Gardening

This black elderberry (Sambucus canadensis) bloomed for the first time back in June, now is blooming again with a flower cluster bigger than my head lol.

Close-up of the tiny flowers:

Captions are in the imgur post!

(It's loofah's)

I don't know too much about the practicality of his approach but I'm interested in the way he made his own soil and built up the trellis. Cool idea to use them as seed starters.

I've been meaning to turn a good portion of the back yard into a garden for food and food-related plants (herbs) since I moved in..... 4 years ago.

So, really plan on doing it over the winter for next year so I can plant in the spring.

I'm mostly planning "easy" plants: Zuchinni, squashes, onions, carrots, potatoes, broccoli, peas, maybe cucumbers etc.

The question, though, is what's the best way to like, do a raised bed?

Google has helpfully offered up what looks like a non-stop barrage of AI generated nonsense, but I'm figuring some sort of cement blocks for the corners and some un-treated boring white pine (or whatever's cheapest at the local lumber yard) wood for the sides.

The questions are, I guess, is what exactly is the correct thing to buy to fill these since I'm planning on making something like 4 or 5 large raised beds and like, what extremely obvious things am I overlooking that'll result in this being less success and more of a typical my-project-failed?

Captions in the link

Spring year 2 is particularly showy, and indicates at least a degree of self seeding successfully.

A different variety of zucchini feeding on the same microplastics.

Editing to avoid confusion-

Both pictures from today's post are of the same zucchini. This plant is cellmates with the one from the other day seen here: https://walledgarden.xyz/post/225798

The noodles are almost ready

cross-posted from: https://vegantheoryclub.org/post/468132

Bush broke in winds yesterday. But in this advanced age of prothesis injuries which would surely spell certain death can be overcome.

Foreman came to check on me.

With luck, many more winters of these sprays

Captions in imgur link

It's canning time

I live in a place where about 30 cm down is sandstone/mixed sandstone and sand.

I want to buy and plant some established saplings in the 50L-100L pot range and plant them where I recently had to remove some sick/invasive trees.

The area is a raised garden bed with a stacked rock retaining wall, so the ability to get power tools in is quite limited. A jackhammer could probably be brought up there, but that's about the limit. I also need to remove some partially rotted stumps at the same time, however a stump grinder could not to brought to the area :(

Basically how fucked am I? Does anyone having experience in digging in soil like this have tips? Anything from what tools to use to specific technique to avoid wasted effort or hurting yourself. I'm relatively strong for a woman but not a powerlifter or anything so shape your recs around that degree of physical capability.

Captions in imgr post

Friendly reminder for visitors from the fedverse - this is a vegan instance. Don't provide tips on "pest control", aka murder.

So I dug them up and put them in a pot

Captions in imgur link.

The weather was absolutely perfect this weekend. I did a tonne on Monday too, but didn't take many photos.

The link is just to the image dump, all the info is in this post.

I have a very turbulent relationship with growing tomatoes. They have excellent germination and transplant success, and start to grow very well, but if I don't keep on top of them or if there are a lot of bacterial issues, we don't get a lot of fruit. My climate is very hot and humid in the summers.

Here are some links to reputable websites about diagnosing tomato issues:

• Texas A&M Extension Office
• University of Maryland Extension Office
• Ontario Integrated Pest Management - Tomatoes
• Some fertilizer company with really good diagnostic photos - sorry!

Okay, on to my tomatoes. Here are a few photos of their general appearance and growing conditions. These photos are mostly after clean up. I am growing a few varieties of plum tomatoes as well as Super Sweet 100s which are a cherry tomato.

They are woven into the trellis as they grow and we try and keep them airy by removing suckers and pruning. Another priority is keeping the bottoms of the plants clear to minimize slugs.

The following photos are of some of the problems on the plants and what I think they are, based on the above links.

I think this one is pretty clearly powdery mildew. These are "extra" plants in a different bed than the ones I showed above and they are crowded and not pruned well.

I need to make sure they are being watered from the bottom and not splashing the soil.

