There’s a reason we don’t really do Christmas trees anymore. Just a mini tree on the upright piano, in the cat free zone.
Month: December 2025
A much longer day than expected
First up, the cuteness. I actually got this photo, yesterday. I wanted to get a good photo of Kohl for the rescue, as they will be taking her in and getting her ready for adoption, later this month.
What a gorgeous lady!
Also, in giving her a cuddle, I found that the fur on her chest is so matted, it’s like an armored breastplate! That’s on top of the mats I have also been finding when petting her back.
Whoever adopts the beautiful Kohl is going to have to help her take care of the glorious coat! Hopefully, she will discover she likes being brushed. Unlike David. It’s been years, his fur mats like crazy, and he HATES being brushed. Currently, he has a bald spot because the only way I could get a big mat out was to take the clippers to it!
Since I was going to my mother’s today to do her errands, we went over what we missed picking up during our stock up trips, so see whether I’d be going to town, or to the nearest Walmart. The list had a few things on it that made going to Walmart worth the gas. My younger daughter ended up coming along, with a shopping list from her sister. My older daughter has had her annual pre-Christmas special for quick commissions and has been plowing her way through them for the past while.
I wanted to get to my mother’s early enough that we could get her list and be doing her shopping when her Meals on Wheels arrives, and she can have a peaceful lunch. Even with extra trips to the post office and pharmacy before doing her groceries, it was a really fast trip.
While at the grocery store, though, I spotted some sales and ended up asking my daughter to grab another cart for our own shopping, even though we were going to Walmart. Every now and then, this grocery store has prices better than any of the city stores on some things.
That done, we were back and my mother’s, just as she was finishing her Meals on Wheels. My daughter and I put her things away and did a few other things she needed. I was trying to be efficient about things, which came across as being in a hurry, which my mother wasn’t happy about. I’d told her we were doing to do our own errands after, so that we couldn’t have to make another trip, just to avoid driving as much as possible. She wasn’t happy about that, even though she did get it, as I explained it to her, but she started to grill me about if I had an appointment that we were rushing off to, and what was it we needed to do?
If I were asking her those same questions, she’d be telling me it was none of my business. 😄
I told her, we just needed to go to Walmart, but wanted to get it done earlier, so it wouldn’t be dark when we were driving home – and it gets dark really early right now! (Sunset today was 4:23pm).
Then she started asking if I could do her laundry (Friday is her laundry day, and I did just tell her we needed to do our own errands…). I told her I didn’t have time for it today, but my sister is supposed to be coming out this week, so maybe she could do it? My mother just sort of scoffed, so now I wonder what terrible laundry crime my sister committed. My mother had been very happy to tell me that my sister had done her laundry for her, in the past! My brother had come out this weekend and done stuff for her, including the sweeping, so there wasn’t much left for us to take care of, but she mentioned that she’d like someone to mop her floors some time before Christmas. So I ended up making a calendar date to come back on Friday to do her laundry and her floors, unless my sister manages to do them when she comes out before then. Unfortunately, while we’re supposed to be slightly milder over the next few days, we’re supposed to have a hard temperature drop, starting on Friday.
Yet, Tuesday, a week from now, we’re supposed to hit a high of 1C/34F!! That’s in the 10 day forecast. In the monthly forecast, it says to expect a high of 3C/37F. Christmas day is now expected to be -2C/28F, then the next two days are supposed to be 0C/32F!
That’s in between expected highs down to -22C/-8F and expected overnight lows down to -32C/-27F.
Those sorts of temperature swings will absolutely destroy our roads.
We’ll see what actually happens.
Overall, the visit with my mother went well, and she seemed actually happy to see my daughter. No snarky comments about her PCOS beard, but instead complimented her on her beautiful and very curly hair. She definitely takes after her dad when it comes to hair!
From there, we made a quick stop for gas – prices have dropped to $1.149 right now – then headed to the nearer city and their little Walmart. At first, the reduced visibility in the distance was fog, but it wasn’t long before it turned into snow. I’m really glad we headed out when we did. By the time we finished our errands and had loaded up the truck, I caught an update on the weather group I follow. Parts of the TransCanada highway had just been shut down. As we were driving home, the visibility from blowing snow got really bad at times. Thankfully, we seemed to have driven through the system before the final stretch home. Taking advantage of going to my mother’s today means we don’t need to make any other trips for some time, other than my newly scheduled trip to my mother’s on Friday.
Looking at the weather radar after I got home, I could see the huge system that is sweeping across Canada and the US. The US seems to be getting the brunt of the system, though as I check again, things seem to have already improved – most of the swaths that were listed as “extreme conditions” are now mostly “severe” and “moderate” for snow. The bulk of the system looks like it’s missing us entirely, so what we’re getting now, and through tomorrow, is just the blustery edges of it.
With the extra errands for ourselves after doing my mother’s errands, we were gone several hours longer than typical. Which means that I haven’t even started my next garden analysis post. This morning’s post took hours of going back over old blog posts, photos and videos, and remembering how things did. I’m pretty tired and will probably head to bed early, and save working on the next one for tomorrow instead of tonight. I had a very interrupted night night, and am just too foggy to try and analyze anything right now. It’s just past 6pm as I write this, and I’m already fighting the urge to go to bed right now!
So, there will be a break in my garden analysis series.
Until then, I hope you all have a good and restful night!
The Re-Farmer
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Our 2025 Garden analysis: transplants
In my last post, I talked about the winter sowing we did. A definite head start, with a short growing season like ours. Still, things needed to be started indoors, too.
We “lost” a lot of beds that would have been available for transplanting to winter sowing, which limited how much we could start indoors. We also had some re-arrangements in the house that meant I could no longer use the living room, and the aquarium greenhouses, to start seeds indoors.
I had to use our basement.
Not the old basement, which is actually pretty warm. The “new” basement, which has more space, but is pretty darn chilly!
Here are a series of videos I made of our seed starting sessions, beginning with the things that needed the most time.
For winter squash, we went with four types. Baked Potato, Mashed Potato, Sunshine and Arikara – all new varieties for us. The Arikara squash are a rare variety, so I particularly wanted to grow them for seed.
