food forest

Our 2025 Garden analysis: final thoughts and plans for next year

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All righty. Time to get my thoughts organized about how things went this year, and what I want to do next year.

When this post gets published, I’ll actually be at my mother’s place, doing some housekeeping for her and getting her apartment the way she wants it for Christmas. We’re already getting weather warnings for this weekend. Today’s high (Thursday) was -11C/12F. Wind chills at around -22C/-8F. Tomorrow (Friday, when this will be published) and Saturday, our highs are supposed to be -21C/-6F, but we are getting warning of wind chills dropping things to -40C/-40F. !!!!!

Then it’s supposed to start warming up again, up to a high of -5C/23F on Tuesday, before dropping again. There are no longer any predicted highs above freezing around Christmas, but we’re still expecting major swings in temperature.

I’m so glad the winter sown beds got that extra layer or straw.

Speaking of which, here are my final thoughts on how our 2025 garden did.

Winter Sowing

This was the big experiment this year. If it didn’t work, we would have had a very different gardening year, that’s for sure! The other part of the experiment was broadcasting mixes of seeds, some of them years old, which gave me the chance to restock with fresh seed, later on.

Two of the mixes were complete failures, but for very different reasons. The summer squash just never came up. If anything did sprout, they got rolled over by cats. Which is what killed off the “tall and climbing things” bed, and the winter sown flowers. I did see things start to sprout, but they didn’t survive long.

The root vegetables mix in two beds did really well, though one almost got chocked out by the insanely productive Jabousek lettuce seeds that were added. I’m even happier with the greens mix, having finally been able to grow kohlrabi, and those Swiss Chard were an excellent cut and come again crop.

In the end, if it weren’t for the winter sown beds that survived, we would have had a much less productive year! This is a major game changer for me, and I expect to keep doing this from now on. Not only did we get much earlier growth, but it saved me a lot of work in the spring.

The biggest problems

Cats.

I thought it would be the elm seeds, and they were definitely a problem in the expected places, too, but the yard cats were particularly destructive this year.

What I won’t do again, and what I’m doing instead

Definitely not broadcasting mixes. That did give me a good idea of what could be successfully winter sown in our climate zone, though. Particularly with the drought, heat and smoke we got this year. This time, the winter sowing was much more planned out. The beds also got more thoroughly mulched before the hard frosts hit.

With that in mind, we’ve planted carrots, peas, spinach, chard, kohl rabi, cabbage, beets, and Hedou Tiny bok choi. Plus, of course, garlic. There were also lots of little onions found while cleaning up the old kitchen garden that got transplanted. Those might bulb, or go to seed. Either one works for me.

I will also have to make sure to put cat proof protective covers on pretty much everything.

I was also happy with having radish pods instead of radish bulbs. There is a variety grown specifically for their pods that I might pick up at some point but, for now, we quite enjoyed the proliferation of pods to snack on and do quick pickles with. You get a LOT more food from a single radish by eating the pods, too. Definitely for winter sowing, though, as I’ve read they taste a lot stronger when they are direct sown in the spring.

Transplants

This was a really hard year for all our transplants. The heat, drought and smoke likely played a big part in that, but in some beds, it looks like tree roots invading the beds also played a part. We got very little out of our transplants. The ones we started indoors that did best were the Chocolate Cherry and Spoon tomatoes, even as stunted as they were. The worst were probably the melons. The pepper and eggplant plants did rather well, but to so much for blooming and productivity. The purchased herb transplants, on the other hand, did great in their tiny raised bed!

The biggest problems

The transplants were something we could protect from cats rather well. In the end, it was probably a combination of drought conditions and those tree roots. Not a lot that was in our zone of control that we could have done anything about.

What I won’t do again, and what I’m doing instead.

I won’t winter sow onions again. Instead, I will be starting them indoors for transplanting. I had hoped they would at least grow enough to use the greens and deter deer, but most of them simply got choked out.

We will, of course, still be starting seeds indoors to transplant in the spring, but we need to set up a seed starting area and the aquarium greenhouses in the basement. If for no other reason than we need to clear space in the cat free zone, AKA the living room. Now that cats aren’t allowed in the new basement anymore, I can open up the “window” between the basements, near the furnaces. That should help more warm air from the old basement to flow into the new basement and equalize things. There is the “doorway” (a vaguely door shaped hole cut into the wall when the new basement was built) but no real air flow between the two basements.

