September 2020

HOW IS IT ALREADY OCTOBER????

I have nothing written for you. Work was busy and I was busy harvesting and putting things up and I don’t even know when or how or what. I honestly don’t know how it is already October or where all of September even went.

As I mentioned in my last update. I had to harvest tomatoes early in September or risk losing them to frost/snow again. And while it never really got as cold as the forecast said, and the snow was only in the upper elevations in the mountains, I wasn’t taking the risk of losing another tomato harvest to snow. I let all those green tomatoes sit in the kitchen for a few weeks and then finally last Saturday (September 26) I managed to make 2 rounds of Tomato sauce and can it. All together, I got 12 Pints of sauce… so around 6 L of my own homegrown tomato sauce for the Pantry. The left over sauce that wouldn’t fit in the canning jars, was boiled down even more and I have a nice jar of tomato paste in my fride (because I wasn’t about to heat the canner up for one tiny jar)… and the tomato skins, I have been dehydrating and I’ll pulse them up for a tomato powder to add an extra punch of tomato flavour to dishes over the winter…. And I am so very proud of it all, especially given that I grew every single tomato in those jars! I can’t wait to use it on a cold winter day and remember watching them grow all summer long.

I do still have some tomatoes left that are ripening still, and Even some still outside… in OCTOBER…. That is basically unheard of around here! and something I have never been able to do. Especially without covering them or having a greenhouse. We have actually been blessed with a beautiful fall here without a taste of winter and I am so grateful for that.

Next year I wont grow so much celery. But I will grow it. It hasn’t been great for fresh eating, but for adding to soups and sauces, it is fantastic. The problem is how much the slugs also love it, so I’ve mostly just been dehydrating the leaves and composting the slug-devoured stalks. The celery powder from the leaves is fantastic and adds a ton of flavour to whatever I use it in. This is what I will be growing it for next year. I am going to leave a few plants in the ground and see how they survive winter. Fingers crossed that they do and I can have my own saved seed from them next year.

I also made Applesauce with all the apples from my tree. I don’t remember if that was in August or September, but i did it! I didn’t follow any special safe-for-water-bath-canning recipe, so I ended up putting it in containers and freezing it.

My Mayflower beans are actually producing and I should get at least a handful of fully formed and dry pods to store for winter, and save for seed for next year. The Painted Lady runner beans didn’t get going until later in August and they are just out of warm enough weather to produce anything. They have been flowering though. The flowers alone are reason enough to grow them!

Strawflower are amazing and I hope I can add other colours to my seed collection. They have been so much fun and the bees and butterflies have adored them too.

I will try and get a proper update for you for October. No promises, because I have swapped rolls at work and it is basically learning a whole new job, so It has been a bit chaotic, given that I don’t know much about tropicals/house plants, and my brain has been in over-drive trying to soak up as much info about them as possible. That sentence should be proof enough how well my brain is working right now.

Also, sorry for no pictures… If I attempt to start adding them now, I will never get this posted… and I’m trying to stay consistent with the posting and I’ll get better at the actual content after I have some better consistency. Baby steps

August 2020

…So I’m a week late in getting this posted… I’m sorry. I for sure thought I hit publish from my phone, but I guess it didn’t work. My bad. Maybe I’ll get September’s update posted on time… But without anymore blabbering… here is the August 2020 update.

Wow. August is gone already??? Wasn’t it just May like 2 days ago?

I have been better about taking pictures this month (because it is much more fun taking harvest pictures), so I’ve tried to do a more photo heavy update post rather than a word heavy post. AND because work is slowing down a bit, I can catch up on a bunch of the posts I have wanted to get written all summer… Like tomato variety specific posts that I started early in the Spring.

August 1- harvested my Potatoes. The plants were starting to die back so I just gave in and dug them up before I lost them.

Zebrune Shallots. Harvested this batch on Aug 1. Left about half of them to keep growing.

Blue Cream Berries Tomato. So sweet and delicious! I’ll definitely be growing this one again next year.

Celery is jamming

Baby ‘Royal Burgundy’ Bush Beans!

I’ve been getting a decent amount of herbs dried and put away for using over the winter… and I’m chomping at the bit to get some tomatoes put up and do the whole canning thing… but now its the waiting for them to ripen before the snow falls game… This will end up being in the September update… However, I have had a few random ripe tomatoes…

