Month: January 2022

This is a huge step

/ Re-Farmer / 10 Comments

Well, we’ve gone and done it.

After much discussion with my daughters, we have made our “seed budget” purchase for this month, and it is trees.

We’ve been going through a number of websites for nurseries that supply cold hardy trees. Among the ones we want to get is a nut orchard collection, and the nursery that sells the one we’re looking at has scaled down the package deal, making it much more affordable. The collection, if planted spaced out as recommended, would cover 1 acre. However, some of the trees in the collection have the potential to reach 100 ft tall. That’s almost 40 feet taller than the tallest trees in our spruce grove! Which means we have to plant them in the outer yard, or even beyond, where the renter’s cows pasture, and we are just not going to be ready for that this year.

Beyond that, some of the sources we have been looking at just don’t have new stock listed yet. Among the things we are eyeballing are fruit trees, such as apple trees to replace the diseased crab apple trees we will have to cut down, pears, plums, Saskatoons, highbush cranberry, as well as different types of raspberries, etc. There’s only so much we can do in a year, though, and only so much space we are ready to plant into.

For this year, then, we settled on buying from Tree Time. They do a lot of shelterbelt trees, but also have fruit, nuts, berries, etc. They also come highly recommended. They are a reforestation nursery, which you can read about in their “how to order” page. Right from the start, they say:

We are a reforestation nursery that makes it easy for Canadians to purchase large quantities of tree, shrub, and berry seedlings at low prices.

Shop with us if you want convenience, selection, low prices, outstanding service, a guaranteed ship date, and high quality stock. Our customers tend to enjoy doing things themselves and watching their trees grow.

We grow our trees for maximum survival, not height or aesthetics. We mostly grow 1-2 year old trees because they have the best survival rates and are easier to ship in the mail.

We guarantee every tree we sell.

We decided to focus on two areas. First, creating our privacy barrier/living fence, and second, our first nut trees. Because of how they bundle their trees, the numbers we are getting are quite different than they would have been, elsewhere.

This is what we are getting (all images belong to Tree Time nursery).

Sea Buckthorn.

When talking about what to get as barrier trees, we were thinking of setting these aside for another year, but the way various things have changed since then, we’re going for it.

This is a zone 2b tree, so well suited to our zone 3. They are good in poor soil, are nitrogen fixers, and their berries are edible and healthy. They can grow up to 15 ft in height, with a 12 foot spread, and should be planted at 3-4 ft spacing, so they will do very well as a living fence/privacy screen, as well as a deer barrier, once they grow big enough. Plus, they will provide food for birds.

These will come as year old, bare root trees. We will be getting their smallest bundle, which is five trees. Sea buckthorn requires 1 male tree to 4 females to produce berries, but at only 1 year old, there is no way to know what sex the trees are. It may be a few years before we can tell! The males do not produce berries, but hopefully, there will be at least one male in the bundle.

Where we plant these will be partially dependent on how far we go with this next batch.

Silver Buffalo Berry.

This is one that disappeared from other sites we were looking at, so we were very happy to find them at Tree Time.

These are a super hardy, Zone 2a tree. Like the Sea Buckthorn, they can also handle poor soil and are excellent for attracting birds. They can grow to 18 ft in height, with a 10 ft spread, and should be planted 3-4 ft apart, so they should also make a good barrier and privacy screen. These will come as 1 yr old bare root stock.

We also got them in the smallest bundle of 30.

Which is triple what we expected to buy, when we first found these.

The area we planted the corn and sunflower blocks is where we intend to plant these. Right at the corner, along the north fence, the lilac hedge my mother slowly extended over many years, peters out. There is a gap there that the deer jump through. I am thinking that section would be a good place to plant the 5 Sea Buckthorn. Then, the Silver Buffalo Berry can be planted all along the east line, leaving a “lane” behind them to access the trees along the fence line itself, and also leaving a gap where the telephone line is buried.