As for what we can do instead, for better success with our transplants… I honestly don’t know. There isn’t much I can do about heat waves. There are limits to watering during a drought, and not just due to the lower water table. Our well pump still needs to be replaced, if we dare risk the foot valve, so the more the hose is used, the more wear and tear on the pump. In the end, it comes down to the weather, really.

As for the tree roots, we need to cut that row of self-seeded trees down completely, and ensure no suckers start coming up at the stumps. My mother was adamant about not cutting those trees down, even though I see signs that someone tried to at some point. Probably my late brother tried to get rid of them. I recall my mother laughing about how angry he would get because she would stick trees all over the place, making it hard for him to take care of things.

Now my oldest brother owns the property, though, and he is very much in agreement with getting rid of them. He had issues with where and how my parents chose to plant trees, too, and we’re both now dealing with the consequences.

Other than clearing those trees out, the only other thing we can really do is more raised beds. The higher, the better but, for now, even low raised beds help. Once the trees are cut down, I’m even thinking of putting a long, higher raised bed over where they are, to make sure they get good and dead. That would also reclaim the garden space lost to my mother allowing those trees to grow after she transplanted out the raspberries that were there.

As for the purchased herb transplants, those did quite well. I certainly won’t turn my nose up at buying transplants to supplement anything we start indoors.

Yes, I will still be trying luffa again! 😄

Spring Direct Sowing

These where the most affected by this year’s climate conditions of all. It was pretty brutal.

We direct sowed pole beans, bush beans, corn, carrots, peas and more summer squash. I’ll add potatoes to this list as well. I think the potatoes did the best, even though they never reached the blooming stage. The summer squash and two types of beans were the worst.

The biggest problems.

There’s only so much I can blame on the drought. We haven’t had much luck direct sowing summer squash in the past, either. Granted, last year it was slugs that were the big problem, and this year, we had lots of frogs taking care of those for us!

In the end, though, I think most of our issues were the same as with the transplants. Too much heat, drought conditions (even with watering twice a day) and so much smoke. Plus, tree roots.

What I won’t do again, and what I’m doing instead

I will have to find space for them, but summer squash will be started indoors again, for transplanting instead of direct sowing.

Beans and corn; there really isn’t anything I can do differently with those.

The peas did surprisingly well, but we need to ramp up our deer protection.

The carrots need less tree roots competing for space. Those have been winter sown in the trellis bed. If I plant more in the spring, I need to be strategic on where, to avoid those roots.

The chard I direct sowed were a complete fail. I have more varieties to direct sow in the spring, and those will go in earlier. I suspect it was partly too hot when they were planted, and the soil too compacted by watering.

Soil compaction is an issue. We need to add more organic matter to our soil. Preferably something like peat moss (Canadian peat moss is ethically harvested) that will also increase the acidity.

That might be another issue for everything. Our soil is so alkaline, and most things do better in slightly acidic soil. I’ve been amending with Sulphur, but it’s really hard to increase soil acidity. Especially with dark grey zone soil like ours, that leaches everything so quickly.

More high raised beds will allow us to control for that more, but this is the sort of thing that takes years to amend, even the slightest.

Food forest and perennials

Happily, we got quite a boost with our food forest this spring, adding a plum, another variety of eating apple more suited to our climate zone, new cross pollinating varieties of haskap and gooseberry. I remember we had gooseberry here when I was a kid and so loved eating them when they were really really sour! I look forward to eating them again.

The biggest problems

Deer. Drought. The insane number of rocks I find when digging holes to plant in.

What I won’t do again, and what I’ll do instead.

I won’t underestimate how determined deer can be, nor assume they won’t like something! I got spoiled by them ignoring the silver buffalo berry and sea buckthorn, though they did go after that one highbush cranberry, over and over again, last year.

In the spring, I’ll be making more wire mesh cages for the fruit and nut trees. The berry bushes seem to be okay.

I really need to find a place to transplant those grapes to.

Now that I’ve got the new strawberry and asparagus bed, I’m thinking of slowly turning that section over to perennials. Not next year, though. I have other plans for there, first.

Final thoughts

There were a lot of things out of our control this year, and some things I am just not sure what went wrong. Like with the red noodle beans.

With so many changes to our garden this past year, and not being able to reclaim spaces we’d planted in, in previous years, it really isn’t a typical year at all. We did have some surprise successes (peas, crocus) and big disappointments (no melons and almost no squash at all!).

