food gardening

Analyzing our 2024 Garden: peas, beans, carrots and greens

/ Re-Farmer / 6 Comments

For the next while, I’ll be going through my old posts and videos about our 2024 garden, looking at how things worked out, and use that information to decide what we will do in our 2025 garden.

Okay, time to take a look at things that did not turn out anywhere near how we originally intended!

The Original Plan

Beans

In the past, we’ve grown lots of different beans at once, mostly with great success. We enjoyed having almost daily harvests, for both fresh eating and for the freezer, and even tried a rarer variety of shelling beans that was suitable for our short season. I’m glad I saved those rarer seeds, because they no longer seem to be available from the company I got them from.

This year, I had many different types of bean seeds. Aside from the seeds I’d saved from the shelling beans we tried, my mother gave me a jar of seeds for shelling beans that trace back to what she grew here every year, decades ago. Along with the shelling beans, I still had seeds for pole beans that we really liked, a variety of bush beans that were good for both fresh eating and shelling, and more bush beans. My plan was to grow each type; pole and bush beans for fresh eating, plus shelling beans. It was just a matter of figuring out where, as I intended to do a fair bit of interplanting.

Peas

We haven’t had much luck growing peas. Between growing conditions and deer eating them, we just never got many! At best, I’d find a few pods to eat while I was doing my morning rounds.

We still have quite a lot of seeds for shelling peas, but we also wanted to get edible pod peas. I hoped to grow enough that we could put some in the freezer, but to at least have enough for fresh eating.

Carrots

Carrots were going to be the only root vegetable for this year. I had lots of seeds for the delicious Uzbek Golden carrot, and made seed tape with a decent amount of them. We also still had pelleted seeds for an orange variety called Napoli. I wanted to grow plenty of both, so that we could freeze or can or store for the winter. Carrot seeds don’t age well, so the seeds would need to be used up. Especially the older pelleted seeds.

Greens

We actually intended to cut back on these. We’ve tried growing a variety of lettuces but, for some reason, they seem to get bitter, even if they aren’t bolting. We also found that, for the amount we actually use them, we may as well just buy them from the grocery store when we feel like it. The only exception to this was spinach. We all like spinach, but have not had much success with them over the past few years. The first year we grew them was amazing, but that was pretty much it for them doing really well. Still, we wanted to at least grow spinach this year, and that was about it for greens.

What we actually did

Beans

We tried two types of pole beans this year. Carminat, a purple podded bean, and Seychelle, a green podded bean. Both did very well the first year we grew them. They were prolific, and we quite enjoyed eating them. The Seychelle beans were interplanted with the Crespo squash. The Carminat got planted along one side of a winter squash bed.

For bush beans, we ended up with only a small space left, where we planted Royal Burgundy beans; a variety we’ve grown before and enjoyed eating.

That was it. Just three varieties ended up being planted.

Peas

For peas, I planted Dalvay shelling peas – something we still had a lot of seeds left for – on the other side of the winter squash bed the Carminat beans were planted in. We also got some edible pod peas that went into one of the low raised beds in the East yard, where a few onions we’d found were transplanted at one end. Nowhere near as much as I’d hoped to plant, but all we had room for.

Carrots and Spinach

These went into the same bed as the edible pod peas. The peas got a trellis net down the middle, carrots were planted on either side, then the spinach along the outside. The idea was, with each thing maturing at different rates, the spinach would be done first, then the peas, until the bed was left with lots of room for the carrots to grow, along with the few onions left to go to seed.

How it actually turned out

Not good.

Beans

The seeds for the pole beans must have been too old. With the Seychelle beans, I planted them by the Crespo squash twice, but we only got three survivors.

The Carminat beans had more survive, but there are a lot of gaps in between plants. I was out of seeds, though, so I tried filling the gaps with Seychelle beans. Only one, maybe two, survived.

With the bush beans, the first sowing didn’t succeed at all – and these were new seeds! I was able to buy more and tried again. This time, we had a nice, short row of bush beans emerge. They did quite well…

Until they got eaten by deer.

They recovered and started going well again.

Then got eaten by deer again.

Amazingly, they recovered again!

We did get beans to harvest from all three types. Some days, I was quite surprised by how many I was able to gather!

Peas

The edible pod peas were another one that needed to be sown twice. With the first sowing, I think 3 in total finally germinated. I bought more seeds and replanted, but the new packet had about half as many seeds, so all we got was one row in the 9′ bed.

The shelling peas did better, in that maybe half of what I planted germinated. These, I could at least “blame” it on them being older seeds.

All the peas and beans got trellis netting to climb. The shelling peas needed to be trained up theirs. The edible pod beans were better climbers. Neither variety of peas thrived, but the edible pod peas did better, and got quite tall. I ended up having to put netting around the entire bed they were in, though, after discovering some eaten by deer. Even with the netting in place, deer were able to reach higher parts of the plants and eat them!

Carrots and Spinach – plus chard, kohlrabit and Jebousek lettuce!

We were only able to plant the Uzbek Golden carrot seed tape; one row on either side of the peas. I hoped to plant more elsewhere, but there just wasn’t the space for it. They did okay, even as we lost control of the weeds in this bed. The real surprise was when several of them went to seed! Carrots are biannual, so they should not have gone to seed in their first year.

The spinach did very poorly. They sprouted, but only a few got leaves large enough to be harvested, and even then, not enough to be worth harvesting at all.

Once it became clear the spinach was done for, I pulled them out and tried planting chard. I had some seeds for two varieties that got mixed up (a cat got at the baggie the seed packets were in and chewed them up!), so those got planted in the same space the spinach did.

They didn’t do well, either, and I only partly blame that on losing control of the weeds in that bed.

Meanwhile, with the Purple Caribe potatoes that failed, I found myself with a gab in the bed that needed filling. I’ve been wanting to grow kohlrabi for some time, with zero success. The first time was almost a success until they got decimated by flea beetles. I think slugs got the other attempts.

I had seeds, though, so I tried them as a fall planting, and amazingly, they started out doing really well!

Until the cats started rolling on them.

They survived the cats, though, and I had some hope to actually have kohlrabi to harvest.

