Today's harvest

Today we had a decent harvest of peppers, zucchini pole beans & scarlet runner beans. The beans have been continuously producing without sign of stopping! We anticipate a few more weeks of harvest before they drop. The zucchini is doing good for the cooler weather below 20 deg C.

veggies in the front

I am back after travelling on work across a couple of cities. While I was away my parent's in law tended to the garden. We had lots of tomatoes but the rain in the last couple of weeks did the damage. Most of the tomato leaves turned brown and black and we had to pull them off. The other veggies are doing fine so far. Temperatures are dipping down. The garden in the front of the house is a mix of flowers and veggies in between.
I tried to use of as much available space as possible.

The top picture is self explanatory. In the second one we have broccoli, peppers and pink cabbage in the fore ground and zucchini and peppers in the back ground. We've had a good number of cabbages but they are prone to attacks by snails and slugs after a rain. So they need to be checked every now and then. Also there were nasturtiums which were attacked by aphids and we had to pull them out.

Garden progress

We have been harvesting beans, tomatoes, lettuce and herbs almost every other day for the kitchen. Here are some pictures of the plants:

Tomatoes: Roma

Tomatoes: Sasha's Pride

Eggplant: Dusky

Pickling Cucumber

Hot Peppers

Cabbage: Early Copenhagen

This one was planted in front of the house beside the driveway. We planted a few cabbages, tomatoes, Broccoli, Bell Peppers  and Hot Peppers amongst flowering plants - this was a little experiment to see how it would work for an edible landscape! More pictures to follow in the next post.

We have been trying to grow some Indian vegetables such as Bottle Gourd, Ridge Gourd, Bitter Melon (also called Bitter Gourd) but this had little success. I am not sure if anyone tried these in the Vancouver, BC area. Here the summer temperature hovers around 32 degrees, except for a week or ten days when it jumps to 35 -37 degrees. Also this year we had a long cool spring which didn't help the heat loving vegetables. We don't expect much progress beyond what we see here but anticipate they'll grow a little more.

Bottle Gourd

Bitter Gourd

Today harvest - Cabbage & Zucchini

Vacation pictures,...

Here are a few pictures from our road trip to Saskatoon, Jasper and Banff.

Mount Robson, BC:
The highest peak in BC.

Canola fields of Saskatchewan:
Most of the landscape in Saskatchewan in bathed in yellow with Canola in summer.

Angel Glacier at Mt. Edith Cavell, Jasper:
(if you can zoom in you can see a person near the cave at the center of the picture, 1/3rd from bottom!)

Lake Louise, Banff:
It wasn't the best day to be there as the sun played hide 'n' seek but I could snap some decent pictures.

Athabasca Glacier at The Columbia Icefields:
You can see tourists approaching the mouth of the glacier by foot but we took the buggy where it takes you to a point of turnaround where the glacier is 1000 ft deep. Sad to see the glacier receding with time but it is majestic and a not to be missed sight.

Harvest after vacation...

oWe came back after our 14 day road trip to Saskatoon and visited Jasper and Banff. The Rocky mountains have one of the most stunning views your could ever see. I'll post some pictures in the next post. We had to prune our over grown tomato plants. The cabbages were infested with aphids and I had to pull them out. We harvested potatoes, lettuce, garlic and beans. We are just waiting for the tomatoes and egg plants to be harvested.

Cauliflower

After waiting patiently I harvested the Cauliflower yesterday. Out of the 3 flowers only two were 'okay' -  the other one was partly feasted on by snails! It didn't turn out like the one's you see in the grocery stores  white in color and compact.

Garlic & Potatoes

Yesterday while I was laying the drip pipeline a little potato plant was in the way. More curious to see the potato development than work around it, I pulled out the potato plant and dug out four medium sized Red Russet Potatoes.

Today evening I harvested the Red Russian Garlic (from West Coast Seeds) which we planted last fall. I am more than satisfied with the harvest. Except for a few bulbs most of them were more than 3" in diameter. My wife braided them together and hung it in the patio to air dry it. For this fall we plan to prepare a bed beside the fence and sow more of them.

There's more Garlic which I plan to harvest in a couple of weeks. I think this fall we might try a few more varieties of Garlic and more in quantity.

Broccoli

We have been having some good warm weather of late but last week's heat wave was good for the tomatoes and eggplants but not for the Broccoli. It bolted and shot up flowers. However this was only with one plant which is the senior most. The others are doing well and I hope they don't bolt!

Saturday harvest

Here's today's harvest - Zucchini and Red Onions. The Onions didn't grow well as I hoped for but it wasn't bad as I planted them in the bed near the fence which wasn't fertile. This was my first attempt but the next time I plan to sow them in the raised beds along with other vegetables. The Zucchini is doing good and there are more growing!

