February 16th, 2014

Well, yet another cold and rainy week in the beautiful Cowichan Valley.  Not really much opportunity for outdoor chores, but still lots to do!  The rain broke just long enough for us to make a trip to Osbourne Bay in Crofton.  Plus plenty of indoor projects on the go.

Osbourne Bay in beautiful Crofton, BC.  A little piece of paradise in our own backyard.

This is one of our favourite hikes, partly due to the hundreds of Arbutus trees that come in every shape and size.

Another tree in the way?  No problem!  Just grow around it.

Sideways forest.

The first cabbage seedlings breaking through.

One month old leeks and two week old Copra onions looking remarkably similar.

Our second batch of celery.

Spinach seedling with young bergamot seedlings breaking through.

Healthy looking artichoke seedlings standing next to their poor departed twin siblings.  I hate having to thin.

Our first celery seedlings thinned to single plants.  Our first pepper plant in the top right.  Rapini in the bottom right just beginning to shows it's first true leaves.

My first attempt at homemade vanilla extract.  Ridiculously easy to make.  One more month and it should be ready for use.

Homemade triple fruit marmalade.  Orange, lemon and pink grapefruit.  Unfortunately it's not really feasible to source out local citrus fruit here in the Pacific Northwest, but thankfully there's some amazing produce coming up from California.  Even despite the major droughts they are experiencing.

Well, if the weather man is correct (fingers crossed) we should start seeing the end of rain by Wednesday which means we can get some serious work done on the weekend.  It also looks like we could be up to 10 degrees Celsius by the end of February which would be good news for planting early peas, carrots, lettuce and broad beans.  Stay tuned!!

                                    February 8th, 2014

Winter has made it's presence know once again, with temperatures dropping down to well below freezing.  This has meant that little work has been achieved outdoors this week, but still a few pieces of news to share.

A gang of robins visited our house on Thursday morning and hung out just outside our living room window.  We he've slowly begun to see a number of our local birds come out of hiding.  I hope to get a shot of our resident hummingbird soon.

Looking plump and just a little bit mangy.

As you can see, things got a little frozen.

Some more signs of life despite the cold weather.  Tiny red buds appearing on the rose bush outside our front door.

Some of the hardier trees evening beginning to produce leaves.

One of our next big projects.  This is the "Jelly King" crab apple tree at the back of our lot.  It produced a multitude of small bright red crab apples for us last year, which we were able to turn into delicious crab apple jelly.  As you can see thought, it's in serious need of some TLC.  To the left you can see another apple tree that is being completely invaded by the crab.  This one's going to take a while.

Artichoke sprouts coming up under the grow light.

We have plans this upcoming week to put up a fence around our growing space, on which we will be espaliering 4 to 5 more fruit trees.  Hopefully the weather improves a little and we can get the ball rolling on even more projects!

Well, it's February 2nd and as far as I'm concerned growing season is here!!!

Tulips, Crocuses and Daffodils poking up by our front door.  I guess nobody told them that it was only February.

Today it's a lovely 5C in beautiful Duncan, BC, and there are already signs that spring is just around the corner (even though it's 45 days away).  This will be my first full growing season here in the Cowichan Valley and I'm so excited to finally stretch out my green thumbs and grow, grow, grow.

Baby Garlic

Fava beans that were planted back in October.  Looks like someone has been enjoying them as a winter snack.

Our poor old apple tree.  It hurt me to do so, but I had to give her a pretty decent hair cut.  She's likely 40 years old and it's obviously been decades before anyone's given her any attention.  I took off a full main branch that was extending out over our growing space, and then removed pretty close to half of the growth from the left side.  The right side will have to wait until next year.  She was pretty dense when we moved in and suffering from both tent caterpillars and scab.  Hopefully with some renovations and care we can get her healthy again and producing some tasty Macintosh apples.

Our new blueberry patch just planted today.  3 Bluecrop, 2 Duke and 1 unknown.

Our little overgrown strawberry patch.  We discovered this within weeks of moving into our new home last year.  They were buried underneath quite a bit of growth, so the birds were unable to get at the berries.  What an amazing treat of beautiful, nearly overripe strawberries.  We'll see what a little attention can do for them this year.

3 cells of Celery sprouting and one lonely, but strong looking, Broccoli Raab.

Thyme....is on our side?......heals all wounds?......is an illusion?......whatever, it just tastes and smells great.

Some young leeks and a couple of Spinach sprouts.

This is going to be an awesome year!!