Neighbours talking over the garden gate has long been a tradition. They share gardening tips, complain about the weather and pests yet are ever eager to discuss their gardens. That is what I had in mind when creating this blog. So stop by my garden gate to find out the latest happenings in my garden.
Happy Gardening!
Garden Gnome
"All my life through, the new sights of Nature made me rejoice like a child." ~ Madame Marie Curie"
A sure sign of winter approaching is the falling leaves. We get a lot of leaves because we have 3 large maple trees in our back yard and the neighbours on both sides of us each have a large maple tree. Across the road in front of our house there are more trees that drop leaves, neighbouring properties with lots of trees and our huge, old willow tree. Most of our neighbours rake the leaves up and burn them. One of our neighbours is out almost daily raking or using a leaf blower then bagging the leaves for municipal collection. They pick up leaves and other yard waste for the community compost centre. With the large number of leaves we experience it is almost impossible for us to rely solely on composting though.
We tend to leave the leaves until after the first frost which is really late this year. We still haven't had a frost but I'm not complaining. My husband sets the lawn mower on mulch to take care of a large portion of the leaves. He also uses a leaf vacuum to collect what can't be mulched. We compost what we can and put the rest out for the municipal collection.
When frost threatens the garden, bringing in potted plants and tender plants is an ideal way to keep plants for the next spring. There are a couple of problems with bring in plants with the main one introducing insects indoors. I kid you not, I brought in an asparagus fern that hid a spider almost the size of a quarter! Other common insects in potted plants are ants, earwings and pill bugs. Outdoor potted plants can also introduce plant diseases that may spread throughout other houseplants. There are a few ways to avoid these problems.
tap the pot several times before and after moving which will knock off some insects especially earwings and pill bugs
brush the pot well to make sure there are no spider nests
check the plant itself for any spiders, caterpillars or other insects
spray plants with Safer's soap or a homemade soap solution
isolate plants from other house plants to ensure insects and/or disease do not spread
I've been following a discussion about the 5 crops (foods) that should be grown for sustainable living in uncertain times. They are: potatoes, corn, beans, squash and eggs. My gosh I have to say I disagree with the potatoes and corn. I will be discussing this in greater detail on my cooking blog but from a gardening perspective you really do need a fair amount of space to grow enough potatoes to make it worth your while even if growing in sacks or garbage cans. For most home gardeners corn takes up too much space for the yield and does not lend itself well to growing on a balcony.
Here is a list of fruits and vegetables that I would consider necessary for sustainable living space permitting of course:
tomatoes
peppers
lettuces
chards
onions
carrots
squash
pole beans
peas
rutabaga
fruit bearing bushes
fruit bearing trees
Some animals take up more room than others and depending on location may not be allowed by the municipality. Consider too that animals are a 24/7 commitment so may not fit in with your lifestyle. Here is a list of animals tthat would be nice to have for sustainable living in smaller spaces:
Palm trees are very popular where our vacation home is. They are rather problem free, tolerating the heat and humidity well. Pictured is one of the palm trees near our vacation home. Now palms actually come with one itsy, bitsy problem. They attract palmetto bugs aka American cockroach. I am not impressed with palmetto bugs at all even though I know they don't bite or do damage. They are huge and they will come up sewage pipes. We have had two come up through the toilet at the vacation home so I am definitely not impressed. The last thing I need before having coffee in the morning is to have a visitor in my toilet, thank-you very much!
I love doing a bit of garden surfing so to speak in our vacation home community. Our vacation home is is Zone 9B so considerably warmer than our home Zone 6 B. That means I get to discover a lot of rather interesting tropical plants. This is a showy bulbaceous bulb that does not do well at temperatures below 60ºF. While I won't be able to grow this gorgeous plant outdoors at home I will be able to grow some at our vacation home. Isn't is pretty?
I picked a fair amount of various peppers over the last few days in anticipation of frost soon to come. Pictured are some of the jalapeno peppers. See the thin white striations on the lower three jalapeno peppers? These striations are known as corking. Some believe that corking is an indication of that jalapeno pepper being hotter than those without corking. However, Cook's Illustrated tested this theory and found no correlation between corking and heat of the individual jalapeno pepper. Rather corking is a genetic trait this this particular variety of chili pepper that has no bearing on the heat level of the pepper. Corking is a desired trait for jalapeno peppers grown in Mexico. Some hybrid varieties of jalapeno peppers are less prone to corking.
The milder weather has given me extra time to get plants indoors. Yesterday I brought in a pot of onions. I planted the onions in early June but by mid-July they were pretty much done. I intended to dump the pot and replant but forgot. When we returned home from our September vacation I was pleasantly greeted with some rather healthy looking growth. It looks like I will have a few fresh onions for salads!
