A First Time SFG in Canada

TD, what kind of melon? I am always a bit skittish of melons with my short summers.

SR ... Honeydew Melon.

It's taken a long time for the plants to produce fruit but once the fruit appears it seems to grow quite rapidly.

Update for Monday August 17, 2015.

The melons continue to expand in size.






Coriander

Looks great, TD!  How are the forks working for you?

AM ... the plastic forks are definitely doing their job. I will use them again on a square by square basis.  For a whole box (e.g., at the beginning of the season) I will use my chicken wire cages.  I also use plastic hardware cloth cages on individual squares and they have been successful but need to be buried into the MM to discourage critters from burrowing under the edge.  

Overall, my experiment with SFG in Ottawa has been a success. I will certainly do it again (Lord willing). I'll also continue to use the regular garden which is not really a row garden anyway.  It's more like areas ... an areas on the north side for a half dozen tomato plants, two to four square feet for bush beans, a small area for a few pepper plants, a short row of raspberries and a short row of potatoes.  The regular garden is more like SFG without the MM and grid. The worst part of the regular garden is the weeds.  The SFG garden has been a joy because there have been few weeds and those that do come up are easy to get out.  I may try an SFG on legs next year as a further experiment.

Glad it's working out, trolley.

A tabletop SFG bed would be great, making things so much easier now and especially in the future, as none of us are getting any younger and all that stooping is bound to get harder over the years.

Wow ... over 5400 views and over 250 replies ... I never would have guessed there would be that many when I started this thread.  Thanks to all those who have taken an interest in this newbie's SFG.

I agree, my dream SFG is table tops!

Update for Thursday August 20, 2015.  The veggies are doing well in both the SFG and regular garden.

Overall view of the two SFG boxes looking North-East.



View from behind the SFG boxes looking South-East.



These onions in the SFG are looking good.



Melons in the SFG continue to expand.



A cherry tomato plant in the regular garden is reaching for the sky.



A nice harvest of tomatoes from the regular garden.



An ugly harvest of Japanese Beetles shaken off the pole bean leaves.

Awesome! That beetle catch is the best catch of all. Those things infuriate me and drop and hop away so fast. Often really hard to catch ...

Love how green your yard is. And that big tall thick hedge is great. Lots of beautiful green.

I envy your cherry tomato too! Never got a tomato to grow that high even in pure compost.

Beautiful, TD! Will you lop off the tops of the tomato plants so the green fruits can ripen before frost? If so, when?

CC

CC ... I've never tried topping the tomato plants.  Maybe I'll give it a try this year.

It looks beautiful, TD!

Harvested some coriander seeds today. There are some green seeds which I removed after taking the photograph.

TD, Yours are so clean. Mine have all kinds of tiny bits of debris.

Sanderson ... there is some debris in there but difficult to see.

BTW we are getting overwhelmed with tomatoes from the regular garden.  Mrs Trolleydriver is blanching, removing the skins and seeds, and then freezing the meaty parts.  We are also giving some veggies (tomatoes, cucumbers, beans) to a single mom neighbour across the street.

trolleydriver wrote:CC ... I've never tried topping the tomato plants.  Maybe I'll give it a try this year.

Yes, I lop them off around the beginning of Sept. Any green fruits left get picked at first frost, laid out in a single layer in a brown box and stuck in the corner of my living room behind the TV. They ripen over time, a few may rot so are removed immediatly. Sometimes I get to eat tomatoes at Christmas.

CC

Until I was able to let more sunlight into my yard, I had to pull all the green tomatoes indoors to ripen.  I was surprised how well they did.

I also cut chrysanthemum flowers when in bud a couple of years ago and to my surprise they finally opened and lasted for weeks inside. These were forced hot house plants given to me and usually I tossed them after flowering.  You know, the apparent dwarf plants sold in the likes of Safeway.  This time I decided to plant them in the garden, and they grew a couple of feet tall but the flowers were always caught by the frost. The following year I did my experiment of cutting them so I will do that in future. The season is not long enough for them here to flower outdoor. I particularly like them because my foster-dad grew them and they remind me of him.

trolleydriver wrote:We are also giving some veggies (tomatoes, cucumbers, beans) to a single mom neighbour across the street.

That is an awesome thing to do. I'm really glad to once in a rare while read or hear about people doing this.

And grats on having a good enough harvest that you could even have to wonder what to do with all you got!

+1

KJ, I'm glad you found a way to enjoy chrysanthemums with your short season. I have permanent ones outside but the flowers are never as big as they were when I first planted them. I think the growers must prune them so the energy just goes to the main flower or 2. I love their smell.

sanderson wrote:KJ,  I'm glad you found a way to enjoy chrysanthemums with your short season.  I have permanent ones outside but the flowers are never as big as they were when I first planted them.  I think the growers must prune them so the energy just goes to the main flower or 2.  I love their smell.

I think the smell is a bit like Marmite, you like or hate it. Apart from the look of them, it is the smell that reminds me of my dear dad.  He also grew dahlias as well, and  reminds me of him as well.

Do you ever wish you could go back in time as the person you are now, and meet with all these people of your past and get to know them in a different way? As grown ups?

One of my tomato plants (in the regular garden ... not SFG) is producing tomatoes with yellow shoulders.  They look pretty but are not as good to eat.




Some information on this condition:
http://www.garden.org/subchannels/edibles/veggies?q=show&id=2221

Kelejan wrote:
Do you ever wish you could go back in time as the person you are now, and meet with all these people of your past and get to know them in a different way? As grown ups?

Yeah. It can be very hard. I don't think it generally works.