Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Today is winter solstice, the first day of Winter and the shortest day of the year.  From here on, the days are going to start getting longer again, which means in a few months it'll be time to get planting again!  Time to research and brain storm about next season's gardening ideas.... :)  Meanwhile, 

have a wonderful holiday and happy new year! 

Root vegetables

The root vegetables in my garden were the big winners this year - in particular the Chioggia beets.  I enjoyed them quite a bit last year so this year I decided to plant a lot of more of them.  As usual, the Chioggia beets will grow in a variety of colours - candy stripe , red, or just pure white.  This year, we got mostly candy-striped and one white ones.    

  

They not only taste delicious, but they are also beautiful to look at.  Look at that colour!!  

I found a recipe from the New York Times for Chioggia beets, quinoa, and walnut salad: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/07/health/spinach-salad-with-red-and-chioggia-beets-quinoa-and-walnuts.html?_r=0

The beets were so successful that they grew well into November.  Here are the last few from the end of the season harvest.  I boiled them quickly and fried it up with some butter - they were delicious! 

This year I also planted two variety of carrots - Solar Yellow carrots and French carrots.  The French carrots had this very cute, round shape root.  However, I find carrot growing to be a bit less satisfying (compared to beets) because they take almost the entire season to grow and the final edible portion is quite small (again, at least compared to beets).   Still, they were incredibly delicious so I was still glad to have planted them.  

Pesto

Every year I regret not planting enough basil, so this year I went to the extreme and literally planted basil everywhere (where ever I could fit them) in the vegetable planters.  Most of them were planted near the tomato plants, apparently basils are great companion plants for tomato plants as it's supposed to enrich the flavours of the tomatoes.     

 

I was quite pleased with the amount of basil I got to harvest throughout the season.  Fresh herbs are just so wonderful and handy to have around - a little bit over here on the pasta, a little bit over there for sauce, and some just to garnish the plate.  All together we had plenty of basil share with friends and family this time around, even enough to make a batch of pesto at the end of the season ;) 

Hydrangeas in the Fall

I know the Fall is coming when the hydrangeas begin to turn pink.  These Limelight PG hydrangeas take on a beautiful rosy/blush colour in the late summer / early Fall.  It's quite a spectacular plant as the flower clusters grows to quite large size - you can see it from a mile a way (well, not exactly a mile, but far enough).   This is probably the plant I get the most compliments on consistently on a yearly basis (and it requires the least amount of work - all I do is trim the branches in the Spring!)

Tomatoes this year

This has not been the best summer for my tomato plants.  This year, I planted two variety of tomatoes - Caspian Pink tomatoes and Big Rainbow tomatoes.  I decided to try planting larger tomatoes rather than Cherry tomatoes like last year to give it a try.  I had a late start with starting the tomato seeds this year, so the seedlings were small to begin with at the beginning of summer.  The cool and wet summer weather we've been having didn't help either.  I took the plants till early August to form fruits.  

The tomatoes actually stayed green for a very long time, almost one month.  I think it was almost the beginning of September when the first tomato turned orange/red.  

 Unfortunately I think the tomato plants were blighted (late blight) so by the time the fruits were changing colour, some of the leafs and stems were starting to turn brown.  At the end of the season, we only got a handful of edible tomatoes, rather disappointing results from five tomato plants.  I did a bit of research and found some resources on how to prevent tomato blight.  I think the key will be in air circulation, as well as having variety of tomato species (going to plan some cherry tomatoes for sure), at which some species are more blight-resistant than others.  I will need to start the seeds much earlier next season to ensure the seedlings have plenty of time to develop before going outdoors.    

Also, some warmer summer weather would help as well (keeping my fingers crossed for next season).   

Here's a good link to some resources related to tomato blight: 

http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/factsheets/dc20.php

Garden Bouquet

A summer bouquet from the garden :) 

Tips for keeping garden pests away

And..... they are back (my nemeses - the squirrels).  They seem to have no fear of human what so ever and love to hang out on top of the backyard fence.  You actually have to run outside and stomp of the deck pretty hard and charge at them before they will start to run away.  

 

The latest casualty were the cucumbers.  They take perfect little cucumbers and shreds them to pieces and throw half of it on the ground..... 

I know it's the squirrels destroying the vegetables this year because I believe the family of raccoon in the neighborhood have moved away (they haven't been seen too often this summer).  I really don't know how to keep them away other than put cages around all my vegetables but that's rather unsightly.....  

