Harvest
Berry harvest looking okay this year. Gonna double down on the thornless blackberry, as these are monsters!
Raspberries are weak, but producing.
Plants
Sim's garden journal
Plant
Planted out rows of china white radish, Harris model parsnip, golden acre cabbage and patch of red shiso.
Plants
Harvest
Harvested some green beans from under the persimmon guild. Probably 2lbs of beans. Also harvested some garlic (not quite ready to pull but needed for flavour) and dill. Lactofermenting in a large jar. Started bubbling after one day. Looking forward to tasting these!
Plants
Observe
Persimmon guild. Planted two, 2 year old seedling persimmons last year.
This year they’re really filling out.
Underplanted with a mix of annual herbs, greens and flowers, and supplemented with lupines, bloody dock, thyme, with two currants in between.
Plants
Planted a super early row of cucumbers. There may yet be a frost, but there’s a chance they also get an early start. Will plant succession rows over the next weeks. Varieties: Blanc de Holland, Bushy, Spacesaver
Plants
Under-seeded the fruit tree/shrub rows with annuals and perennial support plants. Pulled away the thick mulch (autumn leaves, rabbit litter) to expand the planting area and smother another 9” of grass in some rows.
Plants
Observe
A few observations from an indecisive April. Red amaranth popping up, that was planted in spring 2023! Did realize it took so long to germinate, but that goes to show you the power of building up a seedbank. Especially for lazy gardeners such as myself.
Aside from the amaranth, the orpines were one of the first greens, pushing up through the snow. They’re naturalized around the property, likely planted by the previous owners. Their flowers are a pollinator favourite, they can handle full sun or full shade, have no issue with rich or poor soil, and are apparently edible - though on first taste they were unimpressive. It pays to observe and research what’s growing around you naturally.
Plants
Observe
Yarrow popped up after only 2 days.
Plants
Planted seeds into leftover pellet pots. Most of these need light to germinate. Under lights on heat mat.
Plants
Observe
Cuttings started leafing after about 1.5 weeks. Some started through flowers and flower buds, but I gently trimmed them off. Some growing several leaves and even small branches, while others are still taking their sweet time to leaf out.
Plants
Getting some early spring seeds in the ground with high hopes.
Plants
Plant
Ribes cuttings planted. Ordered from someone on fb marketplace.
Jostaberry, Pink Champagne, Titania Black.
Cuttings sunk into a 10:1 mix of organic potting soil and fine sand. Made sure the medium was moist before filling the trays.
Washed trays with soapy water and rinsed.
Plants
Observe
Asparagus making an appearance. Seems a bit early, since we’re still expecting plenty of frost, so I left them covered.
I planted these from seed 2 years ago, and they were pretty vigorous last summer. Heavily mulched with leaves and bunny bedding.
Variety is Mary Washington.
Plants
Harvest
Multiplier onions are a win! Bought these after learning about them from SkillCult. Did not disappoint. Started from sets 2 months ago. Harvested sustainably for gronions as they grew, and each single set tripled or quadrupled.
Anyone else growing multipliers / potato onions?
Plants
Harvest
Harvested garlic! About a week before garlic harvest, planted another round of multiplier onions in between so by the time garlic was harvested, the onions were ready to take over.
Plants
Observe
Ground cherries — both volunteers from last year’s leftovers — and some seeds planted around my new persimmon trees are sprouting this week. Some with 4-5 leaves. They needed warmer soil and rain. None of my inside starts worked well enough to plant. Direct sowing next year.
In addition, squash that were direct sown are already larger than transplants that had a 3 week head start.
Cucumbers and melons that were direct seeded are coming up with the heat and rain, but we will see if they overtake the stunted transplants. Next year I should direct sow with little plastic domes to heat the soil.
Plants
Observe
Strawberry spinach is one or the most interesting and fun surprises we’re growing. It’s a perennial, has edible leaves (taste just like spinach) and edible fruity flower bud things… The “strawberries” even have a slight sweetness to them. Started last spring from seed, planted out last summer and it grew quite a lot. This spring it was the first of the greens to pop, and has been delivering for 2 months already. Will be eating the fruits in salad for the rest of the summer. Hopefully it comes back! Will save some seed just in case.
Plants
Observe
Herb garden taking off after some solid rain this past week. Mostly volunteers and returning perennials. There were a few things here when we lived in, but I expanded the garden to consume all the single plantings and filled every in between. The goal is to have this garden as low maintenance as possible.
Plants
Observe
Persimmon buds are finally breaking! My patience was wearing thin, but these bad boys are going to leaf out after all!
