Garden 2026 Update #3 - Weather Extremes, Pest Pressure & Shifting Gears

It's been a wild start to the gardening season of 2026. From the first day I transplanted all of my seedlings grown indoors until this week, it's been one thing after another. 

Extreme Weather

For about the last 2 months now, it's been quite literally one extreme or the other. Either unseasonably hot, or cold, or wet, or windy, etc. It's been all of them, and nearly all of my indoor grown seedlings have suffered. I had to replace about half of all my tomato seedlings after they were planted outside. Most of my peppers survived but the plants are just now starting to thrive and really put on fruit so they're weeks behind where they would have been in more seasonal and ideal weather conditions. 

New Urban Pest 

For the first time in the decade+ I've been growing in this space, I had a very hungry ground hog show up and help himself to my immature cucumber plants.

I wasn't sure he was the culprit until I saw him on the back yard cam the same day I discovered my cucumber plant's leaves had been utterly consumed.

Not a coincidence, they love cucumbers as much as people do! Thankfully he moved on that very same day, and most of my cucumbers recovered, and are putting on new growth. 

But as of the end of July they're pushed back nearly 3-4 weeks from producing any fruit. So my cucumber harvest this year isn't looking great, similar to the peppers.

Similar to the tomatoes, cukes and peppers, I had some sort of pest help itself to the garlic I planted last fall. I only ended up harvesting about 10% of what I'd hoped for.  All that to say, I'll be purchasing a lot more from the local farmer's markets this year to process and put up all my family favorite canned goods. Sometimes, it just works out this way. I like to grow what grows well here, and what my family consumes the most of. For us, that's tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic & cucumbers. The only thing not bothered by any pressure this year so far, are the green onions. They're doing fantastic. 😂 Everything else I'll be shopping local for. 

Shifting Gears & Downsizing the Garden

Speaking of family favorite canned goods... I haven't fully decided yet exactly how I'll do this, but as the kids all grow up and move out, there are less and less people here under my roof every year to provide for. So after this gardening season, I'll be changing things up a bit as I plan for next year's garden and the amount of space & seedlings I'll be needing. I have a few fun ideas in mind so I'm kind of looking forward to this upcoming new season and this new chapter in life too. 

Here's a few shots from around the garden in the last few days...

Harry the Thinker Duck (a gift from one of my kids) hanging out in the pepper patch. 

My faithful Garden Assistant - Mr. Noobies 

A lovely volunteer pansie in the Spearmint pot. 

This year's Cayenne peppers for the all the spicy, home canned treats💖

The view from the back deck. Many more pops of color this year! 

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you've enjoyed what you've read here, and if you have any thoughts or questions please feel welcome to leave a comment. 😊

Garden 2025 Update #5: Pictorial Garden Tour and a Triple Garden Mystery!

Welcome to my fun pictorial garden tour. 🌿I hope this blesses, inspires and encourages you in some wonderful way. 😊

The best of the garden from April 14th through May 20th.  This is spring in southern Ontario, zone 6a: 

Both of these guys think they're my garden assistants. 

Noobies on the left, and Ed on the right.

Both of them follow me around while I work in the garden.  😍

Early spring solar lighting accents in the very empty garden. 

Ed in complete control of the garlic/pepper bed. 

Hardneck garlic on the edge of the pepper bed. 

Mama Robin moved 3 of these eggs and left the fourth one. 😢

While I began the hardening off process for my tomatoes and peppers, my foyer almost looked like walking into an indoor nursery. 😄

Plsease allow me to introduce you to Thinking Harry. My youngest daughter found him and immediately decided he needed a home in our garden. Harry will live in the blackberry bed for now.

The lovely bloom of the Italian Prune tree.  💖

Beautiful welded dragonflies by my youngest in her last year of high school shop class. 💖

 

Three different colors of Forget Me Nots, all in one lovely bunch. These volunteer all over my back garden just about everywhere you look. 💖

Mr. Possum tried sneaking out early but I saw him & he slowly waddled back under the deck.  

My first strawberry bloom 

Seeing all the new growth on the grapevines just makes me so happy 😍

The chamomile I winter sowed and it's doing just fantastic. 

I find these little metallic stars in random places in my yard. Some gold, some silver. It's wild!

The view from the lawn swing. I love my tiny little garden. 

First sauce tomato of 2025

All the peppers are doing fantastic

The view from the deck May 16th

Help me solve a TRIPLE garden mystery 🌿🔎

What kind of bug is this on the peppermint?

Likewise... what kind of bug is this, on another peppermint plant?

