I just ate a bug. And that's not the worst of it. I have a bug on my boob and 3 of them in my hair. Actually eating one probably was the worst of it.
I just got in from talking with some of my neighbours outside and we were viciously attacked by some gnats. They weren't biting bugs or anything but they were swarmy. All kind of flitty and bothersome. Like Bieber fans.
At around 7:30 tonight I sauntered down the street with that very basket of tomatoes you see in the picture above, handing them out to neighbours, strangers ... the homeless guy who lives in the bush. I guess technically he's not homeless, he does have a home, it just happens to be a tarp.
Anyone and everyone got a tomato. It's been a bumper crop. The problem is ... they just don't taste as good as the ones I tasted at Tree & Twig. I asked the owner, Linda about that and she said it was probably my soil. Apparently she has delicious dirt. The amount and types of minerals and nutrients and compost and stuff you have in your soil makes a big difference in how the things you grow in it taste. She's a proponent of Spanish River Carbonatite which is proven to increase the Brix count of what's grown in it.
Blah, blah, blah, who cares, don't understand what she's talking about so I'm going to go play with cheese now. That's what you're thinking right?
All that means is, if you amend your soil with this stuff your tomatoes will be sweeter. The Brix count is a measurement of sugar levels. I learned all about it when I was teaching myself to make Maple Syrup this spring.
So even though this here front yard food patch is barely growed up, I've already started planning next year's garden. And it will include Spanish River Carbonatite.
Settle in. This is gonna be a big one ...
Onto the reveal!
Wanna grow something that produces from spring until fall, has bright colours and never looks messy and floppy? Grow Swiss Chard. It's the tall, upright plants on both sides of my path.
You might notice some bare spots. That's where old vegetables came out, and new vegetables are still being planted.
The famous Amish Cockscomb. The most fantastic flower ever grown. Want some? Buy it from Tree & Twig here.
No idea. If you know what he is ... lemme know. They SWARM the Cockscomb every day.
Remember the Great Green Bean experiment? Well, this is how the pole beans look less than a month later.
This is disaster corner. Welcome to it. I had planted 4 Zucchinis and every SINGLE one of them croaked due to a variety of ailments and pests. The same pests got 3 of my 4 Acorn Squash plants. For hours I hand picked Striped Beetles and Squash Bugs off my plants only to have them up and die from a gross maggoty thing that bores into the stem of the plant and eats it from the inside out. So you don't even know it's there! Vine Borers are vile, parasitic annoyances. Like Nickleback fans.
Just kidding.
About the fans. Not about Nickelback though. Yeah, yeah, you're a big fan. Whatever. They're no Barenaked Ladies. This is about vegetables anyway ...
So I have managed to get a few acorn squash off of this one vine, but thanks to Squash Vine Borer I lost all my other vines.
Update: I have been growing squash successfully for years now in my 40' x 40' community garden. I researched and learned how to prevent and control squash vine borer by literally watching for them and cutting them out of the plants! You can read my whole post covering squash vine borer prevention and control here.
This is the sweet potato patch. There better be sweet potatoes under that patch of vines or there's gonna be a shit show. They take up a lot of space those sweet potatoes.
Green peppers which will eventually be red peppers. We've harvested 2 reds already and have another 15 or so on the 2 plants.
My biggest surprise has been the celery. I will never go celeryless again. Think about it. How often do you buy a bunch of celery, use a few pieces and then let the rest of it wither then turn slimy in your crisper? Always. You always, always do that. Or maybe I always, always do that. Regardless, growing celery is the perfect solution. I go outside, pull of a few stalks and let the plant continue to grow. I've been doing this all summer long and it thrills me every single time. Also, celery from the garden is so crunchy it feels like the earth is moving underneath you when you bite into it.
Tomatoes. Yup. Even though I don't really like them, I grew 4 varieties of tomatoes. It's my way of trying to like them. And growing them really has increased my appetite for these little suckers. I ordered all of my seeds from Linda at Tree & Twig, OTHER THAN one variety. I decided I really wanted to grow Black Krim tomatoes. They're dark, dark tomatoes with a hint of saltiness to them. So I ran up to my local organic seed store and grabbed a packet of Black Krim seeds. They were the tomatoes I was most looking forward to. I sold and gave a bunch of my Black Krim seedlings away, but kept one for myself. I waited all summer for it to start producing tomatoes. And it did. That plant has produced more tomatoes than I could ever possibly eat. It's about 8 feet high and COVERED in ... not Black Krim tomatoes. Apparently there was some kind of mixup on the seed store floor which resulted in me growing some boring, round, flavourless tomato.