Meanwhile, next to where I planted the kohlrabi, a self seeded Jebousek lettuce appeared. We got these as free seeds a couple of years ago. The first year, the seedlings got almost completely choked out by elm tree seeds. The few that survived, we allowed to go to seed and just left them. The deer ate them, but some did survive to go to seed, so we had a couple show up the next year. They got left alone, too, and went to seed, though I believe they got deer eaten, too. So when a couple of plants showed up again this year, with the kohlrabi nearby, I set up netting over the bed. It didn’t keep the cats out, but it mostly kept the deer out. The wind kept blowing the bottom of the netting loose, no matter how many ground staples, bricks or rocks we used. Which is how deer managed to get at them, anyhow. But they recovered! In face, on of them ended up growing two new stems around the eaten part, and we allowed them to go to seed.

How it ended

Beans

Considering how few bean plants actually survived, pretty darn good. We barely had enough beans to harvest fresh for a few meals, but we enjoyed having them at all. I would still recommend the Carminat and Seychelle varieties of pole beans, and the Royal Burgundy bush bean is such a survivor!!!

When I found some Carminat pods that got missed and were getting too big for fresh eating, I left them, and now we even have seeds saved!

Peas

The peas did poorly over all. We never really had more than a few pods to harvest. Mostly, there would be two or three that I would harvest to eat while I was doing my morning rounds.

Carrots

While we never had a lot of them, I was really happy with the Uzbek golden carrots. They are really tasty, and I would definitely recommend the variety. As for the ones that went to see, the flower clusters never actually produced developed seeds, so I don’t know what to make of that.

The Greens

I wish I knew what was going on with spinach in our garden. We had that one amazing year, plus one decent year in the high raised bed, and that’s it.

The first year we grew chard, they did well, but they didn’t do well this year. Again, I’m not sure why.

The kohlrabi… well…

The flea beetles got them.

I really wasn’t expecting that to happen so late in the season, but they just showed up one day, and the poor plants were black with them.

As for the Jebousek lettuce, they went to seed which I happily collected at the end of the season.

Plans for 2025

Things are going to be very different next year!

With our winter sowing, I ended up making three mixes of seeds. One of them is all root vegetables, including the last of the pelleted carrot seeds and some of Uzbek golden carrots. I also added four different beet varieties, one variety of turnips, four varieties of radishes, plus saved onion seeds. Basically, I just emptied out my old seed packets. How many will actually germinate, I have no idea. We shall see in the spring!

Another mix I made is all greens. The last of our Swiss Chard (two varieties), four varieties of spinach, two of kohlrabi, and the Hinou Tiny Bok Choi seeds I’d saved from the few plants that survived being smothered by elm tree seeds, last year. This mix also has both onions and shallots from saved seed added in.

I ended up making a third mix of seeds. These include two types of sunflowers, Dalvay shelling peas, plus a few King Tut pea seeds I’d saved from previous years, the last of my Royal Burgundy bush beans, a tiny amount of Montana Morado corn seeds that I managed to save after the cats knocked the entire bowl of seeds over and, of course, onion seeds.

Basically, I used this as an opportunity to finish off packets of older seeds, of seeds that I had only a few of.

We do still have other bean seeds that I want to grow. I don’t think I need to buy more seed, but can use what I have. I also want to try edible pod peas again. It will all depend on how many garden beds are available, really. All our plans to expand the garden again seem to get kiboshed, so we’ll see how that actually turns out.

I still have plenty of Uzbek Golden carrot seed tape and loose seeds, and they need to be planted, as the germination rates drop quickly with carrots. I can see sticking those in any place we have room for them.

With greens, if the winter sowing fails, we likely won’t try to plant more (though I do still have several varieties of lettuce seed we could sow) and the bed would probably be given over to something else.

In the end, I think the priority for next year will be with beans, as they seem to do the best here, even with the odds stacked against them. If we have the space to give over to them, I’d really like to plant those rarer shelling beans, and collect more fresh saved seed. We had only a small amount to cook and taste when we grew them, and they are well worth it.

Peas, beans and carrots are things that are staple crops for us, with some types of greens being bonus. We will probably still be trying new varieties, especially with peas, as we try to find something that will successfully grow here, but if things go as they should, they will be part of our garden, ever year.

The Re-Farmer

Analyzing our 2024 Garden: alliums

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For the next while, I’ll be going through my old posts and videos about our 2024 garden, looking at how things worked out, and use that information to decide what we will do in our 2025 garden.

These are some things that turned out pretty different from our plans. Especially the tomatoes!

I’ll start, however, with the alliums.

Garlic, onions and shallots – how it started

The garlic, of course, was planted in the fall. They went where I had the space prepared and available, which was the old kitchen garden. The long, narrow bed along the chimney block retaining wall was filled, as well as the tiny raised bed along the south side. The short section of the L shaped wattle weave bed was filled, and the last cloved were planted down the centre of the larger rectangular bed, which still had tomatoes growing in it.

With all of these, I tried to plant the cloves a fair distance away from the walls of the beds. In planting garlic in raised beds previously, most of them disappeared, while the ones planted in ground in the main garden area did really well. My conclusion is that the ones in the raised beds simply froze. Even though they were well mulched on top, there was nothing extra insulating them around the sides.

The onions and shallots were started early, indoors. The yellow bulb onions were a variety called Frontier, which was new to us, along with a new variety of shallots called Creme Brulee. For red onions, we were going to try Red Wethersfield again.

With the seedlings, the onions and shallots did well, though the Red Wethersfield onions had a rougher time of it. In the end, though, we did have quite a few seedlings to transplant.

How it went

Hit and miss.

As with everything else, the garlic was delayed. In fact, it was so long before they broke ground that I started to fear we’d lost them all. As the season progressed, however, they did very well, and we got to enjoy plenty of garlic scapes when they finally appeared!

For the onions, I try to interplant them with other things in hopes that they will deter deer and other critters from eating the things they are planted with, or in some cases, just to fill in gaps.

With fewer Red Wethersfield seedlings, I tried transplanting them among the tomatoes in the old kitchen garden, then spread the last of the seedlings in the wattle weave bed.

The yellow onions were interplanted with tomatoes in the main garden area, before the last of them went into one of the newly shifted beds, filling a little more than half of it.

For some reason, I got it in my head that the Red Wethersfield were interplanted with the sweet peppers in the high raised bed. Those were the shallots. The last few shallots went into the same bed as the last of the yellow onions. I planted them at the far end of the bed, with a space in between, so there would be no confusions over what was where, with the space in between getting direct sown with summer squash.

