June 28th Garden Update

It's been 2 month since the poly tunnel plastic has come off and the sun is in the sky longer. We've already had a couple of heat waves and for the most part, it's been quite dry. My garden is slowly chugging along.
I've learned a lot so far.
The heat waves has caused the broccoli to bolt and flower and it won't stop. Seems like even cutting the main stem did not cause the side shoots to grow. I guess it's just too hot :(
At least the leaves/flowers/stem are edible....So once it finishes seeding, I'll dig the whole thing up and eat it.

So far I've only found 1 more cabbage worm since I plucked off the original 3 and put pots of herbs closer to the cabbage. So I decided to try putting a pouch of Star Anise onto my broccoli. I had left over bags from my wedding and Star Anise is a very strong smelling spice. We'll see how it goes :)

Speaking of spices, it didn't seem cayenne pepper affected the mole...It just dug the whole again...But maybe it was the way I applied the pepper. I just poured it into the whole and then filled it with soil...so it probably just avoided the bottom of the original tunnel and dug close enough to the original.
So this time I decided to mixed 5 spice powder into soil before refilling the hole and so far so good...Fingers cross it'll stop coming back. 5 spice is also very strong smelling so I hope the mole won't like it.

An other plant that bolted so I have no idea what it is...is this one...I'm pretty sure it's my cabbage....what do you think?

Maybe bolted cabbage???

Cabbage

My pea is continuing to flower but probably less then a plant in a location with more sun. But this gives me hope that if I can build a trillis next year that has more room at the top for vines to climb and stay up, I'll be able to grow more! The bean that the rabbit didn't eat starts to grow faster once it reaches a certain height as it's getting more sun. I'm taking that as a sign.

Chayote is starting to climb as well. I almost killed this plant as I let it get to try in the pot. I'm happy it's finally growing and growing well. My house is pretty humid even in the winter, so the top of the soil looked moist. What I didn't know was that the inside was dry so eventually I almost killed it.

I would like to harvest 50 Chayotes. We'll see how that goes.

First Sugar Snap Pea

So excited to see the first Sugar Snap Pea of the season.
I was worried I wouldn't get any since it's sort of getting late and getting hot but the vines just started to bloom.
A couple of flowers here and there.
And it's finally climbing higher so it actually gets more sunlight.

Once it starts to get a bit more sunlight I found it grew a lot faster.
The couple of beans that were not eaten by rabbits are starting to climb higher. I hope the higher they climb the fast they'll grow because they have more sunlight.

I think next year I'm going to try to grow squashes in the side that can climb trellis because once they get to a certain point they can get a lot of sun....as long as they get to that point that is...we'll see how it goes :)
I'll continue to experiment

Broccoli and moles

I know broccoli required at least 6 hours of sun and it's a cool temperature plant, but I thought, maybe if it has a bit more shade, then it can survive in hotter weather.
Boy was I wrong.
My side garden gets about 3-4 hours of sun if I'm lucky.
It's been basically a month since I planted my seedlings outdoors and the broccoli have gotten big, but 1 bolted early and the second one just bolted in the last heat wave.
I really should have been getting to a point where the head is growing but the heat caused the second promising looking plant to bolt :(
Looks like all I'll be able to get is broccoli leaves out of the plants.

I guess I'll try again in the fall but in the backyard when I get it back to see if I can grow it in full sun but cooler time.
The only issue is it'll take me at least a month to clear out the current beds of the trees, flowers and weed when I get access to it in Aug....
Which means I'll transplant in Sept, which is cutting it close to freezing temperatures....I guess we'll see how it goes :)

Other then that, besides the 3 cabbage worms I found and picked off, I haven't seen anymore so far.
I sprayed a mixture of cayenne pepper and castile soap on the leaves as homemade pesticide.
I also got strong smelling herbs and planted it close to the plants.
I got 2 mints (kept in pots), 2 thymes and 1 lemongrass.
Hopefully it'll be ok until I pull out these plants to plant something else.

Oh! and I believe I know what is causing the holes and caverns in my garden....we've concluded that I probably have a mole digging around somewhere.
That would explain why when I dug 1 foot into the soil, some areas had big cavities and why holes were appearing.
There's this 1 hole that comes out by my lettuce, that keeps on coming back day after day after I fill it again. It also explains why my bean collapsed in the last rainstorm. There was nothing underneath so when it rain heavily, it dropped the bean into the hole >_<
I think I'll have to throw some cayenne pepper into the hole before I refill it, but it probably won't stop it from tunneling around...I hope it doesn't cause too much issues around the roots and disturb my plants. I really don't want to have to get rid of it.

