Vegetable Backyard in the City

Bad Blogger, Good Gardener, Part 3

2009-07-13T12:05:00.000-04:00

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

2009-06-22T12:14:00.000-04:00

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!

2009-06-22T12:11:00.000-04:00

First Carrots

2009-06-22T12:04:00.000-04:00

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

First Radish

2009-05-28T18:43:00.000-04:00

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

2009-05-21T08:53:00.000-04:00

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

2009-05-16T10:37:00.000-04:00

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.

Conventional Veggies

2009-05-16T10:21:00.000-04:00

Although I've planted vegetables in self-watering containers this year, I also have vegetables planted in my raised-bed garden. I've done this type of vegetable gardening for a couple of years now.

I started spinach (at the front of the pic), red lettuce, and green lettuce under 3 cloches back in March.

I planted the onion in mid April and I plan to harvest these as green onions (the set I bought had a picture of green onions on the front and was called "multiplier onions") but I'm not sure how/when to harvest them. If anyone knows, please help!

Self-Seeded Cilantro and Lettuce

2009-05-16T10:07:00.000-04:00

I LOVE cilantro, and I've got dozens of baby cilantro plants growing in my raised bed from the plant that went to seed last year. Here's a picture of a just a few of them (in amongst the weeds):

Cilantro plants are even growing between my patio stones and between the bricks that make up the wall for the raised bed.

I had to get rid of some of these to make way for other plantings, but there are tons that I'll leave to harvest when they're bigger. I use these to make Thai spring rolls (in rice paper wrappers) and for tons of other recipes. It's one of my favourite herbs.

Last year I must have let a Red Butterworth lettuce go to seed because I also have TONS of red lettuces growing. (Yes, I know I need to weed ...)

No more pictures for now ...

2009-05-11T11:01:00.000-04:00

I slipped on the stairs while carrying the camera outside to take some pictures of the garden and now it's broken. So no more pictures until we can replace the VERY VERY EXPENSIVE lens.

I wanted to show some pictures of the hail storm on Saturday morning. The hail was about the size of marbles and it wreaked havoc on my spinach and radish especially (although I think they'll survive).

I also wanted to show pictures comparing how various vegetables are doing in the self-watering planters versus how well they're doing in my conventional raised bed garden. I have spinach, radishes, carrots and onions in both places and every single vegetable is doing better in the self-watering containers.

Aurora Hot Pepper Blossom

2009-05-04T08:12:00.000-04:00

I started my Aurora Hot Pepper plants a couple of months ago under my grow light. Now one of the plants has a gorgeous blossom on it. I know I should snip this off since the plants still need to be hardened off before they're transplanted outside, but it hurts ...

The Self-Watering Planters

2009-05-01T17:57:00.000-04:00

I now have a total of 14 self-watering planters in the back-yard as well as my conventional raised bed. All of the self-watering planters are built the same way. So far everything has sprouted except for the potato and everything is doing really well! On the left you can see my spinach. So far, I have spinach, arugula (rocket), potato, lettuce, garlic, onion, carrot, radish, and swiss chard.

Garden Update -- Bad Blogger, Good Gardener -- Part 2!

2009-05-01T07:46:00.000-04:00

Even though I've been taking lots of pictures of the garden, I never seem to find the time to actually sit down at the computer and update my blog. So, now I'm going to update on all my plants in one enormous blog so that I'll be up to date. Hopefully, from now on I can keep it that way!

Here's an update on everything except the status of my recently planted self-watering containers. That will come in the next post.

Critters and the Peas:

So far everthing is growing pretty well. Most of the self-watering planters have sprouted and my perennials are coming up really nicely in my regular garden bed. I've only lost a few plants to the raccoons and wild cats that are becoming such a nuisance in our neighbourhood.

The worst loss was my peas. Out of about 20 plants, only 4 ended up growing thanks to some animal that dug up the bed every night looking for grubs. I've replanted where nothing grew hopefully I'll have better luck this time.