Next on the list where peppers.
This year, we went with a Sweetie Snack Mix with orange, red and yellow mini bell peppers for my family to snack on. We’re still in the “let’s find a variety we really like” stage, and trying new things.
Pre-germinating seeds has been another game changer for us. We’ve had years were we’ve planted and replanted things several times before getting germination. This way, only seeds that have already germinated get planted, for a much higher success rate.
This year, we also got a portable greenhouse, so we could start taking the transplants outdoors earlier – mostly because of space issues – and to make it easier to harden them off when the time came.
In the following video, it first shows the kitchen garden winter sown bed getting its own little greenhouse cover, and then the assembled portable greenhouse.
By the end of it, you could already see we were having issues, as the cover started to tear, even as we were putting it on!
The next seeds to pre-germinate were tomatoes.
This year, after going over our seeds with my daughters, we went with four varieties. The Black Beauty and Chocolate Cherry, we’ve grown successfully before, and the family enjoys them. New was the Sub Arctic Plenty. These are a super short season variety that we could technically start outdoors, since they are supposed to mature in less than two months, but they got started indoors, too. Last of all were the Spoon tomatoes. Those were mostly for me, as they’re the only tomato I can eat fresh without gagging (I’ve since learned this is a reaction to one of the chemicals in tomatoes, much like with people who find cilantro tastes likes soap). The seeds have gotten very expensive, so I want to grow these specifically for seed saving, too.
Something I somehow did not get pictures of were the melons I started. I started pre-germinating those at the same time I potted up the pre-germinated tomato seeds.
I used up some older seeds and started Kaho and Cream of Saskatchewan melon. I also started older Sarah’s Choice melon and new Green Flesh Honeydew seeds. Last of all, I started some older Zucca melon seeds as well.
The Zucca melon and the Kaho watermelons didn’t make it. None germinated. The others did, though, and I was able to pot them up.
Starting seeds indoors in the cold and dark basement was a real challenge. A challenge made more difficult, as one of my aquarium lights, which are grow lights, since they were for aquarium plants, too, needed replacement bulbs. They need a size that I simply could not find locally, so I had to order them online. I was able to get them from Veseys, which also had them at a very reasonable price.
Still, with heat mats, lights and even a heater, we were able to manage it.
It took a while for some of them, but the pre-germinated winter squash seeds all made it. In fact, most of the seeds did really well. It took quite a long time for the eggplant and peppers to germinate – those were direct sown rather than pre-germinated. The colder temperatures did seem to set them back a fair bit.
I was more than happy to be able to get them out of the basement and into the portable greenhouse as soon as possible!
We were still having cold nights, though. I had a thermometer in there for a while and, in the morning, it was just as cold in the greenhouse as outside. To try and combat this, I dug out an old, black garbage can – one of many we’ve been finding around the property! – and set it up to be a heat sink – covered to make sure no critters fell in! The idea being that water inside the black container would absorb heat during the day, then slowly release it during the night.
I can’t really say it worked that well. Partly because it turned out to have a leak and, after several days, it would need to be refilled.
During the day, it got insanely hot in the greenhouse and, other than tying the door flap open, there’s no way to release the heat.
Yeah, the heat was off the scale on the thermometer in there! It got so hot that, on many days, I had to move the trays and bins of transplants outside and into the shade, so they wouldn’t cook.
Like the chitted potatoes, but that will be covered in another analysis post.
In the picture with the transplants, you can see that I did buy some this year. I decided not to start any herbs indoors – I just didn’t have the space for them, and my results have been hit and miss over the years. In the picture, I got on each of lemon thyme, English thyme, oregano, Greek oregano, lemon balm and basil. Later on, I also picked up two transplants of sage.
Then there was the wind.
Even with the structure being secured at each corner, we had one wind storm that was bad enough to knock it half over!
The old garden hose was draped over the top of the greenhouse to reduce flapping in the wind, which was an issue well before this particular wind storm knocked it over. I later set the bags of manure strategically on shelves to add more weight and keep it from being blown over again.
Thankfully, most of the transplants survived.
Eventually, they were being taken outside of the greenhouse to harden off, not just to keep them from being cooked. They recovered very well.
The one thing that wasn’t doing well was the luffa. Of the four seeds, three pre-germinated but only two survived to be transplanted into pots to live in the greenhouse for the summer.
As you can see in the slide show above, one of those surviving luffa was super tiny.
The stove pellets are something I like to add as a gentle mulch. When wet, the pellets expand into sawdust and are less likely to squish or smother young seedlings. They also hold moisture quite well. I find they’re also good to mulch in hard to reach areas. I can reach under leaves or between plants and drop a handful of pellets where it would be more difficult to use grass clippings, leaves or straw.
In the end, I found myself with what were probably the best transplants yet. It was looking to be a great start for transplants this year! Aside from the sad luffa, they were all strong and healthy plants, by the time they were ready to go into the garden.
Once the ground was warm enough.
Which took a long time, this year.
Winter Squash
This first slideshow is of three types of winter squash that were planted in one bed. I set protective collars around them to help with the still-coldish nights, but also to protect them from rolling cats, slugs and other critters.
I later set up a soaker hose but, in the end, I found it easier to use the protective collars to water them. Protective collars went around all the transplants except the peppers and eggplant.
With the drought conditions we had this year, I found that the collars really helped. I could water into a collar until it was full, then move on to the next one. By the time I finished watering from one end of the bed to the other, the first collars were drained of their water, and I would do it again. Most of the summer, I would water a bed in this way three times, twice a day. By the third pass, the water would finally be draining slightly slower. It was more efficient to water this way, than to water empty, mulch covered soil around the plants.
The Arikara squash had three survivors, and they went into their own little bed in the East yard.
Last year, in this bed, I had finally successfully grown Crespo squash. The vines got so huge, they even spread into the cherry tree suckers nearby and started climbing them! The bed got amended as much as I could, and I had confident expectations that another variety of squash would do well here again.
The three squash were transplanted with a cover of mosquito netting to keep the cats out. The netting was a bit too small, though, and didn’t cover it very well. Still, it was enough to protect the bed until things were big enough. I didn’t want it covered for too long, so the squash could be pollinated by insects. Later on, I would direct sow corn among them.
