August in the Garden

Our internet is finally back after going out the night of the thunderstorm. Since that time, the zucchinis have gotten out of control, lots of eggplants have emerged, and two varieties of tomatoes have started to ripen.

I'd read zucchini plants were prolific before we started the garden, but I guess I hadn't really grasped just how prolific because I kept 7 of the 11 plants we originally had. Our counter is covered in zucchini, and our freezer full of shredded zucchini. Now I've pulled almost everything, leaving just 2 of the smaller plants. I think that next year I'll start with 4 plants and eventually pull 2. I also want to try varieties other than the traditional green zucchini.
For the last few weeks, though, the garden has been suffering through more than just a glut of zucchinis. Beginning with a melon plant, powdery mildew began to affect the curcubita plants, and I had to pull 1 pumpkin, 1 zucchini plant and 2 melon plants. I wanted to keep them, but neither organic treatments nor fungicides helped, so I had to remove them to stop the fungus' spread. The spread of fungus is something that I will definitely keep in mind when designing the garden next year. I also need to do more research into disease-resistant pumpkin seeds, because I really want a successful pumpkin harvest.

Italian Pickles

I mentioned yesterday that I'm kinda crazy for pickles, and what do ya know, I woke up today with an urge to pickle. Unfortunately, the cucumbers aren't ready yet, so I decided to branch out and just pickle whatever was ready in the garden. I harvested carrots, zucchini and radishes, and settled on an Italian flavour base of garlic, basil and lemon.

I've read enough about canning to know that it's really important to get the right level acidity to kill bacteria, so I didn't want to just make up my own recipe. I used the recipe for garlic dills that I mentioned yesterday, substituting in my chosen veggies and flavourings, but keeping the amount of water, vinegar and salt the same. It will be a month before I can say how they taste, but they look great.

Zucchini Harvest

The garden is looking quite full, and so far we've been able to harvest lettuce, spinach and zucchini. But they'll be a bit more variety soon, as the tomatoes, cucumbers and potatoes have started to flower. Here's a look at how the garden is progressing:

First fruit

Checked out the garden this morning and was shocked to discover our first fruit of the season - a zucchini! I checked yesterday and little flower buds had formed, but today the flower is huge and yellow and has a little zucchini on the end. Everything has really taken off with the hot weather we've been having, and I hope to see more fruit soon. The tomato plants are developing the beginnings of little flowers, so hopefully the tomatoes we'll emerge soon.

Here's some more pics of what's growing in the garden:

The gardening begins...

Began planting seeds in little pots a few weeks ago, and from that effort I've got some nice looking spinach coming up. I was shocked to find that zucchini planted 5 days ago has already germinated and is coming up with gusto. Read a blog post that zucchini plants yield huge crops (love that there's a "Sneak some zucchini onto your neighbour's porch day" in August). I'm not a huge zucchini fan, so I'll have to find some good recipes for using them up. In the house, also have planted dill, mint and some gypsy peppers.

Eventually I hope to transplant the seedlings to our big outdoor garden. We have 3 beds going, 1 of which is huge and 2 are much smaller. In these gardens I've planted some purchased seedlings which include pickling cucs, more zucchini, and purple peppers (which I've been told I shouldn't have planted yet b/c it's still too cold, but we'll give it a go). Some herbs too - big fragrant basil plants, sage and cilantro. I've got some heirloom Scarlet Nantes carrot seeds to plant in there as well.

I'm really loving all the heirloom varieties of plants you can get from B.C. providers. Most of the seeds planted so far have been from West Coast Seeds. I couldn't help myself yesterday and bought a few seeds packets online from Salt Spring Seeds. I'm becoming a bit obsessed with all the rare varieties of plants that you can get, especially tomatoes. I decided on Bali tomatoes b/c they look really interesting (ridged w/ marbling of pink, yellow and red) and are supposed to taste fantastic. I'm so excited to make Jamie Oliver's homemade ketchup recipe from Jamie at Home. Also ordered a lettuce blend and yellow lavender (I couldn't resist - I'm a sucker for lavender). I especially love the lavender's description on the site:

The scent has citrus overtones with a hint of spicy lavender, so place it where you like to walk in your garden for full enjoyment.

Now that I'm getting into this, I really think that everyone should grow their own food. It's so easy, and with all these different varieties, you can get things you'd never find in the grocery store.