Category Archives: Garden

What’s happening in your garden?

Made squash soup

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I made a big batch of squash soup today. It is just cooling now so I can put it in containers and freeze it.

Two years ago, I bought three acorn squash plants from a local market. However, when the squash appeared, they weren’t acorn squash. Last year I bought plants from a roadside stand along a country road. But when the squash appeared, they weren’t acorn squash. This year I bought three plants from a garden shop. Thankfully, they turned out to be acorn squash. I have a ton of them.

You wonder why I insist on acorn and don’t use a different squash for the soup. But the acorn squash has it’s own flavour. The recipe I use is from the Butchart Gardens website and everyone who eats it loves it.

What did you get from your garden this year?

Tomatoes are coming….

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The tomatoes are coming fast this year. They grew so strong in the early summer that most of them pulled the tomato cages over or crumpled them onto the ground. Some of the plants were more than five feet tall. Not that we had a great summer, started cool, hot for about 3 weeks in July, then cool and rainy for another three weeks.

Yet here they are, ripening like crazy. I buy most of the plants from a very kind man who grows and sells tomatoes every spring. I always promise to bring the pots back, because that saves money on both sides and re-uses the pots. These tomatoes will be simmered until thoroughly cooked into a sauce. It has amazing amounts of flavour, much better than the spaghetti sauce you buy in the store.

What do you do with all your tomatoes?

A Late Spring

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The new buds on the branches of the fir trees are bright green this year. That’s not always the case, but it has been a slow spring, still very cool. It is 6 to 8 C degrees/ 43 F in the morning, rising seldom past 10 C/ 50 F in the afternoon. All the colours seem more vibrant.

Even the azaleas are stunning in their intensity. I don’t know if it is the cool weather or what is affecting it.

What is it like where you are?

I Love Roses

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At my old house, I grew numerous roses in the garden. They have been one of my favourite flowers. However, where we live now, they don’t survive. This area is known as a ‘frost pocket’ by the local farmers, and the roses rot in the damp cold during the winter. So although I have planted numerous roses, none of them have survived.

However, my sister gave me six rose bushes late last winter when she was moving and leaving her garden behind. I planted them all when the weather warmed up. Since then, two have died, two have kind of stalled, just sitting there, but these two have gone crazy. I finally have roses again! Yay!

The red one is lovely, but no scent. The pink one has bloomed for months now with a beautiful perfume. I’m so pleased.

My Garden

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The garden is strange this year. ( I always say that, but it seems different every year. ) This year the tomatoes are ripening much earlier. Usually I harvest most of them in the fall when they are still green and put them under my bed to ripen. This year, most of them are ripe now, very tasty and sweet.

The cucumber plants have each given me two cukes through the whole summer (and yes, they have the same bite marks from the wild rabbits as last year). Right at the end of the runner, is a new tiny blossom so I have some hope of another cucumber, but not for a while.

What is happening in your garden?