Post by ceara on Jan 17, 2010 13:24:17 GMT -5
Gosh I feel so bad. Couldn't come on the forum as much as I wanted. It seemed something always got in my way. Plus I had some personal stuff to tend to and I am now officially a Canada Permanent Resident. Immigration is tough and takes forever, but it's done now!
I had some great successes last year, but a lot of failures.
Broccoli, Kale, Swiss Chard, etc did amazing last year. It seemed we did not have a summer at all and it rained so much.
My heirloom pole beans that I was supposed to grow and bulk up seed stock for someone all failed. Between slug damage, hubby damage, and wind/rain/thunderstorms knocking over my bean support system constantly, causing them to lag behind, to hard early frosts killing off the rest of the plants I was saving for seed and the seeds all rotted and molded. There was nothing I could do to save.
The heirloom potatoes I received from canadamike were AMAZING. I was able to save a lot for planting this year. Surprisingly we had zero potato bugs or blight. I had so much fun digging them up and was quite proud since I had never grown potatoes by myself before. I collected a lot of seed fruit for TPS but they look like raisins now and I'm not sure what to do with them, or even if they are still viable.
The perennial leeks canadamike sent, only one survived.
The pole pinto beans I received from Dave were indeed all climbers! But the sun faded my labels and a stray cat uprooted the rest. So I have a nice collection of pole pinto beans to replant for this year, but due to bad weather there was not enough to eat last year.
My carrot seeds were old, so we hardly got anything out of those.
Grungy's tomatoes never made it out of the seed tray and petered out. But the rest of the paste tomatoes did quite well surprisingly, despite the crappy summer.
I absolutely fell in love with Tom Thumb lettuce and want to get more butterhead types going. hehe Little Gem romaine did not perform as well for me. I let several plants of each go to seed and did not get any lettuce seed at all due to early frost/snow.
Tobacco plants did OK, but not as well as I'd hoped. We had one plant that was just about to open blooms but then it got killed by the early frost. All the rest were small.
Our local plant nursery went out of business so there is no longer a nursery in town, or anywhere nearby. But I made new gardening friends this summer. They saw my lilies and asked permission to photograph, and then I went to their homes to ID some plants they were curious about. One new friend got literally two pickup truck beds full of plant pots free from the nursery when it closed. He gave me a couple of plastic containers that look like they were used to start trees, so those are my new "root trainer" starting trays.
And he gave us a lot of plastic pots and a couple of regular trays.
I'm halfway considering taking the Master Gardener distance learning course program through Nova Scotia Ag college. But that all depends if I'm able to get a job.
nsac.ca/cde/courses/DE/Master-Gardener/default.asp
Hubby broke the tiller. I told him not to go into new ground without checking it out first, and sure enough he hit a big 3.5 ft long rock and broke the axle where the tines go on. He broke the rock in two also. hehe So I had to finish digging that manually last year.
The rest of the gardens are now chock full of weeds so there will be a LOT of work to do this year to get ready. Now over run with Burdock. hehe My dogs always seem to have burrs in their fur.
We've barely had a winter. Temps hovering around zero most days with hardly any snow. Right now it's minus 9 C, but the sun is out.
Well I think I covered everything that happened since I came on the forum last. Now I just need to organize all my seed stuff and get a trade list going again. Not going to get much new this year but need a lot of pole green beans and bush green bean seeds, Comfrey, Jerusalem Artichoke, and some carrot seeds. And I finally found an Elderberry source at McFayden in Brandon, MB so will be purchasing those this year.
I'd like to get some inexpensive apple trees to grow out in the field for wildlife. Sugar Maple too if possible. And maybe some berry bushes.
Well I think that about covers everything. Thank you to all who mailed me goodies last year. Sorry some of them did not pan out, but that's gardening for ya!
I had some great successes last year, but a lot of failures.
Broccoli, Kale, Swiss Chard, etc did amazing last year. It seemed we did not have a summer at all and it rained so much.
My heirloom pole beans that I was supposed to grow and bulk up seed stock for someone all failed. Between slug damage, hubby damage, and wind/rain/thunderstorms knocking over my bean support system constantly, causing them to lag behind, to hard early frosts killing off the rest of the plants I was saving for seed and the seeds all rotted and molded. There was nothing I could do to save.
The heirloom potatoes I received from canadamike were AMAZING. I was able to save a lot for planting this year. Surprisingly we had zero potato bugs or blight. I had so much fun digging them up and was quite proud since I had never grown potatoes by myself before. I collected a lot of seed fruit for TPS but they look like raisins now and I'm not sure what to do with them, or even if they are still viable.
The perennial leeks canadamike sent, only one survived.
The pole pinto beans I received from Dave were indeed all climbers! But the sun faded my labels and a stray cat uprooted the rest. So I have a nice collection of pole pinto beans to replant for this year, but due to bad weather there was not enough to eat last year.
My carrot seeds were old, so we hardly got anything out of those.
Grungy's tomatoes never made it out of the seed tray and petered out. But the rest of the paste tomatoes did quite well surprisingly, despite the crappy summer.
I absolutely fell in love with Tom Thumb lettuce and want to get more butterhead types going. hehe Little Gem romaine did not perform as well for me. I let several plants of each go to seed and did not get any lettuce seed at all due to early frost/snow.
Tobacco plants did OK, but not as well as I'd hoped. We had one plant that was just about to open blooms but then it got killed by the early frost. All the rest were small.
Our local plant nursery went out of business so there is no longer a nursery in town, or anywhere nearby. But I made new gardening friends this summer. They saw my lilies and asked permission to photograph, and then I went to their homes to ID some plants they were curious about. One new friend got literally two pickup truck beds full of plant pots free from the nursery when it closed. He gave me a couple of plastic containers that look like they were used to start trees, so those are my new "root trainer" starting trays.
And he gave us a lot of plastic pots and a couple of regular trays.I'm halfway considering taking the Master Gardener distance learning course program through Nova Scotia Ag college. But that all depends if I'm able to get a job.
nsac.ca/cde/courses/DE/Master-Gardener/default.asp
Hubby broke the tiller. I told him not to go into new ground without checking it out first, and sure enough he hit a big 3.5 ft long rock and broke the axle where the tines go on. He broke the rock in two also. hehe So I had to finish digging that manually last year.
The rest of the gardens are now chock full of weeds so there will be a LOT of work to do this year to get ready. Now over run with Burdock. hehe My dogs always seem to have burrs in their fur.
We've barely had a winter. Temps hovering around zero most days with hardly any snow. Right now it's minus 9 C, but the sun is out.
Well I think I covered everything that happened since I came on the forum last. Now I just need to organize all my seed stuff and get a trade list going again. Not going to get much new this year but need a lot of pole green beans and bush green bean seeds, Comfrey, Jerusalem Artichoke, and some carrot seeds. And I finally found an Elderberry source at McFayden in Brandon, MB so will be purchasing those this year.
I'd like to get some inexpensive apple trees to grow out in the field for wildlife. Sugar Maple too if possible. And maybe some berry bushes.
Well I think that about covers everything. Thank you to all who mailed me goodies last year. Sorry some of them did not pan out, but that's gardening for ya!
