For more updates follow me on instagram @moonsnailmicrostead
The heat is finally here with temperatures pushing 30°C this week! The garden as sprung to new heights in the last couple of weeks with the tomatoes and squash setting lots of fruit. I am especially excited about my Blue Hubbard, Kabocha Squash and Galeux d’Eysines Pumpkins all of which are producing lots of flowers.
The Blue Hubbard was a new discovery last year when I was gifted a squash in the fall. the flesh made for an incredible curry and a soup and apparently it stores very well.
Kabocha, I haven’t grown before and though I only have one plant, its leading the way with more than 5 fruit looking like they have set. This is a Japanese squash I believe and I’m excited to see how it tastes.
The Galeux d’Eysines Pumpkin is a French Heirloom Variety that I have grown once before. Previously I got my seedlings out very late and I only got two very small pumpkins, but the taste was exceptional and it is a super creamy pumpkin that has both savoury and sweet notes. I like it because it’s also very beautiful, covered in little warty bumps that are caused by sugar swelling in the skin. they store exceptionally well, I had one that I ate 8 months after harvesting and it was perfect!
This year, I am also growing a giant pumpkin that I hope will set at least one fruit that will swell to a size never seen before at the fall fair! Yes friends, I am going to enter the vegetable contest at the Powell River Fall Fair this year. So far, all I have is male flowers open, but this morning I spotted a small female on one of the vines, so I will be keeping an eye on that over the next couple of days and hope that there is a male flower to pollinate it when it eventually opens.
I purchased some melon starts for fun from a local farming coop that was selling of it’s excellent, however I think they might have been mislabeled because the fruit is prickly and looks more like pickling cucumbers to me. However, I am not unhappy about this, as I am almost out of the epic batch of dill pickles I made two years ago. The more the merrier.
The tomatoes are still green and its the first week in July. No fruit on the Roma’s yet, but the sun blush cherry and the generic salad tomato’s are laden. I’ve been diligent this year in picking off the suckers on the plants and the results are evident. Way more fruit than in previous years.
Some seeds arrived very late from California: A Y ellow California Champaign tomato variety that Alex is desperate to eat again. We have two seedlings that made it into the beds, now their greatest hurdle is to survive the more advanced plants around them.
I’ll be building up the potato mounds again today, and hoping for a good yield on these, as they too went in late. I had to prioritize what I plated out based on the seedlings being pot bound, as I built the beds, which was done over several weeks. Overall I have ended up with 264 square feet of growing space, all in raised beds as the earth under the lawn is gravel and sand.
This is more than enough space for producing plenty of summer food and extra for canning and storage, however, the goal is to also give excess to the local food banks and community pantries which are in greater need than ever with the average food bill having gone up 22-25% since last year.
I’m incredibly grateful for the freedom to be able to grow my own food and the space to do so. I respectfully acknowledge that I live and work on the Tla’amin Nation territories. I am also grateful to God for bringing me to this beautiful place and blessing me with the abundance of this garden.
Grow – Eat – Repeat!
Moon Snail Microstead 