Melons and Spoon Tomatoes
Last year, we had brought the logs to frame a low raised bed, but didn’t get a chance to finish it. I was able to do that this spring, and that’s the bed that got the melons and Spoon tomatoes.
First, the melons.
I found some metal posts at the dollar store and first used those to create a trellis for the melons. In past years, they turned out to be far to heavy for the plastic netting I’d used, so I figured something stronger was in order!
In planting the Spoon tomatoes, I put a pair of bamboo stakes in each protective collar. Later, I added cross pieces to make a trellis to secure the Spoon tomatoes to, as I knew they could get quite tall and leggy.
I also direct sowed beans beside the tomatoes, and will talk about those in another post.
More Tomatoes
The other three varieties of tomatoes all went into one of the East yard garden beds.
In the first picture, you can see just how much growth there was with the winter sown bed in the background. That greenery is almost all lettuce!
You can also see that the Chinese elm seeds have started to drop.
The attempt at solarizing didn’t work. It did warm up the soil, though, and the weeds were much easier to pull at that size.
In the end, I had 9 Sub Acrtic Plenty, 5 chocolate cherry and 4 Black Beauty tomatoes to transplant.
I added a large, plastic coated metal plant stake into each protective collar, then wove in bamboo stakes to great a strong trellis. I knew the chocolate cherry could get quite tall. When we grew Black Beauty before, they didn’t get as tall, but were so heavy with tomatoes, I had to add more structural support to their trellis, because they were pulling it over! I wanted to make sure these had a good, strong frame to hold their weight.
Sweetie Snack Mix peppers and Turkish Orange eggplant
Next, the peppers and eggplant went into the wattle weave bed in the old kitchen garden.
The Sweetie Snack Mix peppers all fit into the short side of the L shaped bed. The Turkish Orange eggplant were planted around the tiny fruited strawberry plants that were already starting to bloom!
In cleaning one of the beds, I found some sort of flower. I decided to transplant it in this bed, too. Later, I added a second, different, flower of some type I found. Once they bloom, maybe next year, we’ll know what they are!
The peppers and eggplant all got wire tomato cages for support. Those came in handy, later, for other reasons!
The Herb Bed
Finally, there were the herbs.
This tiny bed had been prepped in the fall, but was pretty over grown already. You can see the walking onions outside the bed are doing really well already, too!
The cats also like to sit on top of the mesh, so before anything else, I added supports to it, then added a bamboo stake that was given to us, weaving it through the top. It was meant to keep the top from sagging under the weight of cats, but has turned out to be a fantastic handle.
This little bed is the perfect size for a few herbs. It even had room for a couple more.
Spur of the moment, I got some discounted sage and tucked them in as well.
So, everything went in and was looking good, though things were getting pretty late by the end of it. We had plenty of hot days in May, but the nights were too cold for the transplants, and the soil didn’t get much chance to warm up. I recall we even got a frost well past our old average last frost date. The last of our garden didn’t get in until the end of June.
It did not bode well for how the summer would go.
How things grew
Drought.
Heat waves.
Smoke.
A triple whammy that affected everything. I’m amazed we got anything at all.
Winter Squash
The winter squash was hit particularly hard, and not just by weather and smoke.
Those strong, healthy winter squash in the main garden area started blooming very quickly, even while still small. Just male flowers, but that’s not unusual.
This, however, was a first.
All the winter squash in that bed were hit with these tiny insects. Thrips, I was told they are. They were really bad. In the end, they were dealt with using a spray bottle with dish detergent in it, after washing most of them off with a hose.
None of the winter squash did well. After the first flowers appeared, they just stagnated. It was ages before they started blooming again. Plants that should have gotten big enough to completely fill and cover their beds barely covered their protective collars.
It took even more time before any female flowers showed up, and I made sure to hand pollinate as many as I could find. Usually, I had to open up a spent male flower to be able to do it, though sometimes, not even that was to be had.
By then, it was so late in the season, we started having to worry about cold nights. Not quite frost, yet, but cold enough to set them back. I really wanted to give what few squash had finally started to develop, the best chance they could. Thankfully, we did have a long and mild fall, but not mild enough for the squash.
I found a way to cover the bed.
We added jugs full of water to act as heat since, too.
It seemed to work.
It wasn’t much, but what we had were surviving.
We got times when the days would be cold enough that I didn’t uncover them at all during the day.
After a pretty severe frost, I finally decided to open it up and see what survived.
None of the Sunshine squash made it, but we did have some Baked Potato and Mashed Potato squash to harvest, including one decently large Baked Potato squash. That one was pretty close to the size they are supposed to be. We had something to harvest to try out, at least.
Then there was the Arikara squash.
They, too, stalled and stagnated. The corn that was planted with them, however, did better than the corn in the larger bed, so we could rule out soil issues. The above photo was taken after I’d salvaged the trellis from the melons to make a fence to keep critters from eating the corn before we could.
As with the other winter squash, the Arikara squash seemed to do well, then stalled, then started to grow again, then stalled.
When it got late enough to harvest the corn and pull the stalks, they had started to grow again, so I left the fencing.
In the above picture, you can see frost damage on the leaves – and flowers! There were even female flowers developing!
It was too late by then, but they continued to surprise me by starting to show new leaves and buds even after the entire plants looked like they had been killed off by frost.
Melons and Spoon tomatoes
Then there were the melons and Spoon tomatoes.
I took these pictures of progress on covering the paths with wood chips, but you can see the melon and Spoon tomato bed in both images.
The melons just… didn’t. Some tried to bloom, but the vines seemed to die back a bit, possibly from transplant shock, and then that was it. They never got better, even if a few did try to bloom.
The melons were a total loss.
The Spoon tomatoes, however, were a surprise.
The first surprise is that they stayed short and bushy. Every time I’ve grown them in the past, they got quite tall for such a small plant, and needed support. That’s why I made the bamboo stake trellis for them that I did. The absolutely stagnated, like everything else.
