GA: First frost hit within the last few days (not in yard yet)

Saw today that first frost hit at GA, whereas it hadn't hit when I was last there a few days ago.  

The yard hasn't had its first frost yet.

Rest of popcorn devoured by birds/animals -- so my timing was good for the harvests I did in recent weeks

The popcorn I harvested on Sep 20th and 23rd, when the ears were full and in some cases the covering was still quite green (dried tassels though) and in other cases the covering had started to yellow (but nowhere near completely dry on the plant) are all looking very promising -- they're still nice and plump and golden, ie they haven't shrivelled into nothingness the way the ones I harvested on August 20th did.

And ALL of the remaining ears still at the garden have now been finished off by birds and/or other animals.

So, in future, as long as the harvested kernels will be poppable (I'm hopeful but won't try any for at least another month), definitely harvest around Sep 20th in future years to beat the birds/animals -- DON'T wait until end of September / end of October.

Oh -- and this timing was based on my popcorn sowing dates starting on May 20th 2026 (with subsequent rounds as needed to fill in gaps).

Garlic: Planted all today -- all from cloves harvested this year (ie bought none this year)

Having seen several sources say garlic planted earlier in the fall produces bigger bulbs than garlic planted later in the fall, and several local well known sources planting now (or already planted), today I planted all the garlic.  (Fortunately the foundation work finished in time!)

SEED SOURCES:

This year I didn't buy any seed garlic. I just used (a) the cloves from the biggest bulbs (mostly Music, and five cloves of elephant), (b) the corms from this year's and last year's elephant garlic; and (c) the little bulbils that some of the garlic this year had growing in the stem a few inches above ground.

SOIL PREP:

Forked the soil.  Added several buckets of Trail Road compost (a really nice healthy amount, several inches thick), lots of vermiculite (two big stainless steel bowls worth), kelp, az, mrp, and pre-soaked alfalfa.  Mixed it all up with the fork and broke up as many clumps as possible.  With all of this, the garlic bed (which is the entire southeast bed) is quite high, several inches higher than the surround area (which I'll try to raise up next year with more Trail Road compost).

LOCATION AND METHOD -- CORMS:

Method:  For the corms, I messed up with ~half of them by (deliberately) removing the entire outer casing (down to the shiny white raw innermost bit) instead of just the hardest outer casing.  (Googled after, too late, oops.)  The other half I removed just the hard outer casing which it turns out is the correct way to do it.  It was very easy, just used kitchen scissors to knick away at the stick-out side portions and chipped the hard casing away.  Easy, but tedious.  Didn't pre-soak them at all.  ~9 per square foot plus a few popped in here and there randomly.

Location:  In the southeastmost section are the 2025 corms, leading into the 2026 corms, all are along the southmost edge of the garlic bed, one foot "deep" (not deep into the soil!) by ~3 feet across.  The ones that I peeled the inner layer off (oops) are the front most ones, with the ones behind them being the ones that I properly removed only the hard outer layer.  All went ~an inch or so deep.

LOCATION AND METHOD -- BULBILS:

Method:  Nothing fancy, treated them the same as cloves, just didn't plant them as deep since they're way smaller.

Location:  Almost all are along the south edge, to the west of the corms.  A wide square foot, so 1.~2 square feet or so, ~20 of them in there.  Also, ~6 found later the same today are popped in along the west edge of the main Music patch.

LOCATION AND METHOD:  ELEPHANT CLOVES

Method:  Basic garlic style.  Planed several inches deep.

Location:  These are huge cloves!  5 of them in total planted, from the biggest/healthiest bulb harvested this year.  Four are along the east edge, north of the corms, in one square foot, and one is tucked behind them along the east edge.

LOCATON AND METHOD;  MUSIC CLOVES

Method:  Basic garlic style.  Planed several inches deep.

Location:  These are huge cloves!  60 cloves in total planted!  All are from the biggest bulbs harvested this year, and only nice big chonky cloves (a very few of the cloves in the biggest bulbs weren't big and chonky enough so I used them for cooking instead of for seed).

FINAL NOTES

After a good watering, covered them with burlap to try to keep out squirrels etc.  Note:  While planting I used short fences (held down with a few stones) to demarcate corms from bulbils etc, BUT I had to lift them out after when putting down the burlap, so this messed me up, so the fences may not be in the exact right location and I took out the panel dividing the elephant corms from the music bulbils because I lost track of where the division was.  Hopefully it will be obvious next summer which are which!  Also -- even though I saved the best and biggest to plant, there was still lots of harvested garlic to use for cooking!  Last year I sowed about 55 cloves, so hopefully this year's 60 + 5 will be good too.  (The corms won't be harvestable until 2028.)

