Gardening In June

First off.  I must apologize for being so far behind on my blogging , I just can not seem to get my writing mood working properly .   Now lets get caught up :))
June is an exciting month to be gardening ... everything is starting to takeoff, and if you planned it well, you can even have a few salads , and some tasty early crops.   Radishes , lettuces, spring onions, even peas ...  plus of course the herbs.  MmmmMmmm so exciting to watch, kinda painful to have to wait for it all though !

My 1st 3 sisters plot is doing well., I should have waited a few more weeks before planting the beans though , they ended up going a little wild without a nice corn stalk to grow up . 

1st week of June,  everything is safe from frost now , cold frames have been removed... its time to grow!! 

The peas needed a little help climbing the chair.  

The maple sticks were plenty strong enough to support the peas, but for future reference , make sure they are dried!!  Hahaha they started sprouting on me.  

June is great for lettuces.. not too hot . Mmmm fresh garden salad!   I'm not very good at thinning , but am getting better .. esp. now that I just eat the thinnings. 

Basil :)) My favourite herb.   This year I'm growing most of it in containers, and only one test patch in the ground.   

By mid June ..  the peas were flowering!!  

Mid June again , my first full salad from the garden .. lettuces, radishes, onions, and a few herbs. 

I cut a large bunch of my oregano, and hung it in a breezy sunny spot to dry out.  Funny, i don't like fresh oregano, only dried. 

TOMATOES!!!  Yeah !  I will have to wait at least another month to eat them ... but I'm so very happy.   Proper spacing of my tomato plants this year , has made a huge impact on how many tomatoes per plant I'm getting .  Don't crowd them, it does not get you more tomatoes.  

June is full of flowers!!  These are Scarlet Runner Beans.  

Radishes are a great early crop,  in less than a month you are eating them!  

By the 3rd week of June , things are really starting to pick up!  The squash is starting to sprawl out :)) 

Same with the peas, by the 3rd week ... I'm eating them on every trip to the garden . 

My Bright Lights Swiss Shard is doing amazing , and tastes just as good! 

This radish was growing for  about 35 days !  It was huge :)) 

The peas finally climbed the chair :))  Will be drilling a few holes in the seat for next season ...  to let a little more water underneath . 

By the end of June , the onions I left in the ground last fall have gone to seed.  Time to clip the heads and try and save some.  

That brings us up to July !  Ill be doing a two part post for that as there is so much going on !!   I have a garden journal , so If I have skipped something , or not explained it fully .. please just leave a comment below , and Ill happily fill in any blanks!!   Either that or jump over to my Facebook page , and check out the daily goings on there.

Happy Gardening !!

Starting My Garden Early 4

:)) It seems that stabbing your foot with a pitch fork is good for getting caught up on blogs !!  Hahaha Thank fully I just nailed on toe , and not the whole foot. Its amazing how much one toe can hurt though .  So that leads me to this post ,  I'm finally caught up to June, well I will be once this one is done.   Yeah!!

I would like to apologize to everyone for being so far behind on these, it was an odd couple of months for me... but I'm back and the words are coming to me nice and easy .

This post is all about the last 10 days of May ,  which up here in Ontario Canada is our last frost date ...  and the time when most people start gardening ,  I had a great head start and actually planted seeds in March :))

This post should cover that :  http://richfletchersgoodfoodrevolution.blogspot.com/2011/04/starting-my-garden-early.html

Ive never had much luck growing potatoes , so I thought Id try out the bucket method...  ( Ill be doing a blog post on the whole process once Ive harvested )  If you want more details, follow this link to my Facebook page 

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.188441627869894.39828.118986254815432

I decided to try a 3 sisters planting ...  I kind of jumped the gun on this and planted the beans and squash a little to early .  I have two more plots , so I have another chance to get it right .  

:))  This is some ornamental corn I started inside ...    love this shot . 

The trellis for my peas,  I used freshly cut maple sticks ( MISTAKE!! ) hahaha they are trying to regrow.  Ooops , its too late now , but next time I'll use ones that are clearly dead.  

Someone suggested using an old chair to let peas trellis on , found this one .. so far so good.
In the corner is a mini greenhouse I made from a water bottle... the tomatoes needed just a little more warmth to get them growing . I left them on for a week, and it worked like a charm :) 

We had a bit of a colder snap, so the tiny tomatoes got the water bottle greenhouses, and i threw a cold frame over the corn to help them sprout quicker. 

Radishes are a great spring crop , you can be eating fresh in less than 30 days .. from seed! 

The most important tools in your garden, quality seeds and a note pad!!  Ive never been so organized, and my garden has never looked better :))  

Spinach , just breaking the ground  :))  

That's me in the middle ... I was being filmed for a local food documentary on growing your own food :)) How exciting!!  It was a shame the skies opened up half way thru ... still was a lot of fun , and I'm looking forward to their return in July for part 2!  

So there you have it!  That brings us up to June ...  which Ill try and get done shortly ... Things are growing like crazy now , and I'm already eating fresh garden salads :))  If you have any questions , or need something cleared up , don't be shy .. just leave a comment below.

Happy Gardening !

Starting My Garden Early 3

This year I started my Garden a full 6 weeks , maybe 7 before our last frost date ...  some things were kept inside , while others went outside with a few simple cold frames.  

