Newfoundland Home Grown Vegetables

2013 Growing Season Update Part 2

2013-07-30T07:58:00.000-07:00

Today I am showing how my tomato plants have grown over the past 8 weeks. You can see they were fairly small when they were first planted back in early June.

After three weeks they are starting to branch out and I also planted a artichoke plant in their bin. I have no idea if an artichoke will actually grow but I figured I would give it a shot. In retrospect it was kind of a waste of space since it took up about a third of the entire bin.

Two weeks later on July 6 and the plants are really taking off, it really started warming up here through the month of July, I also gave them a good dose of tomato food. I can't keep the cover on them any more because they are so tall. I also had to stake them with bamboo stakes to keep them from blowing over.

On July 27 you can see the plants are huge and flowering. There are still no signs of tomatoes however, which is starting to bother me. The artichoke is still growing away but no sign of a sprouting artichoke yet.

2013 Growing Season Update Part 1

2013-07-27T16:28:00.002-07:00

It's a severe understatement to say I haven't been posting very frequently here this year. But as a result I now have a massive 2013 growing season update to provide! I am going to do it in four parts over this week. Part one is our potato plants:

So back at the beginning of June we bought some Atlantic seed potatos from Lester's Farms. I had planned to grow spuds for a couple of years now but just never got down to doing it. For yield per square foot you really can't beat them, and they can grow in almost any conditions. We dug down as far as we could and covered the seed potatoes with about two inches of dirt. I never bothered to cut out the eyes just planted the entire potato. I also put some bonemeal in with each one to help them get started.

Almost three weeks later you can see there is not much potato plant production yet. Never mind the two plants on the far right, they are eggplant that I later pulled up. There is one good sprout to the top left and a small sprout in the middle bottom but other than that there are no signs of life!

Two weeks later now on July 7 and there is some serious potato plant growing action happening. In total they have been planted for five weeks and all five plants are growing very well. I still have them covered almost all the time to keep away the wind and bugs until they get themselves well established.

So......... another three weeks later and they are in full bloom, growing better then I would have expected and there is not a blemish to be found on the leaves. Obviously they are now growing uncovered since there is no way a cover could fit over them. They are all flowering nicely now.

I should have mentioned at the start that the reason I dug down to plant them is that as the plants grow you mound dirt up over them to encourage more potato growth. The potatoes grow out from the plant and the higher the plant is the more production you will get. That is also the reason why I took up the two eggplant, so I could take all the dirt from around them to mound up over the potato plants.

Growing Update - September 9, 2012

2012-09-15T14:29:00.002-07:00

Long overdue as usual for a growing update, growing season is coming to an end. We had a Tropical Storm / Hurricane pass through here Sept 11, did some minor damage to my Cherry Tree and almost uprooted my Rhododendron but other than that nothing major.

Here are pics taken September 9:

Here are the cucumber plants, they have outgrown their bin. I have gotten about a dozen good size cucumbers, not bad I guess.

The turnip and carrots are still growing away. Most of the turnip had some damage from pests eating both the leaves and the turnips themselves. Think I will skip turnip next year. Carrot is always a winner though. If you want foolproof growing, just grow carrots in non rocky soil.

This is the cucumber bin and carrots as well. These carrots grew very well also. The raised beds are best for carrots because you can make sure the soil is well prepared and deep.

Lettuce and cabbage still doing ok. The pests ate a lot of the cabbage leaves also but once the main cabbage started growing it is fine. I should have sprayed them with pesticide.

The tomato plants have LOTS of little green tomatoes, they should start ripening soon. The watermelon vine was a total waste, it just takes up space and wraps around everything with no sign of watermelon. Off the list for next year.

Harvest Time!

2012-08-28T15:21:00.003-07:00

So over the weekend we picked some of our crop check it out, good sized carrot, cucumbers and turnip:

We made short work of the cucumbers and turned them into bread and butter pickles using the following recipe http://kitchensimplicity.com/refrigerator-bread-and-butter-pickles/

Growing Update - Aug 21, 2012

2012-08-24T15:58:00.002-07:00

Ok,

So now we are actually producing food, I have a watermelon vine that can span the globe and a cucumber plants that also have a mind of their own. We are regularly making salad from the lettuce, have had some turnips, and bottled 4 jars of pickles from the cucumbers so far. The tomato plants have lots of small tomatoes now about one inch in diameter and carrots are ready for picking. I had to spray the cabbage unfortunately because moths were eating it alive.

Here are the Pics!

Carrots and Turnip:

Cucumbers and Carrot:

The cucumber vine has outgrown its home:

Strawberries have slowed production, still getting a few:

Lettuce and Cabbage going strong:

Watermelon and tomatoes:

The watermelon vine is huge.... not sure if there is a watermelon in there anywhere???

Growing Update Aug 5, 2012

2012-08-11T08:32:00.003-07:00

We're getting close to harvest time for some of the root vegetables like turnip and carrot. All the greenery is full size now so lettuce is ready to eat, tomatoes are growing, cucumbers are growing, we are getting 7 - 10 strawberries a day from our plants and the watermelon vine is totally out of control..... check em out!