The unexpected surprise, however, was all the onions we found while shifting and cleaning up various beds.

While reworking the long bed at the chain link fence, I found a number of onions that survived the winter. Those got transplanted to one of the low raised beds in the East yard.

As we were weeding and eventually shifting the beds in the main garden area, we ended up finding a lot of Red Wethersfield onions we’d planted the previous year, around the Roma VF tomatoes, that just disappeared. We assumed they all died.

In weeding and shifting the other beds, more surviving onions were found, and even a couple of shallots. All of these got transplanted into the newest low raised bed, where most of the Summer of Melons were transplanted. As onions are biannual, I was very excited by this, as it meant they would be going to seed, which we could collect for next year, instead of buying more.

All of these transplanted onions took and most of them did very well. We found ourselves with many onions blooming.

How the harvest went

More hit and miss!

With the onions that were allowed to go to seed, we found ourselves with many, many flower clusters. They bloomed and bloomed and bloomed!

They bloomed for so long, I wasn’t sure we’d get any finishing their cycle so we could have seed to collect! I did end up being able to collect quite a few flower clusters that had dried on their stems and set them to continue drying out in the cat free zone. I collected the last of them, some of which were still rather green, and set them to dry in the cat free zone, after we had our first frost, which onions can handle.

Every flower in those seeds heads have three seeds in them.

We got quite a lot of seeds, just from the first batch harvested. The second batch took longer to dry out, but they eventually did, and I was able to separate out the seeds. Which meant I have seeds from yellow bulb onions from previous years (Oneida, I believe), Red Wethersfield onions, plus some shallots from previous years (I can’t remember the names of the varieties we tried before, just now), all mixed together!

The Red Wethersfield onions we planted this year, though, were a complete loss.

The cats killed them.

The yard cats just love the garden beds in the old kitchen. They loved to go in between the tomatoes in the larger rectangular bed and just chill, or they would roll around luxuriously – all over the onions! Even when I tried sticking plastic forks into the soil beside them, hoping the tines would deter the cats, they just squeezed in between them and rolled around, anyhow. When I finally cleaned up that bed at the end of the season, I did find a few tiny survivors, though. I saved them, and they can be transplanted in the spring.

The yellow bulb onions and the shallots that shared the bed with them also had cat issues! They actually grew quite well, and we did get a couple of decent sized bulbs out of them. Those where the ones that didn’t get rolled on by cats! At least, not right away. We simply could not keep the cats off that bed, and they really, really liked to lie on the onions or roll in the soil. They didn’t kill the onions, but broke the stems, which meant the bulbs could not grow any bigger.

The shallots had cats rolling on them, too, but they had the extra problem of fighting for resources. While I tried to remove as many of the elm roots that invaded the soil, it doesn’t take them long to grow back, and they send their capillary roots up into the softer, moister soil. They will even force their way through the bottoms of grow bags, as we discovered last year.

The yellow onions that were interplanted with the tomatoes fared better, even though the tomato plants ended up completely overshadowing them. More on that when I talk about how the tomatoes did, in another post.

Still, we managed to get a decent harvest, which was cured and braided, and we now have plenty in the root cellar.

The real success, though, where the shallots that were planted with the peppers. I did not really expect to have a good harvest from them, but when I started reaching around the pepper plants to pull them, I found a lot of nice, big shallots!

These, too, we left to cure, then braided, and are now in the cat free zone, where we can access them more easily to use in our cooking.

Oh, and then there was the garlic.

Usually, they would have been ready to harvest in June or maybe July.

They weren’t ready to harvest until the fall!

We did have really good bulbs, though. Not the biggest, perhaps, but certainly not small. In fact, there were enough good sized bulbs to make them worth planting!

Conclusion, and plans for next year.

Things are going to be pretty different, next year!

One thing will stay the same, and that is the garlic. Those are already planted in the bed where most of the yellow onions were. After spacing them out, I changed my mind and started them at the north end of the bed, where the shallots were, instead of the south. The south end of the bed gets shade for longer periods of the day, because of the trees closer to the house. Starting from the north end means the soil will warm up faster, in the spring.

I was really, really happy with how the shallots turned out this year. We’ve struggled to grow shallots every year, but this year they did fantastic in the high raised bed, in between the sweet peppers. As for the red and yellow onions, it was disappointing that the cats did so much damage – especially for the Red Wethersfield onions. At least we got a harvest with the yellow onions!

BUT…

We have seeds.

Lots of seeds.

This year, we are trying the winter direct sowing. I ended up making a couple of different mixes of seeds, and included onion seeds in the shakers. In the last bed that got winter sown, it got shallot seeds added in, too. So we now have several beds already sown with onions and shallots. Being cold hardy plants, they should start germinating before the other seeds in the mixes do which, hopefully, will go a long way in keeping critters away when the other seeds start to sprout.

If they sprout.

We’ll find out in the spring!

There are still plenty of seeds left, so we have the option of starting some indoors as well, if we want, but I don’t think so. We do want to keep growing onions and shallots, and if the winter sown seeds don’t survive, not starting any indoors means none to be had at all. Their growing season is just too long. I will take that change this year, though.

Onion seeds are only good for about a year. I might end up giving the rest of the seeds away or something, so they don’t go to waste.

Once onions go to seed in their second year, however, they go to seed every year.

In getting the bed ready to plant the garlic, however, I found more onions and shallots that got missed. The bed that had onions interplanted with tomatoes now has summer squash winter sown in it, and I found more missed onions while preparing that bed, too.

The Summer of Melon’s bed that had the transplanted onions in it got half-prepped for the winter. Just the side that had the onions and bush beans. (The other half will wait until spring)

All of the onions that were in there, plus the others I found in preparing other beds, were replanted in the cleaned up half of the bed. I was even able to separate them out by colour, and found myself with half the bed now planted with Red Wethersfield, and the other half with yellow onions, plus a few shallots in the very middle, as a divider.

We should have plenty more onions going to seed for us next year, too!

In the end, for all the issues we had, I would say this was one of the best years for garlic, onions and shallots we’ve had yet.

I hold out home that, with the winter sowing, next year will be even better.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: we have beans, and a blushing tomato

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We are having a much more pleasant day today, temperature wise. In fact, our overnight low last night dipped down to 9C/48F! I actually had to turn my fans off. 😄 Right now, coming up on 6:30pm, we’re still at our high of 21C/70F, which has been sooooo enjoyable!

