When we find the skunks in the kibble house, we have been chasing them away with the hose. Today, I went out to do the watering and saw a couple of skunks. One immediately ran off and I saw it head under the storage house. The bigger one kept on eating. When I sprayed it with the hose, it disappeared behind the cat shelter, so I went around the kibble house to spray it away.
Instead, I saw her run off, but something looked very different. She had something in her mouth, and… a second tail?
It was her babies. She ran off, carrying one in her mouth, while a second one stayed close beside her.
I just can’t do it anymore. I can’t chase off hungry babies!
They’re not hurting the cats, nor being aggressive. They’re digging up the yard for grubs, but that doesn’t bother me. The only real issue is that kibble is bad for them, but not nutritionally. It’s about how their jaws are hinged. But we have hungry mamas that feel safe enough to bring their hungry babies to the kibble house! How can I possible keep chasing them away?
While doing the morning watering, I noticed the grapes have babies!
The teeniest of bunches of baby grapes are now visible. :-)
Doing the watering this morning was a bit of a challenge, as we were having some pretty high winds. High enough to blow the water all over the place. :-D
As always, I check the weather frequently throughout the day. Especially before heading out in the morning. Between the app on my phone and the one on my desktop, I can usually get some idea of what to expect for the day. There are differences between them, but usually they’re pretty minor.
Today, not so much.
My desktop app, which is with The Weather Network, says we’ll hit our high of 31C/88F by 7pm, with variable cloudiness and no precipitation.
My phone app, with AccuWeather, says we’ll hit our high of 31C/88F by 6 pm…
… but around 4pm, it’s predicting thunderstorms, adding “Watch for a strong thunderstorm this afternoon; storms can bring gusty winds and even an isolated tornado.”
Tornado?
Yeeeaahhh…. I don’t think so.
This is definitely the most extreme difference I’ve ever seen in the forecast between the two apps!
Well, we’ll see what actually happens. I just went ahead and did the watering, in case we get no rain at all. That’s one thing about all the rocks and gravel where we live. It’s pretty much impossible to over water. Drainage is exceptionally fast!
The Re-Farmer
[addendum: our internet connection has been unusually bad of late. It took me four hours and three different browsers just to open the WordPress editor so I could write this post! Much of the problem is with our satellite internet provider. Apparently, they over sold and are in a permanent state of over capacity, now that so many people are working from home or staying home in general. One of our neighbours with the same provider contacted them for service only to be told their “slow speeds” were adding to the over capacity of their towers, and their contract is being terminated. Which makes no sense whatsoever. So… we’ll deal with the connectivity issues until the new Star Link service is available in our area!
Which is my long winded way of saying that, if posting becomes more sporadic, or the posts themselves start getting truncated, that is likely why!]
Today was set to be a scorcher, so when I did my morning rounds, I took the time to water all the garden beds before things got too hot, even though they got a thorough watering last night.
When I got to the spinach beds, I saw evidence of skulduggery!
The sacrificial spinach, at the ends of a couple of rows, were duly sacrificed.
I moved that pinwheel over from one of the beds with the wire mesh covers, after the fact. Not that they seem to be accomplishing much, anymore!
No surprise, when I finally went inside and checked the trail cams, that a deer was captured, wandering through the corn beds, on the way out of the yard. Considering that the deer did not even pause to nibble on anything, I’d say the sacrificial spinach did its job! ;-)
Late this afternoon, when things were supposedly getting cooler again, the girls and I finished the squash tunnel.
Almost.
We got the cross pieces put in place, then brought over the wire mesh for the vines to climb.
The roll of wire mesh I got was 50 feet long, and that was enough to cover 3 of 4 sections. At only 4 feet wide, there are gaps at each post, but we can weave twine between the sections of wire mesh, if it’s necessary.
My original thought was to use U nails (also called staples) to attach the mesh, but we ended up only needing to attach it to the bottom cross pieces. With one, we used wire saved from a previous roll of wire mesh that had been wrapped around it to keep it from unrolling. In cutting the first length, the second length had one end with the wire ends sticking out, and we were able wrap the end around the cross piece, then just twist the wire ends around to hold it in place. Other sections were tied in place with twine.
