Beans... Green and Purple!

A forgotten blog post from the summer that was started and never completed. Here are some of the beans that were growing in the garden - green and purple ones! There were also some yellow wax beans growing. We didn't get very many in the end, but it was fun to watch them grow and eat a few of them!

Peppers and Tomatoes are Ripening!

Over the last few days, we've been able to pick some fresh peppers and tomatoes straight from the garden. The tomatoes have been gobbled up fairly quickly as there are only a few of them, but as more start to turn red, I hope to use them in some recipes. The peppers have been used in salads and stir-fries over the past few days for lunch and dinner.

Pictured above, you can see a whole slew of Hot Banana Peppers (which have a mild spiciness to them) and two Red Rocket peppers (that are a bit spicier!).

Out of the two Hot Banana Pepper plants, I've picked almost all of the peppers by now and there are still a few small ones growing. Between the two plants, we will have picked about 15-20 peppers in total, which is pretty good for just a couple of plants!

We still have many, many other peppers growing on other varieties of plants, too. Stay tuned!

The smaller cherry tomatoes, "Matt's Wild Cherry Tomato" are turning red first out of the bunch as they are a lot smaller than the others. The ones that are pear-shaped are the "Red Pear Tomatoes". They're a little bit bigger than a cherry tomato, but smaller than a Roma tomato. You can see just how small the tiny tomatoes are in comparison!

Lavender from the Garden

The lavender in our garden is starting to bloom and I've started picking some of these delicate purple flowers to use in my baking. I have tried to pick them before the buds open fully, and then I've set them on a paper towel in a sunny spot so they can dry out. They smell amazing!

I might use the lavender to make the Strawberry Lavender Muffins that I baked last Fall as they were absolutely delicious. I also may use some of it to make a tea. For those who are into baking with lavender, or those who would like to give it a try, here are some recipes that I've rounded up from around the web. Usually you strain out the lavender and just use the delicate flavor in your baking, although there are a couple of recipes that use the lavender right in the yummy treat.  I haven't tested these ones out, but I'm thinking that I probably will in the near future.

Lavender Tea Cookies - from Once a Week Vegan
Lavender Fudge with Vegan Vanilla Marshmallows - from Sneaky Vegan
Lavender Shortbread - from Vegan Yum Yum
Chocolate Cupcakes with Lavender Icing - from Lindsay is Vegan

Kale and Swiss Chard from the Garden

Here is a picture of some beautiful Red Russian Kale and Rainbow Swiss Chard that I picked from the garden today. There are three kale plants that are thriving and numerous chard plants are growing. Only a couple of the chard plants have leaves that are big enough to pick, so I picked them and they look great!

As a wrap-up of my experiment to see what would grow in the shady patch in my backyard garden...

Here is the original diagram that I posted back in May when I put a whole bunch of seeds in a shady area to see what would grow:

The green onions were bulbs and some of them grew, some of them did not. Out of the beans, the Golden Wax Bean plant isn't growing too well, but the Royal Burgundy Bean and Tender Green Bean are starting to sprout little beans! I also planted all three bean varieties into pots and placed them in a sunny spot on the deck; they seem to be growing great in the sun, too. The Cherry-Belle Radishes are growing quite nicely, although they are taking a lot longer to grow than I thought. The Bloody Dock and Sushni were purchased as seedlings and they are still growing. Every once in a while we get to enjoy them in a fresh green salad.

The most successful plants in the shade have been: Rainbow Swiss Chard, Red Russian Kale, the beans and the radishes.

The Pak Choi and Wasabi Arugula didn't grow at all. I'm not sure what happened when I planted the seeds but they didn't sprout. The Tres Fine Endive grew great but they were all attacked by bugs. There were tons of holes in all of the leaves that didn't seem to stop, so I ripped out all of the plants and have planted some new Swiss Chard seeds in the hopes that I can grow more of those instead since the bugs don't seem to eat those plants.

Stay tuned for more updates!