I did end up watering the garden this afternoon, though. This time with water soluble fertilizer. The NPK on this fertilizer was 18-18-21, rather than the acidifying, high nitrogen fertilizer I used before. With so many things developing their fruit, they need that higher potassium and less nitrogen.

While I was watering in the main garden area, I saw something that made me smile!

We have pole beans developing! So far, just one purple Carminat plant has them, but the others are blooming, so I’m hoping to expect more. The green Seychelle beans that were planted later, to fill the gabs where the Carminat failed to germinated, will likely be a couple of weeks behind.

While watering the San Marzano tomatoes in the retaining wall blocks, I saw our first tomato that’s starting to show a blush of red.

At this time last year, most things were farther along, and we were still harvesting bush beans, and even some summer squash and some decently sized carrots. Still, things are growing well, for all that they’re behind in the growing season. As long as that frost holds off, we should have a pretty decent harvest at the end of the season.

Plus, we should soon have beans, corn and shelling peas to harvest!

Well. As long as something else doesn’t get them first. Like a deer. At least we don’t have problems with groundhogs this year, and with all the yard cats, rodents and hares are not a problem at all!

The yard cats do earn their keep!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: starting tomatoes, peppers and milkweed (video)

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Okay, so I’m really a week early for this, but I decided to start more seeds, anyhow!

It was also an excuse to finally get my video making software up and running on the new computer. That was far more complicated than it should have been, but once it was all set up, everything went well.

Plus, PBC makes a cameo appearance.

This time, I started the three varieties of short season bell peppers left over from last year; Early Sunsation, Dragonfly and Early Summer. When it comes time to transplanting them outdoors, we need to try a completely different location. Definitely well away from those trees along the north side of the low raised garden beds! Hopefully, by starting them indoors this early, as well as planting them in a better location, we will actually get ripe peppers to try. With the peppers we started last month, this will make for 6 varieties, only one of which was able to ripen outdoors last year. None of the seeds are new.

I ended up starting 4 varieties of tomatoes. We were intending to only plant a couple varieties, originally; one paste tomato variety and one cherry tomato variety for fresh eating. Then we got some free seeds I wanted to try, too. When going through the tomato seeds we had, I decided to grow the Chocolate Cherry tomatoes again. I used the new seed starting trays for the tomatoes, which have only 12 cells, so I’m going for more variety over quantity of plants. I know the cherry tomatoes should be prolific (if they do well this year), but the free Forme de Coeur we got are also supposed to be quite prolific. I planted only 2 seeds per cell. If we end up with only a few plants of each variety, all together should be adequate to our needs. If we do end up with a high germination rate, I’ll might thin by transplanting, but we’ll see when the time comes.

The San Marzano tomatoes went into my remaining new style of tray I got this year, with the larger, deeper cells. There weren’t a lot of seeds in the package, though, and I used them all up. I filled the cells only half way for now, and will top them up as the seedlings get bigger. With this, if we do have a high enough germination rate that they’ll need thinning, I will definitely thin by transplanting. As it is, I only had enough seeds to plant a pair of seeds in two rows, and the last row got only one seed each. It’s entirely possible that thinning won’t even be an issue.

Last of all, I started some Butterfly Flower, which is an orange variety of milkweed. That one had plenty of seeds, so I might also try direct sowing in the spring, too. I had a small tray with Jiffy Pellets left over from last year, so I used that. The seeds are pretty big, compared to all the others I started today, and each pellet got only one seed each. That’s still a dozen seeds, so not bad. Since these are perennials, we will need to be selective on where we transplant these.

Starting these seeds meant a bit of rearranging needed to happen. The seeds starting in the Red Solo cups were still in the big aquarium greenhouse, and that was going to be needed for the large tray of tomatoes.

Zero oregano seeds germinated, so I took those cups out completely. With the Purple Beauty bell peppers, one cup had all 4 seeds germinate, while the other had none, so I transplanted two of them into the empty cup. The German Winter Thyme doesn’t seem to be growing much bigger. I’m not sure what to make of that. The bin with these went into the mini greenhouse in front of the window. The two trays with the LED grow lights on them went into the mini greenhouse as well, and are now plugged into their USB cables. For now, I can still use the remaining three lights to supplement the tray with the eggplants and hot peppers.

The trays with the tomatoes and peppers are set up above the heat vent. Hopefully, that will be enough, because we’ve only got one heat mat, and that’s now being used with the San Marzano tomatoes. The milkweed is in the big aquarium greenhouse, too, but off on the side. These shouldn’t need the extra heat, anyhow, but the warmth from the lights themselves should be adequate for them.

Now I’m really going to be getting antsy. We are at 11 weeks before last frost and with these seeds started, the seeds I have left don’t need to be started until 2-4 weeks before our last frost date. Unless I decide to start some gourds, but even they all are recommended for starting at 2-4 weeks. That means having to wait until the start of May, at the earliest!

Well, before then, I’m sure some things will need to be potted up or something, so I should still be able to get my gardening fix! 😂😂

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 garden: first!

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Okay, I’ve got a couple hours before I can pick up my new computer, but I couldn’t help but make one more post.

We have sproooots!

They are just barely visible, like tiny white worms! 😆

The yellow onions and the shallots, which are both in the large aquarium greenhouse, are emerging.  The red onions are in the small aquarium greenhouse, which is slightly cooler, so that may be why nothing is sprouting there quite yet.

It is so awesome to see new growth!!!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 garden: first seeds

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Well, my computer is pretty much useless right now. I have been able to get to booted, but so many things just won’t work. Even my mouse suddenly stopped working. Then, when I was able to manually open the start menu and select shut down, it wouldn’t.

*sigh*

So much for making a little gardening video. I’m supposed to be able to use the software on my phone, but that would drive me insane.

So here are some photos, instead.

There were not a lot of seeds in the onion packets, but still decent. The Red Wethersfield had the fewest seeds. Those are this year’s red onions. The yellow onions are Frontier and the shallots are Creme Brulee. There wasn’t space to fit the three containers into the large aquarium greenhouse, so one went into the little one.

I used one of the new large-cell trays for the next seeds. The hot Cheyenne peppers were the last seeds from last year. There were only 9 seeds left, for the 7 cells in the row.

The Classic Eggplant were also the last of the seeds from last year. There were 14 left, which worked out well.

