucchinis, potatoes, corn, and tomatillos are really taking off. I’m excited to watch them from week to week now. You’ll be watching them too. From here on out, I’ll be providing you with weekly progress pictures.

We actually had to cage one of our tomatillos today since it was so heavy it was leaning over. Here’s how I did that:

Slumping tomatillo:

Get yourself a “tomato” cage. You can buy these for about $1.50 at a garden centre:

Place the cage over the tomatillo, inserting it gently into the soil:

Now gently maneuver the tomatillo up and into the centre of the cage, allowing it leaves to reach for the sunlight:

Voila:

Tomorrow we fertilize! I’ll save those details for then.

 

The Frilly Garden 2012: 7 days in, 6 plants dead
June 10, 2012

I have bad news.

The watermelons didn’t make it. Not a single survivor. I blame the cold temperatures we had last week.

There’s more bad news.

We lost a tomato plant too. The wind snapped it near the beginning of the week. Efforts were made to revive it, but we failed.

We’ve decided that we’ll use the mound we had for watermelon for our peppers instead. We’ll put some black landscaping fabric on the mound before we plant the peppers. The landscaping fabric serves two purposes: it will keep the earth warmer, which is great for plants like peppers, and it will help keep the weeds down. We may do the same for our tomato rows. Then we’ll probably put natural mulch over the landscaping fabric – the mulch will keep the fabric in place, and further warm the earth and keep the weeds down.

This week brought our first round of weeding. Yes, you really should weed your garden often. It took me about 2 minutes to do the whole thing, which really isn’t bad at all. If you stay on top of it, it’s much less painful. I take a big ice cream bucket around with me and put the weeds in it, then dump them elsewhere when I’m finished.

Check out this week’s weed haul:

Surprising isn’t it? I didn’t think I’d get that much either.

Now, for the most exciting news of the week! I always like to finish on a high note…

My husband made me a new (well, re-purposed wood new) herb box! All made from re-purposed wood from an old play structure we had in our back yard. I love that the wood is weathered. I love that it’s nice and big and can hold lots of lovely herbs. I loved that I actually got to help put some nails in it. I especially love that we got to make it together.

Here is our collection of annual herbs. They are growing so quickly!

Italian Flat Leaf Parsley.

Barbecue Rosemary. I have no idea why it’s called barbecue rosemary. If anyone knows, please tell me.

Purple Ruffled Basil. Like regular basil, but with a bit of a clove taste. And purple! and ruffley! It looks a bit sad in this picture, but we had just watered it, and it was having a little nap after it’s drink.

Genovese Basil. The classic. Think pesto. I just love touching it when I walk by – the aroma just brings good feelings.

Cilantro. Our newest addition. We got it a week ago, when it was only about a centimetre tall. I have a new love affair with cilantro – I’m going to give this one some extra love.

Here is this week’s garden photo. It’s not filling in much yet, but you can bet it’s going to.

All in all, we spent an entire afternoon outdoors working. I think a little reward is in order, don’t you?

Cheers, y’all.

The Frilly Garden 2012: The List
June 3, 2012

I’d like to talk about the things we’ve planted in the garden, so that you’ll all know what we’re up against, and what we can look forward to this year. I’m just not sure how to classify them and group them accordingly to talk about them. So I’m not going to.

Today I’m going to post the full list of what we’ve planted. Each week, I’ll highlight one or two of these lovelies in detail. I really think they’re special enough that they deserve their own posts. We’re really quite excited about all of the different varieties of fruits and vegetables we’ve put in the ground this year.

Here goes…

We’ve planted 8 types of tomatoes this year, both in the garden, and in pots.

Early Girl (Red, Hybrid)
Purple Cherokee (Purple, Heirloom variety)
Green Zebra (Green/Yellow Striped, Heirloom)
New Girl (Red, Hybrid)
Better Boy (Red, Heirloom)
Brandywine (Red, Heirloom)
Golden Jubilee (Yellow, Heirloom)
Patio Hybrid (Red)

We also planted lots of other things:

Chieftan Potatoes
Green Bush Beans
Dusky Purple Eggplant
Celeriac
Kale
Burpless Cucumbers
Buttercup Squash
Watermelon
Tomatillos
Pie Pumpkins
Zucchini
Kohlrabi
Oh So Sweet Corn
3 Varieties of Lettuce: Buttercrunch, Ruby, and Green Leaf
Mesclun
Brussels Sprouts
Jalapeno Peppers
Habanero Peppers

The Herbs:

Barbecue Rosemary
Cilantro
Globe Basil
Bronze Fennel (Heirloom)
Flat Leaf Parsley

And last year’s perennial herbs:

Mint
Lavender
Chives

Whew! That’s it. Yes, so far, that’s all.