More Tomato beds

It's been some time I updated this blog. Two weeks back I transplanted more tomato plants in the new raised beds beside the garden shed. Also I added a drip irrigation line to irrigate them with a soaker hose and covered with straw as mulch.  The varieties are Beefsteak and Sasha's pride. Today morning when I checked the bed I noticed more tomato saplings growing! This was from the compost which I added and this compost had tomato seeds from the kitchen waste which we throw it in the composter. There are seven tomato plants growing in the 20 gallon pails and I moved them near this bed today. I am still connecting the pipes to drip irrigate them and I am hoping to finish it tomorrow. This is to take care of them when we are gone on a two week holiday in the last week of July.

Broccoli & Zucchini

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This year we have had the longest spring with cool weather extending into July. This is unusual with temperatures at six degrees C below normal. This is good for the brassicaceae we are growing but I suspect the hot weather vegetables like tomatoes, peppers & eggplants may be delay fruit setting. We just checked the Broccoli & Zucchini starting to form. The other day I hand pollinated the Zucchini so I expect it to form into a full sized Zucchini. Also we transplanted more tomatoes in two new raised beds beds which I'll post later in the day.

Tomatoes, Cauliflowers & Green Chillies

While working in the yard my wife spotted the first Tomatoes, Cauliflowers & Green Chillies. Too glad to see them grow!

Zucchini update

In an earlier post I mentioned about the Vine borer/Stem borer on the Zucchini which wrapped with Aluminum foil and also treated with dilute milk for the powdery mildew. It seems to be working although the Yellow Zucchini didn't survive. A good lesson learned on the Zucchini problem!

Transplants, Onions,...

It's almost two weeks since I updated this blog. My wife and I were busy painting our main floor and in between did some gardening work. We had installed a drip irrigation system in front of the house where we have the flower beds. Today we partially finished the drip irrigation system for the vegetable raised beds in the back yard. Although we were in the garden weeding, we transplanted eggplants and more tomatoes. We have been continuously harvesting lettuce and I sowed more in a planter box on the patio. The Red Onions which we planted along the fence is doing fairly well. There was a bush earlier in this place which we got rid of. The soil is not good enough for them but it was a gamble to grow them here. In the fall I plan to plant onions in the raised beds.

We transplanted the Eggplants in between the Garlic. Since we'll be able to harvest Garlic next month the Eggplants would have more room to grow. The Garlic Scapes are ready to be picked but I have figure out to use it in a dish. 

Blueberries

Oblivious to us, with all the attention on the veggies and the raised beds, there were lots of blooms on the Blueberries a few weeks back. I see Blueberries forming and they should ripen in a couple of weeks. Although they are not many - just 7 of them in 5 gallon buckets - we use them in Yogurt and Cereal and also they attract bees which aid in pollination.

Vine borer on Zucchini

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I tried to check what could be done on the almost eaten up stem on the Zucchini. I was late in detecting this and sprayed Neem Oil yesterday to deter the stem borer/vine borer. I slit open the stem a little but couldn't find the borer. I checked online that foil could work; so wrapped Aluminum foil around the stem of the affected Zucchini and also the undamaged one. Also covered one of the branches with soil to propagate roots and I'll see how it goes.

There's some powdery mildew on one of the plants. I have to give it a shower with diluted milk which I'll do it when it stops raining (hopefully by tomorrow).

More Seed Sowing,...

Since our raised beds would run out of space we thought of growing in the beds along the fence. Although it isn't a dedicated veggie gardening space ( I had already planted a few of Pole Beans, Scarlett Runner Beans, Potatoes, Onions, Garlic, and Cabbages) we thought of making the best use of space. Also a few Tomatoes and Peppers were planted in front of the house in between flowering plants. It could be a little late for some of these but I decided to give it a shot; so sowed more seeds of - Bottle gourd, Ridge gourd, Sponge gourd, Zucchini, Malabar Spinach, Red Stemmed Gongura (Hibiscus sabdariffa), Cucumber, Butterhead Lettuce and Argula.

Tomatoes, Brassicaceae, Garlic

I was busy with work and also we have been waiting for the temperatures to warm up. We transplanted tomatoes, in the raised beds and planted marigolds in between them. The cabbages and cauliflowers are growing inspite being eaten by the snails and slugs. Every time there was a shower I went out to pick the snails & slugs which can eat all the leaves in one night. I had more cabbage saplings so I planted in front of the house between other taller plants. This would shield them from the direct sunlight. The Red Russian Garlic which we planted in the fall is doing great. I have to check the bulb formation - maybe I'll pull up one sometime next week as the shoots are over two feet high.

 Today we harvested Romaine Lettuce which was outgrowing the planter box. There's more coming up in the second planter box and also in the raised beds but I plan to sow more for a continuous supply.