Tuesday 30 August 2016

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.

Monday 29 August 2016

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.

Monday 15 August 2016

Finishing Carpentry Work

This week, rather than spending it working in the garden, I undertook difficult task of fixing issue with one of the windows.  The window as in great shape but part on the bottom that holds slider (casement window) was rotten.  I inquired with company that does custom fixing and they quoted me huge amount of money for entire window replacement that would result in significant damage to stucco around the window.   To be truthful, they did state if I know finishing carpenter, he might be able to fix it.  Well, I decided to undertake this task.  After intense research into methodology, I purchased a peace of hemlock that would be used to build the replacement part.  The big risk was that was not sure of the extend of the damage and if I could not fix it, I would have to go with entire window replacement.  It took me two and a half hours to remove window, clean rotten peace of wood, build new part so it would fir perfectly and provide the same function.  Once I done this, I had to ensure that vapor barrier would be fix as well and new part would fit snugly into opening and perform the same way.   It was a successful project and it took so long as I approached  with philosophy " measure 3, no 4 times and cut it".  I actually had to pre-test before each cut, to make sure that the effect would be desired.  I settled part and with help of the glue, ensure that it is not moving and will serve as new support for existing window for long time.
This was very rewarding, specifically, knowing how much money I saved.  I have wasting resources and not trying to fix before replacing anything.  I am happy with the outcome and very satisfied with resolving the problem.

Quick update on the garden, weather is still crazy, so far there was only one day without storm in August.  Humidity is so high here, especially that we are not used to it.  This supposed to be dry climate and it feels the same  as in Maritimes.

Wednesday 10 August 2016

Quick garden update

I did not have a time or would not bring phone while in garden so few pictures to provide quick status on my garden.  Lettuce is amazing, cabbage is huge, tomatoes are turning red (slowly).  We have been eating our potatoes and beans.  With the rain, it is like a jungle out there.

 This is the first red tomato from the garden.  It tasted .. like a real tomato, can't wait for the next one (almost ready)

Tuesday 2 August 2016

Back to regular routine

Well, I was on holidays for past two weeks and left my garden in care of my in-laws.  It has been crazy month here.  It has rain for 21 days in July and total tally for precipitation in month of July (unofficial reading from my weather station) was at 215 mm (~8.5 ").  So lots of rain and add to it hot temperatures during the day, garden looked like jungle one we came back.  Since we had so many thunderstorms with hail, i have noticed that my apples are all bruised and some of them started to rot unfortunately.  That is hard, as we were so delighted to see fruit on new apple trees.  The big tree fairs a bit better due to canopy protection but apples show bruising, but at least at lower scale.
Tomato started to show some sign of color, have one red pepper (hot), we already have eaten potatoes, and those were soo good.  We have great crop on peas but beans are not as great and beats are in poor shape due to hail damage.
Once I have a moment , will post photo update.

Monday 11 July 2016

Hail damage

It is summer, summer in Alberta and probability of summer thunderstorm is pretty high, but is is possibility that one of these "severe" storms" will bring hail with it.  That was the reality on Saturday for us.
Dark clouds came with roars of thunder and lightening, next came rain, getting heavier and changing into hail.  Hail went on for at least 2-3 minutes, it was not big in size ( perhaps due to efforts of hail suppression program -info below) but big enough and duration that resulted in some damage to veggies in our garden (see pictures below).  Here in Alberta we have a hail suppression program that is financed by insurance industry and its mandate is to reduce hail damage.  We had some significant hail in the past that resulted in very high damage and insurance companies decided to run  suppression program.  The program works as follows.  When a significant storm clouds are detested and their intended direction pints toward more densely populated areas (cities), plain(s) are dispatched and they spread some form of silver iodide (or similar compound) that inhibits formation of rain and potentially of hail, but much smaller in size and softer.  In fact, one can observe reading from their Doppler radar and activity of both storm and cloud seeding aircrafts (here is link for curios http://www.wmiradar.com/alberta/latest_loop.gif).  It is animated picture loop but provides pretty good information.
One of my friend ask me why I keep tunnels covered during summer, well, this is the reason to protect some of the crops from hail damage.

Garden photo update (after the storm)


 Rhubarb suffered a bit of damage as well.


 Potato leaves were almost decimated (at least showed a lot of damage due to density)

 On the positive note, I am getting pretty good size tomatoes.

Tuesday 5 July 2016

Too much of rain?

No, not really, I rather have rain after such a dry spell in June, then no rain.  The only complaint I have (no one will actually listen or do anything about) is the amount of rain per time.  It looks like yesterday, we got 21 mm of rain in 5 minutes (for those who operate in imperial that is 3/4" ).  It was a lot in short period of time, bit of hail but small and soft.  It just too quick.  I rather stick to slow drizzle, but take any moisture.  My grass has shown sign of recovery and looking much better, still in some places, not 100%.  My little apple tress is full of apples (as shown i picture) and now will need support as branches are bending under wight of apples and this will get worst, as the apple fruit gets bigger.
Weather is very unsettle overall. In the past four days I think we had tornado warning in three of those days.  Some parts of the city got pretty nasty storms that included hail, Lucky, so far we just got a lot of rain at once.  I do not have to water garden and that is a bonus.