Garden, June 2012

Tons of activity in my garden this week. It’s very exciting, though I think I may have over planted again.

The zucchini in the bottom left hand corner is getting big. It’s starting to over run my asparagus, and it’s only been a couple of weeks. Not sure how to fix that.

I finally got around to staking the tomato plants, and added four new cherry tomato plants. I’m hoping there’s enough space between them to grow properly.

The stakes look really big. I find it hard to believe that my tiny little plants will one day grow up to be six feet tall, but the dude at the garden centre assured me they can indeed grow that high. We’ll see.

Raspberries, June 2012

The raspberries are just starting to come in. I saw about a dozen ripe ones today, including this little guy on the left. The raspberry bushes run all along the back fence, so I imagine I’ll have enough berries to can for weeks.

Last week the strawberries were starting to come in. Last night two of them were ripe enough to clip. Talk about eating local. A few more are starting to turn red – I took a picture for Twitter, you can see them here. It doesn’t look like there will be enough to jam with, at least not this year, but I’ll be able to nom a few as the summer gets on.

The blueberry bush seems to be doing ok. The berries are still very green though. Looks like it’ll be a while before I get to try them out.

Goth Salad, June 2012

I also mentioned last week that my goth salad was beginning to grow yellow flowers. Well, more have since come in. It’s like a little garden of sunshine in the afternoon shade.

Yellow seems to be a popular colour for flowers. I don’t know if you can see it in the image above, but my jalapeño plant is starting to get little yellow flowers, as are the two larger tomato plants. I’ll get pics when the flowers come in more fully.

I have no idea if the flowers are edible. I don’t see why not? I haven’t actually tried to eat the salad yet, but I think I’ll clip some to go with tonight’s dinner.

All in all, things seem to be going well in the Mara-McKay Great Garden Experiment of 2012.

Garden, May 2012

This weekend I added a few more plants to the garden. The lower left hand corner is zucchini, and in the lower right corner is a strawberry plant.

I’ve started watering the garden in the mornings, as I often don’t get home until after 11 pm, and that seems a bit late to stumble around in the dark with a watering can. I don’t know what the rules are for those, but most of the plants seem to be ok with it it so far.

The nasturtiums look a bit sad, and so does the dill. They were sort of “found” plants that were left behind, unwatered for a few days. It could be that, or it could be something else. I’m not sure what’s up with them. One of my parsley plants looks a little funky too.

Containers & Bench, May 2012

Perhaps the most dramatic addition to the back yard came in the form of this lovely garden bench, small table, and group of containers. Since we moved the barbeque, this corner of the backyard remained unused and kind of pointless. With the addition of a few plants and a place to read (Stroll: Psychogeographic Walking Tours of Toronto), the space has really brightened up.

I’ve been looking around quite a bit for a blueberry bush, and my husband spoke of giant garden centre he drove by on his way to work called Plant World. Holy crap. They had at least half a dozen kinds, and just about every other conceivable plant. Did you know that there are over a dozen different kinds of raspberry bush? I didn’t. I have no idea what mine are.

Goth Salad, May 2012

I bought a toro blueberry bush (billed as good for cooking or canning), Canadian rhubarb, more strawberries and a proper strawberry container), and what I’m calling goth salad.

This was sold as a salad mix, but I couldn’t find a tag with a break down of what’s actually in it. I bought it because most of the leaves are a dark colour, and I really like the idea of eating a bowl of dark, melancholy leaves at midnight in a cemetery.

I still have room for a few more herbs. Oregano’s on my list, as I keep forgetting to pick it up. We’ll see what else I can find.