See also my paper "map" of what's where, on the fridge and emailed to myself this evening.

Excited to see how this does next year!

Saved seeds from neighbour's green/yellow tomatillos which are much better than the "purple" one I grew this year

Saved seeds from neighbour's green/yellow tomatillos, which are much better than the "purple" one I grew this year.  My "purple" tomatillos from the Amazon-bought seeds are hardly purple and just aren't ripening, so they're bitter and will likely all need to be tossed.

The neighbour's green (yellow when ripe) tomatillos are delicious though!  So I took a couple of her fallen very-ripe tomatillos, opened them out, squished out the seeds, put them in a jar with water, swirled it around; then the seeds immediately fall to the bottom so I right away gently poured the water out and poured the seeds onto a paper towel to dry.  (ie didn't do the fermentation method)  I'll use these seeds for next year's tomatillos and will toss the "purple" Amazon-bought seeds.

Picked up 14 buckets of Trail Road compost ("potting soil") -- spring is much better than fall

Went to Trail Road today to get some soil for the yard, especially for the garlic area but got car-full.

Today the pile was closer to the road and was massively overgrown with weeds at the top, but they hadn't started dropping seeds yet.  But the pile was pretty hard, not like the gorgeous stuff of the spring.  I imagine this pile has been sitting here for quite a while since it's not the busy season.

14 un-compressed buckets of very dry soil (it hasn't rained in ~2 weeks) landed just shy of the minimum.  It was 230 kg or 507 pounds.

Saved 1 bucket to put in the basement (adding to a few buckets there from the spring haul).  The other 13 buckets were enough to put a nice layer in the eastmost "square" plus one or two buckets stored under the vertical structure to disperse in the spring.

Ideally would like to get another load for the yard next spring but won't bother going back this fall given how dense/old the pile is, especially as those weeds will start dropping their seeds all over it at some point.

GA: Results of popcorn ultra-early harvesting experiment = flop

The cob of popcorn that I harvested on August 20th after the tassels had turned mostly brown/crispy but everything else was still very green, and then placed loosely in a paper bag, ended up completely drying up whereby there were no kernels to be had whatsoever.

The cob of popcorn that I harvested on August 28th, in a similar condition as the August 20th cob noted above, was in a bit better shape in that there were some kernels, but they are tiny.  I decided to try popping the tiny kernels on the stove, just to see if they're usable at all.  Results:  No good -- they just burned without popping.

GA: Birds ate several of the popcorn cobs; have been harvesting gradually before birds or future raccoons get them

^^^

GA: Started early havesting but probably still a bit too early

My first potatoes harvested were about a week ago, to use in a recipe with zucchinis since the zucchini plants have been dropping to SVB etc.  Then harvested some more today, but still just a little corner of one of the patches.  The potatoes are so far medium size, no big chonkers yet.  Hopefully they'll keep growing, but the plants are definitely dying back, with some stems completely dried out.

GA: Broccoli harvest definitely slowing, but still some

^^^

GA: FOY leeks harvested

Not a ton of them are on the thicker side, but hopefully they'll still grow.  Today harvested 5 of the bigger ones, to have with potato leek soup.  Of the 5, one had bolted so it was useless.  Since the all the leeks are under cover, not sure how many others may have bolted, we'll see later on...

GA: FOY sweet corn harvested; but a bunch of them have zero corns forming

Ooooh YUMMMMM the sweet corn is delicious!  So crispy and perfect!  

BUT a whole bunch of the sweet corn patch has stalks with nothing growing -- the tassels thing at the top yes, but no hint of any cobs whatsoever.  Seems to be a lot of the earlier round of sowing -- maybe too shaded???

GA: Sweet corn Peaches and Cream started developing ears 1-2 weeks ago; Golden Bantam not yet; Popcorn just now starting to develop

Probably eating corn within a week!  Peaches and Cream ears definitely starting to fill in!

GA: Scotia are ripening (plants diseased like the other tomatoes but still producing)

^^^

GA: Onions horrible, all dying / several already dead :(((

Alas!  Onions horrible, all dying / several already dead :(((  Pretty sure it's due to the leek moth.  (Though I poked around in some of the dying/dead "green"s and didn't find anything but I'm guessing they've already left or whatever.)

Even the covered ones, because (a) one of the covers developed a large gaping hole a 4-6ish weeks ago that I never bothered doing anything about, and (b) the other covered area I had removed the cover for a week or twoish a while ago (because I think it too had broken) before deciding to put back the cover.  So I'm pretty sure the leek moth got all up in both of the covered onion beds.