At least I can call it a learning experience.

Here is the last garden tour video I did, where you can see the beds that are already winter sown.

Planning ahead to our 2026 Garden

Obviously, some of that is already in and done, with the winter sowing. We’ve got quite a head start to next year’s garden already.

Doing that meant I got a lot of seeds in advance. I took advantage of some big sales and replenished my stock from MI Gardener.

Here is what I got.

No, we aren’t planting all of that!

But we will be planting both old and new seeds.

My daughters and I went though my seed inventory to make some decisions on what we’ll be planting next year, outside of what I’ve already winter sown.

I just went into the basement, where my seed bins are stored, to get my lists and diagrams. Since I was there anyhow, I went ahead and uncovered the window between the two basements. I’d covered it with a piece of rigid insulation and had poked holes in it to allow for some air flow, but it clearly wasn’t enough. Once that was down, there was a literal wind of warmer air coming in from the old basement! Wow!

So that will make a difference. I’ll have to keep an eye on the thermometer I’ve got over my seed bin. The new basement tends to stay between 10-13C/50-55F, all year. I don’t have a thermometer in the old basement, but it’s often warmer than the main floor!

I didn’t write a list the varieties we intend to plant yet, but have the seed packets set aside. We intend to grow fewer plants of more varieties in some things. The varieties will be listed in future posts, but this is what we’ve decided to grow this year.

To start indoors

Winter squash and gourds. The gourds are my “fun” thing to grow.
Summer Squash.
Melons.
Cucumbers
Onions – bulb and bunching
Eggplant – hopefully, a variety my daughter is not allergic to!
Tomatoes
Peppers
Celery
Herbs
Flowers

So… yeah, I’m going to need to make space!

That doesn’t leave much for us to direct sow in the spring!

Spring Direct Sowing

Corn – short season and not to short season
Beans – pole and bush. If I have room, beans for drying
Potatoes
Flowers

Succession sowing

Peas
Chard
Spinach
Carrots

One thing I will have for 2026 is more room to plant in. There is one bed in the old kitchen garden that took forever to re-work, but it is now ready for planting, and included supports to hold hoops or whatever I end up using to hold covers and protect the bed from critters.

The bed that was winter sown with tall and climbing things was a major issue and a complete fail. I did have mesh netting to protect from the seeds, but it couldn’t protect from playful kittens. I’ve been gathering the materials and will rework that bed, yet again. It will be taller, narrower by a few inches, and like the reworked bed in the old kitchen garden, it will have supports I can attached hoops or wire or whatever I need to cover and protect the bed from elm seeds and critters.

The plan so far.

Which, I’m sure, will change a few times before the garden is completely in!

Let’s start with the old kitchen garden, which is mostly winter sown. There is the short side of the L shaped wattle weave bed that is open. I intend to plant herbs there, including fennel, though we want that more as a vegetable than an herb.

The newly finished rectangular bed could have root vegetables planted in it, so I was thinking of more carrots. However, it might be a better place to plant summer squash in.

The open retaining wall blocks are now all filled with transplanted alpine or whatever they are strawberries. Those will be for perennials, since nothing else seems to want to grow in them.

I did the same with the retaining wall blocks by the chain link fence. Hopefully, they will survive the winter. It’s hard to say, being planted in concrete blocks, but all the chimney block planters did get mulched for winter insulation.

Once the longer bed at the other section of chain link fence is redone, I am thinking winter squash and/or gourds would be good to put there. They can be covered until they’re too big for cats to get into, can climb the fence, and are too spikey for deer to eat.

In the East yard, two out of three rectangular beds are winter sown. In the third one, I’m thinking a couple of varieties of tomatoes can go in there.

There is a 4′ square bed in this section, which will get white eggplants transplanted into it.

In the main garden area, one of the beds is sown with Daikon radish on one side, turnips on the other. Down the middle, I plan to direct sow pole beans.

The high raised bed will get bush beans.

In the trellis bed, the winter sown peas didn’t fill the entire row, so we will transplant cucumbers in the last couple of feet.

Of the three remaining 18′ beds in the main garden area, one will have peppers, celery and tomatoes. The other will get squash and/or melons. The third bed will get potatoes.

The area near where the new asparagus and strawberry bed is, is still covered with black plastic, which has mostly killed off the grass and weeds that took over what used to be a squash patch before. I plan to pull that back and use that area to plant two varieties of corn that mature at very different rates, so there should be no issue with cross pollination.

