Dear Garden Diary,

my one and only sunflower
and Thunbergia

Lately when I spy on Laura's garden two fences away I am spied on back by dozens of sunflower faces. They're incredible and I'm more than a little garden-jealous. I have one - one sunflower ...I know I planted more seeds than one. That's just the way a garden grows sometimes. 

Laura's flowers have had me thinking..., next year's garden is going to have more spring, late summer & autumn flowers. Considering the seasons of garden we enjoy the garden most - planting season and fresh returns, and later reaping the harvest, the lushness of mature plants and vines gone wild....

I'm not going to spend too much time on mid-summer plants, little reason seeing as we're not here - but plan for when we return. In pots the ivy still looks nice long after annual blooms have faded, and the Coleus container is still brilliant. In the garden I have plans for a big cull; as sad as it makes me, I have to reconcile my desire for every favourite perennial and use the space more wisely. The delphiniums just have to go...somewhere, maybe the west side, maybe into the back lane...but as much as I love them, they are just too big. I had considered moving them to the little micro-climate garden by the back porch, but I have plans for tomatoes there next year - and delphiniums are too prone to mildew to have close to the tomatoes. I have some 'Crazy Daisy' Shasta Daisies also needing a better home - so we'll just have to see where the shuffle takes them. Also moving, (even if just a few inches): the Crimson Knautia, that weird mystery rose from Creekside that never really grew - to make room for the Monarda to shuffle over a bit. Once they're all moved and replanted (which I will do some time in October) I'll add in some spring tulips - a rainbow of colours and kinds dotting the east side perennial bed.

I wish we had more space. Every zucchini and cucumber we have grown (and still are growing) has been put to great use. I've only given a couple away... We've eaten a lot of zucchini (soup, bread, cake, muffins, more soup, grilled, in frittata, tossed with pasta... and you know what, I'm not even tired of it and excited there are some nice ones still coming. The cucumbers are the best I've ever grown - sweet, juicy, huge. I've made more tzatziki than we could consume, and the dogs have had their favourite treat fresh from the garden for months now. Sadly, with frost nearing I'll let them enjoy today's rain, and harvest soon..

Precious Claire waits patiently for a fresh bean treat.

The beans (also loved by the dogs) are so tasty, and have grown into a sturdy wall. Even the Grape Tomato is using the bean wall for support. The other tomatoes have suffered a bit from crowding and smothering by wild zucchini. As unmanageable as they can be, we can't have a garden without cucumbers and zucchini. Next year we're simply not going to plant so many vegetables. I know, I know...I'm the worst for it - working in greenhouses doesn't help. A plant addict to the end, R's not help either. I'm always so convinced I can find the room - and though I still stand by my claim that if we were here for the garden during the major growing period in July & August we would be able to train it to survive the crowd, the fact is we leave ...and a garden doesn't like being left.

It's easy enough to supplement through flexible CSA programs, I have to remember that. Our garden's size is perfect for a seasonal kitchen garden - not great for large guys like Brussels sprouts and potato plants. I could leave them out for more space and not miss them much. More use could be made of containers, sacks, and balconies, but again - unattended pots in a ridiculously hot back yard don't have the best survival rates. I leave spinach to the local farms also..I never have luck with spinach *shrug* 

Our leeks are beautiful, and even though the beets and carrots are few in number they're still pretty. 

Garden Soup
leeks, zucchini, kale, onions & beans from our garden
local carrots & Ontario celery