But yeah, basically all onions look awful with thoroughly dead/dying "green"s (more like "brown"s).  And, a surprising amount flopped over / got the crick in the neck which means they won't grow any more, yet they're very small. Harvested some of the worst today.  I mean, there's still a mini harvest as they did bulb up to varying extents, but definitely small small small.  Some others not yet harvested are relatively bigger but still doesn't look like any will grow to nice sizes.

So!  Next year I will grow all onions under proper cover for the whole season.  (Except maybe one foot uncovered as a comparison.)

GA: Southern bean patch has anthracnose -- ~half beans inedible

The southern bean patch has anthracnose -- at least I'm pretty sure that's what it is -- the beans are covered in very unappealing brown spots.  About half the beans in this patch are so badly affected that they're completely inedible.  Some aren't affected at all.

The other bean patches including L's don't seem to be affected.

Still getting plenty enough harvest for several batches of the bread recipe.

GA: 2 zukes are wilting!!! SVB? ==> Update: No, not SQB!

Feels early for SVB but maybe not... I'll cut open the stems once they're fully gone, to see.

Update on August 1st:  Pulled one of those plants and inspected the stem -- not seeing any SVB evidence.  There was, however, a squash bug on it.  Pretty sure it was some type of disease, which is supported by the leaves not actually having gotten wilty as when it's SVB, but rather drying/dyring in a curled/crispy way.  Haven't pulled the second affected plant yet bec it's still hanging on for now...

Elephant garlic summary

Summarizing this year's Elephant garlic:

Last year I planted 4 elephant bulbs in the Music section.  Only one or two of them went into cloves, the others are the one big "clove".  All had the little bulbil things too which I'm keeping separately to do something with.

Additionally, ~5 or 6 volunteers came up this year in last year's garlic bed.  All but one of those were great big bulbs with cloves!  Just one was the single big "clove".  That's fun!

I've kept the corms to plant this fall.  From what I understand, next year the corns will form the one single big "clove" (a "round") -- then to pull it and cure it, then plant that round in the fall, then the following year it should split into a nice big head of elephant garlic.

Garlic harvest complete = 53 bulbs in all (excluding Elephant), which had cost $29.73 incl tax, so $0.57 per harvested bulb ---- didn't cover them at all

Harvested the rest of the Music garlic before a rainy period arrives next week

In total, the Music garlic yielded 53 bulbs, almost all of which are decent size, some of which are quite nice and big.

Given they cost $29.73 last fall, that's a cost of $0.57 per harvested bulb (not including the cost of amendments).

Those $29.73 worth of seed last year consisted, after I had broken the bought bulbs into individual cloves, of 31 big cloves and 22 small/medium cloves for a total of 53 cloves planted.  Given I harvested 53 (excluding the volunteer elephant), every clove grew, so that's great.

Oh -- and, I never bothered covering these at all, so it seems the leek moth wasn't an issue this year.

I plan to keep the biggest ones to use as seed garlic this fall to help reduce the cost.  (Google says Music will grow true to type.)  I count 16 nice big Musics harvested, and they seem to have 4 cloves each on average, so that's 64 nice-sized plantable Music cloves -- woo hoo, it wouldn't cost anything!  And that would still leave 37 bulbs to use for cooking.

Now to hope the #$%^&*( foundation gets done this year, and early enough to allow them to be planted this fall...

Stopped doing insect patrols a week or two ago -- will see how long the zukes/cukes last

I just got tired of killing things, plus all the time I spent last year constantly checking for squash bug eggs etc.  When I first uncovered the zukes/cukes I checked a few times for the eggs, and would destroy any cuke beetles.  But for at least the last week or two I stopped.  If I see any squash bugs (have seen a few so far, not many) then I'll deal with them, but not doing the patrols, and not bothering about the cucumber beetles anymore.  Que sera, sera!

GA: Weeding Wednesday -- weeded all exterior paths and full plot -- ~4.5 hours

Today was a big weeding of the east and west exterior paths.  So satisfying after!  Then, wandered the beds to wee those too but they're looking pretty good from previous weedings.

For the exterior paths, I'm learning it's best to let those weeds grow a fair amount because they're a lot easier to pull when a bit bigger and they shade / out-compete other weeds.

GA: OH NO --- PEPPERS DISEASED!!!! LEAVES YELLOWING / FALLING OFF! Some tiny fruit fell!

Argh!!!! Just when I thought the peppers were starting to look good, now the leaves are splotchy/yellowing and falling off!    A couple of home-started plants are 4-5 green peppers each growing nicely but otherwise very sparse.

This includes my home-started and store-bought (all varieties) ----- EXCEPT Witch's Stick which has produced nicely so far...

