Month: March 2021

Our 2021 Garden: our Morado mystery

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In choosing garden seeds this year, we kept a lot of things in mind. Choosing food that we’ll actually eat, choosing foods for long term storage, choosing foods we would eat more of, if they were more affordable at the grocery store, and choosing foods just for the fun or challenge of it.

One of the things I picked for the fun and challenge of it is corn that is such a deep, dark purple, it looks black.

This image is from the Baker Creek website, where I got our seeds from. I chose it not only for it’s unique colour, but because it is a corn that can be used to make flour; something we have plans to do in the future.

Maize morado is a Peruvian corn, and I found the story behind how Baker Creek got their seeds to be really interesting.

The question is, how do I grow a Peruvian corn, in a Zone 3 prairie environment? So I started looking for people who had already tried to grow maiz morado.

I didn’t have much luck.

I did find things like this video from 2015.

Yeah. They didn’t do too well. I found an earlier video, and saw that these were the Kulli variety, also from Baker Creek.

I found a few other videos, and noticed one thing in particular. They started out with very few seeds. One guy had only five seeds, and of those five seeds, he got one corn plant that he had to hand pollinate, and only one ear of corn, which he intended to save the seed from to plant the next year. I found no follow up on that. Another person had planted 8 seeds, starting them indoors, but he deliberately intended to cross pollinate them with local varieties, to develop a hardier strain. He stopped posting videos soon after, so there was no conclusion to his experiment. All of these were older videos. Of the ones that showed the end product, they got very tall corn plants – 8 feet tall or more – very few cobs, and very few developed kernels on those cobs.

We have one advantage, in that our packet says it has a minimum of 75 seeds in it. At the very least, we should have plenty of corn plants and the wind can do the pollinating!

There is something else, though.

In spite of what the Seed Stories video from Baker Creek says, these are not Maize Morado.

They are Montana Morado.

From their website:

This variety is a northern adapted homage to the legendary Maiz Morado/Kulli corn from Peru. Ed Shultz, the accomplished and passionate open pollinated corn breeder who spent 30 years selecting this dark purple variety, explains that Montana morado is was actually selected from the Painted Mountain corn.

https://www.rareseeds.com/store/vegetables/new-items-2021/montana-morado-corn

These are apparently not from Peru at all.

These are shorter and stockier than the Peruvian Morado strains, and are bred for Northern gardens.

Except this is Montana, which means for us in Canada, it’s bred for Southern gardens.

Will this strain work here? Aside from a few articles about the development of the strain, I am finding nothing about people actually growing it, and how. It may simply be too new a strain. It’s all pretty much a mystery.

So we’re going to be flying by the seats of our pants on this one.

The plan right now is, we will start them indoors in the second half of May. As corn is not something that is normally started indoors, and their roots do not like to be disturbed at all, we will be using toilet paper tubes to start the seeds in. The tubes will be left open ended in a container, so that when it’s time to transplant them, they can be put into the soil, tube and all, with zero disruption to the roots. Hopefully. As their roots tend to grow more downwards than outwards, the open bottoms should mean no root constriction, while the cardboard tubes break down in the soil.

Unlike the one gardener whose video I found, we do not intend to deliberately cross pollinate, so these will be planted at the opposite end of the garden from the other varieties. With wind pollination, the only way to be absolutely sure no cross pollination happens anyway would be to put bags over the developing corn, and then hand pollinating.

I’m not that dedicated to preventing cross pollination.

I am hoping that this one packet of seeds will give us enough corn to be able to have some for fresh eating, maybe even freeze some, and hopefully even try making some chicha morada to drink, but mainly to keep some for seed to plant more next year. Then we will repeat the process until we eventually get a mill and can try grinding some for flour.

Along with the Montana Morado corn, I’d ordered a variety called Dorinny Sweet – a Canadian hybrid – from Baker Creek. We will be direct sowing the Dorinny Sweet, and plan to save seeds from those, too. The Veseys three pack of Peaches ‘n Cream varieties I also ordered was more because I wasn’t sure the Baker Creek order would make it past the border, and while we will have plenty of corn for fresh eating and preserving, Peaches ‘n Cream are just about sustenance, not any particular interest in the variety. They’re the Russet potato of the corn world, in my view. :-D

Well, that’s the plan.

Who knows. Things may even work out to the plan! Either way, I’m looking forward to trying out this variety of corn, and seeing how it handles our climate.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 Garden: getting organized

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I needed to divert myself with positive thinking, and what better way to do that than to think of gardening!

Also, I am striving mightily to NOT start those tomatoes yet, so sitting here and writing about starting them is keeping me from starting them. :-D

I will explain shortly.

First, I went through the seed packs and took out the ones that need to be started indoors. Here they are.

Then I worked out which ones need to be planted when. Here they are, in order of when they should be started indoors.

