Month: August 2021

This morning’s finds

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There always seems to be something new to find when I do my rounds!

Some are good, some are not so good, and some are… kind of in between. :-D

Finding holes in the ground from skunks digging for grubs is not unusual. This morning, however, it was VERY unusual! I found probably a hundred off them over by the sweet corn and sunflower blocks! They were in the open areas around them, but also right in among them.

The skunks (I’m assuming there was more than one) seem to have worked their way through two corn blocks and about one and a half sunflower blocks. Only the corn block furthest north was completely untouched. Judging from how many holes there were, I’m guessing it had something to do with very full little bellies!

Before we planted here, and were just mowing, I never saw divots. My guess is that the area was so dry and sun baked, there simply weren’t any grubs in the soil. Now that we’ve started to amend the soil and have been watering regularly, plus all the rain we’ve recently had, it’s now a skunk buffet!

I don’t mind the skunks digging up the grubs. They have no interest in the plants. The only problem was that some of their digging was close enough to our already struggling corn and sunflower plants, that roots were exposed. I worked my way through the rows, pushing the soil back into those holes, at least. The others, I left. There were just too many, and I don’t care if the weeds have their roots exposed!

It took a long time, but we now have our very first vine making its way across the top of the squash tunnel! This luffa had reached the top some time ago, but not gone over.

The winter squash still has a ways to go, but it’s working on it!

Had conditions been more ideal, this structure would at least have had the walls completely covered in vines by now, if not the “roof” as well. Given what a tough year for the garden it has been, I’m quite pleased with what we have!

The girls moved the canopy tent over the picnic table by the fire pit for me this morning, so I dragged a hose over to give the table a bit of a power wash. While there, I checked out the nearby currant bush.

We only rarely watered this bed by the fire pit at all this year, yet the currant actually has a few berries on it! After picking these, I checked on the two currant bushes near the main garden beds and found a few more. Those ones did get watered more often, but are located under trees. They get a lot less sunlight, and even with the rains we’ve been having, they would have gotten less. The one by the fire pit is on the south side of the maple grove and has no overhanging branches, so even with almost no watering, it has more berries. Even so, the berries are a lot smaller and less juicy than they should be. I’m surprised there are any at all, to be honest!

This morning, I fussed around with the potato grow bags. Some of them were falling over, so I secured them to the chain link fence, then straightened the bags out again; the tops of the bags are more to keep critters out than anything else.

In the process, I uncovered this little guy.

So incredibly adorable!!!

Finding one is exciting enough, but then I found this slightly bigger one!

This one wasn’t too impressed with my moving the bags around. :-D

These are probably my favourite type of frog. :-D And we’ve seen so many of them, as well as the more common wood frogs, this year!

As we develop our permanent garden beds, providing shelter and moisture for frogs is on our list of things to include. :-)

Today is supposed to be our last comfortable day before the heat comes back, and no rain is predicted for a few more days, so I will be heading out to apply cayenne pepper to some of our garden beds after this. Especially our purple beans. Checking the garden cam this morning, I caught a young buck in the garden, nibbling on something. The summer squash was blocking the view, but there is only one thing where that buck was standing; our purple beans. I didn’t even notice the damage, this morning! The purple beans are a lot bushier and leafy than the other types, but it likely explains why I’m not seeing as many beans on there. I think the deer are actually avoiding the leaves to eat the beans, instead, judging from what I do see, when I am looking closely to find beans to pick.

We keep our containers from things like sour cream, and had one with a transparent lid. I poked a whole bunch of little holes in the lid, then emptied the bulk packages of cayenne pepper into the 500ml container, to create a shaker. I’m hoping the holes aren’t too small. We shall see how it works!

The Re-Farmer

Double rainbow, and will it survive?

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Yesterday evening, we found ourselves having another wonderful, solid rainfall! Enough to kick out our internet, but it was well worth it.

Then, even as it was still raining above us, the setting sun lit up the more gorgeous rainbows.

This is how it looked from the inner yard, beautifully framed by trees.

But we had to go to the outer yard to see both of them. Photos, of course, cannot do justice to the real thing! They were so incredibly bright and colourful.