We just need to buy another roll of this mesh, and we can finish the last section. The main thing is that the end where the luffa is growing, now has something for them to climb.
The girls also noted that one post seemed to need support, so they added the rope and peg to hold it in place.
It’s a good thing this is meant to be temporary! :-D
By the time we were done, we were totally baked and headed inside to cool down for a while. We were at “only” 25C/77F with a humidex of 28C/82F but we were also in full sun, and there was no breeze. At least we could pop into the shade of the nearby lilac hedge, every now and then.
While I was doing the evening watering, the girls brought over the last of the straw and mulched around the squash tunnel. You can see in the photo that some of the luffa was grown long enough to reach the mesh, already. Hopefully, they will soon be making their way up the side on their own.
This whole thing really is rather slipshod and wonky. I look forward to when we have our permanent raised garden beds, and can build something more solid, elsewhere. But this will do for a year, maybe even two, depending on how our plans to plant trees in this area progress. Well, Not where this tunnel is, I don’t think. There are telephone lines buried somewhere under here.
Anyhow.
I’m glad we finally got this done. At least as done as possible until we get more mesh for that last section. The forecast has changed again. Tomorrow, instead of thunderstorms, we’re expected to hit 31C/88F and maybe get some showers at some point. While I was doing the watering this evening, I used the water to make doing some hand weeding easier, and I could not believe how dry the soil was. I’d hate to think how dry it would have been if I’d decided it was damp enough this morning, and skipped the watering! The added mulch at these squash, gourds and melons will help keep their moisture better, at least. I look forward to having more mulch to add to the other beds as well.
Meanwhile, I hope we have some happy little squash, gourds and melons!
The wonderful rains we’ve had has meant everything has exploded in growth.
Including the grass and weeds.
Today, I decided to break out the weed trimmer and get around some areas before mowing.
In progress, I figured I would keep trimming some other areas. Just the rougher areas, I told myself. I’ll do the rest with the push mower, I told myself. I’ll just do the places the mower won’t fit, I added.
Of course, it’s all rough out there.
Before I started, I took a look at the crab apple tree by the old compost pile. This one was looking pretty diseased last year, but other trees were looking worse, so this is a bit unexpected.
Parts of it almost started to grow leaves. Then that wicket frost we got in late May hit, and it never recovered. Now it just looks dead.
Dang. That was one of the edible crab apples, too.
Note, however, the background of the photo, and how high the grass and weeds are. It’s high enough that getting the hose over to water the corn and squash is made more difficult than it should.
It was at the other crab apple trees that I started.
The tree in the foreground has just a few live branches left. It is one of several that we will eventually be cutting down.
As for the weed trimming, the ground is pretty flat on one side, so I just went far enough that I wouldn’t be getting my head caught in the branches when I mow. There is something about apple branches are just grab onto things! If I’m wearing a hat, I usually get it pulled right of. If not, I end up having to untangle twigs from my hair. :-D
On the other side, there’s the first ridge of plowed soil. Aside from making it hard to mow over, when the grass gets tall, it’s one of those places we’ve turned an ankle, more than once!
Once at the far end, I trimmed around the summer squash. It’s particularly rough around there, as that’s where the person who plowed it last, turned the tractor, going in circles instead of turning the soil in straight lines in the same direction.
This photo was taken after my daughter had given the beds their evening water. The summer squash was looking pretty droopy while I was working around them, but they sure perked up fast after a good soak! :-)
Also, you can see where the garden cam is currently set up, on that saw horse sitting on its side. Last night, nothing at all triggered it. No deer visits to the garden! :-)
When I started working around the bean beds, I had to get one more length of extension cord to finish the job. Where the bean beds are is actually fairly level, but I didn’t want to run a lawn more in between them.
