Our 2026 Garden: two days of transplanting and direct sowing

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I’m not done, but the heat drove me in.

Here is what I have been able to manage before the temperatures reached the point of risking heat stroke. I’ve been getting up at about 5am, when the ski was getting light, and outside by about 6 am. Of course, the yard cats got taken care of before I started on the garden. Aside from stopping for lunch and hydration, I was able to stay out until about 1pm before the heat and sun drove me inside. We’ve been hitting “only” about 30C/86F instead of the 34C/93F we’d been hitting before. Tomorrow evening, thunderstorms are supposed to start rolling in and stay day day after, through to the next morning. I want to get as much planted and protected as possible before that hits.

Another problem has already started.

There are barely visible leaves hidden by millions of seeds. This is just one of seven Chinese elm around the front yard. The green seeds are already dropping a bit but, once they turn brown, they will drop in drifts. I’ve covered the newly finished bed along the chain link fence with netting, but seeds are still getting through. Before they start dropping for real, I’m going to have to find something else to cover them. Something finer than the current netting, but not as fine as the mosquito netting we’d used before, that would turn into a sail in the wind. Enough to cover the strawberries on the other side of the people gate.

I’m not sure what’s available out there. I’ve been looking at netting at various stores, but the dollar store seems to be the only place that has anything that might work.

For now, though, I need to get things in the ground.

First, what I was able to get done yesterday.

This first bed I worked on was the smallest; the tiny raised bed with herbs in it. Click through to see the slide show.

I transplanted the summer savory and Russian tarragon into here. I’m actually surprised they survived. They were doing so poorly before I “up potted” them to the snail rolls. The Russian tarragon seems okay, but the summer savory is still insanely leggy. I would not be surprised if they don’t make it.

As for the other herbs in the bed, the one type of oregano in the top left corner is doing really well, and spreading. The bottom right is the Greek oregano and it went through a rough patch, but is recovering. The lemon balm in the top middle has also been doing well. On either side of that, in the middle, is the sage. Those seemed to have died back when we got hit with that cold spell, but they are leafing out quite nicely now. In the top right corner, the lemon thyme seemed to have died off, but is starting to grow back again. The thyme that was in the bottom left corner died off completely, so that’s where the summer savory went. The tarragon went where the basil was last year.

That one got done nice as fast, which is why I started with it first.

Next, I started on the bed against the retaining wall that I finished reworking last year. Again, click through for the slide show.

The first thing to do was get hoops ready and find netting – I ended up not using the netting in the first photos, as it was too short. Then the leaf mulch was removed into the wheel barrow. I reworked the bed a bit to remove any weeds that started invading. The cats had been digging in it in one spot and leaving me “presents” that had to be removed, too.

Then the hoops needs to be set in place. For those, I picked up some zip ties rated to 50 pounds. Even setting the hoops as low as they could go, they were pretty high. The first piece of netting I’d found, cut for use for something else, several years ago, was a bit longer than the bed, which meant there wasn’t enough length to close off the ends. Thankfully, I had another leftover piece of netting that was more than long enough.

The hoops divided the bed quite handily into 5 sections, so I planted 5 different types of summer squash. Green Scallop Bennings, Lemon, Early Prolific Straightneck, Yellow Scallop and Gold Rush zucchini.

I planted a couple of seeds each, in groups of four, setting collars around where I planted them. Then I set 4L size water bottles with the bottoms cut off, upside down, into the ground in between each group of 4 collars, for watering. They each got stakes set inside them to 1) keep them from blowing away, 2) allow for any critters that might fall in to have a way of getting out and 3) partially block the opening so the water doesn’t flow out too quickly.

Finally, last of all, the netting was put over the hoops, which is barely visible in the last picture. I picked up some plastic clothes pegs to use as clips to hold the netting in place on the hoops and on the retaining wall side. Ground staples are holding it in place on the garden side.

Everything got a very thorough watering, first the entire bed in general, and then filling the upside down water bottles. That bed was pretty dry!

For now, that bed is done. Later on, I might transplant some onions in between, or maybe some marigolds. Or I’ll just set a straw or leaf mulch around it. I’ll thin the squash as needed and, eventually, the netting will be removed as I plan to train them to grow vertically.

That done, I moved on to the main garden area and the high raised bed.

It’s hard to see, but that soil thermometer was reading about 20C/68F!!!

I brought over the Red Wethersfield onions to transplant among the bush beans. The onions were transplanted first, with a short row at each end, and a row straight down the middle. The Tricolor beans mix were planted until I ran out of seeds, which were enough to do all of one side, and about half on the other. The rest of that row was finished off with the Gold Rush yellow beans.

The handy thing with the hoops and netting on this bed is that it’s fairly easy to lift the netting and secure it at the top of the hoops, giving plenty of space to move around in. At some point, though, the bush beans might get too big for the netting. We shall see.

That done, I moved to the flower bed at the end of the high raised bed. With that one, I could use the bamboo stake rolled up at the side to lift the whole side up and over, so there was plenty of room to work in.

Not very much room for what I transplanted, though!

First up was clearing away the invading weeds (creeping Charlie is viciously invasive!!), being careful not to disturb the nasturtiums I’d direct sown that survived.

For some reason, I got it in my head that I’d started nasturtiums indoors, but I hadn’t.

I brought over the largest flowers that desperately needed transplanting. The Crackerjack Marigold were the biggest, and they went in closer to the high raised bed. They have flower buds on them already.

The dwarf Cosmos actually had a couple of open flowers on them!

White flowers.

These are supposed to be red.

Not sure what happened there.

Oh, dear. I just got a notification on my phone. Thunderstorms possible in the next hour. So much for starting to storm tomorrow evening!

I’m going to have to pop out and get the remaining transplants in bins protected.

Be right back…

Well, that’s done. I hope the transplants in the greenhouse frame will be okay. They are too big to cover in their bins, but we set covers on the shelves above them that should provide enough protection, and secured everything so it won’t get blown away.

Looking at the weather radar on my desktop, I’m not seeing any side of potential storms, or even rain, coming up over our area. My phone’s weather app, on the other hand, has bumped up the thunderstorm timeline. It’s entirely possible the system will miss us entirely.

I really hope we just get a nice rain. Something the transplants won’t get damaged by.

So… where was I…

Still yesterday’s work…

The last bed I worked on was the short side of the L shaped wattle weave bed, where I transplanted the Florence Fennel.

The first image is after I removed the leave mulch, but before I weeded, cleaned up and loosened the soil.

The Florence fennel got really big in those snail rolls! For their size, they should have been transplanted long ago.

There turned out to be a dozen transplants, plus one tiny one that I probably shouldn’t have bothered with, but I stuck it in between a couple of others, anyhow. You never know.

Today, I carefully added some of the leaf mulch back in between the fennel, so now the still drooping stems are on mulch rather than damp soil. Hopefully, they will perk up soon!

That was it for yesterday, before I went inside to get away from the heat. I never made it back out. The girls ended up doing the evening watering for me. I went to bed early to get an early start today.

This morning, I wanted to get tomatoes in. I have four varieties, and I wasn’t sure if they would all fit in one bed, but in my garden map, I did have an idea of where I would plant any that didn’t fit.

I got three varieties in.

This is the bed I recently got cleaned up and covered – though a determined cat still managed to dig into a gap in the plastic!

After moving the plastic and doing a bit of weeding and loosening of soil, I got some of the household compost my brother gave me and worked that into the soil as well.

The first variety I planted were the largest; the Manitoba tomato. There were 10 of them and, being the largest, I set them along the north side of the bed, so they wouldn’t shade out anything else as they got bigger.

I used the protective collars to help space out the plantings before digging holes. The collars actually helped by keeping the sides of the soil from falling in. The bed was pretty dry, so I made sure to deeply water each hole first. The collars helped with that, too, keeping the water where I needed it.