The Thunbergia has reached the railing of the back balcony, at more than 15 feet it's glorious and so reminiscent of what I've seen decorating Californian freeways. It seems indestructible and I think it scares my family. At ground level it is creeping in every direction, tendrilling up posts and hooks left around the garden, attaching to the nearby pots trellises. I'm not stopping it. I can't imagine not having one of these again next year - just too fun.
The micro-climate garden by the porch has only a few permanent residents: John Davis, some crazy chamomile, garlic chives and whatever thyme & lavender survive (they always get replanted if winter snuffs them out). Snowbirds include herbs rosemary, tarragon, and sage, mint in pots, this year some lemon verbena too. I can see a Thunbergia becoming a regular too.
This year is was home to ten foot tall peas. Next year, I'll plant only two tomatoes in the space - early (...with R's construction skills we're planning a removable greenhouse contraption), and keep the rest of the space for tall autumn cutting flowers. We can add basil between, and with all the other herbs I think that would make the space quite nice this time next year. :)

in the ground so far:

radish:
Watermelon radish - Chinese origin, ball shaped, red flesh / white skin, Crispy, mild, sweet. Grows best under cooler temperatures. Can be eaten raw or cooked.

Cherry Ball radish: Quick growing, small, round, bright red fruit. Crisp white flesh. Mild flavour.

carrots:
Purple Dragon (heirloom) - Deep purple/red skin with orange-yellow flesh. Sweet, spicy flavour. Medium length, tapered.

Scarlet Nante - Dependable, sweet, and crisp. Bright orange. One of the most popular, easy to grow varieties. Stubbies.

Creme de Lite F1 - Creamy skinned, tapered, juicy sweet flesh. No need to peel, best raw but tasty cooked.

beans:
Velour Dwarf French - Long, purple pods. Stringless, great texture. Compact bush habit; long bearing, disease resistant.

Blue Lake Pole Bean: Smooth, stringless, and strong flavour, meaty texture. Long bearing, dark green pods.

spinach:
Long Standing Bloomsdale - Dark green, thick textured, long bearing. Crinkled leaves, rich in iron. Prefers cool temperatures of spring and fall, easy to grow, likes to be moist.

beets:
Cynindra Formanova - Long, carrot-like dark red roots, tops are excellent greens. Slow to start, great producers. Keep moist.

Barbabietola da Orto / Dolce de Chioggia - Italian heirloom named for a fishing town near Venice. Alternating red and white rings, excellent for greens fresh eating, & pickling.

also:
Peas, lettuce, mesclun, leeks, Brussels Sprouts, kale, Swiss Chard, 'Sweet 100' cherry tomato, 'Yellow Boy' tomato x 2, 'Roma' tomato x 2, Jalapeno Pepper, Asparagus, garlic.

Herbs: Thyme, Lemon Thyme, Rosemary, Sage, Italian Large Leaf Basil, Purple Leaf Basil, Lemon Verbena, garlic chives, onion chives.

radishes
25 May 2012

Dear Garden Diary,

It's been a week since I spilled a large, steaming hot mug of coffee (black) on my computer. Thankfully my data has been retrieved, but the fate of my machine is still in the hands of the guys at Mentor. I could be more patient if we weren't leaving for Australia in four days. ...sigh..

I've lost track of where I was with updating our garden status, ...and now we're about to leave it. N & T, and M will have a lot to raid while we're away - the garden has gone mad, simply mad. It's hard to say goodbye. Hopefully everything will still be producing and blooming when we return.
If Thunder Bay continues to live up to it's name there shouldn't be a lot of need to water, other than for the pots. The garden has required minimal watering this year so far, inspite of the heat wave and forest fires - down here by the bay, five blocks from to be exact, we've had plenty of rain. Rain and heat, rain and heat, it's been absolutely delicious our small vegetable garden.
The peppers have been buried... so,..whatever happens happens. Some are surving down there in the jungle. I've already been picking them and they are yummy - yellow banana peppers, green bells, ..there are some jalapenos I have plans for beofre we leave too.