And yet, they were incredibly productive! I couldn’t believe how many tiny tomatoes we got off of these! Granted, they are so small that it takes about 50 or more to equal one small slicer tomato, but it was enough.
Yes, I did collect some just for seeds.
We also lost a lot of tiny tomatoes into the bed while picking them. When the frosts were coming, my daughters pulled them all, then all three of us sat together, picking off only the reddest tomatoes to keep, and the rest went onto the compost heap. Of the next couple of weeks, even with the frosts, I saw all those tiny green tomatoes turning red!
Not only will we probably have self seeded Spoon tomatoes in that bed, but in the compost pile, too!
More tomatoes
Then there were the other tomatoes.
*sigh*
One of the things I had to do was put netting around the bed.
The cats kept going in and trying to use is as a litter box.
I also interplanted them with beans as nitrogen fixers and a living mulch. Plus, some self seeded carrots showed up.
As with so much else in the garden, they did not do well. Everything stagnated, and nothing grew to their full potential.
The Black Beauty tomatoes were already something that takes a long time to ripen, but when we grew them before, they got large and bushy and were loaded with tomatoes. This time, we had hardly any show up.
The Chocolate Cherry did better, but still nothing close to when we grew them before.
The Sub Arctic Plenty barely grew at all. They did produce a few tomatoes, though.
Very few. These are a bush type, but they should have gotten much bigger and bushier, and produce more.
Having said that, we did eventually get Chocolate Cherry and Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes to harvest. Just a bit, here and there.
In the end, we had to harvest the last of everything before a frost hit, bringing them in to ripen indoors.
In the above first picture, there’s the last of the ripe Spoon tomatoes, along with the unripe tomatoes, that we brought in for our last real harvest. This included dry radish seed pods and Super Sugar Snap peas for seed saving.
Sweetie Snack Mix peppers and Turkish Orange eggplant
Then there were the peppers.
The plants actually did pretty well, though they didn’t get as large and bushy as they should have. One thing I did that I believe helped was prune the ornamental crab apple tree of branches overhanging that bed – discovering a whole bunch of hidden dead branches in the process. It took a very long time, but they did start producing, and we even harvested a couple of mostly ripe peppers off the plants.
When the cold nights and frosts threatened, the wire tomato cages allowed us to cover them with old bed sheets we repurposed for the garden.
The pepper plants handled the cold surprisingly well, though. As with the tomatoes, most of these got harvested while still green, and brought in to ripen indoors before the hard frosts hit.
The Turkish Orange eggplant also stagnated and took a long time to start producing fruit, so it was very late in the season before we started seeing orange among the green.
Some did fully ripen on the plants, though!
It was so late in the season, I was collecting carrot seeds, too!
As with the peppers, the last of them were harvested green and brought in to ripen indoors. The plants themselves were not at all cold hardy. Yet, they surprised me. Even after I cut their stems at soil level to more easily harvest the unripe eggplant, I later found that they were sending up new growth!
Over time, as they ripened, we were able to use the peppers and even had enough to dehydrate a small bag’s worth.
As for the eggplant, we tried them out and they were okay tasting. Not particularly tasty, compared to other varieties, but that could have been because of the difficult growing year. One of my daughters, however, found that after eating them, with the skins on, her lips went numb. She’s never had this reaction to eggplant before. There’s something in this variety that she’s allergic to!
The Herbs
This was absolutely a success!
In the first picture, you can see the herb bed in the background, still green and producing, after several frosts, while the other beds are being winter sown. Everything except the basil, which got killed off with the first light frost. It was fantastic being able to pop into the garden and harvest a few herbs, any time we needed.
We were still harvesting as needed until it finally was time to mulch the bed for the winter. Even then, I mulched around the plants first, and we kept using them, before fully mulching them before the snow hit. The thyme, oregano, lemon balm and sage are all herbs that, in milder climates, are perennials. With proper mulching, these might actually survive the winter.
For a time, it did seem that they were stagnating, too, but there was a different solution for that. They weren’t getting enough light. We’d pruned the ornamental crab apple tree at that corner before, but much of it was grown back. After cutting way a major branch, the herbs, and even the winter sown kitchen greens bed, suddenly were getting so much more light!
I’m glad I bought the transplants, though, rather than trying to start them myself indoors. I don’t think I would have had as much success, otherwise.
Now we have one last transplant to talk about.
The luffa.
*sigh*
As with everything else, they stagnated. One grew a fair bit more – enough to actually climb up the greenhouse structure, and even bloom.
The other one also, eventually, started to grow, but these were both failures. They’ve grown better for us, out in the open garden beds, than in the greenhouse!
Final Thoughts
Starting seeds in the basement: we have no choice on this one. In fact, we are currently working on making space and figuring out how to bring the aquarium greenhouses into the basement, so we have have better control over temperature and light. The problem is, the big tank and the shelf it’s on are quite large, and we aren’t sure how we can get it around the bottom of the stairs without breaking anything! Also, one of my heat mats died, so we’ll need to get another.
Pre-germination: no change there. We will continue to pre-germinate as many seeds as possible
The portable greenhouse: I really loved having this, but we have a major issue. By the end of the season, the winds basically tore it apart. Plus, we’ve had a couple of cats jump up onto the roof, adding more holes. The cover is completely toast. The frame it still good, though, so we will probably look into getting better quality greenhouse cover material and basically make a new cover for it. Currently, it’s covered with a large heavy duty tarp and being used as another winter shelter for the cats. With no door flap, because that is gone.
Winter Squash: we will always be growing winter squash of some kind. This year’s failure had to do with things out of our control. I’d like to try this year’s varieties again, but another time. We’ve got other varieties to try in 2026 already. I’m still looking to grow the rare Arikara squash for their seeds, too.
Melons: same as with the squash. Growing conditions just killed them off this year. We have new melon seeds and new varieties, so we will be growing melons again.
Tomatoes: My daughters have suggested not to grow Spoon tomatoes again. Too many tiny tomatoes to pick. 😁 We have new varieties to try, including another tiny variety 😄, so next year we will likely have another three or four varieties again. Just not a lot of each.