• Silvery Fir Tree – despite struggling to get these to grow for the last few years, these have been doing fantastic this year. My first tomato to ripen outside, They have been a decent size. I’ve harvested about 10 of them from 2 plants and I have plenty more green tomatoes still on the plants.
• Blue Cream Berries- These are great. So sweet, and a real taste of summer. I have 4-6 plants and they are all covered in tomatoes. The sun-ripened ones are the best, but I’m sure I will be bringing plenty in to ripen inside. I don’t trust that Mother Nature will be kind to us and give us a nice long warm fall.
• Tasmanian Chocolate – Much like the Silvery Fir, I have struggled to grow this one for the last few years, but this year they are performing fantastic. I have just the one plant and it has been covered in fruit. And they really are a chocolate toned red. One comment on my instagram (@thecraftycultivator) was “It looks like a painting of a tomato someone dreamed about”. Infact, this tomato has done so well this year that one branch full of fruit snapped partially, and it has just kept on growing with half the tomatoes upside-down. I havn’t tasted it just yet, but just looking at them is enough to make me try them again next year.
• Chernobyl – I had one ripe one of these so far. Not quite as electric yellow as they are portrayed on the seed packet, but still a nice bright change in the garden. They went from green to orange and then to a bright yellow, and between 3 plants, I have at least a handful of tomatoes still to come.
• Tiny Tim – these are just starting to ripen outside, and I’m kind of hoping that they will just all ripen all at the same time (across the 4 plants I have outside), so I can just roast them almost immediately after harvesting. (Saving a few to save seed from obviously)

Not that I grew them myself, but Peaches were on a really good sale, so I’ve been able to do a run of Peach Jam, and some sliced peaches in light syrup. I do still have some peaches to do something with, and may just end up making some food leather.

I harvested my garlic a little early… I wanted the space they were in for lettuce… which I would love to show you a picture now of my beautiful growing lettuce heads, but the slugs devoured them already. For the Garlic, I grew the 2 kinds… from Chesnok, I got 15 heads, and from the Purple Glazer, I got 13. Since they are quite small, I won’t save any of them for re-planting, but they will be wonderful for cooking with. I would like to try a few more types again as soon as we get them instock at work… I just need to find a spot to put them and get some decent soil going.

…September me again… I guess I didn’t hit publish because I ran out of words and pictures…. So let me give you a sneak peak into September: We had potential snow and frost in the forecast last night so I had to harvest all my tomatoes or risk losing them… So that was fun, but I did get a decent amount of tomatoes that should all ripen inside that I can make the sauce that I’ve been planning since March… I thought that once my rational brain took over, I would regret tripling my tomato growing, but I don’t. I’m glad I did, and I will not be reining my tomato-brain in come next March either. I have too much fun growing a bunch of different types of tomatoes and seeing how they cope with our weird weather. I still want a greenhouse though (just putting that out into the universe as much as possible)

July 2020

Usually I start these monthy update posts as a draft near the beginning of the month with all the intentions of documenting throughout the month. Then I panic-write a bunch of stuff right at the end of the month after not writing anything throughout the month. Not this time. This time, I blinked and its the end of July already. Wasn’t it just May like 2 weeks ago? So here we go with a basic run down of what has happened in July. I’m actually going to start with what has failed so far this year, and then we’ll move onto the more positive side of things.

Fails:

• Butterfly peas- I didn’t start these properly.. OR early enough… so we’ll try again next year.
• Blue Popcorn – I’m sure the slugs LOVED them… I had 9 strong plants, and they were gobbled up promptly. Next year hopefully.
• Onions – Not a total fail… they are just small. I went with onion sets, but I think that next year I will just start some from seed. I get bigger onions that way, and they don’t try to go to seed.
• Tomatoes- Again, not REALLY a fail. More a product of me starting them far too early, and then a cold wet spring.
• Jelly Melon – I was too excited to try this one out that I started it WAY too early. I ran out of room under the grow light because of all the tomatoes, and I didn’t bother doing a second attempt.
• Pumpkin – again, not a total fail. Its been a cold spring, and a cold wet start to summer. My strongest plant is just starting to have some female flowers start to form… so we might get something before winter hits, but I’m not holding my breath given how this year has gone.
• Raspberries – No fault to them, since I did have to rip them out of the ground when the landlord built the new fence. I have had a handful of berries, but nothing like the harvest I was geared up to have after the work I put in last year.
• Crookneck Squash – I was so excited to try this one this year. Again with the slugs. All 3 attempts of starting this one… the slugs took them all out.

Let me give you an example of how behind we are this year compared to 2 years ago: My poppy that I started from seed bloomed right around May 1st in 2018. This year, it bloomed around the beginning of July. But it still bloomed, so It counts as a win.

Wins (so far anyway)

• Zebrune Shallots – I abused these. I didn’t have high hopes for them because I left them in little seedling cells WAY too long. I didn’t thin them out. They dried out a few times because of what a tiny space I had them in. But they have exceeded my expectations. I can’t wait to harvest these.
• All of my peppers (that survived being inside) are amazing. Probably the best year of peppers I’ve had for a while now.
• Tomatoes- These still count as a win. I have tomatoes on nearly every plant that I have growing. The fail mention above is mainly due to the weather.
• Strawflowers- I love these. I think I want to add a few other colours and grow more next year.