Ill keep this brief , as I'm so far behind now , that most of this is slightly out of date. Well for this year anyways :))

Its always a good idea to harden your plants off for a few days, or even a week after starting them inside.  Gets them used to the outdoors. 

Garlic that was planted last fall ..  coming back strong!!  Can't wait :)) 

This will become my first 3 sisters planting :))   

Gotta watch it when you hardening off plants , Id left these outside and went to work , then we had an unexpected scorcher of a spring day ... All ten cucumber seedlings were burnt to a crisp in one afternoon :(( 

Oregano and thyme really appreciated the cold frame... they cam thru stronger than ever  :)) 

Onions I left in from last year , and a few that had sprouted in my pantry .
If they wont grow onions , I'm going to try and save the seeds this year . 

My Garden in mid - May , still 10 days before the last frost , but I thought Id risk a few things.  

Most everything in my garden is recycled .. including the plant markers, I got these strips from the scrap bin at a local lumber yard . Free!!  

Cold frames are gone , and tomatoes and pepper plants are in ... still one week of possible frost , but I was feeling lucky :)) 

Decided to try adding some straw to the garlic .. see if it would help with the weeds...  It did a little , but also makes it harder to use a hoe between the rows .. Hmmmm 

Well , I'm getting there !! This brings us up to the 3rd week in May :) Almost there....
As always , questions or comments are most welcome.
Happy Gardening !!

Starting My Garden Early 2

Well, I have so much to say , and show you .. That I dont even know where to start really . After having taken pretty much the whole month of May off , to get life sorted , and my garden growing . I'm happy to report both are now on track again lol . ( I hope!! hahaha )   So where did I leave off ??  Hmmm wow , for gardening it was 5 weeks ago . So that is where Ill pick back up again .  

These are always the first flowers in my garden :))  I planted them years ago ... lol always lets me know when spring has arrived.  

The mystery seeds turned out to be cucumber :)) 

Peas are great to start inside or direct seed,  I did a bit of both .  This did give these ones a 4 week head start though . 

My tomatoes,  I think these are the sweetie ones.. either way : Important note... these are getting to leggy already , they needed to be closer to the light .  ( 7 weeks later , the few that survived are not much taller than this , but strong now )   

The garlic I planted last fall is coming back strong!!  Mmmm 

Romaine lettuce , direct seeded on March 28th, and covered with a cold frame .
Note : The direct seeded Romaine did FAR better than the transplants I tried.  

Volunteer Wild Strawberry Plant :)) Thought Id save it and see what happens.  

Basil :)) - My little grow shelf worked great , but I did not have the plants close enough to the light for the 1st couple of weeks. Ooops 

My first time planting corn !!  This did SO much better by starting inside... sprouted in less than a week , compared to almost 3 weeks with  direct seeding . ( Mind you , I think I tried a little too early for direct lol , even with a cold frame )

Lots more gardening and food posts to follow !!  I do appreciate all feedback , or if you have your own tips , feel free to leave a comment on here , send me an email , or jump over to my Facebook page and join the daily fun ( links on the right side of this page :))  

I'm glad to be back!!  It has been too long !!  

Happy Gardening - Rich 

Starting My Garden Early

Last year when I started this blog , the growing season had pretty much ended ... So I was not able to delve into the growing side of Good Food .   Now that spring is here , I can :))  Our last frost date here is the 3rd week in May ,   most years I usually try and push that date by a couple of weeks , with mixed results. This year , I'm trying to get smart about it all, Ive FINALLY started a garden journal , instead of just scribbling things on a calendar ! I started planted seeds March 28th ,  more than a month earlier than I have before.   With  the help of a little mini greenhouse I built on the bottom shelf in my kitchen , and a few cold frames.. I'm hoping for this to be my most successful year ever :))  I also got a real jump start on things by planting 3 rows of garlic , and a couple of onions last fall :)) Things are looking good !!

I turned the bottom third of a kitchen shelf into a propagator/grow room .

This was the 1st green thing in my garden ,  The garlic I planted last October :))  I used the leaves I raked up as a mulch to help them thru our winters.  

On the warm days Ive been bring them outside to start hardening them off.  

I tried a row of Romaine , directly sowed on 3/28 ..  took a bit but it came up , the pot to the right was started the same day ( but inside ) a cold frame is covering this lettuce patch . 

Planting the lettuce ,  I like to soak the soil 1st to make it easier to separate these tiny plants 

Things are growing well,  everything has sprouted ,  Ill have lots of tomatoes this year , maybe even enough to do my canning with :)) 

I never planted enough Basil ,  but that will not be the case this year , 60 or so have been started so far , with at least that many being started today  as well.  

Peas sure do sprout quickly .. 5 days and they have already broken ground.  

Red Peppers are a different story , these took about 3 weeks to pop up  

Mystery seeds , I'm thinking Squash or Cucumber . 

My Garden in the early morning light ,  I free-cycled most everything in my garden ,  the cold frames are old packing crates , and cupboard doors  :))

 My Good Food Revolution is changing for the better , look for more gardening , and farming posts , as well as recipes, food porn , and kitchen tips & tricks :)
 Since its Earth Day today , its time to move away from the PC , and go plant something .   Happy Gardening !!