Peppers: my daughters suggested that we just grow the Sweet Chocolate peppers we grew a couple of years ago, as they were enjoyed. I did pick up a different variety noted for having thick walls, so we might be doing two varieties of pepper next year.
Eggplant: with a daughter that has a reaction when eating the Turkish Orange eggplant, we won’t be growing those again. I did, however, get a white variety to try next year.
Herbs: total win, here. We plant to have many more herbs in the old kitchen garden, and we do have seeds to start indoors, but buying transplants is always a good option, too. Plus, with this particular little bed, we might even have our first perennial herbs – if the heavy mulch helps them survive the winter!
Luffa: Yes, I will be trying luffa again! I am determined to grow sponges. We’ve come so close in the past!
What we could really use is a polytunnel or a more permanent greenhouse.
All in good time!
As for this year’s transplants, they started out strong once they got out of the basement. It just was such a difficult year. We had modest successes, at least, but nothing that would feed us for any length of time! As my SIL once said, of their own garden: if we relied on our garden to feed us, we’d starve! One of our goals, however, is to grow and store enough produce for 4 adults from harvest to harvest. We can’t afford years like this too many times!
We were not the only ones that has such a bad gardening year, of course. Lots of people on my gardening groups really struggled.
Hopefully, next year will be better.
We will, however, be learning a lot from this year, to help make that happen!
The Re-Farmer
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Peace
I missed posting on the first Sunday of Advent, the day for Hope. The second Sunday of Advent is the day for peace, and I thought this rendition of Oh Come, Oh Come Emanual suites very well.
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Our 2025 Garden analysis: winter sown beds
Our 2025 garden started in 2024, and not just by planting garlic in the fall. Inspired by a video from Gardening in Canada, I decided to give winter sowing a try. Now winter sowing in milk jugs, etc, but actually direct sowing into garden beds in the fall.
You can see where I did these in my October 2024 garden tour video.
This was a pretty risky experiment. After going through my seeds, I decided to make mixes of seeds and broadcast them. This gave me a chance to use up old seed, but it also cleaned out all the seeds I had in some categories, both old and new.
The garlic I planted was from saved cloves. Besides that, these are the seed mixes I made and direct sowed before the ground froze.
| Seed combo 1 Root vegetables | Seed combo 2 Summer squash | Seed combo 3 Kitchen garden | Seed combo 4 Tall and climbing | Flower combos |
| Carrots: Uzbek Golden and Napoli Beets: Bresko, Merlin, Cylindra and Albino Turnip: Purple Prince Radishes: French Breakfast, Champion, Cherry Belle and Zlata Onions: saved seed (mix of red and yellow bulb unions) Note: left over seeds from this mix were planted in a final bed with saved Jebousek lettuce seeds added in | Sunburst pattypan White Scallop pattypan Magda Green zucchini: Endeavor Yellow zucchini: Goldy | Swiss Chard: Bright Lights and Fordhook Giant Spinach: Space, Lakeside, Bloomsdale and Hybrid Olympia Kohlrabi: Early White Vienna and Early Purple Vienna Bok Choi: Hedou Tiny (saved seed) Shallots: saved seed Onions: saved seed | Sunflowers: Mongolian Giant and Hopi Black Dye Peas: Dalvay shelling peas (not saved seed) and King Tut purple peas (saved seed) Bush beans: Royal Burgundy Corn: Montana Morado (saved seed) Onions: saved seed | Main garden area: Nasturtium: Dwarf Jewel Mix Butterfly flower: Orange Shades (milkweed) Forget Me Not Maple grove: Western Wildflower Mix |
In making these mixes, I had some Uzebek Golden carrot seeds left, 1 out of 2 packs of Hopi Black Dye sunflower, onion and Dalvay pea seeds left. All the rest, I used all the seeds I had. I really cleaned out my inventory in the process!
This is the video I made featuring the winter sown beds this past spring.
Let’s start with the complete failures, first. 😂
Summer Squash mix.
I was really looking forward to these. Unfortunately, not a single one germinated.
No, I can’t blame the old seeds.
I blame the cats. Mostly.
After the mulch was removed, the cats decided that this bed was a great place to roll around in. If anything survived the winter, I never had a chance to see them before they were crushed. In the end, my daughter and I completely redid the bed, digging a trench and planting potatoes. Which did much better, sort of, but I’ll cover those in my direct sowing post.
In the garlic bed, I was left with some space at one end of the bed, so I broadcast a bit of the root vegetable mix there. That, also, got completely rolled on by the cats – and I even saw things starting to sprout there! I did direct sow summer squash in that space later on, which I will also cover in the direct sowing post.
The winter sown summer squash, though, were a complete loss.
Tall and Climbing (mostly) mix
This mix went into a newly redone bed in the south yard, at the chain link fence. The fence would have provided a trellis for some things. The bush beans were there as nitrogen fixers.
I planned ahead on this. Knowing that this bed could be completely suffocated by seeds from the nearby Chinese Elm, I got mesh tunnel kits to protect this bed. These were dollar store purchases, and it took four of them to cover the entire bed from end to end.
As far as protecting from the seeds, they worked great.
They couldn’t handle kittens, though. Kittens that decided the mesh was great to play on, bending the wires under their weight, and to get under. They would use the bed as a litter box, but also just run around back and forth, playing. Or in a panic when they couldn’t find a way out again. The few things that started to germinate were completely crushed. Even the seed onions I found and transplanted along the edges were pretty much destroyed.
It was incredibly frustrating, and the bed was a total loss.
Self seeded lettuce; the only thing that survived in this bed!
The netting survived, but many of the wire supports were so badly bent out of shape, it wasn’t worth trying to straighten them out again.
The Flower combos.
There were two areas I winter sowed flower seeds. One was a purchased mix of wildflowers native to Western Canada. These are the sort of thing I would like to have growing among the trees, so it went into an area on the edge of the maple grove.
Unfortunately, yes, the cats caused damage there, too. The prepared soil was softer there, so they’d use it as a litter. The area was large enough, though, that if anything survived, there was still a chance.
