Organic Rose Hip tea and jelly

My rose bush is finally big enough to produce an amazing harvest of rose hips!  I am very excited as I love rose hip tea, and want to make some rose hip jelly. 

After the first frost, I will be harvesting these lovely fruits, and some of them will be dried in preparation for my winter supply of tea.  The rest of them will be used to make some wonderful jelly.  If it turns out I will let you know and provide my recipe.

Aren't they gorgeous??

Talk about eco-friendly!

I spoke the other day about needing to find someone with a tiller to work up our garden. Well, I could not find one, so my dear husband decided to turn the soil by hand with a shovel. It took him about 3 hours, taking numerous breaks (it was very hot and humid out). I must say, he felt very proud of himself, the sence of accomplishment he felt when he was done.

I suggested to him that since he does not want to use straw this year to help keep the weeds down, he will have to do this on a regular basis, probably as often as every other day. Especially if it rains!

We are hoping that there will be garden centers open today, even though it is the long weekend here in Ontario and most places will be closed. It would be wonderful to plant the garden this year!

Flowers Galore!

Just a few pics of my flowers that I took yesterday afternoon, after the rain stopped.

May Long Weekend!

Woo hoo! It is the long weekend! All winter long I have been dreaming of this weekend, making plans for our garden and what new things I will be doing with my vast flowerbeds.

Now, it has been a bit of a slow start. I found out about 2 weeks ago thata the gentleman I normally get to till my garden sold his equipment so no longer is available. I have been searching for someone else, but no luck so far. I did find a wonderful little tracter tiller, from the 70's I believe, but the asking price is $3,500. That is a bit steep for my budget. I do believe my husband will be talking to the owner and see if he would rent it to us for a couple hours though.

For the last couple months we have been weeding the flower gardens and they are looking stunning! The tulips are almost over as well as the daffodils, but there are a few hardy ones still hanging in. The irises are huge and putting out hundreds of flowers, and they smell so sweet. The blue (and some pink!) forget-me-nots are all over the place. Filling in some big empty spaces as I had hoped. Little pansies, wood lilies, coral bells etc are popping up here and there, and the lupins have migrated to a few other locations. The lilies-of-the-valley have acclimatized very well to their new spots as well as the bleeding hearts.

My lilies are growing up straight and stong and it looks like there will be an abundance of flowers for me this year.

Off to talk to the person who owns that little tractor tiller now, wish me luck! (Dear hubby decided it is up to me *le sigh*) As I have a lot of compost all ready to put in, I need to get things rolling.

Have a great weekend!

Flower beds

It is the time of year for my husband and I try to decide just what type of seeds I am going to buy and sow in the flower beds. The plan is to to a fair bit of rearranging the spring bulbs and other perennials, add more mulch, sow some seeds and get the wood chip mulch. So far, I have ordered some pansies, sweet williams, and aster seeds. My plan is to sow some this fall, and see if any of them come up in the spring. Never having done it this way before, I am not too certain how that will turn out.

I did make an order for some bulbs. I am getting more daffodils, tulips and some mountain lilies. I also ordered some more early snow glories. I do so love bulbs!


One thing that must be done, is I have a large number of clumps of sea thrift that has grown past their optimal size (in my opinion) and I would like to spread them out over all 5 flower beds. They are very interesting plants, as the root system grows in a spiral down to a point. So sometimes when you devide them, you end up with little tiny fluffs of "grass" with a curly pig-tail shaped root. I do lose some over winter as a rule, but most of them survive quite nicely. They do not mind too much salt during the winter months but too much will kill them, so I ensure they are at least 1-1.5 feet from the sidewalks.

I tried in early summer to devide and transplant some carpet (spring) phlox after they were finished blooming. That did not seem to go over very well, and by the looks of it, I lost most of them. Sad, since there was two very nice bi-coloured ones, in white and pink. This time I am going to choose one of my largest ones, and take out some pieces of it to transplant, leaving the main plant where it is. I am hoping that doing it in the fall will work.



Here is to hoping for a cooler weekend so that I may be able to get a fair bit accomplished!

Too much rain?

