Canadian Organic Garden Journal

2008-08-04T12:56:00.000-07:00

The Early girl tomatoes are starting to ripen. It has been a long wait, but I had my first toasted tomato this morning and it was awesome.

Here is one of the pumpkins. They are growing so fast you can see a change in size every day.

Here is one of the cukes. They are coming in fast and furious now.

2008-07-14T19:49:00.000-07:00

Here are two of the garlic that I harvested today. One of them is full size and the other significantly smaller. These were the thai sweet variety and we are using them in a stewed pork belly recipe. I will post the recipe soon for those who might want to try.

Here is the garlic that is still in the ground. Most of the garlic needs a few more weeks. I will save most of the garlic for seed in the fall. Garlic was a very easy crop to grow. There was minimal work involved and very few pests.

Here are the ripening mulberries from the backyard. We have five trees which give us an unlimited amount of berries. We have been using the berries to make mulberry syrup and mulberry jelly. Here is the recipe with step by step instructions.

http://www.mulberryjellytheeasyway.blogspot.com/

These are China Rose winter radishes. They take about 50 days to mature and are planted in midsummer. I planted these a few weeks back which was a bit earlier than suggested because last year mine didn't mature before the first frost.

Here is the winter melon I planted. I got the transplants in Chinatown in Toronto. It has started to flower and is showing strong growth. Soon it will cover most of the front porch.

Here are the Jack O Lantern pumpkins. They are growing very well and starting to flower. I put some mulch around the stem because pumpkins love water.

Here is the bitter gourd, (kugwa) it has also started to flower and is showing good growth.

2008-07-13T16:03:00.000-07:00

Here is the fence I had to build to keep out the rabbits. They ate quite a few bean plants and beet greens. The fence has been keeping them out nicely and everything is starting to grow back.

Here is an up close shot of one of the bean plants. They are all setting fruit now.
The zukes are also setting a lot of fruit. They grow like crazy and need picking every day.

Here are some more pictures of the zukes.

These are the early girls that went in the ground at the end of May. These tomatoes set around the 20th of June. Hopefully we will have some ripe ones in a week or so.

The cucumbers are also starting to set
fruit. These are pioneer hybrid pickling cukes. I'm hoping to make some pickles in a few weeks.

The romas.

Winter melon and Bitter gourd

2008-06-20T05:26:00.000-07:00

This is the bitter gourd (ku gua or ku gwa) I planted at the end of May. It is just about ready to take off and start climbing up the railing in the front yard. Bitter melon plants are very similar to cucumbers in their growing habit, but the the vines can grow up to 25 feet in length. The fruit is treasured in many Asian cultures for its medicinal properties. It is said to lower blood sugar for those with diabetes. Anyway, it has a strange taste that keeps you coming back for more. We mainly use it to make a delicious soup.

Here we have winter melon (dong gua or dong gwa). It also has a growing habit similar to cucumbers. The fruit on this plant is huge (about the size of a large watermelon). The fruit is often used in soups. It can also be used to make a delicious tea and some soak it in sugar water to make a delicious candy.

The elephant garlic started growing scapes yesterday. I clipped this one off after I got a picture. People say that cutting the scapes off makes the plant put more energy into the bulb formation. The scapes are delicious fried up wiht a little salt. Funnily enough, elephant garlic isn't even garlic; they are more closely related to leeks.

Early girl set its first few tomatoes yesterday. The only other tomato I have that has set any fruit is sugar snack. It will be a race to the finish.

Here is another shot of the garden. We have been enjoying the lettuce over the past week. We made some salads and also boiled some of the leaf lettuce and used it as a green when we had Chinese food the other night. It is surprisingly good cooked that way. Boil it for one minute and then add salt, soy sauce, dehydrated onion and sesame oil. Delicious

We used the onions to make some Taiwan Pizza (tsong you bing) . Its a doughy pancake type food with lots of fresh onions in it. They are super oily, but soooo good. I will put a link to the recipe soon. Here is the link. http://chineserecipes1.googlepages.com/tsongyoubing%3Bonionpancake
The recipe is step by step with pictures so give it a try.

The zucchini opened its first flower today and has lots of male flowers and a few females ready to open up over the next few days. I can't wait to put some fresh zukes in the stir-fry.

2008-06-09T13:22:00.000-07:00

Here is the garden from the weekend. We dug up some of the garlic for garlic greens. My wife stir fried them with Chinese sausage. They were great. The rest we used in with the fried rice. Fresh food from the garden is what it is all about.

The first truss of flowers on early girl is about to open its first flower.

Here is the early girl. It's about a foot tall now and looking strong.

The zukes have some male flowers starting to form. The zukes are really starting to take off.

This is sugar snack. It is one of the cherry tomatoes I decided to try this year and it is the first one to have flowers. These are super sweet apparently.

2008-05-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

Here is the Zucchini I planted yesterday. My daughter has already plucked the first true leaf off. The cultivar is zucchini dark green. I got the seeds from the OSC seeds catalouge (Ontario Seed Company). This is a compact variety that is very prolific. This cultivar takes 50 days from transplanting to mature. Stay tuned to see how close we come to that prediction.

This is an early girl transplant. It was about a foot and a half tall. I plucked off all the lower leaves and planted it very deep. In the whole I put about 2 shovels of composted sheep manure, 1/4 cup of bone meal and a half a cup of dolomite lime. After I filled in the whole I watered with a starter solution 10-52-10. It was 5ml of the solution to about 2 liters of water. This variety is prized for its early harvest. The seed packet says it takes 52 days to reach maturity. I say another blogger say their early girl took 40 days to go from flower to fruit. I can't wait to see my results.

Here is another shot to help remind me of where the early girl is planted.

Here are the other transplants that I bought. They will go in the garden over the next few weeks. I got the seedlings at the Bradford Greenhouses in Barrie

More garden pics

2008-05-15T14:19:00.000-07:00

Tulips and Irises at the side of the house. I am going to plant morning glory to climb up the trellis to the left of the window.

These are the red currants I planted in the early spring. They are doing very well and you can see the currants are already starting to form.

Here is the snow apple. I planted it in the fall but
the top 2 feet were eaten by rodents.

Here is the chain link fence. I hope to finish this weekend.

Here is the russet apple tree. I took off a large branch off the upper right side. I plan to take off another large branch next year and one more the year after that until I have only horizontal branches. This tree has been neglected for 20 years, but it still produces great tasting apples, albeit small. I'm still waiting for apples from this tree as well.

May 16th, 2008

2008-05-15T13:59:00.000-07:00

It is almost the May 24th long weekend and I start work at the LCBO tomorrow. I have been building a chain link fence over the last 2 weeks and it is almost finished. I will be supporting my tomatoes on the chain link fence.
I tilled the garden in the fall and added manure to amend the exisiting soil.

The first picture shows the garlic I planted in the fall. I have elephant garlic as well as a Thai variety.

Here are the onions. The first row was planted in the middle of April and the next two rows were planted 2 weeks and 4 weeks later, respectively. The first row are multiplier onions and the other rows are yellow onions. They were planted from sets and I plan to use some for green onions and let others mature.

The other rows are green and red romaine. They were bought at the Bradford greenhouses and transplanted on May 10th.

Here is the McIntosh tree. It was planted at least 20 years ago, but has been shaded from the north side for most of its life.

I pruned of a large branch this winter that blocked a lot of light from the lower branches. I also trimmed off many of the downward facing fruiting spurs. I am still waiting for flower buds; I may have been too drastic with the pruning.

Here is a close-up of the leaves. (McIntosh)