Winter...?!

IT has been a while since last post, so decide to provide quick update on state of the garden.  It is Canadian Thanksgiving and snowy one here.  It has been snowing everyday for the past two days and the effect left about 4-5 cm on the ground, making my dog so happy. Snow would melt at the end of the day, but today it was snowing again and ground again is covered by wet snow.  It was also be unusually cold and I mean cold as temps are around 0 most of the time and hardly reaching into positive territory.  My large tunnel double wall design proved to be a winner.  I have temperature recording device and it shows me the lowest and highest temps and also current temp, humidity.  Even at days where temp went down at night to -3C it was still positive temp inside and during the day when it was very cloudy and temp. outside was at -2C, we had +6C inside.  So we still have tomato plants growing and producing red tomatoes.  We still have quiet a lot of green tomatoes. I decided to evacuate sprinkler system and thus close water to the garden.  We have covered lettuce but lots of wind moved cover to strawberries that surprisingly, are still producing and I had strawberries last Wednesday straight from the plant.
We have now assumed that small tunnel is done, despite kale still growing in it.  In the next few weeks we will focus our energy on cleaning our garden and prepping it for winter.

Harvest time ..

Last weekend we started harvest in the garden.   Here are some pictures from  potato harvesting and carrots.  Some of the potatoes were huge, more than 1 lb in some cases, 2 lbs.  I think we have collected about 150 lbs from plot that was approx. 10 sq ft  garden plot.  This was definitely the best year for potatoes, despite getting bit of frost in the late spring, they still produced above expectations.  Now is the question how long they will last in our "cold room" that really is wine room.  We will observe and see.

Strawberries

I wanted to focus this post on amazing strawberries in my garden operation.  We have planted strawberries last year and they did o.k., most of them survived winter  and spring frost did some damage but nothing serious.  There was not much fruit in June or July, hardly any, maybe due to wet July.  Now, I cannot believe how many berries are there.  It is amazing crop, berry patch is full of fruits and they are big.  Frost hit us but did not affected strawberries and we are enjoying it a lot and there are still lot of them despite the fact that it is getting colder.  I do not remember having strawberries fruiting so late but that is the fact and they look so healthy now.

quick update, my big pathway rebuilt project come to fruition and below is the final product.

Frist ... Brrr

Yeas, that is reality of high altitude gardening, early onset of cool watcher which translates to frost.  In the past two days the the temperature reading on my weather station showed 0 dec C and some effects are now visible int he garden.  Lettuce has shown sign of frost, I have been keeping tunnels closed to protect tomatoes crop and hope that they have not been affected. Also, I have big landscaping project on the go so that keeps me away from blogging.  It seems that this experiment is for my own self fulfillment, and does not look like I have lots of following.  Will try to keep updating for my own records so I will be able to compare events.

Yard project ..

.. has taken over my time last weekend and finally is done.  It has been very hard on my body, lol, doing "honest man" work, that is digging with shovel.  The pathway is now looking like it supposed to.  Weather was not pleasant rest of the weekend, Saturday though was very n ice (too  nice to work  digging unfortunately), Sunday, it was late fall winter like.  Mountains about 40 min. away got  snow on them, we had lots of cold rain and wind.    Nothing was done on Sunday, even walking with dog was hard due to rain and wind gust directly into the face.  Rest of the week looks actually good, so we will have to start working on harvesting fruit of our labor in the garden.  Talking about fruits, strawberries are producing like crazy, best and biggest strawberries  the whole year.  There are so many of berries strangely at this time of the year. It looks like they have awaken from some dormant state and decided to propagate by producing fruit.  maybe cold winter is coming?  We will have to wait and see.

Stormy night

I manage to capture lightening during last night storm.  It was pretty close and spectacular.  It is not the best as I did it through the window.

Brief update

I have been in vacation mode so no frequent posts as either was away or busy with other activity.  This does not mean that we ignored our garden, quiet opposite, been busy enjoying fruit of our labor.  For starters, we have been eating sweet peas, cauliflower, carrots and potatoes.  Tomatoes are now ripening and we hare having pretty good crop.  One disappointment after last year crop is zucchinis. They had a slow start, although, now we had quiet few but nothing comparable to last year.  Must be due to wet summer.  One surprising thing, strawberries are at record levels after disappointing spring, now we have bumper corp, lots of strawberries but lots of green fruits.  Hope the weather will hold but we have started to experience +5 deg. C at night.  Last weekend it felt like fall has arrived as it was windy and cold.  First yellow leaves became visible on poplars.  We also harvested garlic and oh my, these were huge.  I took some risk and seeded lettuce and red beats to see how they will do, so far they germinated and are growing.  Apples are coming down with the onset of strong winds last week, so we may actually pick them from the tree to prevent bruising.  Another busy time of pre-harvesting in the garden.