After transplanting the tomatoes, I added one of my heavier 6′ tall plastic coated metal stakes against each collar, than used garden twist ties to carefully secure the transplants upright.

Then it was time to move on to the next ones, which were the Blueberry tomatoes. There were only six transplants, and they all went into a block at one end of the bed.

Those got transplanted and secured to stakes as well. Each of the stakes get lined up with the previous ones, in case I want to add horizontal supports between them, later on. Beyond support for the tomatoes, the stakes will keep the protective collars from blowing away. They’re not pushed deep into the soil, so as not to entrap the tomato’s roots.

After counting out how many transplants were in the last two snail rolls, the rest of the bed got planted with the Orange Currant tomatoes.

These were a lot smaller than the others. I planted in fourteen collars, which filled the remaining space while lined up with that first row of 10, though the last collar got two tiny transplants. We’ll see which of them survives and grows! They all got the plant stakes added, but I ran out and the last ones got bamboo stakes instead.

Everything then got watered around the collars. Doing a deep watering also allowed me to use the shower setting on the nozzle to gently level off the soil around the collars.

Another bonus to using the collars. It makes it easy to mulch the bed, deeply, right away.

The first image is after the soil was watered, around the collars. Then I got a wheel barrow load of straw and set it around all the collars, with particular attention put into a thick layer around the edges, where the crab grass and other weeds tend to push their way through. Then the straw itself got watered, so it wouldn’t act as a thatch.

I just checked the time stamps on the photos. This one bed took me three hours.

Then I went inside for lunch before heading to the main garden area.

I’m not sure what happened there, but I am “missing” photos. I suspect that when I thought I was taking progress shots, my fingers may have been too damp for the touch screen to read my tapping on the screen to take the picture.

Ah, well.

I had thought that this bed might get the last of the tomatoes, the peppers and the celery.

I ended up including the Caspar eggplant as well, because I had the space.

First thing to do, though, was remove the plastic protecting the bed from cats.

The first thing that needed to be transplanted were the Golden Boy celery. These were way too big.

I had decided that things would be transplanted in short rows across the bed, since I wasn’t sure how many things I’d have room for. The celery ended up taking only three rows, even though I tried to space them out as much as I could. As usual, I watered the trenches before planting. This variety of celery is not supposed to require blanching, so I didn’t need to dig too deep, but I still ended up with new trenches in between the rows as I pushed the soil against the transplants.

I filled those with compost.

Then I laid down a straw mulch, which is one of the pictures that didn’t take. I made sure the deepest mulch was around the edges of the bed, where that blasted creeping Charlie keeps trying to creep! I made sure the soil around the celery was moist before adding the straw, then wet down the straw. I kept up that pattern with the straw for everything else.

Once the celery was in and protected, I transplanted the California Wonder bell peppers. These were the largest of the transplants, and there were the most to plant.

Somehow, I missed getting any progress pictures at all, even though I stopped at each stage. I used collars to first space out where they would go, then did the usual loosening of soil, setting the collars, deep watering in them, then transplanting. I had six collars, though one of them got two tiny peppers in it.

For these, I used cheap tomato cages to secure the collars and protect the peppers. Because the collars were so close together, I could only fit them on the outside collars, which were still touching each other, so the middle peppers will still be supported, as they grow.

Next, I did the Caspar eggplant, which were really tiny. They really struggled to grow in our cold basement!

I got progress photos for those, at least!

There were two large seedlings and two tiny ones, so I set up three collars and planted the little ones together. Straw mulch and watering process was repeated.

Next were the Sweet Chocolate peppers. There were only three surviving peppers. There had been a fourth one but it was so small, I didn’t even try to plant it. Not even with another plant.

The last picture was taken before I added the straw mulch, and then I guess I forgot to take one last photo after that was done.

At this point, two hours had gone by and we’d reached our high of the day. I was baking in the sun, so I tucked the last transplants – a snail roll of tomatoes, and another of hollyhocks – into the shade and went in.

I’d hoped to head outside once things cooled down but, even if we don’t get the thunderstorm I got a warning notification for, it’s not going to start cooling down until about 8pm – another two hours from when I’m writing this.

With the thunderstorm warning, my daughter and I went out and the bin with the transplants is now safely secured and protected in the portable greenhouse frame.

Tomorrow, depending which app I check, we’ll either start storming at 10pm, or we’ll have scattered showered and thunderstorms starting in the afternoon.

My hope is to be able to get our Costco stock up trip finally done. I’m not looking forward to it. There are fewer and fewer things priced better there that make it worth the trip.

The weather app on my phone now says thunderstorms all day tomorrow, rain during the day on Wednesday with more thunderstorms by evening. If it’s accurate, the earliest I’ll be able to continue in the garden will be Thursday.

I might be taking my daughter into the city on Wednesday for a follow up medical appointment at the Women’s hospital, unless it becomes a telephone appointment. I don’t think she got the call today that was supposed to let her know, one way or the others.

At least my husband’s medical appointment on the same day is a telephone appointment, as is mine on Friday. Next week, however, I’m headed to the nearer city for my ultrasound.

Somewhere in there, I need to visit my mother, too.

Unfortunately, with all the troubles we’ve been having with the truck – which has earned its name of Damocles – I dread driving anywhere further out. Especially to the city. We don’t have much choice, though.

*sigh*

Well, we’ll see what the next few days brings.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: May garden tour video

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Today, I’ve been pushing to get things in the ground. Normally, I wouldn’t even try doing the transplanting until after June 2, when the risk of frost is theoretically past. Instead, we’ve got the heat and a thunderstorm coming in a few days. Soil thermometer tells me the soil is more than warm enough for direct sowing and transplanting – too warm, for some things. So I’m going for it.

I got as much as I could before it started getting too hot. It’s past 6:30 as I write this, and we’re still at 28C/82F. I’d hoped to get back out later today, but we’ll see. Aside from getting things planted in the garden, the lawn seriously needs to be mowed. It can’t be done in the cool of the morning, as the grass is too wet, and I needed to focus on the planting.

My brother and his wife had stayed the night in their caravan, though, and he was an absolute sweetheart. He checked on the push mower and the riding mower they have available for us to use and tested them out, saving me the time of having to do the maintenance checks myself. I can just start them up and get going.

I got a lot done, which I will write about later. Today, when forced inside by the heat, I finally got the video I took on the 20th put together into a garden tour video. It’s was hard to go through the clips and not what to start over – so much has changed in 10 days! We went from cold, rain and even snow, to brutal heat waves.

I resisted.

So, here it is. Our May garden tour video.

Enjoy!

The Re-Farmer

Tree planting done

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Technically, today is a touch cooler – we hit a high of 31C/88F this afternoon, and it’s just starting to slowly drop for the evening.

It didn’t feel cooler, even though I was done well before we reached the high of the day. I started off around 6am and it was already getting hot. I have no idea what the humidex was, but I was definitely courting with heat stroke by the end of it.

It is, however, done.

First, the unboxing.

The Manchurian walnut wasn’t even visible until the packaging was unwrapped!

The package came with planting instructions, which included making sure NOT to leave any of the sawdust around the roots, and to let the roots soak for about an hour before planting.

While those were soaking, I got my supplies together to do the Manchurian walnut first. I got a wheelbarrow load of wood chips that I hoped would be enough for all the trees (that old pile of wood chips is decomposing nicely) and the wagon was loaded with watering cans, the tree bucket and a piece of thick cardboard as part of the mulch.

For the Manchurian Walnut, I chose to plant it where we have a row of Black walnut. Last year, one of them simply disappeared. Not just the leaves nibbled at. The entire stem, gone.

Since that area had already been worked and marked, I figure it would be at least a bit easier to prepare the hole, too.

Well, mostly.

There were the usual small rocks, but I also had to cut away a substantial root the wasn’t there when I planted the Black Walnut seed! The protective collar turned out to be absolutely jammed with roots, and it took quite some time to clear it. With that in mind, when I replaced the collar later, I set it just into the ground, not as deep as it had been when I planted the black walnut seed. But that was much later.

