Garlic breath...

This photo kind of makes me drool. Gaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrliiiiiiiiiic!

I love growing garlic! Thus far, I haven't grow anything easier. Pop the clove in the ground in late September, mulch so it doesn't get too cold, and in spring, watch it grow!

The heads I got this year were a little smaller than last year's, so I'm going to dig some compost into the bed, which ought to loosen the soil and bit and give the plants more nutrients.

Thus far I've stuck with a hardneck type, but I'm going to try a softneck variety from East Coast Seeds this fall. I'm a little fuzzy on the differences, but I know that hardneck varieties grow a scape in mid-summer, which is a seedhead on a stalk that you need to pinch off if you want your garlic to continue growing. The scapes taste really great sauteed with beans! Supposedly the softneck types are better for gardens further south because they're less hardy, but my backyard is very sheltered and I'm looking forward to putting my little microclimate to the test. This type is supposed to store longer than the hardneck style. They're the kind you can braid together, which you've probably seen in photos of garlic.

One other thing I thought I might try this year is storing them differently. You peel the cloves and soak them in vinegar for 24 hours. Then pop them in a container of olive oil and store them in the fridge! 

Garden Tour

I attended the edible garden tour in Edmonton last Sunday, and boy is it amazing to see what people have done with their yards! It was put together by Wild Green Consulting, and we went to about 10 different places, including the University Garden and several totally amazing yards. One of them was a yard backing onto the river valley, and they had made a series of swales and berms all the way down (it looks like terracing) and planted fruit trees into the berms, along with plants to keep the berms from washing away. It was great to see what all is happening in Edmonton - many of the yards were completely grass-free. They ranged from the super-weedy to the incredibly well-kept, and from suburban-sized to, well, the terraced acre.

At the University Farm, there's a giant garden run by volunteers. They sell the produce on Tuesdays and Saturdays, and donate the proceeds to a non-profit in Rwanda that helps women who've dealt with abuse and war.

But my favorite spot was the children's garden at Belgravia Elementary School. It was a naturescape including trees, little hills, even a shallow pond. The kids apparently come down to the pond to do pond studies, they race around the area during recess, clamber on the rocks, and even roll down the little hills in winter. Who says you need grass to play on? I'm rapidly learning that if planned properly, a garden (or naturescape) can provide much more "scope for the imagination"! I'm hoping to include some elements for kids in my front-yard garden. Not sure what yet, but it'll come.

Bye-bye lawn (part 2)

Say hello to some more photos taken at dusk! (hence the fuzziness). But the fuzziness might be beneficial, since it helps blur the line between the old and new sections. I'm very thankful to my in-laws for providing two lovely bales of STRAW instead of hay for the new section. Yay for less weeds! On Saturday we're going out and loading up a truckload of compost to put on top, so hopefully the neighbors will stop giggling behind their curtains at the weirdo with the barn on her lawn. 

The view from the deck.

The view from the road.

Someone asked me a while ago about whether it smelled. Frankly, the first section I did was pretty rank for a couple days. But that's because the grass I used had been sitting around for at least a week, cooped up in plastic bags during a heat wave. Yeah. You get it. 

But thus far, what I have done tonight doesn't smell at all. Fresh grass and straw instead of hay seems to have done wonders. Good thing, because I might have gotten some neighborly complaints had my front yard smelled like the underside of a compost heap for much longer.  And they were buffeted from the worst of the smell because it was up close to the house. So if you plan to do this, don't let your grass rot inside its bags. That's just a recipe for nasty.

Fruity Photos

If you're interested in what an Evan's Cherry looks like, here they are:

They're similar in flavor to a nanking cherry, but they are the same size and shape as a bing cherry (you know, the super sweet ones you get in the grocery store around this time of year. Yum).

The haul from the backyard farmyard. Actually, there were two pails of cherries.

Cherry jam/jelly. I'm too lazy to strain so it's kind of a random-looking concoction. 

The heavy stuff floated to the bottom. But it tastes good! The apples turned into applesauce which the kids are gobbling up at a fierce rate! 

Sweet Fruity Goodness

I went to pick some cherries and apples tonight, and fell in love with the yard of this elderly couple in an older part of town. So in love that I told her to call me if she ever wanted to sell her house! This woman had it all - compost, firewood, shade trees, fruit trees, vegetables, ponds (yes, plural), and even some lawn. It was phenomenal. Too bad my yard is about 1/6 the size.

But you may have gotten stuck on the word 'cherries'. Yes, you can grow cherries in central Alberta! In fact, you might be surprised at what fruits you can grow here. There's the obvious apples, strawberries, raspberries, currants, gooseberries, and saskatoons, but there's also new varieties of fruits that are being bred to be hardy here on the Canadian prairies. Things like Evans cherries, which is what I picked tonight. They're considered sour cherries but are easily eaten out of hand if ripe. This year I planted a Juliet cherry in my front yard, which I believe is sweeter than an Evan's cherry, and it's also a bush (rather than a tree) which is good for smaller yards. There are several other cherries that are available now as well. Check out Prairie Tech more info.

