Garden and health update
Covering a bit of the following
Health
Food Storage
And a lot of the garden.
So it has been about a month since I last updated my journal. Most of that was spent not doing much because my back had decided to start swearing so loudly. I’ve become religious about stretching it out far more than I had before. It is finally starting to get better. However, I was suppose to go on a camping trip at the end of July and when I mentioned to my massage therapist that I was looking into a replacement for me on that camping trip because I didn’t know how I could handle it the polite response we settled on was something like
“It is medically inadvisable to go on a camping trip when you are sleeping on the ground when you still have an open case with ICBC”
The non-polite initial response sparked a discussion about what constituted swearing when we grew up and how our parents handle that now that we are adults. Needless to say even considering going camping is not a good idea and there is no way my back would be ready in time.
On another subject I’ve started ordering more food from Shelf Reliance which has its Canadian site working quite well. Unfortunately, their website appears to be Internet Explorer only but once I got it figured out I could start automatic monthly orders. I’m going to try switching over to more dried foods and less of the pre prepared stuff since it will keep longer and should be healthier for me. I also need to know how to cook. I’m hoping if I switch over to the dried stuff and get the cooking sorted out that I can make smaller meals and have less food left over. Right now I’m making freezer meals but I’ve been packaging them big which means when I cook them I have stuff left over for the next day. That doesn’t work so well when I’m not sure from one day to the next if I’m eating by myself or if I’m cooking for two. Also with the freezer meals I need to take them out the day before in order to thaw enough to cook which again causes problems when I don’t know the quantities. Hopefully with dried I can get away from that but it also means that I will be cooking each day which is also a problem because often I come home from work and I just don’t have the energy to think of a meal. I will have to think on this a bit more.
On to the garden. The last set of pictures were a month ago and as you can see the garden has changed dramatically since then.
This is a picture of the entire garden from ground level where I have the broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower covered. Unfortunately, they seem to be out growing their cover so I took it off. In other pictures you will see it didn’t provide as much protection as I would have liked. This second shot on the right is of the entire garden taken from the loft that is why it is a little blurry because I’m shooting through the window so you have multiple panes of slightly dirty glass in the way.
The following are close ups of various plants in the garden. As you can see the peas are quite happy. I’ve been cutting the snow peas, which are on the main garden side of the fence, on a weekly basis and putting them into my salad. The snap peas I have to leave the pods on a bit longer because for that you eat the pea not the pod. I’ve also been getting into the lettuce by the tomato plant and the plant that is growing with it that has the small white flowers tastes strongly of licorice. That lettuce and the other plants came as part of a seed mix called musclin mix. It is an interesting mix. I will have to plant some more as a winter crop because we are FINALLY getting some heat (probably too late for my tomato plants who all look sickly) and lettuce is more of a cold crop.
On the flower side these lilies just opened the day I took the pictures and I noticed a few more are starting to open. I also have these pretty fuschia colored flowers in the front but I have no idea what they are.
On the other side of the driveway I have more tomato plants in pots. I had some heat protectors around some of the pots, called water walls, which I had taken off some of the pots and then we had a cold snap. The plants that are behind the water walls are slightly happier. I will have to work on a different method for tomatoes next year. Maybe a mini greenhouse as I mentioned in last post. Maybe those red bags that I purchase but this time I will really tie them down to the cages so they won’t blow away the next day the way the last set did. We shall see. I will have to think about it a bit more and prepare. The strawberry plant in the same area seems to be doing ok. The watermelon plants which I had put in BIG pots don’t seem to be doing much of anything just like my spinach.
Also on that side of the driveway are a few plants that are out of control. One is the kiwi plant. This thing really needed a trellis when I got it in but that didn’t happen. Well for whatever reason it is now REALLY happy and sending shoots all over the place and pretty close to the new car. So it needs to be tamed. The local garden store called Potters had a ⅓ off sale this past Saturday so I was able to pick up a couple of metal trellises. I had Gary pound one in for me on one side and then on the other side we will put the other trellis once we are done with the tomato plants. At least right now we have it partially under control.
The other plant that needed taming was the oregano. This started out as two plants one on either side of the grapes. The idea was to companion plant the oregano with the grapes because the bugs that like eating grape plants apparently don’t like oregano. Well it reseeded or something (I had a regular oregano plant and a spicy one, I’m sure they’ve cross bred by now) because it has attempted to take over the whole pot. This is the second time I’ve wacked it back this season. This time instead of putting the clipping in the compost (I have some dried from last year) I took the clippings to work. I’m sure someone can do some italian cooking over the weekend and enjoy it. If I manage to get my herbs to properly start and survive (I transplanted the sage last night it didn’t seem to be doing much of anything either) then I might split them off at the end of the season and make a pot for work That way I can keep an eye on it and water it and I and my co-workers can enjoy a useful plant.
Finally, here are pictures of what I found under my crop cover. I have little broccoli heads (I don’t seem to be able to get the big ones) which I will probably harvest on Sunday or Monday when I need to pick more salad and some decent heads of cabbage forming. I’m going to leave the crop cover off of the garden now because it is too small and as you can see in the one picture something got under there and really chewed on the broccoli leaves. I suspect I will have to keep an eye out for the cabbage moth but I suspect it is still better than keeping it confined. The radish that I planted after my first crop is starting but for whatever reason I just don’t seem to do as well with the second crop and we don’t even need to mention the daikon that didn’t do much of anything at all.