GA: FOY cucumber -- several more on the way -- BUT LOOKS LIKE DISEASE MAY BE STARTING

Wow, this is the first year of my three at GA that the cukes have looked good!  Today got my first cuke.  

However, some leaves at the bottom are turning brown/crispy... and some are wilting.... So I fear disease will be taking over!

Will see how many cukes I get...

(All cukes at GA are Straight 8 this year.)

GA: ALL 5 cauliflowers bolted -- zero cauliflower harvest :((( (this was Early Snowball) -- Next year will try a heat-tolerant variety

^^^

GA: Pulled two more cauliflowers that bolted / unusable

Only one or two left in the ground still and I'm guessing both of those will bolt next year.

Uncovered backyard zukes

The four backyard zukes, which had been covered until now, are looking wimpy and I haven't been feeling like checking for flowers etc.  So, what the heck, I decided to just remove the cover and que sera sera.

GA: Cucamelons are wimpy because very shaded but they're hanging in there...

Hoping once they grow more upward and get out of the shade maybe they'll be able to do something... for now they're very wimpy.  I gave them a tomato cage to climb.

GA: Cucumber plants looking good so far! Very vigorous! (All are Straight 8 variety)

The cucumber beetles are there too, but wow, the first two years at GA my cukes (Eureka) all did horrendously.  With how well these Straight 8s are looking, maybe I'll actually get a decent GA harvest of cukes this year... or will the cucumber beetles be their detriment?  I'm hopeful that the long period of being covered will help.  And they are on the vertical fence post thing again this year.

GA: All zukes are now un-covered

Decided to remove ALL of the covers from the GA zukes, even the ones that aren't close to producing.

Several have been uncovered for a few weeks now.  Have seen definitely cucumber beetles and a few squash bugs.  I haven't been spending tons of time checking for insects like I did last year but do check every now and then and remove.

Harvested ~half the garlic -- the two test scapes are straight up

 Harvested ~half the garlic -- the two test scapes are straight up.

Of the 4 or 5 elephant garlic in the east-most row of the main garlic bed, only one or two went into cloves, the others are the one big clove.  All have the little bulbil things too which I'll keep separately.

The rest of the garlic are all Music.  They're bulbs smaller than I had hoped, but not bad.  I didn't remove any leaves/stem, just brought them inside intact and put them in the basement on the hallway metal rack (but in the basement).

Harvested one of the two Music tests with the scape left on -- it's definitely smaller than average, but is the same size as at least one of the others, so not a big loss from leaving the scape.

GA: Belstar side-shoot harvest ongoing -- very nice!

Today harvested enough side shoots for 1 x walnut-broc recipe and 1 x pea-broc recipe.  

FOY: Harvested one volunteer garlic

Harvested one of the volunteer garlic from last year's elephant garlic bed.  Woo hoo, this one was a very nice size and had cloves.

Waiting a bit longer for the rest of the garlic, as the two next scapes aren't quite fully up yet, and there still aren't three brown leaves at the bottom.

GA: Spooned all onions

I've never ever "spooned" onions before but learned about it recently (though a random YT video I think) so decided to do that.  Just used my finger to ring around each onion to loose things and try to expose the bulb (most have started to bulb out).

Some of them, the ground is SO hard, like cement, once you get below the few cms of compost.  Next year I definitely want to add chopped straw to the soil when tranplanting, to help have a softer soil.

Started rutabaga in PT

First time trying rutabaga.  I'll start them in PTs, then put the seeds into the garden (GA) -- some where the pulled bolted cauliflower was, others in random spots probably.

FOY / GA: First zuke of the year harvested

Several of the GA zukes are looking great and harvested the first zuke today.  None of of the four backyard zukes are though -- all looking pretty puny.

GA: A cauliflower has bolted! And tied the leaves of the other four cauliflowers

The one that bolted, the "head" is still very small BUT it went all spikey -- I tied its leaves anyway because why not, but pretty sure that one will be no good.

The other four -- one has a wee head, the others I didn't look closely into but tied them all up, we'll see how it goes.  This week is a mega heat wave so I'm not too confident!

GA: 3rd and 4th Belstar broccoli heads harvested -- still nice and big!

^^^

GA: 2nd and 3rd Belstar broccoli heads harvested -- nice and big! :D

Great big heads!  ~1 pound each.

With 1 head, I made two batches of the walnut-broccoli stirfy; next time I would instead try a single batch and just have a higher ratio of broccoli in it.

With the other 1 head, I made one batch of the Am veg soup -- 5 cups broccoli, no other vegetable (other than celery/onion/garlic).  At first I didn't put any tahini and it was just kinda okay -- then I added tahini and it was delicious!

GA: Leek moth in uncovered onions?

