By the grace of God, or Mother Nature, the predicted frost for last night didn't materialise . . . which was really good, since I hadn't found anything to cover up all my plants with!
Yes, I still have bean plants with no beans on them - flowers, yes, but no beans as yet - I have pea plants with only the tiniest, flat pea pods on them, and the weatherman was predicting frost. In August. This has been a truly terrible summer, horticulturally speaking. Snow in June, rain throughout July, and then frost before the end of August. Man, I hope next year is better!
On the positive side . . . I pulled up 2 potato plants the other day, and the spuds are awesome! So delicious. I also pulled half a row of carrots, most of which I'm going to freeze for the winter, but I have some of them in the fridge, scrubbed, leaves removed and ready for peeling. Yummy. Oh yeah, these are the Nantes Scarlet Core carrots. I haven't picked any of the Imperators yet.
The Diva cucumber I had growing in the greenhouse is done, in spite of watering etc., its leaves are turning pale green and there's no more cukes on it, so I'll have to remove it in short order. The other cukes are still growing well, regardless of the lower nighttime temperatures.
But the peppers have still not been harvested. They're not very big, I'm not sure if they're ready . . . and now, they're infested with Aphids. Just the peppers, both green and red. And one broccoli plant, but the broccoli is about done now too, I think.
All in all, I think it's been a fairly successful summer in the garden, in spite of the crappy weather. Clearly, there are some things that I need to change for next year - but that's okay. It's a learning experience, and I learned what not to do in the greenhouse! Number one - bigger pots for the tomatoes right from the beginning; and two - set up the irrigation system as soon as the plants are in their bigger pots. Watering them automatically, twice a day seems to work far better than at high noon. More fertilizer would be good too.
Next year, I will have a bigger garden - my husband is going to build a proper fence (no more corral panels) for me, enclosing the greenhouse in the garden, and giving me a fresh new large spot for planting. It should be fabulous! I'm already plotting what veges to plant!
Showing posts with label greenhouses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label greenhouses. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Lettuce Love Liquid
Lettuce love liquid . . . yes, indeedy they do. Particularly when it comes in the form of 3 inches of rain!!
That's how much rain we've had in our latest dump since Friday, 3 more inches. Gotta tell you though, the weeds are loving it entirely too much. I'd just finished weeding before the rain and Presto! more weeds had appeared when I went out to empty my rain gauge yesterday evening.
The potatoes are also loving the rain - in fact, they've grown so much in the past few days, I think I'm going to have to hoe them again, and I only did that a week ago! Not that I'm complaining, the growth is awesome, especially if I don't have to use our temperamental well to do the watering . . . but the old arthritis in my fingers makes hoeing a bit more of a chore than it used to be.
The two plants which do not seem to like this rain at all, are the tomatoes and the cucumbers in the garden. They are not at all happy. Especially when one compares them to the ones in the greenhouse. The plants in the greenhouse are growing like weeds (but in a good way, haha) and I have to rearrange my greenhouse because in the past couple of days, my broccoli have grown too big for the spot I had them in. Ooops.
I'm beginning to think I might need that second greenhouse after-all!! Yet last year, I only managed to successfully grow 2 cucumber plants, everything else died. This year however, I have 5 healthy, growing cucumber plants in the greenhouse, 6 healthy tomato plants, 6 healthy broccoli and 3 healthy pepper plants. Although, I must admit, I'm having a wee issue with my Balls Beefsteak tomatoes - the plant is healthy and is growing well, but, the tomatoes themselves have a weird green part on the top around the stem. It just appeared the day after the last time I fertilized, so I'm not sure what's up with that. The other tomatoes are fine. Perhaps, I'm just not meant to grow beefsteak tomatoes??
It's bizarre, what's going on with the tomatoes, because they're all in the same dirt. They're all on the same side of the greenhouse. They all get watered and fertilized at the same time. And only the Beefsteak have this problem - perhaps another gardener out there, who is reading this, could tell me if Beefsteaks are prone to this type of thing? And are the fruit still edible? Beefsteaks are huge, so I would be wasting a lot of tomato if I had to compost them!!
