Garden 2007

In addition to a few garden pictures we have a summary of the season in 2007.

Garden Pictures

Some additional photos from the 2007 garden are available in Olivia's 2007 Garden Pictures set on Flickr.

This kale (and the onions beside it) wintered from 2006 and went to seed. Photo by Olivia Lo Schiavo

A pair of killdeer made their nest in the community plot. Here a killdeer yells at us while guarding its four eggs (barely visible just underneath the bird). Photo by Olivia Lo Schiavo

Some radishes and a leopard frog. Photo by Olivia Lo Schiavo

Mid-July Harvest. Photo by Jennifer Robinson

Garden Summary

2007 proved to be a good year for the garden. On some weeks fifteen people came out to garden, and most Wednesdays at least five people showed up. We also met on Sunday afternoons. We grew a good amount of food: many weeks we left with as much food as we wanted (and some weeks with more).

The garden attracted a good mix of undergraduate and graduate students, community members and faculty. We gained an appreciation of where our food comes from and the work it takes to grow it, and we learned gardening tips from each other (some of which are reproduced below). In addition to time at the garden we went on some field trips, including visits to the Ignatius Farm CSA near Guelph and the Little City Farm Bed and Breakfast in Kitchener. We also got together to can some salsa and tomato sauce.

The summer of 2007 was dry and hot. For several months we got little rain, so we watered the garden twice a week. Our peppers, eggplants, beets, tomatoes and chard thrived in this weather, but the heat stifled our brassicas (broccoli, cabbages, collards), which did not start flourishing until the late summer. Our lettuces and spinaches bolted soon after we planted them.

Our peas produced prolifically: they lasted a month longer than we thought they would. We grew a striped French tomato variety that was delicious.

On the downside, our zucchini plants did not produce very much. Most of our garlic died, but related plants (onions, leeks, and chives) did well.

The final spring frost was about May 20. There were frost warnings in early June, but we were spared any damage. The fall frost that killed many of our plants happened about October 30.

Soil

We spread a couple of truckfuls of compost in the garden, which helped break up the clay in the soil. The soil still proved difficult for some of our root vegetables. Our carrots were small, and many of our potato plants chose to produce a lot of tiny potatoes rather than a few bigger ones. However, the beets did well.

Pests

The mice living in our compost bins caused some trouble this year. They gnawed many of our beets and tomatoes. Towards the end of the season they (or some other small mammal) gnawed the roots of our chard plants.

In addition to the mice we think deer paid us a visit in the middle of the season. They ate the leafy tops of the carrots, beets, beans and fall spinach. They even ate the pole bean plants off their poles, which is why we think they were deer and not woodchucks or rabbits.

In addition to suffering from the hot weather our brassicas were nibbled by flea beetles. Several of our cabbages also got brown and rotten, but we never found out why.

Our potato plants did okay, but they went brown and dead earlier than we thought they would.

Weeds and Visitors

Bindweed was the big enemy this year. It grew everywhere and choked a few of our plants. Fortunately we had lots of gardeners to keep it under control.

Other unwanted plants that visited our garden included some thistles, lambs quarters (which we ate) and pigweed. Thistles were apparently a big problem in 2006, but we kept them under control this year.

We got a lot of volunteer tomato plants. We tended to let them grow. A few of the plants produced delicious fruit.

We also got some volunteer velvetleaf plants, which we thought were sunflowers until we noticed their spiky fruits and soft, velvety leaves.

Lessons Learned

• We should have staked the tomatoes much earlier. They grew bushy and dense on their own.
• Eggplants should be picked while they are still purple.
• Our watermelons grew well and were delicious, but we left them to ripen on the vine too long so they were a little mushy.
• It is a good idea to refrain from watering the watermelon and tomatoes when they are producing fruit. This helps make the fruit sweeter.
• To get long straight celery you should treat it like veal by binding it in paper.
• Gooseberries can be picked before they turn red. They can then be simmered with sugar and a little bit of water to make a tasty treat.
• It is helpful to distinguish between your sweet peppers and hot peppers, especially when the plants look the same and produce similar fruit. The consequences of unlabelled peppers can be entertaining, however.
• Chickenwire fences placed around beds helps keep browsing animals out to a degree.
• Mounding soil over the bottoms of leeks helps blanch them. Mounding soil over beets and carrots that are sticking help helps deter mice.