Hopefully, we will have at least a few germinate. If we had just two or three plants of these, that would be enough.

The last row is the Little Finger eggplant. I got a new packet of those, but last year’s packet still had 12 seeds. I put two in each of six cells, then added three new seeds in the last one, plus one more in each of the other cells. So, at the very least, we should have a decent number of Little Finger eggplant this year.

This tray is now on the heat mat; something the onions don’t particularly need.

When I did the onions, I had a smaller bag of Jiffy brand seed starting mix. I moistened the entire bag in a huge bowl, first, then filled the repurposed fruit and vegetable trays.

When filling the tray with the larger cells, I finished off that bag. I had a larger bag of Miracle-Gro seed starting mix and moistened about half of it to finish filling the tray. I am curious to see if there is any difference.

As for the aquarium set up, I’m going to have to look for new bulbs. The big aquarium has two sets of lights. The original set that came with the tank lay flat on the glass lids. The lids were constantly getting algea growing on them, under the warmth of the lights. When the hinges on the lids broke, we just took them off completely, but too much moisture was getting on the light cover. So we found a fixture with ends that hold it higher above the tank.

Now that we use the tanks for seed starting, we use both light fixtures. The higher one, however, now has a burnt out bulb. I need to confirm the size of bulb needed, then see what I can replace it with. I’m sure I can find some full spectrum bulbs that will be better for the plants. If they are affordable, I hope to get extras.

The light fixture on the small tank has two LED bulbs. It still works, but is slowly getting dimmer, so it will be time to replace those soon, too.

So there we have it! Our first seeds started for this year’s garden.

Looking forward to seeing fresh green growth!

The Re-Farmer

A good one for beginner gardeners

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Here’s another great video from Gardening in Canada. With so many people looking to garden to feed themselves, because grocery prices are getting so high, it helps to know what’s actually cheaper to grow!

There are, of course, always outliers. With the dry beans, for example. It may be cheaper to buy them at the store, but you can grow varieties that you won’t find in stores at all. Similar for things like potatoes, which don’t even make her list. For example, there’s not much point growing your basic white, red, or yellow potatoes that are common in stores. For the space they need, you could grow other more cost-effective vegetables instead. But there are many varieties of potatoes you’ll never see in a grocery store, or if you do, they are much more expensive “gourmet” items.

But then, a novice gardener looking to save on the grocery budget probably wouldn’t be after special varieties. That’s the time to focus on tried and true varieties that will grow in their area, not experiment. We are fortunate to have lots of space to convert into garden beds. Most people don’t have that.

I still say it’s good to grow at least one thing, just for fun!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 garden goals: review and reset

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Okay, now that we’ve gone though and analysed how our garden did in 2023, it’s time to use that information to review and reset our plans for our 2024 garden.

For the past few years, we’ve done a lot of experimenting. We will continue to experiment, but some things will be set aside for now, to try again later.

Photo by Binyamin Mellish on Pexels.com

So let’s go through the different categories again.

Fall garlic, perennials and food forest items

Our fall garlic is already planted. This year, we’re just doing one variety, so we got 3 pounds of garlic and they’re planted in locations, in the old kitchen garden. Hopefully, they will survive the winter in their raised beds, and we’ll have a good harvest out of them. Garlic will be a staple crop. We might still try other varieties to find which one we like best but, at this point, it’s more about figuring out how much to plant to meet our needs.

We’ve also got the unexpected purchase of saffron crocuses planted already. I’m quite excited to see how they do. They’re zone 4 and got extra protection for the winter, but our winter has been so mild so far, they should do just fine.

Berries, fruit trees and expanding the food forest

What we do next here will depend on our budget. With fruit and nut trees, they really should be planted as early as we can get them, since they can take so long before producing. We still need to get more sea buckthorn, since we lost 3 out of a bundle of 5. We got two tiny Trader mulberry along with our Liberty apple tree. They didn’t have stock of the usual sizes they ship, so instead of one 2 yr seedling, we got two 1 yr seedlings. Those were so small, we ended up keeping them indoors. They’ve grown quite a bit and, as I write this, they have gone dormant for the winter. Hopefully, they will start budding in the spring, as we harden them off before transplanting outdoors.

We might get another, hardier variety of apple tree, but we also need to keep in mind that almost all the crab apples we have now are dying of a fungal disease, and once that gets in the soil, there’s no getting rid of it. We’re looking at hardy plum and pear trees, but I’m also keen on getting things like hazelnuts, butternuts or black walnut trees. The hazelnuts bushes, at least, will start producing in 3-5 years, unlike the much longer time needed for the bigger trees.

We have black currants that need to be transplanted out of the shady area they are in now, and the haskap probably need to be transplanted, too. They have yet to produce.

Saskatoons are on our list, as are gooseberries.

More raspberries are definitely on the list. The goal is to have different varieties that mature at different times, so extended harvesting.

I would like to get more strawberry transplants and use them as a ground cover under food forest transplants. Those are something that should to be replanted elsewhere every few years, so that would work out.

We intended to get green asparagus and more purple asparagus, in alternating years, but we are having trouble figuring out where to plant something that we can expect to produce for 20 years, so that will wait.

No change on the sunchokes. They’ll take care of themselves at this point.

We also need to figure out where to plant annuals that we can treat as perennials that we didn’t plant in 2023, like strawberry spinach, dill and other varieties of bread seed poppies.

We also need to get native wildflowers to attract pollinators growing. Those will be scattered about, and bordering other areas.

Root vegetables

Potatoes will, of course, be grown again. I just don’t know where, yet! While I like the fingerling varieties, I don’t like fussing with smaller potatoes as much, so I think this year I will focus on just two basic varieties, one a white or yellow potato, and one a red potato. Scab resistance and storability will be the main factors to consider when choosing varieties.

I think we’ll need to skip beets and turnips for a few years. I’d still like to grow a couple of radishes for their pods but, so far, none have had a long enough growing season to reach that stage, so it might be skipped. We might still grow a few radishes for their roots, for those family members that enjoy them.

Carrots, however, have done well, so we’ll keep growing those for sure. I can’t remember if I still have Uzbek Golden carrot seed left, but do want to grow those again. The only down side is that I haven’t seen a Canadian supplier, and the cost of ordering from the US is getting too high. I’ve got lots of seed for other varieties, though.

