Covering basil tonight and upcoming nights -- going down to 13-14 next few nights, and 8 next Sat night!

With upside down pots, then a blanket overtop.  Except the front two in the north bed, which have just a weighted pot, no blanket.

Stevia harvesting via pruning -- drying/powderizing and putting into tea, delicious!!

A few weeks ago I started minor pruning of the stevias, then I hang the trimmings to dry.  A week or so later I crumble them by hand (very easy) and store them in a jar.  Half a teaspoon in my work morning tea -- delicious!!  Would be amazing to grow enough for a year's supply of tea-sweetening... I can dream... 

Dill and last stevia transplanted

I forgot to mention earlier that the two best stevias I put into containers (a few weeks ago).  The small runty one is in the ground.

Kaolined 2 cucumber plants (diluted recipe compared to last year)

The two west-most cucumbers.  Just because.  Will see if they burn or crisp up in the coming days, compared to the un-kaolined cucumbers.

Used this recipe (diluted compared to last year):

1/2 cup kaolin

5 cups water

Tulle placed over all zucchinis

The yard is a sea of tulle, between the zucchinis, broccoli, beets, and kale/chard... but it's worth it.

Will most likely need to remove the tulle from some of the zucchinis when they grow to a certain size, but last year my first SVB moth sighting was June 13th 2021, so at least they will be protected for a while.

Basil transplanted; results of the basil experiments are inconclusive

My home-started DMR variety is in the south part of the north bed (looping around the beets) -- the round 2 ones looked good, and about half of the round 1 ones rallied and look good now, though for the life of me I couldn't tell a consistent pattern with my experiment of keeping some wetter and some drier and giving some alfalfa and others not.  But next year I'll plan to aim on the side of drier.  Added some alfalfa just to the two or three southmost ones, then for the rest added only kelp (in the specific dig holes for each individual plant).

Store-bought ones are in the north part of the north bed.  Added alfalfa and kelp throughout this bed.

First piracicaba broccoli harvest

Nice loose "heads" from 5 or 6 of the 8 plants so far, harvested them all today.  Had these in my salad mix (didn't like them stand-alone raw).  Nice!

Apparently there should be lots of offshoots for quite a while.  

Collected mowed grass for mulch

From some local schools.  Not quite dry enough yet, so spread out on bed paths to dry before applying to plants.

Transplanted cukes, zukes, and tomatoes

 All that's left now are the basils and dills.  Could have done it today as the forecast looks decent, but ran out of time.

Grass round 1 appeared, ~1" high

Grass round 2 sown

 In case yesterday's rain storm buried the round 1 seeds.

Everything tull-able is tulled

(Kale, chard, beets, piracicaba broccoli, Waltham broccoli)

Ivory Silk Lilac Tree 95% dead -- what happened??

Very strange.  I thought it was just slow in getting the leaves due to the cool/rainy spring we had, but then looking at all the other trees whose leaves are in full swing -- nope, mine is 95% dead.  There are a few random small leaves here and there but even those don't look healthy.  I wonder what happened?  The only thing I can think of is maybe something happened last year with the road work.

Hopefully it doesn't get removed until a new one is ready to go in, as it's being visited by a good number of birds throughout the day despite there being no birdfeeder.

House finch couple

The lilac tree out front (which is now 95% dead) has been frequented the last few days by a house finch couple.  Nice birds; the male seems pretty brave, doesn't fly away when I go out.  I think they're making a nest in the top of the neighbour's cedar bush thing.

I've had no birdfeeders up for several months so it's nice that birds still come around even without food.  I did set up the bird bath last week but haven't seen anyone in it yet.

White Cabbage Moth laid eggs on the uncovered Waltham broccoli

Saw the moth fluttering around the Wathams, checked and sure enough there were some eggs.  So, removed the eggs and placed the tulle.

Some piracicabas have started to flower! Won't harvest for a while though.

 ^^^

Waltham broccoli transplanted (central bed)

All 4 were winter sowed.  Could have transplanted a while ago but didn't get around to it.

So, the central bed broccoli is only Waltham, and the west bed broccoli is only Piracicaba.

Some zinnias transplanted

 They've been out full time and in the sun for a while now.

Prep for zucchini & tomatoes: Dug in mineralized rock phosphate and/or kelp meal and/or alfalfa (experiment)

See my paper with my notes of how much mineralized rock phosphate, kelp meal, and alfalfa pellets (pre-soaked) I dug in to the various zucchini spots and tomato spots.  Didn't actually plant anything yet, so marked the spots with rocks.

My original notes, before I scrapped with this method and instead went with the hard copy paper: 

In the west bed, prepared two spots for two zucchini.  The westmost one against the wall has a total of 6 Tbsp mineralized rock phosphate and 3 Tbsp kelp meal.  The one a few feet east to that has a total of 6 Tbsp mineralized rock phosphate and zero kelp meal.  However, that east one's soil is semi-crap, so, not a perfect experiment.

Reference: Veganic seed-starting mix

Totally doing this next year!

JV's recipe:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zWU2lyzPbz8

https://www.facebook.com/events/3309684622596372/?active_tab=discussion

20 litre / 5 gallon peat

1/2 cup dolomite lime (to offset the acidity of the peat)

Mix above, water thoroughly.  Then, add in:

3 cups perlite (for aeration)

2 cups vermiculite (for aeration and water retention)

1/4 cup granulated seaweed

1/4 cup colloidal soft rock phosphate

Mix above, water thoroughly.  Then, add in:

10 litre / 2.5 gallon potting mix or well-finished veganic compost

Mix above, water thoroughly.  Then, add in:

1/2 cup alfalfa meal (fertilizer)

1/2 cup soybean meal (fertilizer)

1/2 cup mycorrhizae (to help build the mushroom base for the root systems)

Mix above, water thoroughly.  

