We went to both gardens this weekend and did some work, discovering that there’s been explosive growth in the Camrose plot!
First a report on the Millwoods plot. We were getting it ready for the Community Garden Competition judging which occurred on monday. We put down landscaping fabric (herein referred to as mulch) to control the growth of any weeds and help with watering on 2/3′s of the beds. So the Tomatoes, Peppers, Cucumbers, Zucchini, Pumpkins and Squash all got mulch. The carrots and beets have not been mulched for the time being since they were growing thickly enough. the onions and garlic, peas and beans might get mulched but could be fine without.
I have discovered weeding is hard on the knees with all the crawling around pulling them, and also discovered how well a hoe works this weekend. Amazing I’ve gotten this far and not used one before…But it cleaned up the pathways in very quick order. I’ve also attached all the tomatoes to their respective trellises where needed and the pumpkins too. I quite like the look of the trellises and landscape fabric. It brings a nice, neat organisational structure to the whole garden. Must be something born out of my technical background since our plot compared to the others looks pretty architectural! 
Now for the report on the Camrose plot! We finally got the mesh up for the peas and the the Japanese tomato ring. This leaves 1 trellis I need to fabricate some custom hardware attachments for and then add mesh.
The Squash patch: has gone crazy with growth and the vines have discovered their trellises and using them to reach for the sky and neighbouring beds! I had to spend alot of time weaving the vines back into place and affixing them with twine. For some of them, it’s a matter of coaxing and going back every few days and tightening up the loop to bring them closer to the desired position.
Some of the squashes have flowers on them. I have to check and see which ones are male flowers and which are female and get to pollinating them. They must be cross-pollinated from what I have read, but I will double-check before I go ahead. We don’t plan to save squash seed this first year and intend to roast, salt and eat the seeds as snack food.
Here are the pictures of the squash patch for this week:
Camrose Tomatoes: are all doing very well. There are tons and tons of blossoms on them, especially the starfire plants. Even the little Manitoba tomato plant that the ants had lived under and I had moved has survived and put out a blossom. I am discovering just how vigorous tomato plants can be and why the bush varieties need 2′ square of space to grow. You can hardly see the store-bought tomato cages, and I understand now why there are so many devices on the market to stake your plants with. I think I’m just going to have to learn how to weld and build my own custom design…test it…and then patent and sell it…
The Japanese tomato ring was not hard to build, but got a little complicated getting the vines tied to it and maintaining air space between the branches and trying to make sure everything would get sun. It will need a bit of adjusting when we go back tonight. Visually, the ring is quite interesting and there is plenty of circulation down the middle of the circle is about 2′ in diameter give or take a bit. We took 8′ 2×2′s and drove them into the ground about 2-2.5 feet for support. All the vining tomatoes are liking their trellises as well. I will have to come up with some additional options for supporting some of the taller bush tomatoes that are getting taller than their cages, but without damaging roots.
I was reading on greenhouse tomatoes the other day and found that when twining a tomato plant up a vertical wire for support, to always go in the same direction without change, else when loaded with fruit, the plant would slip and collapse. Good to know.
Camrose Cucumbers: These have discovered their trellises and are putting out tendrils to wrap around the wire as they go skyward. I’m wondering if the 1 foot spacing of the trellises might be a little close for easy harvesting and pollination but we’ll see. Darren can easily reach in past the 2 foot mark into the middle of the beds between the trellises.
Corn: Has been fertilised and mulched with composted manure…unfortunately, Darren misheard me and used the whole bag on the one bed! We may have some giant stalks of corn that need a ladder to harvest from…
Radishes: We harvested all of these as they looked like they’d go to seed this week. Nice sized radishes, fairly hot in the eating. Davin even helped pull these up and trim and bag them, of course we couldn’t get him to actually chew and swallow any. I’ll have to try cooking them to mellow the flavour.
Beets: growing nicely and have started bulbing.
Beans: doing very well, not sure if they really need the trellis they have, but it will do fine for supporting them.
Peas: They love the trellis!
Lettuce & Spinach: We really like the Grand Rapids lettuce. It’s a very bright, light green which is a nice contrast in the garden, and tastes very sweet. The spinach has gone to seed so has mostly been harvested. I left a few plants there minus their seed heads to see if they will put out more leaves. The romaine is finally starting to come, but it’s pretty hit and miss with it.
I have started some Romaine and Spinach in the house and will try growing it completely inside for comparison.
Sunflowers: looking taller and thicker of stem now. No flowers yet, but I hope they double their height before putting out flowers.
Parsnips: They actually came up! There’s about maybe 30 of them I counted which was an awful germination rate. Next time I’ll try germinating indoors and transplanting to root trainers, then out to the garden for a better success rate.
Strawberries: Look very happy in the space next to the parsnips, especially since we removed the grass that was invading them.
Peppers: Success! One of the indoor-started plants has peppers on it! and to think I thought that plant wasn’t going to make it. Very interesting that even though the plant got kind of tall, it sprouted leaves all up the bare section of stalk. Giving it some support with the trellis enabled it to survive too. This was one plant that got hardened off outside. Some of the other peppers have fruit too, especially the extremely hot one. It has very tiny skinny-pointy peppers.
Carrots: Growing, what is left of them! The dog running into the carrot bed likely killed the newly germinated seedlings by crushing them, so we have a spotty carrot patch. Next time around that will be better fenced from the beginning.