Any one have some environmentally friendly & humane way to keep pests away?  I was browsing around and found this article - may have to try some of these methods next year... 

http://ca.shine.yahoo.com/blogs/shine-on/top-five-tips-keeping-garden-pests-away-191806583.html

July Update

Quick update from the vegetable garden.  So far we've been able to harvest radish, bak choy, red lettuce, and mint the past few weeks.  With his year's late start to Spring and some very extreme weather conditions in Toronto we've been getting this summer (it's either cold, very rainy, or extremely hot and humid), I would say we're having "medium" success with the vegetables so far.....

Still, I'm very thankful any vegetable we've been able to harvest - food straight from the backyard, it really doesn't get any more "local" and organic than that.  Plus, there's just something very satisfying about food that I've planted from seeds..... 

The Caspian Pink tomatoes are finally starting to bloom.  The blossoms are small but quite beautiful actually.  And I really love the smell of the tomato plant..... 

Lettuce are doing quite well in the one planter that is on the shadier side of the deck :) 

And cucumbers are coming!  Waiting for this first one to be ready.... I think it's almost there! 

Flowers!

Happy Friday!  Colourful flowers are blooming! 

Clematis

The clematis in the backyard this year is FINALLY growing into the shape I've been training it to.  The eventual goal is to have them grow onto the large tree trunk that's along the fence and covered by the beautiful purple flowers and foliage.  

I never know how to prune back clematis during the off season (Fall?  or Spring?).  So I did a little bit of research on the "inter-web" and found some useful links:

http://www.raymondevisonclematis.com/main/guidesPruning-simple.asp?a=1

http://www.finegardening.com/how-to/articles/clematis-pruning-guide.aspx

Also, I've been trying to figure out what kind of clematis this is as it was planted by the previous owners of the house.  After some research, I think this is the common "Clematis Jackmanii" - purple in colour and four-petal configuration.  

Strawberries

Spring and Summer had a late arrival this season, so did the strawberries in our yard.  The strawberry blooms didn't start until almost the end of May...

The fruits finally started to form after Memorial Day.  I used the plastic bird prevention net and ground stakes again to help protect some of the crops, knowing that it'll probably be a light year for strawberries this season, so I had to protect whatever we can get.... 

Finally, first strawberries ready to eat on June 10th.  It didn't help that it's been such a rainy Spring/early Summer, that some of the fruits started to rot before they were even ripened.  

I'm still extremely thankful that I got to enjoy fresh strawberries from my own backyard.  Even though they are not the sweetest strawberries, they are so much more fragrant than the ones from the store, which makes the perfect for SMOOTHIES! 

Colour in nature

Beautiful colours - all from nature! 

Rain, rain, and more rain....

Although not preferred by people, Spring rain is extremely good for plants... and water/dew drop photography! 

I love how the water drops are beaded and suspended on leaves and branches...  

My nemesis

This is an act of my nemesis ... "the squirrel".... 

Only in our neighborhood do the squirrels try to hide a large piece of pita/naan in the soil of a small potted plant.  Really?  Is that the only place you can hide your treasures?  There's a whole yard right in front of you!    Grrrrrr....  

Hopefully they won't cause too much havoc on the strawberry patch and vegetable garden this year! 

Happy Victoria Day!

Happy Victoria Day!  Lots of gardening plans for the holiday weekend.  Everything are in full bloom in the garden (finally!) despite the slow start to Spring.  The garden seems to be much fuller this year compared to  last year, so in the near future I'll probably have to put in some "clean up" effort.  

Here's an updated view of the backyard.  Vegetable seedlings are have been transported to the planters and more vegetable seeds have been sowed.  I've put up the "safety net" in place straight away because I can't risk having the squirrels destroy the small seedlings (due to late start of Spring).  

What were your gardening plans for the long weekend holiday?  

Spring Bulbs

 

Spring bulbs in the front yard have started to come up for a few weeks now.  This year, we have:

(Left above) Hyacinth (Orientalis Mix - various colours) - first ones out of the gate this year, very fragrant and beautiful colours.  The kids in the neighborhood seems to like them :) 

(Right above) Daffodil "Sir Winston Churchill" - these are beautiful as well as incredibly fragrant.  The only downside to them is that they are quite "head heavy", as they have double petals as well as multiple flowers per stem.  So if there's heavy rain fall, the think stems aren't actually strong enough to hold up the flowers and ends up snapping.  So this years these ended up as cut flowers I have in my house, which are perfect because they smell so nice! 

(Left above) Narcissi "Texas" - double petal yellow bright yellow daffodil.  Really gorgeous, strong stems.  

