All set for spring.

Tags

arugula, bloodroot, cabbages, camassia, cauliflower, cucumbers, fritillaria, gladiolus, honeysuckle, iris, lettuce, onions, peas, roses, spicebush, tomatoes, tulip, wood poppy

April showers bring May flowers! Or something like that. The last couple years we had Aprils that were relatively dry, but this year we’re finally getting a more typically wet April. I know it sounds odd to “normal” people (i.e. non-gardeners/ non-farmers) to want rain, but spring rains really are a crucial source of groundwater for plants, even well into summer. And climate change isn’t going to improve matters, at least not in these parts where even in the past ten years, summers have become noticeably drier (and possibly hotter).

Anyway, today I planted the onion sets. The peas I planted last week are probably germinating as I type. The lettuce and arugula have already started to sprout. I really need to sow the carrots soon. The brassica (‘Melissa’ Savoy cabbage and ‘Di Sicilia Violetta’ purple cauliflower), tomato (‘San Marzano’, ‘Black Krim’, ‘Black Beauty’ and ‘Hahms Gelbe Topftomate’) and lemon cucumber seedlings are well on their way. In fact, I ran out of room under the grow lights, so I started hardening off the brassica seedlings today – they tolerate cool temperatures better.

The bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) started blooming last week, as did the spicebush (Lindera benzoin). I’ve had the spicebush for three years now, and this is the first time it flowered…possibly because during its first winter here, the accursed demonspawn rabbits chewed it down. So this spring I’ve learned something new about it, which is that it produces masses of tiny yellow flowers first thing in spring, before it produces leaves, and that those flowers have a very pleasant, refreshing fragrance.

Everything else is going apace – the wood poppies (Stylophorum diphyllum) are just starting to bloom, and the yellow tulips will open within a week or two. The honeysuckle (Lonicerum tataricum), which I pruned three weeks ago, is well-leafed out and now starting to produce flower buds. The roses are unwrapped, unmounded and pruned, the hardy gladiolus (Gladiolus palustris) is finally sprouting, the camassias (Camassia quamash) are up, all the irises are well on their way, and I’m nearly done with spring garden cleanup. Right now the only worry is that I don’t see any sign of my Fritillaria persica showing yet.

I know it’s a month until our spring last-chance-of frost date, but right now everything looks set to be glorious.

…I’m not generally an optimistic person, so I’ve probably just jinxed myself.

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String of vegetables.

Tags

arugula, beetroots, cauliflower, cucumber beetle, cucumbers, eggplant, garlic, gladiolus, Japanese beetle, lettuce, nigella, radishes, rapunzel, witch hazel

Well, actually, first I will gripe about Japanese beetles (Popillia japonica). Is there anything the little bastards won’t eat? My poor witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana) is not looking too happy right now. They’ve also been feeding on the eggplants (Solanum melongena), but I can live with that. I hate the stuff, but the plants were foisted off on me in spring. I figured it would be a good learning experience in case I’m ever asked how to grow them…I can always give the nasty things away to the neighbours when they start producing.

Anyway, I harvested the garlic (Allium sativum) last week, but it’s been disappointing. The heads are not as large as they could be because of the unusually dry year (spring) we’ve had. The lemon cucumbers (Cucumis sativus) are still alive, which is a small and pleasant surprise. They’ve been hit with bacterial wilt because of the damned striped cucumber beetles (Acalymma sp.) and I’ve been carefully pruning off anything that looks infected, so I’ve actually been getting a reasonable harvest off them.

Here is a picture of a couple lemon cucumbers – the one on the left is one that I somehow kept missing, so it’s grown to full size (about the size of a baseball) and gotten ripe. The one on the right is more what a harvestable specimen should look like. Although lemon cucumbers don’t get bitter with age (as I did) like other cucumber types, the seeds do get large and hard. Also, once cucumbers are allowed to ripen, the vine slows down production or stops completely. But you can  see why they’re called “lemon” cucumbers.

Lemon cucumbers 2016

Back in spring a colleague offered me a seedling of a purple-headed cauliflower (Brassica oleracea). Cauliflowers have never been my favourite brassica, but I was intrigued, so I took it and potted it up. The curds are a beautiful shade of purple. I assume it’s edible, but I can only imagine what a bowlful of cauliflower cheese would look like made with this variety. The head is pretty small right now, so I hope it will expand as summer progresses.

Purple cauliflower

The lettuce (Lactuca sativa) and arugula (Eruca sativa) are well and done now. The sugar beets (Beta vulgaris) and the black Spanish radishes (Raphanus sativus var. nigrum) are well on their way, and the tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) are bearing well. I’m trying rapunzel (Valerianella locusta) as a summer green for the first time, but who knows how they’ll do.

I guess that’s it for the vegetables for now. Other new developments are the ‘Black Walnut’ gladioli, which have finally bloomed. Funny thing, I planted them in batches two weeks apart, but the first batch is only a few days ahead of the second. I’m a little disappointed with the colour; I was expecting a deeper shade and I don’t see why a cultigen called ‘Black Walnut’ has a white throat. The buds are a nice deep red, however, and the blooms are huge.

