July 2012

Regardless of the inclement weather,  every thing from fierce wind storms, the month of May the wettest month on record and then days of unusually hot weather, my garden is really producing a beautiful crop. Their is corn of course, cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, scarlet beans, strawberries, melons, etc.  For just a whim I planted some flowers including nasturtiums.

WHAT A JOY !

2012 - A New Gardener Year

A New Gardener Year is upon us...2012.

Tree that was removed

 Basic layout of bricks for Garden

 Various views during 2011

 Rhubarb, Beans, Strawberries

 Corn, DayLily 

 From Road looking Opposite Direction

O how I miss that beautiful tree !!!  Of course I was told that my first year would be a waste of time as the soil was full of contamination from the 50 or so year old evergreen tree. Here in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia, Canada, we call these majestic trees Pine trees and Fir trees and Spruce trees. 

So I followed the advice given in my eBook, using the soil acid test and general tips for success. While digging the soil by hand to remove the huge quantity of roots, the gravel mixture that was used by the developer was very evident. Not to be discouraged, and after a lot of spreading and digging and spreading, an almost reasonable soil mix was managed.

The asparagus was a failure...too dry I think. The beans and corn flourished! My hope is that the strawberries will be better this year. 

At first it was impossible to find worms but by the end of the year there were lots of them. It pays to work the soil with compost.  

The effort to water efficiently sure paid off for the tomatoes. I put a small water trickle seeper at the base of the plants. No water on the leaves and lots of pruning back.

The ebook author really knows her stuff !!  Gave me a base or foundation of ideas to get started with and made it easy to ad my own ideas. After all, my life profession has been fixing cars!   Give me an email if you would like the eBook ...Fre*e 'cause I think you would like it tooo!

Barrymor3@gmail.com
(ask for the book and I will email it to you)

Kelowna, BC, Canada

If this interests you ... send me your email address and I will provide much more information by return email

info@kitchengardener.com

ask for Fre*e ebook !!!

Spring GrowGuide

Your Last Spring Frost Date: March 24
Your First Fall Frost Date: November 24
Tasks calculated for week of March 24, 2010 (week of last spring frost)

TASK	NEW THIS WEEK. . .	ONGOING. . .	LAST CHANCE. . .
SOW INDOORS		leaf lettuce
SOW OUTDOORS	bush beans lima beans pole beans sweet corn cucumbers melons pumpkins summer squash winter squash	beets carrots radishes swiss chard
HARDEN OFF		cucumbers (3/3 - 3/9) eggplant (1/20 - 1/26) leaf lettuce (3/3 - 3/9) melons (3/3 - 3/9) okra (2/24 - 3/2) peppers (1/20 - 1/26) pumpkins (3/3 - 3/9) summer squash (3/3 - 3/9) winter squash (3/3 - 3/9) early tomatoes (2/3 - 2/9) late tomatoes (2/3 - 2/9)
TRANSPLANT	cucumbers (2/24 - 3/2) eggplant (1/13 - 1/19) melons (2/24 - 3/2) okra (2/17 - 2/23) peppers (1/13 - 1/19) pumpkins (2/24 - 3/2) summer squash (2/24 - 3/2) winter squash (2/24 - 3/2) early tomatoes (1/27 - 2/2) late tomatoes (1/27 - 2/2)	leaf lettuce (2/24 - 3/2)

Spring GrowGuide

Your Last Spring Frost Date: May 24
Your First Fall Frost Date: October 24
Tasks calculated for week of May 17, 2010 (1 week before last spring frost)

TASK	NEW THIS WEEK. . .	ONGOING. . .	LAST CHANCE. . .
SOW INDOORS		leaf lettuce	cucumbers melons pumpkins summer squash winter squash
SOW OUTDOORS		beets carrots radishes swiss chard	peas
HARDEN OFF	cucumbers (4/26 - 5/2) eggplant (3/15 - 3/21) melons (4/26 - 5/2) okra (4/19 - 4/25) peppers (3/15 - 3/21) pumpkins (4/26 - 5/2) summer squash (4/26 - 5/2) winter squash (4/26 - 5/2) early tomatoes (3/29 - 4/4) late tomatoes (3/29 - 4/4)	leaf lettuce (4/26 - 5/2)
TRANSPLANT	leaf lettuce (4/19 - 4/25)		brussles sprouts (3/29 - 4/4)

Total Blog Directory

Beautiful Ferns | Your Kitchen Gardener

Thought you would like to see my fern. It is almost 4 feet tall! Picture taken by my kitchen gardener

Got to thinking why it is so happy.  Well my underground water seepers have been very generous to the roots of this gorgeous specimen and also I have been using sheep manure fertilizer for the past few years. This baby is only three weeks old ... obviously very happy in my garden.