In order to cover the soil and support these trees, I planted a number of seeds; green beans, dill, snapdragons, squash, mustard, and ground cherry. May the most vigorous win, and the rest feed the soil!
Will likely underplant with something more permanent in the future.
Plants
Observe
Nursery is coming along this year. 6 mystery stone fruits, started indoor — 2 in the ground. First 5 of many more walnuts — both black and English. Decorative willow stakes taking off after winter kill.
Bonus potato pot and lemongrass.
Plants
Plant
Planted out melons and cucumbers. Melons: Blacktail watermelon, Minnesota midget, emerald gem, charentais, edisto 47, golden honeydew, noir des carmes.
Cucumbers: Marketmore 76, Bushy, Spacemaster, Blanc de Holland.
The goal for this year is to mass plant the melons into one bed, and hope for crosses (all but the blacktail are cucumis melo) to replant next year.
Cucumbers, not as set on crosses, but the blanc de holland was vigorous and productive last year, whereas the others were slow and many weren’t even fully pollinated. Hoping to save seeds for some improvements.
Plants
Observe
Spring in the yarden Trees and shrubs are budding! Looks like we will see flowers from the haskaps and leaves from the hazels very soon. Also, the Turkish hazelnut and hickory seedlings survived!
Plants
Observe
Still growing. There are a few clear winners here. 5 still looking healthy, 2 are more vigorous.
Plants
Observe
Looks like most of these guys are gonna make it. You can see one that didn’t (left) but there are 10 in good shape with 3+ leaves. Will probably top up the soil a bit in the cells and get a bottom watering tray going.
Plants
Germinate
Cold stratification success! I cracked a couple dozen plum pits and pulled out the seeds last fall, put them in a bread bag w/ moist potting soil, and left them in the cold room all winter. Just went to inspect the stash & noticed the bright white radicles! It’s planting time!
Got a dozen plum seeds planted. There were a few nectarine and peach seeds in there too, but I think only one or two germinated. Time will tell. Mixed a bucket of soil (sandy dirt, some mostly-composted yard waste, last year’s failed potted plant soil & some well aged urine.
Planted into deep nursery trays.
I opted to upgrade my tree trays w/ these deeper ones I got used from a local nursery. They’re maybe 6” deep & have a large hole in the bottom for air pruning the roots. Plums! Hopefully only one of a half dozen tree species I’ll grow this year.
Plants
Observe
Raised bed garden updates. There will be a harvest! So far from 6 cucumber plants we’ve been harvesting 1-2 cucumbers per day over the past 2 weeks with more coming so long as blight doesn’t hit! Tomatoes and ground cherries have another few weeks and beans are pumping. Squash has another month at least, with at least (I hope) one squash on each plant.
Plants
Observe
Borage and calendula support showed up around the cherry guild. Borage working well as a trap crop. Aphids seem to have moved from the cherry to the borage!
Plants
Observe
Everything is growing well! Looking forward to identifying the cucumbers to see which are the most prolific. Really hoping some of the white cucumbers show up.
Observe
Melons are slow to start, but I’ve been feeding them quite a bit. Rotting grass clippings, and fermented plant juice made from dandelion leaves.
Observe
Kousa dogwood is slow to grow, not sure what’s going on. Ground cherry doing well. Underplanted with some beans just for fun and they’re popping up nicely. Strawberry plant is massive, and pumping out a few strawberries per day.
Observe
Mulberry tree put on some solid growth earlier this summer. Squash are up and crawling. Echinacea didn’t make it, but I have new seedlings ready to go any day.
Plants
Observe
Ground cherries are growing! Slow start from seed, but once they hit their stride, they’re unstoppable! First fruits already visible, 4-5 flowers on each with new leaves and flowers appearing daily.
Transplant
Planted out ground cherry starts today. Weather was overcast and calling for a slight rain. Watered in with bacterial water from my fermentation experiment.
Plants
Other
Build mini-hugelkultur rings to expand newly planted tree zones. Pulled grasses/weeds, laid down layer of sticks and twigs, 4-6” layer of grass clippings then topped with 4-6” of soil.
Planted a row of echinacea and a butternut squash in the mulberry ring.
Planted a row of chives around hazelnut.
Planted a few ground cherries around the kousa dogwood.
Planted a butternut squash alongside another hazelnut.
Plants
Transplant
Transplanted out my tomatoes and cucumbers which I started earlier last month.
Plants
Planted several melons today. Direct sown into the new raised bed, and into some large pots.
Varieties were zombie cantaloupe, blacktail watermelon, golden midget watermelon
Plants
Observe
Beets didn’t seem to like the transplant. Leaves are growing, but not looking healthy.
Bok choy did very well, turkish rocket is growing slowly, and the kale is not looking very happy, but it’s growing.