With 30 of them, planted 3-4 feet apart, however, we will have WAY more than will fit in a row in that area. Since we will be slowly planting more food trees further west, we will be planting just the one row of them. Which means we’ll need to find another location to plant the remaining trees! I am thinking of the area we had originally considered planting the Sea Buckthorn later on, which is in along the north fence line in the outer yard. Or even filling in gaps west of the lilac hedge. This would go a long way to help reduce the road dust that drifts into our yard in those areas, every time a vehicle drives past on the gravel road.

Before the trees arrive, we will have to measure and mark out where we want to plant in that north east corner. Once we know how many we can fit into there, we’ll know how many we have to plant somewhere else. That is a lot of trees for how we want to use the spaces.

Now that I think of it, we could also gift some to my older brother, for the forest he’s been working on for the past couple of decades. :-)

Then there are our first nut trees. Pine nuts, to be more specific!

Korean Pine.

In other sources, we have seen these as being a Zone 2 tree, and some listing them as reaching up to 100 feet in height. !!! Considering where we intended to plant them, that was just not good.

These, however, are listed as Zone 3a, and reach “only” 60 ft in height – about as high as the spruces in the spruce grove. Which is about where we intend to plant these.

These also have a spread of up to 30 feet, but the website doesn’t list how far apart to plant them. We’ll get that information later.

We ordered two bundles of three, 2 yr old seedlings as plugs, not bare root. They have special requirements. For the first five years, they grow very slowly and need to be kept shaded, because their bark can be easily burned by the sun. This is why we want to plant them along the north side of the spruce grove, between the grove and the row of crab apple trees, where it is shaded for most of the day. At 5 years, they suddenly shoot up in height, and no longer need to be protected with shade. Since we’ll be getting 2 yr old seedlings, that should happen in three years.

I have some concerns.

The nursery we first found these at sells them with their roots in a plastic wrapped ball of soil – the only tree they don’t sell as bare roots – because they require a particular fungi at their roots for optimum growth. We may be able to buy the fungi to inoculate the soil, though. At least that’s what I learned from this other nursery. According to the Tree Time website, however, there is no mention of the fungi needs, plus it says they should be planted in full sun, not shade.

We’ll have to do more research on them, because this might be due to differences in varieties. We might end up having to plant these somewhere else. They would make a good shelter belt tree, and at 60 feet high, that would mean either along the north property line, or further out in the south, where we get hit with winds because there is a gap in the sheltering trees. Since we intend to plant permanent garden beds in the outer yard, anything we plant there has to be carefully placed so as not to create the very shade we are trying to get away from!

It’ll take about 7 years before these start producing pine nut containing cones. I don’t think I’ve ever bought pine nuts before, as much as I’d like to be able to use them for making pesto, etc. I enjoy them, but they are just too expensive. These trees have the potential to be a cash crop.

When placing our order, I chose a shipping date of May 30. Since our last frost date is June 2, I thought that would make the most sense. It also means that, in the week or so before they are shipped, we can get out and measure where they will be planted, and even pre-dig the holes (the ground should be thawed out enough), as well as making sure we have everything we need for planting, then protecting, the 41 seedlings we will be getting!

There we have it. After 4 years of living here, we are finally at the stage where we are starting to plant trees and shrubs in bulk. The first stage of a multi-year plan in planting food trees and reach our self-sufficiency goals. Given how long it takes for trees to start producing fruits or nuts, it would have been better if we’d started this years ago, but when we first moved here, we didn’t even know what we wanted, or how to get them. There is a big difference between planning for things that will live for decades, and can potentially become very large, and planning vegetable beds!

Placing this order really feels like a milestone for us!

The Re-Farmer

Awesome!

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Happy Christmas to those who follow the orthodox calendar. :-) Happy Three Kings day. Today is our last day of of the Christmas season, and what a lovely day it turned out to be.

It was another cold one, but there was almost no wind chill, so it was quite bearable.

This morning, we had one deer at the feeding station, while this one just hung out at the gate for a while. I was able to get this picture through the kitchen window.

The deer and the cats are quite used to each other.