Chipmunks and Cabbage worms

Gardening really is one thing after another. Especially since I'm avoiding use of any pesticide and herbicides.

It turns out when the chipmunks dug up my bean seeds, they left behind some random seeds behind. No idea what they are but they sprouted! I had pockets of sprouts like this all over the garden.
Since I had no idea what they were, I had to dig them all up. I really prefer not to trade with the chipmunks. They should just keep their seeds.

I also have this plant growing that I think is a bean but I'm not positive because the chipmunks dug up my garden and ended up moving things around.

So now I actually have to wait and see to be sure of what it is....I hope it's not a weed or something bad that will take over my garden. I looked up pictures of the different beans I planted but I can't really find a picture of plant at this stage to compare.

To keep the chipmunks and rabbits out of my garden, I used a netting over the polytunnel tubes.
But now that the beans and peas are starting to climb, I had to lift it up. So the top is open by the side is still sort of covered to make it a little harder for them to get in.

I had to stretch it to go around the chayote area as well so the chipmunks and rabbits can't get in this way. I was originally going to buy chicken wire but I figured since I already had the netting, I might as well just use it. It's a little floppy so I have to get additional support to make it stand up. Other than that, it basically does the same job as the chicken wire.

One thing the netting doesn't do is keep the moths out....so I found the 3 cabbage worms this week munching away.

I found it because I noticed a cabbage leaf was looking weird and upon closer inspection I realized that half of it was gone and I found the worm....the sucker really blends in. It was so hard to find it.
I'm so surprised at how fast they found my plants considering it wasn't a vegetable garden before.

So this weekend I'll have to go get some herbs and plant them around the garden or leave them in pots around the garden to hopefully keep the bugs out.
My plan is to buy rosemary, mint, sage and thyme to help keep the moths away.
Here's a link to a really good chart on companion planting with herbs. herb companions

I'm torn about the marigolds cause they keep pests away but rabbits love to eat them....so I'm hesitant to attract more rabbits.
We'll see how things work with the herbs and then I'll go from there.

My Spring Radish Harvest

Since I don't ever remember eating radishes and how they taste like, I decided to plant 2 rows of radishes just to test them out.
I learned a lot from the 2 rows I planted.

2 major things I learnt.
1. You can eat radish leaves!!
2. Can't be greedy with space, the roots will not grow until you give them lots and lots of space. I don't know how they know they're beside each other but they do.

Here's my final harvest of the 2 rows after thinning out one of the rows earlier.

1. Radish greens
I stumbled upon this by fluke. At first I honestly thought the greens were some sort of lettuce because I didn't label my plants and I had planted a lettuce mix beside the radishes. So for the longest time I thought that it was some sort of prickly lettuce and I couldn't find my radish....
It wasn't until I decided to pull up a plant that I realized that these were my radishes. LOL

I ate the greens raw in sandwiches but I find I like it best cooked!
The greens are prickly so a bit of a pain to wash. It's edible raw and you don't feel it pricking you but just to be safe, it's all nice and soft when you cook it.
Once I realized I had eaten radish leaves, I decided to look them up to be certain you can eat them.
That's when I realized how nutritious they are and the fact that they contain more nutrients then their roots.
The greens are a good source of source of calcium, iron, magnesium, vitamin A, C, K!
When I cook them to eat with noodle soup, I find they taste like Choy Sum. So great fresh substitute.
I tried baking them but didn't like it as much.
So far I like it the best blanched and eaten with noodle or congee.
The best thing about the greens is that it acts like cut and grow lettuce. So for the 1 month you grow the plant for the roots, you can continue to harvest the leaves the whole time for fresh greens.

I like to eat the greens fresh, so throughout the season I clip, wash and cooked right away.
But since I had to harvest the root to stop it from bolting, I quickly rinse and dried in a spinner before I rolled up my greens in newspaper to store in the fridge.
It'll be ok for a couple of days so I'll have to get on eating them. Make sure you dry and separate greens from the root before storage to best keep the leaves.

