Good Morning from Ghetto Garden

With the growing season coming to close, I have been harvesting a lot of vegetables, and getting the soil ready for the winter season that is approaching fast. I have also been fortunate enough this past summer to make friends with the older chinese neighbour of mine. She is very sweet, and we have been trading produce from our gardens all summer. The other day she gave me the mother load!! half dozen squash, and a bunch of cherry tomatoes and plums. I am so thankful for this, and have been enjoying eating fresh all week!! Also, my tomatoes have been ripening on the vine, usually one or two a day has been turning red, so I have been systematically cutting off the tomatoes and eating fresh salads with Kale from the garden as well. Although the weather wasn't too co-operative this past summer, I would say overall it was a success!!

SALAD: KALE, CUCUMBER, TOMATOES

TOMATOES, PLUMS, SQUASH

Fall has arrived

With the cool days of Fall fast approaching, the Ghetto Garden is in its final stages of growth, and a lot of the veggies are ready for Harvest! It wasn't the best growing season this past summer and because of it, my yields suffered, however, I was still able to eat some fresh vegetables from own backyard. I had some success at the beginning of the season with my romaine lettuce and other herbs , and I still had great success with my arugula, garlic and carrots.

Carrots and Garlic

Garlic Grew taller than me!

no loitering!

Kale

Avocado Tree

Spaghetti Squash

Tomatoes

Summer Harvest.

Due to the sudden burst of nice weather these past 2 weeks, I have witnessed some rapid growth! I have already harvested all my arugula, most of my Romaine Lettuce, Swiss chard, & Lots of carrots.

The individual clove of garlic I planted in september has now grown taller than me!! I am seeing spaghetti squash flowers and tomato flowers, hopefully the nice weather sticks around and I can get some nice tomatoes & squash...

Thyme

Carrots

Romaine Lettuce

Nasturtium

Slow Summer

The weather in Vancouver hasn't been all that 'summer-like' lately and because of it, I haven't been having too much growth, hardly any compared to this time last year... However! My tomato plants I started from seed inside, and then moved outside are looking healthier than ever! as well as my Garlic and Arugula! I have already had half a dozen meals with some fresh Arugula, and is a great compliment!

Indoor Seedlings Long Weekend Transplant

A few weekends ago, I transplanted some seedlings outside, that I sprouted in my kitchen, at first the plants were struggling because I didn't harden them off properly, but they are starting to look healthy again, after the rain we had this weekend; after a week of intense Sunny weather.

I sprouted Squash, Jalepeno Pepper, two kinds of Tomato, and also directly sowed some arugula seeds, carrot seeds and spinach seeds outside. As of this weekend, they are all sprouting and starting to look pretty healthy..

Also, My Garlic has been getting huge lately! it is benefiting from the highly acidic soil from the compost I mixed in with the soil...at least thats the only thing that makes sense, cause they are almost waist high!!

More posts coming soon! Lots of growth with this nice weather!

Happy Earth Day!

Happy Earth Day Everyone! What a nice weekend we have been having here in Vancouver.

Today I noticed the romaine lettuce seeds I had planted last week were starting to sprout. Life is Happening!

I decided that my way of celebrating Earth Day would be to plant some seeds in the garden and hope for the best, even though it has been nice these past few days, its hard to tell if this summer weather is here to stay or not... I decided to lay a black garbage bag overtop afterwards to hopefully grab some heat from the sun and warm up the soil. I planted Carrots here,

& Spaghetti Squash here,

Inside, I have started to try and sprout my tomato plants, some more squash plants, and also a bunch of herbs. I have been keeping them in a shoebox over a heater. with damp soil and it seems to be working so far... I will keep you posted.

Spring Time Reno's

I have decided I need more soil space this year in order to grow larger amounts of the vegetables I had success with last year,
so I have been working on expanding the Garden.

Here are some photos from my progression thus far.

After moving the cinder blocks, I saw my healthy soil from the side, it was full of worms and was light and air filled. I am glad I took the time last year to use proper ingredients and create this healthy mix...


Moving Blocks around and planning what to do with the space I have..


I assembled a skateboard fence that I will use to help support my tomato plants as they grow bigger.


I planned out some stepping stones that will double as working platforms when it comes time to trim, weed, water and care for my plants.


Expansion Complete! time to germinate, sow and watch life grow!