When I’d dug the hole before, I’d found some rocks that got used to form a ring around the planting area before mulching with grass clippings that were so long, they were basically hay. I set those aside along with more that the frost/freeze cycle had heaved up. The top soil is not very deep and I was soon hitting the gravel/sand/clay layer and loosened that up as much as I could before returning enough soil to make a planting mound, as per the instructions. I also used the protective collar as a template to cut an opening in the cardboard that would be laid down under the wood chips.

Once planted, it got a watering can full (2 gallons) of water. Then the cardboard and protective collar was put in place. Then a thick mulch of wood chips and more watering (another 2 gallons).

Last of all, I set the rocks around the inside of the mulch ring in such a way that I hope they will help direct water flow towards the middle. Since I still had the grass clipping mulch handy, I set that around the outer edge of the wood chips.

In this location, the Manchurian walnut will need at least weekly deep watering, unless we get a decent amount of rain. The surviving Black walnut are showing leaf buds and I should be watering them, too.

But not quite yet.

Next job, planting the Blue Basket Willow.

These were going to go much further from the house, beyond the outer yard. There is a low area that forms a shallow pond in wet years, and towards which our septic ejector drains. The renter’s cows are rotated into this quarter for pasture, so I needed to make sure they wouldn’t stomp all over the new trees! Not that I can 100% protect them from cows, but I can at least make it less likely.

Before heading out, I cut five sections of the heavy cardboard and five metal T posts to bring along. The area I was going to work in was so round, once I got the wagon through the outer yard fence line, I had to carry the watering cans and soaking bucket over, so as not to lose all the water to sloshing.

The first two pictures are where I decided to plant. This low area had been fenced off at some point, and the remains of fencing are still there. I wanted it to be further away from the existing willows that are way too close to our ejector system (the roots are likely why we had to replace it, a couple of falls ago, and the new ejector is further from the trees).

The bit of fence still there will protect the trees from the cows on one side, and the T posts should somewhat protect from the other. It will be some time before the cows are rotated to this quarter, and the willow should have time for their roots to be established before it becomes a concern.

I normally would have planted trees a minimum of 6′ feet apart, but these are meant for coppicing. I used the 5′ long T posts to mark a row in the grass roughly 5′ apart, plus a few inches.

This area has standing water in places, barely visible in the tall grass. Where I planted, it is slightly more elevated, but still very wet. Once I marked out the distances, I cleared the tall grass within a circle with my gloved hands and used that as a guide for where to shovel out a circle of sod, before digging deeper.

The first couple of holes weren’t too bad, but when I got to the third one, I hit so many rocks, so close to the surface, I thought I would have to dig somewhere else. In another hole, there were so many larger rocks, I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough soil left to return to the hole!

I got it done, though, and set the rocks along the old fence, out of the way.

Then I returned the sod in chunks, upside down, to create a planting mound. This area is so wet, water was starting to accumulate in the bottom of the holes.

The holes prepared, I planted all five of the willow and gave them a surface watering. Just one watering can’s worth, more to settle the soil around them.

Next, I cut holes in the middle of the cardboard, with a slice to the edge so I could slide the cardboard around the stems, adding the T posts beside each one in the process. They now each have the fallen fence protecting them on one side, and the T posts on the other.

Then the remaining wood chips got added for mulch. It’s nowhere near enough. I’ll have to get another load and add more later.

Last of all, I used the second watering can and what was left in the soaking bucket to moisten the wood chips.

One important thing about planting these in this location. I will not need to water them weekly. If anything, they are more at risk of drowning that drying out. At least for now. If things dry up over the summer, then I might have to water them. Which would be a pain, because the water line to the barn was shut off decades ago, when my parents no longer had cows.

By this time, it was coming up on 10am and the heat was a real danger. I put everything but the spade back into the wagon and took that to the “gate” at the fence line by the barn. With the wheelbarrow, though, I took the time to grab some of the rocks I’d dug up, plus a few more loose rocks along the way. I let the spade, just in case, but never needed to use it.

I had pulled the garden hose as far into the outer yard as it could reach, in case I needed to refill watering cans. Instead, I took the wheelbarrow over and started filling hosing the rocks down to get the worst of the mud off and let them soak for a bit. Then I brought the wagon to the inner hard fence before going back, dumping water out of the wheelbarrow, and refilling it.

The above picture is after the first water was dumped off and it was getting refilled.

This also allowed me to use the water to cool myself down. Including soaking my hat before putting it back on again. The heat was really brutal and I was starting to feel the warning signs telling me I needed to get inside, fast – and we hadn’t even reached the high of the day, yet!

I left the wheelbarrow where it was for the while. The rocks will be taken to the gate area, were they will be used to make the wall of what will be a flower bed at the base of my mother’s angel statue.

Then I went inside and, as soon as possible, crashed on the couch near the AC for at least 4 hours. I hadn’t done the morning watering in the garden, so my daughters took care of that for me.

Meanwhile, my brother and SIL had come out yesterday. Just as I was setting up, they headed out with their RV that they found someone to sell for them. They got back around the same time I was getting up, and now I see my brother has their zero turn mower out and is mowing in this heat!!

The grass is getting so very long right now, but it’s just been too hot. When it’s cooler in the morning, the grass is too wet. For the inner yard, I was going to break out their push mower that they’ve set up for us to use, and mow around the edges of the yard, then use the riding mower they have for me to use, to do the rest. My brother’s weed trimmer is also available, and I just brought his case of batteries for it out of the house where they were stored for the winter.

It’s past 5pm as I write this. It’s still 28C/82F out there, with the humidex at 31C/88C.

It’s hard to believe that, just a week or so ago, we were still getting snow!

I was supposed to do a dump run today. They’re open until 6pm on Saturdays, but I’m simply not up to it. My daughter was willing to do the driving, but I’m still groggy and dizzy. It’ll have to wait.

Again.

*sigh*

The important thing is, the trees are planted!

Now we just have to keep them alive…

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: preparing to direct sow

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First up, I’m happy to share this photo of Havarti.

After how bloody and swollen he was after his spay yesterday, then disappearing when the cleaned out isolation shelter was dry and ready to hold him for the night, I honestly would not have been surprised if he didn’t make it. Instead, when I came out to do the feeding this morning, there he was, mostly cleaned up, among the cats swirling under my feed, very eager for food!

I just came back from the evening feeding. He is doing very well – but it’s so hot out there, most of the food I set out this morning was still uneaten! No appetites in this heat, that’s for sure. They have plenty of water available, and plenty of shade, and we have cat puddles all over the place.

One of the things I did today was pick up the trees at the post office.

I haven’t bothered to open the box, yet. It’s in the living room, where the air conditioner is, and no cats to try to tear into it.

The house is cooler – we’ve got the AC, my husband and I have box fans in our rooms, and the girls have their AC in their upstairs apartment. They also managed to get the old basement door to open (the knob needs replacing) and the wire mesh door we made for it is set up, allowing air circulation from the cooler basement.

The old basement is damp enough that I got two blowers and an oscillating fan going. The new basement has weeping tile but, after a rain barrel was allowed to overflow the summer before we moved here, the corner where that barrel was still gets damp, so I’ve got an oscillating fan on that corner, too. I still need to set up the summer window in the old basement, which is a combination of wire mesh and window screen, so no critters can get through. The extra air circulation will help with the dampness in that basement, too.

With the sump pump going off fairly regularly, and the hose set up to drain under a bed in the old kitchen garden, it means our tiny bok choy, beets and parsnips will get watered from below, too.

The heat was still getting to me and I ended up going down for a nap in the living room, with the AC running, for an hour and a half – I set a timer this time – shortly after lunch.