What kind of plant is this? This is a volunteer & I've never seen it before. 

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you're encouraged by what you've read here, and if you have any thoughts or suggestions please feel welcome to leave a comment. 😊

Garden 2025 Update #4: Oh Hello, Fake Spring

Right on cue for "Fake Spring" the weather here runs the gamut from frozen wasteland to mild & sunny and then back again... then it starts all over again for the next 6 weeks or so. 😁 This is our normal. 

Thankfully, Fake Spring includes a few days here and there to really spend a good part of the day working outside to get the garden ready so I've been taking advantage of it as much as possible! Here's the run down of how it's looking this first week of April:

OUTSIDE update: Showing beautiful signs of life so far this spring is my garlic, lemon balm, rhubarb, strawberries & tons of new of elderberry buds on my two bushes.  

My last surviving apple tree (Honey) and prune tree (Harry) both got a wee wine goblet shaped prune just to remove any inward or crossing branches & to give the new growth this year plenty of room for proper growth & air circulation. 

Also, yes, I've named my fruit trees. 🍎 It made more sense a few years ago when I had many fruit trees but it was a fun habit that just stuck.  I hope to have many more fruit trees in the future so I'll just keep naming them. My Italian Prune tree is named after my grandfather Harry, because he had one he planted in his back garden that we all enjoyed for many, many years. 

My last surviving apple tree is Honey, just because it's a Honey Crisp apple. Honey produced quite well last year but Harry hasn't yet, so I'm hoping this is a good year for them both. I'm very much looking forward to sweet, deep purple Italian prunes this year.  

INDOOR seedling update: onions, peppers, tomatoes and ground cherries. This is my 2nd year of attempting ground cherry seedlings indoors and sadly my 2nd year of 100% failure. 

My onions, peppers and tomatoes have done above and beyond my expectations.  Ground cherries were sadly a 100% germination fail so... I won't be attempting them indoors again but I will attempt an outdoor sow this spring and hope for the best! 

One new seedling this year that's really made an impression is the sturdiness of the stalks of the Tomato plant Tiny Tim.  I'm already very impressed with how well it's doing. Instead of being thin and leggy (the usual process for me with indoor seedlings) this one is far more thick and stout. I grow all my cherry tomatoes in 10-12" pots on the deck, so I'll be eager to see how it does up-planted come time to move it outside. 

Speaking of up-planting, I've already had to do that with one Roma tomato plant and have at least two more that will require it before they're ready to be planted outside. The growing conditions in my laundry room-turned-grow room are so good, my seedlings just tend to grow like mad. Not a problem I'm complaining about at all. I'm incredibly thankful for it and keep trying to plan my seedling starts around it. 

WINTER SOWING UPDATE:  a process that was brand new to me this year. I'm not sure how I'd never heard about it, but once I did I knew it was something I needed to at least try, for my very short growing season. 

I sowed Purple Coneflower (Echinacea), Chamomile, Milkweed, Sunflowers & Yarrow back in January and by the end of the first week of  April what's germinated and come up is Sunflower, Chamomile and a wee bit of Yarrow from last fall's saved seed.  None of the purple coneflower or milkweed. I'm not clear on why that didn't work out, so I'll just be buying some plants this year from my local nursery to make up for it and get planted in my wee garden for returning attractions year after year. 😍 

I've discovered I didn't create nearly enough holes for rain/snow to get in and/or enough holes for drainage in each container. But that aside, there are Sunflowers, Yarrow and Chamomile so I'm calling it a win, just for those! I'll fine tune all the water intake holes and water drainage holes and try this again next year for sure! This is really a wonderful type of "hands off" sowing, since the seeds just know when it's time to germinate and come forward. 

RAISED BED update:  I knew it would happen sooner or later but the first 8'x4' raised bed I ever built 3 years ago, is starting to fall apart at one of the joints. I used what I could at the time and that was untreated lumber so I'm calling it a win that it lasted 3 growing seasons before any issues came to light. I've patched the damaged area and will still use it this year but will hope to replace this bed at the end of the growing season, Lord willing. 😊

I avoided "treated lumber" on both of my current 4'x8' beds, mostly due to outdated advice at the time. I've since done some research this MicroPro Sienna treated lumber appears to be rated for safe garden beds. So I'll be using this for 2 of my 3 new raised beds for 2025.  

I've already bought some untreated lumber, so that will be my new strawberry bed for a few years, before I have to eventually replace that with the same treated lumber I'll be using for my other beds.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you're encouraged by what you've read here, and if you have any thoughts or suggestions please feel welcome to leave a comment. 😊