Third Year SFG in Canada

What blessings!

Crazy weather here for this time of the year. I had to put on the air conditioning this morning to cool the house and remove the high humidity. It is so warm outside that I was able to go for a walk in the neighborhood wearing shorts. Family members are with us a for a visit including five grandchildren.

This morning I took two Golden Zucchini from the garden plus a couple of Roma Tomatoes, some Cucamelons and Raspberries. The grandkids filled a good sized bowl with Raspberries yesterday and we used some Romaine Lettuce for a Caesar salad. Today for evening meal we will include carrots and beans previously harvested from the SFG. 

I can see a couple of Cucumbers still developing on the vines. I have not yet harvested the Sweet Sakatas Melon as well as one last Canada Crookneck Squash.  There's a lot of other things out there in the SFG including Sweet Million Tomatoes, Leeks, Kale, Swiss Chard, Carrots, Bush Beans, a few Peas, Tomatillos, various Lettuce, Multiplier Onions, Mizuna, a few Strawberries, Coriander, Parsley, Thyme, Sage, etc. The temperature in the 3x3x3 compost bin is at 140F and it's less than half full. 

So many things to be thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day long weekend in Canada. Our actual Thanksgiving Day is always the second Monday in October. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Did some cleaning up in the garden today. This included harvesting the last Canada Crookneck Squash (CCS) and the remaining Cucumbers.   I then removed the CCS and Cuke vines so they are all done for this year.   Mrs TD harvested her Ground Cherries and pulled the plants. We also harvested Raspberries, Tomatoes and Tomatillos but there will be more of them to come this year if the weather keeps holding up.

The SFG area before the cleanup.



The megatrellis after removing the squash vines. Still have carrots and radishes growing in the center row of this bed.



This pretty little gardener visited us this past weekend along with her brother, sister and two cousins (boy and girl).



This is the Frankensquash ... Canada Crookneck plant growing next to a Godlen Zucchini plant.



It is still producing small Frankensquashes.



The harvest.

Holy cow!

Your garden is so productive! Nice job!

The SFG and other gardens are winding down for this year. Today I harvested the final Purple Bush Beans, Golden Wax Bush Beans and Multiplier Onions.

These are Chinese Five Color Peppers. (sorry for the out of focus photos)



Cayenne Pepper.



Jalapeno Peppers.



Unbeleivably the Okra is still flowering even though we had frost last night.




Still have a couple of Okra pods but I will not bother to harvest them.  I will not grow Okra next year.



Still getting a few small Golden Zucchini on two plants.

TD, Do you actually eat the 5-color peppers? They would look nice in a flower bed in hot regions.

sanderson wrote:TD,  Do you actually eat the 5-color peppers?  They would look nice in a flower bed in hot regions.

I tried a piece of one and it was quite hot.They can be eaten in salads, stir fries, salsa and dried to make flakes. We had a lousy pepper growing season so my plants did not grow very big and did not produce many peppers.

Our high temperature today is going to be 8C (46F) and we will be getting a good frost/freeze tonight with a low temperature of -1C (30F). I still have leeks, kale, chard, carrots, radishes, mizuna/mustard, onions that should do OK at the overnight low temperature. I need to bring in all of the tomatoes which now are mostly green. The beans are done and the plants can go to the compost bin. I expect the zucchini, cucamelon, pepper and okra plants will not survive which is OK. I have some Fall peas growing which have flowers and pods. I'm not sure what will happen to the lettuce ... I know some can survive frost. My cabbage is a mess having been ravaged by critters (caterpillars and slugs). Unbelievably the strawberry plants in the SFG bed still have some flowers/fruit and the raspberry plants outside the SFG are still producing nice juicy fruit which I need to harvest today. Then there are the herbs (basil, thyme, coriander) that can be harvested. I think I have a bit of work ahead of me for today.

With frost predicted for tonight I decided to bring in what is left of the Sweet Million Tomatoes and Roma Tomatoes including the green ones. There are more on the vines that I will not bother to bring in. I also brought in a couple of green Cayenne Peppers, one Chinese 5 Color Pepper and the few small Golden Zucchini. Then I harvested the ever abundant Cucamelons and a few Everbearing Strawberries. All of the previously mentioned things came out of OSFG and ANSFG beds. To top it off I collected a big, overflowing bowl of Everbearing Raspberries from one of the soil beds. Such blessing.

