Thursday, May 31, 2007

2007 List of Herbs

So on the may long weekend we also re-dug the herb garden and added new soil. It's in a particularly gravelly spot, with lots of shards of broken pottery in the soil. The previous owners for some reason thought broken pottery would keep weeds down or something like that. (?!?)
We dug out any of the perennials and replanted them in the new soil, rearranging a bit because some of them weren't in ideal spots. Then we picked out the annual herbs and added them to the garden.
Herbs for 2007:

Flat-leaf parsley - biennial from last year, and seeding itself.
lemon thyme - perennial, but regular thyme didn't come back
Sage -perennial
garlic chives - perennial
chives - perennial
French tarragon - perennial
Rosemary - annual
Black opal basil - annual
Thai basil - annual
Dill - annual
Fennel - annual (first time I'm trying this)
Caraway - biennial (also first time on this)
Lemon balm - perennial
Spearmint - perennial (added new this year)
Greek oregano - perennial (also added new this year)
Vietnamese coriander - annual (I've never seen this before and was intrigued)
Coriander - annual seeding itself like crazy in our next door neighbour's yard, he's given us some. This is put in the vegetable garden instead of the herb garden since it does so well beside the tomatoes.
Genovese Basil - annual. Also in the vegetable garden between tomatoes.

While that sounds like a lot, it actually doesn't take up too much room. I'm looking forward to experimenting with the caraway, which looks a lot like dill, but gets much taller. I've never even seen fresh caraway in the grocery store. I expect it can be used much like fennel or dill. The Vietnamese coriander is the type that goes into the salad rolls, which are my favourite at Vietnamese restaurants. I'll have to learn how to make them.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007

2007 list of plants

The May 24 weekend is supposedly the biggest gardening weekend of the year in Canada, as it is finally safe to put any frost-sensitive plants in the grown. This spring has been particularly cool so we really did have to wait for the holiday for the tomatoes, etc. I got a few things in prior to then, mostly peas and radishes.
So here is the final list of what are this year's plants in the vegetable patch:

Tomatoes
4 - Early Girls (actually 3 now since one was killed by squirrels)
2 - Beef stake
2 - Brandywine
4 - Sweet Millions
1 - Cherokee Purple Heritage
1 - Nebraska Wedding Orange Heritage

Peppers
JalapeƱo
Thai
Super Chili

Beans
Blue Lake pole beans around a wicker pyramid
Yellow Snap bush beans

Peas
Sugar Snap peas
Snow peas
Little Marvels

Roots
Cylindra beets
detroit dark red beets
Chantenay Red Carrot
French breakfast radish
Cherry belle radish
Champion radish
Burbank potatoes - more about this later!

Salad greens
Brun D'Hiver
Bronze Arrow
Forellenschluss
Romaine
arugula
Red Giant Mustard
Tatsoi (very few have sprouted, I feel it's a bust)
Mizuna Mustard

Other Greens
bokchoy
scotch kale
collards
red swiss chard

Vines
pickling cucumbers
Italian yellow zucchini
Green zucchini

Onion family
Garlic - planted in December
Leeks - planted last year, just maturing now

Edible Flowers / anti-aphid flowers
Nasturtiums
Marigolds

Whew! I think that's everything. If it all goes well, we're going to have one heck of a harvest. I actually picked the first radish yesterday and ate it. It was still a little small but I couldn't resist. By the weekend, we should be able to pick more.

Friday, May 11, 2007

Death to Squirrels

Our street is plagued with vicious mutant black squirrels that no one else is subjected to. They chomp off the tops of tulips, they dig up new seedlings, they take bites out of eggplants then throw them on the ground as though deciding they don't like them... yet they then try another one. Two summers ago they were even ripping through window screens in our house and three other neighbours to break inside. One day a squirrel stole a bag of fresh market bagels off our kitchen table. I'm not joking.
It's really alarming how much devastation they cause and there seems to be no cure. Yet I see beautiful tulips on other streets, I talk to other gardeners about it and they express shock at our problems. Even the other side of the street seems safer.
My neighbour to north side is in complete sympathy. He shoots them with a Super Soaker and shakes his fists at them. It's a good stress relief but is not very effective in keeping them away. The biggest problem is that there are no predators in the city to keep their numbers in check.
We tried building a chicken-wire cage around the plants that they like the most, which was somewhat effective; however, the cage didn't get enough sunlight so the plants didn't do too well. I would happily applaud a city plan to cull the little buggers.
When I express my blood-lust to gentle hearted friends they say "have you tried cayenne pepper." Ha! The squirrels seems to like my garden spicy, maybe they are Mexican. Is there any more effective method that won't hurt the neighbourhood cats? I just want to spend one growing season where I'm not constantly trying to out-wit squirrels. I don't think it's possible. You've got to respect their intelligence. Loath them, but respect them.

Monday, May 7, 2007

Lovely Leeks

Last fall the leeks weren't large enough to harvest so we left them in the ground to over-winter. It was really nice to go be able to pick a leek in the middle of winter. Now that it's spring, they are a decent size and are actually crowding each other out a bit. On Sunday night I pulled four good-sized leeks and used them in a curry. It's a nice change from onions as they are sweeter and retain their shape and colour a bit when cooked.

Thursday, May 3, 2007

Garden Planning


Every free moment that I have, I'm dreaming of what is going to go into my vegetable garden. So far, I've turned about 2/3 of the soil. It was literally back-breaking. I was pretty sore for a week so I haven't gotten to the rest yet. I also sprinkled the soil with "organic fertilizer" aka chicken poop.
I put in sweet peas, sugar snap peas and little marvel peas all in a row along the fence. An hour later, I was looking out the window and saw the squirrels already digging along the row! Curses. They really make my blood boil. I ran out an put chicken wire down over the area that I'd planted, but I think the size of the wire is too big and they can still scratch through. It's now been 10 days and I see ZERO sprouts. Either the seeds were too old or those squirrels have got them all. So I bought another package of sugar snap peas and sprouted them indoors between wet paper towel. They sprouted in 4 days.
I also put in radish seeds outside the same day as the peas in a small area. I "inter-cropped" them with the garlic, since that will take all season to mature. They have cheerfully burst through the soil. I can't wait until we need to thin them so I can have radish greens in a salad.