‘Black Walnut’ gladiolus

Finally, a couple years ago I begged some nigella (Nigella damascena, not the edible sort) seeds from a colleague. Hers were a beautiful shade of blue and I really liked them. I never got around to planting them last year, but I did this year, and – most of them have bloomed white. Sigh. Apparently her patch has turned more and more white in the past couple years too, so I guess it’s just unlucky genetics for us. Of the several plants I got, only one has bloomed blue, so I think I’ll pull up the others before the seed ripens and keep the blue one for seed. You can see both colours in the picture below.

Nigella damascena

And that’s it for now.

You learn something new every day.

Tags

arugula, clematis, corn, cucumbers, elder, iris, radishes, roses, tomatoes, tulip

The iris ‘Hello Darkness’ opened its first bloom of the season this morning. It’s been chewed on by something since spring began, and I assumed it was slugs. This spring has been pretty dry and today we finally had a storm that’s been building for two days; the first rain in at least two weeks. After the storm I found a lot of snails on this iris.

This was a bit of a surprise, because I’ve never had a problem with snails before – the birds usually get them, so it’s the slugs I battle with. But as I was leaning in to pick them off, I noticed the flower was fragrant – which I certainly hadn’t noticed last year. It was a pleasant surprise.

The spring weather has made some unusual combinations. This spring was pretty cold before suddenly going warm, so it really has felt as though we went straight from winter to summer. The cold beginning meant that many plants and flowers were held back, and when it turned hot and everything suddenly started growing…there was no rain. The Siberian iris ‘Blue King’ has only just started budding out blooms.

In another first, the rabbits have been attacking the tulips. The little buggers just nipped the flowers off neatly and left them on the ground. Every single one of my new ‘Paul Scherer’ tulips got deadheaded prematurely. The ‘Paul Scherer’ is a new “black” tulip I planted last fall to compare to the’Queen of the Night’ tulips, which I’ve had a long time. Honestly, I’m hard pressed to find much of a difference other than the ‘Paul Scherer’ opened a day earlier. Perhaps in future seasons when they’re better established, more growth differences will become apparent, but the two varieties seem very similar in appearance.

What else…there seems to be a lot of dieback on the elder bushes (Sambucus canadensis). Winter was mild, so I doubt it’s that. I wonder if I’m seeing the effects of two dry springtimes in a row?

The western blue clematis (Clematis occidentalis) finally seems to be getting on with it. This is the third season I’ve had it, and the last couple years it didn’t seem to do much except sit there; last year there were maybe two flowers. This year it’s finally putting on some decent growth and starting to scramble up. There were three or four flowers earlier in the season.

I planted out the blue corn and the lemon cucumbers yesterday. Normally I would wait another week before planting those out, but as I said, the weather has been hot and there’s no expectation that will change. The first of the tomatoes (San Marzano) went out a few days ago; the rest (Black Krim and *ahem* Hans Gelbe Topftomate) will go in containers. I think the few radishes should be ready for picking in a week or so, and then I will sow sugar beets in that spot. I need to check if rabbits will attack arugula before planting any in the ground; right now they’re all in pots.

This Saturday is my Master Gardener group’s spring plant sale…guess who looks after the plants before the sale? Tomorrow we take the plants to the venue and set everything up. i don’t mind hosting the plants (if nothing else, it means I get first pick of anything that comes in), but it will be a relief to get it all gone.

The garden in autumn.

Tags

cucumbers, dahlia, fritillaria, garlic, jasmine, strawberries, tomatoes, tulip

Gosh. I hadn’t realised that I’d neglected this blog for so long. The garden’s certainly been busy enough, but as I expected, it’s all too easy for me to fall out of the habit of posting.

Well, let’s see…the ‘Music’ garlic got planted about three weeks ago. I was really pleased with the results of the one head I got last year, so this year I got six heads. A couple days ago I planted some new black tulips; this time it’s ‘Paul Scherer’ and it will be interesting to compare it to the ‘Queen of the Night’ tulips I already have. Rounding out the black flower collection, I planted one Fritillaria persica as well.

Pretty much all the tropicals and tender plants are indoors by now, except the dahlia ‘Karma Chocolate’. Although there have been a couple of frosty nights already, it seems quite happy on the front patio, which is fairly sheltered. When it finally does die down, I’ll just cut off the dead foliage and move the whole pot into the basement. I gave the three potted jasmines (Jasminum sambac) a really hard pruning and when I brought them in; they’ll readapt better to indoor conditions that way and hopefully it meant I got the entirety of the plants when I sprayed for whitefly afterwards.

There’s so much more I could write about, but that’s it for now. Fall pruning and cleanup is the ongoing job at the moment: the tomato and cucumber plants are already gone and it’s too chilly to expect much more out of the ‘Albion’ strawberries.

Lovely start to summer.

Tags

cucumbers, dahlia, raspberries, strawberries

Well, summer started a few weeks ago. But it’s been a busy few days here: last Thursday I had a Master Gardener meeting, then on Sunday there was a garden tour at which I gave advice, then today I volunteered at Erindale Park. I heard something sad there today: one of the other volunteers had gone to help at the Food Bank, and they had to send the volunteers home because there wasn’t any food to organise and distribute.