Nice last summer harvest

My neighbor works for Costco Canada Headquarters which is about a 5 minute drive from where I live. She goes all over the world visiting farms, etc. to find things to purchase for Costco. She has been away for a couple of weeks and the grass on her lawn was getting really long. She normally cuts it with a hand push mower and it was going to be very difficult. I decided I had better help her out. I blew the leaves off the lawn onto the driveway and mulched them with my mower. I also mowed the lawn. Then the neighbor next to her gave me six more bags of leaves from his yard. I mulched them up as well. So my leaf collection for composting is starting to look pretty good. There's still a ton of leaves to come down in the neighborhood.  

trolleydriver wrote:My neighbor works for Costco Canada Headquarters which is about a 5 minute drive from where I live. She goes all over the world visiting farms, etc. to find things to purchase for Costco. She has been away for a couple of weeks and the grass on her lawn was getting really long. She normally cuts it with a hand push mower and it was going to be very difficult. I decided I had better help her out. I blew the leaves off the lawn onto the driveway and mulched them with my mower. I also mowed the lawn. Then the neighbor next to her gave me six more bags of leaves from his yard. I mulched them up as well. So my leaf collection for composting is starting to look pretty good. There's still a ton of leaves to come down in the neighborhood.  

I like to mow up the leaves with the grass so they are all mixed up. Why did you blow the leaves off first?

trolleydriver wrote: There's still a ton of leaves to come down in the neighborhood.  

Same here. They've been falling since August and there are still more in the trees than on the ground. I should have enough to mulch every bed and plant on the property with plenty left to pile on the compost heap. LIFE IS GOOD!

Leaves are just, and I mean just, starting to turn now.

CapeCoddess wrote:


I like to mow up the leaves with the grass so they are all mixed up.  Why did you blow the leaves off first?

The neighbour has her grass sprayed by some landscaping company. It was just done a couple of weeks ago. It's probably some kind of chemical fertilizer not a herbicide or pesticide that they apply. Rather than take any chances I did not want to combine the grass with the leaves. Once the leaves were on the driveway it was easy to much them all up with the mower, collect them with the mower bag and then transfer them to paper bags.

On the strip of grass between our two driveways I did just as you said ... left the leaves on the grass and mowed and collected them together. In fact some of the leaves from her property I actually blew onto that grass strip as well as on to her driveway.

Crazy warm temps for this time of the year with an expected high of 72F today then 70, 72, 70F for the following three days. Then the high temps go down to low to mid 50sF. 

Today I got a planting reminder email from the Old Farmer's Almanac. I need to get some squares cleaned up and ready to receive the garlic.

Sow under cover or indoors: There are no plants which need to be sown under cover or indoors at the moment.

Sow outdoors or plant out: Garlic

The cleanup of the gardens continues but there are still some edibles available.


I have a couple pea plants that are flowering and which have produced a few pods.



This bed contains Leeks and Kale.


This one has Chard and Kale. Barely visible in the top left background is the megatrellis bed that has Carrots and Radishes.



Here is a bed that has two types of Lettuce, Leeks, Golden Beets (not growing). Mizuna/Mustard and even a Dusty Miller plant.



These Tomatillos are toast.



We are still getting Raspberries.




Green yard waste is piling up near the compost bins. Neighbours are providing leaves (not shown).



Overview.




OTHER (NON SFG):
Mrs TD is cleaning up her flower gardens but there are still points of color to be seen. She has cleaned up around the pond but I will have to clean out the pond plants and put them into the compost bin.

I am going composting crazy.

The 3x3x3 bin is full and cooking.






The ad hoc multi-shape bin is starting to be filled.




The SoilSaver bin needs to be emptied.




I have three garbage bins and a bag full of compost ready to be used to rejuvenate the SFG beds.




This is a new 3x6 and 2 feet high pile. 



I run the mulching mower over the leaves and use this machete to chop other items as needed. 

Nice, TD!  Wish I cared about my compost.  It hurts my back to deal with it, to be honest.  I will have a TON of leaves.  I should use them.....

TD, You're a Hottie!

Time to harvest the Leeks that were started indoors last Spring. Some of them are small but there are also a few nice size ones as well. So it's time to hit the kitchen and make some Potato Leek Soup.

At last I got around to planting my garlic. I planted a total of 10 squares with four cloves per square. Three squares have Russian Red with cloves bought at a garden center. Seven squares have cloves (some Russian red and some Music) from my own garlic that I harvested this year. I've never before tried growing garlic from my own cloves so this will be interesting. I made a cardboard edging around the squares and then put a layer of straw on top of the squares.

Six squares in an ANSFG bed that was built last year.



Four squares in part of U-shaped ANSFG bed that I built earlier this year.



While cleaning up some of the old squares to get them ready for planting garlic I found a few things to harvest.



And believe it or not we are still harvesting raspberries (not SFG) on October 27th.

Nice harvest!