This summer has been a very wet one in so many ways. Raining almost every three days or so, and for the last couple of weeks, it has been almost daily. I did lose some of my raspberries (about 1/3 of them) due to the over-abundance of rain, but I did not have too many lost due to molds. More like, they got too ripe too fast, and fell before I could get to them.

The birds and the bugs have been able to feast quite nicely! At least this time I did not end up with the little black spots that I had last year. Of course, the season for my berries (being the everbearing kind) is not over yet. The next group will start to ripen over the next few weeks and will continue until frost.

As you have seen in prior posts my volunteer zuchinni has been doing very well, and has actually provided some really huge zuchinnis. Mind you, those we allow to grow just to see how big they will get. I do not use them for cooking or freezing for winter. It is quite difficult to time it just right to be able to pick them at the perfect size. Now, the ones my husband planted by seeds are quickly catching up in size and are producing very well indeed.

The leeks are growing huge, and the onions are also doing well. My tomatoes are a mixed lot, of at least 5 different varieties, and some of them are doing better than others. The cherry tomatoes are doing well, the romas too. The beefsteak kind are not doing so good though. Lots of blight on these and I am afraid I will not get any out of those plants. I may have to buy a bushel or two from a local farmer in order to have enough for winter preserves.

As I do not use any pesticides, or herbicides, it has cause some difficulties in preventing the mold/rot on the tomatoes. Hopefully it will not affect my 2nd batch of raspberries.

My peppers are starting to produce as well, and I got two nice little peppers so far.

Organic garden update

We have had such interesting weather the last little while. It has been much cooler than normal, with only a few really hot days. It had made me a bit worried about what effect it would have on my garden.

Apparently, not too much of a bad effect! My raspberry canes are loaded with berries.

My tomatoes (all varieties) are producing lovely green tomatoes, and more flowers are showing up almost daily.

My leeks are doing very well indeed.

My onions are going to be spectacular!

One surprise though, what I thought was a volunteer squash is in fact volunteer zuchinni! In fact it is monsterously huge. I could not find someone available to take a picture of to show the size of it, so I will try to explain using my raspberry canes. Now these canes are growing upwards of 7 - 8 feet high. And you know that the compost bin is about 3 feet high. Some of the leaves are over a foot in diameter!!

Isn't it wonderful what can be done in a garden that does not get exposed to chemicals, fertilizers, pesticides or herbicides?

Fresh Peas!

Saturday I had been able to get a large quantity of fresh peas from a local Amish farmer. In fact, I got about 24 litres of them. It took over 4 hours of shelling for me to finish, and even though I gave a friend a 3 litre basket for his kids, I still ended up having 10 bags of peas (2 cups per bag).

I also shredded a bunch of zuchinni for winter. I froze them in bags of 2 cups each, so that when I do my baking I will be able to just grab a bag. Normally I shred then freeze on cookie sheet in little one cup mounds, however, since I was given a box of small bags from my local butcher the last time I had purchsed 100 pounds of hamburger I chose to use those instead.

At the same farm, I got some of these wonderful wax (yellow) beans. They made a great addition to the pastry covered shepherds pie I made for dinner. The rest I blanched and froze for winter.

To blanch beans for freezing, you must choose fresh, firm vegetables, wash and prepare them the way you want them. I chose to just snap them in approximately 1 inch pieces. Then, put them in a wire rack or in a cheesecloth bag, and dip them in a large pot of boiling water for 30 seconds. Then, put them in a second large pot of boiling water, wait for it to return to a full boil, and time them for exactly 3 minutes.

Next, take them out, and put immediately into a bath of ICE water, to lock in the flavours. Drain, spread out on a cookie sheet and place in the freezer to surface freeze. After approximately an hour, shake them loose and place in freezer bags.

Never try to blanch more than one pound at a time, or over cook them, as they will loose their flavour or go really mushy.

First zuchinni and raspberries

On Friday evening my husband had gone out to the garden to do some weeding and noticed that the first zuchinni were ready! We had been watching them very closely over the last week, hoping to catch them at the perfect size. Well, we missed it by a day I guess since there were some big ones (over 8 inches long, 3 inches wide), too long for just slicing and eating but perfect for shredding for winter. He did manage to get 3 that were the perfect size (under 5 inches long and about an inch wide).