The Early Girl tomato is a monster: taller than me, with strong arms like Popeye. It seems the more I prune it the more it grows, so I've stopped and have turned my attention to pruning the yellow tomatoes growing in the east perennial garden. They too have grown almost over my head - but gangly and needing staking (there is both a tall wooden stake and a iron bean support behind Early Girl - the plant has never had to work a hard day in it's life). Unlike poor yellow number 2 over by the peonies. Your get what you deserve when you plant a tomato nearish peonies, so I've learned. It reached for sun every way it could, and was awkward. I chopped it right back to some string producing branches near the tomato cage height. It looks much better now. :)

The peas have also grown taller than me, allowing for hands free nibbling (no, no..I don't really do that...). The beans I've dealt with by dropping strings from the second floor back balcony to the bean polls. I'll be adding a few nore strings before we leave (I ran out of R's meat-binding barbecue string, which has come in handy all over the garden...)..we need more string.

Some Cosmos and one of the Basil plants suffered at the floppiness of Gromit, who rolled off the new back deck before the new railing was installed. It was a great flop: one minute he was recharging in the sun on a warm cedar deck, the next he was two feet below in soft cool garden soil, pink flowers, and surrounded in a green jungle (for being of Basset Hound height). Gravity has a way with all that extra skin....
He was fine, just a little shocked, ..then embarrassed. The Basil was done in instantly, while the Cosmos carry on but with significantly less sturdiness.

The new back deck (once the basic wooden steps leading from the back porch to the backyard) is beautiful, cedar, and hand-made by R. It's large enough now to fit one of my Muskoka chairs -

which were my Mother's Day gift to myself when Hannah was 1, our first summer with our own backyard garden. I originally bought four: two remain - which R and I painted green last year, one died, and one was never put together and still is somewhere in the basement, in a bag, waiting to be assembled, ...and, with R's new fascination with woodworking I think it might.actually.happen ...IF we can find it; our basement is a scene from Hoarders.

It's so hard to leave the garden now, of all times. The tomatoes are all about to ripen, the peas are delicious, the zucchini - finally exposed to sunlight after also being buried by heavy drooping peonies are finally beginning to grow ...the coming weeks are going to be crucial in keeping it growing upwards. I'm more worried about mildew than overcrowdedness...mildew spreads faster. So long as the zucchini climbs more than rambles we should be good. With the pruning of both yellow tomato 2 and the peonies (which have finished blooming as well as became a few nice bouquets for around the house for our last pork-and-more barbecue party) there is a lot more air flow to the area, as well as sunshine. I expect a zucchini boom.

The cucumbers under the beans are slowly working their way on to the barbecue deck...searching for sunlight. They were a little slow to get started, but are finally behaving like the vine I know. Meanwhile, the cucumbers hastily planted in the side garden are also making up for lost time, but at a much quicker pace. I gave them a little support and one of the twig trellises to give it some places to go, along with weaving along the path (I suspect any cucumbers on the path with be chewed or at least licked by a dog and I accept that. I'd say most of these cucumbers are for Claire anyway...)

They're good filler for the area this year, in the sunniest part of the side garden filling in the gap between the Morden Blush rose and some more transplanted blue irises. (Next year there won't be as much space between..)

And of course: more natsurtiums tucked in and around for fun.  

The Mounding Nasturtiums 'Buttercream' from Renee's Garden are poking out all along the edge of our kitchen garden. The have huge leaves that playfully ramble near the footpath, and butter yellow blooms. I adore them. :)

  

There's so much more to update before we leave, which I hope I can find the time to do. I am looking forward to the change of scenery, the smell of the gum trees, the daffodils and Birds of Paradise along the roadside.. ..under a new set of stars for a few weeks..I do plan to do an Aussie version of garden blogging while we're there - which I didn't do last year and wish I had.

The storm clouds are passing now, the lightning is on the Giant and blue skys are taking over. It's time to go outside. ... :)

Fee-fi-fo-fum

beanstalk climbing
29 June 2011

Kitchen Garden, May 10th

chamomile, May 10, 2011

John Davis, May 10, 2011

rows of  carrots, May 10, 2011

 Mounding Nasturtiums 'Buttercream'

tri-coloured bush beans, Scarlet Emperor pole beans

garlic chives, transplanted  May 10, 2011