Then I went into the new basement. With all the transplants now outside, I cleared the set up that was on my work table, putting the full spectrum lights away (now I suddenly can’t remember if I shut off the shop light…). This gave me room to re-organize my seed packets and think about what I can direct sow, now that the soil temperatures are more than warm enough. Normally, I wouldn’t sow these things for another week, but the soil thermometer I picked up tells me the soil is ready, and the long range forecast shows no sign of frost. With all the protective netting I’ve been setting up, though, if there was a possibility of frost, I would be able to cover the beds that need it with cloth.

After going through my seeds, I set aside a number of packets into a separate bin, as thinks I can potentially direct sow in the next few days.

No, I won’t be sowing everything in that bin! The second picture shows part of why. Granted, that’s in the sun room, but still…

Most of what’s going into the garden beds will be transplants. I don’t actually have a lot to direct sow.

In the high raised bed, I will be planting bush beans, interplanted with onion transplants. I will be planting pole beans in the middle of the bed that has the daikon radish and white turnips winter sown into it.

The flower bed at the end of the high raised bed will have cosmos and nasturtiums transplanted into it. I have marigolds to transplant among the vegetable beds, but I also plan to direct sow more. I have bachelor’s button and other flowers I’d like to direct sow, but I’m not sure where, yet.

There is a space in the trellis bed that should have room to transplant cucumbers into it – if we have any to transplant. I do have the bi-colour pear gourds, though. I might transplant those, instead. There is also enough space between where the carrots are planted (I still can’t tell if we have any, after the second sowing) to direct sow something that isn’t too large and bushy.

One of the empty beds in the main garden area is meant to have some tomatoes, plus the celery and peppers transplanted into it. Onions will be interplanted among them. There aren’t a lot of surviving peppers, though. The spacing I have will determine what I will direct sow there. These are long beds and I might have extra space for the celery. They are a short season variety I could potentially direct sow more of.

Another bed, where the garlic was planted last year, is meant for squash or melons, but after the tray of winter squash, melons and cucumbers got decimated by something in the basement, it will be a while before the new seeds even germinate, never mind be ready for transplant.

I have two varieties short season corn to direct sow, but the area they are going in still needs to be uncovered and prepared. If we have any that survived, I hope to interplant winter squash transplants, or direct sow pole beans among them.

The bed along the retaining wall in the old kitchen garden will be direct sown with summer squash. I have 5 varieties to plant, possibly 6, if I have the space. That bed still needs to have hoops to hold protective netting set up over it, though.

In the newly finished bed I have at the chain link fence, I am looking to transplant winter squash and melons – if the new seeds replacing the eaten ones germinate and survive! I might end up buying transplants at some point, but I don’t know if it’s necessary, yet.

Among the other seeds I will sow as I find space are things like fern leaf dill, which I plan to treat as a perennial, and other varieties of peas and beans, including garbanzo beans, though those might wait until next year. The Caspar eggplant transplants don’t look very robust, but they are a short season variety, so I might direct sow more along with the transplants, just so see how that will work out.

With the heat holding on for so long in the day, I expect to only get the evening watering done tonight. I will try to get up earlier tomorrow and see what I can get done before it gets too hot out there. The highs are supposed to very slowly get “cooler”; starting tomorrow, we’re expected to be below 30C/86F for the next while. One of my apps says to expect rain starting Tuesday night (today is Friday), thunderstorms on Wednesday, and rain continuing through Thursday morning.

Right now, at almost 7:30pm, we’ve finally dropped to 28C/82F, though the “real feel” is still 29C/84F.

Time to find the bug spray and do the evening watering!

The Re-Farmer

A semi-stock up shop: this is what $212 looks like

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This is not the shop I intended to make.

With Damocles living up to its name while I took the cats to the vet yesterday, and the heat wave hitting us, I was going to skip another trip to the city.

I did, however, need to go into town. My husband’s prescriptions were delivered yesterday, minus one – his primary pain killer, that he can’t order in advance, because it’s a “controlled substance”. He was down to one pill. They did have it ready while I was still in the city, but there was no way I’d be picking it up with cats in the truck and, by the time I got home, the pharmacy was going to close before I could get to town.

Same with my trees that arrived in the mail.

So early this morning, before things got insanely hot, though it was getting there real fast, I headed into town. Since I was there anyhow, I decided to stop at a local grocery store. If nothing else, I wanted to get more eggs.

I ended up taking advantage of sales and got more.

This is what $212.32 looks like.

The big difference here is, I got actual meat. Including beef!

From the top, there’s a 4 pack of Monster drinks that were on sale, that I got for the girls. The Sour Patch kids candy were also on sale, and for my husband. The giant potato chip bags were a rare treat, for all four of us, along with two containers of dip.

I got three types of cheese that were on sale, as were the 18 count packs of eggs, making it cheaper to get two of those than to get the flat of eggs I’d planned to get. Plus, they fit better in our hard sided grocery bags.

The sale on butter was really good, but I only got two, since I already got four, when I was in the city.

There’s a giant bag of frozen tater tots as something my husband can cook himself. The baby spinach was not on sale, but our own spinach is struggling to grow in this heat.

The sale on the sirloin tip roast was good, but I was seriously tempted by the brisket, that was a dollar cheaper per pound. The whole thing cost just over $125. At Costco, the same thing would have cost more than $250. In the end, I knew I wouldn’t be able to process it before it would need to go into the freezer.

The whole chicken was also on sale, so I got two. The sausage ring was not on sale, but the regular price of this locally made product is already quite good. The jumbo pack of wieners were not on sale, but are an okay price for the amount in the package. The croissants on sale are another treat. The hot dog buns were not on sale. It blows me away that a 12 pack of buns now costs more than a 12 pack of wieners, and I got the jumbo pack, which is by weight and more than 24 wieners. The hot dog fixings are for those days when it’s just too hot to spend a lot of time at the stove!

Finally, I got some plain loaves of bread. House brand, so a better price, plus bonus points for buying 2 loaves at a time.

In the end, I did more of a food stock up trip locally, than I did while in the city! The main part is being able to get meat at a decent price. When it comes to beef in particular, Costco is now priced completely out of our budget. Still, there are enough things we need, where the price difference it worth the trip to the city. Cat food, in particular.

Speaking of which, I just realized the time. It’s time to feed the outside cats for the evening!

On the way home from this shopping trip, I stopped to pick up the trees in the mail, and also got a 40 pound bag of kibble for the outside cats, at $45. After taxes, just pennies over $50.

*sigh*

It’s still 30C/86F out there. “Feels like” 33C/91F

I am not looking forward to going out there.

The Re-Farmer

First stock up shop: this is what $258 looks like

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Normally, I would be in the city today, doing our second stock up shop.

I’m going to wait a few more days.

Instead, here is the stock up shop I did a couple of days ago, when I came back too tired and in too much pain to do a post. That and I needed to try and get to bed early, as we had to capture some cats to go to the vet the next morning.

This was day of multiple stops, but I only got pictures of two of them, for a total of $258.88 It was also an unusual shop, as I did not get as much as I normally would have, changing up where I went a bit.

My first stop was the Canadian Tire, not pictured.

I got two bags of hardwood pellets for the litters, some screws and neoprene washers to go with them, as the cat house roof needs a bit of repair, a new headlight bulb for Damocles (our truck), some stronger zip ties I’ll need for the garden, and a clear plastic runner that I’m wanting to set on my bedroom floor, under where some litter boxes are. The headlight alone was $40.

Grand total after taxes was $105.34

Gas prices were cheaper by 20¢/L so I got $50 in gas on the way to my next stop, which was Walmart.

This is what $138.81 looks like.

This is a really small shop for a Walmart trip. I didn’t get any cat food this time, because I expected to go to Costco and stock up there in a couple of days, though I did get the XXL size pee pads.