A few days ago all of a sudden the uncovered onions started looking they have leek moth damage.  I'm not totally sure though because when I removed a few of the worst leaves and slit them open, I didn't see any larvae.  

Also, the covered sets' cover broke a week or so ago so I had removed it altogether, but today I decided to cover it again with a new cover.  But likely there are some leek moth eggs/larvae in there.

Planning to spray some BTK, but lately it's been raining every day, so not much point in spraying right now.

SO MUCH RAIN over the past week -- multiple days of lots of rain

The peppers are not looking great.  Nothing else seems to be suffering too much, but still waiting the garden to look like everything has taken off.  Broc/caul/kale/chard doing great, and potatoes also look fabulous.

GA: First head from Belstar -- some individual flowers drying/brown like last year

While piracicaba harvest has been ongoing for a week or two (puny harvests though), today the first Belstar head was ready.  Decent size, but not huge, but still plenty for the 2 cups needed for the walnut broccoli recipe, which is what it got used for.

Not sure why, but same as last year, some of the individual little flowers are drying and turning brown and falling off, but not a big deal.

GA: Clover sown

 Sowed some clover in 7A.  Loosed the soil (didn't amend it), sprinkled the (dry) seeds, hand "raked" to cover, watered, covered with burlap.

GA: Aphids all over the buckwheat ---- volunteers and sown!!!!! Apparently a risk of May buckwheat

Argh!!!! A day or two ago, I noticed there were lots of ladybugs at GA, especially on the buckwheat.  I didn't think much of it.  Well, today I happened to notice green aphids on some buckwheat I had pulled and dropped yesterday ---- then inspected all of the volunteer uckwheat and ALL had green aphids!!!!    Then had a look at the sown buckwheat patch -- at first I thought it was in the clear, but upon closer inspection it also had green aphids throughout!!!

A Cornell website says it can be a risk of buckwheat sown in May and it even says this is the case for both volunteers and sown.

So, today I pulled ALL buckwheat and tossed it all in the compost heap, worried that these might be aphids who might move on to other types of plants.  

SAD!!!

I'll try another round of buckwheat later in the summer and see if it happens again.

(I don't know what type of aphids they are, but they are green in colour.)

Oh! Aphids on backyard buckwheat too!! I've leave those in place anyway.

^^^

Scapes starting appearing several days ago (garlic)

Scapes starting appearing several days ago (garlic).  No full loops yet, but likely within a few more days for some.

GA: Flops (partial) so far: Includes cukes, beans, watermelons, a tomatillo, and a tomato

Here are the flops at GA so far -- at least they're just partial flops at this point:

- Cukes:  3 or 4 of the little transplants died, no idea why.  Could there be a cutworm?  I don't have pencil crayons with the cukes.

- Watermelon:  Thinking I'd be smart and start from seed onsite rather than transplants (since last year most of the transplants went kaput within a day or two of transplanting) -- well, not having great results with the pre-sprouted seeds.  Next year, plant 2 or 3 PSSs per location!

- Beans:  WTH!?!  Some of the new pops look diseased or something, kaput!

- Tomato:  One wimpy transplant went kaput, not really surprised.

- Tomatillo:  One wimpy transplant went kaput, not really surprised.

GA: Broccoli harvest FOY! (piracicaba) And kale and chard too!

2 or 3 of the piracicabas have already sent flower heads up and a few flowers started opening so I harvested them.  Not very big, just enough to snack on during the ride home, none left at home.

Also did a first small harvest of kale and chard.

GA: Most things in now (but not quite everything bec need to wait to see if compost will be delivered or not re: front beds); spread half the straw (total 4 bales)

Getting lazy in these notes here, but it is what it is.

Everything that's here is looking pretty darn good so far other than the store-bought peppers, but even those are starting to show nicer/darker growth coming in.

Went and got the Trail Road "potting soil" compost: 535 kgs (1179 lbs) for $26

Given the uncertainties around whether or not we'll get compost delivered at the allotment this year, I took the plunge and learned how to go and get it myself.  In fact, went twice today because just one load wasn't enough.

Here are the basics:

- Trail Road Landfill (just west of Farrhaven).

- They're open Monday to Friday 7am to 6pm.

- They're open select Saturdays, with shorter hours -- see https://ottawa.ca/en/garbage-and-recycling/waste-facility-landfills/trail-waste-facility-landfill.

- You drive in, onto the scale, and say you're buying potting soil.

- You drive over to the pile and fill up as much as you want.

- You drive over the scale again (on the exit side).

- You pay based on the change in weight.

- In 2026, Up to 250 kg ( 441 lbs)  = $12 including tax.

