Tales from an Ottawa backyard veggie garden
Adventures in growing edibles veganically in a small townhouse backyard in Ottawa, Canada. (veganic since ~2021)
Thursday, October 17, 2024
GA: Hard frost hit this week; removed everything except the hardies
Sunday, September 15, 2024
Lettuce seed heads full of aphids
Dang, the backyard lettuce seed heads are full of aphids, so I might just not collect any lettuce seeds this year.
Friday, September 13, 2024
GA: Watermelon harvested! Delicious!
Thursday, September 5, 2024
GA: Caterpillar at top of an corn ear
A plump beige/grey caterpillar was at the top of one of the ears of corn I harvested today. The rest of the ear was perfectly fine though, so just removed the damaged part and ate the rest.
Tuesday, September 3, 2024
Potato harvest in yard -- north of the broccoli
Friday, August 30, 2024
Potato harvest in yard begun -- the west part of the south bed = "AC Chaleur" has beautiful big potatoes!
Some are smaller, but overall I'm very happy with the size!
One was HUGE but had a sizeable hole drilled into the middle of it by some critter, and it had some rotting with various critters nibbling at it, so obviously tossed that one.
Wednesday, August 28, 2024
GA: Cantalope harvested! But I think too early even though tendrils were all dried (stem was still green)
Harvested the cantelope today because both tendrils where the stem joins were completely dried up, and I worried about theft, especially since it was my one and only cantelope.
I think it needed more time on the vine though, because while it's perfectly edible, it's not particularly sweet or flavourful.
Saturday, August 24, 2024
GA: Ground cherry harvest ramping up / ongoing
Even though the ground cherry plants at the allotment are only inches high, they're delivering a decent harvest! Finally had enough today to make a pie.
GA: Praying mantis!
Saw a green praying mantis wandering in my garden! I have a feeling s/he must have come from an egg sac that someone bought, but who knows. Cool regardless.
Thursday, August 22, 2024
Removed tulle from rest of the zukes which aren't doing well anyway
Yeesh, another bit of a measly year for the backyard zukes -- after the initial flush, they just petered out and don't look like they're doing much of anything -- the females are dying before even opening. So, removed the tulle today and will let them live out their days.
GA: FOY corn harvest!!!! --- DELICIOUS!!!!!!!!!
GA: Oh no -- the sheer curtain over the broccoli has an unrepairable tear
Thursday, August 15, 2024
GA: Tomato harvest is happening -- picking them blushing -- delicious!
So, yay! The sad, pathetic tomato plants (which are very much like a lot of our allotment people's tomatoes) are managing to yield a few tomatoes each. Not going to be tons of batches of tomato sauce, but, enjoying the ones that are coming in!
GA: Harvested more potatoes: ____ pounds (still a good amount of potato bed I haven't dug up yet)
So far that's ___ pounds from the GA potatoes.
GA: Onion harvest
Harvested some onions today. I think they were from the sets, rather than my home seed starts. Not gonnan lie, they're definitely on the small side! But they're onions none the less! I'll use them in upcoming recipes, not likely to be many to put away.
GA: SQUASH BUGS!!!
For the first time since seeing a few eggs earlier in the summer, today I saw squash bugs! Nymphs specifically! They were on a SVB-doomed zucchini, so I just pulled the whole plant. Didn't notice any squash bugs anywhere else, but also didn't go looking for them.
Sunday, August 11, 2024
GA: CUSHAWS ARE HUUUUUUUUUGGGGEEEEE
Oh my holy heck, cushaws are GINORMOUS!!! My first time growing them (other than last year or a past year when none actually took). There are about 4 huge ones growing at GA at the moment. Each is enough to feed an army or two or ten. They aren't ready yet, as the stems are still very green. We'll see if they "disappear" before I can harvest them...
Saturday, August 10, 2024
Tomatoes are finallyyyyy starting to blush!!!! GA and yard. (Other than a few cherry tomatoes, none have started to turn red until now)
I picked the blushing ones, because of the dump of rain yesterday, in case they crack.