Interestingly, I planted my peas in the same traditional raised garden bed that I always plant in. My brother planted seeds from the same pack (Mammoth Melting Sugar Peas) on the same morning in early April in the self-watering planters that we're both using this summer. He had a 100% success rate with his peas and they popped out of the ground a full 2 weeks earlier then mine. Probably because the first half of this April has been pretty dry and I was not disciplined about watering regularly. Also, even though he's been battling the critters full-force, he's still had way more success. Chalk one up for the self-watering planters!

Strawberries and Horseradish:

A friend has given me a horseradish plant and several strawberry plants. I put most of the strawberries in self-watering planters, but I also put a few in my normal garden bed, so we'll see which grows better.

Fruit Trees:

We have a plum tree and a pear tree in the backyard and an enormous apricot tree in the frontyard. The apricot and plum are in blume and they are gorgeous. Believe me, my photography does not do them justice.

My Perennials:

I got this rhubarb 4 or 5 years ago from my Aunt who lives in the house where she and my mom and their siblings grew up. This rhubarb was originally planted by my grandparents. It seems to like my backyard and I love rhubarb.

To the left of the photo you can kind of see my Sweet Woodruff which has spread out of the back garden plot (which is a real mess) into where the grass is supposed to grow, which is fine with me. It's a really pretty ground cover. I'm planning on transplanting some of this to my front yard garden (which is also a mess) since it likes the shade so much.

My perrenial herbs are coming up nicely. I have oregano, chives, tarragon, lemon balm, and lavendar. I'll add basil, parsley, rosemary and cilantro in the next few weeks.

Here's my tarragon:

and here's the chives:

Spring is Back!

2009-04-09T11:15:00.000-04:00

Spring is finally back on track! Hurrah!

I checked the cloches this morning to find lettuce and spinach seedlings showing their heads. What a surprise considering the cloches were completely covered in snow only yesterday. I guess they really work.

Here's a picture of the baby lettuce through the plastic:

I'm very excited!

Even More Snow

2009-04-07T16:19:00.001-04:00

You can't see it from the picture, but the tiny spinach shoots inside the cloche look OK. Still, when, oh when is spring going to arrive?

SNOW

2009-04-06T11:23:00.000-04:00

This is very disappointing!!!! I want spring.

Spinach & Peas

2009-04-06T11:14:00.000-04:00

It's now technically 5 weeks before the last frost date, so time to plant spinach and peas.

I did my spinach in a small self-watering planter and put it outside. I also planted spinach about a week ago under a cloche in my raised bed, so it will be interesting to compare the two to see if the cloche is worth it.

I planted peas in my raised bed against the fence. I planted Mammoth Melting Sugar Pea (a heirloom variety) in 2/3rds of the double row and leftover shelling peas from last year in the rest of the row.

The Great Tomato Rescue

2009-04-03T13:53:00.000-04:00

Back in February I got really excited about gardening and started a bunch of seeds WAY too early. Most of the seedlings had to go, but I kept 8 heirloom tomato plants by transplanting them into my home-made pop bottle planters. By the end of March they were enormous and I had to decide whether to give them up or transplant them into the containers that I'll eventually put out into the garden.

Here are two of the plants before the Rescue. They're each about 16" tall.

When I transplanted these into their final self-watering containers, I used a tip that I learned at a container gardening seminar and I soaked the root ball in water before replanting it.

On a friend's expert advice, I also took off the leaves from the bottom half of the main stalk so that I could transplant the plants deeper in their new pots then they were in their old pots.

Apparently, the part of the main stalk that is buried will grow roots and these plants will be really well established by the time I'm ready to start the dreaded "hardening-off" process.

Here's what the plants look like after the Rescue:

I'll keep posting about how well these do.

Micro-Greens

2009-03-30T17:35:00.000-04:00

I planted my first micro-greens back in early February and harvested them (without taking a picture first) in early March when my cousin visited with her family. I served roast beef and used the greens as a garnish on each plate -- they were delicious!

I was really happy with how my home-made self-watering containers worked so I made a ton more out of 2L pop bottles and apple juice bottles and planted mesclun mix, mustard greens, lettuce, etc.:

Here's my Reine de Glace lettuce head:

Here's a mustard green mix:

Here' a mesclun mix:

Bad Blogger, Good Gardener?

