More construction

 At the beginning of the spring, I went into the backyard and discovered that my temporary shed (built eleven years ago) was looking completely dead. The tarps were torn and shredded, the plastic poster-board roof tiles were coming apart. A lot of snow made it inside over the winter. Behind the shed, a whole section of the fence was tilted as one of the supports had rotted through at the bottom. I asked Josh to come over to put up the plastic gutters (which are not able to withstand winter, and come down every fall) and he discovered more of them were broken or missing parts which we could not find. I suspect they might have broken last year, and we were going to deal with it in the spring but neither of us remembered.  So we had a discussion about doing some much needed upgrading. I was somewhat more enthusiastic about it than Josh was, but I made my point about property values and beginning to look like a dump, and so I got busy finding the right people to get things fixed up.

I invited over a friend of a friend, who specializes in building sheds, decks and other backyard construction. He came over to discuss options for a shed. At one point he looked up at our roof and added another item to our "must do" list for this year. The roof at the back of the house was getting quite covered in moss. There had been a branch from the box elder tree beside the house touching it for a few years before I was able to get the city to finally trim it. During that time, there had been too much moisture on the roof, and the moss had dug into the tiles. We were informed that if we did not change the roof tiles, we risked much more serious damage to the roof structure which would be expensive to fix. So I added roofers to my list of professionals to find.

This summer has already had three intense heat waves, and up until the past two weeks a long dry spell. Then we had some heavy rain last week. This has made my garden super happy. Everything is big and beautiful. I am somewhat less happy, because I really do not like the heat, but managed to make the best of early mornings, evenings, and the occasional rainy or cool day to keep the weeds in check, so the garden is in pretty good shape overall.

I have discovered that two sections of the garden have become too shady for good growing. Some of my garlic came out quite small, and some of my tomato plants are not getting enough sun. The difference in size from those in one spot versus another is quite notable. I have decided to move some of the shade tolerating plants which I uprooted from the front of the old shed and put them in the patch between the mint and the bathtub. I just finally moved them from pots today after they had been in them for a month. I had to uproot them so we could dismantle the old shed, and then dig a shallow foundation for the new shed. Hopefully, that's next week's project. In the meantime, I have our bikes and a lot of other items under a tarp. The house came with a small shed which we are keeping, it used to make up the back wall of the old shed, and was packed with lots of things that were hard to access (and thus keep track of). We did a huge clean up job and got rid of all kinds of junk that was packed into it, so I am now able to use it more productively, and the new shed will have a fresh start. And place to keep our bikes!

 I got some advice and help from a neighbour who is a contractor in finding a really good roofer who did a great job. He just finished today, and I love what the roof looks like. I am not happy about what the garden in front of the house looks like, though. It was expected, like the proverbial eggs that you must crack to make an omelet. I had rescued a lot of plants (hostas, lilies, some irises, some of the evening primroses and goose-necked loosestrife, the delphinium and hollyhocks). I planted one of the hostas and one circle of stella d'oro lillies closer to the sidewalk in an area where I used to have more cosmos. Most of the rest of the rescued flowers are looking rather bedraggled. I waited until what I thought was the last possible day to uproot them, hoping that I would be able to get them back in the ground quickly. I also hoped that the plants I left behind (irises, geranium, lungwort, centaureas, campanulas, some of the primroses and loosestrife and lots of ground cover plants whose names I always forget) would be protected by the plywood and tarps. Sadly, neither of these hopes came to pass. Much of what I left in the garden was completely flattened or broken. The weather did not cooperate. It was unbearably hot and for days on end thunderstorms or showers were predicted (which often failed to come, resulting in ongoing heat). These are not great conditions for roofing work. What should have been a two-day job was spread over more than a week. The roofers had just managed to remove the tiles from one side and barely had time to finish putting up a water barrier on the first day, when the skies opened and it poured rain. They wrapped it up quickly (my roof, and the job) and left, drenched to the bone. On other days they had to limit themselves to a few hours of work in the morning before it hit 35 degrees (40 with the humidex. For my American readers, that is 104 degrees which never used to happen in Montreal. Ever!) So the plants that I rescued have been sitting in pots in the heat and are not looking too perky by this point. I am holding off on replanting because I suspect that the people installing the gutters are not likely to be any more gentle on my garden. I also want to clear the area of debris. This evening I began the fun process of picking up the bits of roofing tiles and hundreds of nails which have fallen all over the garden in the front, and the grass in the back.

