Blueberry jam by me!

A while ago, I bought a canning pot and a bunch of supplies. The idea was, if I had enough gooseberries, I’d make some jam. Unfortunately, my gooseberry harvest last week was literally a handful, and I don’t think I’d be able to harvest the whole bush in a single batch.  So I went to the market today and bought way too many blueberries (harvested in Pelham, ’cause i’m into the local food thing).

While it stormed outside today, I made my first batch of blueberry jam.

I ate it. It was delicious!

There’s a handful of these already on my cherry tomato plants and even more flowers. My Romas are flowering too and look ready to fruit. In other garden news, my cucumber plant keeps getting torn up by some animal and every time, I diligently replant it. It’s struggling, and doesn’t look like it’ll survive even if it doesn’t get dug up again.

I came back home earlier in the afternoon after spending Saturday and Friday night with the boy. (We went to the Tenori-on Toronto release). About an hour after i got home and settled down, I realized that the power was down. I went to the mall to do some food shopping, and the mall was closed because power was off there too. Not sure what happened, but we all have electricity again.

While the power was out, i went to check on the garden. The tomato plants need a bit of pruning, but I tied up stems in some attempt to organize them. But I’m so happy that they’re thriving. Even my basil is doing well. I’ve been able to use the basil for salads and stuff lately too.

The cucumber plant was torn apart a few weeks ago by some animal. This bothered me, but I tucked the plant’s roots back in. The leaves were all torn up, but the roots, cotyledon leaves and the stem seemed fine. I had pretty much left it for dead, but miraculously it’s still going. New leaves have grown in to take the place of the tattered leaves. Lettuce and carrots are also growing in nicely.

Anyway, pictures:

More on Flickr!

So the cherry tomato plants aren’t doing so well. The leaves are sort of tiny and mottled and despite my best attempts I couldn’t get good growth out of them. I’m going to continue to nurse them and see how far they go, but at this point, they’re on life support. I bought two new cherry tomato plants and this morning planted them. I figured since they were already outdoors they didn’t need to be hardened too much longer. The stems grew a little crooked, but they’re green and leafy. Maybe i’ll get a salad out of it yet.

Marigolds in the back, cherries along my makeshift bamboo trellis, roma plants next and sweet basil plants in the foreground.

In the 2nd veggie patch, my one cucumber seedling is doing well. The lettuce and the carrots have come up  and need to be thinned.  I may take the spinach out and plant a pepper plant instead. I’m not that big of a fan of spinach anyway.

I just finished dinner.. President’s Choice World’s Best Meatless “Chicken breast” with grilled tomatoes and asparagus. I’ve somewhat succeeded in kicking my morning habit of coffee, and I took it a step further by eating mostly raw meals. Though right now, to me, raw means salads and lots of it. Over the weekend, I was able to indulge with food a bit. I even had a couple of lattes. Tonight was the first time I used a heat element for myself at home, other than a crock pot full of vegetarian chilli for a vegan potluck we had at work on Friday.

I had a great weekend. I spent it in Toronto with the boy, even though I should have been here spring cleaning. But I wanted to see him, and I got a lot done on Saturday morning. We played a lot of Gears of War co-op, visited Ikea and even made our own pizzas. Working with pizza dough was interesting, but it was something fun that we got to do together.

Back to Monday, back to work, even at home. I can’t deal with all the weeds in the backyard. It’s really disheartening. But the seeds I’ve planted in various places are coming up, which is really nice.

Tomato update: I left the tomatoes out for a couple of hours on Saturday morning. Unfortunately, it was windy and the wind knocked my romas over. They seemed to survive though, and i promptly brought them back in. Today, I left them out for a lot longer. It was very sunny and warm. Unfortunately, i think one of them got too stressed out, so it started to wilt. I brought it back in and propped them up with wooden chopsticks. I’ll keep bringing them outside, and hope that the stress won’t kill them outright.

Tomatoes went into their individual pots last week. I picked 3 of the Romas and 2 of the cherries. I think these should be enough for the veggie patch I plotted out for them.

I named the romas after my sister’s family. The cherry tomatoes are named for me and my boyfriend.

The cherry tomatoes (Sweet 100), are in recycled plastic pots from the herb plants I bought earlier.

Sometime this week, the cucumbers, lettuces and carrots are going into the ground. I would have done it today but it was really cold out.

Disclaimer: I am a humungous gardening noob.  Feel free to point and laugh, but please keep in mind i ain’t no expert.

Cherries and Roma Tomatoes seeded in the last week of April:

The seed beds are recycled containers with holes cut out on the bottom for drainage. I wrapped them up with plastic wrap. Within a couple of days, the seeds began to sprout. Romas are in the rectangular tray, and cherries are in the sour cream tub.

Seedlings, beginning of week 3:

I diligently thinned the sprouts and will probably do more thinning. I don’t think that every sprout will get planted. I know they’re a little leggy. I went away last weekend and didn’t anticipate they’d come up so soon so I hadn’t given them ample lighting. I have a desk lamp with a plant bulb over them now. I rotate the dishes when I can so they don’t lean to the light.

The true leaves are coming in. I’ll keep watching them and when the leaves are a bit more established I’ll re-pot selected plants in larger containers (or all the plants, we’ll see how many recyclables I can turn into pots in the next few days).

The plan:

I’ve been spending a lot of time in my backyard lately, and a bit in the front. This is what I’ve accomplished so far:

• manually removed wild violets and other weeds from half the lawn
• turned, tilled, raked the soil, amended it with gardening soil
• plotted out where the veggie patches will end up
• aerated and mowed the remaining grass in the backyard
• mowed the grass in the front yard
• cleaned up the front garden and weeded a little
• seeded lawn with an eco-friendly type of grass (needs little watering)
• overseeded the remaining lawn with same grass
• more weeding! /argh
• cleaned up a couple more gardening patches

Read the rest of this entry »