Oh my....it's September 11th and the garden is already starting the inevitable decay. We've had a totally crappy summer here in Calgary. So much rain, so little sunshine. The tomatoes have been stuck on green for weeks and weeks. On a positive note, the carrots are delicious and the snap peas have been a great little treat as I survey the yard. The beets did well and make the most amazing snack in the form of baked chips!
J's attempt to grow corn has not been a success and the tallest plants are not even 5 ft. There are signs of fruit but we may have snow before we get to sample the 2 or 3 cobs we may get! He is referring to them as decorative greenery!
As you can see from the picture, the sunflowers have really triumphed. The stalks are 3" across and one or two are in excess of 10 ft tall. Hard to believe that you can put a little seed in the ground and be rewarded with these giants.
Because I try to adhere to the glass half full outlook on life, we are considering the summer of 2010 as our learning garden....
Tomatoes-yes!
Snap peas-yes!
Carrots-yes!
Beets-yes!
Zucchini-yes!
Peppers-not so much.
Broccoli-disappointing.
Corn-nope.

As far as flowers, I learned that sweet peas should be planted much sooner than you think although they ended up doing really well. Columbine should probably be purchased at the garden centre and not grown from seed...it needs that headstart. I did not get any flowers...but the leaves are pretty.
Last but not least, plant way more bulbs than you think you need. They look sad in a little group of five...I want swathes of them in the spring! I will be stalking the garden centres once again.