In case you didn’t read the April: In the Garden blog, here is a little recap. At the end of April, we only had onions and garlic in the garden. We were working on putting up a fence around the garden. We were experimenting at keeping the beans alive that we accidentally started way too early. We mapped out the garden using string and popsicle sticks so we knew what areas we were planting vegetables in and where the paths were. Our battle with the wildlife was still raging on.
May was a very busy month in the garden! At the beginning of the month, I got my butt in gear and finished the fence, up to where the gates would be put in. We still need figure out how we will be installing gates so we can hopefully keep the squirrels out! I have narrowed down the wildlife problem to being mainly squirrels, I believe. I think the squirrel problem will be mostly fixed once we get the gates in because they do not climb the fence. I know this because I watched a squirrel get stuck in the bean container area for over 5 minutes and every time it touched the fence, it ran away from it. I did help him find the way out though in case you’re wondering. The workers did come again and mark out where the gas line was so now we know where to avoid slamming t-posts into the ground and this will allow us to finally get the fence finished in the front of garden and not blow up the house! Thankfully they also left the little flags so I don’t have to call them again because the paint has disappeared 🙂
The update on the bean experiment is. . . . it failed! We had a big frost come with hail and it just became too cold for them to survive. So what we did was we pulled the dead ones out and planted new ones! We planted them the same way as before, planting 3 seeds around each of the 4 poles in a container. We did this for 3 containers and then we also started a new experiment! In the fourth container, I did a LOT of peas. I planted 3 pea seeds along each of the 4 poles, then I drew a square with my finger in the middle area of the container and planted pea seeds along the square and then I drew a circle with my finger in the center of the square and planted more peas! So we will see what happens when we overload a container with pea plants because why not right?!
We planted more vegetables and flowers into the various containers we have around the shed. The marigolds were starting to flower upstairs so they really forced my hand into getting outside. Plus, we want to help the pollinators right! We started new Nasturtiums and started Calendula as well. I have no idea what these flowers look like but I read they are great companion plants for a lot of the vegetables in the garden because they will bring in the good bugs that should eat the bad bugs.
We started kale, spinach, swiss chard, and lettuce in big containers. Joseph may have started about 3 kale plants in the one container so we will see how that fares out, and then we planted 3 rows of the swiss chard, lettuce, and spinach in their containers. Spacing was not considered when we planted the seeds so we will see how that goes too! (I will try to take pictures of the progress while doing the garden videos so I can display them in the blogs for you.)
We also planted the broccoli and cauliflower outside in early May. It had started to grow in odd shapes trying to fight each other for the light in the grow room and just generally stopped thriving inside, so it was best to get them outside before they completely died upstairs. Since we did not label the broccoli and cauliflower, it is mixed up in the sections so we will be pleasantly surprised once it starts to grow bigger as to which plants are what.
We did have a massive heat wave at the beginning of May during and after I planted the broccoli and cauliflower and some plants did perish in the process, but most of them came out of shock and are starting to thrive.
In early May, we also planted 4 rows of carrots and a row of celery in their designated area, and a small section of beets at the end of the foot path by the broccoli and corn area. I found some cool ideas for beets so I am excited to grow a few and see how those recipes turn out!
We finished setting up the trellises in the garden. I am sure my neighbours though I was crazy when they saw how many t-posts I was smacking into the garden, but they couldn’t see the method to my madness until the end. We used the 2″ by 4″ fencing, wrapped it around the t-posts in their sections, and secured it using wire, plyers, and elbow grease. We initially set the fence up too high and I am currently in the midst of lowering it all. So, if you plan to do the same, I would suggest only putting your fence about 6 inches off the ground. The roll of fencing I used was 50 feet long and each section I needed the fencing for needed 25 feet, so it worked out perfectly that each roll provided fencing for 2 areas.
We also managed to get some tomatoes planted outside around the beginning of May. This was a bit of an experiment to see whether the tomato plants would survive since my area was forecasted to continue in on the heat waves all the way through May. I used the San Marzano tomato plants that were the tallest from the grow room because they really needed more room than the grow room could provide. I also planted the Cali Wonder peppers outside in early May to see whether they would survive. They were also starting to outgrow the grow room, shade other plants, fight for the light, and grow in twisted ways.
I did a garden video update to document how quickly vegetables were sprouting, how well plants were surviving the heat wave, and how fast the vegetables are growing in general. This is also where I discovered a new battle within the garden. Trees! The dang squirrels have been moving their nuts around and have planted so many trees in the garden and even in some containers! To give some perspective, we only filled the containers in the beginning of May and by mid-May, a tree was sprouting! The garden video also includes some of my thoughts for the future of the backyard gardens, where the fruit area should be, where I am planting the various squash varieties we are growing, and what to do with the apple trees we randomly started to grow.