What I did was take everything out of the back of the car, lay the back seats down, place a spare rubber-backed mat to cover that area, then lay down the big tarp. Brought some shovels and buckets etc.

I left home at 6:30am to get there for the 7am start, especially since the website says first come first served.  Next time I wouldn't arrive right at opening, because there were a few big trucks waiting in line.  And when I asked the staff if they ever run out of the compost ("potting soil"), she said basically no, they can always bring more over.  And they have it through summer and fall, but obviously not in winter.

For my first load, I just used a shovel (the old broken full-metal head snow shovel) and shovelled it directly onto the tarp.  This got the job done, but I had no idea how much I was getting.  Took around 20 minutes to load.

For my first UNload at the garden, I kept track of how many buckets it was.  Turned out to be 13.5 buckets, 230 kgs (507 lbs), which cost $12 including tax.  Turned out I could have gotten more for no additional cost since I hadn't reached the minimum weight.  (Arrival weight was 1420 kgs (3131 lbs), departure was 1650 kgs (3638 lbs).)

I definitely needed more, so I went back for round 2.

For my second load, I used two buckets to load the car, rather than a shovel, and kept track of how many buckets worth  This way I could make sure I got at least as much as the first time, and more to get full use of my money.  This time, I loaded up 20 buckets worth.  Some of the buckets I dumped in from each rear passenger side; others I dumped in from the back.  These 20 buckets weighted in at 305 kgs (672 lbs), which cost $14.65 including tax.  (Arrival weight was 1410 kgs (3109 lbs), departure was 1650 kgs (3781 lbs).)  I was a bit nervous during the drive back about whether it might be too much for the car, but the car was fine, a bit sluggish but fine, and I avoided braking suddenly to avoid the compost dropping down behind my seat.

For my second UNload, it came to 19.5 buckets, but anyway, close enough.

The two batches, with a total of 33 buckets = 535 kgs (1179 lbs), was sufficient, and that's with keeping  5 buckets for the basement to use next year as a head start for sowing carrots and beets, and to mix in when plant the hardies while waiting to receive (or go and get) more compost.

It was a lot of work, but not bad, I left home at 6:30am and was finished sometime around noon, give or take.  Done for the year!

Bring:

[and go when there has been NO RAIN for at least several days to avoid paying for water]

- spare big rubber-backed mat to but over folded seats before putting tarp

- big tarp for bottom

- smaller tarp for top

- 2 buckets (I used these for my second load -- much better than a shovel bec I can keep track of how many buckets I've dumped into the car)

- clamp things to clamp the tarps together (I brought some but didn't bother using them)

- gloves (but of course I never bother)

- (shovel is optional as long as you have the buckets)

GA EXPERIMENT: Half the store-bought peppers transplanted today, with some 9-10 degree nights coming up

GA EXPERIMENT:  Transplanted half the store-bought peppers today, with some 9-10 degree nights coming up.  There are in bed 4A, to the west of one of the broccoli etc. beds.

The other half of the store-bought peppers, and most or potentially all of the seed-grown peppers, will go in next week after the last cool night.  (While at home, I bring them in if going below ~13 degrees at night.)

Let's see what difference there is, if any...

Oops, haven't been blogging everything re: GA & yard (oh well -- see paper notebook for notes)

GA: Planted all broccoli, cauliflower, chard, and kale

^^^

GA: Planted onion sets & buckwheat

Some of the onion sets are under cover, some aren't.

GA: Planted the rest of the potatoes

^^^

GA: Planted half the potatoes, and sowed carrots

First planting day today!  (Yesterday the staking happened but I didn't plant anything yesterday.)

The potatoes planted today are in bed 1B.  All are Superior, bought from Ritchie's, which I cut in half several days ago and left in the basement.  (Basement worked -- they look good, not all rotty like last year when I started with them upstairs in the hot big room.)  Gave each hole a sprinkle of mrp, az, alfalfa, and kelp, then placed the potato, then watered it, then filled the hole.  Then put leaves over top of all.  Then immediately covered with the good cover.

Carrots are all bolero.  First I sprinkled az, mrp, and kelp (no alfalfa).  Then I hand-dug those in while feeling for / breaking up clumps of soil.  Then watered it to find low spots.  Then spread leftover GA compost from last year.  Then watered again to find low spots.  Then sprinkled the seeds free-style.  Then spread more GA compost form last year to cover the seeds.  Then placed burlap.  Then watered over the burlap.  Here's hoping that this method will be a one and done!!!!   This bed, which is 3 feet by ~5 feet, used almost all one bucket of the last-year compost, and I really should have used it all bec the base layer wasn't thick enough as after I watered it I could see a lot of the original soil come through.