I even caught a flash of deer tail going past while I was setting out kibble and warm water for the cats. The deer didn’t run off until I came around with more feed.

Potato Beetle was quite content to enjoy the sunshine in his insulated corner, while the other cats ate. :-D

I found this interesting! One of the selling features of the Starlink system for more northern areas like ours, is that the dish keeps itself warm. You can see the icicles that show it’s working!

I hope the dish won’t need to adjust itself, because it’s quite attached to the roof at the moment. :-D

The roads were plowed yesterday evening, so before taking my mom’s little car out to help her with errands, I opened the gate and began to shovel away the plow ridge at the end of the driveway. While I was shovelling, a familiar looking front end loader came around the corner and headed my way. The driver stopped on the road and motioned to me, but my glasses were frosted over and I couldn’t see more than an arm waving around, so I came over as he opened the door – and offered to clear the driveway for me!

Of course, I said yes!!

This shot was taken after he was done and was backing out to the road again.

Now, I’m pretty sure that’s the renter’s front end loader. I don’t know of any others like it around. However, I did not recognize the driver. It could be they have a new hired hand? I don’t know. Whoever he was, I made sure to thank him enthusiastically, and I was soon off to my mother’s.

My mother had a few errands to run this morning, including a stop at the credit union. With all the restrictions still going on, and so many places that don’t recognize medical mask exemptions, even when I wear the Mingle Mask, I would just open the door for her and wait outside. Today, I used the wait to pop over to the mail box – I finally was able to print out the photo I needed, and have sent off my forms to get my PAL (Possession and Acquisition License), after passing my Firearms Safety course at the end of November. My mother was faster than I expected, and came out while I was about to top up her washer fluid. One of the staff came out with her, to help with the doors. As I helped her back into her car, she told me that the lady helping her saw me outside, and asked my mother to tell me that I was welcome to come in with her. I used to come in with her all the time, but as the restrictions got more draconian, and more warning signs popped up on doorways, I stopped. It’s good to know that they are reasonable.

Unlike our next stop at the pharmacy, which doesn’t recognise medical exemptions, so I can’t go to help my mother at all. You’d think, of all places, a pharmacy would get that some people just can’t wear masks; especially since the (illegal) mandates specifically mention exemptions, but some places really seem to enjoy our medical apartheid. At least they don’t harass my mother about covering her nose. She shouldn’t be wearing a mask at all, and can’t breathe if both her nose and mouth are covered.

The grocery store was our last stop and they are always good, there. My mother was able to stock up quite a bit, and will be set for a while. Between the beef I gave her, and the venison my sister gave her, she didn’t need to buy any meat at all. Which is good, because food prices are getting insane.

Aside from that, I was able to visit with my mother, and we had lunch before heading out for errands. Which is when I was able to show her pictures of her new great-grandson, who was born this morning! My SIL also sent birth pictures of his big brother from a couple years ago, and my goodness, they look so much alike! So far, their mother seems to be doing okay. She has some medical issues that they are keeping an eye on, but she should be home after 48 hours. Meanwhile, my brother and his wife are still there, helping out.

A new baby in the family was definitely the highlight of a very good day!

The Re-Farmer

No, thank you!

/ Re-Farmer / 5 Comments

You know, I can handle the -27C/-17F temperatures. Bundle up enough, and the only real problem is my glasses frosting over.

But that -44C/-47F wind chill, I could do without!

My husband was a sweetheart and was able to feed the cats outside this morning, so when I headed out, I only had to feed the birds/deer. Smart kitties were nowhere to be seen when I came out.

We had been fully prepared to hunker down and stay close to home for the next while. It has turned out to be the complete opposite! On Monday, I took advantage of a warmer day to stock up on more cat kibble, picking up a few other things while I was at it. Tuesday, I had to go to the post office to pick up the packaging for the satellite pieces we needed to return to our old IP. Today, it was back to the post office to send them off, so we don’t have to worry about getting dinged almost $400 for them. I’d shovelled the end of the driveway yesterday, to clear out the old plow ridge before the plow came by and added to it. The plows didn’t come by, but the end of the driveway was drifted over. Driving right now is a game of “can you find the road?” Hopefully, the plows will be out today, because tomorrow, I have to go out again, this time to help my mother with her grocery shopping, using her little car which means we probably won’t be able to do the dump run we’d planned. At least her car is a four wheel drive. It also had butt warmers in the seats.

