Mid Summer Happenings

This has been a strange summer in regards to the weather.  It just keeps reminding me how little control we have with our growing environment.  May was warm and everything got an early start but then June turned cold and rainy - but mostly cold.  Most of what I had in the garden just went into a holding pattern.  Then end of June and July has been very dry.  No rain for weeks.  Most of my gardens have drip irrigation, so that hasn't hurt us too much.

The basil!  Boy do they love the hot, dry weather.  I have never grown basil so successfully.  I have made pesto twice and will be able to make more or use it a different way.  It seems that in the past I was only able to make a decent amount of pesto once.  I love my pesto!

My lettuce has been a total bust at my house but I am growing it at another location.  I tried starting lettuce multiple times and I have one lettuce plant.  I had three at one time but two of them got devoured by something - I'm sure it was slugs.  It is very weird to only have one lettuce plant, but it works for a single family to harvest some of it about once a week.  I have lots of other greens, so that's why it works.  One lettuce plant wouldn't be enough without the other greens.  My bok choi, and arugula are doing great.  My kale, mizuna and mustard greens seem to go to seed regularly, but we eat them anyway.  The squash plants have been very weird this year.  My yellow crook neck is beautiful and huge but only now just starting to flower.  I'm not excited about pretty squash plants.  I want pretty squash fruit.  Doing a little research, I figured out it is most likely a unbalance in nutrients.  Too much nitrogen, maybe.  So I fed them with a seaweed/fish plant food and that seems to help. I'm getting flowers now and not just male ones.  My magda cousa is ahead of the other plants and I should be able to harvest some of that real soon.  I also have a zucchini at the other location that should be ready soon.  Everybody else has been harvesting their squash for awhile now, so I am very behind others.  Once they start, I should be inundated - I hope.  I have been craving summer squash like crazy this year because last year with all the rain it was a horrible squash season.  I'm harvesting beans and just finished with the peas and we have raspberries we can't keep up with.

I took a video and made it into a movie to show how we build tomato trellises.  I've attached it here and then  added two snapshots of what they look like today.  I hope people enjoy and learn how we do things.  I find the trellis system we use to be successful. There have been  many years of tomatoes falling down and breaking off and other disasters.

Movie of Building Trellises:

Cucumber Trellis

Tomato Trellis

Green Living Fair

On Saturday the Green Living Fair in Truro hired me to come give a presentation about urban farming.  I contacted a Truro city planner before the fair to ask about the by-laws for urban farming for their town. So at the presentation I was able to discuss with them their situation which is not unlike ours in Dartmouth. The by-laws in place do not allow for urban farming but their planner unlike Dartmouth's was already working on making better by-laws (I can only assume they will turn out better). I received positive feedback plus there were many questions about different issues from my presentation. It was a very small fair but the people who came out were interested and in my opinion it was a success.

The funny thing that happened was my daughter and I discussed that I would need the car and she was going to work for Bullfrog and would be picked up so she didn't need the car.  I am sure I told her I was going to Truro but she doesn't remember that part.  Anyway we live at the same house and were both very surprised to see each other at the same fair. It gave us a little chuckle.

Pointing out my garlic

It helps to be hired and paid to give presentations during the winter months. Most places I have presented have had at least one or two people come up to me afterward and thank me for the information.

Starting Seeds and A Few Random Musings...

We recently set aside a day for completing some extensive seed starting activities.   Last Friday Colleen, Leigh, Natalia, Jocelyne and Jean managed to assemble 300 soil blocks containing seeds of such things as onions, leeks, celery and celery root, strawberry spinach, broccoli, thyme, marigolds and Falstaff brussel sprouts.  Now the plant stands are full of flats of (hopefully) sprouting seeds.  We’re off to a good start for the coming planting season.  Much now depends on the weather.
We have been experiencing some unseasonably warm weather here in Nova Scotia.  Yesterday’s high temperature of 20 Celcius apparently set a record for warm temperatures in the month of  March.  Is this a good thing?  Only time will tell.  It is tempting to see it as an opportunity to get a jump on the growing season, but then it wouldn’t be totally out of the question for us to get a sudden storm near the end of March and have a load of snow dropped on us.  We are also assured of having at least a few more frosty nights so no rash moves will be made towards early plantings.
Mount Saint Vincent University’s Community Garden recently hosted an Incredible Community Supper as part of Select Nova Scotia’s initiative to bring more visibility to locally-grown, seasonally available Nova Scotia produce.    The menu for the evening included a variety of soups (curried squash and carrot, beef stew, borscht, and seafood chowder) all made using seasonal, local produce and fresh herbs grown in the MSVU Community Garden’s indoor herb garden. Jean was invited to be a guest speaker and discussed Lake City Farm’s urban farming operation, local food and food security issues.  Proceeds from the “pay what you can” evening went to support MSVU’s Community Garden.
We experienced a bit of a transportation crisis last January.  Our faithful old green sedan died and with its loss we no longer had any means of towing our utility trailer, which we use for carting equipment and manure around.  After a short search,  during which we contemplated the purchase of a small truck, we ended up with another 4 door sedan and it even came with a trailer hitch!  We are now back in business as far as trailer towing goes, but we aren’t ruling out another, more utilitarian vehicle,  perhaps a smaller pickup truck.
Happy farming.