Third Year SFG in Canada

Your garden is certainly coming into itself, TD. I know it took a long time this year but the results are fabulous! I sure hope I catch up soon. I actually picked 4 Sungold tomatoes today. And there's about 5 cucumbers sitting on my counter but they are various sizes and shapes, mostly four or five inches long and quite curly.. I think I'll try some pickles.

PS. Your little harvest of strawberries is about the same size as my whole Harvest this year. Bet you're glad you took care of that bed the way you did!

CapeCoddess wrote:Your garden is certainly coming into itself, TD. I know it took a long time this year but the results are fabulous! I sure hope I catch up soon. I actually picked 4 Sungold tomatoes today. And there's about 5 cucumbers sitting on my counter but they are various sizes and shapes, mostly four or five inches long and quite curly.. I think I'll try some pickles.

PS. Your little harvest of strawberries is about the same size as my whole Harvest this year. Bet you're glad you took care of that bed the way you did!

Thanks CC.

I need to pick the cucumbers (English, slicing and pickling) but I am afraid there will be so many that I will be overwhelmed. I'll probably use the English cukes in a yummy cucumber, onion, vinegar salad.

trolleydriver wrote: I'll probably use the English cukes in a yummy cucumber, onion, vinegar salad.

We do that too! But we also add thinly sliced tomatoes to it. Yum!

Decided to take the plunge and harvest some beets and cucumbers. There are many more cukes on the vines.

I only got one Golden Beet (on the far right) so far.  The red ones did fine.






English (long) plus pickling and slicing cukes.

Brought in a very small harvest of Banana Peppers and Roma Tomatoes from the SFG.



Sweet Melons after the morning rain. I'm wondering if I should harvest the larger of the two.





Golden Zucchini.  Mrs TD wants me to let them grow larger so that she can make zucchini bread.



Pollinators on a Canada Crookneck Squash.




The largest of the Canada Crooknecks is now 10 inches long. The tip of the longest vine on the Crooknecks is two feet from the top of the megatrellis.






Photos of some of the small Canada Crooknecks that are developing. Fingers crossed that we don't run out of summer weather before these mature.

Needed some carrots so I thinned out a square in the SFG. The longest carrot from shoulder to the very tip of the root is 13 inches and that was grown in about 7 inches of MM. So I have to assume that the root penetrated the weed barrier and went down into the regular soil.

That sure is a beautiful harvest you've got there, TD! I'm curious, how many SFG beds do you have planted, to get all of that?

hammock gal wrote:That sure is a beautiful harvest you've got there, TD! I'm curious, how many SFG beds do you have planted, to get all of that?

Thanks HG.

In terms of All New SFG beds I have 
- Four 4x4 beds
- One U shaped bed started this year and consisting of a 3x6 leg, a 2x6 leg and a 2x2 joining the legs

I also have Old Style (amended soil) SFG beds
- Two 4x4 beds
- One approx. 2.5 x 6 bed which I started this year

Then I have veggies growing in the leftovers of a compost bin as well as a portion of my wife's regular soil flower beds. And we have several raspberry bushes (been there for years) and two blueberry bushes (planted this year).

In terms of actual SFG there are 98 squares All New style and approx. 47 squares of Old Style. Although there is a lot more available space in the yard, I think I have reached my limit.

trolleydriver wrote:

hammock gal wrote:That sure is a beautiful harvest you've got there, TD! I'm curious, how many SFG beds do you have planted, to get all of that?

Thanks HG.

In terms of All New SFG beds I have 
- Four 4x4 beds
- One U shaped bed started this year and consisting of a 3x6 leg, a 2x6 leg and a 2x2 joining the legs

I also have Old Style (amended soil) SFG beds
- Two 4x4 beds
- One approx. 2.5 x 6 bed which I started this year

Then I have veggies growing in the leftovers of a compost bin as well as a portion of my wife's regular soil flower beds. And we have several raspberry bushes (been there for years) and two blueberry bushes (planted this year).

In terms of actual SFG there are 98 squares All New style and approx. 47 squares of Old Style. Although there is a lot more available space in the yard, I think I have reached my limit.

Whoa! Well, no wonder you've got such a haul. That's quite a lot of "acreage" you've got there. I'm jealous. How wonderful to be able to grow all of that for you and Mrs. TD! I bet you really look forward to eating out of the garden each day.

TD,  You forgot the 2'x4' herb TT.  Totally jealous of your winter squash.  As far as the melon, is the juncture tendril dried? I can see the girding rings on the carrots where they went through the weed fabric. Was this bed lined with inexpensive weed fabric. I can't imagine a carrot growing through the commercial grade. But, then, roots are tenacious.

You should update your total footage here.  https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t9390p175-how-many-square-feet-do-you-have?highlight=total+square+feet

sanderson wrote:TD,  You forgot the 2'x4' herb TT.  Totally jealous of your winter squash.  As far as the melon, is the juncture tendril dried?  I can see the girding rings on the carrots where they went through the weed fabric.  Was this bed lined with inexpensive weed fabric.  I can't imagine a carrot growing through the commercial grade.  But, then, roots are tenacious.

You should update your total footage here.  https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t9390p175-how-many-square-feet-do-you-have?highlight=total+square+feet

Sanderson, you are correct on all points. I'll have to check the tendril.  Yup I forgot the 2x4 table top for an additional 8 squares. I also noticed the rings on the carrots. I did use cheaper weed fabric but I'm not too worried because of the good soil underneath.

