It was supposed to start getting cooler today. I guess a high of 28C/82F is “cooler” than a high of 30C/86F, but it sure doesn’t feel that way. As I write this, it’s 26C/79F and I’ve been driven inside by the heat.

My daughters headed out much earlier in the day. They took care of feeding the outside cats before clearing the area we will be planting the saffron crocuses when they come in, and pruning away some of the dead, overhanging branches. They also fought with that last carport support for me. They couldn’t get it completely together, but it’s close enough that it’ll work. For all the trouble it is to put it together, it’s almost as difficult to take it apart, too.

Thanks to them, I was able to actually sleep in a bit. At least as much as the kittens would let me! 😁 I even had breakfast before going outside for a change! In the slow cooker last night, I put in a whole bunch of our own garden vegetables – both green and yellow patty pan squash, a yellow zucchini, green and yellow bush beans, two massive cloves of garlic – that largest bulb we had that had to be used because it was starting to split apart was made up of only 4 cloves! – along with a family size package of ground beef, browned, and two cans of crushed tomatoes, plus salt and pepper for seasoning. It was set to low for 8 hours. My husband and I both had it for breakfast, and it was quite good. What we don’t eat today will be frozen in individual portions for heat and eat meals.

Here are some things from the garden from this morning.

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The mystery squash are starting to show patterning. They almost look like those cross pollinated zucchini we were given last year, but the plant is a vine type, not a bush type.

The mesh covered bed was something I did last night, while doing my evening rounds. I had noticed the grass mulch in between the rows were getting spread out to the point of covering the seedlings and starting to kill them. Last night, I saw the culprits in action. Robins! They’re just digging around in the garden bed and spreading the grass clippings. So I dug one of the rolls of mosquito netting out of the garden shed to lay over the bed.

Then I put it back and got a different roll that was long enough to cover the bed. 😄

This should protect the seedlings from the grasshoppers, too.

I was seeing lots of pollinators today. The one in the photo actually seemed to be stuck in the flower, so I moved off a leaf that was pressing into it, and it eventually crawled out, then stopped for a rest! Though there were lots of pollinators, I still hand pollinated the open female squash blossoms I found, just to be on the safe side. I’m so happy to be seeing so many of them!

I got a picture this morning, of some modifications I did to the melon bed last night. I added more cross pieces closer to the top, then strung twine around it for the vines to grow. The metal pieces I used were longer, so I decided to take advantage of that and strung twine to the ends as well. We’ve been regularly trying to train the vines to keep climbing upwards, so things are more open below, for more air circulation, light, pollinator access. The melons are all blooming like crazy right now, and I’m finding lots of female flowers! Because this bed it so densely plants, I’m leaving it to the insects to pollinate. 😁

Last of all, we have our very first harvest of ripe Spoon tomatoes!

After checking out all the garden beds, I started to work on the carport thingy. I moved the whole thing to where it’s going to be set up, then tried to stand it up. My thought was that, if I could get at least the first supports set up on the rebar stakes hammered into the ground, setting up the rest of them will get easier and easier.

Which probably would have been true, if I could set up that first set of supports at all!

I got one end over a piece of rebar (you can see some of them in the grass; they’re a sort of aquamarine colour), but the other end twisted in another direction, and simply would not twice back again. I brought the other ones closer and, of course, one of the side pieces popped off the middle piece. I was able to push the canopy up to access it and put it together, but it’s a looser join and it won’t take much for it to come apart again. Moving more pieces around, I’m pretty sure another side piece popped off.

Clearly, this wasn’t going to be a single person job. When both girls are available at the same time, we’ll work on it together.

With that job having to be set aside, I checked out where the crocus are going to be planted, then decided to take down part of a dead tree. As much as I could, using the battery operated pruner/mini chainsaw. There’s one fairly large tree that has finally died, but the main trunk will need a full chainsaw to cut it down.

I also pruned off a large branch from on of the ornamental crabapple trees in the old kitchen garden. I got as far as cutting the branch into smaller chunks, but that was as far as I could handle. It wasn’t quite full sun where I was working, but enough to make me really feel the heat! So those branches will be cleared away later in the day.

Short range forecast shows temperatures will continue to cool down slightly. I look forward to being able to stay outside longer and actually finish the jobs I start!

The Re-Farmer