Other things to consider:

- "Live mulch" in Gatineau

- Promix mycorrhizae (but need to add fertilizer to it: alfalfa meal, soybean meal, & kelp meal)

Begonia appeared!!!

Yay!  I was about to give up on it.  Glad to see it's still here.

Tomatoes are rallying; basil still looks awfullllll; fuzz on inside soil

Was away for a couple of days and came back to find the tomatoes (inside) looking better -- growing, and, I think greener than before.  I think most of them will make it.  Getting them outside to harden during day when I can.

The basil however is looking awful still.  More leaves turning brown.  The ones I'm keeping dryer might be a bit less bad than the ones I'm keeping wetter, but hardly.  I'll definitely have to buy basil yet again, to be safe.  Especially a bummer because these ones I grew are a variety resistant to downy mildew, which did in last year's basil.  Sigh!

Also, came back from my trip to find a light fuzzing over the soil of most of the inside things...  

Potatoes planted, in ground and in pots -- with some mineralized rock phosphate (all "Banana" fingerling variety from Ritchie's)

Oooh, a nice bed of potatoes for probably the first time ever, in the prime spot:  northwest corner including where the asparagus bed was (which I removed today, see other post).  Nice and deep good soil there, so I've stored four buckets in the basement to pour over the bed area in the coming weeks.  The bed has 4 rows each with 4 potatoes (intact, each with multiple sprouts).  Sprinkled each row with 3 Tbsp mineralized rock phosphate which I loosely dug in.

In pots:  The largest terracotta-colour pot has 3 potatoes and is next to the air conditioner.  Then, as an experiment, two of the black traditional potato pots along the fence (i.e. in shade), each with 4 small potatoes.  Added 3 Tbsp mineralized rock phosphate to each pot.

Asparagus bye-bye

Alas, I just couldn't justify keeping the asparagus patch along the west bed when it gives so few spears and has issues with aphids and stuntedness etc.  So, removed it all.  Now the only asparagus remaining are a few spears that come up along the north edge which is now turned into grass, will let those spears do what they want.

Grass seed sowed

Over top of the various soil / free topsoil along the path areas, which I raked up a bit first, and also I used the fork to dig in and loosen (not turn) a bit deeper to aerate.  After spreading the seed, I raked it in lightly.  Should rain the next few days so that should help.

The grass is from Canadian Tire, "Garden Club" brand, "all purpose".  Contains kentucky bluegrass, creeping red rescue, perennial ryegrass, intermediate ryegrass, and annual ryegrass.

First harvest of kale, chard, lettuce (which are all doing great)

^^^

Hardening update: Zinnias and tomatoes

Zinnias:  Started hardening a few days ago.  Outside all day (has been nice and warm) in shade, some sun.  Inside at night.

Tomatoes:  Started hardening today.  Just because they look so sad.  In shade in afternoon.

Basil experiment expanded: Added alfalfa/kelp to half wet and half dry

 ^^^

Added alfalfa and kelp to all of the tomatoes

Mixed together pre-soaked alfalfa pellets and kelp meal; then scratched off ~an inch of soil to add a good handful, then put the soil back.  Maybe the ProMix Premium is crap, or at least this bag of it.  It's just weird because I've never had this problem with seedling tomatoes before... and I've definitely used ProMix Premium before... maybe it's just a problem with the new bag of it that I bought a few months ago.

Also, noticed that the Jasper variety is substantially greener than all the others.

WTF is wrong with all of the tomatoes!?!?!

Argh, now it's not just the basil that look like crap -- it's also the tomatoes!!  They're yellowy, curly leaves, some leaves have dried/crisped up.  Potted them up today to see if that helps, but even the newest ones that are very small (they're all quite small though) look like crap.

Basil experiment: Half kept on dry side, half kept on damp side -- all with lights higher up

Decided to do an experiment with the basil to see if I can figure out where I'm going wrong, at least if it's attributable to watering amount.  Half of them I'll water only half as often as the others.  For all of them, the lights are quite a bit higher than I'd normally put them.

Basil up-potted and mixed with vermiculite -- here are the tips I received

 "I’d say either went too long without water or you put cold water on the leaves when watering."

"I had this problem with few leaves. I was watering too much I guess. So I pinched those leaves and dried the soil completely before watering more."

"They need to be re-potted out of the seedling tray and into pots."

"If leaves are wilted slightly or damaged, even t8s will burn them to a crisp. Lack of water or too much could be the cause but as Lori mentioned those cells look really small. Definitely get those little guys potted up"

Cucumber (Eureka), Golden Glory zucchini, and Eight Ball zucchini started in PT

My first time trying these varieties.

Basil (Prospera) round 2 started in PT

.... like last year, decided to start a round 2 in case this first round goes kaput...

Basil looking sad!! Why!?!? Same as last year, despite different seeds/variety??

Argh!  Why are the little itty bitty basils ONCE AGAIN looking bad -- brown splotches on the leaves, as though too cold or burnt.... See my post from May 2nd 2021 and May 10th 2021 where the same thing happened and I ultimately ended up buying basil...

These are NEW SEEDS / a new type (downy-mildew-resistant) so it's a real bummer that this is happening again.

All hardies now transplanted

Planted them all, so none of these to give away.

Carrots round 2 sowed

The first round in the SE corner of the north bed doesn't look promising, too much clay bits on the top (let alone throughout).  A few have popped up but decided to do a new bed just north of there.  Looks much better soil there, just have to hope no big rains to wash out the seeds until they establish.