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen rainbows!

Along with the welcome rain, we’ve had a lot of high winds lately. Sadly, the wind broke one of the Hopi Black Dye sunflowers in the old kitchen garden. This was the very first one that had been started indoors to germinate, and I planted it, and one other, there when I didn’t think any others would make it, so it was the furthest along of all the transplants (which are recovering from getting their heads chomped off by a deer).

When I found it bent in half, I placed a support near it and tied the stem gently to it, but it wasn’t enough. I ended up lashing a piece of doweling directly to the stem to keep it from bending.

Yesterday, even with the doweling, I found it it leaning over again; the main support had actually been pushed over the the wind, too, and was no longer holding it straight. It was looking wilted, too, but I straightened it up anyhow, and hoped for the best.

Frankly, I’m amazed it’s still alive at all, with that damage!

Remarkably, when I checked on it this morning, it was no longer wilted! Yesterday’s rain perked it right up again. It might actually survive!

While doing my morning rounds, I picked some beans and a zucchini, then grabbed a selection of garlic, an onion and a shallot, to bring to my mother. She’s supposed to avoid foods in the onion family, but a little is okay, so I gave her just enough to get a taste of each.

I was able to have lunch at my mother’s, then we ran errands together. There was only one place I wasn’t able to go in with her, as the store is still requiring face masks, even though they are no longer mandated. I find it so strange and arbitrary that I can help my mom at the clinic and go into a medical lab with no issues, but the second hand store has issues with open faces. I did get a laugh at the grocery store when my mom commented to another customer about her still wearing a mask. It turned out she had no idea they were no longer required. I hadn’t even finished explaining the mandate had been lifted when she was tearing that thing off her face. And here I’d just been talking to my mother, wondering at the people walking around outside, alone, with masks on, which has never been mandated, and she was suggesting people didn’t know the restrictions had been lifted. My response was, of course they know. Who doesn’t know about it by now? Well, it turns out she was right!

One out of the ordinary stop we made today was a hardware store. She was looking for something specific, so I snagged an employee (who greeted me by name, which was weird, because I had no idea who he was – even if he weren’t wearing a mask!) and told him what my mother was after. My mother half-recognized him; turns out he’s from a farm just a couple of miles away. I never knew really knew him, and probably hadn’t seen him even in passing, in more than 30 years, and am amazed he knew who I was. Maybe it’s because I look so much like my mother?

Anyhow, with him helping us, my mother got to the real reason she wanted to go there.

She asked for an estimate on some garden sheds they had on display.

*sigh*

I told my mother, we don’t need a garden shed. If she really wants to get something that will help make the place look better, a wood chipper would be more useful. She wouldn’t hear of it. She’s got her mind set on a garden shed to replace the old and rotting one that’s here. Well, it’s her money, and it would certainly get used, but if she wants to get something for the farm, it’s about the least needed of things on the list. Heck for the amount the estimate came out to (including concrete deck supports and delivery; we’d still have to assemble it), we could get a solid chipper, hire someone to haul away the junk (including the old garden shed), replace the main entry doors and frame, and still have money left over.

When I suggested the chipper instead, her response was one that has become her default when I point out things that are needed, vs what she wants, on the farm. She told me to talk to my brother, as if he could afford to get this stuff! She still planned to talk to him about the garden shed.

After I got her home, I took a photo of the estimate to share with my brother, and she started back tracking, saying there was no hurry. :-/

The seasons are moving along, though, and having a wood chipper by this fall would be a huge benefit for gardening next year, but she still can’t wrap her mind around the concept of mulching as it is, no matter how often I explain it. She’d never heard of it before, therefore this is a “new” thing, and wrong.

Ah, well. It’s her money, and she can spend it how she wants. I just hate to see her waste it on something so low on the priority list. Especially since it’s more about appearances (as if there’s anyone who can see it!), rather than usefulness, and she complains about how ugly the branch piles look, every chance she gets! Plus, if she wants to get something “for me” so badly, you’d think she’d want to get something I actually want or need. But it’s not really for me, anyhow. It’s for her, and what the neighbours think – the ones that live a mile away… LOL. :-D

So that got done, and we did have an actual good visit, even with our usual head butting. I left early enough to head to town to pick up some prescription refills for my husband. For the first time in a year, I was actually able to walk into the store to do it, too. Then I did a quick grocery run, dashed home long enough to put things away, then did a dump run.