Cucumbers and carrots

Lettuce and Cabbage

Strawberries

Watermelon Vine and Tomato Plants

Carrots and Turnip

Growing Update - July 23, 2012

2012-08-02T15:44:00.002-07:00

Here is a late update on my July 23 progress.... check it out! We actually picked a turnip last weekend! Just go back and check the pics from early July and see the difference for yourself. This has been the best growing season in years.

First up, the cucumber and carrots, there are some pollinated cucumber flowers now so the cucumbers won't be far behind.

This is the strawberry patch, we are getting about 7-8 fresh strawberries a day.

Turnips and carrots growing well, I picked a turnip to add to my stew a few days ago.

The watermelon vine is still growing out of control, I am hoping a watermelon will show up at some point!

And our lettuce and cabbage are growing well, we could pick lettuce at this point.

Stay tuned for more updates!

Growing Update - July 15, 2012

2012-07-17T14:12:00.003-07:00

10 Days since the last veggie garden pics were posted and you can really notice the difference, check it out!

Turnips and carrots doing well.... the turnips are actually covering a row of carrots.... bad planting arrangement on my part.

Strawberries are starting to ripen!

I put in some cages to help the cucumbers grow, seems to be working, carrots growing well.....no sign of green onions.

Lettuce and cabbage starting to take off.

This watermelon vine is huge.... still waiting for a sign of watermelons. Tomatoes doing well also but being attacked by the watermelon vine!

July 5, 2012 Growing Update

2012-07-10T15:26:00.001-07:00

Here are some pics form the garden taken on July 5, things are really starting to heat up! The weather here has been great and as a result we have some good growing happening. We are really just hitting our growing season here so over the next two months we should have lots of great production.

Here's the latest pics:

First up is my youngest sons patch with cucumber plants, carrots and green onion, so far not much action on the green onions.

Next up is middle son's carrots and turnip. Looks like the turnip crop is in full swing..... not sure what we are going to do with all that turnip though???

Our strawberries are starting to grow and the sage and thyme is gone out of control as usual.

Our four new little tomato plants are starting to flourish and the watermelon vine is growing out of control, should be interesting to see how it turns out!

And finally our lettuce that had a late start is now growing along with a few cabbage plants, the cabbage really starts growing fast once it sprouts.

Check back soon for the next weekly update!!!

Habanero Hot Sauce Production!

2012-07-03T16:07:00.002-07:00

So we have this Habanero plant growing in our big window and needed to harvest about 12 full grown peppers from it. So I had my youngest son gloved up and put him to work:

Here is the bounty we ended up with:

If any of you have ever eaten a Habanero you know they are dangerously hot, and the heat lingers in your mouth feeling like it is impossible to extinguish. The only reasonable thing I could think to make of course was HOT SAUCE. So I found myself a good looking recipe, here it is below.

It's a bit hard to read but there are only a few ingredients, peppers, vinegar, water, garlic, lemon juice, paprika, chili powder and sugar. You have to roast the peppers and garlic first to add flavour. I removed the seeds from the peppers as well so the sauce would be edible. Then you blend it all up and voila!

It turned out really good, similar consistency to Tabasco sauce but with habanero flavour. Probably find something more interesting to do with our next crop, which is growing well already!

Successful Radish Harvest!

2012-06-25T09:35:00.000-07:00

Its only been about a month since our radishes started growing but yesterday we picked them all, saved some for salad and made a jar of pickled radishes, those suckers grow quick! Apparently pickled radishes smell really bad, we'll see when I open them in three days. The recipe just called for vinegar, salt, sugar and pepper..... how bad can it smell?

One thing that surprised me was how peppery the radishes are, I'd go so far as to call them spicy.

Here is a pic of the crop we picked and our pickled radishes!

June 23 2012 growing update

2012-06-23T16:42:00.000-07:00

Ok,

So we have a really good radish crop just about ready to pick, check them out, I think we are going to go for a batch of pickled radishes..... because other than put one or two in a salad I have no idea what to do with them:

I planted a few Tiny Tim tomato plants to keep my sole survivor watermelon plant company. For some reason only one of the seeds were successful with making a nice watermelon vine, lets hope we get some good watermelon production from it.

We planted some lettuce and cabbage seeds two weeks ago in our last bin to see some action, we now have some good sprouting going on there.

My middle son's bin has some really good carrot and turnip growing happening now.

Sprouting Update June 16, 2012

2012-06-16T11:09:00.001-07:00

We have some good growing going on even though the weather has been horrible for the past 2 weeks. We have some radishes almost ready to harvest:

And we have turnips growing well also

And the Strawberries are taking right off..... not sure what to do with all that Sage though???

Window Sill Growing - Habanero

2012-06-04T15:39:00.000-07:00

So I live in Newfoundland where it is basically impossible to grow any warm weather crops. Luckily I have a huge South facing window so I figured I would first try to grow an orange tree that I bought at Kent. I put it in the window about two years ago and it has thrived ever since providing 2 full crops of small oranges. Then about 6 months ago I decided we would buy some habanero peppers, and try to grow a Habanero plant from the seeds.