Strawflowers

HOW is it already August 1… Before I put off getting this posted any longer, I’m just going to go with…

Things are growing well for the most part. My strawflowers are amazing, the Tomatoes are all starting to produce and I even ate one of the Silvery Fir and a few of the Blue Cream berries already.

Silvery Fir Tree Tomato

I’ll try and be more on-top of the August update…. That one should be full of harvesting.

Oh! I also started some Corn Mache, Tatsoi and some Marvel of 4 Seasons lettuce. Hopefully we’ll get some fall greens going this way.

Garlic Scapes (shortly before I cut them and made some fresh from the garden Pesto with it)

Volunteer Pansy

Poppy!

June 2020

This month, just like the last was crazy and hectic. I intended to keep this post up to date throughout the month but that fell off the rails REALLY quick. But, I did remember to add in some quick photos.

June 3:

• I found some energy after work to get some Beans planted.. I put in some ‘Royal Burgundy’, ‘Gold Rush’ and ‘Amethyst Purple’ Bush Beans infront of the first round of Tomatoes that I planted out last week. I also tucked a few little rows of ‘Long Standing Bloomsdale’ Spinach in as well.
• Across the patio where I have had my tomatoes the last few years, I put in one ‘Dark Green’ Zucchini and a small tee-pee with some ‘Painted Lady’ Runner Beans.
• I popped my second start of the Cinderella Pumpkin over where I have a mix of more ornamental plants. The first one is across the yard in a big tub that is dug into the ground a bit.
• I re-sowed some Yellow Crookneck Squash because I still haven’t seen any signs of life on the first round… But May was really cold, so I’m blaming that… as the Peas I sowed around the same time are JUST popping up now. I just wanted to hedge my bets because I really want some more squash in my life.

Work got CRAZY busy and I didn’t keep up with updating this post throughout the month so I’m going to try and do a quick overview on what is happening around here.

• I finally got my little willow cuttings that I have been rooting in the kitchen window in jars of water potted into soil and kicked outside.
• Along with the willows, I also potted up my other rooted cuttings like the roses, a grape, a hazelnut, a currant and a few random haskaps. I also picked a few baby spruce to baby along and potted them into larger pots too.
• Its not looking good for my blue popcorn. There are a few that might make it, but given how cold and slow our spring has been, I don’t think they will take off intime to grow proper ears. Maybe next year.
• Along those same lines, the blue butterfly peas didn’t germinate, so they’ll have to be added to another year’s projects. Similar thing with the jelly melon… I started them too early inside and then to plant them outside would’ve just stressed them too much. Next year I’ll give them a better shot.
• I’ve been battling caterpillars on my currants… so I picked up some BTK and I’m waging biological warfare on them now…. In addition to squishing every single one I find. I need to find something similar to wage war on the slugs that have exploded with our cool wet weather. Does anyone know of a slug nematode that is available in alberta?
• With the beans that I sowed, I’ve had no germination with the gold rush. But those seeds were from 2014. The disappointment is with the Amethyst purple bush beans… Germination is spotty and those are brand new seeds for this year. I think I have 4 plants that have germinated.
• Cucumbers are starting to do well, although I think the squirrels are starting to get too at-ease in the yard again because one of my pickling cucumbers was snapped off. Is there a squirrel nematode 😉 (that was a joke).
• Things are really starting to grow and I’m hoping that I will start to have a little more time to be posting a little more often.

Purple Glazer Garlic

Front yard Chives.

Baby apples

Inside ‘Tiny Tim’ Tomatoes are starting to ripen!

Aphid control has arrived!

Paprika peppers… these started growing inside so they are still getting used to being outside, the peppers should get bigger once we start getting some heat and this poor plant recovers from all the stress I’ve caused it.

My lilac that I transplanted as a stick 8-ish years ago. This thing mostly lives in shade, so I don’t fault it for never blooming, but this year, it’s putting on a beautiful and much-needed show.

Making friends at work…. we make the same face

At the end of the month, I got some free peppers and cabbage plants from work, so I got them mostly all into the ground before we had a few days of straight rain… I have a couple left that still need to find a home, but I’ll mention them in next months update (hopefully)

Potting up Propagated Rose Cuttings

Last month, after prunning roses at work, I brought some of the cuttings home with me.

I prepared the ones that still looked good- that had one or two small leaves left and some good nodes, and dipped them into some rooting hormone powder.

Next I pushed them into some potting soil with a little extra perlite added, popped them under the grow-light in my little greenhouse propagator thing, and then waited somewhat patiently.

Out of the 12 Rose cuttings I took, 3 rooted successfully. It figures that the ones that took are the ones that I don’t know the variety

Around June 20, I potted them up and kicked them outside. They’ll be babied along in the pots for the summer and we’ll see what happens in late August.

This little bit of success makes me want to grab a few more cuttings home from work for another shot.

I know I should’ve pruned this bloom off, but I left it to get a little bit of enjoyment. I have since pruned it so the plant can concentrate on growing roots.