(Top: Buttercrunch; bottom: Romaine - these photos were taken on Thursday. They're bigger now)
That's how much rain we've had in our latest dump since Friday, 3 more inches. Gotta tell you though, the weeds are loving it entirely too much. I'd just finished weeding before the rain and Presto! more weeds had appeared when I went out to empty my rain gauge yesterday evening.
The potatoes are also loving the rain - in fact, they've grown so much in the past few days, I think I'm going to have to hoe them again, and I only did that a week ago! Not that I'm complaining, the growth is awesome, especially if I don't have to use our temperamental well to do the watering . . . but the old arthritis in my fingers makes hoeing a bit more of a chore than it used to be.
The two plants which do not seem to like this rain at all, are the tomatoes and the cucumbers in the garden. They are not at all happy. Especially when one compares them to the ones in the greenhouse. The plants in the greenhouse are growing like weeds (but in a good way, haha) and I have to rearrange my greenhouse because in the past couple of days, my broccoli have grown too big for the spot I had them in. Ooops.
(First photo is of the Sub-Arctics in the greenhouse; second is the Sub-Arctics in the garden. Quite a difference!)
I'm beginning to think I might need that second greenhouse after-all!! Yet last year, I only managed to successfully grow 2 cucumber plants, everything else died. This year however, I have 5 healthy, growing cucumber plants in the greenhouse, 6 healthy tomato plants, 6 healthy broccoli and 3 healthy pepper plants. Although, I must admit, I'm having a wee issue with my Balls Beefsteak tomatoes - the plant is healthy and is growing well, but, the tomatoes themselves have a weird green part on the top around the stem. It just appeared the day after the last time I fertilized, so I'm not sure what's up with that. The other tomatoes are fine. Perhaps, I'm just not meant to grow beefsteak tomatoes??
(If you look closely, you can see the green part on the top of the tomato - this was taken on Thursday, since then, the biggest one has started to ripen and the green part is even more noticeable.)
It's bizarre, what's going on with the tomatoes, because they're all in the same dirt. They're all on the same side of the greenhouse. They all get watered and fertilized at the same time. And only the Beefsteak have this problem - perhaps another gardener out there, who is reading this, could tell me if Beefsteaks are prone to this type of thing? And are the fruit still edible? Beefsteaks are huge, so I would be wasting a lot of tomato if I had to compost them!!
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Rain, rain, go away . . . please!!!
So, a week after the gigantic downpour which flooded the town of Chetwynd, closed the Pine Pass and overloaded Fort St. John's sewer system, not to mention turning my poor garden into a swamp . . . I read a forecast which says more heavy rain is expected this weekend. The last heavy downpour dumped 4.5 inches of rain into my rain gauge - this forecast says 50 to 80 mm - about the same again!!
Exactly how are my plants supposed to grow??? Sunshine, nice hot, dry sunshine is what's needed right now. For at least 2 weeks, non-stop!!
I have learned something as a result of this rain though. The plants which I took out of the greenhouse and planted in the garden - the tomatoes (Sub-Arctic) and cucumber (Diva, Straight 8 and Spacemaster), definitely like the climate of the greenhouse better. Not so soggy. In the greenhouse, the veges, particularly my Diva cucumber, are growing like weeds - I've had to tie the cucumber to the roof of my greenhouse already . . . the one in the garden is barely any bigger than it was when I put it out there!
Had to replant the peas - only 10 plants of the Little Marvel variety (2 double rows!) I planted sprouted and survived the rain - so I planted a double row of Improved Laxton's Progress, which have grown successfully in other years. Clearly, in gardening, as in many things in life, don't mess with what works! But that's okay - we all love how the Laxton's Progress taste - I didn't get Marvel because of that, I just thought I would try something new - luckily I was going to plant the Laxton's Progress for my late summer harvest anyhow! Also had to replant the beans - all the beans I planted in the house sprouted on schedule and are now in the garden, behind a wind break . . . had a wee issue with the wind blowing the leaves clean off of one baby bean plant, so we erected a wind break. It's just wooden lattice tied to the fence. So, with any luck, these 18 new plants will give us the bounty of previous years.