Further out is the area where the Albion Everbearing strawberries were. I plan to sow bread seed poppies in that location, as part of the plan to slowly convert that whole section to perennials, or self seeding annuals that can be treated as perennials.

What you’re not seeing in there is flowers or onions.

The onions will get interplanted all over the place. The bulb onions are saved seed, but the bunching onions are new, so those I’ll try to keep in one spot. Perhaps interplanted with the herbs in the old kitchen garden or something.

The space at the end of the high raised bed will have flowers again – hopefully including those self seeded asters – but I also intend to have both transplanted and direct sown flowers scattered all over, interplanted wherever I find the space.

Somewhere in there, I want to direct sow some of the saved Hopi Black Dye seeds.

If all goes well, I’ll have at least one additional trellis bed done, and we can finish our first trellis tunnel, though maybe not in time for spring planting. If my brother is able to get one of his tractors going and we start dragging dead spruces out of the spruce grove – maybe even cut more of the dead ones down – I will have the logs needed to continue building pairs of trellis beds and, if all works out, pairs of beds that will become polytunnels. Once the second bed for the first trellis tunnel is done, though, framing the existing low raised beds are priority. Those will be only one log high for now, while the trellis beds will be started at two logs high. I’ve got only so many dead spruces to work with, so building the beds up higher will be left after we’ve got all the beds framed out that need it. Over time, I’d like for at least half of the raised beds to be increased to match the high raised bed – 4 logs high. I’m finding that the perfect height for reach, and for my back. I do want to leave some beds lower for things that grow tall, like corn or pole beans. The trellis tunnel beds may eventually be increased to 3 logs high, but we’ll see.

Then there are the perennials and trees.

I’ve placed an order for some Manchurian Walnut, which is one of the few nut trees out there that are hardy enough to grow here – it’s actually hardy to zone 2b, which is what we are in Canadian. I could only afford to get one, rather than any of their bundles. It will be planted in the outer year. In the same order, I was able to get a bundle of five Bleu Basket Willow. Those will be planted beyond the outer yard, where they will eventually be coppiced and used to grow stems for everything from, yes, weaving baskets, to wattle weaving and even willow furniture, if we want. Over time, I plan to get two other varieties of basket willows that are different colours.

We might have to buy replacement Korean Pine, too. We shall see.

We’re also looking at other types of hardy fruit trees to get as the budget allows, such as pears, or varieties of cherry that actually grow and produce in our climate zone.

All in good time.

All done!

Well, there we have it.

In the end, 2025 was a really rough year for gardening. Yes, we were able to harvest and the winter sown beds made a huge difference, but nothing really reached its full potential, including the winter sown beds, as well as the surviving ones did. So many people in our region struggled with their gardens.

I know a lot of people have been going on about “survival gardens” or sharing those idiotic memes about how, if we all grew gardens instead of lawns, no one would starve. Hogwash. Obviously, I’m all for growing as much of your own food as possible, however you can manage is, and to be as self sufficient as possible. I absolutely encourage people to do that, every chance I get. Especially in these unstable times. But the hype and expectations I’m seeing out there are not helping. Years like this show exactly how little control we actually have when it comes to growing our own food. There are bad growing seasons like this, but even if you have an excellent growing season and your garden is doing great, one storm could wipe it all out. Or it could be destroyed by animals, insects or disease.

As the old saying goes, hope for the best, plan for the worst. There will always be things happening we have no control over, other than how we respond to it.

The Re-Farmer

Books and trees

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I took advantage of some Cyber Monday deals on Amazon and ordered a couple of books on my wish list, last night. Just now, I placed an order for some trees that will arrive in the spring. (None of the links below are affiliate links. Links will open in new tabs.)

First up, the books.

One is Back to Basics: A Complete Guide to Traditional Skills. Fourth Edition. I actually have a 1981 Reader’s Digest edition, Back to Basics: How to Learn and Enjoy Our Traditional Skills. I don’t know that these are connected, as the one I’m ordering has an Abigail Gehring listed as the editor. No Reader’s Digest listed anywhere. Looking at the preview of the one I ordered, it does seem to be an updated version of what I have. Which is an excellent book.

The other is 40 Projects for Building Your Backyard Homestead: A Hands-on, Step-by-Step Sustainable-Living Guide This one has even been shipped already, even though I ordered it just last night.