End of June Garden Update

Everything is growing wonderfully in the garden and some things are even ready to be picked! A couple of days ago, we picked a few radishes that were ready to be eaten. Today, we picked these bunching onions. We've never grown onions like this before, so it was interesting that they all were growing together in one big clump from the bulb. Separating them out, there were seven delicious onions that were sliced into our salad tonight! Also, we used some salad greens growing in the garden for the salad, too! There is nothing like picking your own vegetables fresh from the backyard and eating them in your dinner that night!

Here are some more pictures of how the garden is progressing. Many of the pepper plants are growing tons of peppers, all green at the moment, but they will ripen soon. The tomatoes are all beginning to sprout some fruit as well. Even the Chinese Five-Colour Hot Pepper plants are starting to grow tiny, purple peppers (that will eventually change colours five different times from purple, white, yellow, orange, and red!).

Red Rocket Hot Pepper

Tequila Sunrise Sweet Pepper

Hot Banana Pepper

Cayenne Pepper

Chinese Five-Color Hot Pepper

Red Pear Cherry Tomato

Matt's Wild Cherry Tomato

More Cherry Tomatoes!

Radishes are Rad!

Here are some Cherrybelle Radishes, freshly plucked from our garden! These three were ready to be picked with more on the way. I love how vibrant they look and they're going to taste great in a salad tonight!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

More Garden Goodness!

Here are a few more photos from our veggie garden from today. I noticed that we have a hot pepper growing already! I believe this one is a cayenne pepper.

In addition to the other small tomatoes growing, we have these plum-shaped tomatoes as well. I didn't check the label, but I'm fairly certain these are the Red Pear Tomatoes.

I think we'll have to wait a few more days at least, but the radishes are growing in the ground quite nicely and I can see their red tops emerging from the soil!

And lastly, it looks like some of the bush beans are starting to grow buds on them! I can't wait to watch these ones grow! And then eat them. Yum!

The Veggie Garden Keeps Growing!

Since planting our garden last month, these veggies have been growing like crazy! We've been having great success with just about everything this year and I think it is due to the fact that our weather has been so hot and sunny over the past month. This photo above shows some of the herbs growing on a shelf near the house. Those mustard greens and lettuce leaves in the foreground are probably going to be cut as baby greens for tonight's dinner.

And here you can see the basil a bit better in the background (four different kinds!), as well as Zaatar growing up towards the camera and lemongrass just chilling beside it.

Underneath the shelf, the mint plants are happily growing in partial-shade. The dill and cilantro are still growing, although they are starting to go to seed and might be done pretty soon. We have another cilantro plant growing by a window inside the house and we will probably plant some more seeds so we can keep our supply of cilantro going all summer (gotta have enough for when the tomatoes are ready to make some salsa!). We don't use the dill very much since Paul doesn't care for dill, but we did use about half of the plant when we made another batch of refrigerator pickles a few weeks ago.

The other six planters of herbs are growing very nicely (oregano, rosemary, garlic chives, Vietnamese cilantro, and lavender) and as you can see, I noticed just this morning that the lavender is starting to grow flowers!

These are bush beans in pots and they're growing up nicely. There are four other bean plants in the garden plot, too:

This plot of mostly shaded dirt in the backyard was mostly an experiment to see what would grow there over the summer. It seems that the green onions are still doing fine, and the beans are growing great! I also am not sure what is growing where anymore - I drew a nice diagram as to where the seeds were planted, but I think some of the seeds may have shifted around after watering them. I'm not sure what things might be weeds and what might be plants, so I'm going to wait a little while longer and see how they grow. I'm fairly certain that we have a row of radishes and a row of endive. I also think that we have a few kale plants and hopefully some rainbow swiss chard. The Bloody Dock and Sushni are still growing in the back corner of the plot.

And now onto the tomatoes and peppers...the main reason for growing the garden!

Look at how big everything has grown over the past month! Let's compare to what it looked like less than a month ago:

We had to space everything out a bit more because the tomato plants are growing wildly all over the place. All of the pepper plants are starting to form some small flowers:

And some of the tomato plants are even starting to grow....tiny little tomatoes!!!

Veggie Garden 2012 - Freshly Planted!

