leith

Winter is having a last (we hope) go at some parts of Canada but summer will come soon and we'll be out trying to grow at least something edible. I'm in a part of the country where gardens are already going strong but we and a lot of others especially in western Canada will be facing a hot dry summer again so let's share a few tips.
1. Insects love hot dry weather.This year is already a particularly bad one for bug attacks. Leaf miners have been having a feast on my chard and salad greens especially spinach and corn salad. Oddly enough, they don't seem to go for my lettuce. The only thing that keeps them way is covering the plants with Remy cloth (that thin white fabric used for frost protection). The tent caterpillars that chew everything to tatters have been vanquished from my cherry and plum trees and roses by frequent spraying with BT K (Bacillus thuringiensis strain K which paralyses their gut but is safe for humans).
2. Mulching some kinds of plants is OK but not if they're subject to slug attacks. Anything nice and juicy such as bush beans as they pop up is a target. Grass clippings are good mulch for trees but can be a haven for slugs.
3. Planting things that are at least somewhat drought hardy helps. Just about any kind of peas (shell, snap, snow) stand up well to less frequent watering and can provide a bit of shade for less hardy things. They tolerate cold soil and can be planted earlier than most things.
4. Unlike the recommendation made in a recent CBC article, tomatoes and peppers are not drought hardy. About the worst thing you can do is let your tomatoes start to wilt then give them a good soaking. You'll get blossom end rot due to calcium deficiency especially in the medium and larger varieties - the end away from the stem turns black and the whole fruit is ruined.

Suggestions:
1. Grow bush or pole beans in pots (plastic or ceramic). Keep them well watered and away from slugs. Fun to try - Asian beans with pods nearly two feet long. Great if you have limited space or just a patio or balcony. Go vertical.
2. Slugs don't go for tomatoes so OK to grow in sunny beds. Smaller ones such as Red Alert mature faster. My favourite technique is to grow New Zealand spinach between tomatoes. NZ spinach is a bit slow to germinate (soak seed capsules in warm water) but a great ground cover/live mulch, spreads quickly, is better to eat than regular spinach and doesn't bolt in heat.
3. Aromatic herbs seem to be unpalatable to insects and slugs. So far, the beasties don't touch my dill or coriander so I have these interspersed with more susceptible things. Dill germinates easily, grows fast and self seeds even in colder areas.

So what tips do you have to make going (and staying) green a bit easier?

Stinkypup

Nice tips Leith
If you don't want slugs come to the Okanagan! That is my tip
I never see them- occasional snails but they aren't a problem. I can grow Hostas here and they look amazing without getting eaten. I used to grow pole beans in the UK and loved them though probably not enough moisture and too much work needed here in the Okanagan.
I have used a fair bit of landscape membrane covered with gravel and then planted Lavender, Russian sage, hardy geraniums and these areas are then attractive, but low maintainence and don't need weeding. If I was really good I would be completely xeriscaping with minimal water but I inherited a garden which had a load of stuff that needs water. It is a terraced but steep garden and the original owner had a huge water feature with a stream running down in multiple waterfalls to a small pond at the bottom. It is way too dry to reinstate this which is a shame as I love water in the garden. I will have to make do with a view of the lake
If one wants to grow roses well, move to Leith's area out West, they grow here but not that well and then get eaten by the bloody deer!

Oink

So is yourJacuzzi hot tub geothermal heated then?

Stinkypup

Sadly breaking wind in the bath tub is the closest I get to a jacuzzi

Novocastrian

One day you'll discover that you are one of those slugs.

Stinkypup

Bob

Good thing to put the deer off is a scattering of human hair...bit minging, but if you ask at the local barbers for a handful...

That, or dump a large lump of salt on your neighbours garden, so they go lick that instead of going into your garden

Stinkypup

I think that I would prefer chomped on roses. Salt lick is a good idea- new neighbours are noisy weekend partying Albertans Maybe I should just attract more bears to the garden to keep the deer at bay..

Siouxie

.... and the noisy neighbours

Stinkypup

They would probably try and shoot them

dbd33

We're not a green household. One cannot really be green and eat well unless one moves to France, otherwise the air miles on the wine and cheese knock the idea of green living on the head. That said, eating as well as one can given the location means eating fresh produce and we do what we can with that (note the royal we here, I just fetch and carry).

The pictures show this year's vegetable facilities. The straw bale garden is pretty sustainable being made of straw with T posts from the snow fence and scrap pieces of fence wire as climbing frames. The raised beds have visible garlic and onions and, beyond them, the structure is the chicken house; chickens are pretty eco-friendly.

Straw bales worked well last year one can grow all the green and orange things English people eat in straw bales, as well as potatoes. There's no tiling involved and, when the season is over, there's the compost for the flower beds.

Bob

You don't have to add anything to the straw bales? That's really a neat idea

dbd33

There's a period of a couple of weeks of sprinkling fertilizer on the top of the bales and hosing it in, then the plants go in. This is an earlier version with potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, lettuce and stuff growing the bales. Potatoes, and other root vegetables, work very well because you just pull the bale apart and there they are.

I'd think straw bales would be ideal in an urban environment as they could sit on concrete.

Bob

That's really cool!

I'll have to give that a go next summer I think...though getting the hay bale might be the challenge...well in the back of our car at least

Spuds and carrots, really don't seem to do well in our yard, so this would be great to try. Tomatoes usually grow like a weed and the lettuce get eaten by the bunnies, what ever I seem to do to try and stop them.

dbd33

Here straw bales are available singly from garden centres, feed mills and the like, for $6 each or by the palette of 27 (a strange number but maybe that's 2 metric dozens) for something more like $3 each. 27 bales would be a challenge for a green vehicle such as a Smart car or bicycle.