If I gave/sold you a Black Krim I'm sorry if it turned out to be a boring, round, flavourless tomato. If you DID end up with a Black Krim ... drop a few off on my porch.
Dinosaur Kale. Still doin' well after 3 months in the garden plus because of it's blue tinge it looks great too. Kale is especially good when it's grown in cold weather so I'm going to plant a couple of more plants and try my luck at some winter kale.
The last of the carrots. These will be carrot soup by tomorrow.
And these will hopefully be full grown carrots by the end of October or so. I tried to plant succession crops with anything that does well in cool weather. Things like carrots.
And beets.
I still have a fair amount of beets in the ground, but I want to make sure I have beets to store for the winter so a couple of weeks ago I planted a bunch of beet seeds where my lettuce used to be.
And since my lettuce is all gone, of course I had to plant more lettuce.
Another succession crop I'm trying is peas. Not a single pea from my first batch made it into the house. I sat in the dirt and ate the peas. All of the peas.
One of the plants I was ridiculously excited about growing was potatoes. SO excited. I experimented with a few ways of planting them to see which one worked best. Some of the vines have already died back completely ...
I couldn't help myself. I had to scrape away the straw and dirt to see if there actually were potatoes under there.
Be still my heart. There were.
French Fingerlings
Kennebecs
So the front yard vegetable garden I was worried the neighbours would shun me for has done the exact opposite. I visit my neighbours more, dropping off extra produce, I talk with them more as they walk by and ask questions, I hear about how at first they were sceptical but have decided next year they're going to have a front yard vegetable garden too.
If I could get a Nickelback for all the people I turned into Beliebers I'd be rich.
Jody
Spectacular! Laura Ingalls would be so proud. I too tried some potatoes this year and was thrilled when I could just go out and dig up a few for dinner. Where did you get the different varieties. I think I got my seed potatoes from Dundas Home Hardware. Next year I'm trying beets and celery-and more potatoes.
Karen
Jody - The majority of my seed potatoes came from TSC in Cambridge. ~ karen!
Rebecca
Your garden really is an inspiration. I would love to learn more, but am not sure where to start. Any chance you could recommend some good resources for a "beginner" in the Toronto area?
Evalyn
What is the world coming too when you can't trust a seed packet? I planted Green German tomatoes and got some round red thing that I already had dozens off on my Early Girl plants. *Sigh* Should have stuck to the Green Zebras.
You have some mighty handsome chard and kale! I planted my late crops a few weeks ago hoping I will finally get some carrots.
Ann
I tried an experiment this year with my sweet potatoes. In the past I got good crops but damaged so many of them getting them out of very compacted soil. So this year we used some strong wire mesh fencing and formed big round raised bins. We filled them with a layer of garden soil and then a layer of leaf mulch that we were able to get for free by the truck load. Well, until my DH was diagnosed with cancer, needed surgery and then needed to recover. We will be able to get more truckloads this fall. But anyway, this soil ended up about 24" deep and stayed very loose. I planted my slips in the middle of each bin and waited for them to grow. And grow they did. Thru the drought and all. They grew across the bin, down the sides and out about another 6' all the way around.
Well, today I planned on harvesting the first bin. I went out and pulled enough vines to be able to get close to the bin in one place. I looked at the dirt in the bin and saw a sweet potato growing right out of the soft soil. I pulled it and it was ENORMOUS!! And I kept pulling more out til I had an entire washbasket full of large sweets. And I bet I will find more when I actually pull the rest of the vines out and open up the bins. I am expecting the soil to tumble right out with more sweets along with it. So my experiment was a huge win and it will be repeated.
I still remember this spring when DH wanted me to plant the other 9 slips somewhere else so they weren't wasted. I stuck to my guns and tossed them in the compost pile hoping that 3 plants would be enough. Today I reminded him of that and he laughed and said I was right.
You have gotta see these babies. 1 sweet alone is enough to make a pie or feed a family of 4.
Karen
Well that's exciting! I can't tell you how much restraint it's taking for me not to dig the plants up early to see what's goin' on under there. I can't dig em until frost is near and that's another month or so. THEN they have to cure for a couple of weeks. I feel like I'm never gonna eat a sweet potato. Congratulations on yours! ~ karen!
