Garden is planted!!

Mostly.....
Anne I went to Heemans last Saturday (May 12) and I bought a bunch of plants for the garden.  Mom gave me three of her Brianna heirloom tomatoes (an amazing beefsteak style tomato), so I had those already.  I bought a mix of heirloom tomatoes (4 plants), 4 pie pumpkins, 4 sugar baby watermelons, 4 sweet yellow peppers, 4 red peppers, 3 pickling cucumbers and green and yellow bean seeds.  It cost less than $20!

I had already been over to Dad's and planted the peas and nasturtiums, and I had a bunch of marigolds left to plant.  I planted the pumpkin and melons on four mounds, two plants to each mound.  I think I probably did not need to mound them, but we'll see how it works and make adjustments next year.  I planted the cucumbers in a triangle to the side of the melons and pumpkins and put large tomato cages around them to grow up.  I planted the peppers behind the mounds and the cucumbers... they will get afternoon shade from the fence, which should prevent them from scorching.  I planted the tomatoes here and there; same with the marigolds.  Anne planted some herb seeds I had in the front corner of the garden in front of the peas and the nasturtiums, and I planted the beans in front of the potatoes.  There are still some empty spaces where I might plant some mixed pole bean seeds that Stacy recently gave me.  I also need to plant beets throughout the garden... beet tops and roots are so good.

watering the garden after planting everything

marigolds, sugar baby melons, pie pumpkins and tomatoes

rows of peas, peppers, tomatoes ... grow my little darlings!

Compost and potatoes!

Last weekend I got up early and called Dad ... it's compost time!!

We went to Try Recycling (awesome place!!) and bought 2 yards of compost for $40!  Not bad!  2 yards was 2 big scoops from the front loader and filled the entire back of the pickup... so much lovely, lovely compost.  As the fellow was scooping the compost into the truck, it was steaming and hot.  Excellent!  The compost is a deep dark brown/black and had pockets of ash in it... I assume because it was catching fire a little bit due to heat?

It took about 1 1/2 hours for Dad and I to unload the compost into the garden.  Wheel barrows really are a wonderful invention.  The weather was absolutely lovely and we could not have asked for a better day.  There was enough compost to give a good 6 inch layer all over the garden.

go potatoes!

The potatoes were starting to pop up, so I piled the compost around them.  Some lettuce was also coming up, but I just chucked the compost on top of it.  It should grow through the compost, and if it doesn't, oh well.  I have LOTS of lettuce seeds.  I also gave the rhubarb some nice compost to feed it.

Woo hoo!!1  Go compost!   Things should really get growing now!

Next post: potatoes, peas, nasturtiums

Metal

Since there was so much metal in the back corner of the garden, I am concerned about soil contamination.  (It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to get the soil tested ... I'll have to look into that.)  I have a largish square planter and there are a bunch of cinder blocks at Dad's, so I am thinking of filling the hole with compost, and sticking the planter on top.  I will put a potato in the planter and maybe a marigold or two.  I want to surround the planter with some of the cinder blocks.  I'm going to get landscaping material and line the bottom of the cinder blocks with it.  I'll fill the holes in the cinder blocks with soil and grow onions and/or garlic in them, maybe a herb or two as well.

I've been absolutely itching to get some plants in the ground since mid-March when we had a crazy hot week... so, I decided to take a chance and planted some potatoes, lettuce and onions.  I had a couple of organic potatoes from a few weeks ago that I didn't eat and they started to sprout.  I cut them up and put them in the north corner of the garden.  I think I planted about 6-8 sprouted potato bits.  If they grow, great.  It not, no big deal... it is totally an experiment to see what will happen.  There are a lot of squirrels in the neighbourhood, so I planted onions around the potatoes to try to deter the squirrels from digging and rearranging as they are fond of doing.  And for good measure, I scattered some lettuce seeds around the front corner of the garden.

Saturday is compost day, so Dad and I are going to get a truckload of compost.  Stacy also needs compost, so we'll get some for her too.  Wooo!  Teamwork!  After I get the compost turned into the garden, I will do a better plan of what is going where.  I have some onions and seeds to plant, but I will probably wait until Monday (depending on the weather) to plant anything.  Let the compost and soil get settled a little.  And the next weekend will be major gardening day.  I want to get most of the plants put in ... I better get a hat and some sunscreen.  Lots of outdoor time in my future!!!

Preparation

This year, I am putting a garden in my Dad's backyard (he lives on Highbury Ave, London) and am growing some plants on the balcony.  I had a lot of problems with spidermites on the balcony last year (I guess the wind blows them onto the balcony), so I am going to try to mesh off areas to try to minimize the mites.

 this is where the potatoes will go

the backyard before - turns out there was a bunch of metal buried here

The garden at Dad's is a pretty decent size.  He fixed a rototiller for a friend of his and used it to till the backyard up...

