Closing Out 2016

The blog now has a new tab, Photo Gallery, showing all our photographs from 2014, 2015 and 2016. Starting in 2017, we will load photographs to the blog as we take them.

Under Weather, all the monthly weather reports for 2016 have been added.

Under Documents, I have added our Riel House 2016 Year End Report.

And finally, a big thank you to our Secret Santa and her Elf who delivered flax straw with which we will smother the weeds in Beds 29-30 next year.

Best wishes to everyone for the coming year. Only thirteen weeks until we start again!

Secret Santa assisted by Elf-Driver-Photographer

Harvest 2016

12 Boxes of Potatoes plus Beets, Carrots, Onions, Squash, Pumpkins.

This morning, Parks Canada took our harvest to Winnipeg Harvest.  We contributed 122 pounds of beets, carrots, onions, squash and pumpkins plus 629 pounds of potatoes for a total of 751 pounds. Our best ever year:

       2013      265.0 pounds
       2014      501.0 pounds
       2015      455.5 pounds
       2016      751.0 pounds!

Here's a quick summary of what worked and what needs improvement:

Kitchen Garden 

• Our Danvers Half Long carrots were ~okay but somewhat on the small size. Next year, perhaps we will plant a larger variety. As you know, the problem with carrots is planting and thinning the small seeds - the issue being that we are bounded by the patience of our volunteers.
• The heritage tomatoes were also ~okay. Not as prolific as prior years - could be the weather. Tomatoes were picked during the summer for visitors and staff. Consequently, we did not send any to Winnipeg Harvest this year.
• Potatoes in the Kitchen Garden were sparse. Could be the soil; could be the shade.
• Asparagus is slow. We cut perhaps five spears in the spring. We added more crowns this year. Perhaps next year is when the asparagus will flourish.

Produce Garden

• Mangels were a bust. Probably rabbits finished them off. We found only one plant and there was no root.
• Beets were ~fine. I suspect that rabbits ate the majority. What we were able to harvest looked good. Next year we can plant them more densely.
• We tried eggplant, but rabbits decimated all plants and our seeds should have been started in pots earlier. We changed those beds over to potatoes straight away. No, we will not plant eggplants next year. Also, eggplants are not 1886-heritage.
• White onions did quite well. I expect we will plant more beds and space the onions closer together. Very good, onions. Thanks.
• Multiplier onions, frankly, I just do not understand. They looked the same in the fall as when we planted them in spring. More, but the same size. It seems very labour intensive to peel these little things in order to make pickled onions. Not for next year.
• Our wheat looks good; we will cut it and bind it in sheaves but only for decoration.
• Corn has been a bust this year. The four beds of sweet corn were decimated by raccoons about two weeks ago - we harvested perhaps three cobs of corn from all four sweet corn beds. The heritage corn has yet to change colour. Also It looks like birds or squirrels were culprits in all the corn beds. There will be very few heritage cobs this year for decoration.
• The Scarlet Runner Beans and Acorn Squash that partner with corn in the Three Sisters plantings also under performed. Need to keep trying here. Better luck next year.
• Potatoes. Yes! Potatoes did very well. We planted three fifty pound bags and harvested 629 pounds of potatoes - a one to four ratio. In addition, we rejected three five-gallon pails of potatoes damaged by slugs(?), wire worms and/or voles(?). Also, our heritage Pink Fir potatoes did very well in the Produce Garden despite under performing in the Kitchen Garden. 
• Pickling cucumbers did fine. These were harvested throughout the summer so none went to Winnipeg Harvest. It would be interesting to have a pickling demonstration at Riel House where attendees could pickle cucumbers straight from the garden.
• Some squashes and pumpkins in the wild Bed 29 did very well. But typically only one fruit per vine. I suspect some potatoes may still be lurking in Bed 29.

Next year, we may consider multiple harvests during the summer instead of focusing on a single event. 

Next year. There is always next year.

Virginia Creeper

Anything you want to soften or hide can be addressed with a dose of Virginia Creeper. Let's hide the outhouse (it's actually the watering shed):

Before

After

We relocated three Virginia Creepers that were growing out of place in the Produce Garden and planted them on the south facing wall of the watering shed. They will attach themselves to the wood, grow up the structure and disguise it. We have also planted Virginia Creeper around most of the posts of the south fence to distract the viewer from the fact that the fence is leaning.

The future maintenance task will be to cut off any creepers that start to travel across the ground as the vines will easily smother lawns and trees if you are not rigorous in containing them. 

Gardeners must eventually learn to say "No!" when things step out of line; otherwise there is no garden.

Medical Procedure: Adding More Native Plants to the Gardens

Holes in the Garden

Last year we planted native plants in both the Parking Lot Garden and the Road Garden. The plants have done very well, but a couple of things have become apparent. As you can see in the above picture, some areas were under planted, others suffered abuse from over weeding, rabbits and vehicles parking on them. Time to fill in the holes.

We purchased plugs of Prairie Dropseed, Heart Leafed Alexander, Dotted Blazing Star, Black-eyed Susan, Wild Bergamot, Blue Vervain and Meadow Blazing Star.

Below are plugs of Heart Leafed Alexander about to be inserted in the Road Garden. 

Plugs for the Road Garden

And I do mean inserted. 

Instead of ripping open the soil with a trowel and disturbing the fungus and bacteria that promote good soil structure and plant growth, the best way is just to slit open the earth (a hori hori knife works best), insert the plug. and push the mulch back around the opening. After you get the hang of this, planting proceeds quickly - we planted two hundred plugs in just under two hours.

I relate this process to an angioplasty - no need to rip open the patient's chest just to insert a 2 mm cardiac stent.

hori hori knife

Peonies

Peonies with Riel House in the background

Peonies overlooking the entrance to the Riel House National Historic Site