As of right now, I still haven't ate one of the edible roots I did manage to grow, but I'm thinking I prefer the greens then the root itself. But this led me to point 2.

2. Spacing the radishes.

The ones on the left are from the row that I did not thin out.
The bulbs from the right are from the row that I had thinned out from 6 radishes to 2. The smaller one of the 3 on the right is from the row on the left that I did not thin out. I really thought I had enough room between all the roots since they were spaced out more then the row on the right, but apparently I was wrong.
The roots on the left are not edible. I tried and it was....very bitter and woody.

What I realized is that if you are growing radishes for the greens, go ahead and plant them closer to one an other. And you can have a month long harvest of greens until it gets too hot and the plant starts bolting.
If you want the roots, you do have to space them out.
You'll still get your greens but maybe not as much as if you were to bunch them up.

Great learning, the radishes are fast growing and great for cool season. I'll plant them again in the fall.
For now I will let the broccoli/cabbages and beans take over :)

Eggshell Seedling Starters

I saw these on Pinterest and thought they were so cute I just had to try them.
First I tried with the beans since I wanted something I can bury without disturbing the roots.
But sadly my beans just didn't want to grow so I had no success there.
I but didn't give up.
I ate more eggs and did some planted other things.
My broccoli and cabbage are germinating at about 75%.
Although I did the cabbage and broccoli on different weeks it seems like the amount of sun they can get on my window sill is making them grow at about the same speed now.

I'll probably get them into the ground as soon as I know the beans I transplanted are doing ok.
I'll be putting these in front of the beans :)

To use the egg shells as planters, I used a very sharp knife to poke a hole at one end.
Then I used that hole to create a small crack and lifted a small piece out. Then bit by bit I widen the hole. The egg will want to leak out at a certain point. You can try to pour it out when it first starts to leak but the hole is probably still too small for the yolk to come out without popping.
Best to pour a bit of the egg white and then continue to widen the hole until the size you want and the yolk will easily pour out.

I boiled the egg so it keeps longer.
Poke a hole through the bottom so water can drain through. If you don't, you'll have to be careful how you water.

When you are ready for transplanting, just squeeze the eggshell so it can break apart so your roots can push through the cracks even before it decomposes.
It makes transplanting very easy as you're not really disturbing the root :)

Try it out!!

Rabbits in my garden :(

Here's the before and after picture of the part of the garden that wasn't under the net.

Before the rabbit got to it

After the rabbits got to it...1 night was all it took

The rabbits had a buffet...
It ate all the leaves and left the stem. I'm leaving it in in  hopes that it'll grow back, but at this point in time I really don't know what might happen. It was just transplanted so it's sensitive...and for the rabbit to eat all the leaves, it might be too much for the plant to handle.

Close up of the damage

Sigh, I'm so sad. I hope it'll grow back. I was so excited with so many seedlings, now I might not have anything :(

Since beans eventually will climb, I'm not sure what to do. I can't keep a netting over it forever. It was actually getting ready to climb soon so I need to get it out.
I have to figure out a way to block the rabbits from getting at it but still allow it to climb.
Any suggestions?
I have more pole beans planted and they're just starting to sprout. So it'll eventually get to this stage and I can't let the rabbit eat it too.

Me vs Chipmunk

What do you know, the first night I leave the polytunnel cover off, the next morning I find holes all over my little garden.
I swear it's that chipmunk I've seen around. I've found it guilty in my chayote pot when I was hardening the plant. It doesn't eat the arugula but it's digging up the garden and it ate my bean seeds. :(
I have no idea how it knew where I planted the seeds.
Those dents you see in the photo above is from the chipmunk digging. There were some deeper holes and it even got into my eggplant pot that I put outside for more sun. The funny thing is, it didn't eat the seedling, just dug up everything around it and pushed the seedling over......I don't understand at all. I just hope my eggplant will survive cause it just popped up! It doesn't even have true leaves yet and the chipmunk got to it.

So this is what I'm trying to fight against the chipmunk.
I brought this "bird" cover which is basically just netting and I'm putting it over a section of the garden that have low growing items. I'm using the same hoops I used for polytunnel for the netting. I've had the netting up for 4 days and I haven't found any new holes. I think it's discouraging the chipmunk for the time being. I really hope it doesn't figure out how to get in to give my seeds a chance to grow.

