Snow and dying beans

Yes, it is really the end of April and it's blizzarding in Calgary...again. I always thought the saying was "April showers bring May flowers," but hey, what do I know.

Although I recently harvested almost a dozen beans (which, by the way, were seriously delicious) I am very concerned about the health of my bean plants. They keep dropping leaves and generally look pretty sick. There haven't been any new flowers in a while either. My best guess is that they need more space than the container I currently have them in allows. But, unfortunately there won't be any replanting until the weather shapes up.

On the thread of "things that are dying," my lettuce has also fallen on hard times (maybe this is karma for bragging about having "garden lettuce" in April). Half of it look healthy but half of it has been slowly wilting. I cut out a bunch to see if it just needed more room to grow but no dice, I finally pulled out the last of the droopy leaves yesterday. I just hope the "good half" doesn't follow the same path. (The photo below is before the wiling got really bad, but you can see the left half is not as healthy as the right)

Disaster averted

I've been pretty negligent in posting recently and, consequently, I have a lot of writing saved up. For ease of reading I will break it into a few posts, rather than posting one monster. Work has been crazy and, after spending so much time writing and editing the CMC's newsletter I didn't have much energy left over for other journalistic pursuits!

The disaster I allude to in my post title involves my tomato plants. Calgary experienced a recent spate of beautiful weather (followed promptly by a few inches of snow). A great opportunity to get the plants out on the balcony for a few days right? Well, yes, except for the fact that, since splitting our tomatoes into two pots I have not yet bought another tomato ring. And, of course, as I was moving it it slipped and the main stalk snapped about an inch and a half above the soil.

I was pretty sure the plant was done for, gone the way of my cucumber experiment but, once again thanks to the wonders of the interweb, I learned I might be able to save it. Apparently, by wrapping the stem tightly (like you would cast a broken bone) and leaving it for a few days the tomato can heal the break.

As you can see I wound some fabric around the break (holey underwear is good for something!) followed by some tape and, a week later now, the plant seems to have survived. Sadly, I had to remove all of the baby tomatoes from the vine so the plant could use its energy for healing, so if you have a recipe for green tomatoes let me know! My mom never grew tomatoes because they are difficult to grow, but after this experience I'm pretty sure they can withstand anything.



My healed plant (though I haven't taken the wrap off yet, I'm afraid it won't be totally healed).



And below you can see, my tomato plant that didn't suffer a minor catastrophe is doing okay too, though the tomatoes are so heavy they are weighing down the branches. I'm almost afraid I will have another break to repair. Still no signs of red yet.

More photos

Okay, I will start with some photos I took last Friday but haven't had time to post yet.







Things have changed in a week. The tomatoes are quite a bit bigger (and there are more of them), the bean flowers have turned into tiny baby beans and the peas are beginning to flower. I'm a little concerned about the peas, the leaves on the bottom have dried up and fallen off but I am told that that usually happens and not to worry.

So, instead of worrying I harvested some of my thyme last night for a fantastic meal from Lucy Waverman's cookbook Lucy's Kitchen. It is a fantastic book -- I haven't tried many recipes yet, but the ones I have made are all winners. So far my favourite are her shortbread cookies (the trick is the rice flour).

Last night I didn't make shortbread, I made mustard-crusted halibut with roasted vegetables. Yum. If the thyme is any indication of how good our garden will be, I am a VERY happy girl.