And with further luck, if this flaming rain would stop, maybe they won't be mouldy either. That happened to me one other year, beans were mouldy because right in the middle of summer, it poured for a week. Think that was last year, as a matter of fact. My corn never matured either, so I've given up on trying to grow corn. At least for now. Maybe in a year of a real good drought, with lots of heat, I'll try it again - in a year like 2006!
Best get off the computer now, and go pull some more of the insidiously popular poplar trees which have decided that my carrot patch is lovely place to grow! Well, it is . . . but only if you're a carrot!
Exactly how are my plants supposed to grow??? Sunshine, nice hot, dry sunshine is what's needed right now. For at least 2 weeks, non-stop!!
I have learned something as a result of this rain though. The plants which I took out of the greenhouse and planted in the garden - the tomatoes (Sub-Arctic) and cucumber (Diva, Straight 8 and Spacemaster), definitely like the climate of the greenhouse better. Not so soggy. In the greenhouse, the veges, particularly my Diva cucumber, are growing like weeds - I've had to tie the cucumber to the roof of my greenhouse already . . . the one in the garden is barely any bigger than it was when I put it out there!
Had to replant the peas - only 10 plants of the Little Marvel variety (2 double rows!) I planted sprouted and survived the rain - so I planted a double row of Improved Laxton's Progress, which have grown successfully in other years. Clearly, in gardening, as in many things in life, don't mess with what works! But that's okay - we all love how the Laxton's Progress taste - I didn't get Marvel because of that, I just thought I would try something new - luckily I was going to plant the Laxton's Progress for my late summer harvest anyhow! Also had to replant the beans - all the beans I planted in the house sprouted on schedule and are now in the garden, behind a wind break . . . had a wee issue with the wind blowing the leaves clean off of one baby bean plant, so we erected a wind break. It's just wooden lattice tied to the fence. So, with any luck, these 18 new plants will give us the bounty of previous years.
And with further luck, if this flaming rain would stop, maybe they won't be mouldy either. That happened to me one other year, beans were mouldy because right in the middle of summer, it poured for a week. Think that was last year, as a matter of fact. My corn never matured either, so I've given up on trying to grow corn. At least for now. Maybe in a year of a real good drought, with lots of heat, I'll try it again - in a year like 2006!
Best get off the computer now, and go pull some more of the insidiously popular poplar trees which have decided that my carrot patch is lovely place to grow! Well, it is . . . but only if you're a carrot!
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Can one's thumb BE too green??
That is the question of the day . . . can one's thumb be too green? I hope not, because I'm having a blast in mega-green thumb land . . . now, if only I could get some straw bales.
The reason I'm musing about the levels of thumb-greenness is that my greenhouse is full. Truly, bursting at the beams . . . last year, it seemed huge, with only 2 cucumber plants growing in it. I had heating and watering issues, so nothing really grew. Guess that's what happens when you live 10+km away from your garden and greenhouse, eh?
Anyhow, since my husband built me some stands for the plants (Mother's Day present), not only have I managed to organize the greenhouse much better, but it seems that this organization - and living only 10m away from said horticultural enterprises - has enabled the plants to live. To survive. Okay, okay . . . thrive!! As I mentioned in my previous blog posts, I have planted several varieties of tomatoes and cucumbers, as well the peppers and the broccoli. Just experimenting at this stage to see what grows best . . . I thought for sure I'd kill at least half the plants. Not so. Ooops. So now, its over-flowing.
Last week, I planted out 3 of my tomato plants into the garden (the Sub-Arctic variety). I also put out some lettuce (still have 3 in the greenhouse, just for kicks), and the beans I had started early. All have survived. Can't say whether those are thriving or not, because it rained for 5 or 6 days in a row. So now the weeds have grown as well, but I'm not going to moan about those today! Yesterday, I planted out the 2 Romaine lettuce which survived the greenhouse (had a small heat issue with the seedlings), the 4 Buttercrunch lettuce, one Diva cucumber, 2 Straight 8's and 2 Spacemaster's - all except the Diva, I started myself from seed in the dining room! So, there is a little bit more room in the greenhouse, but the remaining plants are only going to get bigger.
I have to repot the Sub-Arctic tomatoes which are staying in the greenhouse . . . hope I can do this successfully, now that there are little green tomatoes on the plants! I need to though, because they need watering 2x a day, when it's not hot, or else they're drooping.