Both of these are supposed to arrive before Christmas but Canada Post hasn’t exactly been reliable of late. I believe they are technically still on a rolling strike. We shall see. I look forward to going through both of them over the winter!

Next are the trees.

One is a bundle of five Bleu Basket Willow. I’ve been considering for some time, where the best place to plant them would be. Willow propagates easily, so the plan it to expand them. The source, Prairie Hardy Nursery, also has two other varieties of basket willow in different colours that I plan to get, when the budget allows. The plan is to coppice them so that they can be used for things like wattle weave fences and, yes, weaving baskets. Thinking long term, these will be planted beyond the outer yard, and will need to include protection to keep the renter’s cows from crushing them by accident, until they get bigger.

The other is a single bare root seedling, as part of our food forest; a Manchurian Walnut. While we have black walnut planted, they may or may not have a long enough growing season here for fully mature nuts to form. Normally, they wouldn’t, but the ones I got were from a nursery in our province, so they are probably acclimated already. The Manchurian Walnut is hardy to zone 2b. It’ll be 10-12 years before they start producing. As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree is 10 years ago. The second best time is now! They are also described as fast growing, so we should be able to enjoy the tree for its beauty before it starts producing. As with the black walnuts, these will be planted in the outer yard. They are self fertile, though it is recommended they be planted in pairs for better production. Which we might do, when the budget allows.

The nursery opened for the sales season in November, and the dormant seedlings will be shipped in the spring. I’ll get an email in April to work out the best shipping date based on our last frost date. If I am able to order more trees between now and then, they actually have a code to include to combine orders, so as not to increase the shipping fees, and everything gets shipped together. The shipping costs are relatively high, but they include insurance. Most places don’t.

It’s slow going, but little by little, we’re getting it things done!

The Re-Farmer

Finally mulched the new food forest additions

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It was getting ridiculously hot and muggy, but I wanted to finally get a good mulch around the newest food forest additions. I had just gone around them with the weed trimmer and, with the rain we’ve been having, it would grow back fast if it didn’t get covered.

Of course, I forgot to take a “before” picture, before I started! 😄

In the first to photos above, I had just laid out the first wheelbarrow load of wood chips. Before that, I moved out the hose I had set up in the rain barrel, taken away pieces of wood from when we had our pea and bean trellises out there that were weighing down the cardboard, and removed the leaky rain barrel and my watering can. I left the cages and the metal spinner.

The plum tree already had the largest area mulched with grass clippings, so I added the wood chips only up to the wire mesh. With everything else, I mulched closer in, but still made sure to leave a “donut hole” around the plants themselves. There was also a pile of grass clippings set aside when the area was prepped for planting, so I went ahead and added that in, too. With that added in, it took 4 1/2 wheel barrow loads to mulch the area, nice and thick.

After I got the two “after” pictures, I set the rain barrel back between the gooseberry and apple, making sure the cracked side was facing the middle. One of the sticks I’d removed earlier had been under the opposite side of the barrel to tilt it slightly towards the cracks, and that was returned as well.

By the time I was done, I was dripping with sweat, and we hadn’t even reached out high of the day, so headed back inside once this was done. I still want to head out to take garden tour video, but not quite yet!

I did get some video, though. I had gone back to the paths I’d worked on earlier today, and wow, those ants work fast!

This was just one small section in the video. You can even see one ant going by, carrying an egg. Already I can see openings to tunnels, all over the place! Those buggers work fast!

Crud. I’m going to need to get ant traps to get rid of them, since they’ll cause lots of damage here, and these ants are biters. I hate having to kill them, though.

While we currently have sunshine, heat and humidity where we are, I’m happy to say that there is a large system of rain passing over the north of our province, where most of the wildfires as still burning. There’s a possibility of up to about 100mm (just under four inches) of rain by tomorrow!

I think, over the next few days, I’m going to have to start setting up supports around some of our beds. Looking at the long range forecast into September, we might actually drop to potential frost temperatures in the first week. Even in the next week ahead, we have at least one night where we are expected to drop below 10C/50F. The eggplant seem the most intolerant of cold, but we’ve finally got some female flowers on the winter squash showing up! If we can just stay above 10C/59F for another month, we might actually have something to harvest.

Ah, well. Whatever happens, we’ll just have to deal with it!

The Re-Farmer

The other side, plus adorableness

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After my last post and how little seemed to have been done after all that mowing, when I headed out again this evening, I just had to get pictures from the other side.