I must say, it felt very good to finally get home and stay home! :-D I try to combine errands as much as possible, so we don’t have to go out as often, but my goodness, it is draining. I much prefer my hermitage! :-D

Meanwhile, I’m going to have to go out again tomorrow, to get things we need for early the day after!

When we were living in the city, I thought nothing of running out three or four times a day. Now that we’re living out here, driving out even once a week for errands feels exhausting.

I am so spoiled by living here on the farm again! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Our 2022 garden: second box done

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Sadly, we didn’t get any more rain today, but it has been very windy. Enough that we lowered the canopy tent as far as it can go, so reduce the chances of wind damage. It still has our camp chairs and makeshift table that we were using to cure onions on a screen, under it, and we can still duck under to sit in it.

I feel like a little kid in a fort. It’s awesome!

But I digress!

There was a break in the wind, and I took advantage of it to build the second low raised bed box to go where the garlic had been.

The build went much faster than the first one, now that we’ve got it figured out.

With stuff we’ve got going on over the next few days, we won’t be able to work on the third one, nor prep the empty beds for next year, until after the weekend. Which rather sucks, because the next couple of days are going to be really nice, then by Sunday, we’re expected to hit 33C/91F, and stay above 30C/86F for at least a few days. At least there is the possibility of more rain as well.

The third box will be a very quick build, since it will be only 1 board high. The bed it’s going to go on still has beets growing in it, so there is no hurry on that one. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Oh, those little buggers!

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Or should I say, big buggers?

The raccoons have been at the bird feeders again.

I found the big feeder on the ground again, the screws yet again ripped right out of the base. This, even after adding newer, stronger wood to the bottom, and using more and longer screws!

Then I found the other feeder.

Well, parts of it, anyhow.

Thankfully, this feeder is actually designed to come apart, so this is not broken. Just in pieces.

But one piece was missing! The part with the cable it hangs from.

I finally found it, some distance away, under a lilac bush.

The parts and pieces were all wet and splashed with mud and dirt, so it got a cleaning and is now sitting to dry before I refill it and hang it back up.

Then I turned my attention to the big feeder.

Part of the problem with it is how much it wobbles on the top of the post. I’d added foam covered wire, wrapped around the top of the post, to reduce the wobbling. This reduced the wobble, but it was still there. The raccoons are rather large, weighty critters, so if they’re climbing the post to get onto the bird feeder, they would be causing it to tip quite a bit. That is likely what is putting so much stress on the screws and the wood. Of the six screws holding the base, which had slid to the bottom of the post again, to the underside of the feeder, pieces of wood were still stuck to a couple of them, while one of the screws was gone completely. I found half of it in the ground. It had snapped right off!

So along with putting the base back on using even longer screws, which are now long enough to be going right through the added wood and into the bottom of the feeder itself, I had to do something about that wobble. Something that wouldn’t slide out of position, thicker and with less give than what I used before.

I found a solution.

I use twine, and some of my husband’s navy rope work that he taught me, years ago, that secures the ends in a way that they cannot come loose and unravel.

It took wrapping three layers of twine to get the thickness needed. The base is now solid on the post, with no wiggle, and I can still slide it on and off the post as needed.

This, together with the even longer screws, should prevent the base from being torn off the feeder again.

Of course, that leaves us with the problem of the raccoons getting into the feeders in the first place.

That will require a bit more thinking.

The Re-Farmer

Looking good!

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We got more rain yesterday evening and during the night, so I wanted to check out the old gravel pit, to see how the water levels were.

I don’t know that the water level had gotten any higher, but the renter’s cows are using it! Which s really awesome. I didn’t want to spook the cows away, so I made my way through the trees to check on it.

I’m even noticing, as I walked around, that the crunchy grass is starting to show new green growth. Just barely, but enough to see.

