first harvest

Had watered the beds yesterday evening as temperatures were 30+ last few days - forecasts call for scattered showers today and overnight, and again Sunday, alleluia!

Checked the beds this morning and here's a progress report - Snap peas in flower;



the squash doing well;

so are it's close cousins, the Zuchini;


and cabbages and brussel sprouts are growing leaps and bounds!

At last, success! The sunflowers (2nd sowing) have sprouted...

Oh yes, the Spinach - plucked (couldn't use a knife to slice through as wasn't enough leaves to grab hold of) some of the bigger leaves for a little salad . This is from the seeded bed. Unfortunately the transplanted ones of Elzy's have gone to seed - what to do, what to do... (recommend we scrub and seed new bed).
We should be able to harvest a couple of radish and lettuce beds by the end of this week - thought to let them grow a bit more after the rain today.

progress

After a couple of nice, hot days, the veggies are doing great! Here's the fingerling potato bed - these plants are about a foot high...


And these radishes are almost ready to harvest - yes, by this weekend - see those red tubers (ok, root balls?) under the leaves?


These are Elzy's transplanted spinach - they are stalky? not like the ones grown from seed...

Yes, these ones which have bigger crinkly leaves which are ready for picking - according to the packages, both are bloomsdale variety? Nah, can't be!

Here is a tomato bed - they are flowering so guess in about a month to 6 weeks there will be some scrumptious heritage varieties to pick!

almost ready to pick?

Hmm.. it's been almost 3 weeks (21 days) since seeding and some of the radishes must be almost ready to harvest?
There are some spinach (not just the transplanted ones) that look like they can be picked in the next couple of days!
Have seeded more spinach and radishes in empty beds as well as radished between some tomato beds - companion plants, eh?
Read an article that said the Iroquois planted corn, then beans and squash all together which worked very well. Unfortunately, the present corn bed is too narrow - next year maybe?

more seeds

Did a lot of weeding today - about 75% done but it took a while as those weeds were lush and plenty!

Have also seeded new sunflowers into the beds, and made over one for an early sweet yellow corn - so if these turn out yellow with patchy white (due to proximity to the original sowing), it should still taste sweet!

Also watered the lettuces and sprouts but left the tomatoes and potatoes alone as they are doing fine - more flowers on the tomatoes. A few of the hot peppers have flower buds too!

Rain happy

It rained again late yesterday - the veggies are doing great! and the pathways are covered in green (as in weeds) - time to do some trimming...
You gotta love the weather right now - low 20's, rain every 2-3 days...
On another note, here's a little furry friend and siblings! 3 days old...

it rained

Awesome - for farmers that is - went by the patch this evening and the ground was thoroughly wet - we can expect the sprouts to go through a growth spurt overnight! The watering should hold up until the next forecast rain on saturday...

at long last!

Yes, here are Purple Haze sprouts - purple imperator carrots - real purple carrots!



And, I believe this is a dwarf sunflower sprout. The giant sunflower beds were "scrubbed" as it has been a month since the seeding - checked this morning and still no seedlings.


Here are pictures of how some of the other veggies are doing... these are squash sprouts;



Cilantro or coriander have finally made their appearance;

The fingerling potatoes are larger;

And the heritage tomatoes are starting to flower!

unusual weather pattern

That rain barrel in the centre of the patch must be feeling redundant (for now) with all the rain at regular intervals! It's been rain, shine, rain for the past weekend, and temperatures have been below normal, but that is good for the veggies! Oh, and weeds, so we scrubbed the giant sunflower beds yesterday as those sunflower seeds were no show and the weeds had taken over...

However, the veggies that have sprouted continue to inch up in height, yeah! And new seedlings are showing up - lettuces, beets, cucumbers, beans, more peas.

Saturday visit

Okay, so we finally visited the patch. Late afternoon, after shopping at Costco. Admired all the plants growing in their beds. Too bad no sunflower shoots. Probably the seeds got eaten by birds, haahah. Yeah, those birds probably thought, 'Wow, we're being fed sunflower seeds, but there's only a few!'. On the other hand, it's been rather cool, and they may need more heat in order to germinate?

So, very impressed with the rain barrel. That ugly white barrel, hahahaha. It looks like Tony has been refilling it, so Millefiore watered the lettuces. Yep, needed that. The rest of the plants will be okay until tomorrow. We hope it will rain tonight, and then tomorrow, Monday and Tuesday. That will be good! Never thought I'd like to see some rain!

Am looking forward to those lemon cucumbers! Never tried them before so I hope they taste good, Some seeds have sprouted, so it's just being patient. Oh yes, the potatoes are definitely growing now, got leaves and all, so that's good. We'll have nice fingerling potatoes for late summer.

two hypotheses from Wednesday

No, not as in a classroom, but rather as in did the water container tip over by itself or did it get some help yesterday?

Well, the container is not solidly flat at the bottom and does have wheels, but Mr. Z had also just filled it up completely. On the other hand, why would any one want to water the paths (it missed the beds mostly)? It will be one of those unsolved mysteries...

The real deal rain barrel has been set up in the middle of the patch. We tied it to its heavy metal postings/legs just in case the wind decides to pick up...

Elzy and I planted the rest of the peppers, tomatoes, spinach, frissee lettuce. Even put in some leeks and celeriac. To finish off, the marigolds went in among the beds.

Then we called it a day.

another plan update

With the introduction of more plants, the beds are getting used up! Of course we can always plant over those where the seeds don't germinate -

More what?

I didn't want to be disappointed if the Kohlrabi seeds never sprout, so, yes, I planted a 4-pack of Kohlrabi gourmet red and gourmet white in the bed... Looked like a 'real' Kohlrabi bed now that there are veggies growing in the bed :)

Also added to the hot peppers with some "Hungarian wax" type (huh? so we have to find out, hence they got planted too). And being endlessly curious on how some veggies will grow, planted some brussel sprouts and cabbage next to a snap pea bed (I like brussel sprouts).

Seeded some Red Cored Danvers (you got it - red carrots) next to the purple haze imperators (impressive name) which I hope will show up as the purple haze likely will not germinate!

We'll need to deligently remind ToniB to set up the genuine rain barrel ASAP as drier weather is in the forecast. Let's hope he's there wednesday so Elzy and I can get him to do all the heavy lugging (one can hope).

updated bed layouts

Here we go again - revisions to the beds on what veggies are where :)

cooler weather

It's been cooler than normal for this time of the year - at wet, although with it being so windy at the patch the beds were dried out overnight. Did some more weeding this morning - needed to test out a swoe - it worked beautifully; I just pushed the blade into the soil and "swept" forward and back (push/pull) and cut the weeds off at the base. Quite effortless - especially if the soil is loose.

Oh yes, the mystery seedling yesterday is spinach.



The radish have started to come up...




Here's a tiny cucumber spout -




And bean plants.