In the first photo, you can actually see how little there is left to clear.

It’s also the densest section, so it’s going to take probably just as long to clear that section as it did to clear everything around it.

The fruit trees and bushes by the leaky rain barrel look so much better, now that it’s been weed trimmed and mowed around. Not that you can even see them in the photo! Over time, they will get a wood chip mulch around them, too.

The next picture is taken from the other end of the silver buffaloberry rows, and near the end of the crab apple tree row. That section by the crab apple trees was part of the super dense area, but it is also some of the roughest and uneven soil. When this section was plowed – badly – before we moved out here, there seemed to be some issue with turning the tractor in that corner. This was done by our vandal to “help” my parents. My sister is sure he was drunk when he did it. From the state of things, even after all these years, I think she’s right.

At this end, we will be planting more fruit trees on the north side, around where the newest ones are planted now. Along the east side we will probably be planting raspberry varieties that mature at different rates, so we can have raspberries for many months, along with other berry bushes and some varieties of nuts that grow on bushes, rather than trees. There are few nut trees that can grow where we are, and they can get very large, so those will get planted in the outer yard, as we acquire them.

Aside from feeling better about things after seeing just how little is left to clear in that corner, I got to enjoy some adorableness. My daughters took care feeding the yard cats while I was mowing, so they were all pretty calm.

While walking past the isolation shelter, I spotted a kitten looking back at me. Then another from the hammock.

Then more heads popped up!

Altogether, I saw three in the hammock, plus two by the water bowl.

I was considering moving the catio closer to the garage for the garage babies, but it was occupied, so I left it for now.

In the next image in the slideshow above, I managed to get a picture of the absolutely gorgeous little black and white kitten I’d been wondering about earlier, and whether it was a newcomer. I have concluded that is it not a new one; just one that I’m finally able to see well enough to identify it.

Must socialize the babies – and find them forever homes!!!

While I was outside, I could hear some thunder. Some areas of our province was getting tornado warnings, but where we are. Instead, the rain that was supposed to arrive in the wee hours of the morning was expected to hit this evening, instead. Then that changed again, and now we’re supposed to get rain closer to midnight, and it is supposed to keep raining for about four hours.

The garden will love that!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: tomato harvest and the status of things

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After soooo much wonderful rain yesterday, I really wanted to see how things were going in the garden while doing my rounds.

When I got to the bed with the ripening Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes, I decided to go ahead and harvest them. They’re a touch on the green side, but they will continue to ripen inside. I also grabbed the few bush beans that were available to gather.

I rather like the effect of the tomatoes reflected in the stainless steel bowl I put them in!

The next photo is of the one developing pumpkin that I hand pollinated; there’s another on that vine, but its flower has now opened yet. I’ve added support to the vine itself, to take some of the weight off the plastic trellis netting, but the pumpkin has already gotten heavier enough to start pulling down on it again. We will construct a sling for it soon. The vine can handle the weight. The temporary plastic trellis netting cannot.

The Hopi Black Dye sunflowers have had a lovely growth spurt and are getting quite tall. They should have seed heads by now, though, so it’s unlikely we will get anything to harvest. Even the Red Noodle beans have started to show signs of growth. Just barely. I don’t expect them to even start climbing the trellis before the growing season is done.

Of course, I checked on the new food forest transplants. Especially the Opal plum, with its fresh new growth.

And newly missing leaves.

I guess all that rain washed off the anti-deer spray I used on it, and the protective frame.

I went and got the piece of chicken wire I’d used to try and protect the Albion strawberries last year. It turned out to be just long enough to to around the frame. This, at least, the deer will not be able to get through!

The big crab apple tree that has the small but delicious apples is just reaching its peak period. Many of the apples are looking very red right now, though there are still plenty that aren’t ripe yet, among them. We could probably start harvesting some crab apples now, though they’re so small, it’s a lot more work to use them for any cooking. I grab a few on the way by to munch on as I do my morning rounds.

I was debating which project to work on today, but everything it still so wet, I might just stick to indoor projects and start some laundry. No hanging on the line, today, even though we’re not expecting rain. It’s still too humid. We’re also still under an air quality warning for smoke, though we are now on condition yellow instead of condition red.