The sky was a gorgeous blue yesterday morning. It had rained the night before so I was waiting for the gardens to dry a bit before raiding them again. I figured I would get the last of any of the green tomatoes since if a frost hits them they won't ripen off the vine and gathering a few herbs. I didn't get the chance. By afternoon the skies turned ominous looking then let out a blast of hail! That's right hail! Talk about the weather turning.
My gosh, by any stretch of the imagination home gardeners and commercial growers in our area have not had a good growing season. Despite that the fall has been rather on the mild side meaning the garden has been producing longer than normal. It is beyond our ADFF and we have yet to have a frost. The weather is turning and based on the week's weather predictions I decided to pick whatever vegetables I could yesterday. I was surprised at how much there really was left to pick! By far the majority was peppers but still enough tomatoes to do something with. Those two lone tomatoes are the last of the Brandywines so we are really going to enjoy a couple of toasted tomato sandwiches! They will be the last decent toasted tomato sandwiches of the year but will keep our mouth watering for next year's crop.
I will be doing clean picks until a good frost which likely won't happen for a couple of days or more given that we are in a pocket where we enjoy a bit of warming effect from the water. There will be smaller amounts of vegetable coming in and today if it is dry I will be harvesting herbs. I'm still bringing in clippings as well. There are a few busy harvest days ahead yet, if we are lucky :)
I spent the morning bringing in plants and doing a bit of picking in the garden. The weather is still quite nice but it's easy to see it is turning. The weather forecast for today is a low of 0ºC and a low of -3ºC tomorrow making the possibility of a frost all that much closer. I decided it would be prudent to make a clean pick of the remaining vegetables. That way if we get a frost they won't be lost. We are in a slight pocket where the warming effects of the water is felt so it will likely still be a few more days before we get a frost.
We still haven't had our first frost so things are still trickling in from the garden. I don't clean out the garden beds until after first frost which kills off the plants making clean out a bit easier. Leaving the plants also protects the soil a bit from erosion. Many of the farmers here have gone to leaving the stubble in the fields rather than plow the field under for the same reason. The stubble also helps reduce drifting snow.
I brought a couple more tomato clippings indoors. I may dig up one of the California Wonder pepper plants to bring indoors as well. I have a pot of onions that I will likely bring indoors too. Our house is on the market again but I'm making garden plans here just in case as well as garden plans for our vacation home. We have a house in mind that if we sell which is iffy because the market has softened we'd like to buy. It has a good sized yard for gardening as well. So once again gardening plans are up in the air but still going forward and the nice thing about plans is they can always be changed.
Oldest and youngest grandchildren visited yesterday. On their way to the car after our visit we stopped to check out the garden. Imagine oldest grandchild's squeals of delight at spotting this beautiful leopard frog. This is the first time I've seen a frog in the garden. It sure was a pleasant surprise.
My gosh! Like many I've complained about the local growing conditions this year. It was certainly by any stretch of the imagination brutal. Autumn has arrived and guess what despite warnings of an early frost we haven't had one. That means I'm still harvesting peppers, tomatoes, herbs and chard. It really is nice after having such a nasty season that we are seeing an extended harvest.
If you have been following this blog you will know that I now garden in two very different hardiness zones. My home hardiness zone is Canadian Hardiness Zone 6A but our vacation home is in US Hardiness Zone 9B. I am learning so much about gardening in a warmer climate! We were out doing a little yard work and discovered this huge and I do mean huge spider. We have large funnel spiders as home but that did not prepare me for this huge spider! It had to be about 4 times the size of a large funnel spider. To get an idea of the size of this spider each siding strip from straight edge on the bottom to cove edge on the top is 4 - inches. The spider stretched out would span most of that 4 - inches! Needless to say we have a healthy new respect for gardening gloves!
I should mention that I was as far as we can tell bit by something shortly after arriving. My hand swelled horribly with a very tender lump then it turned just about every shade of purple you could imagine with my knuckles a bright red. It took a good week for the swelling to start going down. After three weeks the bruising is almost gone but the tender lump remains. As long as I'm seeing signs of healing I'm not concerned but in hindsight I likely should have had it checked because if bit again by the same critter the reaction will likely be a lot worse. As a result I have been doing a fair amount of research in what to be on the look-out for in US Zone 9B. There definitely are a couple of venomous snakes, brown recluse spiders and fire ants to watch out for.
A couple of weeks ago we went down to the clubhouse for dinner. Surrounding the clubhouse are lovely raised garden beds as well as traditional style. What is really nice is they have placards with the names of many of the plants to help other residents in the community identify the plants they may want to use in their own gardens. A cute little salamander darted about then right on cue posed for his photoshoot. As amphibians go, salamanders are a bit more of the cute size. I love watching the geckos too and while I enjoy photographing the alligators I am sure to keep a safe distance from them!
