Why I bother. (He loved it by the way)

How I do it!

One of our last bunches of radishes from the first batch. I will grow more next year, we really loved these!

The Icicle radishes didn't work out so well. Im not sure if it was the soil, or the conditions, but they didn't plump up like they were supposed to and they got very fibrous. The plants grew like mad and even started bolting! I took them all out the other day because they were really covering the carrots. I wouldn't recommend marking your rows with radishes, at least not in a square foot garden. They really take up too much space.

All of the plants are basically in now. I keep thining I might be able to fit a little bit more, but I guess thats the gardeners addiction. The plants that are in are doing ok. The cuc's I planted are not, but my lemon cucumber transplants are still inside. im going to wait until its really warm before putting them out. I hope they work!

I will post an updated pic of the garden this weekend. Its really starting to fill in. The beets/sunflowers are growing well. My lettuce patch too!

Lots of neighbors stopping by now. We have a popular street to walk on, so I sometimes watch out the window as people walk by, look, look again, look again and stop, and then smile and walk on. Ha!

On our nightly walk the other day I noticed that a recently bought house now has a small (3x12) veggie garden. Im always on the look out for fellow veggie gardeners. One of the neighbors down the street took up all the grass in her front lawn, I thought for sure she was going to put in a raised veggie bed, alas, no, more grass. Boooo!

Tomatoes are in!

The tomato cages and plants are mostly all in now. I still have a few more inside, but I'm not sure where they'll go!

My first flowers! These will make some early Sweet 100's!

I had to get some pots for the extra tomatoes. Lets hope they grow well!

The asparagus are getting quite tall and branching out. I am excited to see what they look like as "adults". I don't think I could pick one out of a line-up.

The icicle radishes are finally plumping up. You can see way down the upper ends of them. The greens are absolutely huge! Can you eat those? They have these little spines on them that I feel when I'm rooting around for the plumpest ones.

Im harvesting about 20 radishes a day now. Way too many to eat, so my neighbors and relatives are all getting their fill too. Radishes have been really easy to grow, and even though I didn't thin them, they still grew really, really well. I have been washing, cutting and bunching them like this and giving them away.

We have had a good mix of rain and sun, so things are growing well.

Peas, Beets and Asparagus!

There is a lot of activity going on here on the mainland this past week. We had an absolutely beautiful long weekend and my plants just took in as much sun as they could handle. The peas and pole beans have finally sprouted, as well as the beets and even some of my asparagus crowns! Very exciting!

I decided to add some soil to the top of my seaweed potatoes as the seaweed seemed to dry out WAY too fast. I think they are staying a bit more moist now.

One of the many radish bunches we have picked. We have grown quite a few and have even resorted to giving some away! Who would have thought!

The pole beans are sprouting and growing right at the base of the pole. Not sure how to "train" them, but I think they sort of do that on their own. Learning Point!

Asparagus! Next year we will be harvesting around this time. I can't wait!

Hard to see, but the beets have sprouted above.

Three new additions to the little plot. In one I have "pot" zuccini growing. Apparently they do not spread as much as the traditional zuccini so they are good for pots.

Lettuce growing well!

All for now!

The Potatoes are in!

At long last I have had time to 1- Go get seaweed and 2- Build the potato lasagna!

There was a lull of activity in the garden --  exams, weather, conferences, presentations... But yesterday was a glorious sunny day and I was back at it! We planted lettuce transplants, and some onion starters. I also bought 2 beef-stake tomato transplants and put them in. I know its too early, well at least thats what everyone says, so Im not putting out my own seedlings yet. Its more of an experiment. Lets see what happens!

The polebeans are starting to sprout and the lettuce that I planted underneath the bamboo poles is also coming up. This is going to be great!

The first harvested radish! (many more have been picked since)

The Seaweed Source

A plastic mesh cage, attached to my PVC hoop frame (I respect the wind now) You can see the potatoes in the egg trays eagerly awaiting their new home.

I probably put the potatoes too close together, but I have seen some others growing potatoes in buckets, and I thought their spacing was about this far apart. We'll see, this is the experimental year. What I did I make alternating layers of seaweed and potatoes. I arranged the potatoes so that the eyes were facing out. Hopefully they will grow out the side of the mesh and then course upwards.

The final product. It doesn't smell and actually looks ok! Our little one thought it looked like hay and said "We'll be horses and that will be our food!".

A look at the garden with some of the new transplants. You can see the radishes (closest) have really gotten quite large! The bamboo poles can be seen here too.

Pea sprouts at the bottom of the bamboo pole!

Hard to see, but this is underneath the poles and hopefully will be a nice cool, partially shady area for the lettuce. There are some small sprouts already!

Wind Storm

Well, the hoop covers have been removed. Forcefully.

We live in a particularly windy area of town and my plastic covers could not stand up to the constant battering. They lasted about 1 month and then started to shred. Amazing really. Perhaps thicker plastic would do better, but its been warm enough that Im content to just remove the plastic. Its also much less of an eye sore with the plastic gone.

The radishes are growing well, although they are really not spaced well. I didn't plan on ALL of them germinating, but I guess its pretty close to 100%. The carrots are sprouting too! The asparagus crowns came today and I planted them in front of out living room window. The vegetable gardeners bible says that asparagus needs its own bed free of competition, but I just don't have that luxury yet. So, we'll see how they do there.

Pics to follow.
Next is to get some seaweed for the potatoes! Hopefully this weekend!

Seed Potatoes

I bought my seed potatoes today! I bought a blue type and yukon gold. I got 5lbs bags of each, I think it will be plenty.

Here's a pic of the radishes growing like mad. I tried to outline where I had planted the carrots. Need to be more precise next time, clearly..

Nature Called....

.... and said it wasn't quite done with winter.

So another snow storm for us here in Halifax. It snowed GIANT flakes of fluffy white snow all day. It didn't accumulate until tonight when it started to cool down. Mega-box is being put to the test. There was a lot of condensation on the inside, so I assume its quite warm in there. I don't want to open it to check, for fear of letting too much heat out.

The seedlings are doing well. Once I put the grow light on them they stopped growing so tall and are now working on maturing.  I think Im going to be relying on transplants again this year, not sure how well my little seeds are going to do. I will get better, I will!