Month: August 2021

Our 2021 garden: yesterday and today

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Yesterday ended up being even hotter than was forecast.

We also didn’t get the thunderstorms that were predicted. :-(

I still ended up outside to take care of a few things. One of them was to check on our curing onions, shallots and garlic.

They are not cured yet, but they’ve dried enough that I took the time to brush off the soil from the shallots, then kept right on going, doing all the onions and hanging garlic, too.

Quite the difference!!

They will probably need at least a few more days, probably a week, to cure, but I might be able to trim and re-string them and hang them in the root cellar to finish curing. We shall see what the conditions are like. They really shouldn’t be hanging outside in the heat like this, though they are at least dry. I found out from my SIL that my mother would braid her garlic and hang them in trees, so I guess this should work out fine, too.

Though we did not get the predicted thunderstorms, we did have high winds from the south all day.

High enough to break a heavily laden tomato branch that didn’t have enough support. :-( I spent some time adding supports to the tomatoes, and found others that were bent, but not broken like this one. This one was still attached, so I tied it upright, but by this morning it was wilting. It’s likely a lost cause, but I went ahead and took it off completely, then stuck the end into the ground.

After adding support to the tomatoes, I picked the ripe ones – there are three different types of tomatoes in this photo – and picked the largest cucamelons, too. We’re still getting just enough for snacking on. :-)

Speaking of cucamelons, check this out.

This morning, their vines were reaching even higher past the top of the fence. How these are not falling over, I don’t know! The vines are clearly much stronger than they appear!

For the past while, I’ve been watching the sweet corn grow, wondering that there were so may tassels forming, but no cobs. When I went to water them yesterday evening, it was a relief to finally see silks emerging on several stalks. We might have corn to eat, after all!

This morning, I was able to pick some more beans, too.

The yellow beans seem to be getting into the height of their production, and I even found green beans large enough to harvest, but only one purple bean large enough to pick!

With how many we planted, I had hope to have more, but with our drought conditions, I’m happy that we have enough to eat fresh with our meals.

Also, do you see the drops of moisture on the colander in the photo?

That’s not from rinsing the beans.

Those are rain drops.

Yes! We have rain! It started to rain lightly just as I was finishing up with my rounds, and has been raining off and on ever since.

So exciting!

Even my older brother is getting rain at their place. They’ve had even less rain than we have. They get the same weird weather phenomenon that we do. As the systems move over us, something seems to just push them to go around, or even cause them to dissipate. Our theory was that it has something to do with being between such large lakes, but my brother’s place is well past the southernmost tip of the lake. So it can’t be that

We are just so happy for the rain we are getting right now. I can’t wait to check on the gravel pit this evening, to see if there’s any water at the bottom of the new dig!

The Re-Farmer

Critters, yesterday and today

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No, not the nasty critter that’s eating our summer squash!

Pleasant critters.

Like Nosencrantz, who was very curious about me as I was checking the cucamelons.

She still won’t come close enough to touch, but she very deliberately came to check me out several times, while I was topping up their food and water, and checking the south yard garden beds.

Such a cutie!

Meanwhile, yesterday, I heard a distinctive and familiar thumping on the dining room window. I immediately went to check, and found this bird, stunned on the ground.

It’s a fledgling robin, and I’m guessing it was testing out its wings when it hit the window, because this little guy couldn’t fly yet!

With so many yard cats around (even if they were smart enough to not be out in yesterday’s heat!), I wasn’t going to leave it on the ground. When I first picked it up, it fluttered out of my hands, fell to the ground and basically somersaulted onto it’s own head. It was still too stunned to even stand up on its own. I picked it up again and put it on the platform of the big bird feeder, hoping it would just stay there until it recovered.

Nope.

It fluttered right off the edge, hit the ground and somersaulted onto its head again.

So I picked it up again and just held it. It made an attempt to bight the palm of my hand, but not with any real force. Then it sat there and glared at me! I kept a hand over its wings for a while, until it seemed calmer, then took a couple of photos. Eventually, it hopped out of my hand, fluttering its wings enough to land gently on the ground, then started hopping across the yard.

Unfortunately, it was hopping right out of the shade and into the baking sun – and out of the yard, away from safety!

I followed at a distance until I saw it hope into the shelter and shade of some trees near and old shed. At that point, I could be sure it was okay.

Meanwhile, it’s parents were squawking up a storm the entire time!

Poor thing! I’m glad it wasn’t injured.

And that there were no cats around, to get to it before I could!

The Re-Farmer

Caught in the act!

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Oh, the adorable little beast.

I moved the garden cam again, this time onto the summer squash. I’d had to tie some of their stems back onto their supports, and wasn’t sure if they’d come loose under their own weight, or if something caused them to fall.

