Harvest Monday - July 25, 2016

The Fling has flung and it was fabulous!  I reconnected with old friends from last year and made a lot of new friends as well – some were bloggers that I had only briefly met last time while others were brand new faces.  And the gardens and inspiration….wow!  The Minnesota climate & growing season is very much like our own, so everything we saw could easily be applied to an Ontario garden.  More on the Minnesota sights in another post - today is Harvest Monday!

Since I missed last Monday, I’ll be covering 2 weeks of harvests.  First up is my favourite photo from the past couple of weeks:

Arcadia Broccoli - Pretty in Pink
 

Work in Progress - Front Yard - West Ornamental Island

I'm off to Minneapolis for the Fling but figured I would squeeze another post in as I sit here in the airport.  This particular post has been on the backburner for a while so I thought it best to get it out there before my computer & mind gets flooded by the sights and experiences of the Fling.

A long time WIP at our house has been all of the ornamental borders.  This has been an on again/off again project as there are numerous areas, some of them quite large, and all needed a LOT of attention.  The main problem, of course, was that the ornamental areas were never a priority - the veg garden came first as that was something I had been dreaming about for over 2 decades.

So each year, I would complete one or two beds, and the rest were left for next year.  Then the following year, I would start on another bed...and the first two would go to pot, what with 2 small kids running around and the veg beds to build, fill, mulch and take care of...you get the idea.

Harvest Monday - July 11, 2016

The weather has remained hot, hot but we still have some cool weather crops coming out of the garden.  The big harvest this past week was shelling peas:

Aladdin Shelling Peas

Garden Update - Area #1

Area #1 has 8 beds plus an herb bed and it is home to all of the brassicas & favas as well as more tomatoes, peas & beans.  With only eight 8'x4' beds, I thought this would be a fairly quick post but as usual, there was just a lot more to show and say than I expected.  So get comfortable :)

Tomatoes are planted in beds #1 & #2 and these are spaced down half of the bed just like those in bed #12, which I spoke about in my last update post.

Bed #2

Harvest Monday - July 4, 2016

First of all - Happy 4th of July to all those south of the border!  Our tradition on Canada Day (which was a few days ago on July 1st) is to go out for breakfast and then watch the fireworks in the evening.  Whether you go out or stay in, I hope that everyone has a wonderful holiday today.  Now on to the main attraction... the harvests!

First up this week was the smallest, but most exciting harvest:

Fall Gold Raspberry