You can probably see where I might be having some problems.

Right around May.

It’s the tomatoes that are teasing me. I’ve never grown tomatoes before, and the Spoon tomatoes in particular are a new variety. Even in the reviews, I saw no one in Zone 3 that grew them. In my research, I have found articles from people in our zone who experimented with different tomato starting times, and they generally found that starting them earlier did not benefit them in any way. And yet… there are Zone 3 gardeners who have already potted their seedlings up. The down side of giving up social media for Lent is, I’m no longer seeing the gardening groups about it! But there are other resources and, at the very least, waiting another week will not cause problems. However, if you are a Zone 3 gardener who has experience growing tomatoes from seed, please do feel free to leave a comment! I am eager for the voice and advice of experience!

Next on the calendar are the gourds, in late April. Ozark Nest Egg, Birdhouse, Dishcloth/Luffa, Tennessee Dancing and Thai Bottle gourds. How many we plant of each will depend on how prolific the variety is expected to be. I’ve read that the Tennessee Dancing gourds, which are quite tiny, are extremely prolific. We’ll probably plant just a couple of seeds of those, and shoot to have one plant, while we’ll probably look to have 3 or 4 Birdhouse gourd plants. I learned from last year, not to jump the gun on our frost date of June 2, but we also need to keep in mind that we could still get a frost after that date, so I’d rather have more plants than less.

All of these will be trellised in some way.

Then there is early May.

Oh, my.

All the winter and summer squash, pumpkins and melons need to be started at the same time! Our winter squashes are Teddy and Little Gem. They’re small and I expect them to be fairly prolific, so we probably won’t be starting the entire packets of seeds, but we will likely plant at least half, depending on how many seeds are in the packages. We also have the tiny Baby Pam pumpkins, and I expect them to be fairly prolific, so we’ll likely plant half a package. The Crespo squash, however (listed as a type of pumpkin on the website) get huge, and will likely have fewer fruit per vine, so we will likely plant the entire packet of seeds.

The summer squash include Magda (light green), Goldy (yellow) and Endeavor (dark green) zucchini. Last year, few of them survived the late frost, so we didn’t have many of them. Even the surviving plants were not as prolific as the varieties normally are. We definitely want to have at least 3 or 4 of each. As for the Sunbrust squash, I got an extra packet of those, and we intend to plant two packets of seeds. They were a favorite last year, and we look forward to having lots!

The melons, Pixie and Halona, are small fruiting varieties. There don’t seem to be a lot of seeds in the packets, so we will likely plant all of them. Hopefully, they will be prolific.

A lot of these will be staked or trellised.

Next are the cucamelons and Montana Morado corn in late May. By which I mean, mid-May, so they’ll be ready to transplant after June 2.

We will be trying the cucamelons two ways; I potted up tubers from last year, which should mean getting an early start on them when they are transplanted in the spring, but we will also start a few indoors. It should be interesting to see what differences there are between them. Assuming the tubers survived their winter in the un-insulated old kitchen.

As for the corn… I have been researching that and I’m going to save my thoughts on those for their own post!

Then there are the sunflowers; Hopi Black Dye and Mongolian Giant. This will be another experiment. I got two packets of each. Last year, we direct sowed our giant sunflowers, then sowed another giant variety to make up for the losses from the first batch. They never really had the chance to fully mature. This year, we will start one packet of each, indoors, then will direct sow the other packets when we transplant the first ones outdoors. It should be interesting to see the difference.

Finding the space for all these starts is going to be a challenge. I’m hoping that, by the time we need to start so many seeds in early May, we will be able to use the sun room instead of fighting for space in the aquarium greenhouses. Last year, it was a somewhat chilly spring, and that wasn’t an option. However, if we can provide some sort of heat overnight, it might work this year, even if we get another chilly season.

While all of these need to be started indoors, there are also some things we will be able to direct seed “as soon as the ground can be worked”, which means in mid to late May. The bread seed poppies, kale and kohlrabi, peas, etc. will all be direct sown before any of these are ready to be transplanted. A lot of local people start putting their gardens in on the May long weekend, including transplants. If we had the things necessary to properly protect transplants from frost, I probably would do the same, but we don’t. Our attempts to protect them last year were not particularly successful. :-/ So we will wait for June on the transplants.

Now I just have to hold off another week, before starting those tomatoes!! :-D

The Re-Farmer

My brain is fried

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In my last post, I wrote about the destruction wrought by our indoor cats. To counter that, here is a photo of an adorable little outside cat.

Meet Ginger, of the rubber spine!

He followed me around while I was doing my rounds, and kept flinging himself onto the ground in front of me, rolling about like some sort of Polychaete worm. Adorable!

Inside cat destruction is not, however, what fried my brain.