The extra length was enough for me to be able to reach all the sweet corn and sunflower beds – the pea trellises were prefect to drape the cord over, so it wouldn’t get dragged over plants. One of my daughters had already gone through the area to get rid of the tree saplings that are trying to overtake the area, so I was able to trim all the beds without having to work around little trees. This is not the most powerful of weed trimmers! ;-)
Then I just kept on going. I trimmed around all the main beds, and even in between the old raspberry plants under the dead crab apple tree and the chokecherry. My mother had transplanted some there before we moved out, and when we started reclaiming parts of the old garden area, we found more that we transplanted into there. Eventually, they will be moved to a location that isn’t under trees. ;-)
The last area was the biggest job.
I had stopped for a break when I took this picture. Not only were the grass and weeds thickest and highest here, this is where the plow took the tightest turns, leaving the biggest ridges. One of which now has the Crespo squash growing in it.
All this, and we still need to mow in the areas that aren’t as rough! But at least it’s done, and we’ll have less chance of hitting something hidden in the grass, with the mower!
But that will wait. I was supposed to work on the squash tunnel today. Having the area around it trimmed will make that a bit easier to move around while it gets worked on, tomorrow. ;-)
That cheap little weed trimmer has done really well! It may be a pain, dragging the extension cord around, but it does the job. :-)
Before we converted the big aquarium into a greenhouse, it was used to store our collection of baskets. They got moved to the top of the piano, and ended up just staying there.
This is partly why.
The cats discovered they fit perfectly, as Big Rig is demonstrating in the most adorable way.
This is not what we see, btw. This is me holding my phone up high to get the picture. What we usually see is nothing at all, until a cat suddenly gets up and stretches from a nap. Before I took this photo, all I could see of Big Rig was a paw (sticking over the edge, on the left) and an ear. My daughters, from across the room, could see a mound of fluff.
We used these baskets for Easter baskets. The little ones tend to be used for small baskets we give as gifts, while the big ones are used for our traditional family baskets.
You just have to love how quickly things change, day by day!
The first ornamental poppies started blooming this morning. They have had bulbs for a while now, and then this morning, two of them exploded into full bloom. :-)
I was looking at the garlic yesterday evening, and seeing what might, possibly, could be, itty bitty garlic scapes starting to come up. They were so tiny, I couldn’t be sure.
This morning, there was no doubt. Our first garlic scapes are starting to form! We are really looking forward to when they can be harvested and trying different things with them. :-)
I have saved the best for last – check this out!
Our very first tomato flowers!! You can see the tiny little buds behind it, too.
These are the super tiny Spoon tomatoes. In reviews, people have warned that these self-seed very easily, because they are so tiny, it’s impossible to pick them all before they ripen and fall off the vine.
We’ve got no problem with that, and chose this location with that in mind.
I’m just so happy with how things are growing. Most of these are in new beds in new locations, with limited preparation. Every single plant that has survived is, for me, a total miracle. :-D I’m hoping how things are looking now are a sign of a very busy fall, preserving the harvest. :-)
It was a hot and windy day today, and my younger daughter and I ended up making a quick run into town, but we did get some decent progress in the garden.
My older daughter braved the hottest part of the day and added more soil to the 15 summer squash mounds.
I waited until it was cooler.
I added a stake near each plant. The stakes are some of the smaller poplars we cleared our of the spruce grove, trimmed to about 3-4 feet in length. In the foreground of the photo, there is a metal bar stuck in the ground. It has a point at one end. I can’t remember at the moment, where we found it, but it was a happy find! I used it, and a mallet, to make holes in the ground. Then the stakes, skinny end down, were pushed in as far as I could, beyond what I managed with the steel bar, then the soil carefully stomped down to secure it. As close to the plants as they were, that meant mostly just on one side. Once those were in, the area was mulched with straw. The idea is to secure the stems of the squash to the stakes, as they grow, and pruning the bottom leaves, little by little. We shall see how that works!
Also, I really need to get this area mowed, before the next rains come!
I had found some trellis netting, so my daughter finished the last sections of pea trellis with that, along with adding soil to the summer squash. The peas are getting tall enough to start climbing! The peas I planted later, to fill the gaps left by those that did not germinate, are sprouting, too. I’m really looking forward to having fresh peas! I can’t remember the last time I had fresh-from-the-garden peas.