The paper towels were on sale. The Costco price for paper towels are good, but I get so many large items there, getting their bigger package of paper towels is too much, so I get them at Walmart, instead. Then there are the XXL puppy pads, a cheap watering can because my new one that I got last year cracked over the winter. I finally found the huge bottles of shampoo and conditioner in stock. I would have gotten two conditioners, as we all use more of that than the shampoo, but it was the last one on the shelf. The “baby wipes” are actually “all purpose” wipes. I find having a package in my office/bedroom handy, and the girls were wanting one for their upstairs apartment, so I got a couple. Then there is the personal hygiene product that I’m still using, just in case. Looking forward to that ultrasound I’ve got coming up early next month!

That’s it. One of the smallest Walmart shops I’ve ever done, and certainly the smallest “stock up shop” I’ve ever done! No grocery items – I didn’t think to bring ice packs on this trip – and no cat food really makes a difference.

Normally after this, I would have gone to an international grocery store, but I kept hearing how Fresh Co has better prices, so I decided to try there.

As I parked I saw that it shared a building with a Dollarama, so I went there first. I honestly can’t remember everything I got there, and I think the receipt got tossed. I did get 4 plastic bins, which we used to for the snail roll transplants, making it more stable to move them and have them outside. I got some plant clips and 3′ long plant stakes that my daughter helped me across the bed, with the clips to hold the netting in place, to hopefully hold it up the next time the cats jump on top of the netting.

They really want to be on top of that mosquito netting. It’s so weird.

I’m sure I got something else, but I can’t remember what. Looking at my bank transactions, though, it totaled $35 even.

Then I went into the Fresh Co.

I can’t say that prices were really any better, there. There were big signs all over saying they had the best prices, or they would match competitor prices. Meanwhile, their flats of eggs were $2 more than what I can get locally. There were things I saw at Walmart that were at least a dollar more expensive. Some prices were better, but only because they were on sale.

The store itself was… I don’t know. It’s not that it was laid out badly, but it felt like it was. They had a lot of international foods, but nothing that I was interested in, compared to the international store I normally go to.

In the end, I spent only $120.07, after taxes. This is what that looks like.

That really isn’t much. Not much for a stock up trip, that’s for sure!

As you can see, pretty much everything I got was on some sort of sale. I got three boxes of frozen chicken – even packed in insulated bags, they were partially thawed by the time I got home, so they got eaten pretty much right away. There turned out to not be much in the boxes, either. Definitely not worth paying full price for, but not too bad with the sale price.

The sale price on the butter was pretty good, so I got four pounds. Definitely a good price on the coffee creamer the girls like, so I got a couple of those, even though they still had. The water flavours were also a better price, though only because they were on sale. The price on the strawberries was okay for the size of package, and they were really good looking strawberries.

The bananas were an okay price; I got them more because they were actually decently ripe. Everywhere else I’ve been seeing bananas, they are totally green. I remembered to get onions, and those were a good price.

The sale price on the teas were quite good. I spotted a honey ginger drink mix we’ve tried before and enjoyed, and the price was right on that, too. The ketchup was also a good price. The sale price on the rye bread is about the same as when the rye bread is on sale locally for that brand. Then, finally, I got a cold Monster drink for the drive home, because by then, I really needed it!

Again, not much of a shop, and certainly not much for a stock up shop.

By the time I was done, however, I was heavily using my cart as a walker. My lower back was hurting, my left hip was giving out and, oddly, my left shoulder felt like it was trying to dislocate every time I moved it.

Which certainly made packing the stuff into the truck “fun”.

Counting the Dollarama and Canadian Tire shops, the total for the day was $414.22 Plus whatever my lunch at Walmart cost, which would have been under $20.

So, not much of a stock up trip at all.

The Re-Farmer

Another good bye, and I think the heat is getting to Damocles

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Well, this was a day…

My younger daughter and I were out shortly after 6am to try and snag cats into carriers. Particularly the two in the isolation shelter with Bug.

We let Bug out. She’s been in there for a week since her spay, and my daughter was able to give her the dewormer pill finally, yesterday. She will be better outside the shelter – especially in this heat!

Unfortunately, we had zero luck getting the other two. They know exactly where to go that we can’t reach.

So we tried for Adam, who suddenly was no longer friendly.

In the end, we were able to easily get Havarti and Curtis, plus we got Hypotenose because he was basically blocking the carrier while we were trying to reach Adam and practically went in on his own.

Then the door closed and he panicked. It was very concerning, but he did settle down a bit. I put the carrier with Curtis in it, door to door with Hypotenose, and I think that helped.

At this point, I left right away. I’d be very early, but I thought the vibrations of the drive would calm them.

It did.

However…

Along the way I suddenly realized the battery gauge was not where it usually is. It was still within the “normal” range, but well into the low side. I have never seen it there before. Not even the time we got low battery warnings.

Then I got to an intersection where I needed to stop at a stop sign for a while before I could turn, and the gauge went up to where it normally is.

By the time I reached the junction, maybe a mile away from the vet clinic, it started dropping again.

So, while I was parked and waiting, with the cats very quiet behind me, I started looking up the second location of our usual garage in town. I wasn’t able to phone right away, though, partly because my phone needed to be restarted before any calls would connect, and partly because the clinic opened and I went in.

When giving the info for Hypotenose, I made sure to mention that I was afraid he might have injured himself in his panic. He had been clawing and biting at the door, and it looks like there might be blood on his face. They were forwarned.

Once the cats were processed and taken to the back, I went to the truck and called the garage. After telling him what was happening, he said he was just going an oil change at the moment, and could take a quick look. I got directions to where the garage was (not anywhere near where I thought they were!) and headed over.

My phone started to ring while I was driving. I don’t answer my phone when I’m driving, but I thought it might be the vet clinic.

When I found the place and parked, I checked, and yes, it was. My phone will transcribe voice mail messages into text, so I did that. I had mentioned that we assume the cats all have ear mites and worms, but there was a misunderstanding. The rescue didn’t include deworming in what the cats were signed up for. I clarified things and said that, if they thought it was necessary, I would pay for the dewormer.

While I was on the phone, the mechanic came out with his tester, figuring I was the one who called earlier. I told him I was on the phone with the vet, so he went ahead and popped the hood while I walked around. When I was on hold, I came over to talk to him and see what was going on.

He tested the battery.

It was fine.

Alternator checked out fine.

He got another tester, opened up the fuse box (I now see how to open it, and can’t understand why I couldn’t manage it before!) and tested all the fuses. They were fine.

I stepped away for a bit when the vet clinic got back on the call and when it was done, I talked with the mechanic some more. I’m glad I took a picture of what the gauge was at, because it was back to normal when I drove over, and a bit of our history, as I’ve noticed something’s been draining the battery, every so slightly, somewhere.

He couldn’t find our electrical gremlin, but he explained to me what to watch for.

As he was testing the fuses, I joked that, since I was there, I might get him to change my headlight bulb. I picked up a new bulb yesterday, but the last time I tried to chance the bulb, it was a real pain. I ended up changing it from inside. He agreed it was a pain, because the whole light assembly comes out. He pointed out, this screw has to be taken off, there’s another under the shield, and one underneath, accessed through the wheel well.

…

I didn’t know about that third one. No wonder I couldn’t get it out!

When he was done checking and filling me in, I asked what I owed him, and he said, nothing. He didn’t charge me for the testing!

If I had gone to Canadian Tire, they would have charged me for the diagnostic and given me a printout of all the other things they wanted me to get them to do, costing many hundreds of dollars, most of which I have later found out were not at all needed.

That done, I headed back to the area of town where the vet clinic is nearby and basically tried to hang out at the Walmart. And the Dollarama. Then back to Walmart. I checked out the garden centre at the Walmart first, which is accessible only from the outside and by going around a construction and detour zone. I spotted a couple of things I wouldn’t mind picking up to fill in the gaps where we lost some sliver buffalo berry. Josta berry interests me. So does logan berry. We will decide that later on, though. I’m not buying transplants until I’ve actually transplanted what we have now, and have an idea of what survived and what hasn’t.