So apparently I had 1 seed that survived the chipmunk raid.
It just popped up today so I hope it'll continue to grow.

I also transplanted the beans my mom's friend gave me. She gave me so many, I hope a good amount of them will survive the transplant since I've been told beans don't like to be transplanted. My fingers are crossed. I don't know how she got them to grow so well in the small space when the peas I planted indoors before the transplant were so weak!! The roots on these are so much more developed then the pea I had indoors. These are outside of the netting, I hope the chipmunk will leave them alone.

And here are the peas.
The right one was from indoors and the left one was direct sow. Such a big difference. The direct sow can stand on it's own even though it's much taller now. The leaves are bigger and the stem is stronger. The transplant is floppy and requires support to help it stay up.
I wonder how much light I need indoors in order for the seedling to grow better. I can't imagine the glass to block light that stops plants from growing when people build green houses out of glass.
At this point in time I'm pretty stumped.

I hope the peas will get taller soon to start climbing the trellis. The higher it climbs the more sunlight it'll get.

May 20th Garden Update

It's finally the May two-four weekend, the big gardening weekend in Ontario where everyone goes out to buy things for their garden and get started on it this.
Why is this the big gardening weekend? Well, last weekend we got a sudden drop in temperature and it even flurried a little in the city. So anything that really doesn't like the cold and wasn't properly protected would have KOed.

I was very lucky to be able to build the mini hoop tunnel to start my season a month earlier so I can start enjoying the lettuce while other people are just getting started. Probably an important thing too since the hours of sunlight is affecting the rate of which my plants are growing.

One thing I noticed is that due to the 3-4 hours of sunlight the garden gets, the days to maturity seem to be off based on what's on the package. The first set of lettuce to be fully mature by now, but it just started getting bushier.

Same with the Sugar Snap Peas that are supposed to nature around 40 to 50 days. It looks way behind schedule. I'm hoping the peas will grow faster as it grows taller as it may get an hour more sunlight then the ground level plants.

An other thing I noticed is that the pea I transplanted seems weaker then the one I directly sowed.
The leaves are smaller and the vine is thinner as well. I have a hard time figuring out if this is due to the transplant or the fact that there was little light. Or the sunlight is affected by glass as I was trying to use sunlight to start the seedling. I'm surprised because the side garden only has 3-4 hours of sunlight which is about the same as my window sill so I'm not sure why the direct sow one is better.
I just hope both will continue to grow and get better.
I want peas and for it to help feed the soil.

This is also the weekend I'll wash and put away the frost blanket and the plastic cover for the mini tunnel as it shouldn't be necessary anymore.
I'll also be sowing and transplanting additional items.
I need to build that trellis for the Chyote because I don't want it taking over the fence. Initially I was going to let it grow on the fence but after reading about how it takes over and climbs everywhere, I decided it needs to be contained on it's own.

At least I won't be battling it out at the nurseries since I have almost everything I need for the year :)
Happy gardening weekend.

Seeds vs Seedlings

This is probably the most common question beginner gardeners have. Should they buy seeds or should they buy seedlings.
Both have their pros and cons.
At a very high level, seeds have more variety and they cost less but are they are also riskier as it can be harder to grow. It can also be discouraging for beginners like myself when germination rate is low.
Seedlings on the other hand can cost $2-$5 per seedling depending on the plant, but if you transplant them carefully, they're almost guarantee to grow.

Honestly, for first year gardening, I didn't want to spend a lot of money on something I wasn't sure about. So this is how I went about getting seeds for cheap or for free!

1. Buy off season!
Urban Harvest has a pop up store from April until late June. Last year, I found them and went their last week when they were having a closing sale. I got seeds at half price! So pay attention to off season nursery sales or the weekly sales.
2. Asking family and friends - I got 2 Chayote plants from my aunt in law, my brother in law gave me some random seeds, my mom's friend is giving me a string bean plant. This is a great kick start to my little garden
3. Trading at Seedy Saturday/Sunday events - Google the words Seedy Saturday or Seedy Sunday and your location. You may find some local seed trading events where you can potentially buy home grown seeds for a cheaper price if you don't have anything to trade yet.
4. Seed Libraries!
I'm very grateful to the Markham's Seed Library and the Toronto Seed Library.