Gah! That’s 27 different types of fruits and vegetables, and 8 different herbs.

Oh my.

The Frilly Garden 2012: Plant, plant, plant!
June 3, 2012

On to one of the fun parts of the gardening process, the planting.

You should already have your rows and mounds ready, right? Let’s get going!

Place your plants where you’re going to be planting them.

It’s finally time to put some plants in the ground!

Here’s how you do it.

First, dig the hole. Dig it to about the depth of the soil pod of the starter plant.

Second, squeeze around the edges of a single starter in your starter pack. The plant, in its soil pod, should come out of the pack. Don’t be afraid to be forceful – those little plants aren’t quite as dainty as you’d think.

Third, pull off a bit of the bottom of the soil pod, releasing some of the roots at the bottom of the starter.

This is what it might look like up close.

Pop that little guy in the ground. This particular little plant is the start of a juicy, luscious watermelon. The reddest you’ll ever see. I hope.

Fill in the hole, then press down firmly around the base of the stalk of the plant, standing it up straight.

Shuffle a bit of lose dirt around the base of the plant, and you’re done.

Don’t forget to water it in!

A new plant needs an immediate watering – I think it’s like offering company a drink. It’s polite and makes them feel at home.

The Frilly Garden 2012: Preparing the Garden Plots
June 3, 2012

Preparing the plots is easily the hardest part about gardening. By far. Leaps and bounds.

The first thing we did was choose where on our property we’d put the garden. We thought long and hard about it, finally choosing an area in the back yard. We chose this area for a couple of reasons – the first being that it gets the most afternoon sun, and the second being that our back yard is largely undeveloped and had been a bit neglected when we bought the house. Slowly but surely, we’re working on changing our backyard to make it a place where we love to spend time.

Once having decided the best area for the garden, we had to start turning over some land. I will now confess that we planted our first garden at this house about 3 years ago, but haven’t planted a full garden every year since, so we have a bit of work to do to get the plot ready for planting again.

Every year we put in a garden, we want more and more planting area. This year we’ve actually developed 3 plots. The largest plot is approximately 20ft x 20ft. Our second plot, newly expanded, is approximately 14ft x 7 ft. The third plot, brand new this year, is 4ft x 4ft. In the following pictures, the plots have been tilled.

Now the real work begins. It’s time to rake up the rows and mounds we’ll be planting.

As you rake, you pick rocks and weeds. We made our rows approximately a foot across, and raised them up. This is in the style of a English garden – raised rows. This helps keep the soil warmer for plants, allows for drainage, and helps the roots reach a little easier into the earth.

Once you mound up the rows, you flatten them a touch with the back of a rake or with a hoe.

When you flatten the rows, you’ll find a lot of the old weeds and grasses come up to the surface. Throw all of the weeds and rocks away that you bring up in making rows.

Fast forward two hours. Your rows and mounds are ready for some compost.

This year, we used sea compost. Compost will immediately put nutrients into the soil you’re about to be planting in. Like offering your new plants a little snack.

Sprinkle compost on each of the mounds and rows. Mix it in by hand. This will allow you to feel and pick any other weeds and rocks from the soil.

Now for some minor planning. You need to decide where to put the items you’ll be planting. We decided to buy starter plants as opposed to planting seeds. We did this for a couple of reasons – first, you hardly ever use all of the seeds in a pack, second, buying the starters gives you a great head start for about the same amount you’d spend on a pack of seeds anyway. Besides those reasons, we buy our starter plants from Currie’s, a great local organic greenhouse. They are fantastic, and they really know their stuff. And, they’re completely organic. If you live in the Fredericton area, drop by for a visit.

The tags on the plants you buy will tell you how they need to be planted. Some plants prefer mounds (like squash, zucchini, melon, and the like). Others can be planted in regular rows at a certain distance apart. Take note of which of the plants really need a LOT of sun, versus those you’re planting that are known as cold weather crops. If there’s an area of your garden that might not get quite as much sun as another area, you won’t want to plant your tomatoes there, but it would be a great place for kale.

That’s a great start.

Take a nap. You’re going to need it. And trust me, you’re in deservement of the nap.

The Frilly Garden 2012
June 2, 2012

I dream of being a farmer.

Yes, really – farming is my dream. I dream of sitting on my back porch, overlooking fields of green, coffee in hand, with the people I love next to me, knowing we have a pantry full of food for another year. After the harvest of course, because anyone who knows anything about farming knows there isn’t much time for sitting during the farming season.

Until the time comes when I can realize my dream, I am very content planting our own garden plots in the backyard. This year I’m going to chronicle the entire garden process – start to finish.

I hope you follow our gardening experience this year. We’d like to show people that with a little bit of money, and a bit of sweat, you can grow a lot of food. You can provide for yourself and your loved ones.

Gardening is just so satisfying.