Search results

I adore this straw flower image. The form of the blossom on the right reminds me of the Uli Uli gourd rattles that are used in Hawaiian dancing! https://experiencekilohana.com/

Yesterday we roasted tomatoes with garlic for ground beef and pork meat sauce. There were chunky garden carrots added too, for a touch of sweetness. That prep work made for an easy supper tonight- Spaghetti Bolognese with fresh basil.

After another 10 days the plants are beginning to look like lettuce, which is encouraging. I made an interesting discovery when I opened the fridge today. Back on August 23rd I had placed some Gustav's Salad lettuce seeds on vermiculite in a cup with the lid on in the fridge, and then I kind...

A warm welcome from British Columbia! :)

We've been having warm and kind of humid weather here but today is cloudy and cooler, which makes for a nice break for me and the plants. Tomorrow it will heat up again reaching 30C(86F) by Friday; I suspect that will likely be the last of our hot weather for this summer. 🌅

I too am new to the concept of 'shellies'. This year I am growing Cocaigne bush dry shelly beans and am unclear on how to prepare them (also my yield is rather small, so I don't want to mess it up). The descriptions suggest that they are a rare gastronimical treat. You shell them first and...

What a pretty combination of flowers and edibles digitS'-- love it!

Last year a friend gave me a seedling of what was supposed to be Black Beauty, however it was likely an outcross. The plant grew extremely vigorously, and produced purple coloured saladette shaped fruits. I saved seeds to grow out a second generation this summer; so far it looks like those...

While weeding one of the beds in the vegetable garden I noticed over a dozen petunia volunteers-- or at least I think they are petunias. I relocated them along the shady side of the bed for now, so I can follow their progress. There is also one lonely Salpiglossis that has popped up nearby. I...

Our area broke many rainfall records for August 24th, and there is more precipitation in the forecast for today. After that it looks like warm sunshine for the foreseeable future. It has not been a good season for tomatoes so far; with a little luck maybe this pleasant stretch ahead will perk...

Looks like trouble brewing on the garlic front. I harvested on July 9th, cleaned up the bulbs a bit, and then hung them out of the sun in our breezy carport until August 14th when they were trimmed and placed indoors. After a week or so I noted mold on a few cultivars, and then the other day a...

After 10 days under lights I made blocks and pricked out the lettuce babies. Some had 3" long roots, so I likely could have moved them out of the vermiculite and into soil blocks even sooner. There were six kinds of lettuce, so each variety got its own tray of 35 blocks; the whole process took...

First Bosu tomatoes beginning to turn red-- just beautiful. This one is supposed to be an excellent 'keeper', and is said to be good for canning too. Its origins are unknown, so if anyone has grown Bosu and knows its history please share it with us.

I started seeds of gai lan Green Pearl in 1 1/2" soil blocks on August 4th, and today they will get planted out. It's always fun to grow a crop that is new to us. I think I will direct sow a row of Green Pearl alongside the transplants, to see how that goes. Seedlings of lettuce, Mizuna, Pac...

Nope-- and thankfully my Network beans are well positioned away from others so they should produce true seed. I planted a second patch of Rattlesnake all by itself in a neighbouring garden so I will be able to confidently save seed from those plants-- but the Louisiana were just grown in the...

These hot pink pods of Jimenez pole beans catch my eye each time I am in the garden. I just love them and hope to get a lot of seed from them, but while I'm meticulous about keeping Network beans well isolated from others I am clearly not doing a great job of segregating my other seed crops...

And saving tomato seeds is fun! For years all I did was smear them on a paper towel and rub off the gel, and it worked just fine. In fact I have some in the freezer from 15 years ago and they are still viable-- so I concur with heirloomgal that it can be very simple to save seeds from a...

A question please: I have a small brick planter box next to the house that holds a couple of pole bean varieties that are finishing, with the pods beginning to dry down. I would like to under plant the beans with basil or salad greens, each of which would need to be watered. Would it likely be...

After hearing so many of you talk about goldenrod I tried my hand at growing them from seed. I winter sowed a whole packet of 'Little Miss Sunshine' in November, and only a few seeds made it to the seedling stage. The four that survived are now planted in the garden, getting ready to bloom.

Spent a few hours washing pots, 6-cells, and nursery trays so I can store them indoors until I need them again in spring. It felt good to tidy up a bit!