Plants
Transplant
Transplanted tomatoes and cucumbers into the new raised beds today!
Plants
Germinate
Brassicas and greens have sprouted, but no sign of the borage or calendula yet.
Plants
Transplant
For some reason the watermelon seeds didn’t germinate. There were a few cantaloupe starts that I planted into the herb garden.
Plants
Transplant
Transplanted my two pawpaw plants out into the yard. They’re starting to look stressed in their pots (1.89 litre milk cartons) so I dug a couple deep holes in a shady spot under the hop hornbeam. Soil is sandy there so they should like it. The taproot was easily a few inches longer than the carton. Probably 12” long.
Plants
Sowed a mix of greens, brassicas and edible flowers into the middle of the new herb bed.
Plants
Sowed a selection of melons and squash into 5” pots. Left in DIY germination chamber.
Plants
Transplant
Kale, bok choy, turkish rocket, chiogga beets were transplanted into herb garden. Covered nightly for a week until nights reached around 10°C.
Bok choy took off — would transplant earlier next year and cover overnight.
Rocket is slow, but still alive.
Beets are stunted, not doing much but still alive.
Kale is OK, but is being outgrown by direct-sown kale planted a week later.
Plants
Transplant
Planted Lapin cherry tree and a double haskap — berry blue and aurora. Transplanted a few Canadian garlic (wild garlic) around the sweet cherry.
Plants
Other
Brought all the plants outside this morning. Tomatoes, peppers, kale, bok choy, Turkish rocket, chiogga beets, pink celery. Trees: Honey locust, turkish hazelnuts, pawpaws.
Plants
Other
Planted two rows of small red and yellow potatoes. They were potatoes from Lufa farms that had sprouted in the cupboard. Planted about 6 of each.
Plants
Sow mix of saved seed: rainbow chard, brassica mix, kale, giant red mustard and borage. Sown in a corner of a newly made lasagna style garden bed; cardboard, leaf mould, light sprinkling of hardwood ash, compost.
Also sowed same mix in raspberry/garlic bed among the not-yet-growing raspberry canes.
Plants
Observe
Multi-sown beets are rolling along. Leggy though, as it’s not been warm enough to put outside in the sun. Hopeful we’ll get enough sun soon.
Plants
Planted a couple dozen asparagus seeds in a shallow tray.
Plants
Planted some kale into a wooden seed box I made. Soil is mediocre peat moss with vermiculite, but not much vermiculite. No bottom heat, just cool room temperature.
Plants
Multi-sown into a wooden seed box I made. Soil is mediocre peat moss with vermiculite, but not much vermiculite. No bottom heat, just cool room temperature.
Plants
Planted some pink plume celery into a wooden seed box I made. Soil is mediocre peat moss with vermiculite, but not much vermiculite. No bottom heat, just cool room temperature.
Plants
Other
Germinated wild pawpaws are starting to breach the soil surface.
Plants
Seeds are from wild pawpaw sourced from Ontario. Seeds stored in moist medium in a plastic bag in fridge for 2 years, unsure of viability. Sown in moist coconut coir, with bottom heat.
Plants
Plant
Yellow plum cuttings taken from burned out estate in Kelowna, British Columbia. Cuttings taken in December. Planted into moist coconut coir after keeping in cold storage wrapped in moist newspaper. Lightly shaved off bark near base, and dipped in rooting hormone. Using bottom heat in a clear plastic tote to hold moisture and temperature.
Plants
Plant
Stakes were stuck into moist forest soil mixed with decaying wood shavings, and stored in a garage for almost 2 months before bringing inside. Stored in clear tote with bottom heat.
Plants
Plant
Planted 2 stakes into moist wood shavings and forest soil. Planted stakes were stored in garage for almost 2 months prior to planting.
Plants
Seeds are from wild persimmon, sourced from Ontario. Been refrigerated for 2+ years in a plastic bag, unsure of viability. Planted into moist coconut coir with bottom heat.
Plants
Plant
Stacked in a nursery pot, alternating with partially decomposed wood shavings (5-6 nuts in each layer).
Plants
Plant
Stacked in a nursery pot, alternating with partially decomposed wood shavings (5-6 nuts in each layer).
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Plant
Planted densely in a nursery pot, mulched heavily. Set in garage to cold stratify.
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Planted in shade garden to cover soil. Later in season than recommended, experimental crop.
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Seeded in shaded bed to keep soil covered. Experimental.
Plants
Transplant
Acquired some partially pruned suckers. Dug a new bed (lots of clay) and planted out 8 root balls, then trimmed back canes to about 6”.
Plants
Harvest
2 fruits
Plants