I first learned about Seed Libraries when I saw a weird display at the Milliken Mills Library several years ago. They were just starting out and only had 4 different types of seeds. I was wondering what they were doing so I searched it up and it turns out this initiative is part of Markham's sustainability plan. The idea is that everyone should have access to fresh food.
The Toronto Seed Library was founded before Markham's but their vision is also around food sustainability. The Toronto one is not run by the Toronto Public Library so there's no need for a library card to sign out seeds.

I loved the idea of borrowing, growing and giving back into the library.
I also found this to be a great way to try out new food (if it grows properly) relatively risk free. If I had to buy everything I wanted to try to grow, I would never try anything new.

The Markham seed collection has really grown this year. There's a lot more choices but they still run out very fast so you have to be really on the look out every week to see what they have.
I found that the 2 locations in Toronto I visited had a wide variety of choices and had more items on hand then the Markham ones.

If you're in Markham, definitely check out Milliken Mills Library or Cornell Library for the seed library.
Toronto has 20 active locations which all carries slightly different items, so be sure to check out the latest place near you.

Really excited to try these different seeds.
I'm so surprised to learn that Tatsoi is an Asian veggie and it looks so much like a Bak Choy but I've never had it before O_O
I hope it grows well so I can try it :)
I plan on planting that in late summer for fall/winter harvest since it seems to do well in the cold.

May 9th Garden Update

As you can probably tell by now, I'm so excited with my first year garden.
I think gardening posts might take over my blog.
Temperature right now is still around 3 degrees at overnight.
During the day it reaches the mid teens.
So it actually gets quite warm and can be steamy inside the polytunnel during the day.
I've started to lift the tunnel during the day to vent it so I don't cook anything.
On days I work from home, I wait until the sun is shining on the space to uncover completely.
On days I'm not at home, I try to uncover just a bit on a day where temperature varies or I take it completely off on a day where I know it'll be hot. Still need to use it over night, but I should be able to pack the frost blanket away now after I wash it next weekend.

A week seems to make an impact on the growth of things.
The first row of lettuce I sowed in mid April is starting to sprout it's real leaves this week.
The things I sowed on April 24th is starting to pop up.
The most noticeable is the second row of lettuce at the bottom of the picture to the left.

The carrots and beats are slowly coming. I'm still having a hard time figuring out if something was from the garden previously or my seeds in the areas I've been planting. I'm pretty sure I accidentally pulled out a beet seedling today...oops.

There's also something growing that seems suspiciously like bean sprouts. It's almost like some of the beans I used last year as fertilizer is actually growing...which is weird cause what I brought should have been boiled and blended up....so I'm at a complete what these are and where they came from.

The sugar snap pea is growing much slower then I had hoped.
In the picture below, the one to the right is the one that was transplanted. It's only grown an inch since it was transplanted.
The little bud on the left of the picture is the seed I directly sowed. It looks like it is starting to come up. So if this works out nicely, I'll have one plant after the other giving me peas :)

I'll probably transplant some more this week and try to start up some more seeds indoors.

First Transplant of the season

I swear mother nature loves messing with gardeners up north.
For the last 2 weeks it was in the warm teens, and right after I transplant my sugar snap pea seedling it drops to freezing for several days.... :(
I'm hoping it'll still be ok with the polytunnel to help keep the soil warm enough that the plant will be ok.
I would have liked to wait a little longer before I transplanted it but for the last 2 weeks the peas haven't grown indoors, so I decided to bite the bullet and transplant it now. So fingers crossed for the next week to see how it grows.

Hopefully it will grow better and bear fruit before May two-four weekend. Since sugar snap peas like cooler climate, I was hoping to finish harvesting it by then and swap places with the Chayote which needs warm climate to grow in.

The lettuce I have seeded 2 weeks ago seemed to be doing well before the cold hit.
Cute little seedlings right now. Once again fingers crossed the cold doesn't kill it. When I took a peak again today, seems like a couple of the sprouts are starting to show true leaves :)
The new row of lettuce I seeded last week haven't sprouted yet at all. So maybe the frost killed that row. I'll have to monitor and see before I try to reseed it so I don't overdo that row.

I still struggle with hours of sunlight in the side garden. 3 hours of sunlight is hard on plants.
I think it'll hit peak 4 hours of sunlight in June/July. So those 2 months will be my key growing season.

I better do more indoor seedlings to be ready for it.