We have had enough rain that even the grass has come out of dormancy and had started to grow again. We might even have lawn to mow, instead of having just a few patches growing. The overgrown area where the old garden used to be is going to need cleaning up soon. I’d left the alfalfa that was coming up to bloom for any pollinators we might have – there’s a lot less these days, than in the spring, probably because of all the smoke. Their bloom time is ending now, and the burdock is starting to get big, will start flowering soon, so we need to cut all that back before the burrs get too nasty. We might be able to start on that tomorrow. Depending on how things go today, I should be able to go in with the loppers and cut back the poplars saplings that are trying to take over.

I didn’t get a picture but the rain came down so yard yesterday that the almost white lengths of maple used in the wattle weave bed in progress are now grey with splattered soil from inside the bed! Which is saying something, since the soil is all pulled into the middle, to make room to work on the wattle weaving.

According to the forecast, today and tomorrow are going to reach a relatively cool high of 19C/66F, but the day after, we’re expected to scream up to a high of 28C/82F, with a possible small rainfall in the early evening. Then its supposed to drop down to more humane highs, hovering around 20C/68F, for the next while. No more rain, though. The monthly forecasts sees only one more rainfall between tomorrow and the end of the month. It also says we can expect the temperatures to climb up to 31C/88F on the last day of the month, and 33C/91F by Sept. 1st.

We’ll see what actually happens.

If we’re going to get any sort of harvest with the winter squash or pole beans, we need to have all of September to be warm. Especially the overnight temperatures, and that’s where things get dicey.

What this does show me is that, as we build our raised beds, we’ll have to think ahead to including ways we can cover them to protect them during cold nights, or even create mini greenhouses, with frames that can go over relatively tall plants. I couldn’t cover the radish bushes to protect them from the deer, for example, because none of the covers I have had room for them, except the box frame which is currently protecting the corn bed. We are working to keep the same dimensions on all the beds, so the covers can be interchangeable. The beds in the East yard are all 3’x9′, and that’s the size we’re working with. The log beds in the main garden area will all be 4′ wide on the outside which, with the thickness of the logs, means about 3′ of growing space inside. They will all be 18′ long, so two covers will fit on each bed. Once we have chickens, some of those covers will be mobile chicken coops, too, so we can let the chickens clean up and fertilize the beds after they’ve been harvested from.

Every year has been a different gardening year – especially weather wise! – and every year, we learn a bit more of what conditions we can expect, and can plan around in the future.

That is a process I expect will never quite end, and I’m okay with that!

The Re-Farmer

Morning in the garden

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I have to admit, I’m feeling disoriented right now, looking at the time. It’s still morning??

It was another mostly sleepless night, so I did my morning rounds, then went back to bed. I did get some sleep, but my brain just wouldn’t shut off. I’m starting to feel rather ill at this point.

Thankfully, we did cool down during the night, and today is not as hot. We’re supposed to have some rain in about an hour, and it should keep raining for a couple of hours. Which is good, because I wasn’t able to water the garden this morning.

I started off feeding the yard cats, as usual. This morning, little Colby – the fluffy orange and white feral – was actually in the space between the cat shelters, meowing for food! What a brave little one. Even the other three were in the grass, heading towards the cat shelters near the house. As I came closer, the tortie ran into the isolation shelter and watched me go by with the kibble from the bottom level, rather than running away. Alas, my hands were full, and I wasn’t able to get any pictures!

After the dry kibble is set out, the bowls of kitten soup get set out. Some of the cats have started to actually wait for the kitten soup before they start eating! I have to set a couple of bowls up higher for the four socialized kittens, then quickly set out more bowls in various spots outside, so they have a chance to eat before the grownups push them away. One of the larger two-sided bowls goes to the shrine feeding station for the Colby and his sibling. I also have the mixing bowl and add some kitten soup to some of the dry kibble bowls before taking the rest of it to the garage for the kittens and their mom living in there. These days, they are almost always outside and seem to have moved out of the garage and into the area directly behind it. This morning, I spotted the two kittens were making their way through the sun choke and asparagus beds. They seemed to be aiming for the shrine feeding station! It would be great if they did that.

After the cats were fed, I did my usual rounds, which includes switching out trail cam memory cards. For one of them, I get to check on the crab apple trees along the way.

There are lots of apples forming, and some of them are starting to blush. The apples on this tree still have a long way to go. They get larger and tend to be ripe in September, or even October. The big tree with smaller edible apples tends to ripen a month earlier.

