Canadamike pictures no. 2

[canadamike]

Here are a couple of pictures of the garden and some plants again, I show them especially for americangardener, whose sweet peppers I am blind testing, one of the fun job of the summer.

I HIGHLY recommend fellows here to try it, it is both fascinating to grow something you barely know what to expect of, and it is also formative . One has to develop a keen eye for details...
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AMERICANGARDENER ALLEY

This bed is where his 25 sweet peppers will be grown along some others. It is easy to see why beds are better in a clay based soil, even amended like crazy and very humusy like this one. It will be covered with black plastic. Pollination will be done by hand for those fruits to keep for seeds. The other ones will become a mass-cross, a scientific name for the extraction of results out of lazyness, hey, Alan ? ;D




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NASCAR TATERS!

I will grow GERMAN BUTTERBALL in tires, As opposed to the regular way of doing it, which is waiting for the stems to be long enough to add a second, then third then...tire, one of the piles will have small woodplanks inserted in between to let some light in and let some stems grow sideways. a friend of mine does that, so I'll compare the methods.


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THE STRAWBERRY STAIRCASE

It is now flowering in full gear. If you don't see much weeds, that is because they are so easy to pull out. I even grow them to a certain extent, waiting for the ones that are not too close to a berry plant to grow a bit before pulling and composting it.


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They are so beautiful....these are TRIBUTE strawberries, a day neutral variety that is disease resistant and popular in the northeast of the continent.


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CHERVIL IN FLOWER

I will harvest most of the seeds, the natural reseeding they take great care of doing by themselves is a bit too concentrated for me, and I want a lot of it. I plan to seed a lot in shadowy and cooler places. They are an integral part of my ''bouquet garni'' a mixture of herbs I, like the french people, put in almost everything.
It contains little branches or stems of parsley,thyme, rosemary, chervil, chives, lovage when I get it grown, and a laurel leaf. The whole bunch is tied with a small butcher's cord and vacuum sealed and frozen. I drop one bunch in almost anything, especially soups and roasts, and pasta and...


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THE CORN ALMOST TRIPLED IN SIZE IN ONE WEEK

This corn was transplanted from flats. I gain an extra window of pollination doing it.


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All these plantlets are pretty small by any standard. I was a bit late because I planned for a late season, being covered in record snow, but the spring we are not having now we were having in April. We went from 10 feet high snowpiles to 75 degrees in less than one week. It lasted 3 weeks or so, and now our balls are tucked in wool socks!!!

I also prefer by far to transplant small plantlets. When I buy some, I always surprise the people in the store by selecting the smallest ones ( to a certain limit!) or the ones with the least flowers, which I kill anyway.

I like having my root mass ready to explode in the garden instead of having exploded in a prison. Transplant shock is 2 weeks lost.

That's it for today, tomorrow is raspberry day. I get 7 truckloads of
mushroom compost on monday...some strawberry plants waiting will love it!

[americangardener]

Looking good Michel.. now all ya gotta do is dig those trenches about 6 ft deeper and you'll have your garden looking like mine there. I got raised rows.. just about the same length in my garden.. just deeper ditches in between.

Looks like ya got a lot of transplanting to do there now. I'm starting to transplant some of mine already too... got about 100 peppers done yesterday. And i should be doing the tomatoes first.. i just happened to have a spot all ready for those ones. Tommorrow i'll be starting the tomatoes.

Looks like you're having fun with that camera now... i can hardly wait till the peppers get bigger.

[canadamike]

Yes, I am having fun alright, and it also is an excellent way to document. It forces me to make notes.

And you know, when I leave the garden I am always exhausted, I don't see its beauty anymore. Now, after a good shower and a good meal, I sometimes look at the pictures and thank God for being so lucky... They give me another perspective, one more spiritual and poetical.

[grunt]

Michel: Try cutting the sidewalls off of the tires and turning them inside out. Makes it much easier to fill all of the interior with dirt. They cut surprisingly easily with a sharp knife, but watch your fingers!
Cheers
Dan

[canadamike]

Thanks for the tip Dan, but I don't want to fill up the tire too tight, and I have 2 slaves who will do it anyway ;D