When lunch time started rolling around, I really didn’t want to do the usual McRaunchies, Subway or even the Timmies across the street. I haven’t gone to Timmies in a long time. They are not good, like they used to be. After watching the menu board for a while, I left without ordering anything. Nothing appealed to me. I ended up going to the McRaunchies in the Walmart.

At least the iced blueberry pomegranate drink was a nice change.

I tried to take a lot of time, but I just can’t sit still for that long, so I wandered the store some more.

I ended up driving over to the Canadian Tire after a while and hanging around there as long as I had the tolerance for.

I did pick up a few things. some for the lawn and garden, but also a birthday gift for my younger daughter, whose birthday is next month. I found a blacksmith hammer for her. Yes, I gave it to her early. She is thrilled!

Normally, I would have gone back to the truck and napped for a bit, since I have been up since 4:30 and never fell asleep until past 1am (I did sleep in the cat free zone, with the AC running, so that helped), but it’s just too hot. We slowly heated up to 34C/93F and are only now starting to cool down. If you can call 33C/91F at pat 6:30pm “cooling down”.

When it got around 1pm, I just went over to the vet clinic.

It turned out they hadn’t even started on them yet. I asked if I could stay and they were okay with that, except that they close their doors to the public between 3 and 3:30 for a staff meeting, and I would have to leave for that. The cats would be done and in recovery by then. After asking her for some ideas, I decided to go hang out at a library not that far away.

With the little bit of driving around I did, the battery gauge went from behaving normally, to suddenly dropping down again, and back again.

Once at library, I tried to park in the tiniest bit of shade I could find and headed it. They have a little cafe and I was able to get an iced drink and cool down for awhile, before going into the main library area and finding a comfortable armchair to wait in. Along the way, I updated my family, my brother and SIL, the rescue chat group, etc.

Part way through, I got a text message from the rescue worker who arranged these appointments.

The vet had called her to let her know, one of the cats had to be euthanized. She couldn’t remember which one, but she said he had major dental issues. I thought of Hypotenose and the damage he might have done to his teeth, but she said severe gingivitis was part of it, which means this was a long time problem, not something that started today. She thought it might have been Hypotenose, but wasn’t sure.

I was told the other two were doing well, and they would be ready for pick up at 3:30. I updated the family, and even the cat lady, who had been out of the country for a while and came back to discover Button and broken a lot of plates while she was gone! She sent me a picture of Button, yesterday. You can see the blue of his eyes more, now, which means the dilation is reducing and he would be able to see at least a bit more. The Cat Lady ended up phoning me and we chatted for a bit. She has been in a similar situation with some of the ferals she has brought in, even though she is not a rescue anymore. They just show up at her place. So she understood how it can happen.

By then, I decided to start heading back to the clinic. I was about 15 minutes early, so I was parked with the engine running and the AC on, while messaging with my brother and SIL. I had told them about what the truck was doing. Then, while I was sitting parked, I realized a new warning light was on the dash.

The “slippery conditions” light.

While I was parked.

The gauge was dropping again, too. The doors were almost open, so I opened the windows, shut the engine off and went to stand in the shade for the last few minutes!

This time, the vet didn’t come out to talk to me, so I don’t have details on what happened, but the tech asked if the rescue person had let me know what they had to do with Hypotenose. They gave me the paperwork for the other two, then went to get them and the now empty carrier.

I did tell them in advance that these are yard cats and would be going back outside. I was told to keep Havarti at least in the carrier for longer, as he had some scrotal bleeding. Just until the blood clotted. I said we would do the best we can, but he was in the smallest carrier, so he couldn’t stay in there for very long!

From there, I headed home – with my SIL making sure I knew to call them if something happened with the truck!

Everything was right were is normally is, the whole ride home.

*sigh*

Once home, my younger daughter came out to help unload and I told her the vet instructions. I was thinking of setting the carriers in the shade in the yard, but she suggested we put Havarti in the old kitchen for a while. It’s cooler in there. So she took care of that, and made sure he had a bowl of water and a bit of food.

Then we let Curtis out, since he’d already been in there for about an hour, which the tech recommended as a minimum. Curtis is going great.

The girls had supper ready by the time I got home, so after bringing everything in – and giving my daughter her birthday present, we ate, then moved on to other things for the next while. My daughter had a timer set to check on Havarti, so she let me know it went off, asking if I wanted to check on him, too. By the time I got there, she had already taken the carrier out and check on him. When I came in, she was aghast. Havarti came out, covered in blood. His back end saturated, and all his underbelly. He’d spilled some of his water bowl, and that didn’t help any!

He was moving around slowly, eventually splaying out on a sidewalk block in the shade, while I stayed out to do the evening cat feeding. When he flopped down, I could see his bits, and the bleeding looks like it has stopped, but he’s terribly swollen! I’ve never seen this happen after a neuter before, and we’ve had a LOT of cats neutered. In fact, I’ve never seen any of them have bleeding afterwards, until today!

In a little while, my daughter and I will be rolling the isolation shelter out and I’ll do my best to clean it up, then see if I can get Havarti in there for the night. In all honestly, though, it wouldn’t surprise me if he doesn’t make it.

It’s past 7pm now, and we’ve cooled down to 30C/86F. It might be an okay time to try and move the shelter into the shade of the white lilacs now.

… and check on Havarti again.

The Re-Farmer

Not tonight

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I did our first stock up shop tonight, but will do my regular price post later.

I didn’t get much sleep last night, and got up early to do the morning routine and watering while it was still relatively cool. Then I headed into the city, doing Canadian Tire, Walmart, and Dollarama and a Fresh Co (the last two shared a building). I also got gas at $1.599 in the city. One outside the city limits, the prices were $1.799

By the time I was done and heading home, my lower back was killing me, my left hip was giving out and my left shoulder kept trying to dislocate. I was heavily using shopping cards as walkers.

When I got home, I basically hit the heads, then crashed on the couch in the cat free zone, while my daughters unloaded the truck, parked it in the garage and put everything away. My older daughter was a sweetheart and brought me my water bottle and pain killers, because I forgot to do it before I lay down. I didn’t sleep, but I did give my body a chance to recover.

Then I had stuff to do outside. I’ll post photos later, but all our snail rolls and the seed tray are now outside, in the portable greenhouse frame in the shade. The snail rolls are in bins I picked up at the Dollarama for better stability, and they’re all further secured with wire to the frame, the the frame itself is now secured to the fence. Even the seed tray has the cover weighted down and is secured with wire – it seems we had an excellent germination rate overnight, but something, likely a mouse, destroyed it, even digging into individual cells to get at the seeds. I had to replant everything! Two items only had 4 seeds left in the packets, so I couldn’t replant all 6 cells in each row.

I did the watering in the front yard, then went to the back yard with some 3′ plant stakes I picked up. The mosquito netting over the potatoes was pulled up on the sides; the cats keep jumping on it! My daughter and I laid the stakes across, securing them on top of the 6′ bamboo stakes along the sides. The new stakes were a bit too long and had to be placed at angles so they wouldn’t stick out too far. Then we put the mosquito netting back on. Before I could even finish securing the edges with ground staples, a cat was already on top of the netting! After doing the edges, I put garden clips all round the sides and on the new supports across the tops. I don’t know if it’ll hold if the cats keep jumping on it, though. They are really determinded!

Also, for some reason, while working in the main garden area, we were absolutely attacked by clouds of mosquitoes! There weren’t any while I was doing the front yard watering.

Anyhow.

I finished the evening by watering the main garden area and the trees – the apple tree is recovering and has more new leaf bugs on branches I feared were dead, due to critter damage.