These ingredients all came from the SFG and went into a cucumber salad with added vinegar and sugar.





The Yukon Gold Potatoes are delicious.  Here one of our granddaughters is holding a couple of them dug out of the old compost bin.





This is Chinese Five Color Pepper started indoors from seeds.





The Amaranth continues its journey.





These Zinnias also were started indoors. It took them a long time to develop but they are really nice.

Cute granddaughter, big potatoes, colorful peppers, etc. Wow!

The morning thunderstorm with potential hail passed through. There was some damage in the garden.

Thankfully, the Canada Crookneck Squash survived even though the big one was swinging wildly in the wind. Everything in the SFG beds seems to be OK.



The Amaranth at the front of the house got bent over.




These flowers in Mrs TD's garden did not do well.

Picked a True Black Brandywine Tomato. This is my first one ever.  The plants were started indoors from seeds obtained from Baker Creek. This tomato has a couple of holes on the top so I expected to see not so nice things inside. But after cutting and inspecting it, there appears to be no problem. Hopefully I did not miss any alien creature hiding in it and that will grow inside me and burst out of my chest cavity. 

trolleydriver wrote:Picked a True Black Brandywine Tomato. This is my first one ever.  The plants were started indoors from seeds obtained from Baker Creek. This tomato has a couple of holes on the top so I expected to see not so nice things inside. But after cutting and inspecting it, there appears to be no problem. Hopefully I did not miss any alien creature hiding in it and that will grow inside me and burst out of my chest cavity. 

Reminds me of a guy on the news a few years ago. He went in for surgery to remove a tumor in his lung. Turned out to be a bean sprout!   Wouldn't it be nice if all of our health scares could turn out that well?

A small harvest today of sweet million tomatoes, roma tomatoes (not very big), golden wax beans, purple bush beans and tomatillos. The tomatillos are windfalls that were lying ... (or is that laying?) ... on the ground.

Wow! Nice colorful harvest! Look at all those beans! I picked 6 beans today...the most yet.

I am just lovin' watching the Canada Crookneck Squash plants climb the megatrellis. These are in this year's new U-shaped SFG bed.
  

Come on baby, you are almost there.  Reach for the top.




Can you pick out the three Canada Crookneck squashes in this second photo?




And there are four in this photo. Actually there are more on the plants but they are quite small.

Here is an overview shot of the SFG.  The sun is getting lower in the sky at this time of the year and for part of the morning the edge of the shadow from the house is almost touching the nearest edge of the SFG.


This is the first year I've grown Okra. It was another of my many experiments and this one was to see if I can grow Okra in this part of Canada. The plants are not huge but they do have some pods on them. I've never cooked Okra but I may give it a try today.

The Okra flowers are really nice.




May be able to see the Okra "fruit" on this photo. The plants are in an old style SFG bed.




Some Roma Tomatoes in an ANSFG bed. It has not been a good summer for my tomato plants.




This Golden Zucchini plant is growing in the soil in front of one of my compost bins.




The Tomatillo plants in an old style SFG bed are producing well.

Every thing looks lovely, TD! Roma envy here.

I have total garden envy.

Thanks CC and S. I really did not expect to have much of a garden this year and the weeks of wet, cloudy weather at the start of Summer really set the plants back. My tomatoes are not doing all that well and the peppers and eggplants are almost a total loss ... although I did see two green bell peppers today. Garlic, Kale, Chard, Lettuce, Cucumbers, Onions, Tomatillos have all done well. Experimental crops like Cucamelon, Okra, and Amaranth have done better than expected. The Leeks look to be OK and I will probably use them to make Potato Leek Soup using the wonderful Yukon Gold Potatoes that have been great so far. The Everbearing Strawberries got off to a bad start but have really bounced back once the wet weather ended. My Acorn Squash plant died and the two White Scallop Squash have failed to produce any fruit. The Golden Zucchini could have done better. I did get one good Broccoli and I have two Cabbages which are feeding the white butterfly caterpillars.  Golden Wax Beans did not produce much but the Purple Bush Beans have done better. The one square of Red Beets was great but the one square of Golden Beets only produced one edible beet.  I did not plant enough carrots but the ones I did plant did OK. Herbs (Parsely, Thyme, Basil) are passable. Mrs TD's Everbearing Raspberries have been disappointing so far but there is a ton of fruit waiting to ripen. The Sunflowers that survived the creature attacks have not even flowered. I have two softball size and one smaller Melons of an unknown variety. The Sakatas Sweet Melon plant did not produce any fruit. The real surprise has been the Canada Crookneck Squash. Looks like I may get seven squash from those plants (fingers crossed) and I can't wait to try the first one. 

(Note: A big thanks to sanderson for her encouragement to build the megatrellis and plant Canada Crookneck Squash).

I think I try to grow to many things given the size of the garden.

Decided I better harvest a few things before the potential frost hits tonight.

Three varieties of Cucumbers, Golden Zucchinis, a Melon (unknown variety), True Black Brandywine Tomatoes, Roma Tomatoes, Sweet Million Tomatoes, Cucamelons, Red Chili Peppers, Chinese Five Color Peppers (purple), Everbearing Strawberries, Green Bell Peppers, ugly looking Banana Peppers, three varieties of Eggplants (really small this year).