Real Summer or Indian Summer?

It's an absolutely glorious day, again, in Fort St. John. After one of the worst summers of all time, weather-wise, it seems that now that school has started up again, summer has arrived. But since it's September, is it really summer, or Indian Summer? I wonder, but I'm not complaining - this weather is fabulous! How often do you get 29C temperatures in September, up here? Umm, let me think . . . never!!

This fantastic weather is giving my garden a chance to catch up - I have more peas ready to harvest, the beans are actually getting a chance to grow . . . but my greenhouse, alas, is done for the year. I cleaned it out a few days ago, there's only 5 tomato plants left in there now, but as soon as I finish picking the ripe ones, they're going too. The leaves are turning yellow, despite daily watering and tons of sunshine, so I think that's it for 2011. That's okay though, gives me a chance to finish with the garden - I have a ton of carrots to put up - and plan the whole shebang again for next spring.

This was the garden, in all it's mostly weed-free glory a couple of weeks ago. Everything is bigger now, except the potatoes, as I've pulled up some, as well as some carrots. The Buttercrunch lettuce got away on me, while I was waiting for heads to form, the plants decided to bolt instead - I'll try it again next year, but at least the Romaine turned out awesome. I just planted a little too much. My planting plan was based on an expected 50% death rate, but I don't think even 25% of the plants died. So unless we had salad every single day, there's no way I could keep up with my lettuce crop.

Remember, one-third of this garden is an experiment! A very successful experiment, if I may be allowed to brag!

Must go and weed now, and harvest more carrots, beets and peas. Next blog post, I'll share some of the other stuff I've been doing this month . . . a departure from gardening, and back to one of my earlier loves, before I'd really discovered writing as an art form.

Hopefully, you'll love what I've come up with!

Thanks for reading!

Whew! That was close!

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!

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!

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!!