Started hardening most tenders (plunked them in shade by fence, leaving there all day bec nice and warm)

The only things not hardening yet are the basil and ground cherries, plus cukes and zukes which haven't sprouted yet.

Sliced the potatoes today

The only variety I bought this year (see previous post) is Superior, from Ritchie's.  

Also have a few fridge potatoes from last year's harvested that sprouted.

Today I cut them (Superior and fridge potatoes).  Placed them on cardboard/paper, in the basement.  Let's see if hopefully being in the basement from the get-go stops them from looking all rotty as they did last year.

I put the fridge potatoes in a separate area of the basement, and sliced them with a different knife than Superior, in case of any diseases.

Transplanted celeryx4 and parsleyx2 (yard)

One of the parsleys is probably dead but I put it in anyway just in case.

Potatoes bought: 12.3 pounds of Superior (plus will use some fridge potatoes, not sure what variety)

So yes, I bought only one type of potato this year:  Superior (from Ritchie's).  12.3 pounds worth, which cost a total of $21.39 including tax.

And I have ~10 potatoes in the fridge left over from last year that are great size and have started sprouting, so will use those too, whatever type they are (not sure which type).

Up-potted some broccoli and cauliflower, will uppot more in coming days

And this is another reason why I'll wait another 2 weeks next year for broc, to avoid the need to uppot...

Argh -- the dry beans from last fall have weevils!! (Only the GA ones I think)

Noticed today that several of the jars of beans saved from last year have weevils inside the jars!  And escape holes in some of the beans -- including weevils inside a jar that had only pods that I had carefully inspected that I didn't see any suspicious holes in.

This definitely has me inclined to NOT do dried beans from GA anymore, only from the yard where I don't seem to have had this issue (knock on wood).

Although I guess I could always leave the dried beans for a year, during which hopefully any critters would have emerged, then remove those and eat the remaining beans..... 

STEVIA ALL DYINGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!! and peppers not great either

WTF!!!! All of a sudden the stevia is dying!  I thought maybe I forgot to water for too long, but now I'm thinking no, maybe they were TOO wet, or have a disease.

This will be the first year that I will have ZERO of my own stevia seedlings.  I had SUCH a hard time getting any of the germinated seeds to take -- I thought at least I would have 5, then buy the rest.  Very disappointing.  

And, the previously-best-looking pepper plant seems to have succumbed to the same thing.  Most of the rest of the peppers are stagnant / not thriving and yellow but that seems to be a different issue.

Lettuce sowed directly outside, next to the a/c

 A scattering of romaine, ruby red, and black seeded simpson.

Still tons of fungus gnats in outside plants, see them when remove from big plastic tub; still a few indoor fungus gnats but not a ton

^^^

Started peas soaking in bowl; tomorrow will move them to paper towels

^^^

Started tomatoes, tomatillos, and ground cherries

(The tomatillos are a purple variety, my first time trying growing tomatillos.)

(The ground cherries are from the collected seeds from a plant that grew really well in patio stones.)

Basil round 2 started bec several of round 1s dried out due to not enough watering and being in vermiculite

^^^

Basil started

^^^

Hardies starting to harden off -- and they will live downstairs/outside full time

Finally the days are becoming mild enough to start hardening the hardies.

I'm not babying them much in terms of being the shade -- putting them out for as long as the day is mild enough.

Won't start them in sun until later and will definitely do the sun part gradually.

Fungus gnats are still VERY much a thing so I'm glad to have these downstairs / outside.  When they come inside at night I'm covering them to prevent the gnats from invading everywhere downstairs.

Zinnias started

 Random assortment of talls, and yellow shorts.

Fungus gnats GALORE continues

The dunks truly seem to have done NOTHING.

SOOOOO many flies in the yellow sticky traps.

Several newly emerged seedlings have gone kaput, I'm guessing some of which are related to the gnat babies.

Started round 2 of sweet peppers (low germination in round 1)

^^^

Started sweet peppers (California wonder and Hungarian Sweet)

Amidst the hoards of fungus gnats, the seed-starting must continue...

OMG THOUSANDS OF FUNGUS GNATS ARE BEING TRAPPED!!!! Have added 5 of the big yellow hanging traps

^^^

Fungus gnats round 2 -- they are back with a vengeance -- seems the mosquito dunks did zero!?!

As of a few days ago, the fungus gnats are back with a vengeance.  Put out new sticky traps and many have been caught.  I can't understand why -- obviously this is a new batch that hatched, but how did they survive the mosquito-dunk water?  (Which I'm still using -- never stopped.)

Anyway, will continue to use the dunk water and sticky traps.

Stevia: Started round 4 (looks like a total of only ~5 from previous rounds might make it)

(So my experiment with mixing in alfalfa/kelp with the vermiculite didn't seem to do the trick, as a bunch of those flopped too.)

