"Indian Summer"

The nice weather has kept the garden going strong!  Despite not having as much time to weed, the tomatoes, beans, broccoli, kale, dill, and a variety of squash are in full force!

Overflowing!

Since the sun has come out, the garden has been thriving!

I've been picking kale for what feels like months now and the same plants keep producing.  Last night I picked a huge bucket.

I also picked some sweet peas to bring home - my whole plot smells like sweet peas - they are growing and blooming like crazy!

By the time I got to the garden last night, the sun was on its way down and I didn't have much light to work with.  So, this morning when I went to let the chickens out, I was happily surprised to see tomatoes growing (from the plants I started from seed!).  Let's hope they ripen.

The chickens seemed eager to get out of their run so I let them free-range and decided to clean up my garden a bit.  The nasturtiums were taking over and preventing some of the other seeds I planted from growing so I took out some of the bigger bushes.  All of my spinach had bolted so I cleared that out too and let the chickens snack on it.

So now the garden doesn't look as lush, but I hope that the cucumber seedlings have more room to grow and spread out!  

The Gardens...

I couldn't resist taking some pictures of all of the beautiful plots at the Maples Discovery Gardens tonight!  It's such a great place to unwind after a day of office work.

In the Circle Garden

Apple trees

Nasturtiums

Sweet peas

Our friends, the chickens.

Leaf of Kale from my garden.

Peas

Lemon balm growing wild along the driveway.

Lettuce in the greenhouse.

Basil in a greenhouse bed.

Second Plot!

After some discussion, we decided that we could use a little more room in the garden.  Luck had it that the plot right next to ours was going to be available July 1st so we jumped on the opportunity!  Because our summer is a bit late, we should be able to get some seeds in the ground still.


On the weekend we installed the rabbit-deterrent fencing.  We only had to do the two ends as the fence shared with our first plot is rabbit-'proof' as is the fence we share with our other neighbour.


I won't bring in any soil this year as the group that had the plot before us put enough down that we will be able to make use of it.  There weren't too many weeds in the plot either (thank goodness because I was not prepared to weed like I did for the first plot!).


The chickens were out free ranging and we managed to scoop up a couple to help us till the plot.  The rooster was not impressed at all - good thing he could not get over our fence or we would have been in big trouble.  It is amazing how quickly he comes running when he hears one of his hens squawking!  He got over it quite quickly and went back to checking in on the other hens as they roamed around the property.  


As for the hens in our plot, they were quite happy to be there (although a door would have made it easier to shoo them in and out of our plot versus catching them and putting them over the fence; they are not the type of hens to just let you pick them up and cuddle).  They had quite a feast on worms, grubs, and other bugs.  They actually got quite comfortable with us and I'm pretty sure they would have eaten out of our hand, if we had something to feed them.

As soon as they would see one of us doing something that looked like we might be turning up the soil, they'd run to us.

We definitely need to work on our chicken-catching skills.  I should have taken some video of us trying to catch them.  We had a good laugh at ourselves.

In the Garden...

Things are growing like crazy in the garden right now!


The peas came out this weekend:

And so did the nasturtiums:

We picked a whole bucket full of spinach, lettuce, and kale:

Which turned into part of our dinner (kale chips, garden salad, radish top soup):

More space, less slugs!

Here is a picture of the slug buffet remnants:

Clearly, it was a fabulous feast!

Removing the weeds from around the raised boxes and putting some crushed egg shells on the wooden dividers around the lettuce seems to have helped.  However, I did pull a couple small, whitish slugs off my lettuce yesterday.  There are some weeds between the boxes and the fence so I think I'll have to pull those and continue to reinforce my perimeters with crushed egg shells.

Most things are growing fabulously, though!  Here is a picture from yesterday (apologies for the blurriness, it's from my phone and I didn't notice when I took it):

The top right and left are two types of kale (lacinato and rainbow), middle are nasturtiums, bottom middle is spinach, beside it is lettuce.  The nasturtiums are blocking the view of more lettuce and radishes.


This week I put in some cucumbers and dill as well as a few more broccoli seeds and another patty pan squash plant.  I'm slightly concerned because I don't see a single soy bean plant emerging from the dirt and I planted them a couple (few?) weeks ago.  I haven't lost all hope - and haven't looked to see how long it takes them to sprout either.


In other news, after some discussion with my husband, we decided that we would like more garden space and decided to take on another plot!  I'll be able to start work on it within the next week and can't wait!  

Slug Homes

Apparently this is what a good slug home looks like:

I let the weeds grow around my square foot boxes and I paid for it - in lettuce.  One of my squares had a couple heads of lettuce eaten down to the dirt.  I also saw slug trails on my kale.  I wasn't too worried about the weeds around my boxes until I pulled up one of the taller weeds and spotted a slug resting beneath it.  As I started to pull up more weeds, I found more slugs.

