The Crafty Cultivator

Usually I start these monthy update posts as a draft near the beginning of the month with all the intentions of documenting throughout the month. Then I panic-write a bunch of stuff right at the end of the month after not writing anything throughout the month. Not this time. This time, I blinked and its the end of July already. Wasn’t it just May like 2 weeks ago? So here we go with a basic run down of what has happened in July. I’m actually going to start with what has failed so far this year, and then we’ll move onto the more positive side of things.

Fails:

• Butterfly peas- I didn’t start these properly.. OR early enough… so we’ll try again next year.
• Blue Popcorn – I’m sure the slugs LOVED them… I had 9 strong plants, and they were gobbled up promptly. Next year hopefully.
• Onions – Not a total fail… they are just small. I went with onion sets, but I think that next year I will just start some from seed. I get bigger onions that way, and they don’t try to go to seed.
• Tomatoes- Again, not REALLY a fail. More a product of me starting them far too early, and then a cold wet spring.
• Jelly Melon – I was too excited to try this one out that I started it WAY too early. I ran out of room under the grow light because of all the tomatoes, and I didn’t bother doing a second attempt.
• Pumpkin – again, not a total fail. Its been a cold spring, and a cold wet start to summer. My strongest plant is just starting to have some female flowers start to form… so we might get something before winter hits, but I’m not holding my breath given how this year has gone.
• Raspberries – No fault to them, since I did have to rip them out of the ground when the landlord built the new fence. I have had a handful of berries, but nothing like the harvest I was geared up to have after the work I put in last year.
• Crookneck Squash – I was so excited to try this one this year. Again with the slugs. All 3 attempts of starting this one… the slugs took them all out.

Let me give you an example of how behind we are this year compared to 2 years ago: My poppy that I started from seed bloomed right around May 1st in 2018. This year, it bloomed around the beginning of July. But it still bloomed, so It counts as a win.

Wins (so far anyway)

• Zebrune Shallots – I abused these. I didn’t have high hopes for them because I left them in little seedling cells WAY too long. I didn’t thin them out. They dried out a few times because of what a tiny space I had them in. But they have exceeded my expectations. I can’t wait to harvest these.
• All of my peppers (that survived being inside) are amazing. Probably the best year of peppers I’ve had for a while now.
• Tomatoes- These still count as a win. I have tomatoes on nearly every plant that I have growing. The fail mention above is mainly due to the weather.
• Strawflowers- I love these. I think I want to add a few other colours and grow more next year.

HOW is it already August 1… Before I put off getting this posted any longer, I’m just going to go with…

Things are growing well for the most part. My strawflowers are amazing, the Tomatoes are all starting to produce and I even ate one of the Silvery Fir and a few of the Blue Cream berries already.

I’ll try and be more on-top of the August update…. That one should be full of harvesting.

Oh! I also started some Corn Mache, Tatsoi and some Marvel of 4 Seasons lettuce. Hopefully we’ll get some fall greens going this way.