Bad Blogger, Good Gardener, Part 3

I haven't blogged in forever even though everything is going really well in the garden. The self-watering/sub-irrigated containers are working well and after a slow start because of all the rainy, cold weather this year, the plants are really starting to produce.

Here are updates on most of the things I'm growing and I'll update my harvest data (sidebar) in the next couple of days.

Peas and Beans:

Just got back from 4 days up north and have harvested lots more peas (Mammoth Melting Sugar Pea):


I also picked the first of the bush beans (Black Valentine Bush Bean).



Peppers:

There have been purple peppers on my two Aurora Hot Pepper plants for at least a month now, and I've been waiting for them to ripen. They're finally turning yellow -- next will be orange and then red and ready to pick.

This is a gorgeous plant!

One of my Marconi Sweet Pepper finally has a blossom, so maybe I'll get some fruit eventually.

Check out my brother's plant that I started from seed and that was moved outside at the same time!







Cocozelle Zucchini:

I've picked and eaten one already and there are a few more on the plant that should be ready in a few days:

Tomatoes:

This is what I'm most excited about!

I have a ton of tomato plants (see sidebar for complete listing) and each plant has tons of fruit on it, though not yet ripe.

If things go well I'll have more tomatoes than we can possibly eat, and we eat a lot of tomatoes (it's easily our favourite vegetable by a landslide).

The ones in this picture are Black Zebra tomatoes.






Salad Greens:
The heirloom greens are doing well. Here (from left to right) are Magenta Mountain Orach, Rouge d'Hiver lettuce, and Rouge de Grenoblaise lettuce:




Colourful Carrots:

I'm growing these colourful heirloom carrots in my conventional garden, not sub-irrigated containers. They are absolutely stunning and taste delicious! Next year I'm planning to more then double the space I give to this veggie. The ones in the picture are edible thinnings -- I'll let the rest grow bigger before I harvest more:

Tomatoes: Sub-Irrigated Container Update

The tomatoes, which were in serious trouble, have completely perked up since they were moved outside. Most of them have their first blossoms.

The peas are finally in blossom!

First Carrots

I thinned out the carrots I had planted in a sub-irrigated bucket and got two delicious baby carrots.

First Radish

This is a heirloom variety called Plum Purple Radish. It's supposed to be bright purple, but mine is more of a pale rose colour (next time I'll take a photo after I wash off the dirt).

Anyway, it tasted good. It wasn't really very "radishy", but it was quite spicy!

First Lettuce Harvest

On Tuesday, I harvested the first 2 heads of lettuce. They were still very young and super delicious. Even DH liked them and he usually hates salad. Since Tuesday, we've been eating 2 heads a day, so yesterday I planted three more buckets of greens: Magenta Mountain Orach, Rouge d'Hiver lettuce and Rouge de Grenoblaise lettuce.

Self-Watering Planter Update

The camera is working again, so I thought I would update on all of the self-watering containers (except for the tomatoes which are still in the basement). All of these containers are listed in the sidebar.

I filled the reservoir in each container when I originally planted it. Otherwise, I have not had to do any watering! Each time it rains the reservoir fills up again and so far that has been sufficient. I'm guessing that later in the summer when plants are bigger and days are hotter and rain is more infrequent I'll have to water more, but so far the containers have been incredibly convenient!

Spinach

The spinach in the self-watering planter has caught up to the spinach in my raised bed even though it was planted a couple of weeks later.

You can see some of the damage from the hail storm last week, but the plants are doing well.

We like baby spinach, so I'll start harvesting the outer leaves from each spinach plant this week.




Radish:

These are a heirloom variety called Plum Purple Radish. They're almost 4 weeks old now, but definitely aren't ready for harvest. I'm a bit worried because when I tried these indoors they never produced and enlarged root.




Arugula:

Just a regular variety. I need to plant a lot of more of this because I would like to make and freeze a bunch of arugula pesto and I also want to be able to use it in salads.





Lettuce:

I started these under a grow light and transplanted them into the outdoor container in mid-April.


We'll be eating these in the next week or two and replanting this bucket with basil.




Potato:

This is a fingerling potato. I only filled the planter up half-way with soil so that I can add more as the plant grows. The stem that gets buried will become part of the root system and will produce more potatoes.

I'm not expecting the potato crop to be cost effective -- potatoes are cheap and I don't think I'll get very many. However, I still remember visiting my uncle's farm and helping to dig up potatoes. It's a very satisfying vegetable to harvest.

Carrots, Garlic and Onion:

On the left are a heirloom variety of carrot called Danver Half-Long.

The bucket in middle has garlic and on the right is a bucket of onion.






Swiss Chard:

This variety is called Bright Lights and has multicoloured stalks. I have two planters of this.










Zucchini:

This was transplanted last week from a sprouted seed. It's a heirloom variety called Cocozelle Zucchini.

I have two buckets of this.