If you look to the left of the photo, you can see what is a problem in this area: all those tree seedlings! They are spreading through root systems, like quack grass. Usually, I would have mowed over them by now, but we’re going to have to cut them back by hand this year.
My younger daughter, meanwhile, went all out and thinned all three spinach beds.
Yes, this was taken after the beds were thinned!
The furthest one, under the netting, is the one that got the most deer damage, but parts of it are doing well. You can see at the end of the closer beds, the smaller spinach at the ends the deer got at.
With the spinach she gathered, I currently have two trays drying in the oven, and made myself a huge spinach salad for supper. The reason we went into town was to get ingredients to make spinach dips. Both cold and baked versions. :-) I’m really looking forward to that!
This last one is just to show how well the potatoes have been doing! At this rate, some of them are going to need topping up, soon! I’m very excited to see how productive these will be at the end of their season.
With today’s progress, my goal for tomorrow is to get working on that squash tunnel. The luffa needs something to climb! :-D
I wanted to share some photos from this morning’s rounds, but first, some photos from last night.
May I introduce you to, The Three Croissants.
Nicco, Beep Beep and Susan, all nestled together! Can they get any cuter? :-D
While putting things away for the evening, I noticed my mother’s lilies had started to bloom. Thye practically glow in the evening light!
If all goes to plan, we will be dividing these up this fall, and transplanting some in a new bed where the potatoes in their grow bags are now.
We had quite the crowd of hungry kitties this morning! Ghost Baby showed up not long after.
I expect the mamas will start bringing their babies over for food some time soon. I wish I knew where they were. I’d leave food out nearby for them, if I could. I’ve spotted mamas going by carrying various rodents, though, so the mamas are obviously taking care of that, themselves. It just makes less work for them if we can supplement with kibble! That, and there’s a better chance of the kittens getting used to humans.
Of course, I had to check the newest transplants. We got another heavy rain last night, that lasted for a couple of hours. They seem to have handled it quite well. I took this photo from the gourd end of the row. In the foreground are the 4 Ozark Nest Egg gourds (you can just barely see one of them, it’s so tiny!). By the fence post is the Thai Bottle gourd. You can’t see it in the photo, but hidden under one of the leaves is a second sprout!
This is what’s left of our straw! I’d taken so much from the bottom, where it was breaking down the most, that the whole thing finally just fell over. We should have enough to mulch the summer squash, and hopefully have some to add to the transplants at the squash tunnel, but I doubt there will be much left by then. I’ll have to contact the renter to see about getting another bale. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get hay next time. I’m deliberately asking for older bales that aren’t good for feed anymore, since it will be used only for mulching, but when I asked about it last time, they had none, as they spread them on their crop fields and plow them under to amend the soil.
Today, we’re looking at a high of 27C/81F, though we are already at 25C/77F as I write this, so I would not be surprised if we get hotter. The next couple of days should be just a degree or two cooler, then we’re looking at possible thunderstorms again. Hopefully, we’ll have the squash tunnel and pea trellises finished before then! We’ll see how things work out. One of my daughters has been feeling quite ill lately, and I’m pretty sure it’s the heat. :-( Summer is their least favorite time of the year!
There is one other down side to this time of year that I was really noticing this morning. The horseflies are out in full force! I had a buzzing crowd of them, dive bombing my head, from the moment I stepped outside to the moment I stepped back into the house – and even then, it was only because I dashed in and closed the door fast enough. Having them bounce off my head is annoying enough (at least they weren’t biting!), but they were even getting caught up in my hair bun. They already seem to be unusually bad this year.
Part of my morning rounds has been to check the garden beds for deer (or other critter) damage. Since we lost several Mongolian Giant sunflower transplants, there has not appeared to be any more damage in that area. In the main garden beds, there has been little more than a few spinach that the row covers aren’t long enough to cover, showing signs of nibbling. That’s it.
As for the garden cam, it’s been getting video of cats going by lately, and that’s it.
