The Marigold Potager – A Zone 3 Prairie Garden

We’ve had two weeks of rain and bluster, with bits of sunshine but no heat. The cool weather veggies are loving it, the warm weather plants are growing but not fruiting as much as I would like, while the flowers are all thriving.

Apparently, the heat is going to return this week and take us into August…. which is just days . Gulp. Summer is flying by faster than I’d like.

Here are some of the things going on right now…

I have been picking carrots for the past little while now. These are my winter carrots, which were sown in November, before the snow flew and raised beds froze. They are 10 to 12 inches long already!

I sow carrots twice a year here, maybe three times if I have the space and inclination. Spring carrots are sown anytime between April and the end of June. In warmer garden zones (west coast), you want to sow your winter carrots around winter solstice. If you sow them too early, they will start to grow in your long, warm autumn weather and they will be small and hairy in spring.

Here is a carrot growing blog post I did up a few years ago.

Cool weather veggies are so happy.

I have not had to water the raised beds in such a long time, nor the in ground beds. It has been quite nice actually, to just water the potted plants and hanging baskets.

• Peas went in late, were an afterthought for me, but are now starting to plump up. Just a few days off now.
• My purple cauliflower is doubling in size every couple of days! Yikes! I am going to have a glut of cauliflower. I grow purple cauliflower as I find it a whole lot less fussy, for some reason. The white ones near always gave me grief. It tastes exactly the same as the white, btw.
• Cabbages are starting to twirl into their cone shapes. I am growing Early Jersey Wakefield, an heirloom variety with pointy heads and quick maturity date. I will soon also have more cabbage than I know what to do with.
• Celeries are bushy and big, growing beautifully.  They love this water ; )
• Carrots are growing beautifully. Is going to be another amazing year for them.

Onions – one of my beds has onion maggots, the other does not. Make that make sense, eh? I will be trying a totally new bed next year.

The only cure for onion maggots is very tight insect netting/bug mesh. We were going to net the onion/brassica bed this spring but time got away from us while we procrastinated (could not decide upon a design we both liked). We still have not yet decided on a design that we like, hahaha, so hopefully we come up with something by spring 2026.

Keep your birdbaths clean and mosquito free –

1. Change the water daily, if possible, every 2nd day at a minimum.
2. Give it a quick swish with dish soap and a scrub brush before refilling, to get rid of algae.
3. Get a solar fountain to move the water around.

If you are finding that you have thick skins on your tomatoes, especially their cherry types. This is what tomatoes do in high temperatures, or when dealing with strong winds.

It has been such a great broccoli and broccolini year! Cabbage and cauliflower, too. Producing like crazy.

When harvesting broccoli, just chop off the big main head at the top of the plant, but leave the plant be. It will make a bunch of new smaller heads (secondary heads) along the side of the stalk.

Harvest when the heads are still tight. If you leave it too long, the head will start to open up and flower (bolt).

Weeding – a constant, even in the heat of summer. Purslane seems to be everywhere this year. Where on earth did it come from? It is in the covered tomato bed, in the pathways, along the grass. Honest to goodness, seems to sprout new ones over night. Keep on picking! This stuff will quickly take over your beds.

Apparently, it is edible and some find it yummy so if you like, check out how to eat it when you pull it from your gardens. I will not be joining you on that journey ; ) I have dogs. Enough said, hah!

In summer, our soil tends to bake into concrete, the best time to weed so that you get roots and all, is after a rain or after you have watered the garden.

This is a chaos garden, of sorts. Some were volunteers, most were sown from seeds, and a couple of things were popped in as starter plants. I have two of these beds behind my patio, so between pots and beds, we have flowers on all sides of the patio. Now I just need some posts to put string lights on ; )

The goal was to have colour for as much of the year as possible, a riot of flowers. The sunflower on the left is a volunteer that just popped up, so who am I to stifle it’s will to be? No idea what colour it is. The Pink Beauty soapwort is a big hit, I will be growing those again! Dainty pink flowers with long lasting blooms both in the vase and in the garden. They have been blooming for pretty much the entire month of July.