Onions and Shallots

These will continue to be staples, even as we try different varieties to see what works. I’ve just got seeds for yellow globe onions and pink shallots in, plus I need to get seeds for a red variety. It’s yellow onions we use the most, so finding something that grows well here, and stores well, is the priority over other types.

Tomatoes

We had so many tomato starts in 2023, and not enough space to transplant them!

While we liked the black varieties we experimented with, my daughters have suggested that for 2024, we stick with just one fresh eating variety, and requested it be a grape or cherry tomato type. Besides that, we will try a different paste tomato variety. Something more resistant to blight!

When cleaning up the old kitchen garden, the Spoon tomatoes still had some ripe tomatoes on them, so I just stuck those into the ground after pulling up the plants. Who knows. We might have some self seeded Spoon tomatoes next year!

Corn, peas and beans

I want to grow peas again, but would like to try them somewhere else. We have yet to have really healthy pea plants, even though we’ve managed to have some to harvest. Deer eating them is only part of the problem!

With beans, I still want to try the varieties we didn’t manage to plant in 2023, with both bush and pole bean varieties, plus dry bean varieties. If we have the space, I’d like to try the seeds I’d harvested from the self seeded varieties that grew in our compost pile. I still haven’t been able to figure out what they are, or where they came from!

As for corn, I think we’ll save experimenting with popcorn again for another year. Likewise with the purple corn. I want to focus on growing sweet corn. We have a couple of short season varieties that didn’t get planted in 2023, so I want to grow at least one of those, and a decent amount of them!

Peppers, herbs and greens

For the sweet bell peppers, my daughters have suggested we just do one variety, and they don’t particularly care what kind. They find they all seemed to taste the same. I do have a request to grow hot peppers, too. We still have plenty of seeds to choose from.

For herbs, it should be interesting to see what makes it through the winter. Did the chamomile self seed? Will the thyme make it? I normally would expect the spearmint to survive, but they’re in a pot, not in the ground, so they will likely not survive the winter. We will likely find other varieties of herbs to grow, as we convert our old kitchen garden into mostly herbs, but we haven’t decided what to try next, yet.

As for greens, we probably will skip the lettuces again, but I won’t be unhappy if the Jabousek lettuce managed to self seed. I also want to try growing the Hedou Tiny Bok Choy seeds I harvested our of the tiny little plants that survived being choked out by Chinese elm seeds.

At some point, I want to grow cabbage, but I don’t think it’ll be this coming summer.

Melons

We love melons, so we will definitely be growing them again. I just got a summer melon mix of seeds to try, plus we still have seeds left from the varieties we tried in 2023. I would love to get the Cream of Saskatchewan Watermelon growing. It’s a short season variety that I might actually try direct sowing, since starting them indoors was a complete failure!

Summer squash

These are a staple crop, and we still have plenty of seed for the green and gold zucchini, the yellow pattypan squash, and the Magda squash. I might need to get more G-Star seeds, as those seem to do so well here, but I’d also like to try a new variety of patty pans, too. If we can get control of our slug problem, these can be direct sown instead of started indoors.

Winter Squash

I want to try all the varieties we tried in 2023 again! We won’t have the space, though. We have the new Wild Bunch winter squash mix of seeds that just arrived, and those will probably take up most of the space we have available. If we have the room, I’d like to do the pink banana and candy roaster again, as they did so well. There are also others that didn’t do well that I want to try again, with better growing conditions. The main reason I am willing to dedicate so much garden space to these is for their winter storage that will provide food for us for many months.

Gourds

Gourds are something I’ve been wanting to grow mostly for crafting purposes. Especially the larger varieties, such as the canteen gourd and the African drum gourd. Luffa, of course, I want to grow for their sponges. Unfortunately, we’ve had issues with getting most of them to survive at all, never mind bloom and produce early enough to fully mature on the vine, even for varieties that I know should be able to do so, in our short growing season. I need to rethink where to grow these, and focus on improving the soil. I think that’s the source of most of our problems. These are heavy feeders, and our depleted soil needs more work. Whether or not we grow gourds again in 2024 will depend on having that sort of prepared space. They are not as high on the priority list for the upcoming year.

Eggplant

I definitely want to grow both the Little Finger and Classic eggplant again! We had the one Classic eggplant do surprisingly well. I now know not to plant any in those chimney block planters, but the wattle weave bed seems to be a much better space for them.

Salsify

My daughters had requested these, as the roots supposedly taste like seafood, and that appeals to them. With their deep roots that, from what we’ve read, are fragile, they were going to be grown in repurposed garbage cans turned into planters. It just didn’t happen. I’d like to give it a go in 2024 and see if we can successfully grow these at least once!

Sunflowers

We still have the seeds for Mongolian Giant and Hopi Black Dye sunflowers. They need to be grown while they are still viable. When we grew them before, we tried starting them both indoors and outdoors. The main problem was, the deer!

So I do want to grow these again, if we can figure out where, and how to protect them. With the Mongolian Giant, I want them to double as a privacy screen, too. Ideally, I would interplant them in the food forest area, but that’s where the deer traffic is heaviest!

Cucumbers

We still have Lemon Cucumber seeds that I wouldn’t mind trying again. We’ll see if we have the space. I don’t think we’ll bother with pickling cucumbers. The year we grew those, my sister dumped loads of cucumbers from her garden on us. We pickled as many as we could before we ended up having to toss the rest on the compost, because they went moldy before we could finish them.

We haven’t been eating the pickles.

My husband normally loves pickles. We only opened one jar, and that’s it. No one’s wanted to eat any of them, since.

I have no idea if our own pickling cucumbers would have done better, as we never had enough of a crop to pickle, though we did have some for fresh eating (they were a dual purpose variety).

Perhaps some day, we’ll try pickling cucumbers again. For now, though, if we try any, it’ll be for fresh eating, and I think the Lemon cucumber is an interesting variety I’d like to try – if we can get them to germinate and survive long enough to transplant!

So that’s my thoughts on what we want to plant. These are the other related projects we need to work on.

Raised beds

A priority needs to be put onto getting the trellis beds built. Then add the trellises and, if we have the time, join pairs of them to make the trellis tunnels we have in mind. We will also need to have portable trellises for climbers that will be planted in other beds that will not have permanent trellises built in.

The current low raised beds in the main garden area need to be rebuilt into more permanent fixtures, but the priority is to build more beds in general, first. Especially since we won’t be growing squash in the old squash patch again, and still plan to grow a lot of squash. That space will also eventually have raised beds in them.

