Monday, October 28, 2013

I cannot believe that we are still gardening on Vancouver Island.


Osakazuki Japanese Maple.


Sugar Ann peas blooming.


Potato cage repurposed to mulch and compost leaves.


I cut off the strawberries and they've popped back up and are all flowering.


Chilean guava fruit.


Extra curly parsley.


Lavender and fuchsia cuttings pushed against the south side of the greenhouse for winter.


HUGE horse manure pile tarped for winter.


These little Brussel Sprouts are almost an inch across. Think I'll get any to eat?

                                    What I got accomplished this week:
-Washed all of the used pots that have been tucked away for two seasons. Big job.
-Lettuce pulled up. Rather than compost I just left it on the soil. 
-Cleaned up the fountain and put it away. 
-Last of the garlic planted and a bit of manure spread. 
-Started to pull the orchid out of its pot. It is so packed with roots, I couldn't get it out. Then I noticed...it didn't have just the one new Keiki {new shoot} it had many. I stopped yanking on the poor thing, removed my foot from the edge of the pot and dragged it into the greenhouse. It weighed about thirty pounds. I am going to have a massive amount of flowers this year. 


4 comments:

Mark Willis said...

All very impressive for this time of year - but the MOST impressive thing is that pile of horse poo! Why not make a Hot-Bed with it and grow some pineapples or something really exotic?!

Gardeningbren said...

Is that what the new shoots are called! I know so little about orchids.

You got a lot done Erin. I haven't planted my garlic yet..blush...everything is still growing here, with no hard frost yet. Quite amazing!

Erin said...

Pineapples. I like how your mind works. I am going to make a pile of it somewhere next year to grow pumpkins and squash. I haven't had luck with them so far.

Erin said...

I've been growing orchids off and on since I was about 20. I bought my greenhouse to grow orchids. There were no trees here back then, so the greenhouse got too hot for them. So I painted the whole thing white and that helped a lot. I can still only grow certain types. The one that I have in the greenhouse is called a Cymbidium. They are a cool growing orchid. A few years back I put it outside for the summer. Got sick of it and in the he fall put it in our green recycle bucket. It had split the pot, so the roots were exposed. We had several frosts and I couldn't believe it was still alive. I took it broken pot and all and stuck it in the GH. In February it sent out several Keiki and had about 50 flowers. So now I put it outside for the summer and back in in the fall. Amazing, isn't it.