Hopefully pulling up the weeds will solve some of my slug problems.  I also laid some crushed egg shells around the lettuce squares.

The forecast today was for rain but the morning was beautiful - even hot!  The chickens loved their fresh weeds - after some scratching, some of them settled into the weeds to cool off (I think).

Today there was a creature in the garden that I've never seen in the gardens before...and I've never seen one in the day either.

A little bat!  I thought it might be hurt because it just flew a short distance and then laid in the dirt.  But, it eventually flew away.

A Bowl Full of Lettuce

Last night I got a whole bowl full of lettuce (and a couple radishes) from my garden.  Finally, a full salad!

I haven't implemented any sort of slug prevention.  Although I have found a couple in my garden munching away, the majority of my veggies have remained untouched.  I'm thinking that the raised square foot garden beds might be helping out a bit.

I was on chicken duty last night so, as I waited for it to start to get dark, I had a little visit with the lambs.

When the lambs first arrived at Maples Discovery Gardens Co-op they were quite timid.  Now, most of them are comfortable around humans - I suppose they have figured out that humans could equal food.  Number 43 is especially friendly (or the hungriest) - she just followed me around the whole time I was in their pen.

I wouldn't make a good animal farmer.  I fall in love with the animals and could never imagine sending them to slaughter - not even chickens.  How can you eat your friends? lol  I told my husband that the ideal situation would be to have a small hobby farm (chickens for eggs, sheep for wool, goats for fun and milk...) and live close to beef and chicken farmers so that we can buy our meat from them.

Just look at this face.  Nope.  Couldn't do it.

Rain, Rain

Is the amount of rain we are receiving unusual?  Or am I just impatient as I wait for summer (a.k.a. camping and kayaking weather)?  I seem to remember last summer was quite wet too.  The (one) good thing about so much rain is that I haven't had to water my garden very much and the vegetables are loving it!  Unfortunately, I think the slugs are too.  I found a couple munching away on some of my lettuce last week.  But, surprisingly, most of my lettuce and other veggies remain untouched.  And, no signs of any rabbits feasting on my garden (and there are plenty of rabbits out now) so my fence must be working!


The first seeds I planted back in April are growing in full force now.


Lettuce:

Nasturtiums:

Kale:

Peas:

Cilantro:

The broccoli I planted recently is sprouting:

And, the uninvited guests in my garden (besides the weeds), potatoes:

I guess the people who had my plot before grew potatoes and there were some remnants in the soil that I didn't find when clearing my plot.  Their roots are deep and not always easy to pull out. 

While I'm thankful for the rain (as I have barely spent any time watering), I'm now hoping for some sun to give my plants a little boost!

Maples Garden Lemon Mint Tea

At the Maples Discovery Gardens Co-op Annual General Meeting, Leo made some wonderful lemon balm mint iced tea using herbs from the garden.  He was kind enough to share the recipe with me.  It's super easy, super good, healthy, and cheap!

Ingredients:

1 big bunch of lemon balm (stems removed)

1 bunch of mint (stems removed)

16 cups of water, boiled

1 lemon, sliced

1 Tbsp. coconut palm sugar (or other sweetener such as stevia, raw sugar, etc., to taste)

Start off with a bunch of lemon balm and a bunch of mint (both of which have some great health benefits - you can use Google to look them up). 

You can pick these from the side of the driveway at the Garden.  The lemon balm is quite easy to identify - it's growing rampant and by rubbing the leaves and smelling your fingers, you will know when you've found the correct plant.  The mint is slightly more difficult to find, but it's there.  It looks like some has just been propagated (it's near the lemon balm at the greenhouse end of the driveway) and, since mint grows like a weed (perhaps even worse than buttercups), I'm sure will be flourishing in no time.


Remove the leaves from the stems and give them a good wash to remove any dirt, bugs, and bird...ummm...blessings.  Meanwhile, boil a big pot of water (I used 16 cups, you could use more or less, depending on how strong you'd like your tea).

Remove pot of boiling water from heat, add the lemon balm and mint leaves and let steep.  (If you need to relax, this would be a great opportunity to lean over the pot, throw a towel over your head, and breath deep) I let mine steep 2.5 hours - you could let this steep a whole day or two, if you have the time.

Pour the contents of the pot through a strainer into a drink dispenser or juice jug.  If serving right away, add ice to the jug.

Slice a washed lemon and add to the jug. 

Use raw sugar, coconut sugar, stevia, or the sweetener of your choice, to sweeten to taste (it's great even without any sweetener at all).  I used coconut palm sugar (which gave the tea a darker color).

Enjoy!

Here are some possible variations on this tea:
- adding green tea bags to steep with the lemon balm and mint
- adding lavender (also available to pick at the Garden)
- increasing the mint and decreasing the lemon balm to get more of a mint than lemon taste
- in addition to the lemon slices, add the juice of one or two lemons