Sunday, October 10, 2010

Garlic planting for 2011

So this bed had in it the tomatoes which didn't go anywhere this summer. I've planted the entire bed with garlic cloves that are the product of the garlic I grew from last year. Last year I planted 11 cloves, this fall I planted 21. Before planting the garlic I took some fresh finished compost out of my composter and mixed it into the bed.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Sweet Potato harvest

So I decided to harvest the sweet potatoes today - the nights are getting colder and the one thing sweet pototes don't like is cold. Here is the result of the harvest. Probably I should weigh the lot somehow to take a proper measure of the harvest.



I am going to attempt to grow my own slips for next year, here is my starting piece. Today is day zero of the rooting session.

Sweet potato growth update

On September 5th I took the photos below - the sweet potatoes grew flowers!



Sunday, August 15, 2010

Sweet potato growth update

I have high hopes for the sweet potatoes. If my sweet corn squirrel research yields no easy solution, and if the crop of sweet potatoes looks good, this bed may be entirely covered with sweet potatoes next year.

roma tomato growth update

In previous photos I showed a few roma's, here are the only two currently growing.



I am rethinking where I will plant the tomatoes for next year. Probably put the garlic against the hedge and put the tomatoes further from the hedge.

Sweet corn update

So, as a buddy of mine warned, the squirrels would most likely get to the corn before I would. I came home on Friday and found a squirrel at it. The first two photos show the damage done.





I managed to pull three surviving corn just so I could investigate their growth. They were obviously premature, here they are pre and post peeled.









I ended up throwing these into the back yard to let the squirrels have them. I'm going to investigate what can be done to protect the corn from squirrel invasion, and if my research yields many different failed attempts, I may not attempt to grow corn again.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Beefsteak Tomatoes growth update

As with the Roma bed, the Beefsteak bed is overgrown and not producing well because of the mature trees that surround my yard. Hopefully my plan for next year will increase the yield. If it doesn't I may give up on tomatoes.



Here's a closeup of the one and only beefsteak tomato growing so far:

roma tomato growth update

The tomatoes are not doing well at all. There are large mature trees that keep growing every year which now put too much shade on this side of these beds. Next year I'm going to switch it up a bit. It doesn't help, of course, that I've let them become overgrown with weeds and the flowers that grow from behind.



Here's a closeup of the two romas, there is a third behind them that is the same size and shape.



Here's a closeup of the other one that has actually started to change colour a little bit.

Sweet bed growth update

The sweet bed is progressing nicely. Not all of the sweet potatoes took after planting, and not all of the corn took either, but such is the life of a garden.

This side of the bed is the sweet potatoes:



Here is the corn on the other side:




Here's a closeup of the tallest corn showing the inside that will develop into corn someday soon.

Garlic harvested

I harvested seven of the eleven garlic plants and decided to leave the remaining ones in for another week or two as it isn't evident to me that this was exactly the right time for harvesting. Here is the bed showing the remaining four.



Here are the seven that I've harvested, they are hanging in the basement now for drying, about three weeks.

Monday, May 17, 2010

New Zealand Spinach first planting

Four seeds planted in a strip in front of the beefsteak tomatoes. These spinach plants are supposed to grow like vines, so we shall see how they fare.

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Dwarf Sun Flowers growth update

The Dwarf Sunspot sunflowers have started to form the sunflower spot.

Bloomsdale Spinach first planting

I planted eight Bloomsdale spinach seeds in this section of the garden, adjacent to the Roma tomatoes. Hopefully the two are compatible. Those two sprouts to the left are onions that I had planted last year that did not sprout last year and so I had not dug them out.

Beefsteak Tomatoes growth update

After the risk of frost nights, the beefsteak plants didn't look too good. I am hoping that they will recover.

roma tomato growth update

A buddy of mine was able to differentiate between which was which, so now I know which are the Roma tomatoes and which are the Beefsteak. We had a risk of frost two nights in a row last week after I had planted them outdoors and I had to over them. The Roma plants seemed to survive this ordeal okay.

Garlic growth update

The garlic plants are really tall now. I'm curious to know what is going on underground but have no inclination to disturb the growing.

sweet bed

The book 'How to Grow Sweet Potato in a Northern Climate' strongly recommends using a plastic sheet as mulch to greatly increase the temperature of the soil as that is what sweet potato requires. Who am I to question the author who has the experience? Here is the new raised bed, covered. The corn I will be planting by seed in a few days, the potato I will be receiving slips in the mail in a week.

Friday, May 7, 2010

new raised bed

I built a new 5x10' raised bed for the sweet corn and sweet potato which I will be attempting to grow for the first time this spring.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Water Barrels not leaking!

After the first rain this is what the rain barrels looked like, a check for leaks yielded a clean install.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Garlic growth update

Garlic Growth update...


tomatoes growth update

It has been a considerable amount of time since last I posted. The photos taken were on May 5th, though I am posting them on the night of May 16th, I've back dated the post to better represent the timing of the images.

The plants had overgrown the greenhouse and so I put them outside one morning. Here they are:


There ended up being thunderstorms on that very day with some wind gusts that the plants were not terribly pleased about, as evidenced in the following two photos:




Fortunately, the plants did not break when they fell over, they merely bent. When I planted the plants, the point of the 'bend' in the main stalk of the plant ended up being about four inches below the surface as I buried the plants quite significantly when I put them in my raised bed. The following four photos show them in place:



Monday, April 12, 2010

Greenhouse light change

I had to significantly raise the lights to be able to accommodate all of the taller plant containers.

tomatoes growth update

The tomato plants started to outgrow their paper pots. Of one type, one out of the six has died, so here are the five others in their 750g yogurt containers. To the right, separated from the others is the first of the second type in its new container.



Here you can see the five remaining of the second type that need to have their container size upgraded. I ran out of potting soil.



Here is the dead one of the first type.

Dwarf Sun Flowers growth update

They are 6" tall 19 days after the seeds were planted. Soon I will be starting to harden these three outside in preparation for putting them each in individual planters.

Saturday, April 10, 2010

Garlic growth update

A few photos of how the garlic is doing.



 
 
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