This is the other chaos garden bed. My motto is … if you sow it, they will come. I love to toss in cosmos and zinnia seeds everywhere. Other direct sown seeds are the soapwort, basil (yes, I toss those in flower gardens, too), sunflowers, and calendula. I pre-started my amaranth, anise hyssop, statice this year, but think I will just direct sow next year to see what happens. They are so slow to take off. If you know me at all, you know that I am a chronic direct sower.

It’s going to be a great apple year! Hoping the starlings do not come in and peck at all the apples this summer as that leaves them open to the wasps… last year was brutal!

Cherries are just about ripe for the picking… I am thinking of making the sour cherry cobbler that I posted here.

This lettuce leaf basil, you all. I mean… one leaf is the size of my hand! Wow!

Deadhead flowers like cosmos and sweet peas. Pick them and put them in vases. The more you deadhead and pick, the more flowers they will make.

What to plant now for fall harvests?

• lettuce, greens
• kohlrabi
• turnips
• rutabagas
• spinach
• short season beets. Look for ones that are ready in 50-ish days.
• peas

Weeds are growing like mad in all this rain. Get out there on a dry day and hoe them away!

Watering – well… we certainly have not had to do much of that in central Alberta. If you are not sure if the rain is getting down to the roots of your tomatoes, peppers, zucchinis, etc… stick your finger in the soil. If it is wet all the way down, you are good for another 3 days or more.

If it is dry an inch or two down, take this time to give them a good deep drink of water (weeping hoses/drip systems) and then fertilise them, if needed. See here for organic fertilisers (some homemade, some not).

This time of year, if you need to feed your vegetables, use a fertiliser with a higher middle and last number (phosphorous and potassium) to promote overall health of the plants, flowering, fruiting, ripening.

Bringing back the popular FAQ section as there have been a few questions lately…

Regarding the Winter Sown Carrots

1. Did you water in your carrots? No. I simply made a little trench, tossed in the seeds (tried to keep them an inch or two apart), covered them up, and walked away.
2. Do you need to grow a specific variety of carrot if you winter sow? No. Any and all carrots will grow just fine when sown in winter.
3. What do you fertilise them with? Compost. I only use organic matter in anything that is growing in the ground, goes into our ground water.
4. So you sow them just before the snow flies? Yes, timing is everything. You do not want to sow them too early so that they germinate and start growing in the fall. Otherwise, in spring, they will go to seed as that will be their second year.
5. Did you lose some seeds over the winter? I am not sure, but I would think I probably lost a few. I have two rows of carrots that are nicely spaced apart though, so does not look like I would have lost many.
6. Timing – Here on the prairies, colder zones, you want to sow just before winter starts. In our Zone 3 gardens, that is usually in November. It is after your gardens have been cleaned up for the year, fed with compost (if you are feeding your soil), and before the hard frosts and snow comes.
7. Timing – on the west coast, (Zones 6 to 8) you want to wait till closer to the winter solstice so that your seeds do not germinate in the fall. I used to sow them on Christmas Eve or Day. You want the seeds to go to sleep for the winter months, and then start to grow when they feel that they daylight hours are long enough and the temps are just right for them.

Did you also start your purple cauliflower from seed? Yes. I pre-started these about 6 weeks before I wanted to put them out in the garden, so end of March. I have also been known to direct sow my brassicas as I really hate to prestart anything but tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers, lol. Especially at this time of year. If you want some fall brassicas, toss a seed or two wherever you find an empty pocket in the garden, after harvesting.

How long do you cure your garlic for? As long as I possibly can. I try to do 5 or 6 weeks, leaving them hanging under the porch (to stay dry and shaded so they don’t cook) till the weather starts to turn in the fall.

What are you sowing right now? See some of the ideas above and a post dedicated to summer sowing for fall is coming next week.

How do you make garlic powder? Peel the garlic cloves, chop into smaller pieces to shorten the drying time, place in a medium heat dehydrator for about 3 days. It takes a long time to dry fully. Needs to be dry or it will clump when you try to grind it in a burr grinder/coffee bean grinder.

Happy end of July! Hope your gardens are amazing! Tanja