I did check out the old pond, to see if there was any water there, too. There was no standing water, but from the new, muddy holes at the bottom, the cows have been walking through it. It’s got pretty much the only green grass around in there.

In an average year, that pond would be full enough to use the small boat we found the remains of nearby, and even more in the gravel pit. In the photo, you can see the lower area that’s greener. That area would also have had water in it, and there would be at least mud in a marshy area that stretches from the gravel pit to towards the pond. For now, I’m just excited over the big puddle!

The Re-Farmer

2021 garden: into the root cellar

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With the blessed rain we’ve had, our garlic and onions hanging in the canopy tent did not get rained on, but when I checked them this morning, I was concerned about the effect the humidity might have on them. They need cool and dry to cure, but our options were hot and dry, or cool and damp. Suddenly hot and humid changes things. :-)

We did not get more rain today, and by the end of the afternoon the bulbs felt dry again, so I prepped them to bring into the root cellar.

The garlic got their tops trimmed, and everything got their roots trimmed off as well. The job was very quick and easy to do, with them all hanging in the tent!

It seems like so little, when they’re in the grocery bag I used to bring them inside!

I left them as they were on their twine, so they could be hung in the root cellar.

The root cellar is under the entryway, which is two steps lower than the rest of the new part of the house. I’m about 5’4″, and I had to make sure not to hit my head on the floor joists for the floor above! It’s definitely cramped in here!

There are quite a few large nails hammered into the floor joists. I used those to hang the strings up again, so they can continue to cure. You can’t see it in the photo, but there is a duct running between a pair of floor joists to outside, for air circulation. The duct is covered with mesh on the outside, to keep the critters and insects out.

We had been thinking of converting this room into a cheese cave and monitored the temperature and humidity in here for about a year, taking once a week readings. We missed a few weeks here and there, but still spanned a year.

The average temperature in here was 12C/54F, and the average humidity was 62%. The highest temperature was 18C/64F, which is what it was at while I was hanging the garlic. The lowest temperature was 6C/43F. The highest humidity reading was 88%, and the lowest was 28%. While I was hanging the garlic, it was just under 80% humidity.

The ideal average temperature for a root cellar should be between 0C – 4C (32F – 40F) with the humidity ranging from 85%-95%

So the conditions we should be getting, for a good root cellar, are winter temperatures and summer humidity levels.

:-/

One of the things I noticed while ducking around the ceiling to hang the garlic, is that the light bulb in there is putting off a lot of heat.

I was thinking of setting a fan up in here, but there is no outlet.

After scrounging and digging around, I found a low lumen “chandelier” LED bulb, and an outlet adapter for the fixture. My husband isn’t using his box fan right now, so I set that up in the root cellar, plugged into the outlet adapter. The adapter has a pull cord so that the light can be turned off while the outlet still gets power, but because of the type of light bulb in there now, it didn’t want to shut off, and just blinked on and off. So I left it on. It won’t add to the heat, and won’t use much power. We’ll just have to check the garlic and onions regularly, until they are cured.

Once the garlic is finally cured, they will be taken off their twine and packed into cardboard boxes or paper bags, depending on what we have available at the time, for storage. The onion braid will probably just stay hanging. I expect, before those are ready, we’ll have harvested the rest of the onions and will have them hanging in the canopy tent for a while, before moving them into the root cellar, too.

Hopefully, by winter, we will have more food stored in here, such as melons, winter squash and potatoes. We had high hopes of being able to store canned goods here, too, but between the critters and the drought, we’ll be lucky to be able to do some refrigerator pickles. :-( Anything else we have will be in quantities that will be more practical to freeze or dehydrate, rather than can. Even if we won’t be able to can much from the garden, I am planning on pressure canning heat and eat meals, at least, like chili or stew. Things like that are just really handy.

We shall see how things go over the next couple of months!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: winter squash follow up

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Yesterday, I posted about a concern I was finding with our Red Kuri/Little Gem winter squash. I also shared photos in some gardening groups I’m on, and of course, did some searches.

