As the Garden Grows

What's blooming today?

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Archives
  • Links
  • About
  • Join GTS Meme
  • Guest Blogger
  • Contact

You are here: Home / Archives for vegetables

Mixed results for my veggie growing efforts this year

by Tricia

Join Green Thumb Sunday

Join

Do you grow any vegetables in your garden? I do …

Yeah, I know, I’m always talking about my flowers and other plants and I barely ever mention the fact that I also try to grow vegetables in my garden, amid all of the flowers.

Each year without fail I grow tomatoes (I experiment with different kinds each year this year it was Early Girl, Glam and Tiny Toms), cucumbers, beans, peas, romaine and a variety of lettuces or mescalin mix.

My tomatoes did quite well this year, much better than the last few years anyway. Perhaps that was because I grew varieties that matured earlier. I just love home grown tomatoes. Yum.

tiny tom tomatoes

Tiny Tom Tomatoes

Unfortunately though, my Tiny Tom Tomatoes, Cucumbers and beans didn’t do as well. I grow them in containers on the patio close to the back of the house. I guess I thought that with all of the rain this year that the plants were getting enough water … guess again … they grew very slowly and I think it was because they were too dry overall.

My cucumbers did the worst! They only just started producing tiny cucumbers about two weeks ago! Here’s a tiny one as proof:

tiny cucumber

Tiny Cucumber

If I’d paid more attention and didn’t just assume that the all of the areas of the garden were getting enough water thanks to all the rain we had this summer then I think my cucumbers and beans would have done a lot better.

I guess I learned a lesson this year. Even if it’s rained, always go out and check the soil to see if it really is moist. Plants growing near the house or under the eaves just might not be getting any water at all!

I hope your veggies did better than mine did this summer.

We are going to get the remnants of Hurricane Ike all day today. We are expecting a lot of rain. I mean the kind that causes flooding … and flooded basements! Our basements always been dry, but this might be the test! Hope my home and garden survive all the water we’re about to have dumped on us!

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information. GTS participants remember to check in at As the Garden Grows each week so that we’ll know you made a new post!






Filed Under: Garden Buzz, Garden Tips, Green Thumb Sunday, Photography, Plant health, Recreation Tagged With: beans, carrots, cucumbers, dry, flowers, garden, gardening, greenthumbsunday, grow, growing, GTS, Hurricane, Ike, lettuce, moist, poorly, radish, rain, raining, romaine, soil, TinyTom, tomatoes, vegetables, veggies, wet

Worried about pesticides in your food?

by Tricia

Are you worried about the pesticides that might be contaminating the fruits and vegetables that you eat? If you are, you’re in luck.

The Environmental Working Group has come out with a list of 45 fruits and vegetables ranked according to the level of pesticide contamination. The results were based on U.S. Food and Drug administration testing.

The most contaminated fruit and vegetables include strawberries, apples and celery. The top of the list of most contaminated food items is Peaches with a pesticide load of 100.

The cleanest fruit and vegetables include mangoes, pineapples, onions, and avocados. The least contaminated of the list has a pesticide load of 1.

I never realized that peaches had such a high contamination load. I always thought apples were the worst of the bunch.

What the report lacks is actual amounts of pesticides. The items rated on the list are organized on a scale that shows which produce has more pesticides, but without knowing the exact amount of contamination it’s hard to say if the pesticide contamination in peaches is harmful or if the low amount found in pineapple really is a safe level.

If you are worried about pesticide contaminants the best thing to do is limit your exposure.

Not everyone can grow all of their own food supply, nor necessarily do it organically, but you can limit your exposure to pesticide contaminated fruit and vegetables by trying to make some of your purchase organic produce. Know what’s on the list and try to make sure that when you want to buy some of the items that are listed as being most pesticide contaminated, like peaches and apples, that you make those purchases organic.

If you do happen to have a garden try to grow organically. My garden is organic and I find it quite easy to maintain and as you can see from all the photos on this site my plants are very healthy.

Filed Under: Fruit, Health and Fitness, Home and Lifestyle, Living Green, Organic, vegetables Tagged With: amount, apples, celery, cleanest, contamination, Environmental, exposure, FDA, food, Fruit, garden, limit, list, mango, Peaches, pesticide, pesticides, pineapple, produce, purchase, rating, report, scale, supply, testing, toxic, U.S., vegetables

Organic gardening

by Tricia

Whether you are already an organic gardener or perhaps you are looking to get started I’m sure you’d find it helpful to find out what other organic gardeners are doing and perhaps incorporate some of their tips into your own gardening routine.