I call a call from my brother this morning, to talk about upcoming court dates. I’ve got my application for a restraining order against our vandal coming up this month, and the court date for his vexatious litigation against me in July. It took him a while, but my brother had managed to finally upload a file of phone messages our vandal had left with our mother. I already had the most recent ones. These ones were basically from the past year.

I just spent that last few hours transcribing them.

The transcription itself is it’s own challenge, with having to go back and listen to things repeatedly, trying to figure out what was being said. I’m pretty sure he was drunk for some of these calls, but in others… well, he just doesn’t sound all there, words and phrases are messed up, and there is some stuttering as he was clearly trying to find the words to say.

The other thing was, of course, the subject matter. Though my mother has no part in my applying for a restraining order against him, he keeps accusing her of trying to put him in jail. In fact, it’s a vast conspiracy of my mother, me and my siblings, and the RCMP, all trying to put him in jail. Because we’re evil. And my late father and brother are watching this from heaven in disapproval. Also, apparently, my mother has given the farm to me. All of it. Never mind that my younger brother has already inherited a third of it. And we only love my mother for her money (that apparently she had loads of. Somewhere). And did you know that there are people being killed and raped around the world, but here she is, trying to put him in jail?

This dude needs psychiatric help. I realize my mother got these calls over the span of a more than a year, counting the most recent ones, but I was listening to all of them, one after the other. And he is absolutely obsessed with me, and me being here on the farm, not allowing him on the property or access to all the stuff he thinks belongs to him. The fact that he was caught in the act of breaking the gate, then trying to break it again, on top of his pilfering over the years before we moved out here, never came up. Instead, he would say things like “why are you doing this to me?”

Yeah. Brain. Fried.

I need to go distract myself with something more sane.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 Garden: leveling down, and unrelated destruction

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Last night, while checking on the onion seedlings, I decided it was time to lower the shallot and bulb union seedlings in the big tank. The seedling tips were looking a little dried out, likely because they were getting too close to the warmth of the light fixture.

Doing that required removing the trays and the “floor” they were resting on, then shifting the boxes holding them all from standing on end, their tallest position, to standing on their narrow sides, which is their second tallest position. Later on, if it seems necessary, we can turn the boxes onto their broad sides to lower the plants even more.

So that worked out rather well. For the trays, anyhow. Unfortunately, being the suck that I am, I tried to do it without removing a kitten that was staying warm on the light fixture. Saffron is a tiny thing that gets cold easily, and she’s taken to using the light fixture to stay warm. So I just slid the whole thing to the back of the tank. It wasn’t enough to get the “floor” out, so I pushed one end a bit further. And a bit further…

The next thing I knew, the whole thing fell behind the tank as a Saffron launched herself across the living room in a panic.

And the lights went out.

At first, I feared I had broken a bulb, but no. The light in the small tank had gone out, too. As the fixture fell, it swiped the power bar’s plug into the wall.

This house does not have many power outlets. In the living room, there is an outlet behind the big tank, though only one plug in it works. We can access the outlet through the cabinet tank’s cabinet, as it is completely open in the back.

Which requires getting down on my knees and crawling half into the cabinet to reach.

My knees did not appreciate this at all.

After straightening out the prong on the plug that got bent when the fixture landed on it, I managed to get it back in and everything was working fine. Nothing broken.

Phew!

Then I put everything back in place.

Almost.

I had been keeping a small plant pot in the tank with the trays. We’ve had to put various types of barriers on, over or around all our house plants that can’t be hung from the ceiling, to keep cats from digging in the dirt. One small succulent was completely covered with a clear plastic dome, like a mini greenhouse, but the cats kept managing to knock the cover off. The last time that happened, I found the poor little succulent on the carpet, along with a pile of soil that had been dug out of the pot. I replanted it and stuck the pot in the aquarium, so it could get the light and the protection the seedlings were getting and, hopefully, recover.

When I lowered the trays, I forgot to put the plant pot back.

This morning, I discovered my error.

I also discovered a half empty pot, and a pile of soil on the shelf and scattered all over the carpet.

What I didn’t find was the plant. There is no sign of it. It’s likely under another shelf, but it could just as easily have been dragged down to the basement.

I had to do my outside rounds, though, so I rescued as much of the soil as I could – it’s a soil mix specifically for succulents – then moved the pot to the dining table. The table is covered in stuff. Partly because all flat surfaces just seem to invite things to be piled onto them, partly on purpose, to keep the cats off when we’re not around. I tucked the pot against some other stuff, then dashed outside to do my rounds.

I came back to another pile of soil on the dining table, and on the floor.

*sigh*

So, that’s another plant lost to the cats. I am pretty sure the culprit is Cabbages, as she’ has been caught many times, trying to get into other plants, but others have been caught, too, so I can’t say for sure.