I’ve become spoiled by butt warmers. And heat vents that work. ;-)

Friday looks like it’ll be a day I can finally stay home, but Saturday will be the first day it’ll be warm enough and the winds are expected to die down enough, that it’ll be safe to do more shoveling. Maybe even break out little Spewie and do some snow blowing. Saturday is likely when we’ll finally be able to do a dump run.

I just want to stay home! :-D And to think, by the middle of the month, we’re supposed to warm up to -10C/14F I’m quite looking forward to it!

I can’t complain, though. Around this time last year, we were getting slammed by a Polar Vortex, both our van and my mother’s car froze, we were snowed in, and we ended up having to ask my brother to do some shopping for us in the city and bring it over, because we couldn’t get out to do it ourselves. His vehicle could handle the cold and snow, even though they don’t have a garage and their cars are out in the elements. So right now, I’m thankful that we actually can go out and about, even if I’d rather we didn’t.

Another item for the list when we win the lottery: new vehicles that can handle the cold! The last time I looked it up, the Ram 1500 and the F150 were the two top vehicles for that, and both can come with plow attachments.

Wouldn’t that be awesome!

The Re-Farmer

Of course…

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I recently crocheted pairs of fingerless gloves for my daughters, to help keep their hands warm while at their keyboards upstairs – the little ceramic heaters my husband got for them do keep things warm up there, but fingers still get chilled! Especially my older daughter’s drawing hand.

That left me with a few little balls of leftover yarn. I had a few things in mind to possibly make with them, so I kept them in a bag of yarn I keep by my office chair.

Tissue discovered them.

For nearly two weeks now, I’ve been finding them all over. I’ve followed trails of yarn down to the basement. I’ve unwound yarn from around the dining table and chairs. I’ve had to untangle them from the wheels of my office chair. I’ve discovered yarn barfs in cat hair dust bunnies the size of Alberta. I’ve repeatedly had to untangle the yarn and rewind the balls. Any potential projects I had in mind went out the window, as there was just no way to get all the cat hair out of them.

While Tissue has been the one so dedicated to pulling out these balls of yarn, no matter how covered or hidden they were, once the yarn was out, there was usually several other cats involved in the destruction by the time I find them.

I couldn’t let the yarn go to waste, so I figured, what the heck. They want the yarn that badly, I’ll make a mat for them and they can have it. It’s not like it can be used for anything else than cat toys, now!

While I was working, I had the two balls of yarn at my feet while stitching and watching a video on my computer. Part way through, my husband wanted to look up some information about my video card, so I put the mat aside by my keyboard and stepped away for a bit. There was just a couple of minutes in between my husband leaving my computer, and my returning to it. In that time, I found I had to unwind the red yarn from the wheels of my office chair again, and both strands had been chewed through. I had to knot them together to be able to continue. Which I normally wouldn’t do with crochet, but it’s for the cats, and they don’t care if there are knots.

I finished off the leftover yarn and gave the cats their new mat.

Which they are now completely ignoring.

I have made a number of mats and cat beds for them. Usually, the moment the item hits the floor, there’s a cat on it, checking it out. I’ve never made one out of yarn they’ve been so eager to steal and play with before.

Not one came over the check this one out. Not even to sniff at it.

Because, of course.

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

All packed up… almost

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One of the things we got in the mail today was the packaging to send back parts of our old satellite internet system that need to be returned. It came with return postage, instructions and even a strip of packing tape to close the box up again!

Now, I finally know the names of the different parts. :-D

With my brother trying to mount the new dish to the old supports, one of the satellite dishes was already dismantled and in the basement. The other, however, still needed to remove the radio from the dish on the roof. I had been thinking it could be done after the weather improved, but it’s supposed to get worse over the next couple of days, not better. So my darling daughters dug the ladder out, and one of them climbed up to remove it. She ended up having to cut the coax cable, because it was stuck, but we were able to get that off, later.