Now, I need to go to bed. Tomorrow, we will try to get the two littles in the isolation shelter into carriers. The goal is to bring in 3 cats. If that ends up being three fully grown males because that’s all we can catch, so be it. The rescue worker that arranged to have 3 slots available for me is aware of the problem. Since the raccoons and skunks clean up every crumb of kibble, the outside cats are essentially fasting, too, unless the go hunting somewhere. The vet will be aware of this, too.

I really hope we at least get the black and white female in the isolation shelter.

So I will be gone most of tomorrow with whatever cats we’re able to get.

For now, I’m going to try and go to bed early and get actual sleep.

I’m seriously considering sleeping on the couch in the cat free zone.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: one more bed prepped, and got a visit in

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The temperatures continued to climb today.

I started things off a bit early, and it was still lovely and cool. My priority, after I did my morning rounds, was to water the garden beds before the heat hit.

I’m happy to say that I am seeing new sprouts in the rows of spinach, chard, turnips and radish in the main garden area. I checked under the boards in the trellis bed and saw what might be carrot sprouts, so I removed the boards. It’s hard to say for sure, as a lot of weeds were trying to come up under there, too.

I’m pretty sure I saw new sprouts in the cabbage and kohlrabi beds, too. I’m pretty sure I’m seeing tiny bok choy and beet seedlings through the mosquito netting, thought it’s hard to be sure. I didn’t see any this morning, but this evening, I’m sure I could see the first dwarf pea sprouts!

After I finished outside, I came in and had breakfast, then tried to go down for a nap before I planned to visit my mother, then pick up anything we needed before doing our first stock up shop, tomorrow.

It was a failure.

For some reason, both Butterscotch and Cheddar have decided that, when I lie down, they absolutely MUST cuddle my head. Aggressively. Then curling up right at my head to nap themselves.

That doesn’t count the other cats that like to settle on my hip, against my back or on either side of my legs.

*sigh*

Next time, I’ll try napping on the couch. The living room is a cat free zone.

I eventually gave up and got ready to head into town. Before I did, I noted activity notification on my bank app and checked.

My husband’s tax return, which is supposed to include my first Disability Tax Credit, came in.

It was short by about $2500.

Unfortunately, my husband still can’t log into his CRA account to see why. I’m going to have to wait until our tax prepared is back from holidays at the end of the month and phone her, because she can log in and see his account – and maybe find out why he can’t log in, himself. anymore!

My younger daughter never got her disability tax credit, either. She did her taxes herself.

Frustrating.

Anyhow.

I headed into town and realized my mother would be just starting her lunch, so I decided to go to the grocery store, first. I actually picked up some ground beef that was on sale. I haven’t seen ground beef for under $6 a pound for a long time, even with sales.

My visit with my mother was pretty good. As I was headed to her room, I spotted her in the dining room and popped in. We then went to her room for the visit.

She is so enjoying having a room – and a bathroom – to herself! She says being in the nursing home, compared to the TCU, is like night and day.

Of course, she still had things to complain about. With her medications, as usual. Apparently someone tried to give her her breakfast meds and supper meds at the same time? Then the count for her morning meds was off. She said she asked who was in charge of the medications and was told it was the pharmacy in town. I suspect the person didn’t understand what my mother was asking, but she now believes the pharmacy decides what medications she gets, at their whim. She then started going on about how the staff all think she is stupid, and everyone living there is stupid, and that’s why they are deliberately messing with their medications.

*sigh*

She had asked my brother for a radio and he’d given me one to pass on to her. I plugged it in and tried to find the station she told me the number of. There was nothing on either AM or FM (she didn’t know which is was; she doesn’t understand anything about AM or FM). Since I couldn’t pick up her station (though I could pick up others), she decided it was a bad radio and started asking me if an old radio that belonged to my husband when we were in high school – a ghetto blaster, which tells you just how old it is! – was still around. It is, but I told her, it still won’t pick up that station. I tried to explain again about things interfering with frequencies, but she decided it meant that the radio stations were the problem, for having “weak” signals.

Then I tried to show her the sliding switch that goes from off to FM then AM. She demanded “just show me what button to push”. I told her, it’s not a button. It’s a switch that slides, and showed her again; Off – FM – AM.

She got angry that my brother would give her a high tech radio that she can’t understand.

*sigh*

It was a shorter visit, since there really wasn’t much we had to talk about. Now that she is in town, I can visit her more often, anyhow. Before I left, I spent some time at the nursing station. I explained what my mother told me about the medications, and that someone tried to give her her breakfast meds and supper meds at the same time. She was startled to hear that and said she would look into it. She got out the medication binder and looked up my mother’s file, going over everything, which is basically the same that it was while she was at the TCU. She said they tried looking at my mother’s list to compare (the hand written one she makes after she counts her pills, with little diagrams), but it was in Polish, so they were trying to translate it. My mother had been promised a list of her medications and they were going to try to get it translated into Polish for her, too. I told her, my mother knows pre-WWII Polish; she would not be familiar with modern medical terms in today’s Polish!

As we were chatting, the nurse told me how so many of the staff were startled when my mother was transferred over. Many of them had cared for Baba – “grandmother” – which is what they called my aunt. My mother looks SO much like her sister did. My aunt passed away a few years ago, so for the staff to suddenly start seeing their Baba again was a bit of a shock until they found out they were sisters.

This nurse had just started working there when my father came to live there. I’ve had it confirmed that he was there for only 5 months before he passed away; I thought it was 6 months. She remembered my father, and I told her about how, when I phoned him every Sunday, he would go on and on about how great they were treating him, how well taken care of he was, and how much he liked the staff. She was so touched to hear that!

So far, my mother has been very nice to them. I hope that lasts! She has been saving the nasty comments about the staff for when we are there. 😕

It was a good chat with the nurse, and I expect we will have many more opportunities to talk now that my mother is there!

That done, I headed home, then stayed indoors to stay out of the heat. Unfortunately, it just kept getting hotter. I finally headed out at around 6:30, which is about when we hit 27C/81F.

The predicted high was 25C/77F.

We’re supposed to keep getting hotter, with the hottest day in the forecast being Friday, which they are now saying is supposed to hit 34C/93F.

The yard cats are laying in puddles all over the yard, in whatever shade they can find.

Bobert was looking adorable in the cat bed I tucked under the isolation shelter’s door box, to keep the weather out in the winter.

With the heat, I made sure to do the watering again. This time, I did watering in the food forest area.

I’m happy to say that it looks like the apple tree survived, in spite of the damage to the stem. A single branch with new leaf buds has shown up. The plum tree also has leaf buds showing up finally, but only in branches coming up just above the graft at the base. None of last year’s growth is showing buds. Neither are the mulberry trees. They survived their first winter, but it looks like they didn’t survive their second. The poor little highbush cranberry have free leaves showing, but they are still remarkably tiny, including the one that the deer did NOT nibble one. The silver buffalo berry bushes, which I don’t bother watering because there are too many, had been covered with what I thought were leave buds. It turns out they were not leaf buds, but flower buds! The leaf buds are showing up now. The sea buckthorn also have leaf buds unfurling.

After the watering was done, I started working on the larger of the two East yard beds that had not been prepped in the fall.

I first removed the two lengths of twine that went around the sides. Those were there to keep anything wrapped around the box frame from flapping in the wind too much, but they were in the way for working in the bed. I considered taking the box frame off entirely, but decided it wasn’t necessary and worked around it.

In the second picture, you can see the cleaned up bed. Unfortunately, while I was leveling the cleared soil with the hoe, I caught the line running across that helped keep the sides from bowing outwards at the joins. The wood is rotting and the screw eye got pulled right out!

Honestly, I’m surprised these beds have lasted as long as they have. I used lumber I found in the barn that had been sitting there for probably at least a decade before I found them. They were not in particularly good shape, but they were the best I could find for the job. I expected them to last about 3 years, maybe, and they’ve lasted twice that by now.

Weeding the bed didn’t really take that much, except that I found a remarkable amount of tree roots! Given where this bed is located, they would not be from the elm tree, but from the nearby cherry bushes.