Zero fungas gnats nowadays

Can't remember the last time I saw a fungus gnat.  The yellow sticky traps are still out, and I'm still watering with the original bucket of mosquito dunked water.

I'll finish up the bucket of the water (prob another week before that happens), then will go back to regular water and see what  happens.

Forget-me-not and coreopsis started

All from previously collected seeds.

Witch Stick peppers started

I can't figure out if these are sweet or hot... but anyway started them today.  Not doing any other hots, not even jalapenos which are just so unpredictible in their hotness.

Will start the true sweet peppers in a few weeks.

Stevia experiment... adding soaked kelp + alfalfa

The round 2 stevias that went into vermiculite on top of soil seem -- fingers crossed -- to maybe be taking (?).  But I'm still worried that their roots won't make it to the soil/nutrition in time given the depth of the vermiculite.  So, I added a few dabs on top of the vermiculite, close but not on top of the seedlinguettes, of pre-soaked mixed alfalfa and kelp.  

And, for today's round 3 stevias that have all popped, I put them likewise but with a mix of alfalfa/kelp underneath them before adding the topping of vermiculite.

We shall see...

Started celery R2, stevia R3, and kale (from 2024 saved seeds) and chard

^^^

Haven't seen fungus gnats when watering -- seems promising

^^^

Mosquito dunks arrived -- placed half of one into big blue bucket of water

I'll let it sit for 24 hours and then start using the water to water the plants, to help with the fungus gnat situation.

Seeing a lot less fungus gnats nowadays due to the sticky traps, but they're still around and who knows how many are growing in the soil.

Stevia woes, arghhhh ----- trying again

Stevia is so fricking hard to get started!!!!  Looks like only 1 of the ~9 that had germinated might actually be taking after having been moved from PT to soil -- I think all the other 8 are kaput.

So, today, the next round of seeds that popped in PT, today, instead of putting them into the soil mix, I put a layer of vermuculite on top of the soil mix, then carefully placed the popped seeds, then just a few pieces of vermiculite on top.  I'm not sure if they'll be able to grow fast enough to reach the soil/nutrients before going kaput, but, this is at least worth a try.  There's quite a bit of vermiculite underneath them to provide buffer re: fungus gnats -- might be too much distance for their roots to travel to nutrition but we'll see.

Yellow sticky traps definitely work for adult fungus gnats

Yellow sticky traps definitely work for adult fungus gnats -- quite a few flies are stuck to them, whereas the duct tape and clear tape didn't have any at all.

The apple cider liquid traps have a few but hardly any compared to the yellow sticky traps.

FUNGUS GNATS!!!!! -- Going on the attack

Oh no!!!  I've never had fungus gnats before, in all my many years of starting seeds indoors.  (Had thrips one year, that's it.)  But I'm pretty sure that's what these are.  Noticed them in the house even before the start of seedling season, so I'm pretty confident they didn't come from any of the materials (most of which are left over from last year).

I had seen the occasional fly here and there in the seedling room in recent weeks, but last night while watering I saw quite a few and decided to take my head out of the soil and do something about it.

So:

- Last night I watered the soil with a mix of hydrogen peroxide and water.

- Last night I set out two traps of apple cider vinegar with dish soap, but these haven't caught any yet.

- Today I put up yellow sticky traps (already caught two :( ).  (Last night I had put up clear packing tape and duct tape but those haven't caught any.)

- Today I ordered mosquito dunks -- they should hopefully arrive by Friday.

- As of today, all seeds that move from paper towels to soil are getting a layer of pure vermiculite on top, so that the top cm or two is just vermiculite, no soil.

Here's hoping this action plan will put an end to the gnat situation.  I'm eager to get those dunks but must wait until they arrive since neither Ritchie's nor Canadian Tire had any at this time of year.

Started broccoli (Belstar & Piracicaba), cauliflower (from clear baggie), & round 2 of stevia

 The stevia round 1 looks like some will hopefully take, but some not, so started round 2 to make sure I have enough.

Started stevia

^^^

Started Red Globe onions, and more leeks and more green onions

The New York Early onion germination was a bit spotty, didn't make efficient use of the big tray I put them in, so today I started, in paper towels, some new bulb onions which will go into the same tray to make use of the space.  I went with a new-to-me red onion (Red Globe) so that I'll be able to distinguish the varieties (since they'll all be jumbled together).

The leeks and green onions from round one also weren't as thick as I wanted, so started more of those.

Here we go! Started leeks and onions (New York Early, and random onion seeds collected in 2019 to use as green onions)

Used up all of the rest of the New York Early onion seeds.