Repotted the broccoli the other day, when it rained - they were seriously root-bound. My Dad says they should be in the garden, not the greenhouse, because of the nature of their roots. Spreading wide and all that. But since the growing season seems to be long, from what I've read - and based on the lack of success I had last year - I've got 'em in pots. Maybe next year, I'll put some out in the garden.
But I suppose you're all wondering just what I'm on about, with the need for straw bales. Well, way back in 1987 a bunch of us went out to Trish's bach at Rakaia (Bernice and Jo, you'll remember this day, I think) - on the way home, we stopped in at our Chemistry teacher's house (I don't remember why) and he was working on his garden . . . he was using straw bales as mulch. Kept the weeds down and the roots cool. My first year of gardening, I tried hay bales. Worked like a charm - the beans were out of the dirt, the leaves stayed clean and the weeds were kept to a minimum. Except for the weeds brought into the garden via the hay bales themselves.
I'm still trying to eradicate those!
So, with a lack of straw, I'm trying peat moss. In the fall, I'll just rototill it into the garden and will be improving the soil - also hopefully lowering the PH in the potato patch, because I have a problem with scab, which would be solved with a lower PH. I put down peat moss around the "early" plants yesterday, and it seems to be doing the trick. As far as keeping the leaves off the dirt - had a thunderstorm last night, and when I went to check this morning, everything looked good.
In the rest of the garden, everything seems to be doing well - all my spuds are up, both Russet Norkota and Sangre. Peas, lettuce, beets, onions and carrots have all sprouted . . . the beans, I've had to restart (in the dining room this time) because the pesky robins dug them all up whilst looking for worms. Kind of a pain, but I do have the other 3 bean plants already growing in the garden (that I started early), to tide us over.
Since it's raining again, there won't be any weeding for me today, bummer. Time to catch up on the laundry, so my kids have clothes to wear, and perhaps a little more greenhouse work. Or, I could just go and play with the new puppy . . . he doesn't seem to mind the rain!!
The reason I'm musing about the levels of thumb-greenness is that my greenhouse is full. Truly, bursting at the beams . . . last year, it seemed huge, with only 2 cucumber plants growing in it. I had heating and watering issues, so nothing really grew. Guess that's what happens when you live 10+km away from your garden and greenhouse, eh?
Anyhow, since my husband built me some stands for the plants (Mother's Day present), not only have I managed to organize the greenhouse much better, but it seems that this organization - and living only 10m away from said horticultural enterprises - has enabled the plants to live. To survive. Okay, okay . . . thrive!! As I mentioned in my previous blog posts, I have planted several varieties of tomatoes and cucumbers, as well the peppers and the broccoli. Just experimenting at this stage to see what grows best . . . I thought for sure I'd kill at least half the plants. Not so. Ooops. So now, its over-flowing.
Last week, I planted out 3 of my tomato plants into the garden (the Sub-Arctic variety). I also put out some lettuce (still have 3 in the greenhouse, just for kicks), and the beans I had started early. All have survived. Can't say whether those are thriving or not, because it rained for 5 or 6 days in a row. So now the weeds have grown as well, but I'm not going to moan about those today! Yesterday, I planted out the 2 Romaine lettuce which survived the greenhouse (had a small heat issue with the seedlings), the 4 Buttercrunch lettuce, one Diva cucumber, 2 Straight 8's and 2 Spacemaster's - all except the Diva, I started myself from seed in the dining room! So, there is a little bit more room in the greenhouse, but the remaining plants are only going to get bigger.
I have to repot the Sub-Arctic tomatoes which are staying in the greenhouse . . . hope I can do this successfully, now that there are little green tomatoes on the plants! I need to though, because they need watering 2x a day, when it's not hot, or else they're drooping.
Repotted the broccoli the other day, when it rained - they were seriously root-bound. My Dad says they should be in the garden, not the greenhouse, because of the nature of their roots. Spreading wide and all that. But since the growing season seems to be long, from what I've read - and based on the lack of success I had last year - I've got 'em in pots. Maybe next year, I'll put some out in the garden.