It took some careful cultivation under a heat light to get them sprouting but I now have as full grown Habanero plant growing in my front window. Some of the smaller peppers are now fully ripe and the larger ones are still green but starting to ripen. I tried one of the small peppers. I cut off the smallest of pieces and took the smallest nibble I could take and IT IS HOT!!! I know sometimes people say things are hot and they don't really impress you with the hotness level.... these peppers are impressive. I would not eat one of these.... period. See all my pics below:

Sprouts Week 2 - This got posted on my car blog by accident

2012-06-03T15:43:00.001-07:00

So we are into week 2 of our growing season and here is what we have:

This is my middle son's plot, with three rows of turnip and four rows of carrot. The carrot are just sprouting and the sprouts are very thin so a bit hard to see but they are definitely growing!

Here is youngest sons plot, it has two rows of radishes which are growing well, then two rows of carrot and two rows of green onion. All are now sprouting but the radishes are the easiest to see in the picture.

Here are my strawberries which are taking off as usual, on the left are a thyme and sage plant which I planted last year and survived the winter quite well.

There is a watermelon patch but it has been invaded by some other sprouts that I don't know where they came from..... probably from some rogue seeds. The rpoblem is I don't know which ones to pull yet! I have to wait to see the watermelon vines develop. My oldest son also has a plot but so far he has not gotten around to planting anything.......

We have sprouts! Part 1

2012-05-22T17:09:00.003-07:00

Last weekend we planted a bunch of things since the weather was nice and I have my bed covers to protect against the frost. My youngest son planted radishes (which I have no idea what we will do with), carrots and green onion. Check out the pic and you can see how well the radishes have sprouted already. The carrots are in the middle and the onion on the right, you can only see radish yet.

Garden Growing Well

2012-05-20T16:17:00.001-07:00

We are having a great May and everything is growing earlier than usual, check out my front yard shots. Tomorrow I will take some pics from the veggie garden, we have lots of sprouting turnips and radishes.

Crazy Newfoundland Weather

2012-04-18T17:06:00.001-07:00

So.... it has been 20 degrees C here for the past two days.... go figure. We have broken all kinds of records and as a result I planted some watermelons in my former pumpkin patch. They are safely covered so when it dips below 0 in the near future they will survive... and if they don't I will just plant some more.

I work in the Confederation building and they don't even turn on the full A/C in the place until May because it never heats up enough before then.... well its hot there today, a nicely warmed building full of thousands of civil servants with no A/C.

Slight Growing Season Delay......

2012-04-01T14:14:00.002-07:00

So we got 30 cm of snow here yesterday...... not good for an early growing season!

Our 2010 Crops - Part 2

2012-03-20T16:01:00.001-07:00

SO last time I posted some pics of our crops from early in the growing season, now I will skip ahead a month into July to show you how much this stuff can grow in 3 weeks:

Here are the tomato plants:

Next, the swiss chard, broccoli and strawberry plants, this picture is taken from the opposite side as the last one so the chard is on the right.

The cabbage and carrots have really taken off, see how neatly we planted the rows... looks like we have a rogue plant among the carrots!

The onions are springing out everywhere......but mostly in the middle.... these didn`t work out great.

The beets are sprouting well, and I almost forgot there are some romaine lettuce growing as well, that's what the mystery plant was above.

And 2 out of 3 ain`t bad for the old pumpkin patch!

Our 2010 crops - Part 1

2012-03-13T16:26:00.002-07:00

Here are some pics of our 2010 crops, these pics will be from early June and over the next week or so I will post subsequent pictures from June July and August. They don't look like much yet but just wait a few weeks!

Then I will move on to 2011.

First some of our tomato plants, we actually bought the large one from Murrays already started.

This is my patch, on the far left is some swiss chard, next are a couple of leafy broccoli plants and then a bunch of strawberry plants we got from a farmer down the road.

This is my middle sons patch, the large plants are cabbage and the remainder are all carrots which we grew from seeds.

This is my youngest sons patch.... he wanted to grow all onions... so we did. You can see the ones in the middle were growing much better than the rest.

This is my oldest sons, he had beet growing in his, not the neatest but he is a teenager.

This is our cucumber plant.... he was called Mr. Pickles! He was also bought already half grown from Murrays.

And finally here is our pumpkin patch!

What we grew in 2010

2012-03-12T16:11:00.000-07:00

2010 was our first summer of growing, we had carrots, beet, lettuce, onions, swiss chard, cabbage, pumpkins, strawberries, tomatoes, cucumbers and and broccoli. The carrot, lettuce and beet grew really well, onions not so much. We got a couple of really good pumpkins as well, not really big but they made some great pie.

Our Garden

2012-03-11T15:07:00.002-07:00

Here is my growing space, we have 5 3X6 raised beds that we built 2 years ago. Last year we took it up a notch and built mini greenhouses to put over each bed which allowed us to start growing earlier and much faster. We are located in St. John's, Newfoundland so we have to get every extra day of growing we can!

Lots of posts to come over the next month about what we grew, what worked well, and what didn't over the past couple of years.

I also have a car blog www.nlcarblog.blogspot.com if you are interested in cars!