2009-03-30T17:14:00.000-04:00

OK, so I'm definitely not a good blogger. It's been a month and a half since I posted my last blog, and a reader (luckily I don't have any) could be forgiven for thinking that I had chucked this whole gardening project!

Luckily, although a green thumb I have not, I am not as bad at gardening as I am at blogging. In the past 6 weeks I've:

harvested my first planter of mesclun mix (Arrgh! I forgot to take a picture first!),
started several more planters of micro-greens,
grown 8 tomato plants way too early for the season, that are now enormous and desperately need to be transplanted,
purchased some Red Wigglers and successfully started an indoor worm composting bin,
set up 5 Lee Valley cloches in my back-yard garden and started a few early crops,
figured out how to make self-watering containers from 4 gallon food-safe buckets (see my brother's post for details on the final design and also our earlier prototype).

I'm going to try to post catch-up entries on some of these achievements and then do a better job from now on!

The Lettuce is Growing ...

2009-02-18T08:37:00.001-05:00

Here are my first two homemade self-watering planters (my instructions are here). The one at the front has Mesclun Mix and the one at the back has a Gourmet Heirloom Leaf Lettuce Mix.

Both were planted last Saturday (it's now Wednesday) and both are sprouting nicely.

The planters are working really well! No additional soil has leaked into the reservoir besides the soil that leaked when I first filled the planter. I still haven't had to refill the reservoirs (they're quite large for the size of the planter) so care of these should be really easy.

Self-Watering Planter DIY

2009-02-16T11:14:00.001-05:00

It only takes a few minutes and a few supplies. I used a CLEAN empty apple juice bottle, some masking tape and scissors.

Step 1:

Cut the bottle in half. The top half of the bottle will hold the soil and your plant. The bottom half of the bottle will be the water reservoir. Take your scissors and gradually trim both halves until the top half of the bottle fits snugly upside down into the water reservoir. The neck of the bottle needs to firmly touch the bottom of the water reservoir.

Step 2:

Cut a "U" shaped hole in the top of one side of the water reservoir for watering.

Step 3:

Place the planter inside the reservoir. Hold it down firmly so that the neck of the planter is touching the bottom of the reservoir and tape them together with masking tape leaving the "U" shaped hole unobstructed.

Step 4:

Fill the neck of the planter with your potting soil and tamp it down firmly. Make sure the potting soil is slightly damp to start with. This seems to help with it's ability to wick up more water from the reservoir.

Step 5:

Fill the rest of the planter with slightly damp potting soil.

Step 6:

Fill the reservoir with water. A small amount of soil will probably work it's way into the reservoir but nothing problematic.

Step 7:

Plant normally and make sure that the reservoir is never empty!

Let There Be Light!

2009-02-16T10:07:00.000-05:00

I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to start my seedlings indoors with a grow light and she happened to have an extra setup that she's lending me (Thanks Jennifer!). This was pretty easy to set up, and I put it quite high on the wall so that the kids wouldn't be able to easily destroy my baby plants.

I got self-watering seedling starter trays from Lee Valley -- they came well recommended and they mean a lot less watering and a lot less risk that the seedlings will get too wet or too dry. I also picked up a nifty package of 4 spray tops that you put on top of a reused pop bottle so that you can use it to gently water your seedlings -- extremely affordable compared to expensive seedling sprayers.

I also created my first 2 self-watering planters from a reused 2L pop bottle and a reused apple juice bottle. It was super simple, I just needed scissors and masking tape. They seem to be working really well. I planted mesclun mix and heirloom leaf lettuce mix in them and the seeds have just started to sprout (after a couple of days). Here's the planter I made out of the apple juice container:

New Materials Purchased:

2 Brackets, 3' of chain, small package of "S" hooks to hang the flourescent lights
3 self-watering seedling trays
4 lids to turn pop bottle into watering can
1 bag of soil-less seedling starter
Seeds

Reused Materials:

Flourescent Lighting setup including bulbs
2L pop bottles, apple juice bottle

Hanging Tomato Planters Not Just for Tomatoes!

2009-02-12T07:00:00.000-05:00

Apparantly they're also good for peppers, cucumbers and eggplant!

More Seeds!