With one of the radios already being indoors, we could pack it up with the modem, power supply and power cord, and it’s ready to go.

For the other one, we’ll have to wait for the rest of the snow to melt off, and for it to dry, first.

I’d already brushed off as much as I could before I took the above photo!

Which means we’ll be ready to return them tomorrow morning, or the day after, if I don’t get out before the store closes at noon. Since it’s postage paid, I could theoretically leave it in the mail box outside the building, but I don’t think the boxes will fit! :-D

You know, for all the issues we had with our internet, we actually got good customer service with them. They simply don’t have the equipment necessary to meet our needs, in our location. Having to have two satellites just to get enough data for our household was bad enough – mostly on our budget. As I write this, I can see the live feed from our garage security cam, and every now and then, it’s a whiteout from blowing snow. In weather like this, we would have had no end of connectivity issues, if not losing our connection entirely. With the new Starlink system, there have been no issues at all. With no data limit and the monthly bill less than half what we were paying, our old provider just can’t match it. At least not for our geographical area. I know in more urban areas, they can be much more competitive. In that respect, I would still recommend them. Just not for anyone living in the boonies, like we do!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2022 garden: Mary’s Heirloom Seeds – they’re finally here!

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After spending a strangely long time in Illinois, our seed order from Mary’s Heirloom Seeds arrived today!

Yes!!! I now have the maize morado corn I thought I was getting from Baker Creek, based on the description and video they had at the time. Their name for the corn even changed at some point. It took quite a bit of searching, and I was very happy to find a source for these seeds. Since there were only 25 seeds per pack, I ordered four of them. For our purposes, planting only 25 seeds seems almost pointless. ;-) Plus, it was the only thing I was ordering from them, and with the cost of shipping, adding a few extra packets made it more worthwhile. Especially with ordering from the US and the dollar difference. I’m trying to focus more on Canadian sources, but none of them carry these seeds.

Last year, we started the Montana Morado/Mountain Morado corn indoors, then transplanting, and that ended up working very well. We will be doing that again. This year, however, we will work in making sure they are protected from critters, as much as we can, right from the start! I hope to be able to save seeds and, over time, acclimate them to our growing zone. This might take a few years, but I am determined! :-D

The corn was not the only thing in the package, though.

They also included some free seeds! :-) Dill Dukat. It’s not a variety I’ve heard of before. We’ve got dill seeds from plants my SIL gave us, but I’m more than happy to have another variety! From the description, these look like a good variety for harvesting more greens than the flowers or seeds, and I love dill greens!

I also really appreciate that they included the information insert for starting seeds. That was going the extra mile. :-)

While I am working towards ordering seeds from within Canada more, if I do need to order from the US for something, this company is definitely staying at the top of my list. I’m quite happy with them!

The US postal service, on the other hand, seemed to be having difficulties. :-D

The Re-Farmer

The cold does strange things…

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Well, I’m certainly glad I did my extra shopping trip yesterday! A storm that was not in the forecast showed up overnight.

“Thank you for the warm water!” Nosencrantz says.

While it is still “warm” at -16C/3F, once we move out of the shelter of the house or trees, we got hit by the -36C/-33F wind chill!

My morning rounds today required doing some shoveling, which included shoveling out the driveway cam, so I could change out the frozen batteries, reset the time and date, and switch out the memory card. With the temperatures being what they have been, the chances our vandal would do something stupid are somewhat lower, so I didn’t switch out the memory cards during the deep freeze.

When uploading the files from this camera, however, it got very strange! The card supposedly had only 8 files on it, but when I tried to look at them, I saw this.

This has happened before, but just a few files, not anything to this extent!

Check out the “date modified” list. Apparently, our driveway camera is a time traveler! The dates range from 1980 to 2103!!