I really hope the temperatures warm up overnight and stay warm, soon. When we start having to get larger numbers of seeds started, they’re not all going to fit in the two tanks. We’re going to have to use the sun room as a green house. Right now, I’ve seen it reaching as warm as 20C/68F during the day, but it does go below freezing overnight. We’ll be able to fit some things in the big tank with the onion trays (like the tomatoes we will be starting very soon), but when it comes time to start the corn and squash seeds, those onion trays are going to need to be moved to the sun room. This won’t happen for probably another month, at the earliest, so we should hopefully be okay by then.

We shall see how it works out.

The Re-Farmer

Buuuurrrnnnn!

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Today turned out to be a lovely, warm and sunny day!

While doing my morning rounds, I had a chance to check on Potato Beetle’s wound, and it’s looking very good. After the trip to the vet, though, I don’t think he trusts me as much, though! :-D

I called up the company we want to buy garden soil from. I spoke to someone else this time, so I went over what I’d been told before, then said that we were looking to get two truck loads of soil, but first I wanted to know of someone could come over to see where to dump the loads. For one load, it’s not an issue, but for the other, there are low hanging branches that might be a problem, so I wanted to look at that with whomever would be delivering the soil.

She said that she was unable to call any of the guys during the day, as there is no cell phone reception where they are (boy, does that sound familiar!) but she will pass it on to them and call me back on the weekend. The one thing she wasn’t sure of is if the soil was too frozen to load into the trucks or not. They usually do gravel, which will break up, even if frozen, but soil behaves differently. If all goes well, though, I’m hoping well have delivery as early as next week! Otherwise, we’ll see what they advise. We’re going to be above freezing for several more days, so I don’t think it’ll be much of an issue.

Later on, I called my mother to ask if she needed any help with errands or grocery shopping. For now, she’s good, so I’ll probably be heading over next week to give her a hand. Then she asked me what was new.

I made the mistake of answering her honestly.

*sigh*

I told her about the garden soil we were arranging to buy.

She was FURIOUS! I barely finished telling her about it when she lit into me about how she had this big wonderful garden there, and it seemed I just wanted to do things the hard way and had to spend money…

It went on for a while. In a nut shell, I should be growing a garden exactly like she did, back when I was a kid (which isn’t even possible, since they squeezed in so many trees, a significant portion of the garden of my childhood now has either trees, or shade from trees, in it), I should not be spending any money on anything, not even seeds. Also, I should not be thinking about planting trees (I’d reminded her of our plans to grow fruit and nut trees), but should be growing lots of vegetables to store for the winter, like she did, and since she didn’t have a problem with the rocks, I should just plant things like she did, rocks and all. The real problem was the “weeds” I “allowed” to grow, and there wouldn’t be any if we’d have plowed it, which she offered to pay someone to do, but I said no. I asked her if she was offering again? She repeated that she had offered and I said no. I told her, two and three years ago, we weren’t ready. We’re ready now. If she’s offering now, we’re saying yes.

*heavy pause*

She said she’ll think about it.

Uh huh.

So that was an … interesting phone call.

The reason I’d wanted to talk to her, though, was because I finally got a copy of the calls our vandal had left on her answering machine a while back. He’d been saying he wanted to meet with her to talk. She had misunderstood, thinking he meant on the phone, but he was saying in person. I wanted to make sure she knew it was not safe for her to meet with him alone. Not that I think he would physically harm her, but he would be emotionally and psychologically abusive towards her.

We also talked about the possibility of her changing her phone number. She hadn’t thought of that. She doesn’t want to, but at least now it’s a possibility that’s on her radar.

Once the phone calls were done, I decided to take advantage of the warmer weather, and headed out to the garden area.

It was time to do a burn!

The stack of diseased apple tree branches we’d pruned last summer needed to be dealt with.

The pile was just dry enough to burn well, but also snow covered enough for the flames to never get big enough to be a concern, as it would have been if I’d try to do this in the summer. This was no bon fire! When we first moved here, there was a huge pile of pruned wood in the middle of the garden that my family wanted to set a match to. We’d just left a province that had been devastated by forest fires, so we were not exactly keen on having a bon fire with resin torches, aka spruce trees, nearby. This was much smaller and could be better controlled.

As the fire worked its way to the other end of the stack, I shoveled snow over the remaining coals and ashes, little by little.

I was able to spend a couple of hours outside, tending it, but by the time the fire burned away all the small stuff and only the larger logs were left, I was finally chilled enough that it was time to go inside.

The fire itself was so hot at times, I could feel it from 6 or 7 feet away, but it wasn’t enough to make up for damp boots and cold toes!

So the last of it got buried in snow. We’ll finish burning the remains after it’s melted away again.

Even if we’re not able to finish burning the diseased branches here, there’s just a few large pieces left that would be easy to move somewhere else to finish burning away.

