The VeggieSmith Blog

I’m thinking it’s just about time to lean on Mike to jazz this blog up a bit (visually, that is).  I’ve been perusing many a blog as of late, and I’m frequently impressed by the visual loveliness lots of them boast.  While I’m technically rather deficient, my better half is a programmer with mad skills, heretofore un-highlighted.  Stay tuned in the upcoming days, as I hope I’ll twist his arm sufficiently to generate some pizzazz* in the blogosphere.

In gardening news: after harvesting some spinach on Thursday, we were able to make an enormous salad on Sunday (in honor of Father’s Day) to share with my parents and Joan’s family.  I have to say that that spinach is the most delicious I’ve ever tasted.  It’s absolutely perfect raw and cooked.

Yesterday we decided to take the plunge and harvest the 5 carrots that we’ve been eye-balling for some time.  As you can see, the tops of the carrots were, to say the least, impressive.

Carrot Tops (and friends) with Mike

I’m told they were also delicious.

Binky: noshing on the tops (sorry it's a bit blurry)

Mike and I had visions of carrot behemoths.  Carrot juggernauts.  Carrots that would block out the sun.  I mean, those tops had to be harbingers of plenty, right?

Alas, as you may have gathered from the preceding, we were rather disappointed in the size of said carrots once we’d actually yanked them out.  They were quite small, really.

Carrots: Less Than Meets The Eye

I’ll admit I’m mystified by several aspects of this carrotage:

1. Why were they so gosh-darned hirsute? (yes, I realize carrots cannot, actually, be hairy; these were zillions of roots sprouting out in every direction).  To wit:

Captain Vegetable**: it needs to be said.

2. Why were they so short?  It has been my (limited, admittedly) experience that thick, dense tops equal large carrots.

3. Why, I’m still wondering, did Mike start these carrots indoors and 3b. why did they survive transplanting?

4. Does 3 really explain 1 and 2?

If you have any clue, let me know!

The good news, however, is that the carrots were pronounced delicious by one and all.

Yum: I swear the orange shirts were a coincidence

*Anyone else think it’s a crying shame that the word pizzazz will never, ever be played in a (legitimate) game of Scrabble?  Truly tragic.

** Also tragic would be a lack of knowledge as to the identity of Captain Vegetable.

In this family we’re all about support: support for trying and not entirely succeeding, support for giving one’s best effort, support for doing the best that you can within reason.  Unless you’re a plant, that is.  In that case, we refer to the immortal words of one Homer Simpson: “if at first you don’t succeed, give up.”

While we’ve had some wonderful growing successes, some of our plants just didn’t make the cut.  While we’re all about giving second chances, we felt that it would stink if we devoted precious gardening space to plants that weren’t  going to come up at all, or that weren’t going to do much in the way of producing veggies.

X marks the non-producing squares: this was our least-producing box/pot collection

Thus, some plants have had to be removed.  In some cases, the plants were victims of transplanting gone horribly wrong.  There are a lot of reasons that transplanted plants can fail to thrive.  Sometimes it’s just the shock of moving, other times the process involves damage to delicate plants, there is also the harshness of the elements compared to the cushy lifestyle to which they’d been accustomed.  We are also pretty sure that some plants were simply sown too early indoors, and therefore they were far too tall and delicate: they grew thin and spindly because nothing was forcing them to put energy into making strong stems, and as soon as they were faced with wind and rain they simply fell apart.

Dill: demonstrating how to properly adapt to a weak stalk. Whatever works.

In any case, Mike pulled and replaced the following: some basil was replaced with jalapeños, some tomatoes were replaced in kind and some with peppers, some peppers were also replaced in kind, marigolds (that never even sprouted) were replaced by pepper and broccoli, squash was replaced by melons (of what sort, I’m not sure, nor is the little taggy thing very helpful in this regard), and some parsley was replaced in kind.  In the pots Mike planted broccoli in lieu of both squash and melons.  I’m a little sad about the (apparent) dearth of squash, but I’m reassured by my mother’s ability to produce bumper crops of squash year after year.

Melon: aka Squash Supplanter (note the helpful tag which reads "Melon." Thanks for that).

Parsley: new and improved (alive, that is).

I would also like to point out, at this juncture, that in spite of my aforementioned cavalier attitude to unsuccessful plants, Mike has not entirely given up hope.  The pulled plants have been given a second chance at life in a heap of sod next to our compost pile.  Best of luck to them. Mike had lots of fun replanting these transplants.  Or something like that!

The Plant Retirement Patch

Ah, yes, planning one’s garden.  ‘Tis fun, challenging, and sometimes downright complicated: where to plant stuff, when to plant it and, of course, how to protect one’s wee plants.  We honestly thought we’d covered that in our plans…but clearly we’d forgotten one of the menaces of living very close to the world’s highest tides.

Now, I’m not blaming the ocean (this time) but seriously sometimes when the tide changes we can get these absolutely abrupt and fierce wind squalls .   And while it may seem that I’m digressing here: I’m simply trying to explain that it was silly of us to plant as though we’re unused to sudden blasts of strong wind. However, this past weekend was nothing like that.  That would have been fine. A short squall we could handle.  Instead, for some reason, we had gale force (I think: clearly it’s becoming obvious that I’m no meteorologist) winds that just kept on blasting at our garden (and us, too, but we’re not prone to snapping when the wind blows).

We have frost domes, but let’s face it: PVC piping and flimsy plastic are no match for hurricanes (and yes, I’ve now lapsed into hyperbole).  Perhaps if we’d kept our wee darlings inside a bit longer, or maybe if we’d planted them outside sooner to give them a chance to harden themselves out in the REAL world.  Alas, we did not.