I have no idea what those files are, because I couldn’t even transfer them from the card, never mind look into any of those folders. There should be nothing but AVI video files on here.

Curious, indeed!

The corner cam by the new sign at least had some files I could check, before it froze and stopped recording.

While on the subject of our cameras, I got some news about the court date at the end of this month, about the suit our vandal filed against me in retaliation for my applying for a restraining order against him. The court office called and left a message; civil suits fall under the federal courts, so we get letters and phone calls. They don’t do that for provincial matters, which is what restraining orders fall under. I had to call them to find out anything. Anyhow. The court date is still on, but because our province has once again stepped up the police state we’re still under, the time has moved to the morning and it will be by teleconference. The dates will be rescheduled until our provincial dictators lift their boots off our necks a little bit. So who knows when this will get resolved.

Well, at least I don’t need to make the drive out at the end of the month. :-/ It’s supposed to get milder by then. We’ve got extreme cold warnings again, for the next couple of days. After that, we’re even supposed to get a day or two above -10C/14F!

It’s going to feel like spring. :-D

The Re-Farmer

A lovely day, and getting ready

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When we decided to go ahead and cancel our old satellite service outright, instead of waiting until the end of the month, after finding how excellently the Starlink system was working, I was working on the assumption that we’d have all sorts of cancellation fees. So, just in case, I budgeted more than what we would normally expected the bill to be, on top of adding on the new Starlink bill.

We were in for a pleasant surprise. We’re actually going to get a couple hundred dollars for a credit. We do still have to send back their transceivers (not the entire dishes, as I was mistakenly told) and their modems/routers/whatever they’re properly called. The packaging should be here when the post office is open again starting tomorrow. I figure we’ll get our credit once they get their items back. Until then, it still freed up a large chunk of our budget.

What a wonderful sense of relief that gives us!

While we did try to stock up as much as we could, the outside cats are going through the kibble a lot faster than usual. Which makes sense. There isn’t much for them to hunt these days, and they will be burning a lot more calories in the cold we’ve been having. Tomorrow was expected to be a warmer day, so I was going to make an extra trip into the smaller city to stock up on more cat food.

Today, however, turned out to be warmer than forecast, and already we’ve reached the high that we were supposed to hit tomorrow. So I decided to make the trip today. At -17C/1F, it feels like summer! Even with the -26C/-15F wind chill, which is coming from the north, so we are well sheltered from it.

The outside cats were practically having a party!

I had a surprise this morning, too. As I was coming back from leaving kibble in the tray under the shrine, I was startled by deer running through the gate in the chain link fence at the south side of the yard! This is the first time I’ve seen the deer going through, while I was outside. Then, when I came around the house with seeds for the feeding station, the doe and her little one were there. They hung back near the compost ring, before finally running off into the spruce grove, but they stopped and looked back repeatedly.

When I was finally ready to head out, I took a peek around the corner of the house and, sure enough, they were back and eating the seeds! They saw me and watched for a while, but didn’t run off until I crossed the yard to the garage.

I’m okay with them being used to finding food at the feeding station. I want them to associate that spot with food, not our garden beds!

Speaking of which, the new wiggle room in our budget meant I could get a few extras along with the cat kibble. Though I didn’t get as much kibble as I intended. They were almost entirely out of stock of the affordable big bags. I only got three. If I’d bought the six I’d intended, there would have been maybe one bag left, and I wanted to leave more for others.

Along with a couple of bags of seed starting mix, I got a heat mat. One of the big problems we had with starting seeds inside the aquarium greenhouses (besides the cats constantly trying to get at them!) is that the house is just plain too cold. Using things like heated rice bags or small water bottles filled with hot water helped, but some things just never germinated. I’m pretty sure that’s the main reason the Hopi Black Dye sunflowers didn’t germinate until so much later.

I went through our seeds to look at what needs to be started indoors and when. Actually, there’s two ways we can look at it. Most seed packets go by number of weeks before the last frost date. The other way is to look at how long until harvest, then count backwards from the first frost date in the fall.