Unfortunately, I expect we’ll have to cut down several more crab apple trees completely, not just in this area, but in others. All of that wood will need to be burned. We won’t even be able to use it in the fire pit for cookouts. That’s going to be a lot of wood to burn, so until we can get it done, we’ll have to keep the wood separate from any other wood we clean up that we will make use of as much as possible, even if they end up being chipped and used for mulch. The last thing we want is to have is infected wood chips!

There may still be snow on the ground, but it sure feels good to be warm enough to start doing jobs like this, outside!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 Garden: back ordered Veseys seeds are in!

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My daughter’s birthday gift is not the only thing that came in the mail today!

The very last of our outstanding seed orders are in.

Yay!!!

The yellow beans are the last of a three colour collection we ordered, so we will have yellow, green and purple bush beans to grow.

I’m really happy to have the tomatoes in now. They need to be started much earlier than most things. Based on our frost date, we would be starting them after the first week of April, but other zone 3 gardeners I know have not only started their tomatoes, but have already repotted them!

We won’t be planting all the seeds; just a few for our first year growing tomatoes. The space we intend to plant them will fit about 8 or 10 plants. More than enough to meet our needs, since they’re basically for just one person! While other things we need to start can wait until the onions we’ve got in the tanks now are moved to the sun room, there is space enough in the big tank to fit some tomato starts. A project for this weekend, perhaps.

We’ve got a lot planned for our second year of gardening since moving here, but I think the best part is overhearing a daughter saying, “I’m so excited about gardening!”. We’ve never been in a position to garden on this scale in their lifetimes, and I’m thrilled that they are so looking forward to it, too!

The Re-Farmer

Feeling productive

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Today was such a beautiful day!

While doing my rounds this morning, I spotted Junk Pile cat at the bottom of this icicle hanging from the rain barrel diverter, drinking from the little well created at the bottom. Even though we were still a few degrees below freezing, there was a trickle of ice melt, making it’s way down and creating a pool.

By the end of the afternoon, it was so beautifully warm! We easily went several degrees above the 0C/32F forecasted. Things were enthusiastically melting, and the outside cats are loving it!

We did city trips to stock up, two days in a row. As productive as those trips are, they leave us feeling completely drained. Today, I actually felt productive, with just a couple of short trips.

I had intended to go to the post office yesterday, and pick up deer feed and bird seed while I was at it. I ended up skipping it, because I just didn’t have the spoons left. Which turned out to be a good thing, since I completely lost track of what day it was. I thought it was Tuesday, but it was Wednesday, which meant the store – and the post office inside – had closed at noon. So today, I combined errands, starting off by heading into town to refill our 18.9L/5 gallon jugs of drinking water (we have 3, and refill when 2 are empty). For this, we go to our usual grocery store. Since that happens to be across the street from our garage, I swung by to talk to the mechanic. The van has been running well, so I asked about maybe just resetting the error codes. He suggested I call him on Monday (he was working on a vehicle at the time) and he’ll schedule me to bring the van in. Since it’s likely the crud he couldn’t reach to clean, come loose and getting stuck in the new EGR valve, he’ll take it off and give it a clean.

That arranged, I headed to the grocery store with the water jugs and, since I was there anyhow, I went through the fresh produce and meats sections, so see how things looked, and what was on sale. I’m sure we got a sale flier in the mail, but we don’t drive to the post office every day, so I tend not to see them before I actually go to the store. I was very happy to see asparagus bunches for only $2 each – they’re usually about three times that price – and grabbed some.

Well, that was just the start. Then I noticed other really good sale prices. It turned out they had some massive sales on a meat in particular. Some were half price, or even better. And no, this wasn’t old meat, but the fresh cuts they process themselves.

I ended up going through all the aisles and stocked up!

A lot of things that go on sale tends to be stuff we pretty much never buy, but this time I was able to pick up a whole lot of things we actually do buy, some regularly, and others only rarely or as a treat. I didn’t go nuts or anything, but with the city shopping we already did, our freezer, fridge and cupboards are now the most well stocked they have ever been!

I came to refill water jugs and left with a cart full! :-D

Having a hard time finding where to put all the food is a good problem to have!

I finished in town too quickly, though. The post office closes for an hour and a half around lunch time, so I just had to play a bit of Pokemon Go before heading back. :-D

The store the post office is in is not only where I pick up our bird seed and deer feed (they also carry the best hams), but it’s also a liquor store. Our older daughter has a birthday this month, and her gift came in. (not an affiliate link) So I picked up a case of Jamaican lager for her to use her gift with! We don’t really celebrated our birthdays on the days themselves, so she got her gifts right away. :-D

So now we are stocked up in food, deer feed, bird seed and beer. :-D

Today is also a day the dump is open for a few hours in the evening, and with our van up and running, we were finally able to load up all the garbage and recycling. We tried to keep up with it, using my mother’s little car, but not a lot fits in it, and we just weren’t able to make multiple trips per week. Or even one trip per week. More like one trip every two or three weeks. :-/

Using the van, one trip, and we were all caught up! We ended up going to the new pit, rather than the household bins I normally use. Normally, we would drive into the pit, but with the ice and snow, they seem to have closed that access off. What they have instead is a sort of parking area, where you can back your vehicle up to the pit (there are concrete blocks to make sure no one drives over the edge!) and the garbage is just tossed down the hole.

