Garlic harvest

Like many others at this time of the year I harvested my garlic.
It is probably not such a grand harvest as others may have, but it took so little effort, it was like something for nothing.
Last September I left the garden here in Canada in the hands of my hubby. He is not exactly a gardener, but did enjoy the harvests late into the fall.
Then he left around mid October. On my instructions he took the left over garlic from the kitchen and spent a few minutes planting the cloves in a few empty spaces in the vege bed. That was it- until a few days ago when I went in and did the harvest.

There are 27 cloves of garlic! Some are a good size, some a little on the small size, but there is certainly enough to get us through the next 7 weeks that we are in Canada, and maybe even a few cloves to plant again so we can do it all over again.
This has got to be the best returns for effort.

Mid Summer

It seems to be coming up to mid summer, though I'm not sure the weather knows. Is it me or are we having a lot cooler summer than usual.
The seedlings I planted out over the last few weeks are slow to take off. At this rate summer will be over before they mature.
But the lettuces are still producing. The self seeded ones that we came back to at the beginning of the month are starting to finish, but there are a lot more coming along to fill the gap.

The rhubarb is unstoppable, and the perennial herbs are loving all the rain we've been getting.

The flowers seem to be all blooming at once, so it is a riot of colour in the garden. I haven't had the hose out to water yet, and it seems like we are getting more rain tonight.

Thyme waiting for no-one, and new lettuce plants coming along.

 

To cut or not to cut.

I think there are two kinds of people - those that like to cut flowers from their garden for inside and those that don't.
I am one of the ones that likes to bring flowers inside the house. I like to have a reminder of what awaits me when I step outside, and I love to have my collection of vases filled with flowers that show them off.

It's also a great opportunity to see what flowers look good together, and a photo is a good reminder of what is blooming at the same time.

My vases are nothing special, but each has a memory. One may have belonged to my mother, or was given to me by a friend. or maybe it is just a bottle I found in the garden when I was digging around.

This collection of monkshood, bergamot, and perennial sunflowers is what greets me these days when I step outside. It doesn't get much more cheerful than this.

 

Lookin' good

We've been back only a week, but already the garden is looking quite respectable.
The seeds I've started have germinated, and some are big enough to get planted in the revamped beds.
As usual last years compost pile has become a new garden bed in the vege patch and the compost bins have been moved  to what will end up a new bed next year. This way I slowly expand the garden area with very little work on my part.
I slipped down the road to my friend Michaels, and gathered up a car load of saw dust from the mountain of saw dust he has accumulating from his wood working business.
This saw dust will go on the paths in the vege patch. The saw dust that was put on the paths last year has decomposed nicely, and that is scraped off and put in the beds as mulch. After a few years of this, the soil has become rich and good at holding moisture from the sometimes infrequent summer rains.

 

 

The beans and peas were planted out last evening to take advantage of the rain forecast during the night.

 

The heavy rains arrived on schedule, and the seedlings got well watered in.

 

I still have lettuce, squash and pak choi on the go, but so far they are too small to plant out. Maybe next week.

Return to Canada

A few days ago we arrived back in Canada. After my sudden departure last September, with no time to get the garden organised for winter, I was a little worried about what shape it would be in now that we are so far into the summer here.
It was a pleasant surprise to see that it fared much better than expected. There are lots of weeds of course, but the flowers are blooming, and as I weeded the vege garden yesterday, I discovered lots of self seeded veges. A bonus for letting them all go to seed in the fall.

I was excited to find a couple of dozen lettuces of various types hidden amongst the undergrowth. Some are ready to eat, and others are only babies. I couldn't have planned the staggered growing better myself.
Also there are sugar snap peas and sno peas ready to eat, and lots of parsley scattered through out the garden.

 

 

The rhubarb is looking pretty healthy and it looks like we'll be getting lots of apples again this summer.

The flowers are looking great, and seem to have not suffered by the lack of cutting back last fall.

 

 

I am busy starting a bunch of seeds to fill in the gaps. It may be too late for some, but on the other hand if we have a nice warm fall this year, I may think I was pretty smart to have gone to the effort.

 

Mae Ya waterfalls

The Mae Ya Waterfalls just up the road from us are the biggest waterfalls in Thailand.
A few days ago we found the time to visit them.
At this time of the year (the end of the dry season), there wasn't a huge volume of water, but the many levels the water travelled down to reach the pools at the bottom of the falls made them stunningly beautiful. Throw in the dappled light from the surrounding trees and the odd bird song that combined with the falling water, and it made for a pretty magical experience.

 

Tomorrow we head for Canada. I have been a long time away, and am looking forward to being back in the garden there.

 

High in the mountains

We just returned from a short trip to Nepal. While wandering the dusty potholed streets lined with buildings that could either be in the midst of construction or falling down from old age (it's hard to tell often),in Kathmandu, it was sometimes hard to remember we were in the middle of a city. It seemed like every vacant lot was being used to grow a crop of something. The effect was quite charming, not to mention how much sense it made to grow food where the people lived.

 

 

Even the roof tops had gardens on them.

 

It was nice to think that the majority of the food for sale on the streets was locally grown.

I especially liked the bicycle vendors moving around the city selling their wares.

 

I could have spent hours poking around the small shops selling their home made low tech tools for the kitchen or garden.

 

The tea and spice shops were especially interesting with their exotic aromas.

 

Our time there was far too short this time, but we'll be back.