Mid-season Report

June was a blur.  But the garden grows without me, now, so there's little to do there except wait for the harvest. The peas are just finishing, the beans are just starting, the greens are continuing, and the tomatoes are full size and ready to change colour.  I have never had such a lush vegetable garden ...

Dandesparabarb

A Good Spring Day A Good Spring Day

I like manual labour.  I like to see immediate results of my efforts. Weeding dandelions is a perfect example.  I've been pulling them almost daily.  It's very satisfying work.  I already have a fridge full of leaves, so today's harvest went straight to the compost pile. My first planting of beets did not germinate.  Have to replant. Asparagus has ...

Spinach Reborn!

Spring Raised Beds Spring Spinach

I have spinach in my garden! The one bed that was to have been my "winter greens" experiment (but was ultimately destroyed when my hoop house collapsed under a foot of snow) is waking up and producing green, baby! In celebration of the discovery, each of us sampled a perfect tiny little leaf, then went and played soccer.  ...

Winter Fun

Backyard Ice Rink

It is usually a struggle to get a decent rink made in time for Christmas.  We bought a rink kit a few years ago, but without the right kind of weather, it still won't work.  Some years, winter arrives early with a huge dumping of snow in late November, but it's often just a lot of ...

Home-canned Baby Food

Better late than never. The best time of year to make baby food is late summer or early fall.  Peaches, followed by apples and pears, reach their peak at this time, and these flavours are always well received.  If you are new to canning, then making baby food is a good way to learn the basics.  ...

Polytunnel Panic

Baby Wrapping

I was worried that my beautiful greens might take a wee bit of a hit tonight (-2 predicted), so we rigged a temporary mini hoophouse over the garden bed.  It was a very last minute decision - made at about 4pm - and I think we did well. We happened to have several yards of 3/4 ...

A Tickle Trunk for Everyone

Growing up, my family always had a Tickle Trunk. It was a big black old-fashioned thing with metal hinges and clasps - both my cousin and I could fit inside it. It had some really interesting costume pieces in it: old wedding veils, a couple of wigs, old shirts, ties, skirts, high heeled shoes, scarfs, ...

Put the Cob Down and Back Away From the Compost

Skunk In Compost

With all of the tomatoes ripening on the counter, it was no surprise to find a few fruit flies flitting around. I detest them. So, in a mild panic, I decided to get every scrap of food off the counter and into the fridge, and I put the kitchen compost outside on the ...

Salsa Verde!

Green Tomatoes Green Tomatoes

I have 6 jars of green tomato salsa in the canner. I've never preserved green tomatoes before. Usually, at the end of the season, I cut down all the remaining clusters of tomatoes, leaving as much vine attached as possible, and spread them in a single layer between newspapers in the cold cellar. ...

No Sun No Fun

Dreary Weather

I don't ever remember October being this dark and wet. Unpredictable, yes, but never consistently dreary and damp. The annual golf tournament at the cottage is held on Thanksgiving weekend. It's always a roll of the die as to what the weather will be like. We've had Indian Summer and we've had blistering ...

It Looks Like a Plant, It Behaves Like a Plant, It’s Not a Plant

Onions

I harvested potatoes and onions today. The onions are perfect, round and uniform - I'm quite pleased. The only bummer is that I didn't plant enough of them. The potatoes are from my second planting, which I did in the experimental stacked bins. Russet Burbanks in all three. RBs are ...

Rainbow

Rainbow

Tonight we witnessed a beautiful double rainbow and a starling party.

Critter Ridder

Critter Ridder - Cayenne Peppers

Something's feasting on my winter spinach. I can recognize rabbit damage when I see it, so I've started a nightly cayenne ritual. I grew the pretty pepper plants two years ago to defend my garden against small critters. They were gorgeous plants, very bushy, just dripping with bright red finger-sized peppers. I ...

Pepper Pride

Frost Cover

Another frost warning tonight. This time, with help from family, the plants were covered while it was still daylight. It may be the first of October, so frost protection is a little silly, but my peppers need more time and I intend to give it to them. I planted them when they were little ...

Sunshowers on a Cloudy Day

Baby Cabbage

It was a strange day of intermittent sunshowers. Capricious weather. Mercurial. Jeckyll-and-Hyde. The clouds would part, the sun would burst through, then the rain would come. It's a lovely time to be outside, actually. The sunlight flashes off the dripping plants and leaves you too dazzled to do any ...

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