Oddly, people have somehow still managed to stack up a huge pile of garbage at the edge. It took no effort at all to make sure the bags rolled down into the pit itself, but nope. In the middle of the dumping area, people left their garbage piled high, right up to the concrete blocks.

So very strange.

It felt so good to finally get that job done!!!

Oh, and I had a nice little surprise this morning. My tax return came in. We won’t have to wait until April or May to get that garden soil! I called the company to arrange it and left a message. If all goes well, we’ll have the soil before the end of this month. I should be able to pick up a chain saw this month, too! I can hardly wait! Garden soil first, though. :-)

Just a couple of relatively minor things, but yeah… it made the day feel so much more productive!!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 Garden: more damage control

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Awww. Aren’t they sweet?

So adorable! So sweet.

So destructive.

Well. Maybe Big Rig, in this case. I am sure David and Keith are not responsible for the latest damage.

I had issues with the small tank being used as a greenhouse for the bunching onions. With cats trying to get at the seed trays through the back, we’ve been diligent about catching them coming even close to that tank and chasing them off.

Unfortunately, with this tank having its hard lid with just a couple of openings I’ve had to block off, it’s been too moist in there. Yesterday, I spotted mold starting to grow on the egg carton trays and onto the peat; one patch on each tray, closest to the front, where there is the least air circulation.

So I took the mini fan out of the big tank and set it over the opening in the back of the small tank. The seedlings are getting big enough to need a fan on them, anyhow.

Several hours later, I came back to find the fan on the floor, the lid askew, and one of the trays half on top of the other.

*sigh*

This is what I’ve done.

I took out the box that raised the trays closer to the light. They’re now just a few inches from the bottom, on top of 18 count egg cartons. That puts them lower from the light than I would want them to be, but they are now also out of reach. I also turned the trays, so the areas with the mold were to the back instead of the front.

I had already replanted some of the plugs with more bunching onions, from the last time a cat messed them up. I still have some seeds left, so I could replant more, but some of the cells in the trays are so badly damaged, they’ll no longer hold the peat. I’ll see how it looks over the next few days, then decide if it’s worth replanting more. These poor seedlings have taken quite a beating!

Apparently, we only managed to train the cats to stay off the tank while we are not around to see them. :-/ I’m pretty sure it’s just one cat. I’m just not sure which one!

After doing as much damage control as I could, I was happy to find everything still intact by morning. One of my daughters accompanied me to the city to do the second half of our monthly shopping (though we only went to one place, so I’ll still need to get more cat litter and kibble, but I will go to the smaller city for that). When we got back, everything was still intact. Also, putting the fan on seems to be solving the mold problem. It’s barely visible now.

Oh, you might notice a single tall blade of green growing out of one of the trays. We have one growing in one of the trays in the big tank, too. They are oats! The peat bale was stored near the deer feed in the sun room, so a few seeds managed to fill into the packaging. When I used the peat, I did take out the ones I could find, but clearly missed a couple!

As an aside, the van’s check engine light is still on, but it’s behaving beautifully. While I thought the mileage was getting worse, based on watching the fuel gauge wile I was driving. Yesterday, it seemed to be dropping way faster, but during today’s drive, we burned about as much gas as I would have expected. When I checked the onboard computer, the average mileage has actually improved since before the EGR valve was replaced. Which I would expect, but it was still a bit of a surprise. If the valve were stuck, fuel efficiency would be expected to drop. So far, so good. I’ll have to talk to the garage about giving it a quick check, and manually resetting the codes.

But that will wait. We got back from the city early enough that I’ll have time to hit the post office while picking up more deer feed and bird seed.

Oh, that reminds me. Potato Beetle came over while I was doing the cat stuff this morning. When I first saw him, I was rather alarmed by how dirty the wound area was; just plastered with plant matter and …

… then I realized it wasn’t the wound area. Just near it. Potato got himself into a patch of burrs! He wouldn’t let me pull them out, but I did get to check the wound, which is looking noticeably better. And so is he!

The Re-Farmer

Well, half the job is done!

/ Re-Farmer / 4 Comments

What a huge difference between yesterday and today!

At a time when we were at -28C/-18F yesterday, we were at -8C/17F this morning!

When I changed out Potato Beetle’s water bowl yesterday, which was up close to the heat bulb, I ended up with a shell of ice. This morning, there was no ice at all. In fact, when I let Potato Beetle out, I unplugged the heat bulb and took the water bowl back outside. There’s no need for him to be kept in the sun room anymore. The Potato is free again!