You will see other ferns starting to grow just to the left of the geraniums. We had a very dry winter with little snow and not much cold weather. The plants are all showing the result of the lack of moisture with some of them dying as a result. My prize climbing rose simply gave up and had to be pruned back to the ground. Looks like I have lost it.

The ferns will continue to sprout and grow at their own pace. The roots travel every direction from the mother plant. So the babies pop up everywhere ... and keep doing so for another month usually in my  garden.

I transplanted a couple from the wild a few years ago and at times simply have to pull them out when the appearance gets too cluttered. My home is in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia.

This Valley runs north and south from our area right down into Washington. A wonderful place to live!

No matter what happens each year, it is so wonderful to cultivate and encourage in "my garden"

See http://howtokitchengardener.com

Tomatoes and Your Kitchen Gardener

So, what do you think of my tomato plants? This picture was taken today, 19th of May 2010 by my kitchen gardener.

After so many years of dreaming of juicy, delicious tomatoes off my own plants, the last few years it has become a reality!

Now I purchase plants in pots from a nursery.

Our growing season is not long enough to wait 90 days for the fruit to ripen.  These plants have blossoms and within a month of setting them outside, beautiful servings or stealings of the fruit is right on my kitchen counter.

Of interest to others, I do not transplant them any more. The process is difficult for the plants to handle and sets the time of harvest back quite a bit.

The bottom is cut off the container and lots of bone-meal and fertilizer is added ... carefully I may add.

Purchased in the beginning or so of April, then kept inside during the nights and chilly weather, set outside in the warmer periods for the sunlight until the second week of May.

Try it if you like. Then maybe you would appreciate some very popular and helpful advice here.

My Garden and the Kitchen Gardener

Worm Castings | Your Kitchen Gardener

 Strumelia's blog

Worm composting....it's vegetable Reincarnation!

Written by Strumelia

Sun, 05/16/2010 - 8:20pm

I keep a bin of red wriggler (Eisenia fetida) composting worms in my basement.  All the very choicest discarded tidbits from the kitchen such as fruit and vegetable peelings and scraps, egg shells, tea bags, banana peels, and used coffee grounds with filters, and shredded brown paper, all go to the worms, and the rest of the kitchen and garden scraps just go into our regular outdoor compost bins. In return, every few months I get a nice big 10 or 15 pound tray full of pure black earthworm castings for my garden.  For free.
I hadn't harvested from my worm bin since the Fall, and today I refreshed their bedding and rotated out about 25 lbs. of wonderful rich castings.
I purposely harvested today because today I prepared the tomato patch.  After deep digging the whole bed, I pounded in the stakes.  Into the ground around each tomato stake, I hoed in about 12 cups of earthworm castings.  Tomorrow I am going to buy the 16 tomato plants at my favorite local growers' stand.  Tomatos are the one vegetable I buy already potted as plants....everthing else I direct seed into the ground in my veggie garden.  I just don't want to get involved with starting seed indoors under lights, and our short growing season doesn't really give enough time to start tomatos from seed outdoors. I've already put in the stakes and planted my cucumber seeds. So now the tomato bed is ready as well.
I like to think about how so much of what we used to throw into the garbage to eventually wind up in landfills now instead gets re-cycled back through our two simple home composting systems and helps us grow our vegetables. And how amazing to think that some of the scraps from those vegetables will yet again go back to the worms to travel another cycle.  It's vegetable reincarnation!

Kitchen Gardener | Rock Ground Cover

   One needs to  be very careful when using rocks for ground cover in your kitchen gardener.

   There is a need to replace water sucking lawn in unused areas. However, consider other types of ground cover such as drought tolerant shrubs, ornamental grasses,etc.

    Just like pavement and sidewalks, rocks will absorb and reflect a tremendous amount of heat, making it hotter in adjacent buildings and homes as well as stressing any plants planted in them unless they are dry heat lovers such as sagebrush and lavender. It is also hard to clean fallen plant debris out of rocks and to weed out of them when the inevitable weeds begin growing. The kitchen gardener of course will be wise to this fact.

   Even if you liv  in a semi desert, one can have beautiful lush gardens that use very little supplemental water. Please consider a more successful way to garden ... http://okanaganxeriscape.org 

   Just another word of help for those of you looking for that perfect kitchen garden courtesy of  http://howtokitchengardener.com

 

Asparagus and Your Kitchen Gardener

"Here  is an article regarding ASPARAGUS, sent to me without identification of the source. 
My reason for passing this on as requested, is that my study of the positive effects of Glutathione is outstanding. Glutathione is our own natural built in antioxidant. Everyone needs more replenishment of this on a regular basis. Glutathione pills do not work because our digestive system neutralizes it before it reaches our Liver.

Asparagus - a real blockbuster revelation!    An Important Natural Source of Glutathione."


To learn more about Glutathione, Asparagus and Your Kitchen Gardener, be sure to read the rest of this article!