I greatly appreciated the feedback that I got from all over. Some had suggested it was a pollination problem, but that seemed to be from people seeing the pictures of the dying fruit, and not seeing my question about the yellowing leaves. Thankfully, we have not had any shortage of pollinators, unlike some other gardeners I’ve been hearing from. Others suggested blossom end rot. That would be due to watering problems, particularly over watering. In this location, and with our soil (or lack of it), over watering would be very difficult to do. Under watering could be an issue, but these plants are watered the same as everything else at the squash tunnel.

Other possibilities included squash borers, which there are no signs of, and the pattern of yellowing would have been reversed from what is happening. Fungal disease was another possibility, as was root rot. Both of which I could rule out pretty confidently. Insect damage in general could also be ruled out.

Nutritional deficiency seems to be the most likely cause. Everything at the squash tunnel has been fertilized a couple of times with high nitrogen fertilizer, and lack of nitrogen is one of the possible nutrient deficiencies, but I ‘also had suggestions that lack of calcium, iron and even magnesium might be contributing factors. None of those are included in the soil tests I did! It could simply be that this type of squash has higher nutritional needs than the melons and squash on either side of it. There are five of this type of squash, and all five are affected, while nothing around them are having the same issues, which suggests to me that it this variety is simply a heavier feeder than the others.

This morning, I pruned away all the dead and dying leaves at the bottom of the plants, as well as trimmed away the stems from leaves that had been nibbled on, previously. There were very few of those; it’s the winter squash next to them that is getting the worst of the nibbles!

There was quite a bit to trim away! What I found interesting was what was revealed, once these leaves and stems were removed.

There are fresh new leaves growing! Many are growing out of the stems right next to the dying leaves, as if the plants are trying to replace them as fast as it can.

This also opened things up so I could better check for things like fungal disease, insect damage, etc., just in case I’d missed something before.

In the end, lack of micro nutrients seems to be the most likely cause. That new leaves are coming up at the bottoms (no leaves higher up on the trellis needed to be trimmed), is encouraging.

The big, beautiful flowers, and the still healthy developing squash is also very encouraging!

On a completely different garden topic, I was checking out the corn and sunflower blocks, and taking a closer took at some of the developing seed heads.

This Mongolian Giant is typical; one large seed head developing at the top.

Then there was this one, two stalks over.

This one has a whole bunch of little seed heads starting to develop, all down the stem! Pretty much every leaf on this plant is showing a baby seed head growing in their elbows.

I remember we had a sunflower last year do this, too! Sadly, none had a chance to mature before that first frost hit. Hopefully, these have more time to develop, and we’ll have seed heads to harvest as something other than bird feed this year!

The Re-Farmer

So exciting!

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I’ve just got to share this, first thing!

Yesterday, it started to rain. Off and on, all day, we got real, solid rain.

During a break in the rain, I went out to check the newly dug out old gravel pit.

I had heard the sound of heavy equipment earlier, and found that the pit had been dug a bit deeper.

Some of the big rocks in there were definitely not helping! One I’d noticed earlier was completely shattered, while others had big scrapes on them, or were shifted slightly, but would not move. That’s the sort of thing that will damage equipment, so I don’t imagine it’ll be dug any deeper. At least, not with a front end loader. While everything was damp from the rain, of course, there was no accumulation of moisture at the bottom at all.

The rain continued overnight, sometimes with heavy downpours, and continued through this morning. While we also heard/saw thunder and lightning during the night, we didn’t get an all-out storm over us. In other parts of the province, particularly in the far south, there were hail warnings, too.

This morning, after doing my rounds, I just had to go back and see.

We have water!!!

It’s barely more than a puddle at the bottom, but that doesn’t matter.

We have water!!

Given the clay layer at the bottom, it should actually stay, rather than drain away. We’re supposed to continue to get a bit of rain, off and on, over the next few days, though whether that will continue to reach us, I don’t know. Every little drop we get, however, will be a blessing, and with the pit dug deeper, a boon for the renter’s cows and the wildlife.

I’m just so excited!

The Re-Farmer

Making hard crab apple cider: bottling day one

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For those who have been following this blog for a while, that’s right. We still haven’t bottled our hard cider yet! And yes, it’s been almost a year!