But I suppose you're all wondering just what I'm on about, with the need for straw bales. Well, way back in 1987 a bunch of us went out to Trish's bach at Rakaia (Bernice and Jo, you'll remember this day, I think) - on the way home, we stopped in at our Chemistry teacher's house (I don't remember why) and he was working on his garden . . . he was using straw bales as mulch. Kept the weeds down and the roots cool. My first year of gardening, I tried hay bales. Worked like a charm - the beans were out of the dirt, the leaves stayed clean and the weeds were kept to a minimum. Except for the weeds brought into the garden via the hay bales themselves.
I'm still trying to eradicate those!
So, with a lack of straw, I'm trying peat moss. In the fall, I'll just rototill it into the garden and will be improving the soil - also hopefully lowering the PH in the potato patch, because I have a problem with scab, which would be solved with a lower PH. I put down peat moss around the "early" plants yesterday, and it seems to be doing the trick. As far as keeping the leaves off the dirt - had a thunderstorm last night, and when I went to check this morning, everything looked good.
In the rest of the garden, everything seems to be doing well - all my spuds are up, both Russet Norkota and Sangre. Peas, lettuce, beets, onions and carrots have all sprouted . . . the beans, I've had to restart (in the dining room this time) because the pesky robins dug them all up whilst looking for worms. Kind of a pain, but I do have the other 3 bean plants already growing in the garden (that I started early), to tide us over.
Since it's raining again, there won't be any weeding for me today, bummer. Time to catch up on the laundry, so my kids have clothes to wear, and perhaps a little more greenhouse work. Or, I could just go and play with the new puppy . . . he doesn't seem to mind the rain!!
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Who's YOUR Farmer?
I saw this bumper sticker yesterday, in the middle of tailgate of a Ford pickup. Who's your farmer? I am my farmer!! Now that spring is actually here -- not that season which, according to the calendar is spring, but since there's still several feet of snow on the ground, it's really winter -- the snow has melted, so I can finally seriously start thinking about my garden. Okay, I have been doing a lot of thinking already, but now I can put those thoughts into action. And get my tomato plants off the hearth in the living room, and out into the greenhouse!
Although we live on a farm, and I have been known to "whisper" the hay into growing taller than our kids, I'm not really a farmer. I'd say, more of a wife-whose-husband-owns-the-farm-his-grandparents-homesteaded-on-back-in-the-1930s kind of horticulturalist. In short, I don't farm, I garden. In the garden and the greenhouse. Or rather, I attempt to grow stuff in the greenhouse. I've had a few issues with that in the past couple of years.
However, 2011 is going to be different! I hope.
Last year, I managed to successfully grow cucumbers in the greenhouse - much to the surprise of one of the ladies at our local garden centre. How did you tie them up, she asked. I used a tomato cage. The sticks and string apparatus wasn't working, so since my tomatoes were clearly stunted and not going to need the cages, I just popped them around the cucumbers and tied them up with survey tape. Fabulous. Until the frost got them in September.
This year, now that we finally live on the farm, within sight of the greenhouse, things are going to be different. For Mother's Day, my husband built a two-tiered growing bench for the greenhouse, so now I have 16 feet of growing space (in a 10 foot long greenhouse), and last night, we hooked up a heater and tested it to see how warm it would keep the greenhouse overnight. It went down to 2C last night and there was a frost. But the greenhouse, at 5:30 a.m. was 8C, with no frost. Excellent. Just have to goose the heat up a wee bit, to make it 10C overnight, and my tomatoes can move off the hearth and into their proper home.
I'm not totally sure if this is what one is supposed to use a greenhouse for, but I'm also giving my other garden plants a head start. I have planted lettuce, cucumbers, beans and peas in little peat pots and they have all sprouted in the past 10 days. My intention is to grow them in the greenhouse until the end of May, when one can finally put stuff out in the garden without too much worry of frost. In theory, this will give me a head-start on the veges, which usually come ripe all at once, and I have a heck of time getting them all harvested, eaten or preserved at once.
I'm also going to kick-start my "deer resistant" perennials this way. I have several peonies, ferns, bleeding hearts and irises ready to plant, which I would love to plant in the garden in early June as actively growing plants, not tubers. Especially since their garden is not quite ready yet.