Thankfully, most of our plants emerged unscathed, but not all.  As you can see this poor dear was snapped off in the prime of his young life.  So terribly sad.

Wind 1, Plant 0

On the other hand, we noticed some wee beans sprouting on the bean plant that we thought were done!

New Bean!

And hopefully the wind toll will not cut into our “production” too much.  Thankfully, not all of our plants were destroyed.  This square is looking wonderful.

Growing goodies: this is our happiest square.

I’m particularly excited about these adorable zucchini plants.  I can’t wait to eat tender young zucchinis (unlike the monster zucchinis of my youth)!

Lovely and robust Zucchini plants

Today I noticed our first sprouts!  I must, however, add a disclaimer: I do not know if today is their first appearance, or merely my first notice thereof.  Either way, this is the type of growth one of which one is happy to receive news!

I have noticed the appearance of Spinach, Peas, and Basil.  I would like to take the opportunity, at this time, to point out that Mike lettered the Popsicle sticks so any creativity in spelling is out of my control (not that he spelled Spinach wrong.  Right?  It is spelled Sqinach, right?).

Spinach: If he's curious, he can read what he is!

Peas on earth: isn't he cute, waving like that?

Basil: no matter how much we grow, it'll never be enough!

As my  sister and I were examining the gardens today, we were discussing the placement of viney things like peas and cucumbers.  She suggested we add some tomato cages, at which point I informed her that Mike has full intentions to build vegetable scaffolding (see the final definition,all you smarty pants out there in Internet Land).  According to a higher power (ie: Mr. Bartholomew) one should plant all viney guys on the North side of one’s Square Foot Garden, and then the scaffolding can be erected along said edge.  Apparently this will also prevent the towering veggies from overshadowing (literally) their less lofty plant friends and neighbours.  I’m not sure when, exactly, Mike has planned to begin this particular construction project, but I will make sure to update you as soon as he hops to it.  If you are using tomato cages, here is a great set of instruction as to  how to build them yourself!

But back to my sister.  This woman is a gardening maven (most unlike us) and she is slightly nonplussed at our planting schedule. See: where Mike is following the “experts” opinions on when and where to plant things, Joan is using experience (and an extensive knowledge of all things agriculture related).  I could be wrong, but I have a feeling that we’ll be consulting with her more as time goes by!  If you don’t have a Joan of your own*, and you’re looking for a great (if slow to load) website with Canadian Hardiness Zones, this one is fabulous.

Of course, no matter what you plant and when, it’s always important to carefully label your plantings, and to keep those labels in place at all times.

Our "large predator," making off with a marker... She was humanely captured and she and the marker were released.

* Incidentally, this would be a great name for your Cable TV show, Joan…just sayin’

Not that we’re planning to grown any oak trees…yet I digress from my opening sentence.

Apparently I’ve been remiss in my blogging duties and my enthralled public is clamoring for more.  I hope this entry will tide some of you over for a couple of days.  When baby doesn’t nap, Mama doesn’t blog.

So sometime back in early February (I think it was) we were visiting with our lovely and knowledgeable friend Edna.  She showed Mike her collection of “salsa garden” seedlings.  Mike nodded and smiled and arrived home champing at the bit to get started on his own array of baby plantlings.

Never one to let the competition get ahead of him, Mike went hog wild, planting beans, tomatoes, peppers, squash, and basil.

Mike has asked me to clarify the previous sentence: it was not in the spirit of competition, he would like you to know, but because Edna KNOWS (this was stressed rather dramatically) what she’s doing when it comes to farming and/or gardening.

A few weeks later, Mike decided to research when, exactly, one should begin planting for the purpose of transplanting.

We’re not altogether sure what we’ll do with the monster bean plants (anyone know a Jack in need of some climbing?) but we’ll manage, I’m sure. Some of the aforementioned seedlings will be fine.  Some will have selflessly devoted themselves to the cause of greater gardening.  For this, we thank them.

Let us out! Let us out!

Following this episode, Mike has decided to plant carefully (studiously, even), with an eye to “continuous harvest.”

What is continuous harvest, you might be asking?  Particularly in a climate not given to a large percentage of frost-free days?  Well, in this case, continuous harvest really could be defined as planting on a schedule so that produce is able to be harvested on an on-going basis throughout the growing season.  It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, for instance, to plant great heaps of spinach because who other than me (or my sister Joan) could eat pound upon pound of fresh spinach in a couple of weeks?  Continuous harvest allows you to keep yourself in spinach (or whatever you love) for as many weeks as your growing season will allow.  Mike has worked out a weekly schedule detailing when to plant seedlings (so, to use my spinach example: he is planting spinach April 11th, April 25th, May 8th, May 23rd, and June 6th - if I’ve read his chart correctly).

Seeds foreground, Seedlings background.

I have been asked what we’re planting this year.  Since we’ve joined one (and soon, another) CSA this year (more on that later…) we’ve decided to leave the exotics to other people, and focus, instead on the “staples.”  I don’t know about you, but in this house fresh basil is, decidedly, a staple.  We’re also growing: parsley, chives, oregano, dill, marigolds, lettuce, spinach, bell peppers,  cucumber, carrots, zucchini (which we plan to harvest long before the baseball bat stage, thanks Mom), peas, beans, and squash.  I think that is everything.

Also of interest (in my most humble opinion) is the fancy pots Mike is using.  He procured a pot maker from Lee Valley which allows him to form pots out of newspaper. He can write right on the pot, and then compost it once the seedling has vacated it. Too, too cool.  So cool, I’m including two photos:

Newspaper Pot

This is basil

And now we eagerly await May 16th: our nephew’s 7th birthday, the anniversary of the last day of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, AND the projected first frost free day in Nova Scotia…and the day in which our seedlings will face the real world.