Gardening

This page contains:
1) What I planted in various years
2) Yields and Failures

3) My organic methods of pest control - what worked, what didn't

2012 Garden:

Brand new house and garden. Also used neighbour's garden space and he allowed us to harvest some of his established fruits and berries. 1) Potatoes
2) Carrots
3) Tomatoes (came up as volunteer plants
4) Dill (came up as volunteer plants)
5) Garlic Chives (perennial)
6) Onions and Green Onions
7) Peas
8) Apples (in neighbour's garden)
9) Strawberries
10) Rhubarb (in neighbour's garden)
11) Raspberries (in neighbour's garden)

We received cucumbers, green beans, wax beans, and corn from family members.
We gave away several jars of apple pie filling, jam, and a couple bags of tomatoes.

2013 Garden:

Second year having a garden in neighbour's space and created a garden on our own land too.
-Rhubarb - 22 lbs
-Radish - 91 plants
-Kale - over 46 cups
-Green onions, garlic chives, lettuce uncounted
-Beets - 1 cooler full (with greens on)
-Cucumbers - 2
-Cilantro FAILED
-Onions, Bulb - 10
-Potatoes - 15 lbs
-Corn - 13 lbs (not much sunshine this summer)
-Tomatoes - two flats
-Carrots - 3 grocery bags plus a cooler full
-Peas uncounted, but lots
-Broccoli FAILED (eaten by flea beetles)
-Peppers, Green - 2
-Strawberries - 6
FORAGED:
-Saskatoons - 16 1/2 L (at the lake)
-Raspberries - 13 1/2 L
-Red Currants - 4 L
-Crab apples - 27 1/2 lbs
-Eating Apples - 125 lbs (from two trees)
-Highbush Cranberries - 3 L
-Chokecherries - 2 L (by the train tracks)
-Plums - 12 lbs

2014 Garden
Updated as of July 2014. My failures are as follows (due to flooding, poor sunshine this year, and other reasons): thyme, oregano, catnip, heirloom lemon cucumbers.
However I have volunteer peas from last year (heirloom Russian Sugar) and one of my heirloom 42 Day Tomato plants made it past the flooding. I also bought more tomatoes at the green house along with broccoli and green peppers (but there isn't enough sun for them - they're not even flowering). I also have cilantro, Summer Savory, carrots both heirloom and store-bought, 4 heirloom Amish Sugar Pumpkin plants, more green onions than I can shake a stick at, beets, wax beans, and some turnips (though they were nibbled on from the start but they're doing fine). My husband bought me a blueberry bush and two raspberry bushes (which won't produce this year) and I planted some heirloom Old Homestead Rhubarb. Naturally, my garlic chives came back again this year and I found some garlic that should come up next year. I also planted some potatoes quite late, just for fun. I did not use my neighbour's garden this year because I'm very pregnant and unable to waddle down there often to weed.

Organic Pest Control
The only type of natural pest control I used this year was spreading wheat bran on my potato plants to kill the potato beetles. What wheat bran does is expand in their stomachs to kill them, when eaten. That's why it's necessary to spread it on the plants when there is no wind.

I have also heard that planting potatoes above ground works to deter potato beetles, because they burrow beneath the dirt. Haven't tried that out though.

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