It’s been an early spring here this year, and I think overall a fairly mild winter. We looked across a week ago and saw spashes of colour from last years vegetable garden. We were happy to discover that most of the pansies we planted last year made it through the winter and were flowering already. We also have more pansies growing in other places that have self seeded themselves from last year.

We grew the pansies to use as garnish on our plates at the Yellow Canoe Cafe. I picked the second batch this morning and here they are ready for use today:

Spring Pansies ready for Garnish at the Yellow Canoe Cafe

It’s been a lot longer than I anticipated (or intended) for a garden update.

Everything has been growing quite well. It’s been an exceedingly wet “summer” this year. So far I’ve only watered the garden once, and even then I didn’t water the corn or tomatoes.

Fresh (Mesclun Mix) Salad Greens

The first harvest came June 20th, with this picking of greens. This is the first time we’ve grown these so it’s been a learning experience.

One of the earlier lettuce beds

This is one of the early beds of greens. It’s amazing how quickly the grass and weeds grow in there as well.

First Cherry Tomatoes & the 50th pound of salad greens

August 3rd I got the first cherry tomatoes. We grew Sweet Million red cherry tomatoes and a couple of types of yellow cherry tomatoes. Susan really likes using the little tomatoes for garnish at the Cafe. I’m quite pleased with the results from the greens. Although we learned that the non-lettuce part of the greens needs to be harvested quite young. They transition to “tough & bitter” remarkably quickly, but when young are my favourite.

Tomato Plant Jungle August 2009

By early August the tomato plants were growing gangbusters. Next year I’ll have to plant them even further apart!

Sweet Million cherry tomatoes living up to their name

Two weeks later and the Sweet Million tomatoes are in their splendor. Every time I go to harvest I eat a handful or two, reminds you of how tasty a tomato can, and is supposed to, be. Makes me mad at the tasteless, watery things that are passed off as tomatoes in stores all too often.

Bountiful Harvest from August 20th

By August 20th the big tomatoes are ripening and we’re getting great harvests such as this one. The Roma tomatoes have been a big hit in frittata’s, seasoned with fresh herbs. I grew Ultra Girl & Brandywine (I think it is) for the bigger tomatoes. I need to find out what type of cucumbers I put in, as they’re very good.

Brussel Sprouts, Eggplant, Pansies, Garlic (L-R)

One of our more unusual “crops” are pansies. The flowers are edible so we’re using them for garnish on salads at the Cafe. The garlic is a co-op with a friend of ours who had extra bulbs but no more space.

A picking of Pansy Flowers used as edible Garnish

I’ll try to get a better picture next time, but here’s today’s harvest of pansy flowers.

11 pounds of green beans

Yesterday I did a picking of all the beans. Interestingly, the first beans we had came from “volunteer” plants that grew from beans that fell on the ground from last year. Next year I’m going to plant beans much earlier. 10 pounds of these went into the freezer. The remainder were part of another of our “100 meter diet” suppers where all the food came straight from the farm: beans, sweet corn,  salad greens, cherry tomatoes and a T-bone steak. We were commenting that since we moved to the farm we’re eating better than we ever have (even from back in the tech “boom” when we had money ;-). Life is good.

This year we’re going to try growing a lot more of the produce that we use at the cafe (www.YellowCanoeCafe.ca). I’m trying to aim smaller if anything so things don’t get away from us. The primary crops will be mixed salad greens, tomatoes, beans, and herbs. We’re also putting in pie pumpkins, cukes, eggplant, corn, and more.

I got a good start in mid April tilling up the plots.

First till of the vegetable garden beds

The tractor mounted tiller makes quick work of producing a nice looking bed. The near end of this bed is destined to be covered with our 24×48 foot greenhouse which I’m planning on using as a field-house to extend the growing season. It’s taking longer to get the foundation up, so it’s looking like we’ll be testing extending things in the fall more.

I paid for not getting the field-house up last night when there was a surprise frost warning. We have about 40 tomatoes, a dozen brussels sprouts, and a few cukes in so I was scrambling to come up with row covers. I ended up using a combination of floating row cover I got at Lee Valley Tools, and a bunch of recycled lumber tarps.

Plants covered up for frost protection

As it turned out I don’t think we got a frost, although it was close. Here’s a picture from inside the “caged garden” after I got the covers off.

The view from inside the "Caged Garden"

I used this configuration last year and had no problems with the deer. In a few weeks I’ll plant the beans around the outside to climb up the fences. It was one of those “blinding flashes of the obvious” when I realized that the beans didn’t need to be in rows and I could use these fence panels to provide crop protection too.

More info as things progress, I’d better get back to welding up the last section of the field-house base.