Giving Thanks

This is the Thanksgiving long weekend in Canada. My vegetable garden has provided in a very sparse way over the summer but it must have felt a harvest celebration coming as it has ended the season quite splendidly.  My big tomato plants did not thrive this year but the vines against the house produced a big bowlful of sweet, tiny cherry tomatoes.

I brought the tomatoes in on Friday because of heavy frosts predicted over the weekend. For the plants on the ground, I have covered them with sheets the past few nights with the hope of prolonging the season a little longer. The temperatures are supposed to be quite mild this week so I'd like to enjoy the garden as long as I can.

Yesterday, we ate our Thanksgiving dinner and I was able to pick sage, parsley and this sweet bouquet of baby swiss chard to use. I also picked some turnips and was absolutely delighted to pull out a gigantic turnip heart! Isn't it magnificent? I couldn't stop smiling and then had to run into the house to show everyone.

We made a traditional dinner of turkey with dressing and gravy along with roasted carrots and turnips, shredded brussel sprouts and mashed potatoes. For Emma's vegetarian main course and a side dish for the rest of us, I made a 'Roasted beet salad with wild rice, goat cheese and chickpeas'. It was so good! You can find the recipe I used here. Did I mention that Emma was home from university for the weekend?!? We were also very happy that she invited one of her friends from residence, a student who lives near Boston, to share Thanksgiving dinner with us.

Emma made one special request when she confirmed she was coming home for the weekend. She asked me to make a pumpkin pie. I was happy to say yes as I love to make pie although I don't make it that often anymore. Was it a success? Um, well. It's possible you heard me yell 'Oh no!' as I pulled it out of the oven. The filling had swollen like a balloon and then returned to its normal level but not before cracking in a million places.

Was I disappointed? Yes. Very. I tried to think about Leonard Cohen's 'Anthem' lyrics as they help me sometimes.

Forget your perfect offering 
There is a crack, a crack in everything 
That's how the light gets in.

But here's the thing. Leonard wasn't singing about pumpkin pie. I considered remaking it but that wasn't an option as the turkey was already in the oven. Finally, I heard a murmur from the garden. What was that? Did someone say they could help me?  I do believe I heard the nasturtiums whisper something about coming to my aid. And they did.

So this Thanksgiving, I am giving thanks for my family, my garden and its harvest, with a particularly warm nod to my nasturtiums who saved the day (or at least the pie). Happy Thanksgiving to all who are celebrating this weekend!

Nasturtium original watercolour on Twinrocker paper

❤  ❤  ❤  ❤  ❤

I did some research on pumpkin pie cracking and apparently it can be due to overbaking and/or cooling it too quickly. I might have done both. One suggestion is to slightly undercook it by five minutes and then to leave it in the oven, turned off, with the door propped open with a wooden spoon and let it cool gradually. I will definitely give that a try next time.  

Full Circle

Well, how did that happen? I always seem to react to the shift from warm to cold weather the same way--shock and disbelief. Wasn't I just topping the soil with compost, measuring out my squares and planting seeds here and there? It goes so fast.

I was lucky that Monday was an unseasonably warm day. It allowed me to do my cleanup without my hands getting frozen. I was also lucky it hadn't snowed yet as you just never know here in November. The only bits left there are a big clump of Italian parsley, some lavender and thyme.

What a glorious vegetable patch it was this year though. All of the heat and sunshine gave us more and bigger tomatoes than we have ever had. Everything was a little larger than our past crops by the end of season--beets, turnips, carrots. My only regrets?  That we didn't realize the cucumbers were there until it was too late. The vines had snaked up through the shrub behind the bed and by the time the cucumbers were visible, they were beyond eating. Also, I meant to resow mâche seeds in August so we could have fresh autumn salads from the garden. Maybe next year.

I don't do a full cleanup in the rest of the garden. I empty fragile flower pots that won't winter well, trim long rose stems that will get whipped around by cold winds and remove certain things from the flower beds like peony stems and leaves.  But, all in all, I leave a lot of the brown and wilted perennials until the spring so that the birds can perch on stems and snack on seed heads through the winter.  As for me? Now I start to dream of my spring garden.

The square-foot garden just after it was planted in May. 

The Year of the Giant Tomatoes

Every year brings its own surprises in the garden.  The weather is always the biggest wild card. Depending on conditions, certain plants can suffer or thrive. This year has proven to be the 'year of the giant tomato plants'. All that light and heat we have received so far has provided the tallest tomato plants I have ever had in my garden. The plants are actually taller than me right now and are full of tomatoes, green for now, but promising one of the most abundant harvests ever. I can't wait!

I didn't plant that sunflower. A bird did.
I just love its position, leaning out at the corner of the veggie garden, as if to say 'Welcome'!

These are Opalka heirloom tomatoes. Isn't their pepper shape cool?

Pineapple heirloom tomato. I am very intrigued by these and can't wait for them to ripen.