(Right above) Muscari "Armeniacum" - first year planting these.  Apparently they're also known as Grape Hyacinth.    They are low to the ground and have very pretty purple colour.  

 

(Left above) Orange tulips - we got incredibly lucky that the squirrels didn't get to these before they were in bloom.  Theses are not as orange in colour as I was hoping for, but still beautiful to look at :)

(Right above) And lastly, these beautiful little flowers (which I did not plant) came out again this year.  Last year I had a post just for this flower trying to see if any of my friends/family would be able to identify it.  This year I finally found out what they were called!!  These are "Puschkinia".  A flower named in honour of a Russian botanist.  

The only other bulb still yet to bloom are the Allium "Purple Sensation" also known as Dutch garlic.  I'm hoping in a week or two they will be in full bloom.  Can't wait! :)

Here's a link to a handy little bulb planting chart http://www.bhg.com/gardening/flowers/bulbs/planting-charts-for-spring-flowering-bulbs/  .  I'm already brewing some ideas about how to re-arrange some of these bulbs later and what to plant for next season.  

Seedlings transferred to soil

Seedling updates!  The seeds I started with the wet paper towel method have been transferred to soil and containers (all indoor still).  They are adapting to the soil quite well and are growing quickly, reaching for the sun!

As I mentioned before, this year I'm trying to be organized, so I've put together a nice little chart for what I've planted in each of these little containers: 

Keeping my fingers crossed that these will survive through the next few weeks! 

Seed starting 2013 and Frost Chart

I started looking at my calendar and realized that I really need to hurry up and begin starting some seeds for my vegetable gardens.  Compared to last year I am actually quite behind schedule so I need to get to work straight away if I want to have decent size plants to plant outside by the time we get our last frost here in Toronto.  (here's a handy Frost Chart for Canada: http://www.almanac.com/content/frost-chart-canada )

Luckily I've been collecting used food containers all winter so at least I can start the seeds using the wet paper towel method before I have a chance to go purchase and prepare other containers with potting soil etc for the seedlings.   

This year I plan on planting a lot of the same vegetables as last year and some new variety with seeds I purchased at the Canada Blooms show:

- Parisian Market Carrot

- Rosa Bianca Eggplant

- Caspian Pink Tomato

-Big Rainbow Tomato

- California Wonder Golden Pepper

I have never planted eggplants before, so that should be very interesting.  And I'm really looking forward to those Pink and Rainbow tomatoes, they are apparently of heirloom varieties and they have beautiful colours and distinctive/unique shape.  I'm also hoping that I'll have a better handle on how to space out plantings and replantings this year, so that for certain vegetables (i.e. lettuce) I can have a more manageable harvest where I harvest fewer plants at a time, but more continuously throughout the summer (instead of having 10 heads of lettuce at a time and having to wait a few weeks before the next harvest, I can harvest 3 hears of lettuce at a time, but on a weekly basis).  

Wish me luck! :) 

Canada Blooms 2013

Welcome to the 2013 Canada Blooms show.  Since I'm running low on time to blog these days, here are simply a few fun photos with short captions (they say a picture speaks a thousand words)!

This year again there were many fun and interesting landscape design display.  It was a bit too crowded so and we were being herded like cows through each booth, so I didn't have very many chance to take photos. He's a fun one, with the green roof on the (fake) dog house.  I'd build that if I have a dog :)

I find myself attracted more to the floral display portion of the show.  There were some amazing pieces, such as this one.

I think my favorite floral display of the show was this poppy themed one by Quince Flowers.  

The poppies were GORGEOUS and the way they've placed single stems in various glass vessels made it very interesting to look at.  

But I believe the favorite part of the show was the "Abracadabra" Youth Competition.  These were all pieces made by little little kids (as young as 3!) made with dried leaves, flowers, and other floral related materials.  

They were so much fun to look at, and so creative!  They look like such fun projects!  

And I caught a glimpse of Mr. Lady Bug.  He was a huge hit with all the little kids that day!!

Happy Canada Blooms!

Happy Spring!

Today is officially the first day of Spring, although the latest winter wind is giving us -2 Celsius and flurries, it certainly doesn't feel like Spring yet.

But I've definitely been thinking about warm weather and plans for the gardens already (especially after going to the Canada Blooms show - which I will post pictures soon).  Lots of ideas this year for both the flower and vegetable gardens.  And perhaps I should start some seeds soon as I think I'm already behind schedule for that (looking back at last year's blog posts, I actually started my vegetable seeds at the end of February because it was such a mild winter!).  

But for now here is a pretty "spring-like" photo of my latest indoor purchase to celebrate the official start of the Spring season!