Finally posting pics!

I have been incredibly busy trying to keep up with everything that posting just did not happen for a while. I have diligently been keeping a photo record of what's been happening in the garden, so this is actually two month's worth of pics. I am still harvesting tomatoes, beans, potatoes, raspberries, mint, more tomatoes, basil, a few shy cucumbers, more tomatoes and, well, more tomatoes. I have never had such a prolific tomato harvest. My cherry tomatoes have hit 9 feet tall. I did not know tomatoes grew on trees.

This year I planted fewer beans because last year I was drowning in them, and as my kids don't really like them, I was just growing them for me, and giving them as gifts. I planted what I think are turtle beans for the first time. I am not big on dried beans, so I pick them while they are still young and tender and eat them raw or steamed. So yummy!

 The garlic harvest came out very well. I still have a few late-planted ones to harvest from Gu, who sent them to me around Christmas, so too late for a fall planting. Josh has been telling me that our friend Alex plants his garlic earlier in the fall, lets it sprout and establish roots before the frost which seems to have greater results. He is also planting broom corn on the areas of his garden where he harvested the garlic, which he later harvests and uses for mulch to keep the nutrients going back into the soil, keeps the soil functioning and prevents erosion and drying.

 I am intrigued by the ideas, but struggling to find the time. Now that I am single, I do not have a partner who takes over making dinner and doing chores while I manage the garden. The kids are pulling some more weight but need a lot of supervision (aka nagging) or things just don't get done. Since mid-August, I am back working more than full time with a really heavy teaching load at Vanier and part time at UQAM, so I am barely managing to harvest, let alone plant, plan, process and eat everything.

I have a huge mystery squash plant that popped up. I have not quite identified what it is. It now looks like a small, green pumpkin. Actually I should say they look like pumpkins, there are 5 on the plant and they are a decent size. I will send Alex a picture for identification. It grew from the spot where I had one of my compost bins last year, but it is nothing that I have ever bought, eaten or even seen, so not sure how it got there. The light green version is from August, now it is dark green, so not looking likely to turn orange at this point. Something took a nibble exposing orange underneath, though.

 My garlic did beautifully this year, a really good harvest. I had a lot of surprises from ones I must have missed last year, which grew back in tight clusters of tiny garlic bulbs with mini cloves. Isaac was annoyed that I insisted we use those first before the big ones, which lasted us almost two months. We are now starting on the mid-sized, as the biggest I am saving for planting. Although I would like to try the idea of planting them earlier, I need to wait to finish my tomato, squash and corn harvest (I have two corn plants that the groundhog missed which have ears. They are an African variety given to me by my sister in law Dahlia, and looking good.
According to Alex, corn stocks make great mulch when you chop them up.

Note the tomato plant climbing up the lilacs is actually taller than the corn. And the lilacs. And still growing. Yikes!

With thanks to my friend Elan who took on the project of finding me a new source of hay this year, Isaac and I had a very dusty day fetching a dozen old, musty square bales from a riding farm south of Montreal. The hay was packed tight covering the entire top floor of the huge barn, and had to be extracted and carried to the window and dropped to the ground. My lungs still hurt just thinking of the moldy dust as we pulled out the old, jam packed bales with the strings fallen off. They were mostly not intact by the time they landed. A very messy business, but as they were dry (at least) they were in perfect condition for the garden. Isaac was a wonderful help despite my leaving half of the directions at home (Isaac has GPS on his phone), and not thinking to bring masks which was a bad idea. He did not complain, shlepped and dragged dutifully.

The groundhog seems to have moved on to greener pastures. We reached a truce back in August, he ate the lower leaves of my phlox (which tolerated it), the clover in my yard and my lamb's quarters. I put cayenne on the tomatoes a few times, and put some coyote pee dispensers right on the tomato cages, but he did not take any interest in the tomatoes. Later summer, the Japanese beetles and more recently snails and slugs seems to be the biggest pests, and they are eating the raspberry leaves more than anything. The raspberries don't look healthy but are producing well, so I am not bothering about it.  I have been using hydrogen peroxide to keep the tomato bacteria at bay successfully.

My friend Moishe found me a pineapple sage plant. I have brought it indoors already, along with my guava, hoping they will survive the winter.

The flower garden is unbelievable this year. I am loving it. 

To all my Jewish readers, wishing you a happy, healthy and fruitful new year. Shana tova!