 With all the heat, the garlic ripened early and the leaves were drying up and falling off. I decided to harvest all of them last week just before there were a few days of rain predicted. I am not sure if it is really an issue, but I have been told that garlic is best if it is dry just before harvesting, so it seemed to be a good idea. I had a smaller harvest than usual. I planted a smaller crop, because I was running out of space this year. Last October, I still had a lot of areas of the garden to clear of weeds, particularly digging out the roots of the creeping bell flowers. I have made a LOT of progress this spring and summer, but I could not have done it if I had to work around patches of garlic. So I decided to plant watermelon in one of those areas, because they only get big enough to need a lot of space by mid-July, which gave me three extra months to create the space. I am still a few feet ahead of the watermelon, but it is catching up fast.

I also did a lot of cleaning up in the bee balm beds. They have been spreading out into the garden, and getting tangled with all kinds of weeds. I moved them into a contained area and am still clearing out the last of the weeds, but it is looking a lot better. They are a bit less lush than they were years ago, but I think next year they will be spectacular again.

I discovered (the hard way) that baby coriander looks suspiciously like crabgrass when it starts to grow. This was a bit of a problem because this year I seem to have crab grass everywhere. Possibly not in the pot where the coriander is growing, but I will never know because I just picked it out before I realized that it might not have been crabgrass. So I will have very small quantities of coriander this year, which I plan to let go to seed, so that I will have much more coriander next year. Now that I know it looks like grass when it first pops up, I am more likely to have a good crop. That's the price I have to pay for doing such a good job of weeding. I usually cannot even see the coriander before it is big enough to be recognizably coriander popping out among the weeds. Live and learn!

Next to my potatoes, I planted some pak choy, chard and arugula a few weeks ago which I started harvesting for dinners this week. We also ate our first potato. Something had dug it up, took a bite and then changed its mind, leaving an almost intact, beautiful, freshly dug potato that was cooked into roti. Yum!

Tomatoes are a mixed bunch this year. The surviving tomatoes that I grew from seed are really small, and the ones which I put closer to the side fence are not getting enough light, so they are even smaller. I am not sure I will have the best of harvests, however with the heat I may end up with a decent crop. They may be a lot earlier than last year, if the heat continues. I already have a lot of green tomatoes.

I also discovered that tomatoes will grow from the seeds of green tomatoes. Iulia is having problems with squirrels eating her tomatoes, and as is their habit, they take a few bits, and then abandon their meal. As her tomatoes are growing along the fence between our yards, I have had a few dropped on my side by the squirrels. A few days later, baby tomatoes started to grow. I had no idea that the seeds were fertile before they were ripe.

I also have begun to suspect that my tomato cages have dissuaded the squirrels from eating my tomatoes. I have never had a problem, but everyone I know who grows tomatoes complains that the squirrels eat them. I did not even put out my usual squirrel deterrent this year. I still have plenty of coyote urine in the jar, but it does nothing to keep the squirrels off my apples or sunflowers, which seem to be the only things they are interested in eating from my garden. Unless they tried my potato... 


I am now waiting to hear from the people installing the gutters and building my shed. Hopefully everyone will come next week, and I can then replant the front garden. I have decided to move things around when I replant. The hostas have been buried behind other plants, and I need to put some tall flowers at the back. I am just hoping they have enough sun back there, but I will give it a try.