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!  

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.

Growing Garden

Things (including horsetails) continue to grow in the garden.  Here you can see the Redbor Kale as well as some spinach, nasturtiums, and lettuce.

 My original idea was to plant the seeds in the 3 beds at different times so I'd have a continuous supply of veggies.  I'm realizing now that, while I will have a continuous supply, I may not have enough of certain veggies to make anything (like a spinach salad).  Next year, I either need to have more squares dedicated to spinach and radishes or more beds or some other great solution.  This year, I'm happy to have anything edible in any quantity!

Last week I did some more planting including more of what I've already planted (radishes, spinach, etc.), marigolds, and some sunburst squash.  I'm hoping to plant some edamame and tomatoes this weekend if the rain lets up.

We now have lambs at the co-op.  I think they are just for fun/pets (a.k.a. not for dinner).

I had a little garden helper this week.

First 'Harvest'

The first batch of radishes are ready for harvest!

Behind the watering can you can see the bucket of horsetail tea I'm making for the garden.  (Horsetail, btw, is my second least favorite 'weed' behind buttercups right now.)  Apparently if you soak them in water and then use the water (in a 1:10 ratio with non-horsetail water), it's good for your plants.  One of the garden coordinators told me this and I did some research online and decided it wouldn't hurt to try.  Of course, I will not be able to provide any definitive results as this is not a controlled study - I don't even have a control group!  Maybe next year.

Things in the first box I planted are growing well: two types of spinach, two types of lettuce, two types of kale, nasturtiums, and radishes.  Sweet 'Elenor' peas are coming up behind the box, along the fence.

Unfortunately, something is eating the new leaves in the second box.  I didn't see any slug trails or anything (neighbours in the garden have said that there is a slug problem out there) but it did rain since the last time I was at the garden so it's hard to say if it was slugs or not.

I'll keep an eye on things and enjoy my radishes, for now :) (Btw, not my lettuce in the background, but I wish it was!  Someone else's greenhouse project.)

Planted - April 21st

All from West Coast Seeds:


Cilantro
Kale - Rainbow Lacinato
Kale - Redbor
Lettuce - Buttercrunch
Lettuce - Esmeralda
Nasturtium - Salad Blend
Radish - Rudi
Shelling Peas - Paladio
Snap Peas - Sugar Ann
Spinach - Vancouver
Spinach - Corvair
Sweet Peas - Late Spencer Blend (for Els, they always remind me of her)


Checked on the garden yesterday - the radishes are coming up but no sign of anything else yet.

Fencing

After talking to some other people at the garden, I decided that it would be worth my time and effort to install a fence.  Not only is my plot right next to the parking lot - which lends itself as a shortcut for dogs and children - there is a rabbit problem in the area.  One lady said that her whole garden was eaten by rabbits last year, another lady told me that half of hers was.


So, I did some research and headed to Home Depot for supplies.


After another full day's work, I had a rabbit-deterrent fence installed.  It's dug about 6-inches into the ground.  The fence is folded under the ground so that it comes out about 4 - 6 inches from the fence line.  The idea is that if the rabbits start to dig to try to get under the fence, they will hit the chicken wire and not be able to get in (or at least be deterred).  We shall see if it works.


I had a man come up to me and tell me something along the lines of the more time spent bent over in the garden (i.e. back-breaking work) I do, the better my garden will be.  (I think he was translating a quote from Russian.)  I told him that, if that's the case, I'm going to have a really great garden this year!

Beginning of day. 

End of day.

All In a Day's Work

My husband and father-in-law helped to build three square foot gardens for the plot.  

It took me over 8 hours to weed - I now officially am not a fan of buttercups.  I couldn't believe how difficult they were to pull up.

Thankfully, I will only have to do this much weeding once.  The square foot gardens and the paths were in place by the end of the day.  The final touches will be to put bark mulch on the paths and add some organic Eco-Soil to the beds.  The Co-op is negotiating a deal on the soil for the members.