We are back homeside after being away for a couple of weeks. It wasn't the ideal time to go away with respect to the garden but it was a much needed break for us. I can't believe what a difference a bit of time away from the gardens made. Apparently we got a fair amount of rain because the lawns look lovely. They are nice and green! The herb bed is doing wonderful and I just picked oodles of hot peppers for canning. The tomatoes didn't fare as well with too much rain that caused splitting. Still there were a few stragglers to pick. I did end up losing my potted grapevine and one horseradish but all of a sudden my onions are back. So it's been an interesting return to my home garden after having a bit of fun at my vacation garde :)
Plumbago auriculata is a very popular garden plant in Zone 9B where our vacation home is. This is an evergreen bush with showy blue flowers that remind me of phlox. I think it is quite pretty so will be planting a few bushes at our vacation home. Propagation is by semiripe tip cuttings in the spring or by seed. However, the nurseries in the area sell potted bushes for planting. Isn't it a pretty bush?
Now that our gardening season is starting to wind down with the ADFF quickly approaching, I am looking for a few winter gardening projects to test out. This year was quite dry throughout the summer creating problems with the container plants that easily dried out just a couple of hours after watering. I didn't use the watering globes outdoors but I did use the SoilMoistTMgranules on some of the inedible planters. Nothing seemed to help this year so I'm going to start experimenting with self watering containers.
I am going to try a couple of styles of homemade self watering containers. The following video shows the first type I am going to try. This is a very practical set-up that should cost about $5 using recycled materials. It will cost more in potting soil than materials. Potting soil will have a better wicking action than garden soil but I will likely experiment with a homemade soil mixture to use. What I like about this design is the container is large enough for several vegetable varieties. With a bit of modification the container can sit inside a wooden container so it will look nice as well. I will likely use a piece of PVC pipe that we have left over from plumbing repairs rather than try to find plastic water bottles.
There are many ways to get seeds for your garden with one of the most popular being through seed catalogues. Another popular method is collecting seeds from plants growing in your garden. If you join a local garden club they usually offer a seed an/or plant exchange. You can also get seeds from family and friends who garden. All of these methods are great ways to get seeds. One method of getting seeds is through a seed bank.
A seed bank is usually run by one or two gardening enthusiasts but in some cases is run by a gardening group. Seed banks have slightly different rules based on who is running them. In general, you put in a request for the seeds you would like along with any seeds you have to offer. Some seed banks request you donate seeds to help keep the seed bank well stocked. Most ask that you send a SASE with your request as well. In return they will send you 5 to 10 seeds of the requested variety if they have it. The number of seeds will be based on both supply and demand.
There are a few things to be aware of if using a seed bank. First most seed banks are run by volunteers or individual garden enthusiasts who are not paid. They are simply doing this because they love gardening and want to help fellow gardeners. As such they are always very appreciative if you can donate seeds to their seed bank. It is also considered rude to request too many seed varieties so keep that in mind when making your request. In general requesting 2 to 4 varieties is acceptable with a seed donation depending on the seed bank. Don't expect more than 5 to 10 seeds of any one variety. The may be a lower germination rate for seeds from a seed bank. The reason for lower germination rate is seed banks accept seed donations that may be collected from gardeners ranging from very inexperienced to very experienced. The seed bank has no way of knowing the gardener's experience or how the seeds were treated during and after collection. As with an item being sent through the mail there may be delays and in some cases the envelop may get lost. Another thing to consider is where the seed bank is located. If it is outside of your country there may be some restrictions as to what you can order. Check with Customs first before requesting seeds from seed banks in other countries. I have not heard of any problems but then I've only dealt with seed banks in Canada.
Happy Gardening!
When it comes to gardening, the choice of what to grow is reduced to heirloom varieties or hybrids. By far I prefer heirloom varieties because I can save the seeds that breed true. Seed can be saved from hybrids and I do but quite often they do not breed true. There are also asexual propagation restrictions on some hybrid varieties.
One commentator asked me back in the spring if I could list the heirloom varieties that I grow. Here is my list and it does change from year to year as I try other heirloom varieties. Those marked with an asterisk (*) are heirloom varieties I am planning on growing in 2011 in addition to the others listed. I've likely missed a lot of heirlooms on our property especially the non-edible varieties. In addition to this list I would consider the majority of the herbs I grow as heirloom varieties.
There are many benefits to joining a local garden club. Not only do you get to interact with other gardeners you can get a lot of growing tips as well a exchange clippings and seeds. We have a local garden club where we live as well as a garden club where our vacation home is. I think they are a great way to extend your gardening knowledge while meeting other gardeners!
Happy Gardening!
I am a wife, mother and grandma who enjoys the many aspects of homemaking. A variety of interests and hobbies combined with travel keep me active. They reflect the importance of family, friends, home and good food.