I guess the summer lull is already beginning. Right now most of the gardening involves watering the containers and vegetables, weeding, and continuing to harvest the wild black raspberries (Rubus occidentalis). I suppose in a week or so it will be time to harvest the garlic.

The new strawberries seem to be doing well. Because they are new, I didn’t let the June-bearing types crop, but at least now that it’s July I can let the day-neutral ‘Albion’ bear fruit. And it was delicious, seriously. I also harvested my first cucumber of the year (ever, actually) yesterday. Funny, on Thursday I was telling someone that all my cucumber plants still had only male flowers, then the next day I found a fully-grown cucumber hiding underneath the leaves. And that was delicious too.

Most other things are those small tasks that you never seem to get around to, but you miss if you don’t, such as making comfrey liquid and deadheading the roses. I should start potting things up for the autumn plant sale too. And last but not least, I updated the “black” flowers page to include my new dahlia.

From spring into summer.

Tags

arnica, butterfly pea, cucumbers, elder, giant blue hyssop, okra, roses

Actually, more like straight from winter to summer. It hardly felt as if we had a spring this year.

Well, let’s see…everything that goes outside for summer is out and the bay window looks bare now. Somehow the ‘Lemon’ cucumbers are blooming already (cucurbits always open with male flowers first) and I really really hope the beetles stay away this year. The elder flowers (Sambucus canadensis) are set to open, the roses are opening and the American arnica (Arnica chamissonis) is in full bloom. There’s a slight lull in the general blooming at the moment; there usually is during the phasing of spring into summer.

I spent most of my garden time today and yesterday weeding. Now we’ve had some regular rainfall, the ground is soft enough to get everything up by the roots; living on clay means when it’s dry, it’s also hard as a brick and attempts to weed simply result in the top growth coming off and leaving the rootstock behind to haunt you again. My point? My index finger and thumb are sore. Wah.

Besides the weeding, I also planted out the ‘Red Burgundy’ okra (Abelmoschus esculentus) plants yesterday, and a couple of butterfly peas (Clitoria ternatea). The last of the overwintering Eastern Black Swallowtail chrysalides eclosed and flew off today, and I’m quite certain that the caterpillar I found feeding on the giant blue hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) last month is going to turn into a moth. Oh, and I gave a couple of the bonsai a much-needed pruning.

The simplest things make gardeners happy.

Tags

butterfly pea, castor bean, cucumber beetle, cucumbers, nicotiana, tomatoes

Well, me, anyway.

The tomato seeds have started sprouting, which signals when I sow the other things for indoor starting. In this case, castor beans (Ricinus communis) ‘New Zealand Purple’, butterfly peas (Clitoria ternatea), Nicotiana ‘Chocolate Smoke’, and cucumbers (Cucumis sativus). It doesn’t matter how many times I do it, I get such a rush when my seedlings sprout.

I’m a little nervous about the cucumbers because the last time I grew them, they got a huge infestation of striped cucumber beetle (Acalymma vittatum). So I planted no cucurbits at all for two years, and this year I’m crossing my fingers it works. Despite this, I’m trying two varieties: ‘Muncher’ and an heirloom variety called ‘Lemon’.

But! I’ve also been floating because this week I finally got my patio fountain set up. I’ve never liked the prefabricated ones available at the garden centres…I dunno, they look as humdrum or fake as they are, I suppose. So fully intending to one day make my own, I’d been gradually collecting and making various bits and pieces over the past couple years.

The container is a planter I got half-price when Target closed down earlier this month. Or was it last month? It’s about two feet high, a foot square at the top, and tapers in toward the bottom. It was just an idea to use it for a fountain when I got it, but the more I thought about it, the better I liked it. It’s half filled with stones for stability and internal support (and because I have lots of stones in my soil). The pump and tubing I got a couple years ago, when I also got another pump for a small tabletop fountain (also cobbled together from old glass items).

The jug has the most interesting story. Many years ago, a family member went on vacation to Costa Rica and brought back a touristy jug of coffee-flavoured liqueur. It sat there for ages until we opened it…or tried to. It had been there so long the cork had rotted and broke when we tried to pull it out. Half the cork is still inside the jug. After the liquid contents had been…disposed of…I drilled a hole in the bottom. By complete coincidence, my glass/pottery drill bit creates a hole just wide enough to snugly fit the fountain tubing though.

Finally, the jug is sitting on a base of cement. I just took an old plastic container, the sort that mushrooms come in at the supermarket, filled it with cement, pressed the jug in at an angle, and waited for it to harden. Then it got unmolded and voilà, perfect support for the jug.

I haven’t decided yet if I’ll add a couple small floating plants when the weather warms up more; I kind of like how simple and clean it looks right now. Some might call it boring. I call it uncluttered.

But now I’ve been bitten by the water feature bug and plots are already afoot to make a shishi-odoshi (souzu) and maybe an aboveground suikinkutsu. (These are traditional Japanese water features that add a distinct acoustic element to the garden.)