Originally Posted by R I C H

We tried to grow all sorts of fruit and veg; potatoes, runner beans, beetroot, carrots, zucchini, garlic, pears, apples, peaches, cherries and melons. We encountered issues in the countryside where we had acreage, and wildlife proved impossible to control (bears ate the fruit, deer enjoyed the veggies and squirrels/chipmunks/gophers helped themselves to everything). In a slightly more urban setting, though on the periphery to Crown Land, we still had deer problems, but it was the cost of irrigating that was prohibitive. Kamloops summers require a huge amount of water to keep any sort of garden alive, and once we were reliant on city water supplies with a meter, the veggie garden consumed way more $ in water than the cost of purchasing from a fruit and veg stand or grocery store.

Originally Posted by Atlantic Xpat

We grow in both raised beds that I built a couple of years back, a vegetable patch & a greenhouse. We're rather late at starting this year due to too much other stuff going on & will be planting in all of those places this weekend. Given that a week ago we had a dusting of snow on the ground and that night time temps still get perilously close to freezing we're probably not too far behind schedule for the outside planting at least. Short growing season in this part of the world.

We've had success with spuds, too many tomatoes to eat, peas and sometimes broccoli. Corn has done well in the greenhouse but the wind is a problem outside. Truth to tell the effort in growing 6 heads of corn wasn't probably worth it except to educate the kids on where corn actually comes from! Carrots are straightforward enough as well. Strawberries have been a bit hit and miss - the birds get a good feed, we don't!

Originally Posted by Oakvillian

We've been very successful with peas, runner beans and cucumbers. I built a frame of 2x2 posts and made a mesh of twine for them to climb up - more cost effective (and frankly less ugly) than a lot of the commercially available climbing frames, and the fact that the edible bits are some way off the ground discourages the rabbits and chipmunks from destroying them before we were ready to harvest. We were also inundated with butternut squash one year - the plant spread much more widely than we'd expected, and while the squashes were excellent (we kept some in the cold room for most of the winter, after making and freezing a huge batch of soup with the first lot) they did rather take over the space and crowd out some of the other veggies. Shallots, garlic, and a selection of herbs are pretty much a given, too - the onions and garlic are usually planted in among the roses, as rumour has it they are good companion plants to keep the bugs away from the rose flowers (I don't know that it actually makes a lot of difference, to be honest).

Tomatoes and strawberries were a little less successful - the few fruits that we got were delicious, but the bushiness of the cherry tomato plants and the low-to-the-ground-ness of the strawbs meant that critters got there before we did, more often than not.

We did potatoes for several years, until one year when a family of rats decided that the potato bed would be an awesome place to build a nest. My OH's disgust at unearthing spuds and getting a handful of baby rats instead has rather put us off trying that again any time soon!

I don't think we've ever quite managed to get timings right for carrots - we either plant to late, or forget to thin out in time, or whatever, but by first frost we've had a small quantity of edible roots and a whole load of tiny stringy things that wouldn't even grace the most nouvelle-cuisine of micro-salads. We'll keep trying - one year will get it right.

I'm envious of the Lower Mainland-ites talking about harvesting leeks in late winter. You'd need a jack-hammer to do that here

edit to add: one year the chipmunks left us a few tomatoes. This was one day's crop in around 2010, I think

Originally Posted by HGerchikov

We have successfully grown hot peppers, zuchini, zuchetta, beans, peas, cucumber, tomatoes, arugula, radishes, potatoes, rhubarb, kolrabi , strawberries, raspberries and various herbs, less successful with cabbage, lettuce and carrots. This year we have all of the above planted plus an additional 50 fruit trees (apples, pears, apricots, pawpaw, persimmon, cherries and plums), asparagus, 150 raspberry canes and 300 Haskap plants, plus sea buckthorn and chokeberries. I suspect we are going to have some very fat deer and raccoons. We grow most veggies from seed in raised beds.

Originally Posted by HGerchikov

BTW do you remember Mrs Almost Canadian helping me out with some tips about training our pup to herd. Turns out we needn't have worried, he is terrified of the ducks and the ducks know it, so all we need to do is stand where we want them to go and call the dog to us and the ducks chase him. It works.

Originally Posted by bats