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Springing up
The snow is going...so slowly...but it is going.Outside enough has melted to reveal some bulbs starting to emerge. On the living room windowsill I've got a small army of herbs growing. I'm hoping to...
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Spring progress report
It is beginning to get warm enough for me to get started on the Spring jobs. Looming largest in my thoughts was the need to empty the chicken enclosure of the accumulation of winter litter. But I...
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Ice out
'Ice out' is when a lake is clear of ice after the winter. Usually it happens to 'our' lake at around the time of the Spring Equinox, but last year and this year it's been April before all the ice has...
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Spring, all of a sudden
The weather has just taken a warmer turn, which is just as well, as I couldn't leave it much longer to transplant my peppers, eggplants and tomatoes from the warmth of the house. I spent a happy hour...
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Garden in!
The Victoria Day weekend is the traditional one for putting tender plants in the garden, but I was slightly nervous of doing so when I saw that the temperature was going to drop to 4°C/39°F in the...
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Killing frost
The good news is that the 20 greenhouse tomatoes are still going strong It's a different story out in the barnyard, however. The weather took an unpleasant dip below freezing on Saturday May 23rd,...
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Garden Bloggers' Fling, 2015
I'd been aware of the annual Garden Bloggers' Fling since the first one, back in 2008 when it took place in Austin, Texas. I didn't think I'd ever get the chance to go to one, but when I realised that...
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Extremes
May was very dry: our big water tanks in the barn never got properly full after the winter and by May 29th the well had run dry. Things were getting desparate! Luckily, the weather changed on May 30th...
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Family portrait
These chicks hatched on Friday and Saturday, but today was the first time I managed to get all five of them in shot (barely!). Their mama has been highly protective of them: I hear her making a warning...
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A greenhouse perambulation
There are six raised beds in our greenhouse and at this time of year they're all in use for various crops. I love going in there and checking on progress, tidying things up and pulling weeds or...
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Belated Canada Day blooms
I generally start the growing season with some sort of plan for the front garden bed that I can see from the kitchen window, but they rarely work as I expect them to. I grew cosmos this year, but only...
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New harvests
I'm growing lentils this year and the time has come to harvest my first crop. Last year I tried growing them outside and every last plant was eaten by rabbits. This year I grew them in the greenhouse...
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Lentil harvest (part 2)
The pillowcase-and-baseball-bat threshing technique worked well to release the lentils from their pods. Then I removed the stems of the plants and tipped the remaining material from one plastic...
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Pepper pots
The peppers remained green for a long time, but are just starting to ripen. I picked two large flower-pots' worth this morning. The bright red ones in the middle are Cayennes and the ones to the bottom...
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Peppers (again!)
The hot weather in the last couple of weeks has really been ripening the peppers. I spent a happy ten minutes this morning, picking them.I roasted the sweet peppers and then pulled the skins off them,...
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All shapes and sizes
I've got three different eggplant varieties growing this year, and so far I've had one fruit from each, with quite a few more to come if it stays warm for a while.This one, applegreen, is new to me:...
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Sun-drying tomatoes
One of the tomato varieties I regularly grow is Principe Borghese (I seem to recall that these were a gift from another garden blogger, some years ago). In one of the descriptions online was a note...
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Thanksgiving harvest
There was a slight frost this morning: not enough to kill anything, or spoil the tomatoes, but enough to turn the roof white and create a crispy feeling underfoot.The Thanksgiving weekend is upon us,...
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Pre-frost harvest
Yesterday evening I was running round the greenhouse in a variation on Supermarket Sweep, gathering up vegetables that I thought might be damaged beyond edibility by the coming frost.The frost...
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Winter on the way
November has been so mild, I'm still picking kale from the garden. Which is lucky, because the ones in the greenhouse are being comprehensively nibbled by caterpillars.This morning was the coldest yet,...
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