Green Zebra Tomatoes

Look at how the veggie garden has changed since May!

May

June

July

Happy days!

A Piece of Paradise

Have you ever thought of planting a vegetable garden?  Just look at the photo above.  Need any more reasons?  That's Chloé just after her 7th birthday celebrating the harvest from our garden.

We receive a weekly basket of organic vegetables from a local farm. We've been a customer/partner of the same farm for almost 17 years now. Despite the fact that we know that we are going to receive beautiful, fresh vegetables throughout the summer, it was very important to me to have our own veggie garden. I wanted Emma and Chloé to have a connection with how things grow and to feel the joy in participating in the process.

This photo is of our first vegetable plot at this house.  Chloé is about two here and Emma would be six. Just to give you some perspective, Emma is about to turn 17 in June and Chloé will turn 13 in July. Teaching a two-year old to plant seeds took a little patience. I think I recall laying down on the ground on one point (not a mommy tantrum, I just needed a little rest), but it is so worth it to involve kids early.

Here are my gardeners a few years later, I think at age five and nine.

Hmmm, where did that fashion pose come from? Certainly not me. Emma is holding an insect cage that was very well used over many summers here.

I use a planting method that I absolutely adore and that is the 'square-foot garden' method.  It is an inspired idea developed by an American engineer, Mel Bartholomew, for growing a diverse array of vegetables in a limited space. Essentially, each 'crop' is planted in a one-foot square. Depending on the vegetable, you can plant one, four, eight or sixteen plants per square. (The rule of thumb is one plant per square if a 12" plant spacing is required, 4 plants for 6" spacing, 9 plants for 4" spacing and 16 for 3" or less.) The number of squares is according to the space that you have.

The next photos you will see document the transformation of our garden this year from a wild, neglected space (I didn't have time to look after it last year and we missed it SO much) to a beautiful, ordered, planted vegetable patch.

I told you it was overgrown. I took this standing on a stepladder about a week ago. All that green is provided by many happy violas, some coriander, a perennial strawberry plant, a monster sage plant and many, many weeds.

The first years we had our garden, I just planted at ground level.  I really didn't have time to create something more elaborate. Later, I followed Mel's method more accurately by raising the bed with a cedar perimeter. I bought long square cedar posts at a home centre.  Then I cut them to the length I needed and attached them together on the inside using metal joints.  (If you do this, please make sure that you use untreated cedar. Some cedar is treated against rot with toxic chemicals that you don't want leaching into your vegetable garden.)  Raising the bed creates a warmer bed that allows for a longer growing period.

Now weed-free with the soil topped up with organic earth and compost.  

To separate the space into square feet, Mel offers many suggestions. I found my own. The simplest and least visually obtrusive method was to put screw eyes at one-foot intervals along the cedar edges and use fishing line to create the divisions.  Once the plants have started to grow, you'll barely notice the fishing line.

Honestly, you'd think that Meeko was the one who weeded and then hauled and spread the ten bags of organic soil and three bags of compost himself!

I use stepping stones to allow access into the bed.  I always try to rearrange them into a different shape each year.  I was very happy one year to create a heart shape. I couldn't wait for the girls to get home from school to show them.  I asked if they recognized the shape. I remember Chloé saying "Of course, it's a dinosaur head." This year, I call my stone shape "T.V." as it is sort of a T and a V. I could have made a more proper V but I would have lost two planting spaces.

Not all vegetables grow close to the ground, so you will need a method to support your taller vegetables.  The square foot method suggests various tall structures.  For me, I need a combination of 'practical' and 'pretty' to be happy, so I bought attractive metal obelisks that I use to support my taller plants.  This year, I will also be using the shrub at the back of the bed to support my cucumbers.

Here I'm trying out positions for all of the vegetables. You'll notice I used both potted plants and seeds.

The potted plants in the photo included six different tomato plants (I try to choose different colours and unusual heirloom varieties for interest), three pepper plants, two strawberry plants, several types of herbs including lots of basil and, at the front, some Spanish and English lavender and violas.

Here is our veggie garden on Sunday afternoon, planted and watered.

Chloé helped me plant several types of seeds on Sunday afternoon. We planted radishes, carrots, swiss chard, turnips, mesclun, beets and cucumber seeds.  Nasturtium seeds were planted all along the two ends.  Five squares have been left empty waiting for Emma's planting touch.

All in all, if I don't count the spaces taken up by stepping stones, we have forty-four planting spaces. It's an amazing way to grow many beautiful things in a small space.

I am very excited to report that I can see signs of sprouting from some of our seeds only four days after planting them.  Sunshine and rain. We've had the perfect garden combination in past days. 

As if planting a garden wasn't a reward in itself, Chloé made a beautiful apple pie all on her own this past weekend (her first time!). Here it is on a beautiful tea towel from a business we love very much here (Bookhou owned by Arounna and John) with a lovely weekend sunset sparkling in the background.

P.S. The pie was delicious!