Our sunburst squash is looking prolific, but we’ve had very little to pick. Lots of them have been withering on the vine, but there have also been bite marks on them.

It is confirmed who is the cause of this!

I had the camera low on its pole, and at some point during the night it slid down and spun a bit to the left. Which is why it caught a raccoon going by. There was a possibility that the raccoons were doing damage, but it completely ignored the squash, other than to go around them.

I was about 99.9% sure it was the woodchuck doing the damage. Now it is 100% confirmed.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

What I found this morning

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I tried to head out earlier to do my rounds this morning, as I wanted to make sure all the garden beds got a deep watering, and that the fall plantings got their shade covers. Last night, we never got cooler than 19C/66F, and it was already above 20C/68F by the time I got outside. We’re supposed to hit 31C/88F, with a humidex of 37C/99F by this afternoon.

They’re also saying we’re supposed to get thunderstorms this afternoon. I’ll believe THAT when I see it!

I had a few amusing surprises this morning. One of them was the filthy, filthy water bowls.

We often see where the skunks have been digging for grubs, but this was an unusually enthusiastic dig, for the dirt to be scattered into the water bowls like that!

There must be a lot of grubs right now, because I was finding little divots all over the place this morning.

Well, now.

It looks like the raccoons are not only still able to get to the bird feeder from below, but have figured out how to open the top!

Note the condition of the formerly white post.

The new hanging bird feeder was empty again. No real surprise there, as it is smaller than the old one. I didn’t find the canister on the ground this morning, but it was slid around to the “unlock” position.

It’s the support post that really caught my attention. You can’t really see it in the photo, but all up the post are little scratches in the wood. Then there’s the greasy layer of dirt stuck to it, like on the metal post supporting the big feeder. That would be from the raccoons greasy fur!

Ew.

I notice there’s a fair bit of exposed wood now, too. We’re going to have to pick up more of this paint. I don’t think we have enough left to do many touch ups.

This made me smile! The Little Gem squash is developing quite a few fruit, and this one is looking noticeably bigger, even from yesterday. When ripe, these will turn a deep, reddish orange – their other name is Red Kuri – with a round body and a little neck, and should reach 4-5 pounds.

Hopefully, enough of these will survive and ripen to make up for what looks like a complete loss on the Teddy squash. The plants are looking vigorous, and they are blooming, but it seems their developing fruit are irresistible to some short critter that isn’t triggering the motion sensor on the garden cam. From what I could see this morning, there are no female flowers, and any developing fruit there had been before are gone.

More information to file away for our garden next year!

The Re-Farmer

Gravel pit dugout

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This evening, I just had to go out and see how things were in the old gravel pit. It looks like the dugout is done!

The first thing I saw, coming through the trees, was our new mountain.

I’m guessing, at its peak, it’s getting close to 20 feet high.

Check out those rocks!!

And there it is. The deepened dugout.

The guy said he’d seen a bit of moisture as he was moving the gravel, but if there was any, it’s completely dried up, now.

My hopes that water may seep in have gotten lower.

There were quite a few large rocks, loosened, scraped or, like this one, shattered.

Once there is water in here, the cows and any wildlife in the area will have an easy time getting to it.

What amazed me is that, for all that this was a marshy area and sediment had collected, making the original dugout shallower, the top soil is still amazingly thin. Barely six inches, from what I could see.

Of course, I had to check out the patch of fine sand that was uncovered. Just look at that! So soft!

Just a couple of feet away, the sand was much coarser, but still most definitely sand, not gravel.

Here’s the view from the top of the new hill.

Do you see those divots in the gravel, between the tread marks?

Yup. The cows have already been up here! Silly things!

The treads left behind some compacted clumps, and when I first saw this, it made me think of petrified wood.

It’s just clay and sand and a bit of soil. I think how the outside was compacted to such a smooth surface is really neat.

So here we now have access to such beautiful sand and gravel, and I’m at a loss of how to get it. Even if we were able to get a floor on the trailer frame and hook it up to the riding mower, which does have a tow hitch, we could never get it into the pit to where the fine and coarse sand is. The riding mower just couldn’t handle it. The trailer would be too big to maneuver in there, anyhow, but even if we had a small trailer, it would be too much for the riding mower to handle in there.

The only thing I can think of, based on what we actually have, is to bring our folding wagon (lined with plastic) over.

Man, wouldn’t it be nice if we had access to something like a Bobcat, with a front end loader?

:-/

Must. Not. Be. Bitter!

Now, we just need this pit to fill with water. Even just a little! For the cows and all the other critters around.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: first taste, and getting big!