Our first frost date, on average, is Sept. 10. For anything that requires more than 100 days to harvest, the latest we should have germination is about May 4. If we want to give up to 150 days, we’d need to have germination by April 30. I would calculate when to start the seeds from there, using the days to germination information on the seed packages.

Which isn’t too bad.

If we go by the package instructions using our average last frost date of June 2, we have several dates to go by. Four weeks puts us at May 5, six weeks at April 21, eight weeks at April 7, and ten weeks at March 24.

Having worked that out, however, there are still going to be things I plan to start earlier. Some of these, people on my Zone 3 gardening groups have already started!

The main one will be onions and shallots. With so many varieties and so many onions we want to plant, space would be the biggest issue… except maybe not. I found this, from MI Gardener.

Based on that method, we should have no problem planting all our varieties in just the big aquarium greenhouse.

The problem with that is, it’s currently housing several aloe vera plants to protect them from the cats, plus my daughter’s two remaining orchids. She’d had them safely hanging in front of the living room window, only to discover it was too cold for them there, and a couple of them died.

There is still the small aquarium greenhouse. Depending on what I have for growing trays, I could fit all the onions in there.

There are a few other things that need to be started very early, too. Among the things that can be started at 10 weeks are the eggplants and peppers (we will be starting just a few of those, since only 2 people in our household like them), the Sophie’s Choice tomato (just a few of those), the Cup of Moldova tomato (lots of those, since they are for processing), the Wonderberry (just a few of those) and the luffa (probably all the seeds we have left of those). All of these are things I’m seriously considering starting much earlier. Especially the luffa.

With those, we might be able to fit them all in the big tank, and still keep the orchids with them, but I have no idea where we can put the aloe vera pots that will be safe from the cats!

Among the things we can start at 8 weeks are the rest of the tomatoes, ground cherries, Crespo squash, Tennessee Dancing Gourds, and the Ozark Nest Egg gourds.

I think at 6 weeks is when I will start the kulli corn seeds which, according the the tracking information, has arrived in the city and should arrive at our post office in the next couple of days.

At 4 weeks, we need to start the cucumber, all the squash and melons, the rest of any gourds we will be trying this year, and the hulless pumpkins. It would also be the time for me to start the kohlrabi, if I decide I will try those again this year, since direct sowing them has been a complete fail for the past two years.

Everything else we’ve got can be direct sown, some as soon as the ground can be worked, and others after the last frost date.

I’m going to need more soil, but that’s something we can pick up little by little, as we need it.

I have to admit, I’m really torn right now about starting things too early. I know there are people in our zone that do it every year and have no problem, and others have started winter sowing outdoors, using this method. We don’t have a lot of milk jugs, but I’ve been keeping jugs from the distilled water for my husband’s CPAP, which would do. They are that blue, transparent plastic. Theoretically, we could set this up in the sun room, which does get below freezing, but still stays a lot warmer than outside. That would actually be a good experiment for the kohlrabi, now that I think about it. With so many yard cats, plus the deer, I’m not sure putting the containers outside would be wise, unless we can put some sort of protection over them. In theory, we could drag over the covers we made for the raised beds. They’re covered in snow right now, and probably frozen to the ground! :-D

For any experienced cold-climate gardeners reading this, what do you think? Would I be severely jumping the gun if I start our onions seeds this early? Or some of the tomatoes, the eggplant and peppers? What do you think?

The Re-Farmer

Enjoying a “warm” day

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

As I write this we are at an almost balmy -26C/-15F with a wind chill of -34C/-29F, and we’re supposed to continue to get warmer over the next couple of days.

Remarkable how our ideas of “warm” and “cold” change, when living somewhere that has such temperature extremes throughout the year!

Yesterday evening, I’d treated the outside cats with a warm, meaty broth over their kibble top up, but this morning I found quite a bit of the kibble in frozen broth! It froze before the cats could eat it all, and the crowd of them was eating fast when I went back inside.