This morning, I saw no new damage to the garden, though one of the support poles holding the rope and twine in one of the sunflower transplant rows was fallen down. It had broken and is a bit shorter than the others. I’d tied a plastic grocery bag to it and the rope at the top, but with the winds we’ve been having, it was no surprise to find it fallen. Those bags sometimes act like sails! When my daughters first set this up, the middle support poles were simply slipped through the divided strands of the rope, rather than tied, so for the shorter pole, it would have easily just slide off.
Other than that nothing else was amiss in the garden beds.
Then I checked the garden cam.
I’d say we are very fortunate that there was no damage this morning!
Yes, that is a deer and her fawn off in the distance!
I saw in earlier files that the support pole was already down before they came by, so it was not them that knocked it over. That grocery bag hovering near the mama is hanging off the rope the fallen support pole had been holding up.
In the next file, I watched as the mama casually ducked under the rope, which is what it’s in the middle of doing in this image.
Clearly, the ropes, poles, and flappy noise makers are no longer acting as a deterrent!
There was one last file, and then they moved on. You can just see the spots on the baby in this image!
Watching the files was interesting. While they did snuffle about, they did not try to eat anything in the rows. There are so many miscellaneous plants coming up here that, other than the sunflower transplants, they’d have to seek out individual seedlings in between the weeds. So… the weeds are basically protecting our seedlings right now!
They also very gingerly stepped OVER the rows. Which makes sense. The soil in between the rows is harder, so their hooves won’t sink.
Another thing I noticed is that this pair came from a direction I did not expect. We will need to keep that in mind as we increase our deer deterrents.
There was one more night time file after this; Nicky the Nose making his way between the rows!
The girls and I will move the trail cam again, later today. I want to try it at the opposite end of where it is now, and further away from the beds, so it will cover more ground. Since this camera is not a wide angle camera, it missed a lot where it is sitting right now.
Though it did a great job of capturing these deer!
Today, I built what should be the last garden bed for the year. This one is for the climbers.
Here is what the space looked like when I started.
The original plan was to use the remaining chimney blocks, like the one in the photo, as planters along the chain link fence, but they remain in the basement until we can figure some thing out, and it is not a priority.
We’ve been saving up our cardboard, and had just enough to create a barrier layer, which got a thorough soaking.
The next layer was the straw, which is also the mulch to cover the path between the new bed and the flower bed beside it. I was able to get some of the straw at the bottom of the bale that has had time to start breaking down, too, which was great! This layer, like all the layers, got a thorough soaking – after I beat it flat with the back of a fan rake.
Then, because we had some, I emptied our kitchen compost along the fence line, which got tromped on before a soak.
There wasn’t much. We don’t get a chance to accumulate much for the compost pile. It tends to get used right away!
We still have grass clippings, so a thick layer of it got laid down.
We’ve been keeping our compost-safe paper for shredding, and I had a bag full to add for another layer. After giving it a soaking, my daughter tromped it down for me, while I went to get a load of soil. This was from the nearby tarp covered pile in the outer yard. When I pulled back the tarp, I just had to call the girls over to take a look!
The white tarp allowed enough light through for the weeds to start growing, and grow they did!! They were huge!
These are mostly lambsquarter, which are supposed to be edible and very healthy. Better than spinach!!! At least that’s what the breathless Pinterest images that have started to show up in my feed are all exclaiming. Maybe some day we’ll try them, but for now, they are growing in places we want other things to be growing (or, in the case of our soil pile, nothing to be growing!), so we’re pulling them. Still, it was something else to see how big they got under that tarp! It actually is encouraging, since we plan to build polytunnels and high raised beds in the outer yard, eventually.
Finally, a thick layer of garden soil was added to the new bed, with a trench down the middle to hold water. My daughter did catch me before I made the new bed too wide. With the one we made for the tomatoes, we’re finding it a bit hard to reach, even though we ended up narrowing it down when we added more soil for the transplants. We’ve noticed the same issue with the beds of spinach, carrots and onions. They’re only about 3-4′ wide, but they are low beds right now, and we’re short. It’s hard to reach the middle while bending down so far; our balance goes off kilter. Especially for my daughters who, unlike me, have not had their generous proportions surgically reduced. That really affects center of balance! It would not be an issue with the tall raised beds we plan to build, but we need to remember that, for low beds, they need to be narrower. Especially if we can reach from only one side, like these along the fence.