I think after this year, I'll probably only do climbing type and lettuce types of plants in the side garden.
Climbing can get a little bit more sun as higher up on the fence gets sun earlier then the ground level.
Lettuce should be ok with partial sun so....that's probably my plan going forward.
If things go well, I'll dig out the trees from the back raised garden and plant there as well for things that need full sun as that patch gets full sun.
Hopefully things will grow yummy enough to convince my husband to help me dig out the trees so I can plant there too :)

Memories and seedlings

These past couple of weeks starting seedlings and setting up my garden takes me on a trip down memory lane.
I remember when I was young, the most important thing when we were looking for a house in Canada was having a garden because that was what my grandpa really wanted to do when he moved over from HK.

He loved gardening and would spend hours in the garden every day.
Of course he planted all Chinese veggies which takes a lot of room and lower yield, so it was always special on nights we eat veggies from the garden.

He grew bak choy, choy sum, winter melon, fuzzy melon, Chinese chives, peppers and tomatoes.
I remember he let me plant a strawberry plant from school one year and not only did we never get to eat the strawberries because animals came and ate them, but it took over his garden so he eventually removed it.

I loved the melons he grew and would like to grow it too but sadly I don't get enough sunlight in my side yard (west side of house).

So this year, being the first year I'm gardening, I decided to try to stick with easy things that can potentially grow in with less light

I'm hoping to be able direct sow lettuce and transplant some items next week as the weather is starting to warm up.
Right now it's still less then 10 degrees C and it goes to about 0 degrees at night so I'm hoping with the mini-hoop up, the soil can get to around 15 degrees C by next week.

So to get ready, I've started my seedlings 2 weeks ago. Funny thing is, the bigger pot on the bottom left has 4 seedlings growing but I only put 2 seeds in that pot. So I have no idea what else is growing in there....and I don't know what to pull because I don't know what is what....I guess I'll just have to wait until they grow bigger :(

The sugar snap pea on the bottom left is growing very well right now. It should be ready to transplant next week and good news is that it can survive with only 4 hours of sunlight, which is about what I get in the side garden.

So in the pots, I have broccoli di ciccio, cabbage "green express" and sugar snap pea started.

Today I direct sow 1 line of Purple Plum Radish and I started soaking a blue jay bean, a slenderette bean and and Orca bean. I'm a little hesitant to plant these because they're all bush type and require 6-8 hours of sun. I hope they'll still be ok even if it's slightly lower yield. One key reason why I'm planting them is because they can help pull nitrogen into the soil and I'm trying to make the soil richer anyway I can.

Next week I hope to get more things in the ground so I can start harvesting as soon as the end of May or early June :)

Mini Hoop Tunnel is up

So I think Spring is finally going to start with the last of the snow coming down yesterday.
We're still going to get some pretty cold temperatures but at least we shouldn't get anymore snow.
So today, I went to put up my mini hoop tunnel.

Many different ways to do this.
Here are the things I used for my mini hoop tunnel
Stiff Plastic hoops
A large sheet of plastic that can be found at either your gardening store or your hardware store.
Spring clamps from Home Depot
Rocks and bricks I had lying around

I considered a lot of things to hold down the plastic. I honestly was going to use binder clips but then when I was reading the year round gardener, she mentioned how it all blew off so I decided against that since it's pretty windy where I live.

I started at one end, set up the side close to the fence first, and then moved along.
The clamps clamp on the plastic rather then the hoop itself so it does pull the plastic and make it a bit uneven. I did the best I can to even it out.
I used bigger clamps on the ends and smaller ones in the middle. With the additions of rocks I should hopefully have a stable system.

Below is a picture of the middle where I discovered if I place the clamp closer to the bottom it's easier on the plastic.

I will leave the garden alone for a week for the soil temperature to warm up before I try to direct sow anything in. I have also started seedlings indoors that will hopefully be ready for transplant in an other 2 weeks.

In the meantime, I hope the flowers that were growing here last year that I removed will start showing itself so I can start pulling before I plant my plants in so it's easier to identify.
I have a heck of a battle coming up because of those flowers....Hopefully I will be able to remove most of it this year....fingers crossed

Sunlight vs Grow light

We're getting close to gardening season (sort of close...there's 15cm of snow outside but we're getting there) so it's time to look at starting seeds indoors.

I have a south facing window so I was really debating if I needed a grow light or if my seeds will do ok in only sunlight.