The soil in the low raised beds, however, needs further amending, particularly to prevent soil compaction. I suspect soil compaction is the cause of a lot of our problems, even though we use mulches to help prevent that.

Rebuilding the garden tap

When I was a kid, helping my mother with her garden here, that tap came in so very handy. I hope to put a priority on getting that set up again, in a way that will last at least another 50 years! Along with the tap, which will be set up strong enough to support a garden hose attached to it, there will be a vegetable washing station and work station.

Garden shed

I want to at least get started on the base of this. We need to replace the old and rotting garden shed. I also want to do a small cordwood construction practise building. The original plan of building a 10’x10′ outdoor bathroom with composting toilet, to replace the outhouse, will be postponed. We’ve chosen a location for it, but when it comes time to fell the rest of the dead spruces, we need to be able to fell some of the trees in that direction, then drag logs through there.

So what I want to build first as a practise building is a smaller garden shed. Because cordwood walls are so much heavier, we need to prepare a base that will support that weight and not sink. That will mean bringing in gravel (now that we have the truck, we can actually drive to the gravel pit to collect some!) to cover the ground and raise the area a bit higher and level it. We plan to visit a ReStore in the city, or a salvage yard, to find concrete blocks or pavers to use as a floor, and a base for the cordwood walls.

The shed itself is planned out to be 6’x8′ on the inside, not counting the thickness of the walls. The cordwood walls will probably be 8 inches thick (for a larger building, like a house, they might be 12 or 16 inches thick, or even more), and have a shed roof, which will probably be a metal roof. The south facing wall will have a window – we have many salvaged windows, complete with frames, in the barn to choose from – and bottle bricks in the wall around it for light inside. We have doors in the barn and sheds, too, and should be able to find something we can salvage.

I want to take advantage of the cordwood construction to include longer logs in the walls, extending outside the northern wall closer to that garden tap, that can be used to build a bench and maybe a counter. Other longer pieces can be extended into the interior, closer to the roof, to build shelves on.

There are other things that are a priority that will take a lot of time and resources, but I do hope to at least get a start on the base. We really do need a good garden shed, and I’d like to build one that will last many, many years.

Well, that’s all I can think of right now. I’m sure I’m forgetting something!

We’ll definitely have our work cut out for us.

I’m rather looking forward to it!

The Re-Farmer

Analyzing our 2023 garden: four kinds of tomatoes

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Last year, we grew tomatoes that were processed into tomato paste, rather than sauce. Cooking them down to a paste took many hours, and we filled a case of 125ml jars that got used up nice and fast! So this was something we were quite interested in doing again.

The variety of paste tomatoes we grew – Sophie’s Choice – was chosen partly because it was a rare variety. Yes, we saved seeds. The flavour was a bit on the bland side, so we wanted to try something different this year. So for paste tomatoes, we chose Roma VF.

We also wanted to have tomatoes that were good for fresh eating. I’m the only one in the family that can’t do fresh tomatoes. For these, we went a completely different direction and chose black tomatoes. Indigo Blue Chocolates for an indeterminate variety, and Black Beauty for a determinate variety.

Then, because they did so well a couple of years ago, I went ahead and got more Spoon tomato seeds. We did have a few seeds left, but when I saw the price per packet, and the number of seeds in them, drop to reasonable levels again, I ordered some.

Since then, I’ve started to see people and seed companies talking about Spoon tomatoes, so these miniscule tomatoes seemed to have found a following! These are also the only tomatoes that I can eat fresh, without gagging.

With wanting to have plenty of tomatoes to process into pastes and sauces, the original plan was to grow quite a lot of them. The first seeds we started indoors were the Indigo Blue Chocolate and Black Beauty, in March.

The black beauty sure started sprouting fast!

Towards the end of March, we had space in a tray and planted the Spoon tomatoes.

By this time, we had built the cat barrier, which allowed us to set trays on shelves, at least temporarily, and not have to worry about them getting destroyed.

We had a very high germination rate, which meant that when it was time to pot them up, we needed a lot of space!

With the red solo cups, they were first potted up with the soil only half way up. Once they grew big enough to need “potting up” again, we simply added more toil to the top of the cups, burying the stems so they could form more roots.

With our new indoor set up, we were able to start quite a lot of things indoors, but none thrived as well as the tomatoes! Not only did we have a very high germination rate, but we had almost no losses as they were potted up!

Eventually, when things were warm enough, the seedlings were transferred to the sun room, and then hardened off outside, before transplanting into the garden.

We soon found ourselves with a problem.

We were not able to get enough garden beds ready, before all those seedlings needed to be transplanted! The tomatoes got much bigger, faster, than we were ready for.

In the end, we got them into three of our long, low raised beds in the main garden area. One bed was filled with the Roma VF, with only a border of onions around them. We wanted to make sure to have the most of those, for processing later.

With the other two, they were each planted in a single row in the beds they were in, filling the beds half way, length wise, so that the other half could be used for the root vegetables we would plant later and, of course, room for the onions planted as a border around them.

That left the Spoon tomatoes, and at that point, I really didn’t know where to put them. In the end, I stuck a few of them into the retaining wall blocks in the Old Kitchen garden.

There wasn’t a lot of free space for them, but we got a half dozen in. Later on, a last Jiffy Pellet that had Spoon tomatoes in it finally germinated, so I stuck it at the end of the retaining wall, with a tomato plant that had broken in the wind.

That still left us with large numbers of tomato seedlings of all varieties – and nowhere to plant them!

I did find someone we could give a bunch of them to, but there were far more than they needed. In the end, I got permission to leave them outside the general store and post office for our little hamlet, with signs saying what they were, and recommending that seeds be saved. We had lots of peppers to give away, too!

I’m happy to say, they were all taken. I hope they grew well for people!

With the tomato beds, we were able to wind a soaker hose and sprinkler hoses throughout the beds so that they could be watered from below, which did free up quite a bit of time! I could just hook up the hose and go do something else, for most of the beds.

As for how ours did, I’ll talk about each variety.

The first that we were able to start harvesting from were the Roma VF. While they did start out rather well, they did get hit with tomato blight, and we ended up harvesting all the tomatoes, then pulling the plants for burning, rather than composting.

If you go through the Instagram slideshow of photos, you’ll see we were also able to harvest some Indigo Blue and Black Beauty tomatoes, too.