For those who are new to the blog, you can catch up on the progress with these links; all will open in new tabs, so you won’t lose your place.

Crab apple picking
Making hard crab apple cider; will it work?
Hard crab apple cider: getting clear
Making hard crab apple cider: racking day – what happened? (Updated: I found out)

We meant to bottle these months ago, but time and space and other priorities kept delaying things.

Today, I finally broke down and did it.

Well. Half of it.

We didn’t want to use corked wine bottles for this, so we’ve been saving up our screw top bottles for a while now. Only recently did we get enough to bottle the hard cider, anyhow. We just don’t buy wine-bottle sized things very often. I suppose that’s a downside of our buying habits. Not a lot of materials left over to reuse.

I only did one of the two carboys we had fermenting. They are 3L each, so I needed at least four 750ml sized bottles. After sterilizing them, I didn’t siphon the cider into them. I have problems with using the siphon. We don’t have an auto siphon, and have not been able to find one that will fit in anything smaller than the large carboy that came with our wine making kit, so it’s gotta be done old school. I always end up disturbing the sediment, and splashing all over when moving from bottle to bottle, so today I just gently poured it from the carboy through a sterilized funnel.

For the last bottle, I added a coffee filter to the funnel, just in case.

It actually worked out MUCH better than fighting with a siphon. Not only did I barely disturb the sediment at all, but there was no mess. I’m sure I committed some major faux pax by not using a siphon to fill from the bottom up, and getting all that air in there, but… it is what it is. I still wiped the bottles with vinegar water, but there really wasn’t anything to clean up.

Of course, I then had to do a taste test!

This was poured from the partially filled bottle, so if there was any sediment that got through, this would be the bottle that has it.

As you can see, it is very clear.

There is a very strong smell of alcohol from this, but you can also really smell “crab apple” as well.

I just love that colour! Sadly, it doesn’t look like we’ll have many crab apples at all this year, never mind from this particular tree with it’s very red little apples, so we won’t be making more hard cider, nor cider vinegar, with our crab apples this year.

We still have the second carboy to bottle, though, and that will leave us with hard cider to last us a while.

Ah, but how does it taste?

The first thing that hits is SOUR! This is a remarkably sour cider! Not a bitter kind of sour, though. It really wakes up the taste buds. I think this would be good with game. Or with a really strong flavored dessert.

For all that it smells of strong alcohol, there isn’t a strong alcohol flavour. I don’t actually enjoy the taste of alcohol, but I can drink this. And yes, there is a light, fruity apple taste, too.

I find myself thinking this would be nice with a spot of sugar or honey added to it. Perhaps I’ll try some with a bit of our vanilla sugar added. Or to include it in a fruit punch.

I did not take a hydrometer reading. I wasn’t up to digging it out this time. Based on previous readings, it was just under 11% alcohol. After tasting it, I would not be surprised for that to have remained unchanged. This is strong stuff, even if it does take a while to feel it!

This is definitely a “sip it slowly” kind of drink.

It should be interesting to see if the flavour changes after they’ve had a few days to rest after being bottled without a siphon.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: winter squash help needed!

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Just yesterday, I posted about how big our Little Gem winter squash seemed to be doing.

But only parts of it are doing well.

Does anyone experienced with winter squash know what’s going on here?

The newest growth is looking healthy and vigorous, but near the ground, the leaves and stems are looking yellow, and some of the leaves are dying.

Worse, some of the developing squash are dying.

This one fell off while I was taking its picture. :-(

This is the very first baby squash we found. It has not gotten any bigger, and is now starting to rot, too.

There are SO many baby squash developing under their flowers, but too many don’t get very far.

I don’t know why this is happening.

There is no sign of disease on the leaves. I’m not seeing anything like squash borers or insect damage. It is only affecting this variety – all the plants of this variety – but none of the others.

These are near the middle of the row. They are getting the same amount of water as everything else here. They have been fertilized the same, too. It isn’t even getting any critter nibbles, like the nearby Teddy squash is/was.

I need to consult the local gardening groups to see if anyone else has had this issue.

Any thoughts?

The Re-Farmer