My garden in August

As we enter into the harvest season things are not slowing down! I will next post an entry I wrote a month ago and neglected to post!

In the meantime, my two zucchini plants are producing as much as my house hold can handle. I am not going to plant more than two a year ever again unless circumstances change dramatically!

I am also observing many thread-waist wasps in my garden. These are a good sign as they prey on problem insects and keep them under control. I also saw a couple of
Pelecinus polyturator. From http://web.ncf.ca/bf250/gardenhym.html

"This wasp thrusts its ovipositor into soil to detect a grub larva, lays one egg on each. The wasp larva burrows into the beetle larva, killing it, then scavenges remains and pupates there in soil."
Gruesome yet effective. I did not get any pics unfortunately but this is from the above site:





I have put in my autumn planting: arugula, black seeded Simpson lettuce, Bloomsdale spinach, Bright Lights swiss chard, and some beets. I seeded the Occu-pee with white clover as a green manure.






The zucchini still going strong





As are the potatoes: they were a good use of not-quite-finished compost in these raised beds.





It looks like it's going to be another good grape year




My front wildflower garden has really come into its own:















Do you ever wonder, "what the heck is permaculture anyway?"? I am giving a workshop tomorrow (August 23) and the Thursday after, August 30 at Just Us cafe on Spring Garden road at 7:00 pm titled What Is Permaculture. Admission is free. Tell your friends.

A post from July that never got posted

the news reports say we might get rain today but after several false alarms in the last six weeks or so since it last rained, I am being cautious.

Every morning this week I've gone outside and picked a pint of raspberries for my breakfast. My berry bushes are going berzerk, and so are the ones in the wild. This is a combination of the fact that I fertilize them a little more than the average bear (finished compost, several times a season) and the fact that they are under stress from the drought, preparing to send forth as many seeds as possible in case they don't make it. A tiny scrap of genetic instructions, some food, maybe some compounds to fend off invaders, but that's all, and the seed is off, to lie in the soil and wait, sometimes for decades.










I am continuing my project of recording how much water we use in my household per month. I'm afraid that since I've had to resort to irrigating my beds, the numbers will be off the chart. The container gardens in particular require a lot of water, almost every day. I have a lot of container gardens because they make use of some of my enormous driveway. I always save the cookwater from potatoes, pasta or beans for my garden but now I've started to save greywater from doing my dishes too. It is an incentive to use less of it when one has to carry it all to the garden several times a day!

I read an aricle in the Cape Breton post on Sunday that got me thinking. The article reported on a lack of harvesting workers in Prince Edward Island, and that farmers were downgrading the size of their fields to account for the food going to waste. The article (I will try to get the title) goes on to interview a farmer who says that people have no ambition today and that he knew of some children who made $400-$700 a week picking strawberries. This comment is made at a time as an announcement that people on employment assistance will have to take picking and harvesting jobs to continue benefits.

Is this how we are going to make these jobs attractive? By saying that they are for children and those on benefits? In my opintion it continues the negetive public attitude toward farmers and producers which I suspect have been handed down since feudal times; that the only ones growing food are those who are of too low social status to find an alternative. Traditionally the province of migrant, possibly unpapered workers, picking was relegated to the status of virtual slavery in James Howard Kunstlers dystopic novel, World Made by Hand.

Can I propose that picking be elevated from the work of serfs to a civic duty? That's our food going to waste. Saving it is an honourable thing. Perhaps if we all were expected to help out for one weekend of the year this wouldn't be an issue. And maybe our kids would learn a little something about local food on the way.