Gardening That Grows With Me
Who says you can’t enjoy some summer flowers in October. Every year many of my clematis experience what I believe is clematis wilt. The bottom leaves turn brown and drop, leaving a poor looking climber in the garden. A Polish … Read More
Thanksgiving weekend finally provided us with a respite from rainy weather, allowing the garden to dry out enough to plant our fall garlic. Growing garlic is remarkably easy. Garlic is said to grow in a wide variety of soil types, … Read More
I do everything I can to keep weeds from encroaching in my garden… … I mulch my gardens to supress weeds and limit new seed germination by supressing light to weed seeds; … I pull weeds in all of my … Read More
What a great weekend we had. On Saturday we visited the Stratford Garlic Festival where I picked up some garlic to plant in the garden for next season’s enjoyment. Unfortunately I got a bit carried away, again. Remember the 7 … Read More
I’ve been a bit behind on the blogging front the last few weeks, having spent my time instead… Harvesting and preserving 4 bushels of tomatoes into 3 types of soup, 2 kinds of tomato sauce, and plain tomatoes now filling … Read More
We saw this field of sunflowers in Essex County while visiting my parents. Now I’m excited to plant a major patch for myself next year.
I harvested both our onions and garlic this week and am now drying them for storage. Onions are ready for harvesting when the tops have started to yellow and have fallen over. Garlic is ready to harvest once the leaves … Read More
We have been harvesting potatoes at least two times a week for the past couple of weeks now. Our potatoes were planted in a brand new garden this year and while we removed a lot of rocks from the soil … Read More
We’ve had a great summer so far — lots of rain from thunderstorms but also lots of sun and heat. As most gardeners do, I plan my day or week based on what the weather predicts. This week, with both … Read More
Summer is here and the vegetable garden is really in full swing. After enjoying much of our early season harvest of peas, lettuce, spinach, swiss chard and kholrabi we are now enjoying the bounty from our summer garden. We picked … Read More
The Fall Webworm (Hypantria cunea), a native pest found throughout North America, is now upon us. The fall webworm forms a large web sometimes one metre long over the ends of branches of birch, ash, Manitoba maple, flowering crab, and … Read More
We are definitely approaching the peak of the Japanese Beetle season. In our area, just north of Brantford, Ontario adult Japanese Beetles start appearing in early July but their peak season is from around the last week in July to … Read More
As a gardener I often get very frustrated with the weatherman. I mean really, sometimes they can’t even get the weather prediction correct a day ahead. Saturday’s weather though made it very apparent why predicting the weather can be so … Read More
Rosa ‘Lilli Marlene’ is another healthy rose that has stayed in my garden. Lilli Marlene is a floribunda rose with clusters of deep red blooms among dark green foliage. In order to help combat black spot during the hotter weather … Read More
Well I’ve heard the saying about corn being knee high by the Fourth of July but how about potatoes that high by Canada Day! Our very large potato crop is looking great so far this year. We’ve seen no sign … Read More
Rose season has arrived and those roses that do well certainly do look great when in bloom. Unfortunately between the heat and humidity causing black spot and powdery mildew and the japanese beetles attacking blooms I find it just too … Read More
We compost everything at our house from garden waste to table scraps, unfortunately we are lazy composters. Given the size of our gardens I produce a lot of garden waste and my method is basically to keep piling it up … Read More
While I don’t have records I’m sure this is the earliest I have ever had a red tomato. I picked the tomato on June 17 although we will enjoy it with dinner tomorrow. Why pick it early you say? Last … Read More
We enjoyed some early snow peas with our dinner this evening. Unfortunately we were not able to have any fresh pod peas. Despite surrounding the peas with 1/4 inch fencing and a mesh cover the chipmunks still managed to get … Read More
One of my favourite times of year is early to mid-June due in large part to peonies. This year it seems we have had a lot of rain and thunderstorms in June, making for a lot of floppy peonies. This … Read More