Feeling more like spring every day

It was a beautiful weekend with lots of sun, but still a bit cool, especially in the shade.

Onions are coming up.

Pea fence and peas (well, haven't sprouted yet, but they are planted). Also some kale that survived and one broccoli plant. We had some of the kale on homemade pizza last week and it was very good. 

And raspberries are already leafing out!

I transplanted some strawberry plants into these leftover planters and hung them off my grape arbor. Hanging the strawberries up off the ground should:

1. keep the slugs from eating them
2. control how much water they get
3. make them easier to pick

I saw this on a farm tour last summer (except they had planted the strawberry plants in large diameter PVC pipe). Below and in front of these planters is the strawberry bed - we had so many berries last year that we still have some frozen that we are eating now with our breakfast cereal.

 
 Now for some flowers of spring. The first crocuses:

They are even in the front lawn (well, we planted them there actually)! See if you can find the lone purple one.

This is as far as I can tell a Siberian Iris that blooms in early spring - please correct me if I am wrong.

Mulch that we created last weekend from all the pruning we did. It's so handy to have your own shredder even though it is a lot of hard, dusty, noisy work. And amazing how a huge pile of branches shreds down to just this much mulch.

Finally a quick shot of our pond being deconstructed yet again. This is a photo from last Sunday when I had started to remove all the edging stones and empty the pond of water. This weekend we further emptied out the pond of water and lots of small stones that the racoons knocked off the shelves into the pond. We also removed the pump and collapsed the whole liner into the middle and started working on flattening out one shelf to make the pond deeper all the way across. Very heavy clay soil, so we gave up after a few hours of shovelling - there's always next weekend to continue this project!

I still have to dormant spray my fruit trees - really hard to plan for that without having an accurate weather forecast you can rely on. Hopefully we'll have a few days without rain, wind or freezing temperatures soon!

Peas and shredding

A quick post - sorry for the brevity and lack of photos.

Saturday ended up becoming a wet day - I finished trimming the bushes on the south side of the veggie gardens and we managed to get an hour or so of shredding done in the morning before it started pouring down. With an electric shredder we didn't think it was a good idea to continue!

Sunday was much better - in the morning I setup my pea fence, planted peas and checked the progress of my other seeds - no sprouting yet. Our homestay student was quite interested in what I was doing and watched with great interest.

And then my wife and I spent the rest of the day finishing the shredding. Lots of mulch for the flower beds!

Seeding and Pruning Day

Lucked out with the weather on Saturday and the threatened rain did not appear. So in the garden to do some seeding!

Garden looks a bit sad right now with not much greenery, other than the lawn (which is in sad shape right now) and forget-me-nots. However the columbine is come back and there are lots of buds on plants just waiting for a few warm days to start sprouting.

Main task today is seeding. I already had prepared my seeding flats (4" square plastic pots) with a prepared mix of 1 part each of finely screen homemade compost, coir (coconut fibre) and perlite (from Carolyn Herriot's "The Zero-Mile Diet" book I got from Christmas from my wife). I gave it a water so the soil is moist. Why the kettle? The water I have in my rain barrels is very cold so I heated up a kettle of water to mix with cold water so I had moderately warm water.

After seeding and putting in my cold frame - Celery (Tall Utah), Onion (Stuttgart - sounds German?), Green Onion (Kincho, a Japanese variety), Sweet Peas (Watermelon and Spring Pastels)

 Cold frame next to the greenhouse closed to keep seeds warm, dry and happy. Orange cord on right is for the heating cable on the bottom of the box to provide some bottom warmth. Here's hoping for happy plants in a few weeks.

Also did some direct seeding in one of the raised beds - I used the same seeding mix as a top dressing over the compost I put in the beds last month. Red Komatsuna (a Japanse mustard) and Pac Choi. You can see the 1 foot squares (hence Square Foot gardening) that have been divided with string and nails and planted. Yoghurt container for beer is for the slugs. Don't worry, no expensive micro-brewery beer was used - cheap non-alcoholic Molson's. The slugs don't seem to be picky!

Here are the three beds: first bed still has leeks in it that we'll need to eat soon, second bed is the one from above and third bed still has some kale and swiss chard, which isn't looking too good anymore. Far right is where the asparagus bed is and behind that the compost. The green sewer pipe sections are for the diakon (one needs to be moved to the right location). All beds are covered in cloches, although I need to renew the cloche on the first bed and remove the one on the asparagus bed (I realize now that I don't really need it there). The cloches really help in early spring to warm up the soil earlier plus work as frost protection for the more tender winter veggies (if I remember to close them after airing out the beds during the day!)

Raspberry patch on the south side of the garage. A few weekends ago I redid the supports and string to keep the canes neat and tidy. Water barrel on the left that waters the bed with a soaker hose.

Buds are forming! And it's only the beginning of February still.

Garlic is coming up too - I should have planted more. BTW, no need to buy seed garlic. I just bought regular organic garlic and planted that.

Lettuce in the greenhouse in a pot.

Covered up to keep in the moisture and hopefully keep them just a bit warmer for better growth.

