AlexH

On the weekend we had a lot of rain during the night.  14mm according to Environment Canada, who have an excellent weather archive.  There aren’t many choices for cities (Vancouver being the closest to Port Moody) but it gives a rough idea.  Most of my plants loved it, but there were a lot of almost ripe cherry tomatoes that split.  I picked them yesterday, and they were still good, but I worry about the rest of the tomatoes being spoiled.  The Minibel heirloom was partially undercover and it seems to be ok.  Fingers crossed.

The tomato plants are doing great, they’re almost at the 6′ mark, I think they’ll be there by sometime this week. There are a ton of blossoms on there and a few fruits are forming already.

Unfortunately I won’t be around to harvest them because Tracy and I are moving next week. I’ve decided to leave them for the next tenant because I don’t think they’ll survive the trip, especially since I planted them directly in the ground. At the end of the season I’m going to come by to clean up and take the trellis down, since I put a lot of work into it.

I did dig up most of the other perennials today though, I’m taking the rosemary, thyme, and savory with me. Hopefully they will survive. I’ve never transplanted something from the garden to a container before so I don’t know how it will work out.

I also transplanted the rest of the seedlings that I had started because most of them were getting root bound in their small containers. Canadian Tire had a good deal on both ceramic and plastic containers so I picked up several. It wasn’t enough to transplant all of them, so I’m going to pick up some hanging basket containers this week to put the shallower rooted plants in.

As of last week, the cilantro and mustard have bolted.  I’ve been having trouble harvesting the mustard fast enough, and going on vacation for a week didn’t help the situation.

I’ve been reading up on cooking techniques for sour greens and experimenting on eating them.  I find them too bitter to use often in a salad, but cooking them in a stir fry that has a sweeter sauce like teriyaki or hoisin makes them taste quite nice.

For future reference, 4 mustard plants per person is more than enough.

The cilantro is another story, I was hoping to have some around when the tomatoes start ripening, but planting them in the spring wasn’t that useful because they’ve all bolted.  I’ll have to plant more of them as the summer progresses, so they’ll be ready for salsa in August/September.
Everything else seems to be on track.  I’m especially pleased about the parsley plant that I bought from Home Depot, I’ve hardy been able to keep up with cutting it, and it hasn’t shown any signs of bolting yet.

I’d like to get a nice template for placing my seeds. I think the best way would be to have a piece of plywood that has the 4/9/16 pattern drilled into it, and dowels would be put into the holes at the right depth. Then the placing of the holes would be a matter of pushing the board down on the soil, and voila, they are ready to go!

Let’s see if my ASCII art will work here:

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|     x     x     x     x      |
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|        x     x     x         |
|     x     x     x     x      |
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|        x     x     x         |
|     x     x     x     x      |
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|        x     x     x         |
|     x     x     x     x      |
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Well it sort of works, I could fit the 9/16 holes.

Last night’s salad:

• Spinach
• Arugula
• Chard
• Tom thumb
• Buttercrunch
• Mustard
• Parsley
• Mint
• Nasturtium
• Radish greens
• Bee balm
• Chive flowers

Now I just need to figure out a good dressing I can make from my home grown ingredients, and I’ll be set.  Maybe soybean oil, lemon balm/lemon thyme, apple cider vinegar, garlic, and sea salt.
Just doing some guesstimates, it takes about 3 spinach plants for a small salad.  Using the SFG technique, if I wanted to eat a salad each day, it would take about 19 squares to have a continuous supply.  Of course, I would have to stop planting from May 1 - August 1, so that takes out about 1/4 of the year where I could be harvesting spinach.

Today Tracy and I harvested the first of the radishes. I planted two squares worth and we took about a third from each square. The rest were too small so I’ll hopefully pick them this week, and once the square is empty I’ll plant the beans.

I found a small green worm on one of the leaves, so I squished it. I think that was what was eating the holes in the leaves.

I also found a strange looking radish that had split open, and there was a small brown worm inside the split.  The bottom roots were gone as well.  I don’t know if it had split from overwatering, or if that worm was making itself a home.  I’m going to do some research to see if I can find what it was, and how I can avoid it in the future.  Only one was affected like that but I haven’t pulled all of them out yet.

The weather forecast is for fairly good weather during the week so I’ll probably pull the rest on Wednesday, and put some plastic on the ground to get it really heated up before the beans go in.

First I should note that I’ve converted someone to SFG, my grandpa, who has moved into an apartment after owning houses for the past 50 years. He gets a small plot in his apartment building so he’s going to apply the techniques there. I’m sure he’ll convert some other gardeners in his building. My grandma thinks we’re both crazy of course.

I put the tomato plants in on the Thursday before Easter and so far so good. I also bought some conduit and made trellises for the tomatoes. The 1×2’s that I originally bought are too flimsy for tomatoes, so I’m going to double them up for the bean trellis.
The spinach, carrots, and radishes are doing great so far, and they’ll need some thinning this weekend. There is space for more radishes and nasturtiums, so I’m going to plant those which should give me a fairly continuous supply if I rotate through the year. I found some French dwarf marigolds on sale at Save-On so those will get planted as well. There is conflicting information about whether the marigolds that I got are edible, but since I haven’t grown them from seed, who knows what pesticides the nursery used, so I won’t risk it.
I also learned an important lesson about the mini-greenhouses I made with chicken wire. The wind toppled some of them over, and flattened two of the basil seedlings. Ouch. It’s too soon to see if they will recover. I think I will get some dowels or stakes to put in the ground to stop the greenhouses from blowing over.

The radish, carrots, and onions have sprouted and are making great progress.  I’ve thinned the radishes already and will thin the carrots soon.

The next step is to get some slug countermeasures in soon, I’ve been eating lots of pistachios lately so I can put the crushed shells around the perimeter.

The lettuce seedlings are ready to be transplanted, I’ll probably do that tonight.

The rest of the garden is ready for the nursery plants.  The sage, basil, and marigolds will go in this weekend.

On the GardenWeb forums I found an heirloom tomato expert in Port Moody. She has a great looking garden and is already harvesting lettuce that she planted in January in her cold frame. Her success has encouraged me to think about how I can get my garden started early next year, or even try to keep it producing year round.

Tracy and I got the planters finished and some of the seeds planted yesterday.

I dug the beds and discovered that the soil at the side of the house is actually quite nice and full of worms. So far we’ve planted onions, carrots, radishes by seed. We’ve also transplanted basil, parsely, rosemary, and savory.

I think I’ll have to redo the frames for the tomatoes and beans because they aren’t very sturdy. I might pick up some electrical conduit from Home Depot to make the frames. Hopefully I’ll be able to clamp them to the sides of the beds.

I’ve also put the beans in the greenhouse and I hope they’ll grow nicely in the milk carton starters until they are ready to transplant.