Mid-May seemed to be a busy time of the month. I did not want to leave all of the planting to the May long-weekend. Although I was dedicated to planting all weekend, things don’t always go as planned! It takes a lot of time to plant lots of vegetables and children sometimes have their own thoughts of how they want to spend the weekend, so I worked at getting plants into the ground slowly over the weeks ahead of the long-weekend. My goal was to transplant as many plants or sow as many seeds as possible before the long-weekend so that whatever was left could be finished on the long-weekend. Plus, Mother Nature had her own weather ideas for that weekend too. We have also had some major battles and races with the weather! May 16, we had a thunderstorm forecasted for the afternoon and I was in a groove that morning. I decided to get as much done as possible before the thunderstorm came so it could water the transplants into the ground for me. That day we managed to plant corn, get the fencing on the t-posts for the beans, peas, and cucumber area, and then I started to prepare the soil for planting the beans, peas, and cucumbers. By the time I was placing the first seeds into the ground, I could hear the thunder rolling in very close to me. Well, let me tell you I have never worked so fast in my life! We just chucked the seeds into the ground, covered it up, cleaned up the kid’s toys from the backyard and got inside just in time to stay dry! We did overplant a lot of beans. I did this for two reasons: one is because the birds are eating all the leaves off of my plants so the more plants I have, the more of a chance I have a high plant number that survives. Two, is because there is a lot of fence area for them to grow on. We want to can lots of pole beans and peas so we need a lot of plants to do this. Another reason for planting so many bean and pea plants is the fact that we are guaranteed to have enough beans ready to harvest at the same time that we could use them in a meal. My past luck is that maybe 5 beans were ready at a time and you can’t save and store them until there’s enough to make a side dish out of.
I definitely did not start trying to get the potatoes to sprout early enough so I was trying to rush mother nature and get them to sprout faster. Well, lets just say the old wives tale is true: a watched pot never boils; and a potato does not sprout any faster just because you want it to sprout! What I did was add some soil into the plant trays from the grow room. I placed the potatoes inside the trays and would water the soil twice a week to encourage roots to come out and find the water. Some sprouted very well and ahead of others and that was frustrating for trying to find a time that all of them had some sprouts so they could all grow in the ground together. We decided to plant the one row of russet potatoes out into the garden since one potato had a huge plant growing already and lots had little sprouts starting.
The other big question is whether or not we can grow grocery store potatoes. I was not willing to spend tons of money on seed potatoes and all of the decently priced seed potatoes from my usual seed websites were sold out. So, we used potatoes from the grocery store and no, they were not organic. So we will document how well they grow! We are growing russet, red, and sweet potatoes.
My Dad is moving into an apartment and he has plants in his garden from when I was a child. We decided to clean up the overgrown front garden so he can keep the plants safe in that garden. I have been extremely hands off with this garden. I left it up to Josh and my Dad to decide where everything would go and to get the plants in the ground. One reason is because I’m tired lol… The main reason though is because Josh designed the front garden at our last house and it was beautiful! He designed in a way that each part of the garden had flowers in bloom at all times. So, my Dad came down with some of the plants on the long weekend and then again the weekend after. There is a 50 year old peony plant in there that has come out of shock and looks so beautiful. The trilliums are bouncing back nicely, but some of the peony’s still look like they’re crying about the transplant.
We finally planted the raspberry, blackberry, and blueberry plants that I had stored in the basement for a couple of weeks. I am super excited about having fruit in the backyard. We still need to get the strawberries out, but they’re still alive and doing well. I am also excited because we could grow enough fruit that maybe one day we won’t need to buy berries from the store! Plus, we could use our own berries in our homemade yogurt!
We have also started a “no till” garden area. I have never had a “no till” garden so this is new and I will be very happy if the weeds stay out of this garden. The carboard base of the “no till” garden is supposed to suppress the weeds. Then I added lots of garden soil on top. We planted 2 rows of butternut squash, one row of zucchini, one row of pie pumpkins, and the last row is reserved for the carving pumpkins. I did go a little crazy because I planted 2 seeds per hole and dug 4 holes per row. We were supposed to have an area that was 15 feet by about 10 feet and it is in an area that is about 6 feet by 4 feet. So I guess this will be another experiment as to how crowded we can have a squash garden. The vines have plenty of room to roam, so it will just be how well the roots mingle together. We will document the process and how well they do.
Last but not least, our final big planting episode for May was preparing the soil, and planting 7 rows of popcorn! I am very excited for this for some reason. Our accountant gave us 2 cobs of popcorn last Fall and it was oddly a lot of fun twisting the kernels off of the cob, so I am looking forward to that this Fall and getting the boys in on it. I am also excited because I think this patch will be produce enough popcorn for our family for a whole year! So, I guess the other half of my excitement is that fact that this could be one food item we are growing that could actually give us a year’s worth of food. I mean this is the goal of this whole project is to see how much food we can produce and how many food items we can make that we don’t need to buy from the grocery store. In that we will also be documenting how long the items we have preserved will last to see if we overplanted certain vegetables or perhaps if we need larger areas of other vegetables.
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