I honestly don’t know if any survived. Nothing came up, but part of the issue in that area was the drought conditions and the fact that I simply didn’t water it regularly in the spring. It’s entirely possible that there are still surviving seeds in there that might germinate later on. I’d sown mixes of seeds in two other areas in the maple grove that also didn’t take, but since then, things have come up that I haven’t seen there before, so it’s entirely possible this will happen again.
For 2025, though, nothing seemed to have come up at all.
The other flower seeds went into a small bed at the end of the high raised bed, where I’d grown pumpkins last year. This one, I was able to water more regularly.
Yup. You guessed it.
Cats destroyed it. By the time I was able to cover it, it was too late. Nothing survived.
Starting over with flowers: much better!
I did replant that bed with more nasturtiums, Cosmos and some memorial asters, keeping them covered until they were too big to fit under the cover, and large enough that I didn’t think the cats would go into them anymore.
The nasturtiums did pretty well, though they were much smaller than they should have been. They bloomed and we were able to collect seeds from them. They did pretty good, but did not thrive to their full potential.
The Cosmos got really tall and looked great, but they were among the things that stagnated. It took so long before they bloomed that, even with a mild fall, they never finished blooming, and there were no seeds to collect.
The memorial asters were also much smaller than they should have been, and took a very long time to bloom. They were, however, also protected by the Cosmos, when the temperatures started to drop and frost hit. The Cosmos protected them enough that they were able to go to seed.
Some of the seed, I allowed to drop to self seed for next year, but I collected others to direct sow in other areas next year.
Now let’s look at what did work – and these really made up for the losses!
Kitchen Garden mix
This mix went into one bed in the old kitchen garden. As things started to warm up, I dragged over a cover to put over it. This allowed me to first cover it with plastic, to create a mini greenhouse, which was later replaced with mosquito netting. This cover is strong enough to withstand the weight of cats!
The first things to show up in this bed was the spinach.
Lots of spinach.
More than we could keep up with, spinach!
Some varieties bolted rather quickly, though.
What got me really excited, though, was the kohlrabi. I’ve been trying to grow it for years and, with the old seeds I had, I honestly wasn’t expecting much. For the first time, we actually had kohlrabi to harvest! That was what really won me over to winter sowing. The only other time I came close to succeeding with kohlrabi, they suddenly got completely destroyed by flea beetles.
Another reason for the mosquito netting!
Different things showed up as the season progressed and space opened up. The kohlrabi did overshadow other things, like the Swiss Chard, though we were still able to harvest some from under the kohlrabi leaves, too.
What I didn’t see until they bolted was the Hedou Tiny bok choi (which I kept misspelling as hinou instead of hedou). They were already from saved seed, and only a couple of plants seemed to survive the shade of the kohlrabi, so I left them to go to seed.
The most resilient in this bed were the chard. We harvested those as cut and come again plants, and they just kept going and going! Even when I finally had to clean the bed up and prepare it for new winter sowing, we still had harvestable leaves.
The “fail” of the bed were the onion seeds. Actually, the bulb onions and shallots seeds, both from our own saved seed, were a fail in all the beds. Those really need to be started indoors in January or February. Heck, I could be starting them now, and it’s still the first week of December as I write this. We just don’t have a long enough season for them to be direct down. I had hoped, however, that they would start to grow enough that we could harvest the greens. The kitchen garden bed was the only one that actually had onions start to grow. In fact, when it was time to redo the bed, I found so many tiny onions and possibly shallots that I kept the larger ones and replanted them with the winter sowing!
I also found a surprise. Two full head of garlic somehow got missed when the bed was being reworked. They were sprouting, so I ended up breaking the cloves apart and transplanting them into the wattle weave bed in the kitchen garden, as part of my winter sowing for next year.
I was really impressed with how this bed did, and the experiment helped me make decisions for next year.
Root Vegetable mix
This mix ended up being spread out over three areas. The high raised bed in the main garden area, and a small space at the end of the garlic bed, got the same mix. When it came time to use the last of the mix, in one of the low raised beds in the west yard, I added Jebousek lettuce seeds I’d saved from last year.
The three areas turned out quite different.
The tiny area with the garlic, as mentioned earlier, was destroyed by cats rolling in the soil.
The high raised bed had mostly beets, radishes and carrots show up, plus some turnip. Including one giant turnip I allowed to go to seed, except a deer ate it. So that got harvested.
I allowed most of the radishes to go to seed as well, as I was growing them mostly for their pods. Eventually, the deer started going for those, too!
They really liked the beet greens.
*sigh*
Still, we were able to harvest beets and carrots – including the orange Napoli carrots from old pelleted seeds! – as needed. What we really got a lot of, though, was radish pods. We tried those out in a quick pickle.
Which we all enjoyed. I don’t like radishes in general, but found myself snacking on fresh pods pretty regularly. It turns out that winter sown radish pods are milder than spring sown ones.
The third bed also did really well.
I did end up putting plastic over this bed as well. Mostly, though, I found I had to try and keep cats from getting under it.
The only “problem” we had with this bed is the Jebousek lettuce. Which we quite enjoy eating. There was just so MUCH of it! I couldn’t believe it! They actually got to be a weed. We simply couldn’t keep up with eating it all and I ended up pulling a lot of it and leaving it as a mulch. Only to discover they would re-root themselves and start growing again!
The radish pods did really well, though. Even after the deer got at them, they recovered and started blooming again.
In the end, the few beets that germinated got choked out. No onions germinated, that I could see. I didn’t think the carrots were showing up, other than the odd one, but when I started cleaning up the bed at the end of the season, I kept finding carrot fronds, so I left them to grow until it was time to clean up and prepare the bed for the next winter sowing.
This is what I ended up finding.
That was way more than I expected!
So that’s how the winter sown seeds went. There’s still one more bed to cover.
Garlic
As always, our garlic was planted in the fall. When I took the mulch off in the spring, they were already up and growing. I was really happy with how they did!
Unfortunately, yard cats were still an issue, and I ended up having to cover the bed (and the potato bed next to it) with netting until the garlic started to get too tall. By then, they were not at risk from the cats anymore.
I’m really happy with how the garlic did – and with being able to harvest scapes again.