Dana
karen, THANK YOU for identifying the mystery flower, now known to me as a cockscomb. i've been calling mine "my furry flowers." which, in hindsight, sounds just as weird/inappropriate as cockscomb.
lani
Gorgeous!
Debbie
OK OK thanks for the inspiration. Need to go get a garden bed that I let go to weed and seed ready for some winter stuff. Beautiful front yard!
Nicole
I am so inspired! This is amazing. Minus the peas, growing up, my mom used to tell me they were little green candies. I was not fooled.
Stephanie Hobson
Re. squash bugs, a friend of mine does this - prop up a small board under your plants; the bugs will congregate there in the shade during the heat of the day. When they are gathered knock the board down and do the "dead squash bug dance" on it. Two-for-one... kill the bugs and entertain your neighbors at the same time!
Here in Texas growing lettuce is a challenge, especially during the hot months. When we did have a large garden, when I had lots of garden drudges (aka children), we grew spinach instead. Every day we (they) would pick the young leaves off the plants for our salad, and the plants produced all summer.
We had chickens then too. Nothing beats home grown veggies and eggs. When we had to move to town and leave all of that behind my palate went into shock.
Dawna Jones
Great job Karen your hard work sure paid off,there is always something to learn about gardening that makes us want to try once again next year to be better at it then we were the year before.
http://www.dawnajonesdesign.com/
cc
I said to myself as I look at those lovely tomatoes and veggies, if Karen can do this so can I.... I sooooo badly want a mini veggie garden and now you have inspired me to do so. THank you..
I was waiting with some results.. I wish I lived down the street from you..
Kate S.
Try planting garlic or garlic chives, catnip (in pots) and Nasturtiums next to your squash plants next year. We had terrible hordes of squash bugs and cucumber beetles decimating our squash plants until we starting interplanting last year. They made a huge difference for us. Now we control them with handpicking eggs off of the leaves and have little problem.
ruth
Hilarious post, awesome garden. Try this with some of the tomatoes.
http://www.davidlebovitz.com/2012/05/oven-roasted-tomatoes-tomato-recipe/
I've used all kinds, some have more liquid to cook off but, oh, the flavour. I make this at every opportunity.
Thera
I am seriously inspired!
p.s.
Tip for not getting dirt under your nails (literally):
run your nails across a dry bar of soap, soap gets under there, not dirt, when clean up time comes just wash and scrap the soap away.
p.s.s.
I really hate gardening gloves which is why this tip stuck in my head full of trivia :)
Arianne
You never cease to make me giggle. So glad your garden is doing well. Mine is a weed patch. A really giant weed patch. :)
Lisa
Your garden posts are some of my most favorite and I was excited to see another one this morning. I enjoy seeing what did and didn't work and I love that you aren't afraid to experiment. You've given me some new inspiration for next year's garden and I'm already looking forward to trying new veggies! I somehow planted all cherry tomato plants and no full sized. Oops! That's too bad you didn't get any Black Krim.
Leslie
Those tomatoes are so beautiful I cried. I am not sure I'd even be able to cut one. I'd just cradle it and weep. No way. Then I'd totally eat it all by itself.
Judith
Oh my God, your chard!! It's easily twice the size of mine - never thought I'd have chard envy.
I'm curious about the Green Zebra tomatoes. Do they taste like green (as in unripe) tomatoes? Like what you'd make fried green tomatoes with? Or has your unlove for tomatoes kept you from ever eating that...
Karen
Judith - The Green Zebra tomatoes taste just like a regular tomato, only I'd have to say better. They've got some zing, but they don't taste like a green tomato at all. ~ karen!
Judith
That sounds yummy! Okay, Green Zebra's going on the list for next year along with celery. You're influencing gardeners around the world :)
Laurel Alanna McBrine
I have officially got garden envy. After last year's abysmal failure, I said *bleep* it, I am going to the farmer's market and gave up in disgust. So my tiny plot lies fallow. Oh, and re: celery, I go through at least half a head (or is it a bunch??) a day - super great in green juice, naturally salty along with cucumbers, zucchini, garlic, dill, parsly, kale, swiss chard, etc! With your abundance of greens, juicing is a great idea - my Omega works great and is easy to clean (just in case you don't already have enough to do hehe)
AmieM
Dear Karen,
When I grow up, and buy a house, I want a garden just like yours.
Amie