A couple weeks ago I was at a home that was growing grapes. Yes, there are grapes you can grow here as well! And kiwis, and blackberries, and pears. If you want to get really crazy, Prairie Tech even sells Gojiberry seedlings as well as Sea Buckthorn (but those are male/female so you need at least two). 

Last but certainly not least are the haskaps, which are quickly gaining popularity as an easy-to-grow alternative to blueberries. I have 6 bushes, with one if them already producing a decent crop. If you get them, be sure to do your research, as there are different 'grades' of haskaps. Borealis and Tundra will be high-producers, as well as Berry Blue, but most of the varieties you see in the greenhouse are of the lesser stock. My mother-in-law gave me a tip - if the plants is getting sun-scald (blackened leaves in late summer), it's not a good one.

So there's a surprising amount of choices out there, you just have to be willing to source out what's hardy where you live. I'm still trying to decide what will be my two main fruit bushes/trees I add to the front yard in spring, but I keep needing to remind myself of one thing: plant what you love! Don't love apples? Don't grow apples! ;) 

the paradoxical fungus

Is it just me, or does the phrase "powdery mildew" seem like a contradiction? If something is mildew-y, should it not be soggy and stinky?

At any rate, it's killing my squash plants this year, and a few of my cucumbers as well. Oddly enough, it's only on the squash plants in my raised beds, not on the gardens by the fence. It seems to grow well in hot weather, but really loves the moisture we've been having this year. I think it rains almost every day! I have a running joke with my husband that as soon as I water the garden or hang clothes on the line, it rains.

I've been doing some reading about it and about organic methods of containing it, and it seems like there's not much you can do unless you get something that will also kill beneficial organisms (sulphur and copper being included in that). So, I'm going to try spraying on a baking soda and water remedy (1 tsp baking soda in 1 quart of water) that I read about in the Rodale Organic Gardening book. I hope it works, because besides looking gross, powdery mildew can cause problems with the fruits. My guess is that it impedes photosynthesis so the plants can't put as much energy into fruit production. And I want my pumpkins!

I'm trying desperately to figure out why my parents' garden grows amazing squashes and cucumbers year after year, and mine almost always do terrible. Case in point, I planted pumpkins in their garden at the same time as I planted the same type in mine, and mine have powdery mildew (which theirs don't) and very few flowers. The ones in their garden, however, have pumpkins almost as big as my head already! Oh the fun of horticulture.

Comments

I discovered that the comments weren't working, but I think I fixed that up! Post away, I love to hear other people's experiences and questions!

The beginning of the end...

...of the lawn, that is! So tonight I got started on my sheet-mulching project. Here are a few photos. (Sorry about the fuzziness of some of them, good old camera phone :)

STEP 1: Mow lawn! Leave the clippings on the lawn to encourage organisms who like to decompose.

STEP 2: Add lawn clippings from backyard, add bone meal, and water. Water will have a hard time getting through all the layers, so best to soak the ground now.

STEP 3: Cardboard and sprinkler. This will kill the grass. Or rather, it will cause the microscopic organisms and bugs to convert the grass into useful topsoil!

STEP 4: More grass (aka the nitrogen-rich layer of my in-place composting). It will also encourage those little critters to munch through the cardboard to reach the juicy stuff up top. 

STEP 5: Old hay (aka the carbon-heavy part of the compost). Had I an option, I would prefer to use straw since it's seed-free. I plan to hopefully get enough cardboard to cover up the hay so that no weed seeds infiltrate my new garden. At least not right away. On top of the layer of cardboard will go as much compost as I can rustle up! 

Sheet-mulching is so interesting to me, because it's basically just composting in place. The theory is that the sheet mulch slowly decomposes to make a fantastic base for your plants. It's organic, fairly weed-free (unless you use hay!) and WAY cheaper than topsoil. And instead of adding a landscaping fabric or other material that renders the current topsoil useless, I will now have that much more lovely soil in which to grow my plants! And it will be made that much better because the mulch will attract all sorts of soil-amending critters.

I need to get a lot more materials though. This took up almost an entire bale of hay, 5 bags of grass (plus what we gleaned from the backyard this evening), and a LOT of cardboard. I will need to put the rest of the lawn on hold until I can rustle up some more compostable materials!

Worms

One of the best things I've even done for my garden has been getting into vermicomposting - composting using red wiggler worms (not the common earthworm found in the garden). I have a large rubbermaid container with holes in the lid, and occasionally I chuck in some fruit and vegetable waste after prepping a meal. In summer I send most of my compost outside, but in winter a lot more finds its way to the worms. The worms then turn it into the most amazing compost ever in just a few days! 

An interesting thing I heard this winter was to put tons of banana peels in, which makes your compost very high in potassium. Potassium is the essential nutrient for flowering and fruiting vegetables, such as tomatoes and peppers (it's the K in the N-P-K number on chemical fertilizers). After doing that all winter, I put a handful of vermicompost in each planting hole when I transplanted tomatoes into the garden, and they are going crazy! In fact, I have one Early Girl Tomato that has over 50 tomatoes on it right now!

Here's a site someone just sent me that has the most thorough and helpful explanation for how to set up your own bin: Red Worm Composting. 

More on vermicomposting some other day, time to play with the kidlets!