What Happened In My Garden This Week? – Week 27

The annuals

One day when I went out to inspect the plants in my garden, I noted that my Napa cabbage plants were looking great. The next? They were covered in holes and some leaves had been completely eaten. I need them to turn into cabbage heads, so the slugs finishing them off leaf by leaf is very unhelpful. Every year it’s the same, and no none seems to have found a way to deal with them that actually keeps the population down.

Some suggestions are copper barriers, salt, sea shells, coffee grounds, sand and electricity. But gardeners have done tests and the tests have clearly shown the slugs sliming their way across all of those “barriers” without a care in the world. Some suggest traps, and I’ve tried them. Most recently I tried beer traps. It made no difference at all. Most slugs steered clear of it and the ones that ended up in it? They made their way out again like nothing happened. Slugs are like the slimy version of cockroaches. They just keep surviving whatever we throw at them, and they are worse than bunnies when it comes to repopulating.

The slugs have been bothering my herbs and my chili plants as well. They took down most of my beets and baby cucumber plants too. Thankfully, the more established plants seem to interest them less. So I do have a fair amount of plants that seem to do rather well.

This week I placed the organic garlic cloves in a plastic fruit container in the refrigerator. The kind that you get grapes or apricots in. Through the method of stratification, they are triggered to germinate. Many of them have sprouted after just a few days in the refrigerator, so in a day or two, they’ll be ready to be planted.

Perennials

To care for my perennials at this point in the season, I need to give them regular access to water, fertiliser and protect them from pests.

The berries

I have a lot of berry bushes in my garden. I also have multiple plants of most of the varieties that I keep. Most have reached an age where they produce a decent harvest, but I do have a few younger plants as well. Given that I acquire new varieties, propagate and grow them from seed, there are always a few young plants playing catch up with the rest.

I got a few harvests of honey berries and strawberries this week as well. Some of the varieties of honey berries that I keep have slowed down in terms of berry production. But I hope that the later varieties will start producing more in their stead. That is the reason why I choose both early and late varieties of my perennials. It will mean that once all my perennials are producing, I’ll have food to harvest throughout the season.

I harvested the ripe strawberries right before they were claimed by some baby slugs. I hope the slimy ones will leave the young strawberries alone, since I want to be able to harvest a lot more than a handful of strawberries this season.

The gooseberries are turning red and the black currant berries are turning black. The blueberries have yet to turn blue.

I haven’t seen any red currant or blackberries yet, or any Saskatoon. The sloe berries will change colour soon. The elder berries on the other hand, have just begun forming.

The fruit trees

I have a handful of apples divided between two of the apple trees in my garden. I’m waiting for my late apple variety to bloom and I am hoping for one of two apples there as well, as long as it blooms.

There have been a few ripe cherries and they have been delicious. The birds took quite a few this year.

Perennials from seed

This week I got to plant the remaining apricot seeds into pots in the garden. The pear seeds were also ready to be planted into pots. My first apricot plant from seed is inside, while the recently planted seeds are outside. I may take them inside once they start growing their true leaves.

I have cleaned and soaked the peach seeds and next week I’ll extract the last ones from their hard shells. I had the misfortune of slipping with my pruning shears and they lodged themselves in my finger. It was quite a deep wound, but thankfully it could be dealt with at home. It will take at least a few days to heal though, and I can’t get that hand wet in the meantime. That means that until it has fully healed, I can do some light one handed gardening at most.

I’ll likely try another method of breaking into the shells from here on. The shears worked great with apricots, but the peach seeds usually have a lot more flesh attached, and they’re both larger and more slippery. In other words, they require a lot more work.

I hope to get them all out tomorrow so that I may begin to stratify the seeds. I’ll keep them in the refrigerator a few days up to a week before making checking them to see if they show signs of germinating. If they do, I may move them so that they can continue to sprout in room temperature. Peach seeds can germinate without stratification, but it does help them along, so I’ll likely stick to my usual method.

Seedlings

Most of my medicinal plants, regular herbs, beets and other root vegetables have sprouted. The green onions, large yellow onions and leeks were planted this week. The beets and the rest of the onions, as well as the stratified garlic will have to wait until next week to be planted into the grow bags in the garden.

Regular garden duties

I have watered the garden when needed, though the rain took care of that for me most days. They got their regular amount of fertiliser at the beginning of the week. I had a 7 gallon fabric grow bag available and was therefore able to repot one of the tomatillo plants. I have never seen such strong and healthy tomatillo plants before. All of my plants were planted from seed this year, and I have never had such strong plants. Over 95% of the seeds I have sown have germinated. As far as germination rates go, that is spectacular. All of the tomato seeds and tomatillo seeds grew into strong plants and I was able to give away several plants to friends and family.

One of the tomato plants, that I got from a kind neighbour, broke its main stem last week. I had removed it from the grow bag, thinking it was a lost cause. Instead it started growing two new main stems and so I planted it in a pot once more. It is doing very well.

A few days later I found out that some gardeners deliberately cut off the main stem of their tomato plants to be able to get two main stems. Having two main stems per plant will likely increase their tomato production. With each plant producing up to double the amount, you can keep fewer plants and get the same yield. It’s funny how Mother Nature just knows what to do and all we need to do is listen to her.

Next week

Next week in the garden:

I hope to be able to harvest the first beet greens, Asian greens, spinach and potatoes next week. I also hope to see my first tomatillos, cucumbers, squash, pumpkins and tomatoes growing. If I’m lucky, maybe even an aubergine or two.

I will be planting more beets into the grow bags in succession, so as to have regular access to beets and beet greens. I believe I’ll plant some more cabbages too, just to be on the safe side. Perhaps some more kale as well.

The radish plants need to be repotted soon, since they keep going to seed rather than produce radishes. Hopefully the issue is simply that they were placed too close together and if so, spreading them out will solve it.

Just like this week, next week I will continue to harvest more greens and berries daily. That ought to trigger the plants to produce a greater yield.

My main goal for the week ahead is to get over 180 garlic cloves and all of my onion plants into the soil.

See you next week!