Who am I kidding? It's not ready at all!! I have two big rocks and two big piles of topsoil (one of which is in the wrong location) and a general idea of how big I want to make the garden. It will, when completed, provide an awesome view from our living room windows, with the native bush behind as a backdrop for the pink, blue and white blooms I've chosen.
Provided, of course, that these plants really are deer-resistant, and Madame Deer and her baby leave them alone. Boris the moose appears only interested in eating the leaves off trees, especially willow trees, so theoretically, she won't eat them. Yes, I know, Boris is a boy name, but the kids thought that would be an excellent name for our resident moose - who, when the house was being built, thought the garage made an excellent moose shelter! She has no antlers, therefore she is a girl moose. I believe her middle name is Princess though, hahaha.
So, today begins Tomato-growing-in-the-greenhouse experiment #3. Experiments #1 & 2 were dismal failures. I actually grew the tomatoes better in the dining room in the past 2 years, than I did in the greenhouse. More on that in my next post.
Thanks for reading - and happy gardening!!
Although we live on a farm, and I have been known to "whisper" the hay into growing taller than our kids, I'm not really a farmer. I'd say, more of a wife-whose-husband-owns-the-farm-his-grandparents-homesteaded-on-back-in-the-1930s kind of horticulturalist. In short, I don't farm, I garden. In the garden and the greenhouse. Or rather, I attempt to grow stuff in the greenhouse. I've had a few issues with that in the past couple of years.
However, 2011 is going to be different! I hope.
Last year, I managed to successfully grow cucumbers in the greenhouse - much to the surprise of one of the ladies at our local garden centre. How did you tie them up, she asked. I used a tomato cage. The sticks and string apparatus wasn't working, so since my tomatoes were clearly stunted and not going to need the cages, I just popped them around the cucumbers and tied them up with survey tape. Fabulous. Until the frost got them in September.
This year, now that we finally live on the farm, within sight of the greenhouse, things are going to be different. For Mother's Day, my husband built a two-tiered growing bench for the greenhouse, so now I have 16 feet of growing space (in a 10 foot long greenhouse), and last night, we hooked up a heater and tested it to see how warm it would keep the greenhouse overnight. It went down to 2C last night and there was a frost. But the greenhouse, at 5:30 a.m. was 8C, with no frost. Excellent. Just have to goose the heat up a wee bit, to make it 10C overnight, and my tomatoes can move off the hearth and into their proper home.
I'm not totally sure if this is what one is supposed to use a greenhouse for, but I'm also giving my other garden plants a head start. I have planted lettuce, cucumbers, beans and peas in little peat pots and they have all sprouted in the past 10 days. My intention is to grow them in the greenhouse until the end of May, when one can finally put stuff out in the garden without too much worry of frost. In theory, this will give me a head-start on the veges, which usually come ripe all at once, and I have a heck of time getting them all harvested, eaten or preserved at once.
I'm also going to kick-start my "deer resistant" perennials this way. I have several peonies, ferns, bleeding hearts and irises ready to plant, which I would love to plant in the garden in early June as actively growing plants, not tubers. Especially since their garden is not quite ready yet.
Who am I kidding? It's not ready at all!! I have two big rocks and two big piles of topsoil (one of which is in the wrong location) and a general idea of how big I want to make the garden. It will, when completed, provide an awesome view from our living room windows, with the native bush behind as a backdrop for the pink, blue and white blooms I've chosen.
Provided, of course, that these plants really are deer-resistant, and Madame Deer and her baby leave them alone. Boris the moose appears only interested in eating the leaves off trees, especially willow trees, so theoretically, she won't eat them. Yes, I know, Boris is a boy name, but the kids thought that would be an excellent name for our resident moose - who, when the house was being built, thought the garage made an excellent moose shelter! She has no antlers, therefore she is a girl moose. I believe her middle name is Princess though, hahaha.
So, today begins Tomato-growing-in-the-greenhouse experiment #3. Experiments #1 & 2 were dismal failures. I actually grew the tomatoes better in the dining room in the past 2 years, than I did in the greenhouse. More on that in my next post.
Thanks for reading - and happy gardening!!
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