We ended up dehydrating some of the scapes, then grinding them to a powder. It turned out to be a fantastic way to be able to include garlic in our cooking, and I definitely want to keep doing that.
This was less garlic than we tend to plant, but we still got a good harvest of what are probably the biggest garlic bulbs we’ve ever grown.
The biggest ones were saved and set aside to be planted this fall.
Conclusion
In the end, winter sowing like this has turned out to be a real game changer for us, and I fully intend to keep doing this from now on.
We did mixes this time, which I will not repeat. Instead, I’ve chosen seeds, from my new inventory, to plant in a more orderly fashion. Which is already done.
So, for next year, along with the garlic and seed onions, I have already planted spinach, chard, kohlrabi, purple savoy cabbage (first time trying to grow cabbage), beets, Hedou tiny bok choi, peas, carrots and dwarf peas. You can see where those went in our October garden tour video.
The other thing we seriously need to address is how to keep things out of the garden beds. Elm seeds, cats, deer, flea beetles, snails (we didn’t have a snail problem this year, thankfully – probably because we had so many frogs this year!!), etc.
With that in mind, I’ll be completely reworking the bed along the chain link fence, making it slightly taller and with supports to hold any sort of cover we want to add. Early on, I’d like to be able to put plastic over it to create a mini greenhouse environment. Later, I want to put netting over it to keep the seeds and cats out. Maybe frost covers later in the season. So the supports need to be something I can easily change things up on, too.
I’m just really excited about how well the winter sowing worked. Obviously, not everything can be winter sown, but as we reclaim more garden space and build more beds, I expect that winter sowing will make up a significant portion of our garden, year after year.
The Re-Farmer
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A comparison
I’ve been posting about our stock up shopping trips for a few years now, including photos of the receipts. Those who follow those posts over the years have seen how much less we are getting for our money.
One of the frustrating things is, we can’t really buy beef anymore. Not even beef shares. A lot of farmers just aren’t doing the direct sales anymore. The beef has to be processed through a provincially licensed and approved butcher. That adds so much to the price, they can’t be competitive in their sales. Personally, I’d be fine with buying beef from our renters that they butchered themselves – or even a side of meat that we could process ourselves – but that would get them in trouble with the province. It’s hard enough to be a farmer of any kind in Canada, without that sort of thing.
One of the things that has amazed me, even before our inflation skyrocketed (cost of living has increased over 40% in just the last few years, thanks to our federal government’s actions), is how much cheaper groceries are in the US. I was blown away to find out even dollar stores in the US even have freezer sections and sell meat (do they still do that?). I know, for you in the US, it’s a relative thing and prices are high for you right now in many areas. Today, however, I saw this video that did as close a comparison as I’ve seen so far. He mentions Costco prices, which are even more insane than the Canadian beef prices he used to compare with in the video. You’re meat prices are so much lower than ours!
These high prices are all artificial, with much of it due to the “carbon taxes” our current dictator said was dropped to zero before he was installed in office, only for it to turn out to still be there, just under another name.
Canada is in serious trouble. Especially since our overlords are going out of their way to kill off more animals. Tens of thousands of hens are being killed off by the same department that horrifically massacred over 300 healthy ostriches, after months of neglect and abuse, that weren’t even part of the food chain (I’ve recently learned the bullets used were .22 longs. You can’t kill something as big as an ostrich with a .22 unless it’s a direct head shot). They’re also slated to kill off yet another herd of beef cattle, or may already have been by now.
Yet somehow, the people doing this stuff are able to play all the games to stay in power. It’s insane.
The Re-Farmer
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Our 2025 Garden analysis: the challenges of the year
Okay, it’s that time of the gardening year! Time to look back at how things went, what worked, what didn’t, what we’ll try again, and what we’ll set aside.
Plans were made and, of course, plans changed as time went on. Here is a video I made of what I was planning, before starting seeds indoors.
Aside from a few things changing from my original plans, the entire year turned out to be quite a difficult one.
This was the first growing season since the average first and last frost dates were reset. “Climate” is weather over a defined region, averaged over 30 years, plus or minus 5-10 years. We crossed over that 30 year mark and the new averages for our area tell me that our last frost date range (they don’t have just a day anymore, but a span of days) is in the end of May, instead of June 2.
Yeeeaaaahhhh… No.
This year, our last frost date turned out to be well past June 2, so I’m glad I didn’t try to direct sow or transplant anything in May. May was a very frustrating month. We had some very warm days all month, but the overnight temperatures were quite cold. The soil never had a chance to warm up and stay warm at a temperature favorable for many things. Especially for transplants.
Then, we got hit with a combination of drought, heat waves and continuous smoke from wildfires. I’m honestly surprised some things did as well as they did. Many things, however, simply stagnated. When cleaning up some of the garden beds in the fall, I found that weather was not the only issue, but so was invading root systems from nearby trees!
One thing we did differently was winter sowing mixes of seeds in the fall of 2024. A couple of beds were complete failures, while others did surprisingly well. It really was a game changer for us, and I’ve already winter sown several beds for our 2026 garden.
So I’ll be doing things differently for this year’s analysis, too. I’ll be categorizing things by winter sowing, transplants, direct sowing, and food forest/perennials, before doing a last post with my final analysis and plans for 2026.
I’m hoping to get one of these out every day over the next few days, if all goes well. I’ll be going over a lot of old posts and videos in the process, so it can take quite a lot of time to put together.
Hopefully, these will be as useful for you as they are for me, as we go over what succeeded, what failed, and why – as best as I can determine! I can already say now, though, that a lot of our future gardening plans are going to involve protective infrastructure. 😄
As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback in the comments.
The Re-Farmer
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A musical break while planning posts
I’ve started on my 2025 garden analysis posts, which means I’ve got way too many tabs open as I review things to plan and organize my analysis.
Which is a good time for some Christmas music as a distraction! I’ve never heard this old cover of Good Kind Wenceslas before.
Bing sure had a smooth and unique voice.
Enjoy!
The Re-Farmer
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Going to the post office should not be weird
Okay, I’m back from getting our parcels at the post office. I meant to actually stay in the store and see if there was anything I wanted to pick up but, instead, I was rushing home.
