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.

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.

Lettuce and Mint

I am still waiting to transplant the tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplants and the gourds. The weather is still cool for these heat loving plants. I was busy throughout the week and today noticed the larger leaves of the lettuce in the planter box on the patio. So is the mint which has over 4" leaves! This the first time we had mint with such large leaves. Probably this was due to the compost tea and fish fertilizer-that's my straight forward interpretation.

Meanwhile the butternut squash has sprouted. Two of the four seedlings died. This was due to exposure to cold as I kept them on the patio on a sunny day but it was the cold wind which did the damage.