Here is what I have discovered so far.
January, there just wasn't enough sunlight to sustain plants at all. Almost everything I started in Jan died.
February, there was more sunlight and I was able to start several lettuces but they were all stunted in growth. Didn't get bigger then 2 inches
March, once again the sunlight increased, but it was quite uneven across my plants since the sunlight is coming in various angles. So out of the 3 lettuce I planted side by side, I had 1 tiny, one medium and one bigger. None of them were big enough to eat yet and after a certain size, new leaves would die as if there just wasn't enough light to sustain it growing.

Even though sunlight in March for my area is suppose to be about 11hrs, the plants were at most getting 2-4 hours of sunlight depending on position because of the position of the sun.
Also, there were lots of cloudy days in Jan-Mar so it's hard to get 3 hours of sunlight consistantly.

So I finally gave in and decided to buy 1 grow light to see how it would help.
After a lot of research, I decided to try an LED Grow light that is specifically Red and Blue.
There are different ratios of red to blue depending on what type of plants you're trying to grow but this is the one I got. Mine has more reds then blues. The bigger blurry ones are the blues.

My friend was actually very skeptical about my grow light since I got it from China. It's definitely hard to tell what quality are you getting and if it was done properly so it actually works. But I figured if Philips is selling their LED business to China, the tech there should be fine as long as I can find a good seller.
I spent a lot of time shopping on the Chinese websites, looking at reviews, etc before I finally brought this one.
Key things to look at for any online buying no matter where it's from, look for light with the right voltage for your area, look at reviews for the product and look at seller reviews.

I don't have an expensive branded LED Grow light to compare with, but this one seems to do it's job.

I noticed immediately after using it the second day, the weak leaves on my lettuce that was about to die actually got stronger. I don't have wilting leaves anymore and the smaller plant is finally growing.

So far I'm only using it to supplement the sunlight I get as I do not like to leave lights on when I'm not at home. However, this helps stretch the hours of sunlight my plants are getting from 3 hrs to 6 hrs.

Since I'm having success with it, I'll now be using it on the seedlings I'm trying to start for my garden.
In the next 2 weeks, I hope to have my sweet peas, broccoli and cabbage seedlings started so that I can transplant in about a month into the garden.

If the weather warms up next week, I'll finish my mini hoop tunnel and sow some lettuce directly outdoors once the soil is warm enough. I'm hoping to actually get some produce by May if the mini hoops work.
Fingers crossed :)

Early Spring = Early work in gardens

Yesterday was officially the first day of spring!
First year for gardening so I'm very excited.

Since the start of March,  we've been experiencing May like weather.
Usually, there's still a risk of frost in May and we have to wait until after May two four before it's safe to plant anything.
It's predicted this year that March and April will be May like weather.

The temperature for rest of March and April will vary a lot. It can go from -5 to 15 degrees Celsius in a day. It's even predicted to snow tonight.
The usual average temperature around this time is still -1.5 Celsius which means the ground is still typically frozen.
But the last 2 weeks have been +0 Celsius for long enough for the ground in my side garden to unfreeze!
This allowed me to get some work done on it this weekend even though the temperature dropped back to -1.5 Celsius.

This weekend, I was able to remove the mulch and mix in compost.
Instead of planting seeds right away, I covered the bed with a frost blanket since it'll be around 0 degrees Celsius for the next 2 weeks.

I hope to get a mini hoop tunnel up within the next several weeks to start planing in April.
I will also be starting seeds indoors to replant outdoors once I get the tunnel up and going.

Hopefully this year I'll have a prolong growing season because of the warm weather.

Fingers crossed!

Planting Garlic Pt 1

One of the things I was considering growing was garlic. I actually wanted to grow some unique breed but I figured I should start with the basics first.

I've read mix reports about growing garlic in containers. Some say don't do it cause they won't grow and some other people had success.

Based on what I can tell, I believe I just need a big enough container so that the garlic doesn't know it's being grown indoors and i should be fine.

So I used my biggest container that I have and planted 5 cloves of a Quebec Garlic that I got at the farmers market.

I figured if they can grow it in Quebec which has slightly colder weather then I have, I can plant these outdoors next winter and have garlic in the fall.

For now, I'll test indoors.

These were planted on Jan 16 2016. I picked the bigger cloves that have already started sprouting. 