I’d left the gate open, you see, and was no longer sure that was a good idea.
Our main driveway is just 300 feet or so from an intersection at a main gravel road. Both roads – the main one, and the one past our driveway – have a surprising amount of traffic. Having been looking at trail cam and security files since 2018, thanks to our vandal, I’ve gotten to recognize regular vehicles that go by, even if I don’t know who is driving them.
So as I pulled through our gate, I didn’t think anything of the little black car that I saw go past the intersection. It looked like one of several non-descript little black cars I see going by regularly.
With the inside handle of my truck door broken off, and a post office trip being so short, I decided not to close the gate behind me and just head out.
Then I got to the stop sign at the intersection.
About 200 yards down the main road was the little black car, pulled over on the wrong side of the road – the side closer to our place, and the main garden area.
The passenger side door was open and there was a man standing there, facing my way. Just standing, staring in my direction.
Because of the distance, I can’t say with 100% certainty that it was our vandal, but I would say I have about 95% certainty. Partly because, who else would it be? We don’t have any other stalkers. Plus, from the stance, and general body shape that I could see, it did look very much like him. He has a very… distinctive… frame.
I turned towards the highway and kept checking my rear view mirror. The guy stood there, still staring my way, for quite some time before another glance showed me the passenger side door was closed. By then, there was too much snow kicking up to see whether the car kept going in the same direction, or if it turned around. After a while, I pulled over and messaged the family to keep an eye out.
When I got back, I was checking the snow to see if there were any other tracks besides my own in our driveway. Thankfully, nothing.
But it does tell me that even a quick trip into town means we have to keep the gate closed behind us. I’ve already found that leaving the gate open for deliveries has had our vandal driving past, stopping, backing up, then sitting on the road, rubbernecking down our driveway.
Very frustrating.
I did get our parcels, however, and that was much more cheerful.
First up, my new acquisition for our resource library.
I’ve only just started to look through it but, as you can see by the next two pictures in the slideshow above, this is going to be a very useful book!
The next package was full of wonderful items from a dear and thoughtful friend and former neighbour from before our move.
With a Ghosty photo bomb.
I was so excited to see a 1kg/2.2lb bag of lysine! I’ve got pumpkin seeds to grind into powder, so I’ll be mixing the two together in a jar to add to the kibble as a supplement for the outside cats. For the inside cats, we can add it to their cat soup.
The freeze dried chicken is quite a treat. Something that might help us lure some more feral kittens into discovering that getting pets and attention from humans is a good thing!
There’s a box of ground staples of much better quality than the dollar store version of those. I’ve learned, you just can’t have too many ground staples! There’s a package of irrigation stakes; they’re threaded at the top for a water bottle to slowly water plants. Those will come in handy in areas too closely planted to do my usual 4L water jug version. I love the tiny terracotta pots, but that little bunny pot is just too cute for words! There’s some cotton cordage that will be handy in the garden, too.
The LED lantern is really nice. Something I’ve been eyeballing for a while, but couldn’t justify getting with whatever budget I had at the time. This would be great for the emergency kit in the truck, as it also has flashing red lights and a flashlight at the top. It’s not going into the truck now, though, as the batteries would just freeze.
That travel blanket, however, is another story, and will definitely be added to our truck’s emergency kit.
Under everything are four insulated shopping bags, with the suggestion of putting straw in them as something the cats could use as beds. I would never have thought of that! Worth a try, I’d say.
What a fantastic gift! I appreciate that some of these were passed on from other former neighbours. I will be reminded of them as I use the items.
Of course, going through all these left me with an empty box.
Which did not stay empty for long.
Hello, Tin Whistle.
So that was my haul from the post office today, which did a lot to make me feel better after the weirdness I saw as I was heading out.
Moving out here was supposed to get us away from stuff like this.
Ah, well. It’s still better than what we had to deal with while living in the city.
The Re-Farmer
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From a distance
Well, I’m happy to say that the winds died down yesterday, by the time I headed out to do my evening rounds. It felt warm enough that I actually did some shoveling, including paths to the fire pit and wood piles. We haven’t been able to use the fire pit in the summer, due to drought conditions, but I’m hoping we can use it in the winter!
This morning was technically colder, but without that wind, it wasn’t too bad at all. It’s still snowing lightly and is expected to continue, off and on, throughout the day.
When feeding the outside cats and getting to the catio shelter, I spotted a grey tabby inside the self warming cat shelter under one of the floating shelves. I’m so glad it’s being used! Unfortunately, it was one of the more feral cats – Slick, I think – so my approach scared it out. It was starting to panic inside the shelter, so I made sure the door was wide open, with plenty of room for it to run out.
Later on, I saw the feral white cat with grey tabby spots in the catio shelter, and even Sprout.
I had to zoom in from across the yard to take this picture. I didn’t want to scare her away from her warm nest in the straw. I’m happy to say that both of the most feral mamas seem to be hanging out more in the catio shelter. These two have hiding places somewhere in the outer yard – or beyond, for all I can tell – so this greatly improves our changes of socializing them, or at least trapping them for spays.
I counted 35 or 37 cats and kittens this morning. I’m not sure exactly how many kittens were mashed into their favourite cat cave, but I figured at least four. I’m not sure if I double counted any. I spotted the big tom that’s started to visit us as I was going back into the sun room. I may have already counted him as a “grey tabby in the distance”, but I’m not sure.
With today’s slightly improved weather, if there is any errand running to do, I want to get it done today. I think the only trip I need to make is to the post office. There’s a couple of packages ready to pick up now.
While checking the status on the Back to Basics book I’d ordered on Cyber Monday, I saw it hadn’t shipped yet – but I also saw that the kindle edition was on a 1 day sale. $1.99 for the digital version, instead of $24.99. So I got that last night and was able to start going through it. Much of it is exactly like the older edition I have, but there are some obvious differences, too. For example, in the section on how to build various houses, it no longer has a cordwood house, but an adobe house instead. It should be interesting when I get the physical copy (I just checked this morning, and it has finally shipped) to go through both editions at the same time, and see the changes.
I’m expecting today to be another quiet day, mostly indoors. It’s hibernation season. 😄
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 