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This evening, our first real harvest of beans was prepared to accompany our supper, and did a taste test. Though we’d picked a few beans before, they were so few, they just got chopped up and added to a hash.

For these, they were first steamed until almost done, then pan fried in butter with fresh garlic (our own, of course!), then seasoned with salt an pepper.

The purple beans turn green when cooked, and I made a point of tasting them individually, to compare the flavour.

Honestly, I couldn’t tell the difference. As far as I could tell, they tasted the same! :-D Which was very good, I might add. :-)

I forgot to follow up on how the Dorinny corn tasted. We had those last night, wrapped in foil with butter, salt and pepper, then roasted in the oven, next to a ham.

I really liked the Dorinny corn. If you’re a fan of really sweet corn, it probably wouldn’t be your thing, but it had a good, solid corn flavour. It was also wonderfully toothsome. As much a pleasure to eat as to taste. I don’t think we’ll be able to save seeds from these, there are so few of them, but I will definitely want to pick up more for next year’s garden. In fact, I think I will get two packets this time.

While heading out to check on the gravel pit, I paused to look at the cucamelons and had a lovely surprise.

Hiding behind some leaves are some really big ones! Not quite big enough to harvest, but very close.

Yes, this is “big” for cucamelons. :-D

So awesome!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: soil protection

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We are quite pleased with the new garden beds at the chain link fence. They are working out very much as we intended, and the chain link is providing support for the plants, just as planned.

There is just one real problem.

Erosion.

While scavenging for wood I could use to make raised bed boxes for where the garlic was harvested, I noticed some other old wood in the barn. Today, I decided to grab a few boards and use them to help keep the soil where it belongs.

This is where the cucamelons and some gourds are planted. The ground slopes a bit here, so the bottom of the chain link fence has more of a gap under it. When we lay cardboard down first, we put flaps up against the chain link, but once the soil was added and things were being watered, the cardboard slid under the fence and the soil started to erode away.

It had been intended to place more of the chimney blocks along this section, to use them as planters like the ones we’re using as a retaining wall in the old kitchen garden. We still haven’t taken the last of those blocks out of the old basement (hauling those up the stairs and through the house is going to be difficult enough on its own, never mind no top of having to keep the cats out of that basement). We still intend to do it, though, and once they are in place, this will no longer be a problem. All that’s needed right now is to keep the soil from washing away under the fence, and taking the plants with it.

So for here, I just used a hoe to move enough soil to level things, then pushed boards under the bottom of the chain link from the outside. After that, I just tried to return some of the soil through the bottom of the fence, to hold the boards against the chain link. Otherwise, they would just lean inwards.

The boards were placed as far as the chicken wire critter barrier at the far end, making for a bit of overlap. It only needs to last until the end of the growing season, so as long as the boards keep the soil where it belongs, it’s doing its job.

More boards where then slid between the tomato plants and the chain link fence, though I did need to go back to the barn for another board. Erosion was not as much of a problem, here. There is much less of a gap between the bottom of the fence and the ground, so the cardboard flaps are still holding the soil in place. However, I wanted to add more soil under the tomatoes, and I didn’t want to be losing that.

Once the boards were in place, I was able to add quite a bit of soil, without having to worry about it sliding through the fence.

In time, this bed will get some sort of frame as well. What it will be made of will depend on what materials we end up acquiring. I’m leaning towards brick, partly because we are looking to use paving stones or something similar on the paths along both new beds.

The boards are just a stop gap measure for this season. Like most of the other wood I’m finding in the sheds and barn, it was reclaimed from somewhere, and has various levels of damage. They’re solid enough to do the job for the rest of the season, though, and I’m glad to have it!

The Re-Farmer

Digging it!

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Not very long ago, after walking around and seeing that our dugouts were completely dry, I had given permission to the renters to dig them deeper, if they wanted to, to have water for their cows. It wouldn’t be much use this year, but I wanted them to at least know they could.

Since this looked like something that wouldn’t be done this year, if they decided to at all, I forget to tell my brother I did this.

You know. The guy who actually owns the property. :-D

I was talking to him on the phone this morning when I got a message from the renter. They had decided to hire someone to deepen the old gravel pit and I was informed that the guy should be there in a few hours, so I would know what the commotion was. The funny thing is, I was already hearing the “beep, beep, beep” of heavy equipment backing up!

So… I told my brother I’d given them permission, then headed out to take a look.

A pretty good start was made, by the time I got out there.

As I moved around and took pictures, I was noticing that there were some really nice pockets of beautiful sand.

When the guy saw me, he stopped and came over and we chatted for a bit. When I mentioned the sand, he pointed out one area in particular that had really, really nice, fine sand.