Both varieties of black tomatoes took a long time to ripen. Because of their colour, it was really hard to tell when they were ready to pick! Both were supposed to get a red blush on their bottoms, but ultimately, we had to go by the squeeze test to see if they were ready.

Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes

The Indigo Blue started to ripen first. These are a smaller tomato which, unfortunately, did have a tendency to split rather quickly, once they ripened. They have a nice, smooth shape to them, and their colours are lovely.

The Black Beauties, on the other hand, took a lot longer to ripen. They got so huge, so fast, and then… nothing. We kept checking them and they were rock hard for the longest time. They also had a tendency to split, more than the Indigo Blues did. Then, when we could finally pick some, their uneven shapes made them harder to work with. As for the flavour, my family was unimpressed. They did not live up to their descriptions on the website.

Then there were the Spoon tomatoes!

Where they were planted was not an ideal spot at all. It’s shaded by one of the ornamental apple trees, on the south corner. While they did grow quite tall on their bamboo stake supports, they did not get as lush and healthy as they did the first time we grew them, against the chain link fence. They were transplanted a bit late, too, so they took longer to ripen than before. As a result, we didn’t get a lot of them, relatively speaking, but there were certainly enough to snack on while we were out and about in the yard.

At the end of the season, when we got hit by our first frost, we harvested all the tomatoes left (except the Spoon tomatoes; we left them alone), bringing in the ripest ones, then spreading the greenest ones out on screens under the market tent to ripen.

Here, you can see the last of the Black Beauty and Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes set out in the sun, before they got transferred to screens.

We were able to process a sink full of Roma VF tomatoes into sauce for the freezer.

Those are already gone!

We had too many other things going on, though, and ended up freezing a lot of the tomatoes whole, to either cook as they are, process into more sauce, or into tomato paste. These can wait until slower, winter days.

The frustrating thing was all the left over, slowly ripening tomatoes. We just didn’t have the space to store them and keep them handy. Last year, we had a bin full in the dining room that the family snacked out of regularly, We weren’t able to do that this year. The end result was that many tomatoes started going bad before they could be eaten. Ultimately, way too many of them ended up in the compost heap, simply because they were forgotten.

Surprise tomatoes!

The last two years, we grew tomatoes in a bed along the chain link fence. This year, we grew other tings in there, but several self seeded tomatoes showed up, too!

I decided to transplant them into the empty bed the Irish Cobbler potatoes had been in.

It was September 8 when I transplanted them, and our average first frost date is September 10, so there was no way they’d have time to mature, but I figured I’d give them a chance! They did actually start to bloom. Even when the first mild frosts did, they were protected by the plastic rings I’d put around them and survived.

Final Thoughts on Tomatoes

As far as starting the seeds goes, they did amazingly well! I’m still blown away by the almost 100% germination rate. The transplants did really well, and I’m glad we were able to give the last ones away. Once they were in the ground, they all did mostly good, but I think our growing conditions and soil issues prevented them from doing as well as they should have.

Roma VF

As these ended up being harvested early due to tomato blight, I don’t know that they reached their full flavour potential. The family enjoyed them, but didn’t find the flavour exceptional. The tomato sauce we made was good but, again, the tomato flavour was nothing to write home about. We will try a different variety of paste tomato, next year.

Black Beauty

These are a pretty tomato, for sure, but they took so much longer to ripen, and had a real problem with splitting easily. My family was unimpressed with the flavour, and didn’t like working with the lumpy, bumpy shapes. I’m glad we tried them, but we will not be growing them again.

Indigo Blue Chocolate

These went over much better. They’re a smaller tomato, but still adequate for slicing and using in sandwiches. My husband likes to just eat the tomatoes with some salt, and quite enjoyed these that way. They were nicely productive, too. We will be growing these again.

Spoon

For all the set backs these had, they did surprisingly well. They’re also just a really fun tomato. I look forward to growing them again, just for the fun of them. Plus, they are the only ones I can actually eat, and it’s fun to have these tiny little tomatoes to snack on while working in the garden. Plus, being a rarer variety, I like the idea of keeping them going.

The challenge is going to be having enough space to grow the amount of tomatoes we would need for our long term goals. At some point, we want to be able to can and freeze sauces and pastes sufficient to last a year – basically, from harvest to harvest. For that, we’ll need to grow more tomatoes, which means we need to have more space to grow them in.

Which means we need to get our butts in gear to have enough raised beds for everything we want to grow. Even the low raised beds we have now, which have been amended for several years, will need to be made at least a little higher, with more amending.

All in good time. Little by little, it’ll get done!

The Re-Farmer

Analyzing our 2023 garden: the best laid plans!

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Since moving out here, our gardening plans have changed a few times. Our original 5 year plan had us starting to garden around year 5, after focusing on cleaning and clearing first the inner yard in the first two years, then the outer yard over the next 2 or 3 years, before eventually moving beyond the outer yard, which is rented out.

It’s now been 6 years. The inner yard – specifically the spruce grove – is still not cleared and cleaned up. We had to start on parts of the outer yard earlier. Some things had to be dropped completely.

Gardening, however, started early, and I’m glad it did. We started off with a couple of reclaimed patches of ground. Each year, the garden beds were expanded and we grew more things.

Until this year.

All the best laid plans, indeed! We ended up with a garden perhaps half the size of the previous year.

Early in 2023, though, we still thought we’d be able to do a larger garden. Many seeds were purchased, and orders were placed for things that would be delivered in time for spring planting. Here is a video I did, going through our seeds – old and new – and starting our onions and luffa.

Even in April, I still thought we’d be able to meet most of our goals, and was able to get started preparing a couple of low raised beds.

I also did a spring garden tour in April, where I talked about our plans.

Among the things that changed was the shed we were supposed to get, that would have been fixed up to be a chicken coop. The person that had the shed to get rid of ended up throwing it away. It did not survive the winter.

Getting the dead trees to build more raised beds didn’t work out as planned. Slowly over the summer, we did get wood harvested, but felling dead spruces resulted in trees getting hung up and stuck on other trees.

That was just the beginning of plans that fell through.

All was not a loss, though. For what we did manage to get, there were some successes and failures, as there are every year, and that’s what I’ll be going through in this series of blog posts analyzing our 2023 garden. With what we’ve learned in the past few years, we should be able to make adjustments and do better next year.

The Re-Farmer