Afternoon was spent cleaning up bushes to the south of the garden beds so we get more sunshine on the beds. Got a bit carried away, but these bushes grow so quickly once the warm weather hits. Also found two bushes that had died, hence the hole in the middle. The neighbour and I will likely put a fence up this year, as right now it's just poultry wire on some rebar posts.

Lots of shredding to do to create our own mulch. Not going to be done today (Sunday) as it now is raining.

And that's it for this weekend. Next weekend we'll be creating a pea fence and planted peas. Hopefully do some shredding too, WP (Weather Permitting) so we can move around the garden.

It's been a while

Wow, it's been quite a while since my last post - life sometimes just gets busy and some things get dropped. I realize now that I should have kept up with this blog, as it is a way for me to track progress in my garden, but more importantly share my experiences (good and bad) with others. I'll leave this for another post someday, but I believe all of us have a responsibility to try and grow our own food for greater sustainability and to guarantee food supplies.

So what is the status of our garden this year? After a strange year last year where things just didn't grow well, I'm eager to get planting this year and see what will grow and what won't. Seeding will start next weekend, so I'll post some photos of that next Sunday.

For today however, I'll share my ambitious plans for the veggie garden. This year I am going to attempt Square Foot Gardening which is a form of intensive gardening. Here is my garden plan (click to enlarge to readable size):

As you can see everything is planted quite close together. Not sure how that will work with some of the larger plants, but I guess I'll have to keep an eye on things and thin plants if they are too close together. Diakon because of it's length will be planted in some large sections of plastic pipe in a very sandy mixture. Quinoa will be planted in my asparagus bed, which I haven't show on the plan. Radishes will be planted here and there between other plants. Garlic was planted back in October and I only planted 7 cloves (they are peaking out of the ground already!) - this was before I decided to do the Square Foot Gardening, so I didn't plant them 4 to a square foot as on the plan. Will do so next year.

What also isn't shown is my greenhouse - I grow tomatoes, peppers and eggplant in pots there as they need lots of heat. One of my major projects this summer is to redo my whole greenhouse to make it look nicer and to expand it a bit as right now it is very cramped. But that's for a separate post. And I also have lots of fruit (peach, pear, apple, plum, grape, figs, raspberry and strawberry)

Happy Gardening! Feel free to leave comments about what your gardening plans are this year.

Pond wall deconstruction & reconstruction

Yes, I know, it's been a while! I thought I would be able to post something each week, but I'm lucky to do so each month (or every six months?)!

Here is an update and a photo of my pond wall reconstruction project, which I have been working on and off for several months. For pictures of how it looked last summer, check out this post. (I was going to post some photos during deconstruction, but didn't get a chance to take the photos; so last weekend my wife finally took a few of the almost finished project).


A lot of hard work as the wall, which I thought was just made with individual stones, was actually a poured cement wall with stone facing. I've found I could only work on it for a few hours as my arm got tired from heaving the sledgehammer.

In order to nibble away at the rock/cement, I used a chisel and sledgehammer. Wish I either had used a larger sledgehammer or a pick. Renting a jackhammer was also an option, but sometimes I prefer doing things without heavy machinery that makes lots of noise pollution. However I did do finally an all day blitz and was able to knock the last section of wall down. Was I glad! Now we are left with a pile of cement rubble, which we hope we can smash small and use for paths (talk about recycling!).

We also moved the filter further back to give us more of a run in our watercourse to the waterfall and to hide it better. We used some of the busted up concrete to build up the contours so we have enough of a slope (I hope!) for the water to run down.

Still to do:

• drain the pond and clean it well
• fasten rocks at pond edge so that they don't move
• buy a new pump and install it
  
• add a few more rocks underneath the large rocks at the edge of the waterfall to hide the liner
• set the water plant pots in place (currently in greenhouse) and fill the pond
• seal the flat rocks in the watercourse, so water goes over top of them not underneath
• seal the rocks on both sides of the watercourse
  
• test pump and waterfall and ensure there are no leaks
  
• make a sturdy net to guard against raccoons (it's me against them and I plan to win!)
  
• get new fish once pond has stabilized and we're sure net will do the trick
  
• reconfigure planting around pond, including planting bamboo to hide the filter - although in the photo above I noticed it is not that visible, but I still want to have some bamboo
• eventually build a low level wood deck to replace the paver patio
  

So lots of works still to do. But very satisfying!

Blog Action Day - more hand power, less gas power

Today is Blog Action Day, a day where many blogs are focusing on the environment and how we can make a difference in reducing the negative environmental impact we are having on our planet.

As a gardening/landscaping blog, I firmly believe we all can start caring more about our environment in our own gardens. And one of the most important changes I think we should make is our reliance on gas power equipment to maintain our yards. This is a bit of a pet peeve of mine but I'm hoping what I say here encourages some people to reconsider how they maintain their yards.