I have been eating small handfulls of raspberries for the last week and that night he was able to find about 2 cups full! What a wonderful treat it was. I ate some for a treat that evening and the rest for my Saturday morning breakfast.

Hybrid Lilies

As I have mentioned before, I have a couple spots that are enclosed by concrete that I have planted some lilies. I started with a dark red (almost burgandy) border lilies and put in a couple of the oriental star gazer and dizzy lily bulbs. Over the last couple of years, they have hybridized themselves.

Original lilies in 2006

Red border lilies (oriental)

Stargazer and Dizzy Lilies

Here is what I had come up last year.

It is a bit hard to tell, but it is more of a brighter red.

Note the pure white ones on the left. The only bit of colour is the deep dark red stamen tips.

The yellow and red ones are quite striking.

Above is a pumpkin orange one.

Note the yellow one with interesting bit of green in the petals.

Above the yellow and green one is a deep dark burgandy one.

I wonder what other colours are going to show up?

I will be tagging and transplanting the different ones, and moving them to seperate areas of my flower beds and see if they come up true next summer.

Adventures in Organic Gardening Part 7

Hello! I have finally caught up with this year, and it is now time to re-cap what things I do to be more of an organic (smart) gardener.

1) I use straw to help keep moisture in, and weeds down in my vegetable garden. This seems to help keep some bugs away too, as I have very few in my garden. The annoying ones anyway. I also till in the straw and plants from the previous year each spring, and this helps aerate my soil and provide much needed nutrients.

2) I use marigolds to help keep pests away and to give a little colour to the garden.

3) I lay down little tents of newspaper to attract slugs. Each morning I remove the slugs that liked their little tents, and if it has rained, I will throw the newspaper into the compost bin and lay down new ones in the evening. Little logs or pieces of wood will work for this too.

4) I add a little lime to my soil when it seems to be too acidic, to sweeten it.

5) I use my own compost made up of kitchen vegeatable scraps (no fats, or meat byproducts!), dryer lint, human and cat hair, shredded newspaper, lawn clippings, some leaves (not every year, too acidic) coffee grounds, egg shells etc, rather than commercial chemical fertilizers.

These squash are volunteers from my compost!


NOTE: never put weeds that have gone to seed, pine needles, or pine cones, or diseased plants into your compost. You will end up just creating a lovely environment for encouraging those problems to continue.

6) I use natural woodchips from my local township as a mulch for my flower beds.

7) I also do little things like adding an overipe banana to the soil at the base of my roses rather than a chemical fertilizer.

8) If I find I have pesky bugs on my plants I will use a solution of water and dishsoap and spray the plants. This does work to deter those pests!

9) I use a cold frame built using left over renovating supplies (wood and heavy plastic). If I get frost warnings, I also will use the plastic 2 litre pop bottles (if I have any as we are not pop drinkers) as little mini green houses or peg newspaper on the wire tomato cages over tender plants.

10) I will use newspaper or flat pieces of wood to protect plants from direct sunlight if it is during a drought season or if they are sensitive to too much sun.

11) I collect seeds from my various vegetables or flowers to save money. I will even move my bulbs if they end up creating hybrids so that I can save them and have them continue that particular colour. This has happened with my tulips and my lilies. I have some very interesting colours, such as a pumpkin orange or almost black in my lilies now.

12) I use retaining walls to help keep the top soil from eroding and keep the rain water directed to where I want it to go.

Here are some more pictures of my garden and flower beds this year.

First year my yucca plant decided to flower! All around the base is a lovely patch of catnip.

Purple Glomeratus. Hummingbirds and clearwing hummingbird moths love these.

Retaining wall for driveway.

Basement entryway and mudroom.

I do so hope you have all enjoyed my journey! I certainly did! It is by no mean over yet. I plan on continuing to learn, emplement and share things as the years go on.

I am also very close to having my self-seeding, low maintenance flower beds.