Oh, I managed to snag a photo of some visitors yesterday evening.

This herd has been coming by regularly! That group is the back is four deer, bunched together. :-)

With the temperatures warming up 20C in 24 hours, I was able to do my full rounds before heading to the city with the van, to finally try and do a Costco run.

The van was running well and I had no problems, and yet, shortly before I reached the city (after about a hour of driving), the check engine light came on.

Crud.

I kept going to the Costco parking lot, then plugged in my OBD II reader. I got two error messages this time.

The first error code, I’d had the last time I checked, but the second one was new. The app allowed me to look it up.

I got this:

SPECIAL NOTES: OBD II code with the definition “IAT [Intake Air Temperature] – B Circuit Malfunction / Exhaust Gas Recirculation Closed Position Performance” is mostly relevant to some General Motors (and a few European) products from the late 1990’s to the early / mid 2000’s, and is therefore no longer in common use by most manufacturers. Starting in the mid-2000’s, the “IAT [Intake Air Temperature] – B Circuit Malfunction” component of the definition was dropped, largely due to improved PCM programming, even though it still appears in many sources, including online lists of OBD II code definitions.

However, the transition from the definition “IAT [Intake Air Temperature] – B Circuit Malfunction / Exhaust Gas Recirculation Closed Position Performance”, to the definition most commonly used by many manufacturers for OBD II code P1404 today, “EGR Valve Closed Position Performance”, has NOT been smooth and/or uniform across all manufacturers, and it may still be encountered on older USDM applications and some European imports. The General Motors TSB below that describes a potential cause of this code on some older GM applications with the definition “IAT [Intake Air Temperature] – B Circuit Malfunction / Exhaust Gas Recirculation Closed Position Performance” is reproduced from official GM sources. Note that the “electronic noise” referenced in the TSB often originated in the Intake Air Temperature sensor.

https://www.troublecodes.net/p1codes/p1404/

Which basically tells me “our van is old”. :-/

For our specific vehicle, it means “Exhaust Gas Recirculation Closed Position Performance (Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GM, Pontiac, Saturn)”

I also found this:

If the Check Engine warning light turns on or your vehicle fails an emissions test, have the powertrain of your vehicle undergo a diagnostic scan. If the scan provides you with trouble code P1404, then it means your EGR valve is stuck in the closed position. This will ultimately raise the combustion temperatures in your engine cylinders. The temperature gauge on your dashboard may even reflect this too.

The engine control unit constantly communicates with the EGR valve and will know whenever it is in the wrong position. Once you know that it gets stuck in the closed position, you must either replace the EGR valve or figure out if another component is causing the problem. Sometimes you may just have a clogged EGR valve which must be cleaned out. But this isn’t a treatment which you should perform alone. It requires someone with the proper knowledge and skills of automobiles to make it happen.

https://autocartimes.com/p1404/

However, this is a completely new EGR valve.

I ended up texting a screencap of the error codes to the garage, then called him to let him know I’d sent them. He checked them out, then got back to me. After confirming that the van is otherwise running fine, and this is the first real trip I’ve made since the EGR valve was replaced, it is likely some carbon he couldn’t reach to clean out came loose. For now, I’m to keep an eye on it. If the van starts acting up, bring it in. Otherwise, it should just clear itself out.

*sigh*

So I went ahead and braved Costco.

I almost didn’t. The entire time I was in the van, I was watching the line that extended almost the entire length of the building. It was moving, but not very fast. I finally decided to go for it, instead of going to a Superstore or something.

Thankfully, this location is still somewhat sane. There were signs all over for “face coverings”, but even the ladies at the door were wearing face shields, not masks. They didn’t even blink at me with my Mingle Mask. So that was a relief.

This being Costco, I grabbed a flat cart. With so much to stock up on, I only got half the cat kibble and litter I normally would have – not only for the space on the cart, but also because I didn’t want to fully load the van with heavy stuff like that, quite yet.

I still got pretty much everything from the Costco part of my list; just not all in the quantities I normally would have. Still, the whole thing came out to about $750 – part of which went towards renewing our membership, which lapsed back in November. We’ve got an Executive membership, so I did have the rebate check on that. It didn’t quite cover the renewal fee, but that’s okay.

One thing I was able to find was a three pack of storage bins. I was on the look out for a bin to store our canning supplies, which are currently scattered about in various places in the kitchen. When it came time to pay, I told the woman that was going to repack the cart that she could use the new bins to hold things, if she wanted. She liked that idea and was going to, but the bins were Zip tied together. After seeing them struggle with the bins, I asked if she needed a knife, which she did, so I grabbed my little pocket knife out of my coat and went to cut the ties.