One thing that was an unexpected issue is that the chain link fence on this side is higher above the ground at the bottom than on the other side of the gate.
Which means that the damp cardboard flaps against the fence couldn’t quite hold the soil in some places! Which is fine. We’ll work around it.
After filling the trench in the soil with water to soak it, I brought over the cucamelons that have sprouted (most did not, but that’s okay; we planted way more than needed!), as well as the gourds. The bucket and plant pot have the cucamelon tubers in peat that I dug up from last year, to see if they would grow this year. Time to dump them out and find out if they survived!
They did not.
Aside from a few wispy root clumps and what may have been the dried outer skin of a tuber, I found nothing. They had completely decomposed.
Well, that just left me with some peat I could make use of.
So I widened the trench I’d made before, added some peat to it, and watered it again.
Then it was time to do the transplanting.
The cucamelons were all in their own Jiffy pellets, so they were easy to space out. I planted even the tiny ones. If they make it, great. If not, at least they had a fighting chance! Our cucamelons from last year were quite prolific, even in less than ideal conditions. This location gets much more light, so I expect them to do even better, here. If all grows well, this fence will be completely covered with climbing vines!
Of the gourds, the pot that had 2 Ozark Nest Egg seedlings had sprouted a third! I’d forgotten I’d planted 3 seeds in the cups. The pot that first sprouted still had only one, plus there is the one Thai Edible Bottle gourd. These are in Jiffy pots, so the ones with just one seedling in them got planted whole. The one that had three in them, I gently broke it open along one side and sort of unrolled the contents to separate the seedlings. One of them just sprouted today, so it’s unlikely to survive, but who knows? It might do even better than the others. :-) I believe in you, little sproot!
That done, I had some more transplanting to do. I’d put the last of our Norstar onion seeds into a Solo cup, and they not only sprouted, but are starting to form bulbs!
The girls and I had talked about where to put them, and the border of the asparagus bed seemed the best place.
The onions are shallow growers, and there’s plenty of space between them and where the asparagus are, so this should be fine. At this stage, I doubt they will reach full maturity, but they will help deter critters and insects. There were more seedlings than would fit here, so I added the last of them in front of the Mosaic Mix tomatoes. There had been some bunching onions transplanted there before, but they were the tiniest, wimpiest ones that we probably shouldn’t have bothered with, and only 3 were still alive. Which is fine. There are more bunching onions in front of the Spoon tomatoes. We’ll see how these ones do!
That’s pretty much it for the transplanting. We should probably plant the one Hopi Black Dye sunflower that finally sprouted. Since there’s just the one, I’m thinking of planting it somewhere else, like in the old kitchen garden. The pink celery will go into a pot that we can move in and out of the sun room, as needed, but they are way too tiny to do anything with, yet.
Which means that tomorrow, it’s back to the other garden beds. The pea trellises need to be finished, the squash tunnel needs to be worked on, and the summer squash needs a garden soil top up, before getting mulched with straw. Somewhere in there, I need to actually mow around the main garden beds. It’s getting pretty out of control around there! For the old garden area, I’m seriously considering using the weed trimmer, instead. It’ll take longer, but I won’t have to worry about hitting rocks or lumps of soil with the lawnmower. Also, of course, weeding. Especially in the corn and sunflower blocks. All the stuff that barely grew there before have had the most moisture and inadvertent tending since… ever, and they’re really liking it! :-D
The main thing is that, aside from the pink celery and that one sunflower, we’re done the transplanting! Anything else that didn’t germinate by now, isn’t going to. We won’t be tending those pots anymore.
Aaaannnndd….
It was getting late, so I paused and took the pink celery seedlings indoors, then went ahead and transplanted the one Hopi Black Dye sunflower in the old kitchen garden, in the bed we planted the poppies in. So that’s done now, too!
The Re-Farmer 