Summer’s end in “The Hammer”

I’m spending the next two weeks as a resident of Hamilton. I’m really looking forward to walking to and from work (have done it for two days already and it’s been great!) and no commuting to Toronto for two weeks – woo hoo!!! This will also give me good insight into what it’s like to live here.

Planning to spend a lot of this time in the garden, cleaning up the summer mess and planting for the fall. Some interesting sights in the garden right now: it seems my relatives have been lax with the watering. The plots are dry as a desert. As a result the greens I planted on my last visit (spinach, collards, kale) are nowhere to be found. I guess I should cut them some slack. They’ve been more focused on preparing for their trip to England.

The garden minus all the beautiful morning glory.

Acorn squash plant is near death but the fruits are looking good. How are they still thriving?!

Also noticeably lacking are the beautiful purple flowers that were climbing the fence. I thought were the precursor to beans (silly girl). Turns out they were morning glory. Really beautiful but difficult to get rid of once they’ve settled in. Both my aunt and uncle have talked at length about the problems they had trying to remove morning glory from their front flower garden.

I personally don’t see what the problem is. I think they’re beautiful! Whether they’re closed for the evening or open in the morning, they really are eye-catching. What a sight!

What’s the story, morning glory?

I don’t think they caused any real harm, except maybe competing with the sugar snap peas (they are doing quite poorly actually). When you’re this beautiful, how can anyone stay mad at you for long?

Closing up shop for the evening

The same flowers, closed up in a different way. Interesting…

My edible flowers are starting to go to seed. I should start harvesting before I lose them in the soil. Seeing them makes me mourn the fact that the borage seeds didn’t take. What a loss.

What a bounty from just one calendula flower! How many seeds can you count?

Some good sized nasturtium seeds

My uncle’s side of the garden is looking pretty good. The many okra he planted are finally starting to produce fruit.

Okra flower and fruit!

I searched a few blogs and apparently you should harvest okra when it’s about 4 inches or pinky size. Test okra’s readiness for picking by either cutting the tip with a sharp knife or trying to break it off. If it cuts/breaks easily, it’s nice and tender for eating. If it’s tough, then add it to the compost. The more you harvest, the more it will produce. I think the one in the picture above is ready.

His eggplant are starting to make their appearance…

Sicilian eggplant

And he’s got a couple of butternut squash hiding out as well.

Butternut squash

I have one butternut squash that’s coming along nicely and I noticed the other day that I have another one coming along on the other plant!

There were two tiny ones also growing on this plant but they died.

New squash at the back of the garden.

My seed packet says they take 100 days and I read (somewhere) that you can harvest them once your nail can break the skin. Ooo, can’t wait to make my favorite butternut squash soup recipe with it!

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“Mysteries” of the garden

My cousin picked me up from work on Friday so we could check out the organic farmer’s market on scenic drive. It was a pretty small market, about 6 vendors outside Scenic Drive Convenience Store, at Scenic Drive and Upper Paradise Road. She’s trying to lose weight for a wedding in August by increasing her consumption of greens and veggies. She’s decided that heirloom vegetables are what she wants to eat. It was funny to note that she had no idea that I was using organic and heirloom seeds and plants in the backyard. She picked up some kale and greens from Japan (looked like bok choy and name begins with a K). I was happy to sample blueberry pie and apple strudel while she made her choices and I learned from one of the farmers that a plant I had picked on the trail near James street stairs was from the spirea family (he was selling some). I’m trying to see if I can root it for transplant.

Not long after we came home, the sky turned dark. Storm clouds rolled in and the rain started coming down sideways. I was disappointed. I’d planned to quickly plant another strawberry that I picked up at Urban Harvest on Wednesday, take stock of what was going on in the garden, and then head back to Toronto. About an hour, tops. It had been a long week of commuting after recovering from a cold that had kept me off work last Thursday and Friday and in bed for most of the weekend. I wanted to head home at a reasonable time so that I could relax and enjoy my weekend. However, I wasn’t prepared to travel home in a storm so resigned myself to staying the night. I was dying to see what was happening out there so when the rain let up, I went out to check things out.

Snail on the prowl after the rain

The first thing that caught my eye was mysterious little sprouts all across my beds. And then I remembered that my cousin had warned me – “don’t blame me…” she had started. My uncle had decided before he went away for work again (he goes every other month for a month) that he would sprinkle down “mystery” seeds in every space that was unoccupied. This included walkways.

My uncle’s planting method inside the greenhouse. This is how I knew he was to blame for what I saw below…

“Mystery” seeds around my tomatoes!!! Argh!!!

Clearly he doesn’t understand square foot gardening method. And, as I mentioned, he likes to do things his own way. Well, so do I. I had planned to put some companion spicy salad greens and basil on every corner of the tomato plants (ie. 4 plants to one tomato plant) so I proceeded to do so. We’ll see whose seeds to better. Did I mention I was stubborn?

Some plants are doing quite well after about a week and a half. Others not so well.

Onions are coming along

Apparently I didn’t need to worry about the zucchini. I’ll have to remove the smaller plant.

One of two pea plants coming up.

I was disappointed to find that neither the butternut squash nor the nasturtium had come up so I planted more seeds. Also, surprisingly, no borage! That stuff grows like mad. I planted a few more seeds near the strawberries. I also put down some spinach because I had seen in one of the companion planting charts that it was a good companion for strawberries.

This is the first strawberry plant I bought. It doesn’t seem to be doing much right now. The new plant I ot is larger and already has a small strawberry growing on it.

It’s a mystery why some plants do better than others. A combination of seed issues (eg. germination rates),  soil and weather conditions, water,  pests… Nevertheless, nature always finds a way to reproduce. I have a feel that although some things are coming along more slowly than I had expected, it will be a very productive garden. I also have a feeling that I’ll have to put in a lot more work than last year. Damn.

My uncle’s okra are really coming along. I wonder where he’s going to put them…

My uncle’s section of the garden.