I practice organic gardening and my big secret is that I use Alfalfa tea (or compost tea) on all of my plants at least twice during the growing season. It’s like organic miracle grow. Honest. My roses absolutely love it and you guys have seen pictures of my plants, don’t they look happy?

Here’s what a few other Organic Gardeners are talking about this week:

Five Cheats For The Lazy Gardener: How To Hack A Garden

The crunch of carrots, snap of snow peas and ripe juicy tomatoes are all appetizing images. However, unlike many gardeners you may not have the time or energy to devote to growing. Don’t worry! If you have just one day to […]

Pests in Organic Gardening? No need to worry

If you’re into organic gardening, there are a number of things that you need to consider and one of them is a very interesting one: if you see a bug, it’s not the end of the world, or in this case your garden, as you know it. …

Partial Shade: Its Vital Role in Organic Vegetable Gardening

For gardeners, they know that shade plays an important role in what they are doing as much as the sun. This is especially true if one is into organic gardening of vegetables. The exposure to sun and its need to be in shade still depends …

The Truth About Organic Gardening

I just finished a great book about organic vs. conventional gardening. It is called “The Truth About Organic Gardening” by Jeff Gillman. Why did I like it? Well, for one it was an easy read. I’m a plant geek, not a bookworm. …

I hope that you get a chance to read one or all of these posts as there’s some good information there about organic gardening! Enjoy.

Filed Under: Garden Tips, Home and Lifestyle, Organic Tagged With: alfalfa, carrots, cheats, compost, compost tea, garden, juicy tomatoes, lazy gardener, Organic, organic gardener, organic gardeners, organic gardening, organic vegetable gardening, partial shade, pests, plant, plants, roses, season, snow peas, Vegetable, vegetables

  • « Previous Page
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • …
  • 9
  • Next Page »

Subscribe


Never miss a post
Subscribe to our RSS feed!
It's FREE! rss feed

Free Newsletter

As the Garden Grows
by Email - FREE!



Follow me on Twitter!

Suggested Sites

Eavestrough Cleaning Toronto

Categories

Recent Posts

  • Top Three Tips For Choosing The Right Patio Furniture For Your Home
  • The 4 Things To Know About Perennial Garden Design
  • Painful Plants: Five Houseplants That Can Cause Injury
  • An Outbreak Shouldn’t Mean A Break Out: 3 Insect Repellants Gentle Enough For Your Skin
  • 5 Ideas To Make Your Garden POP
  • 6 Simple Ways To Make Your Home Eco-Friendly
  • How To Redesign Your Garden To Make It Safe For Your Children
  • Starting A Career As A Professional Gardener
  • 6 Time Saving Tips For Gardening
  • Top Tips On Redesigning Your Garden For The Summer

What they’re Saying

  • Rodhe Stevens on Landscaping Tips On A Limited Budget
  • Edmund Wells on Benefits of using mulch on the garden
  • Surjith on An Outbreak Shouldn’t Mean A Break Out: 3 Insect Repellants Gentle Enough For Your Skin
  • Pamela on The 4 Things To Know About Perennial Garden Design
  • dog on The quality of your pet food is important

Pages

  • About
  • Archives
  • Become a Guest Blogger For As the Garden Grows
  • Blog
  • Categories
  • Contact
  • Disclosure
  • Do Follow Bloggers Blogroll
  • Green Thumb Sunday
  • I am Canadian Blogroll
  • Join GTS Meme
  • Links
  • Privacy Policy
  • Q & A
  • Toronto Bloggers Blogroll
  • What’s Growing

Search

My Garden

Member of
Garden Voices

Tags

backyard Beautiful bloom blooming blooms Bulbs cold Entertainment and Rec flower flowers garden garden bed garden beds gardener gardening green Green Thumb Green Thumb Sunday grow growing GTS home Home and Lifestyle House In The Garden leaves my garden photo photos plant plants purchase rain rose roses Shopping snow spring summer Toronto water weather winter Wordless Wednesday WW

Site Ratings


Visitors since 2006


Meta

  • Log in
  • Entries feed
  • Comments feed
  • WordPress.org

Connect with me

  • Facebook
  • Google Plus
  • Pintrest
  • Twitter
  • RSS

Copyright © 2026 · News Child Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in