I look forward to when we can make these into high raised beds. These beds are about a foot high, but it was still really painful to be bending to work in it.

Once the bed was clear, I took some plastic that was rolled up and set aside from previous uses in these beds and covered the soil to protect it from cats, until we can plant in it. I’m looking to transplant tomatoes into this bed. We have four varieties to transplant, and couple probably fit three varieties in this bed. We don’t have a lot of each variety.

The pieces of wood frame on the left of the first photo are on the 4′ square bed that also needs to be done. By the time I finished the longer bed, I was too hot and in too much pain to do that one. Aside from weeding it – and that one has been infected by creeping Charlie – I will be adding the additional wood frame pieces to make it a bit higher, and can then add more soil into it. I’m planning to put the eggplant in here. It’s a small enough bed that I can add plastic walls around it, to protect them from high winds and create a semi-greenhouse around them.

I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get done over the next few days. I’ll be doing our city stock up trips and a vet trip in between. Shopping always drains me, so it will depend on how much energy I have left – and what my pain levels are at. At the very least, I plan to water everything in the morning, and again in the evening, because of the heat.

Once the city trips are done, I expect to be able to start the direct sowing, and then hopefully start transplanting soon after. Somewhere in there, I’ll be uncovering and reclaiming the area to plant our corn in.

A lot to do in a very short time!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: the potatoes are in, next bed ready, and the heat has hit

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Ah, life on the Canadian prairies. One extreme to the other. A short while ago, we were still getting snow and overnight temperature at or below freezing.

Today, we reached a high of 25C/77F – I don’t know what the humidex was – and passed 20C/68F by about 8 or 9am.

I headed out a bit earlier than usual to do the outside cat stuff. Then I checked the garden shed. Sure enough, the raccoon and her babies were still there. I decided to very carefully and as quietly as possible, take out as many things I expect to need in the next while.

I heard a lot of loud chittering as I was taking things out, most sounding like they were coming from the littles. They seemed to be chittering more about trying to latch on than what I was doing. The mama barely moved. After I cleared away things that were on top of the wheeled garden chair they are under, I stuck my phone into gaps to get the first three pictures.

Those are such roly poly babies! There are at least three, possibly four.

The last photo is most of the stuff I removed.

That roll of netting is long enough to go completely around the trellis bed, so I am saving it for this, if we need to do it again, as it would be way too long for anything else.

After that, I headed in for breakfast, iced up a water bottle, then got started on the covered bed that I wanted to plant our potatoes in.

In the first picture, you can see how it’s been since the fall, minus the bricks waying it down – something has dug holes through the plastic.

As you can see in the next picture, the solarization didn’t really work, and it was more like a greenhouse. So the first job was to loosen the soil and weed it. Especially at the end where the excess was rolled up, which was packed with creeping Charlie.

That stuff is just nasty.

Once weeded, I got it all leveled out, while leaving the soil thermometer in place. That soil is quite warm!

By this point, I was really starting to struggle with the heat and had to go inside for a bit. After grabbing a light lunch, I headed back out with the potatoes. I have 5 pound bags each of Viking and Yukon this year. Not a lot for our useage needs, but that’s all we have the space for right now.

In the photo where the potatoes are laid out, ready to be buried, you can see a board across the middle. That’s to mark between the two different types of potatoes in the same bed.

Next, the bed had to be protected. I decided to use the long roll of mosquito netting this time, which isn’t very wide, so I used shorter stakes. These were salvaged from a broken market tent and are all from pieces broken in half. The broken ends got pushed down so the end with the screw holes were at the top.

I had to gather things next, so I set up a cheap dollar store sprinkler hose over the potato bed. Double duty: I could start watering the bed while doing something else, and it kept the cats off while I wasn’t there to keep them away.

One of the things I had to go was get the roll of netting which, as you can see in the next picture, Gouda was using to nap on!!

In the past, I have strung twine from support to support, along the sided and crossing the middle. I wanted something stronger than that. This bed is 18′ wide, and I have 6′ bamboo stakes, so I ended up attaching three along the top of each side to hold the mesh up. The stakes were spaced out just under 6′ apart, allowing for some overlap. I used the screw holes in the supports and wire from one of the hoop kits I got to hold them in place. I still had to put the stakes deeper into the soil so that the netting could be secured to the ground on each sides. The sides are secured with ground staples.

Yes, I took the sprinkler hose out. It was a pretty terrible hose – but then, you get what you pay for, and this did not cost very much! It was just there for the moment, anyhow.

After I took that last picture, I gave the bed a very through watering.

Then I went inside, because I was getting dangerously overheated. I kept myself hydrated, but was feeling very exhausted. It was around 2pm by then, and I decided to nap for a couple of hours. I would then continue when the temperatures were starting to drop.

I passed right out and slept for three hours.

During this time, the girls took care of things like the outside cat feeding and starting supper.

We are going to need to get the AC going in the living room, and the onion snail rolls have been sitting on top of it, so I decided it was time to take them outside. Onions are hardy and I’m not worried about them, plus I need to start transplanting them as soon as possible. They are meant to be planted in between other things, as we go. The frame for the portable greenhouse is sitting in the shade near the shrine, so I put them there. I’ll need to start moving some of the trays from the basement out there, too.

Then it was back to the main garden area, where this is one bed that didn’t get cleaned up last year I wanted to prepare.

As you can see in the first couple of photos, the creeping Charlie is a real problem.

I had put the soil thermometer in there earlier, and it was reading a couple of degrees cooler than the first bed. By the time I removed it, though, it was just as warm as the first bed I tested! Having that plastic over the bed didn’t seem to make much difference. So much for solarization!

This bed turned out to be so filled with tree roots, too. I pile the creeping Charlie aside, half filling the wheel barrow, so it could be disposed of further away. I’d burn it, if I could. Getting those out means losing a fair bit of soil, too. In the fourth photo, you can even see some of the finer tree roots on top. I pulled out as much as I could, but somewhere under there is a major root. I was hitting it every now and then with the garden fork, but couldn’t lift it up at all.

No root vegetables in this bed, for now!

Once it was cleared and prepared, I gave it a thorough watering. For all the rain we had, that soil was pretty dry. Then I covered it with the plastic that had been over the bed the potatoes are in, covering the holes with scrap boards.

The potato bed is going to be a problem. I kept having to chase the cats off the netting! It stretches enough and is low enough that their weight pulls it down to the ground. Ideally, there would be horizontal supports across the top, joining the vertical supports, but I don’t have anything the right length.

At least they won’t be using it as a litter box.

I’ll have to figure something out.

By this time, it was around 8pm and the temperatures were downright pleasant. We’re expected to drop to 8C/46F tonight, but after that our overnight temperatures are expected to be no lower than 10C/50F On Thursday and Friday, we’re supposed to break 30C/86F, and the overnight temperatures are expected to be close to 20C/68F. It’s supposed to cool down a bit in the second week of June, but that’s a relative statement by then!

For the next while, with the exception of days where I have to drive into the city or something like that, my pattern is going to change. I’ll be getting up earlier to work outside while it’s cooler, then be inside (and probably nap) at the heat of the day before going out again when the temperature starts to drop. With the heat, I’ll be watering things in the morning. Possibly in the evening, too.

I have a couple of beds to take care of in the east yard, plus prep the old kitchen garden bed along the retaining wall. In the beginning of June – after I’ve done all our city trips and vet trip – I should be able to start direct sowing. I’m really trying to focus on getting each bed covered in some way to protect them from the cats. The one area I won’t be able to do is where I intend to plant corn. That area is currently covered by a black tarp/landscape cloth/whatever it is, and has been for several years. Everything under it should be dead by now. I need to move that aside and prepare blocks to plant corn in and, possibly, interplant them with winter squash. That area will simply be too large to cover. I’ll have to figure something else out.

It’s going to be very busy in the garden for the next while!

The Re-Farmer