Here is a look at our vegetable and herb garden of 2012! Paul and I are trying out some old favourites and new varieties this year, as well as an experimental planting of seeds and green onion bulbs in a soil bed along the fence in our backyard. Starting with the veggies, we planted everything in containers as the spot that gets the hot afternoon sun in our backyard happens to be right in the middle of our yard. We tried putting everything in containers on the deck last year and had a lot of success, so we're doing the same thing this year.

We purchased all of the veggies at Urban Harvest on Queen West in Toronto. They grow organic veggies from non-GMO seeds, many of which are heirloom varieties. We love supporting their small business, especially since they place an emphasis on organic gardening and ecological diversity.

We're growing two varieties of sweet pepper: Tequila Sunrise and Corno di Toro. Paul and I love our hot peppers, so we have four different varieties: Red Rocket, Hungarian Wax, Red Cayenne, and Chinese Five Colour Hot Pepper. We have two plants growing of each variety of pepper for a grand total of 12 pepper plants!

There are four different types of tomatoes growing, most of which are cherry tomatoes that are best suited to growing in pots.  We've got: Matt's Wild Cherry Tomato, Isis Candy Tomato, Red Pear Cherry Tomato, and Baxter's Bush Cherry Tomato. The Isis Candy and Red Pear are new ones for this year, so it will be exciting to see how they grow!

And here we have the herbs...we purchased all of the herbs from Richter's Herbs because they also grow using organic, non-GMO seeds and have a huge variety to choose from.  The herbs are growing on a stand up at the top of our deck where they have a bit of protection from the wind by being closer to the house, but still get plenty of sunlight. It is great to have the herbs so close to the kitchen - we can just open the back patio door from the kitchen and can pick some fresh herbs for cooking!

Zaatar and Lemongrass

Salad Burnet

Four varieties of Basil

Four varieties of Basil

On the top row, we have Zaatar (a spice used in the Middle East for hummus, dips and soups - a new one for us to grow!), Lemongrass (our first time growing this, too!), Salad Burnet (salad green that tastes like cucumber), and four different varieties of Basil:  African Spice, Pesto Perpetuo, Thai, and Genovese. I also have a little pot growing some Black-Seeded Simpson Lettuce from seed.

Four varieties of Mint

Mint, Dill and Cilantro

On the bottom row, I have lots of mint growing - a first for us as I recently discovered my love for mint! Paul isn't a huge mint fan, but that just means more for me haha! We've got Peppermint, Sweet Pear Mint, Pineapple Mint, and Grapefruit Mint - yum!  We've also got some dill and cilantro growing, too.

Since we have way more herbs this year than last year, we had to expand and plant herbs in the spots for planters on our deck! We actually like having the herbs in the planters even more than flowers because they look great and smell amazing.

On the right side of the deck, we're growing Vietnamese Cilantro, Rex Rosemary, and Lady Lavender.

On the left side of the deck, we're growing Greek Oregano, Blue Boy Rosemary, and Garlic Chives.

This plot of soil in the backyard is an experiment to see what will grow there. At the moment, there are tons of cherry blossoms scattered throughout the soil from our neighbour's tree. This giant cherry tree blocks out much of the sunlight, so the plot only gets a few hours of sunshine a day in the afternoon. We are hoping it is enough light to grow some plants that don't mind a bit of shade. We planted some green onion bulbs that are already coming up. Also, a couple of the herbs that like the shade and moist soil have been planted - Bloody Dock and Sushni (salad greens).

Everything else is being grown from seed, so it will be interesting to see what pops up! Hopefully, not too many weeds! I made this diagram:

The diagram will be helpful to remember what exactly was planted where - what grows, and what doesn't. As you can see, we planted three types of beans (Golden Wax, Royal Burgundy, and Tender Green), Cherrybelle Radish, Pak Choi, Tres Fine Endive, Rainbow Swiss Chard, Red Russian Kale, and Wasabi Arugula. Hopefully everything grows!

There you have it - the beginnings of another wonderful fresh veggie garden! I'll be posting more updates later!