I remember, as a child, playing in pockets of sand among the gravel. Those were all on the north side of the pit. I don’t think we’d ever dug that far on the south side before, and that’s where he’s uncovered the nicest sand.

I’m really excited about this.

I asked if he expected to reach water, and his immediate response was, NO! He did mention there was an area that was a bit damp (you can sort of see it in the picture), and that he was hitting clay on the bottom. If there is rain, it might collect in there, and there might even be seepage. He also said it might take a few days to finish. I’ll have to come back later to take more pictures.

Since we were standing right next to what had been a muddy area (of all two places they could have dug deeper, they made the right choice by deciding on the old gravel pit), I mentioned that this was the first time I’d seen this old pit completely dry. I actually do think that, given how deep he’s going, water might start to seep in. Here’s hoping! Otherwise, this is basically being done for next year, and to prevent future water issues like we’re having this year, but if water can start seeping in now, that would be a big benefit to our renter and his cows. I’m sure the deer and other wildlife would appreciate it, too!

Me, I’m just so excited by what I’m seeing. My brother had been told that this gravel pit was basically depleted, but he can’t remember who told him that anymore. Clearly, it is not. The renter may eventually be getting water for his cows from here but, at the same time, we’re going to get sand and gravel we can use. Very much a “win win” situation!

I’m already daydreaming of sand covered paths between garden beds, infill around the house, and if we can get plywood for the floor of that trailer frame we’ve got, we might even be able to get enough gravel to spread on our driveway.

Of course, if the Bobcat were still here, we could have dug into the pit ourselves, though not at this level, of course. Having it would have made getting gravel to where we need it a lot easier.

Of all the things that got taken while this place was empty, that Bobcat is the one that I pine for the most. Maybe because a part of me still hopes it might get returned. Most things we can make do, one way or another, without them. It’s a lot harder to make up for the loss of that one, large piece of equipment. The Bobcat is on the list of items we know our vandal took, included in my response to his suit against us. The optimist in me hopes the judge would see fit to not only throw the case out, but order our vandal to return some of this stuff. Much of it can’t be; the lumber, for example, was used in buildings on his property. But things like the Bobcat and it’s attachments, or even some of the tools he took, would make our lives much easier when it comes to taking care of this place! Since the property now belongs to my brother, all this stuff would have been included with it, so he would be the owner of it all, too.

Ah, well. One can dream, right?

For now, however, I will happily dream of sand and gravel, and the things we can do with it!

The Re-Farmer

Corny curiosity

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While doing my rounds this morning and checking for deer damage in the garden beds, I noticed something odd about our sweet corn.

The middle corn block is the one that’s growing the tallest and developing the most tassels.

But there is only one corn cob developing.

Once it sunk in what I was seeing – and not seeing – I walked around through the corn block, looking for developing cobs, and there just aren’t any. Not a sign. Usually, I can at least tell where cobs are going to start growing, but there is nothing.

How very curious.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: harvest firsts

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This evening, I went over our beans and made our first real harvest!

We’ve picked a couple of beans, here and there, before, but this is the first substantial amount we have been able to gather. The yellow beans, for all that they are the smallest plants, are maturing the fastest.

A few purple beans, at the very end of the row, look to be newly nibbled on, but of the entire row, I could only find these few that looked mature enough to pick. As for the green beans, there are lots of them, but I don’t think they’re quite ready for picking. With the yellow beans, it’s at least easy to tell when they are ready. They turn from green to yellow. The green beans just stay the same green! :-D

After picking these, I stopped to look over other parts of the garden, including the Dorinny corn. These are the ones that were planted before last frost, and are the most mature. With the weather, they have had a hard time, but some of the cobs did seem to be ready to pick.

A whole four of them, including one that had its tip nibbled on by a deer a while back!

Generally speaking, they seem to have had good pollination; just the one cob that got its silks nibbled away has fewer kernels, which makes sense.

I had moved the garden cam to face the Dorinny corn and one side of the squash tunnel, in hopes of seeing what is eating the winter squash. One of the things I’ve done, after the last time a deer got into the Dorinny corn, and the one row of transplanted sunflowers, was move some of the distractions by the tulips, over to these garden beds. Two of those distractions were long strings of twine with jingle bells on them. I took our last couple of bamboo stakes and set them up along the side of the Dorinny corn block, with the bells strung between them.

I didn’t catch anything on the garden cam going after the winter squash, but I did catch a deer on several video files. It was nibbling at the ground in front of the string of bells, but never tried to go past it.

That was encouraging, at least.

Meanwhile, I currently have the corn in the over, wrapped in foil with some butter, salt and pepper, and am looking forward to tasting one! The beans will be enjoyed tomorrow. :-)

The Re-Farmer