Still Life

I love taking pictures in the garden, especially of the flowers and wildlife. I like to use them for my paintings as well. Perhaps a few vegetable still life paintings might be in order. Why not? I do wish I was a better painter. I tend to do a quick wash which I like and then start painting and tighten up and get bored with it. I find that I usually like the wash better. I see paintings that are incredibly detailed that they look like photographs. I do admire being able to do that, they are amazing to see. In our new place I will finally have a place to paint again in the winter months of course, when I can no longer garden.

The weather has continued to be quite dull with on and off rainy periods. The garden is doing well despite the rain and it promises to get nice again next week so hopefully will see lots of growth. It was pretty quiet and peaceful tonight when we went. Just a few brave souls out there puttering in their plots.

The gal who had my plot previously has three plots now and seems to be building a small city on them. The pictures of before and after are quite amazing. She has already built a fence, raised beds a greenhouse and plans to put in a little patio for her and her dog. I will post pictures of it when it is finished. I'm lucky, I inherited her old plot and it was very well cared for.

I threw in a few more sunflowers in the hopes that they don't get eaten by the birds before they can grow. Despite the cool wet weather things are doing well and I can't complain. It will be interesting to see if I can coax any eggplant to grow. The two plants I bought are doing okay but they have been under milk jugs until tonight. My cucumber plant is gone, eaten I suppose by slugs. I bought some copper but it was too late for it. I did put it around my seeds so hopefully something will happen. I have never been able to grow cucumbers for some reason and if something does grow I will have to put in some supports.

Apparently there are some wood chips now at the garden which were just delivered and are free for the taking. I hope there is still some there on Saturday morning. I would love to get some for my pathways. They are getting seriously muddy!

A piece of Heaven

Monday was spectacular. So warm in fact, that I had to take shade breaks in between planting. The blossoms are out on the trees which always makes me pull out my camera.

I had one more wheelbarrow load of manure to get and I still have room in the boxes. In time I hope to have lots of lovely compost to fill them with. In the morning I went to the woods nearby and gathered up some old leaves for the compost pile. Being the wrong season for raking leaves that is pretty much the only place I could think of to get them. There were lots there and I also picked up a few sticks to be used later to make some handmade tomato supports. A longer trip will be needed to get more. I haven't really had much in the way of compost but I want to do it right so according to the books you need to balance green matter, household peels, eggshells, coffee etc. with brown, which is leaves. I have a nice silver bucket that sits on my kitchen counter that I got from Lee Valley Tools for my kitchen scraps. It works great and has a filter built into the top and is nice enough to be able to sit on the counter. It has a handle and is pretty easy to tote each week down to the garden.



The one thing I am worried about is how much composted manure I have in the plots. I hope it isn't too much. I tried to put some compost in as well but it is pretty difficult to lug too much as my garden is quite a ways from the parking lot. I tried to not put any in where the carrots were going but otherwise there is a shall we say a **** load of it. Oh well, if I keep at it the soil will hopefully get better with time with all the organic material I plan on putting in. Whatever lovely compost I get by fall will get dug in and tucked in with some leaves.

Isn't this a lovely spot with the mountains in the back, picnic tables to have lunch and a rest and swallows to watch swooping in and out of the birdhouses.

I planted sweet peas, sunflowers, delphinium seeds, poppy seeds, cosmos and lavatera. My bee balm has disappeared from the flower bed. I think when the boxes were installed it got dug under and I will have to bring more from home. I love it but it does kind of spread. The potatoes, onions, garlic and some peas and carrots also went in. The main garlic I will plant in fall. A few more things will go in next weekend and the weather looks fabulous! The forecast is for sun at least until the weekend. Only two weeks more and tomatoes and hopefully beans will go in.

Sounds like another trip to my favourite garden centre.

Dreaming of Tomatoes

I'm finding myself dreaming of tomatoes. I don't think I have had a good tomato for over 13 years. Growing tomatoes here will be a bit of a challenge and I know I might not get any but it won't stop me from trying.

There is nothing like a fresh tomato. Sometimes I wish I had never had one as it spoils you forever. I buy them at the store but unless they are smothered in dressing or in a sauce they are horrible rubbery things. Even the so called "field tomatoes" that you can buy in the summer still taste like rubber. Nothing compares to a warm tomato fresh from the garden sliced and put in a sandwich with a little dressing, salt and pepper. Heaven! It would be sacrilege to put these tomatoes in a sauce. Fresh salads or just eaten with a little salt are all they need.

Last year I grew a few patio tomatoes on a long hanging basket in full sun the back yard.



It worked pretty good but I found that when the fruit was setting it needed more water than I could give it. I watered it at night but by the time I got home from work it had wilted and I would have to give it a drink twice a day. It really needed water in the afternoon. As a result the tomatoes weren't bad, actually they were quite nice but the skin was a bit tough. In my opinion the flavour just wasn't as good as when they are grown in the ground but the next best thing.

The best place I have ever grown tomatoes was under our bedroom window at our house in Calgary. They got the afternoon sun and were protected right under the bay window overhang when the hail came and ruined my entire vegetable garden. The tomatoes were beautiful. My poor vegetable garden which was doing so well looked like a blender had gone through it. The tomatoes helped.

Apparently there is always blight at the community garden and it tends to spread. A lot of people have small greenhouses at the garden specifically for the tomatoes. I did buy a small little plastic pop up greenhouse but it won't be big enough once they get big so I will have to rig up some kind of contraption to protect them later. There doesn't seem to be much you can do once blight hits the garden so I will just hope that it doesn't happen. The rules seem to be to warm the soil a couple of weeks before, plant deep, keep leaves off the soil, mulch, water from underneath and try to protect them from the heavy rains.

A lot of trouble I know, but oh I'm dreaming of tomatoes.

Raised beds

Early Sunday, John called from the garden and since the weather was good (for a change) he had decided to get going on the frames. He was lost as he had only been there the once and with over 250 plots it is easy to lose your way. I gave him directions over the phone and said I would head over in a couple of hours.

My hubby and I headed to the garden a while later to hopefully see him but just missed him and his helper. My little garden was full of almost all of the boxes neatly assembled. There is still some work to do but it is a wonderful start.

The fence I was a bit surprised at. Different than I had envisioned and larger. I knew when I saw it that it was too big and I would definitely get in trouble unless it was shortened to the size of the others. When I spoke to John he said no worries, he would fix it and bring it down in size. What a nice man, he understood and didn't complain at all. I think it will look great when it is all done and as long as it doesn't shade the neighbours it should be fine. The only shade should be on my own plot and I don't mind a bit of shade. The lattice will be wonderful to grow sweet peas on. It is pretty fancy but time will weather it and make it part of the garden.

The fence and gate can wait and as long as the boxes are done I can get them all prepared next weekend as long as the weather holds.