You know what's fun?  When someone decides that burying a bunch of scrap metal in the backyard where you want your garden to be is a good idea ... and then you have to dig it all up.  Ugh!
It took Colin and I about an hour to free all the metal.  Dad thought it was just a little bit of metal... how wrong he was.

Not only was there a bunch of metal buried, but also some cinder blocks, bricks, glass bottles and 2 toys.  Thanks previous homeowner!  That was such a nice thing for you to leave behind!

I'm a little nervous to plant any vegetables in the spot where all the metal was.  I have no idea what kind of metal it is or if it was coated with anything, and I don't want to eat contaminated veg.  I have a planter that I might stick in that corner for now... or I might just plant marigolds there...

The soil is very sandy.  May 5 is Compost Day in London, so I am going to get a truckload of compost and add that to the soil.  Dad will then till it all in and hopefully that should bulk up the soil.  I'm also starting a compost at Dad's.  I also got a box of bloodmeal that I scattered all over the soil... to try to prevent squirrels.  I may have to get more.  

Baby peppers and flowering peas

Hooray!  Little baby peppers are growing on my plants!  I am so excited that my veggies are actually growing.  I didn't know how things would go due to the lack of full suno n the balcony.  I guess there is enough sun in the morning.  Hopefully the warm weather will stay for a while and things will really get growing.  All of my plants are definitely smaller and slower growing than they should be.  Oh well.. they are growing and appear to be happy!

Grow my beauties, grow!

 The peas are also coming along slowly, but nicely.  I didn't know how they would turn out, but they are starting to get pretty tall and even have flowers!!  Colin hates peas, so these will be all mine!!

Pretty pink flowers... go peas! 

While out watering the plants tonight after work, I noticed that my pansies were completely infested with aphids!  Oh no!  They are so nasty looking and can be very damaging.  I have no idea where they came from; they seem to have appeared overnight.  I threw out the pansies but I noticed that there were a few aphids in my other planter, on my forget-me-nots.  So, I made a soap, veg oil and water solution and sprayed those nasty little things good.  I hope that takes care of them.  I will check to see how things are tomorrow and go from there.  It's supposed to rain overnight, so I had to move all the plants around in case it gets nasty... I tried to make sure that none of the veggies are near the infected flowers.  Stay away aphids!!

Balcony Garden

I love to garden, but I live in an apartment.  There are community garden plots that you can rent in London, but the closest one to me would be way too big for me to maintain and too far away for me to be able to go to the garden everyday.  My apartment faces southeast, so I get lots of sun in the morning, but none in the afternoon.  I usually keep my big, old ficus out on the balcony in the summer, but I decided this year that I want to try to grow vegetables, flowers and herbs on the balcony.

I started planting some herbs and lettuce on the balcony about a month ago and approximately three weeks ago, my bestie took me out to get more supplies (I do not have a car and a car was definitely required for the trip).  I now have a garden of sorts on my balcony.  This year is definitely the experiment year, as I have no idea how the plants will do with only direct sun in the morning.

Having a garden on your balcony can be expensive, but also save money at the grocery store once your produce is ready to be picked and eaten.  Soil and containers need to be purchased, along with the plants, and this can get costly.  I had a number of planters (I have house plants all year round) and some old seeds that I could use, but I have still spent about $150 in supplies so far.  I had some containers given to me and used some old containers I have around, so I was able to save some money.  My bestie also gave me three tomato plants, so that saved a bit of money too.  I think the key to keeping the costs reasonable is to be as resourceful as possible and use containers that may not traditionally be used.  If you have other friends who garden, you can swap plants and seeds as well, which can save money, especially if you are gardening in small spaces.  (It will take me a few years to use up some of the packets of seeds that I bought).  If you have leftover seeds, put them in an airtight container in a dark, dry spot and try using them again next year.  My bestie has corn growing from seeds that are 3 years old  

What am I growing?:
-three tomato plants (not sure how they will do as they need at least 6+ hours of sun, got these from my bestie, she started them from seed)

-variety of peppers (red, green and hot yellow), 8 plants in total (bought as plants)
-onions (bought plants)
-peas (I bought local pea sprouts, and they got away on me and started getting too big, so I planted some of them)

-cucumber (started from seed, three plants)

-mini watermelon (bought plant)

-red and green lettuce mix (started from seed)-arugula (had seeds)

-regular basil, pesto basil, chocolate mint, rosemary, lavender, chives (bought plants)

-variety of flowers











My "garden" is definitely behind my bestie's garden in her backyard, and the lettuce is not growing as fast as I hoped, but everything is coming along and growing, so fingers crossed I will get some produce.  I continue to move plants around and I am trying to come up with creative ways to maximize the space I have and the sunlight that the plants will get.