2009-02-11T08:00:00.001-05:00

I've added to my seed purchases! I'm going to try to find room for:

Cocozelle Zucchini
Five-Colour Silverbeet Swiss Chard
Waltham Butternut Winter Squash
Little Finger Carrot
Danvers Half-Long Carrot
The Cottage Gardener's Coloured Carrot Mix
The Cottage Gardener's Mustard Green Mix
Red Currant Tomato 'Sweet Pea'
Jaune Flamme (Cherry Tomato)
Beefsteak Tomato
Slava Tomato
Chadwick's Cherry Tomato

As for how I'll make room for all of this plus what I've already bought? I've found instructions online for making my own hanging upside-down tomato pots so that my tomatoes can all grow hanging down from my porch roof (3 per pot). This frees up tons of growing space for the other vegetables.

Next steps:

Set up indoor grow lights this weekend and start my seedlings.
Find large food-grade plastic containers to make my self-watering planters out of and also to make my hanging tomato planters with.
Plan the layout of the backyard for maximum growing room (while still leaving enough room for the kids.
Find an extra rain barrel to collect overflow from the first rain barrel; Set up the overflow so that it is directed away from the house.

SPIN Seminar

2009-02-09T08:49:00.000-05:00

On Thursday, last week, I went to a seminar at City Hall on SPIN gardening: Small Plot Intensive Gardening. The expert who gave the seminar basically runs farms in urban backyards. She pays "rent" for use of the backyards in weekly vegetables.

It was a useful seminar, though not totally applicable to my situation -- I don't want to roto-till my entire backyard -- I still want the kids to have room to play.

The most useful bit of information was regarding the growing season -- she recommends throwing the last and first frost dates out the window and starting on the spring vegetables as soon as the soil can be worked adequately.

The question/comment section was pretty useful too. I discovered that Tim Horton's is probably the best bet for finding food-grade plastic containers that we can convert into self-watering containers for growing larger vegetables (cucumber, tomato, etc.).

Starting the Seeds Indoors ...

2009-01-31T14:34:00.000-05:00

I want to be able to start my tomatoes, peppers, pumpkin, cucumber and some of my lettuce indoors to get a head start on the growing season.

I'm considering buying a grow light from www.leevalley.com, but it costs $215 (maybe I can get it second-hand).

I'm also considering getting a kit to make a grow light from http://www.homegrownlights.com/14wled.html. This is much cheaper at $45 (US?) for about a square foot of grow space.

... I need to investigate this further and check up on energy usage -- I want to keep this efficient.

What to grow?

2009-01-31T14:23:00.000-05:00

I've ordered my seeds this year from www.cottagegardener.com, which is an heirloom seedhouse in southern Ontario. They have tons of really interesting varieties of vegetables which are suitable for growing in this region. I've chosen:

Beans: Tendergreen and Black Valentine
Radishes: Plum Purple and White Icicle
Beets: Bull's Blood, Chioggia, and Golden
Pea: Mammoth Melting Sugar
Pepper: Marconi Red Sweet
Hot Pepper: Aurora
Cucumber: Mideast Prolific, Straight Eight, National Pickling
Tomatoes: Black Zebra, Bloody Butcher, Czech Select
Pumpkin: Cheyenne Bush
Lettuce: Gourmet Heirloom Leaf Mix, Heirloom Romaine Mix, Mesclun Mix

I'm not sure how/if this will all fit into our small growing area, but some of the seeds are for my brother and for the cottage, so shouldn't matter too much.

Starting line ...

2009-01-08T08:40:00.000-05:00

We moved into this house 8 years ago. The plot originally had a plum tree, 2 pear trees, 2 apricot trees and a grape vine. Old age and backyard reorganization has us down to 1 plum tree, 1 pear tree and 1 apricot tree. Our neighbours have a VERY prolific mulberry tree that comes over our fence. We also have a rain barrel.

I started a herb garden several summers ago and I've been casually vegetable gardening for a couple of summers now, but this summer I'm getting serious. I want to see how much good quality, organic food I can grow in our tiny backyard and how much food in total I can gather including all the fruit.

I'm going to track how much money and time I spend, how much city water versus water from my rain barrel I use, and how much food I gather!