July was perfect weather for the sun loving veggies, August saw a few things bolt, but it was nowhere near as hot as Kelowna on the last weekend in July, when Alex and I went to the Okanagan Tattoo Convention!
On our way out of the city, we stopped at a farm stand to get some Okanagan peaches, plumbs, honey, apples, and other bits and pieces that are not available to us on the coast. I was stunned at how affordable all this fresh fruit was, and struck once more by how necessary it has become to produce our own food, when the cost of groceries in our town has gone up by 25% since last year.
Coming home was wonderful, the dogs greeted us like puppies, over excited exuberance on the door step, and cuddles galore.
Out in the garden over tons of cucumbers needed picking and processing into pickles! There were also red tomatoes! The first red tomato went to our friend and house sitter Brittny who texted me to share the details. The first tomato is something I look forward to every year. I’ve stopped buying tomatoes from the store, because they simply don’t measure up flavour wise to the ones you can pick off the vine yourself. They don feel or smell the same. It’s a completely different experience.
It’s now September 3rd and I’ve been weighing everything harvested and so far, we have had 336lbs of food out of the garden. It is astonishing when I think how little I was able to plan what got planted where, because I was building and planting as I went. Next year I will be companion planting which I hoping will increase the yield, and allow us to give even more food away.
The advantage I have in the second year is knowing where the sun falls in the garden which faces east and has several large firs that cast shadow over certain parts of it. The garden boxes are planted in the sunniest area of the yard, but some boxes get more hours of direct sunlight than others. Now I can plan crops for the amount of sun on each bed.
I’m also thinking about doing a three sisters demonstration garden in the front yard, but that will mean building a fence. I’m cool to do that though, as fence building and mending as a skill came up on my Essential Homesteading Skills Survey and I’d like to check another one off the list.
The winter garden is starting to go in. We have broad beans, cabbages, carrots, spinach, kale, Swiss chard and a few other bits and pieces started in the garden, and the goal is to find a way to keep some food growing all year round. While the cold is definitely a challenge, I think the wet weather might be more of a challenge in terms of root rot.
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 