Adventures in Organic Gardening Part 6

Year 2008. The year of the Big Projects.

Since my husband had lost an entire 2 seasons of major projects the year before, he wanted to sit down with me early in the year and discuss just what it was we wanted to accomplish. So, to that effect, in February we got out the notepad, pencil, and ruler and got started.

First, I wanted to say that the year before, it was the first of June that he was injured, so all we managed to accomplish before things went horribly wrong, was putting in the big jacks to straighten the walls of our collapsing garage (it used to be a carriage house a long time ago) and rip out the rotten bottom boards. A friend of ours had helped put up really heavy plastic in late fall so that the wind, ice and snow could not get in over winter.

So... The plans for 2008 was as follows:

1. He wanted to extend the driveway from being just in front of the garage to continuing between the garage and the house and ending behind the garage. Now that would take away about half of my garden (which had been approximately 45 feet by 25 feet). He wanted to put up a retaining wall running from the back wall of the house, and curving around the end of the driveway. Kind of looking like a J with the bottom curve coming towards the back of the garage. This would serve a few purposes. Ice and snow would not have a chance to build up in front and between the garage and house, or collect in the garage. Spring melt would not allow the water to collect there, instead he wanted to have a gentle sloping grade leading towards the garden. The driveway would be built up with gravel.

2. Evesdroughs. Neither the house nor the garage had any. The downspouts would go into a plastic tube that would run underground and end in the garden. This would help keep the garden watered, and as there are always rain storms that are very heavy and quick, this would allow some of the rainwater to still be absorbed by the garden. In addition to this, the plan was to get at least 2 rain barrels for the front flower beds.

3. The garage. We needed to pour concrete footings, and finish fixing the walls. Also the garage needed to be insulated which would be accomplished by using the vermiculite we had removed from the house when the major house renovations had been done a couple years before. He planned on putting up a false ceiling in the garage to add some storage as well.

4. The old entry into the house needed to be removed, as the boards were rotting and there was a fair amount of rotting concrete there. It was a major source of heat loss in winter months, and we wanted to use it as a mudroom. The plan was to remove the old one, dig down deeper (level with basement floor) put in a concrete pad, and walls.

5. Remove the old concrete step by the kitchen door (which was directly in front of an old window with a leak) and put in a new concrete pad there.

6. Extend the narrow flowerbed that ran alongside the walk beside the house, and put up a retaining wall to help avoid loss of topsoil and land erosion. The flowerbed would end up being about 10 feet wide instead of one foot wide.

To make a long story short, all of the above was accomplished (for the most part). The garage was finished except the siding on the walls. The driveway was extended, and gravel added. Probably more would be needed in 2009. The retaining walls for the end of the driveway and for the side flower bed were poured. The evesdroughs were put up, but one more downspout was needed for the one back side (kitchen) and the two downspouts for the garage. The rain barrels were not purchased as of yet. The basement mudroom was poured and roofed. The garden was made into more of a square (pretty much the same size). The compost from the two wire compost bins were used to build up the side flower bed and the garden.

An interesting thing happened while removing the old concrete kitchen doorstep. We found that it was hollow, and cracked around the old basement window. And, there was a very deep cistern under it. So the concrete was broken up and used to fill that cistern and sand was added. We decided to let it settle over winter and spring to see how much more would be needed before building a new one.

Also a small well-like feature was found in the back yard. I am not certain just what it was, but it was lined with brick and there were a couple of really old bottles found in it. So that was also filled in with sand and gravel.

I know that not much of this has anything to do with organic gardening per se, but I do consider it "going green" and recycling of old building materials. Also finding ways to prevent further decay of house, garage and land erosion should count a bit. Plus, with the water being diverted to flower beds and garden helps keep the water use down in the summer months. I rarely had to water the gardens using the township water.



















Removing old kitchen step.




Cistern under old step. Really deep!

Old well-like hole in back yard.




Big mess in the backyard.


















Old basement entryway.





A Garden Toad!



















Flowerbed retaining wall.





Driveway retaining wall.
Also, concrete walls for new basement entry way