Behind me I hear a customer saying “It’s a good thing we’re not at the airport!” LOL

It worked out very well. When I got to the van, I repacked the cold and frozen items into insulated bags. All the other smaller stuff fit in the three bins, and with their lids, it made for a very efficiently packed van!

During the drive home, I paid close attention to the van, and it was running fine. If there was anything out of the ordinary, I’d say that the gas mileage was somewhat worse. That was it.

Once at home and everything was put away (so good to see everything well stocked again!), I went over the list and made up a new one for non-Costco shopping.

I’ll be going back to the city tomorrow for the rest, just to get it over with. One of my daughters will even be coming with me, as they have their own shopping list. Once that’s done, we will be fully stocked for the month, and need to only make trips into town for fresh stuff.

If that check engine light is still on after tomorrow’s trip, I’ll see about bringing the van back to the garage.

I am so looking forward to not needing to go anywhere again.

The Re-Farmer

Of course…

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Well, I’m back from taking the van to the garage.

I should be happy. I really should.

As I write this, we are still at -21C/-6F with a wind chill of -30C/-22F.

Before heading out, I made a point of starting the van, then headed back inside to give it a good 15 minutes to warm up. As usual, the power steering pump was whining loudly when I started the engine.

When I came back to it later, for the first time in weeks, the noise was gone.

Because, of course it was. I was finally getting it checked today.

As I was driving, I did hear a slight whine, but only while doing a hard turn, for example, but not if I were just changing lanes, and not at all while driving straight.

When I got there, I was happy to see he didn’t have other vehicles in the bays, which meant I wouldn’t be spending hours waiting for him to squeeze a check in between other jobs. He just had to deal with getting a vehicle outside loaded and hauled away. I had a chance to talk to him about the noise now being gone, even though it was there when I first started it. Yes, he agreed it could be just the cold causing it. He asked me other questions, and I told him that we’d had problems with the pump leaking before, but not for years (since I topped it up with a leak-stop fluid, it’s not been an issue). There’s no puddles under the vehicle, the fluid level is still fine, etc. Since I had the opportunity, I mentioned the power train error code that I got with the OBDII reader, and he also thought it was probably just the residual carbon from changing out the valve, and that it will clear itself after the van has been run a bit. Then I left the keys and went to the grocery store. Since I was stuck in town, anyhow, may as well get a few things!

It did not take him long at all to call me back.

He could find nothing wrong.

He could not recreate the noise. The closest he could get was when he turned the steering wheel as far as he could, and at that point, the noise was nothing out of the ordinary.

Everything checks out fine.

At which point I was saying, I should be happy to hear this, but the van has become like a Sword of Damocles hanging over my head. Thankfully, he took my concerns seriously, and told me to keep an eye on it over the next while, as things are warmer. If the noise comes back, he wants be to bring it back and he’ll check it again. If it doesn’t come back, then it was likely the cold causing it.

Now if only medical doctors took our mystery health issues as seriously when they don’t know the answers, as our mechanic does about our vehicles!

That done, I took the van back to the grocery store to load up the cart I’d left at the door, went to fill the gas tank, then headed home.

When we had the valve replaced, one of the things he recommended I do for the next while is floor it, every chance I got. I normally never do that. I tend to be a “gentle” driver. I do the speed limit. I don’t slalem back and forth between lanes. When I get on the highway, while I do try to get to speed quickly, I don’t gun it. I don’t even like passing people, if I can avoid it, and that is partly because the van has no get up and go.

Or should I say “had” no get up and go.

On the way home today, I followed his instructions and floored it whenever I could do so safely (clear road, no other traffic, etc.).

The van’s get up and go is the best it’s been since we bought it.

While the poor quality gas would have cause problems to escalate since the move, that build up of carbon probably started long before we owned it.

If I hadn’t been assured, long ago, that the vehicle was actually worth maintaining, we probably would have tried to trade it in for something else, instead of spending all that money on it.

Even so, with our need for a reliable vehicle that meets my husbands mobility needs, the constant issues cropping up are adding a level of stress I just don’t need!

However, having had it checked out, and with tomorrow supposed to reach above freezing temperatures again, I am finally going to try and make a trip to the city and do a full, much needed, monthly shop. I’m going to try going to Costco, in our usual location, which I’m told does accept face shields or Mingle Masks, and even complete medical exemptions still – though that seems to depend on who is on shift at any given time.

And if that goes well, I’ll later be able to pick up the replacement hot water tank and get it installed.

Just thinking about making these trips is stressing me out. Not just because of the vehicle paranoia, but because going out in public, surrounded by faceless people, is increasingly becoming the stuff of nightmares. As a student of psychology, I understand the effect it’s having and why, but knowing that, and feeling that, are two very different things.

Thank God we don’t live in the city anymore. If I were surrounded by this on a daily basis, I’m pretty sure I would have wigged out long ago.

The Re-Farmer