Quick update

My poor forgotten blog... well, not exactly forgotten, since I have been thinking of several things to share with you, but as usual, life got in the way!

(*** also, if you're wondering why the number of posts on my blog decreased, that's because I've decided to clean up a little and also to remove some photos of my little miss)

A few good "keeper" recipes ARE coming your way, I promise! But for now... Here are a few photos of this year's harvest :) We're definitely enjoying all of the yummy tomatoes; the biggest one we picked this year weighed in at an impressive 703 grams!

Harvest Update

This year's garden is as generous to us as it was last year. Just yesterday, I picked 20, that's right 20 cucumbers. Plus, another of hot peppers and tomatoes :) Zucchinis, as usual, have been overlooked... So they, naturally, overgrew! The biggest one was almost 5 lbs and 38 cm long.
Check out what we've enjoyed so far :)

Mmm... I love yellow cherry tomatoes!

Our overgrown zucchinis

One evening of picking

Our largest tomato so far :)

The goodness of romaine...

Finally, the time has come to start tasting the "fruits" of our labour! Of course, this first harvest isn't anything special, it's only lettuce... Nonetheless, it's always great to know where your food comes from, how it's been grown, where it's organic.

So first up is Romaine Lettuce, which turned out great!

As fresh as it gets!

 Last year we didn't plant any, but rather went with other lettuce varieties (still have them this year). However, we wanted to have MORE! (Plus, I forgot that lettuce is usually a one-time thing - once it's ready you gotta pull the whole thing out, roots and everything, and then re-seed.) Of course, Romaine is considered to be a dark-green leafy "green" and apparently is REALLY good for you.

Why? Well, it's a great source of Riboflavin, Vitamin B6, Calcium, Magnesium, Phosphorus and Copper, Dietary Fiber, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin K, Thiamin, Folate, Iron, Potassium and Manganese. And obviously, it's low in all the bad stuff such as saturated fats, sodium and cholesterol. Finally, as with other dark leafy greens, the antioxidants contained within romaine lettuce are believed to help prevent cancer.

All I have to say is that it's tasting GREAT in my salad right now :)))
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In other news, our garden is slowly progressing:

~ tomatoes (cherry) are ready to start reddening

 ~ cucumbers are poking through

~ and so are the zucchinis

~ and finally, our hot peppers are almost ready to be picked

Should be a good harvesting season. Stay tunned!

Veggies Garden: Year 2

Some of you might remember our first attempt at gardening last year: Veggie Garden: Year 1

This year is no different! Of course, we decided to change things up a bit - a bit less tomatoes, different types of cucumbers rather than all "English", no cabbage (it got eaten by slugs last season!).

First, the customary BEFORE photo:

And here's the collage of the AFTER shots:

What did we plant?

• tomatoes (red and yellow, big and small)
• sweet peppers (various colours) 
• hot peppers (lots! and a variety)
• cucumbers 
• eggplant
• green zucchini
• lettuce
• sweet peas
• celery
• apple mint, and
• sweet basil 

~ Sweet basil: looks so yummy, I want to eat it now! ~

Some of the herbs I planted last year came back, yay! - parsley, dill, mint, cat nip, caraway, tarragon, asparagus, and chives (the latter actually didn't grow last year, but popped up now!).

Finally, we planted one carton of watermelon (those little black squares of plants). It's so tiny right now that all the space we alloted for it seems wasted. Here it is as of yesterday:

~ Watermelon space ~

 And up close :)

 

Will we be eating home-grown watermelons this summer? Technically, we could; it's hot enough here and if we don't get a flood of rain this summer, maybe we would...

Stay tuned for our progress!

Veggie Garden: Year 1

Since this past weekend was a logn one thanks to Victoria Day on Monday, my hubby and I decided that it was time to give our veggie garden a GO! We bought a whole lot of plants and black earth and compost to remedy the clay-like earth we've got going on in our backyard.

But, as some of you may know, the weather did not exactly cooperate this weekend. No, it did not rain, BUT the humidex was at an unbearable +38C! What's that about at the end of May?! We worked a bit in the morning: hubby was digging, while I made our flowerbed in the front look decent. In the afternoon, however, while Andre slaved away in the heat, pregnant me stayed inside till about 5 pm.

That's probably why we ran out of time and energy to plant all of the stuff we bought. And as I mentioned previously, we bought quite a bit:

- tomatoes

- peppers

- cabbage

- beans

- lettuce

- cucumbers

- zucchinis

- celery

- parsley

- asparagus

- mint

- basil

- tarragon

- chives

- seeds of radishes, carrots, and beets... I think there might be more?...

For now, this is what the half-finished product looks like:

I'll keep an update on whether we'll actually get to taste the fruits of our labour this summer/fall.

To Kill a Dandelion

Here's how it goes: after a few fruitless attempts to fight the explosion of dandelions on our lawn, my husband went and bought a weed eliminator for $30. I gotta say - it's worth EVERY PENNY!

Although not all of the weeds come out that great, this one here had a root of almost 100 cm (or 39 inches, we measured)! Must be all our good Canadian soil... BUT finally, the dandelions have met their maker, he-he...

{ click on image to enlarge }