at the allotment

I managed to weed the new tomato patch & water the entire allotment.


kale

broccoli

basil

red lettuce & Roman radicchio

Roman radicchio

... baby zucs

more baby zucs

and more ...

Ants in my pants! ... AGAIN

... this time I was partially prepared when I felt the burn
-ing of a zillion firey bites racing up my leg at speed of
light ... I do though now plan on sealing the cuffs of my
pants at the bottom by wearing socks that are long enough
to tuck my pant legs into - no more useless little anklets

peppery arugula planted

Mom & Dad asked to see the garden so we took a drive
over from the hotel. On our way, we dropped by Barry's
and took a little tour of his gardens. We spent about 15
minutes in the allotment. Dad took a picture of Mom
standing in the middle of the paste patch & me looking
at where I was going to put the arugula that Barry had
just given me which I'll try to remember to get and post.

At first look, it appears quite frighteningly out of control


quick look at paste patch - needed weeding yesterday


and new tomato patch - needs weeding soon as well


... got some Wild Rocket planted (Barry's) YUM ... very
spicy hot & sweetFranchi Sementi Rucola Selvatica (early,
mid-sized, open bunches of green serated leaves with
delicate crunchy stalks & intensely aromatic spicy flavour


#1 potatoes


#2 potato


... vertical pumpkin growth needs a little more help (leaf has collapsed)!

Catching Up

I was able to spend about 3 hours
today playing catch up. It was quite
humid which made it uncomfortable
to work for a longer period of time.
I hauled 3 bags full of duck poop
and filled up both potato drawers



... and put poop at the base of the
three tomatilloes (and I caged two).


I planted 4 forgotten canna lillies ... that were sitting in an LCBO bag in the garage since last Spring when Helen gave them to me (heheh) ... she knows (I told her & we laughed & she told me I could plant them now)


... and I planted two more radicchio from Rome and some rainbow chard
after tearing out 4x4' patch of 3 foot high flowering old bolting lettuces


... herb patch from the chair (I planted 2 baby sage
grown from seed today on either side of the largest
one in the middle) ... I have the sage from last year
on my roof (I pulled it up last fall thinking I'd use it
for cooking with and I didn't but it grew back) phew!


... here's a shot of left side of the allotment taken from the chair ...


... and a c/u of the basil and I planted three more types (blue spice,
boxwood and another kind from Gayla) in between tomatoes where
there were spaces (see above shot of left side of the allotment) ...


... here's what I might be most proud of accomplishing today without
really trying ... getting the main path cleared so I could walk down it!

2 Weeks & Lots of WEEDS!!!

... the three foot center path I cut back to two
this year that's now 6" ... the width of a shoe!


On the Parkdale Hort day trip with Barry (Saturday
27 June) I got a new lavender plant that I just put
inbetween the hoses on the path (see far flowering
one) take THAT you damn dead one ... now there are
TWO (that's what YOU get when you die) just because
I didn't know I wasn't supposed to cut you back in
the fall - I'm sure Julie told me I was supposed to
... yeah blame it all on Julie surely it's all her fault!

For the past two weeks it's either been raining non-stop or I've
been working on projects demanding immediate attention. This
is to prepare you for what greeted me yesterday at the allotment.


Lots of Weeds but the garden is THRIVING. I really must eat something from it though very soon or I'm going to have to start to question my sanity at doing all this work planting an edible garden! Last year I ate everything ... maybe a little too much of everything (lambsleaves, dandylion leaves and dandylion flowers, thistle this and thistle that, etc) and this year I've just been working my butt off trying to get things in the allotment and on the roof and kept alive so the thought of eating it hasn't really entered into the picture yet - which is evident in the photos where we see lots of things that have bolted and gone to seed (I think) ... right now I couldn't even say what was what anymore - I've misplaced my garden map and I'm not yet knowledgeable enough to know what anything looks like once I've taken it out of the seed package. This I believe with all come with time and everything I know will sort itself into proper categories and make sense ... don't you just love those EUREKA moments where you just want to lie down and roll in all the green stuff ... I'm not sure if I'm making this up or not but I think that the weeds might actually be acting as mulch a little bit??? So what I did was to put on my gloves and sit on my little yellow kids chair and begin pulling weeds up like a crazed monkey on speed - it's how I had to do if I want to get out of there with enough done to feel satisfied. It's a little meditative once I get going. My cell phone rang at one point and I answered it and kept going ... and within two minutes I yanked up a basil bush and lost my glasses somewhere under a huge weed by the fence. After which I wrote a note to self to remember to put an extra pair of glasses in the car so that if it happens again I can at least look for them with glasses on so I can see ... I was almost resigned to the fact that I might have to wait to find them next fall or next year maybe after the snow melted.

This is how I left the paste patch two weeks ago ...


This is what it looked like yesterday when I arrived!


This is what it looked like when I left yesterday ...


Two mini pumpkin plants that'll produce fruit that look like Cinderella Coaches! Yeah yeah yeah - I might
still have some weeding to do - remember I think it's acting as a bit of a mulch ... & that's a good thing (for me)!


...pretty purple peas and a poor peony that doesn't flower so I don't know what I'm going to have to do with it

potatoes in drawers with big BAD weed
that looks a lot like lettuce between???



3 Green Kales

2 White Queens & a lonely old some kinda Fennel that I
will plant more of next year - like DUH what's with one!


3 zucs before & after that'll hopefully take over the garden VERY VERY
soon - thank you very much & now I'm off to water containers on the roof

Weeds!!!

It was all about the hat yesterday - trying to keep it ON!


The hut & sitting area - none of which was used much yesterday!


The Virginia Creeper has exploded - I'll have to keep ON now ...


I weeded the Hens & Chicks - couldn't believe how many weeds
there were to pull AND then couldn't believe it was filled with ANTS!
I found out they are red ants ¬ fire ants - their bite feels like fire.


This little bit I didn't weed - it had the least growth & after 4 hrs I
decided to call it quits and not over do it - wish I'd taken BEFORE pics


The curly end bits on the garlic chives - a delicacy - can't recall name tho'
... ahhh - 3 days later I see their name posted on Twitter ... garlic scapes!


... two of the rhubarb stalks keeled over - hmpf - I'd've picked them if
I'd known they'd be doing that ... and there I was trying to let them grow
... the red lettuce is doing well - I have a tub at home so I left it for now


... the plastic mulched greens have taken off and hit their prime I think


I just can't remember what they all are so I need to refer to my garden
plan and then figure out what to do with them & incorporate them into
my meal plan for the week ... this gardening is a whole lot of work ...
I really need to find my book on preserving so things don't go to waste


... I've obviously spoken a little too soon ... all this
unthinned lettuce - it's just too too much ... AGH!


this is the tomato paste patch taken from the lettuce patch ... sorry
about the glove giving the finger in the lower right corner though!