While the outside cats clearly don’t like the cold, they are doing quite all right, and spend a lot of time outdoors, instead of in one of the many shelters they have available for them. Seeing Chadicous exuberantly rolling on the snow sort of hits home how different the outside and inside cats are. It’s also a reminder of how important it is to let the outside cats develop their natural defenses against the cold. These are from generations of outdoor cats. They have the genetics to develop that insulating fur and body fat they need. Yes, they can still freeze, and having the heated cat shelter is a good thing, but it is equally important that it not be too warm in there, as that would seriously mess them up and potentially harm or kill them.

If our inside cats ever got outside in the temperatures we have now, most of them wouldn’t last more than an hour, even though most of them either started out as outdoor cats, or are from the same gene pool. Then there’s Fenrir. She has her long fur, but no undercoat, and that’s why we brought her indoors during her first winter. I don’t know where she came from or what breed she is, but it certainly wasn’t from any local cold-hardy genetics! A cat like David, with his long fur and deep, thick undercoat, would last longer, but having been in a warm house all the time, not even he would last long if he suddenly ended up outdoors. This is where going out through the sun room has its benefits, as it gives us two buffer zones, should the cats try to dash outside. Oddly, only Fenrir seems to actually be trying to do that. While other cats make a run for it, they’re more interested in exploring the old kitchen. Fenrir has managed to get as far as the sun room before we’ve caught her. In fact, going for the sun room door is the one sure way to get her out from under the couch in the old kitchen, or from behind the old wood cookstove, where we can’t reach her. I try to watch out for her before opening the door into the old kitchen, but it’s like she’s waiting for me. Many times, the moment that door opens, she appears out of nowhere and is in the old kitchen before I have a chance to react in any way. Knowing we’ll try to get her out, she immediately hides in places we can’t reach her. Sometimes, the only way I can catch her is to go into the sun room and leave the door open behind me. She always goes for it, and I can usually manage to catch her rather quickly after that.

When we win the lottery ;-) and can finally renovate this place, one thing I would want to keep and repair is all the doors between sections of the house, and add even more in places. None of this “open concept” stuff. :-D We once lived in a house that had doors between every room, including at the bottom of the stairs to the second level. I ended up really appreciating being able to so easily close off portions of the house, partly because it was even worse to heat than this one, and closing up rooms helped keep things warmer. We stopped using the second level completely in the winter, closed off the door at the stairs and added a draft blocker at the bottom to stop the waves of cold coming down. It was an awesome house, but yikes!

Ah, memories… :-D

Before I headed outside this morning, I saw deer at the feeding station. The usual doe and her little one, looking for any seeds the birds hadn’t finished off yet. I wasn’t at all quiet while setting food and water out for the cats, so it was a surprise when I came around the corner with feed and scared off two deer! I think they’ve gotten used to the routine, though. After putting feed out, I went back inside, and already could see the doe through the living room window. I quickly hung my coat, then went to watch when I saw the little one come bounding joyfully along the edge of the spruce grove to join Mom.

These two come back several times a day, now. Every once in a while we’ll see a buck but, so far, that’s about it. Later in the season, I expect we’ll start to see more deer coming by and will probably start to leave out more feed again.

I’ve left the remains of a sunflower there, because the birds like to perch on it. :-)

The 14 day forecast is interesting. Of course, it changes pretty much every time I check it, but the middle of the month is looking like it’s going to be quite mild! For all the cold we’ve been having in the last little while, this winter is shaping up to me so much nicer than the last couple of years, and a lot more like our 30 year average than the unusual cold we had during those polar vortexes.

We have been working towards being set up and ready, should we be stuck at home for weeks again, but this winter is looking like we’ll actually be able to get out and about like normal. No frozen vehicles! Hopefully, this will run through February, too. The way things are going, I’m hoping to pick up some (not-frozen) soil and maybe even a warming mat, to get some seeds started in our aquarium greenhouse. People in my cold climate gardening groups have already started things like peppers and tomatoes, but I’m mostly looking to start onions and shallots, first.

Plus, we still have to decide what seedlings or root stock we’ll be ordering this month for planting in the spring. :-)

The Refarmer