Grow Together Tuesday

This post is part of a seasonal community sharing series, Grow Together Tuesday. You’ll find posts from myself, and award winning gardener Monika Thiessen, of Prairie Girl Pottery.  I love seeing what others are doing in their gardens, and since most of us aren’t neighbors, let’s peek over each other’s virtual fences, be inspired, and learn from one another!  Post a link to your weekly garden notes, updates, photos, and more in the comments – any time this week!

 

Bittersweet Surprises
Kris Antonius

The past couple weeks in the garden have been bittersweet. The gorgeous Three Flowered Aven seeds were a treat, as well as the strawberry blossoms, chive flowers, many seedlings popping up and growing strong… The lavender came back, and despite no fruit last year, the apple trees are in the least, not dead! We’ve already enjoyed garden spinach in our smoothies, fresh lettuce, and dill.

Yet, this year, unlike pretty much the previous decade of gardening in it’s entirety, I am dealing with pests. I don’t enjoy the somewhat creepy feeling that I am engaging in strategic warfare in my own yard. There are little worms or caterpillars eating the haskap leaves, another type are eating the grape leaves. Something is munching my cucumber and squash plants right at the stem, cutworms, I presume. The borage also has some nibbles. The espaliered apples have some leaf rollers, and something nearby is making pretty, yet unfortunate lace out of the hollyhock leaves.

If anyone has pest management advice, I’m all ears. I have always wanted to learn more about which insects and creatures in the garden are friends, and which are foes.

 

The back gardens…

Volunteer peas & lettuce.

Pole beans and corn from saved seeds. There is also squash in this garden, for a three sisters grouping.

Flowering chives that will make their way onto our plates this week, and what I think is volunteer lemon balm.

Borage, started from seed indoors. Another of the plants is being chewed on by something. Any ideas?

Strawberry patch. The white blossomed plants came with us from our previous home. We moved seven years ago, so we’ve had them for quite a while. The pink blossoms are from Sage Garden Herbs, and are called Fragoo Deep Rose.

 

Over by the espaliered apples, a bit of a food forest is growing…

Some more strawberries and a patch of monarda / bee balm / bergamot.

Three flowered avens surprised us with these crazy and beautiful seed tufts.

Volunteer field pennycress. Pennycress can be eaten and also has healing properties. I found a great overview here.

In the front yard…

The lavender is making a come-back. This is its third summer in our yard, and despite hearing that lavender won’t over-winter here in Manitoba, our plants have survived two winters!

The grape vine is taking over and I better get some more trellis up pretty fast. Having to trim it back from growing into the neighbour’s yard. There are tiny little barely visible pale green worm/caterpillars chewing on the leaves. I am not happy about that because the plant needs those leaves for photosynthesis, and I would like to save some for fermenting – the leaves help to keep veggies crisp during fermentation.

Another volunteer plant, that sprouted up in a planter. I am not at all sure what it is. It looks similar to motherwort or wild geranium, though each part of the leaf is quite separate down to the joint, whereas those other plants’ leaves seem to be one whole leaf with lobes. Any ideas here?

The haskaps are beautiful this year. They’re full and lush. Unfortunately, some kind of leaf roller or other agrees, and has colonized our bushes and set to the work of eating them up. I’ve been hand-picking them, and also whipped up a garlic spray based on a suggestion in one of my favourite gardening books, shown below.

Better late than never, hopefully applies to planting potatoes! We picked up some seed potatoes this weekend, cut them up and set them out to dry before planting this week once the soil is also dry (to prevent rotting).

Breann has been working on a book with a page for each garden area, and a list of the plants that are growing there. Kind of like a little plant guild guide of sorts.

 

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