I'm not sure what the issue is here. The tomatoes are falling off before ripe, but the stem is yellowing. It is starting at the fruit, versus at other parts of the plants like a disease might. If you have any thoughts, please do share!

I think this is blossom drop, which the ontario site says is due to stress. In addition to weather stress, nutrition deficiencies and disease/pests, the plant might be carrying too much fruit already.

These leaves are just slightly yellowish and slightly curled. It looks like it could be a nutrient deficiency, or the early stages of a disease.

I should probably test the soil.

These leaves are a little further along in being hecked up. I am going to guess these are either Verticillium wilt or Bacterial spot, but I am leaning towards the wilt. I will need to investigate varieties that are resistant, as crop rotation is somewhat challenging for us.

I started typing this all out in a post I am writing about tomato problems, but I thought I would make a separate post to share some observations about my local weather for the past 4 years. I'm sharing this as an exercise in looking at weather data, not really as a diagnostic or making conclusions based on it. The 2024 growing season isn't complete and chose to not look at max temp which is another important indicator, because I am too sleepy and lazy.

I got my data from government of canada weather stations. I live not to far from one. Your government might publish such data, or you could try sites like Weather Underground which collects data from personal weather stations.

I downloaded CSV files and used conditional formatting and pivot tables to get the data I wanted.

2021

• Last frost: May 1st
• Last day with a low of 5 degrees: May 31
• First frost: October 22
• Growing days (between 5C and first frost): 144

2022

• Last frost: April 30
• Last day with a low of 5 degrees: May 25
• First frost: October 2
• Growing days (between 5C and first frost): 130

2023

• Last frost: May 18
• Last day with a low of 5 degrees: May 26
• First frost: October 23
• Growing days (between 5C and first frost): 150

2024

• Last frost: April 26
• Last day with a low of 5 degrees: May 11
• First frost: N/A
• Growing days (between 5C and first frost): N/A

Some charts:

If I am going to draw one conclusion, it's that I feel justified in waiting until June 1 to transplant sensitive plants (tomatoes and peppers) but need to be on the ball to direct sow cold weather crops by mid April (peas, leafy greens, beets, radishes). 2024 might have been an outlier in terms of how soon the season started, and I don't want to risk the sensitive plants because they take so much work starting indoors. It's hard to come back if they fail to thrive.

This is one of my favorite plants in the garden and is such a miracle to me.

I told FrostyTrichs that I didn't think it was native, but I was wrong! I'm kind of glad, we really do try to buy native perennials (or at least cultivars of plants that are native in the area-ish), but sometimes get swayed by profound beauties

Obviously, the photo above is a cultivar and not a true native but the the Rose Mallow is native in my province: https://www.ontario.ca/page/swamp-rose-mallow

PDF alert - https://www.sararegistry.gc.ca/virtual_sara/files/plans/mp_swamp_rose-mallow_e_final.pdf

I should note that we are outside if it's native range and 1-2 hardiness zones colder...

I can't believe this tropical looking beauty survives our harsh winters.

This is what it looks like in April:

)

It springs back to life well after everything else has, and all hope is lost. We noticed the first growth at the very end of May:

The first blooms were noticed yesterday, at the very end of August. They are in the back corner of our yard, about 150 ft from the house, but the beautiful colour stands out from the green.

This plant is a very good reminder of how useful garden logs can be. We were ready to give up on her, but looked back at least year's photos and remembered that she likes to sleep in.

Where can I find a list of fruit trees that grow in the Amazon?

I'm currently eating a mostly raw vegan diet, and I'm trying to transition to fruitarian diet. But I live in Northern Europe, and the fruit options here are very limited. Obviously I'd be better living some place topical, and I've been seeing some posts from some sustainable communities in South America.

Specifically, there seems to be many permaculture projects in the Amazon that are able to grow their own fruits in fruit-heavy forest gardens. I've learned about a lot of new exotic fruits from some of their videos, but what I really want is a comprehensive list of all the fruits that one can grow in the Amazon.

Does anyone know where I can find a list of fruits that grow in the Amazon (native and non-native)?