Target date for readiness will be Aug/Sept, but since it's inside my house and not getting winterover, it might be ready before the fall.

Germinating Lettuce Seeds

I'm trying to start a garden this year and I figured I can get a head start with practicing doing a bit of growing indoors during the winter.

According to what I read, Lettuce does well in cool temperature and considering my house is anywhere between 15-19 degrees Celsius, it's supposed to be perfect temperature for growing lettuce.

I've tried 3 different methods of germinating seeds so far.

1. Direct to soil - complete fail. 0/7 seeds germinated.

2. Paper towel method - 2/4 after 1 week. 

3. Just water - 3/7 in 3 days, 5/7 in 4 days, 7/7 in 5 days.

Seems like so far I have the best success rate with just water method.

It is the fastest and easiest way to germinate seeds and when I compare the roots in the paper towel method and just water, the water one generates bigger taps in the 3 days then the paper towel does in 1 week. 

For the water method, I used a small opaque container to block out all light. Added enough water so that the seeds are just floating around. 

I kept my container in the kitchen where the temperature is more consistent and warmer so it doesn't drop below 15 degrees Celsius. 

Change the water ever day.

You'll start seeing the seeds split after 1 day. Then day 2 little roots will start emerging. Then day 3 it'll curl :)

I've heard tap roots are sensitive during transplant so my fingers are cross I didn't hurt them. We'll see how many grows after another 2 weeks :)

I feel like doing the Totoro dance to make them grow

Soy for your garden

So it's fall time and starting to get cold.
There was frost on my windshield this morning.
I decided it's time to get rid of the remaining flowers in the flower bed so I can transform it into a vegetable garden next year.
Since it was previously a flower bed, I don't know what's the state of the soil, how much nutrients are in it etc. So I decided to heavily fertilize my soil to make sure it's ready for growing vegetables next year.

My fertilizer of choice is....soybeans!

Yes that's right, soy beans. Why Soy?
Soybean is a rich in protein and is usually used as a supplement for protein in vegetarian diets.
The microorganism loves the protein as much as we do and will use it and in return create nitrogen for your soil!

Soymeal adds 7% Nitrogen, 2% Phosphorus and 1% Potassium.
The process to make soymeal is a little different from soy milk since I boil the ground up bean to make milk instead of keeping it in powder form. And the oil is not exactly extracted in the process to make soy milk. But it's almost the same so the ratios of the type of nutrients it'll provide is not far off.

I currently do not have a compost so I'm burying the ground soybeans right into the soil after I finish making soy milk.
But honestly,  this takes forever because 1/3 cup of soybeans makes about 1L of soy milk.
It'll take me forever to make enough soy by products to dump into the garden. And I'll feel guilty if I boil the beans and then throw it into the garden without using it for anything else first. (Boil first to eliminate risk it'll grow into a plant next year.)

Doing it a bit at a time is great for in season trench composting if you want to give that a try.
But right now I'm trying to get my garden ready for winter. So I went to a tofu shop and brought several bags of soy leftovers for $1 each. It's the exact same product I make but they have it in huge quantities because they mass produce soy milk to make tofu.
The bags I brought were huge so it was perfect for fertilizing my entire garden before winter stars. Much cheaper then buying compost and it's organic!

Give it a try before the frost sets

Rice Water

The first day of spring has just past. Meaning it's about that time to start your seedlings indoors so you can be ready when frost disappears.
I don't like gardening because of the weeds, so I try to grow things indoor.
We have various house plants around and my basil plants seemed to have survived through the winter.

I don't like using chemicals to nutrients but organic stuff is so expensive. But over time, you need to refuel your soil to help your plants grow.

We got this tip about rice water from my aunt and tried it out.
The results were pretty amazing. Our Christmas cactus that use to bloom once a year started blooming every couple of months after we started giving it rice water.

So you might be wondering what's rice water and where can I get it.
When I say rice water, i'm actually referring to the water you drain away from your rice after you wash your rice.
Typically, you would wash your rice before cooking it. When you swirl the water around when washing the rice it comes cloudy and white. And that water is usually poured down the drain.
So now instead of getting rid of all that water, I now use it to water the plants around the house.

Just be careful and check if your plant likes basic or acidic environment before you do it.

This is pretty amazing considering it's at no extra cost and we use to just pour it down the drain.