Health
Food Storage
And a lot of the garden.
So it has been about a month since I last updated my journal. Most of that was spent not doing much because my back had decided to start swearing so loudly. I’ve become religious about stretching it out far more than I had before. It is finally starting to get better. However, I was suppose to go on a camping trip at the end of July and when I mentioned to my massage therapist that I was looking into a replacement for me on that camping trip because I didn’t know how I could handle it the polite response we settled on was something like
“It is medically inadvisable to go on a camping trip when you are sleeping on the ground when you still have an open case with ICBC”
The non-polite initial response sparked a discussion about what constituted swearing when we grew up and how our parents handle that now that we are adults. Needless to say even considering going camping is not a good idea and there is no way my back would be ready in time.
On another subject I’ve started ordering more food from Shelf Reliance which has its Canadian site working quite well. Unfortunately, their website appears to be Internet Explorer only but once I got it figured out I could start automatic monthly orders. I’m going to try switching over to more dried foods and less of the pre prepared stuff since it will keep longer and should be healthier for me. I also need to know how to cook. I’m hoping if I switch over to the dried stuff and get the cooking sorted out that I can make smaller meals and have less food left over. Right now I’m making freezer meals but I’ve been packaging them big which means when I cook them I have stuff left over for the next day. That doesn’t work so well when I’m not sure from one day to the next if I’m eating by myself or if I’m cooking for two. Also with the freezer meals I need to take them out the day before in order to thaw enough to cook which again causes problems when I don’t know the quantities. Hopefully with dried I can get away from that but it also means that I will be cooking each day which is also a problem because often I come home from work and I just don’t have the energy to think of a meal. I will have to think on this a bit more.
On to the garden. The last set of pictures were a month ago and as you can see the garden has changed dramatically since then.
This is a picture of the entire garden from ground level where I have the broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower covered. Unfortunately, they seem to be out growing their cover so I took it off. In other pictures you will see it didn’t provide as much protection as I would have liked. This second shot on the right is of the entire garden taken from the loft that is why it is a little blurry because I’m shooting through the window so you have multiple panes of slightly dirty glass in the way.
The following are close ups of various plants in the garden. As you can see the peas are quite happy. I’ve been cutting the snow peas, which are on the main garden side of the fence, on a weekly basis and putting them into my salad. The snap peas I have to leave the pods on a bit longer because for that you eat the pea not the pod. I’ve also been getting into the lettuce by the tomato plant and the plant that is growing with it that has the small white flowers tastes strongly of licorice. That lettuce and the other plants came as part of a seed mix called musclin mix. It is an interesting mix. I will have to plant some more as a winter crop because we are FINALLY getting some heat (probably too late for my tomato plants who all look sickly) and lettuce is more of a cold crop.
On the flower side these lilies just opened the day I took the pictures and I noticed a few more are starting to open. I also have these pretty fuschia colored flowers in the front but I have no idea what they are.
On the other side of the driveway I have more tomato plants in pots. I had some heat protectors around some of the pots, called water walls, which I had taken off some of the pots and then we had a cold snap. The plants that are behind the water walls are slightly happier. I will have to work on a different method for tomatoes next year. Maybe a mini greenhouse as I mentioned in last post. Maybe those red bags that I purchase but this time I will really tie them down to the cages so they won’t blow away the next day the way the last set did. We shall see. I will have to think about it a bit more and prepare. The strawberry plant in the same area seems to be doing ok. The watermelon plants which I had put in BIG pots don’t seem to be doing much of anything just like my spinach.
Also on that side of the driveway are a few plants that are out of control. One is the kiwi plant. This thing really needed a trellis when I got it in but that didn’t happen. Well for whatever reason it is now REALLY happy and sending shoots all over the place and pretty close to the new car. So it needs to be tamed. The local garden store called Potters had a ⅓ off sale this past Saturday so I was able to pick up a couple of metal trellises. I had Gary pound one in for me on one side and then on the other side we will put the other trellis once we are done with the tomato plants. At least right now we have it partially under control.
The other plant that needed taming was the oregano. This started out as two plants one on either side of the grapes. The idea was to companion plant the oregano with the grapes because the bugs that like eating grape plants apparently don’t like oregano. Well it reseeded or something (I had a regular oregano plant and a spicy one, I’m sure they’ve cross bred by now) because it has attempted to take over the whole pot. This is the second time I’ve wacked it back this season. This time instead of putting the clipping in the compost (I have some dried from last year) I took the clippings to work. I’m sure someone can do some italian cooking over the weekend and enjoy it. If I manage to get my herbs to properly start and survive (I transplanted the sage last night it didn’t seem to be doing much of anything either) then I might split them off at the end of the season and make a pot for work That way I can keep an eye on it and water it and I and my co-workers can enjoy a useful plant.
Finally, here are pictures of what I found under my crop cover. I have little broccoli heads (I don’t seem to be able to get the big ones) which I will probably harvest on Sunday or Monday when I need to pick more salad and some decent heads of cabbage forming. I’m going to leave the crop cover off of the garden now because it is too small and as you can see in the one picture something got under there and really chewed on the broccoli leaves. I suspect I will have to keep an eye out for the cabbage moth but I suspect it is still better than keeping it confined. The radish that I planted after my first crop is starting but for whatever reason I just don’t seem to do as well with the second crop and we don’t even need to mention the daikon that didn’t do much of anything at all.