Gas-powered lawn mowers, grass trimmers, chainsaws, hedge trimmers and leaf blowers all contribute to bad air quality and noise pollution and I believe their use at least by private homeowners should be minimized if not banned outright. (I even believe that most landscaping companies could reduce their reliance on gas-powered equipment and still be able to provide quick, efficient service to their clients)

There are alternatives (I've used all of these and have no need for gas-powered equipment on my 600 sq ft property):

• lawn mowers: I use a hand powered reel mower - if you don't wait until you have knee-high grass and don't have an estate size lawn (and if you do you may want to consider reducing it's size) there is no extra work (occasionally you might have to go over a more difficult section of lawn twice to get all the stray blades); on my small lawn, a gas-powered lawn mower would actually take longer, as I would have to fill it up with gas, wait for it to warm up once started, cut the lawn and then wait for it to cool down before putting it away. My hand mower I take out, cut the lawn and put away again. Easy!
• grass trimmers: I use a pair of hand powered shears- keep them sharp and clean and oiled and they work just as well as their powered counterpart; in fact they are safer for your trees, as you won't damage the bark when trimming around them. Yes, you will have to get down on your knees (or buy a long-handled version if doing so is problematic), but they are a lot quieter and safer to use. There are also ways to landscape around lawns that will eliminate or at least reduce greatly the need for trimming.
• chainsaws: I use muscle power (hand saw and axe) - however if you have a huge tree to cut down, cutting it down by hand is a back-breaking job. But keep in mind that our ancestors did so using hand power. Perhaps not having the power tools to make cutting down a tree very easy may make some homeowners think twice about cutting it down in the first place?
• hedge trimmers: I use hand-powered shears or if doing a large hedge an electric-powered one - electric ones are the next best bet to gas hedge trimmers and they are not as noisy and polluting as the gas version, plus weigh a lot less, important if you are having to stand on a ladder to trim the top. If you have really thick branches to cut, you'll have to get out the hand saw or axe then.
• leaf blowers: I use a broom and rake and dustpan - sounds too simple, doesn't it. Why are we so attached to the gas powered leaf blower? They may make the job go quicker, but you are creating air pollution, noise pollution and it can be quite dangerous as the wind velocity coming out of these is very high. Instead grab your hand tools and sweep up the leaves, grass clippings or other debris. Nothing like smelling the fresh fall air and hearing the birds chirp in the trees rather than breathing in gas fumes and dust and not hearing anything but noise.

If you really have a yard that requires so much maintenance and you don't have the time to maintain it, I would suggest reconsidering either reducing the amount of maintenance required (for example, reducing the size of lawn) or moving to a property that is more manageable. If hand-powered is going to be too much of a liability, how about at least using electric power? Most of the gas-powered tools also come in cheaper electric versions (some even are now rechargeable, so you don't need to drag an extension cord all over your yard).

Is time really an issue? Consider all the maintenance that your gas-powered equipment needs (unless you have unlimited funds to buy new every few years). You have to go and buy gas, oil and maintenance parts; you have to fill it up with gas (and if a two-stroke engine, mix oil into the gas), change the oil on four strokes, change the spark plug, clean and replace the air filter and deal with sometimes balky engines that won't start, especially if you forgot to drain the gas tank during the winter months. Hand tools just require an occasional cleaning, lubricating and sharpening, not much else. And they are cheaper to purchase and operate.

Please help our environment: think green when purchasing maintenance equipment for your garden and enjoy the tranquility of less noise and smell while doing yard maintenance!

Garden update

Just a brief post to let you know what is happening in the veggie garden right now (sorry, no pictures - maybe I'll add them to this post on the weekend):

- tomato plants are big and quite full of tomatoes, but still green; we hope they ripen before it gets cold
- zucchini plants are giving us a few zucchinis; not many, but just enough
- our round squash plant (we're not sure if it is pumpkin or round zucchini or what) is producing round green balls again and they are growing like crazy each day (this is a volunteer, a bird-deposited plant)
- cucumber plants are slowing down finally after we were picking a few big ones every couple of days for the past month
- lettuce finally gave up; but I just planted a flat in the greenhouse, so we have some in winter, I hope (it's an experment)
- speaking of the greenhouse, I had moved our nasubi (Japanese eggplant) into pots in good compost and put them into the greenhouse, as they were looking quite sad outside in the garden especially during our cooler nights lately; now they are green and happy and we have some blossoms on them that hopefully will mature into small nasu, perfect for a stirfry :)
- our sweet pepper plant's remaining peppers have turned bright red
- yellow beans are done too, but freezer is full of bags of beans
- green onions I plants a month or so ago are small but growing (I think)
- winter veggies (kale, broccoli) are growing and happy, except being eaten a bit by some bugs
- we have leeks sprouting up (after I thought I had killed them) and getting big
- herbs are doing well, especially our basil; just have to use more herbs in cooking and teas
- fruit: peaches are picked and jam made and some frozen, apples picked and applesauce made, grapes are ripening for making jam soon, some pears picked and in the basement ripening, others still on the tree, figs are almost finished (the baby figs on there won't ripen before winter), raspberries are now producing on the new canes (we just planted them this spring)

That's about it, although I've probably forgotten a few things. It's great having your own fruit and vegetables, especially since you know that nothing bad has been sprayed on them. :)

Next year I'm planning to have even more!