Checking on the garden beds, there was this blooming pumpkin. Of the five plants, this one is the largest. It has one primary vine that is long enough that I’m starting to train it up the bean trellis – since the beans clearly will not grow large enough to start climbing it. You can see how yellow they are, in the background.

In the top right corner, you can see the sunflower that got its top eaten by a deer. It is sending up a pair of new tops that grew out from the bases of the remaining leaf pair.

The onions from last year are blooming nicely, and one of them was serving as a bed.

I could not resist getting a bunch of pictures of the sleepy bee!

While doing my rounds, it’s not unusual for me to be followed by one or more cats. Usually, Stinky comes along and wants all sorts of attention. Lately, though, I’ve had a tabby hanging out and calling to me. He has a high pitched, peeping sort of meow, and he meows at me like he wants attention. He’s feral, though, and will not let me near him. Instead, he circles around, lays on the ground when I stop, but if I move towards him, it’s a big NOPE!

This morning, he was rolling around adorably in the grass. He stopped when I tried to get video of his cuteness, though. 😄

It’s hard to be sure, but I do think I actually have been able to pet this cat – when it was a teenager! I think he’s the one that would hang out in the upper level of the isolation shelter, when it was set up against the house for the winters, waiting for me to fill the food bowl. That was the only time he allowed me to pet him, and he stopped doing that after the isolation shelter was moved to its summer spot. He’s much bigger now, but he’s got a mark on the side of his nose that makes me think it’s the same cat. That might explain the almost-socialized behaviour.

Today being Sunday, I do normally try to make it a day of rest, and it seems like today, I won’t have much choice. Lack of good sleep is doing me in. I do hope things improve, since I need to go to my mother’s for her evening med assist.

Ugh. I just checked the weather. According to two of my weather apps, it’s raining right now (it’s not). We’re at 26C/79F right now, and the humidex is 29C/84F. We’re supposed to cool down a bit, then reach our predicted high of 27C/81F at about 6 or 7 pm. Checking the weather radar, more thunderstorms are happening to the south of us. There’s still that huge, out of control fire across the lake. It has crossed provincial borders. Then there are more fires to the north, including an ever bigger one, also still out of control. There are so many fires, in a big swoop along the Boreal forest, starting from Alaska, all the way down into Northern Ontario.

We could really use a whole lot of rain right now!

The Re-Farmer

Food forest first, tiny harvest, and many changes of plans!

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If today had gone as originally planned, we would have dropped the truck off for the insurance claim repairs this morning, and been driving a Caravan until Tuesday.

The courtesy vehicle being broken down, the repairs and truck box cover replacement are now on hold.

Which should have meant a day at home, with no driving around.

Ha!

Last night was actually a very rough night for me. Zero sleep. You know those nights when you start to drift off, suddenly wake up and… that’s it. The more tired you get, the less you’re able to sleep.

That was my night.

I finally got up to do my morning rounds as usual. The morning was still pleasant. The high of 29C/84F my weather app said we were supposed to get, when I went to bed last night, with 31C/88F tomorrow was reversed by this morning. We did, indeed, reach 31C/88F this afternoon, and the humidity is at 85%.

I had intended to water the garden again this morning, but everything was still damp from last night’s watering, and I was feeling like I got hit by a truck, so I skipped it.

I did find a lovely surprise, though! Some flashes of red in a silver buffaloberry.

We have a food forest first.

Our first silver buffaloberry bushes have produced berries! Only two of them.

The berries are edible, but I didn’t try them yet. I believe they’re supposed to ripen to an even darker red, so I will wait a little longer before tasting one.

My morning rounds done, I intended to crash right away, but ended up chatting with my brother for a while, then making a call. My daughter’s computer was supposed to be shipped to their address yesterday, but it didn’t show up. The tracking information now said it would be delivered on Monday. My brother can’t work from home on Monday, which means it would get left at their front door with no one to bring it inside before it got stolen. We considered coming over and just hanging out on Monday, but to do that, we would need a house key, and we don’t have one.

He suggested we might be able to find out where the computer was, and perhaps pick it up from the depot, directly. After much searching on the website, I was able to find a customer support number to try calling.

Of course, the first thing I had to do was navigate the automated menu system. That finally sent me to the appropriate customer service department.

Which got me to the strangest recorded lecture I’ve ever heard. First, there was a bizarre speech about Canada Post being “accepting” of “diversity” and all the usual Woke butt kissing BS. Then it started to say that racism, bigotry, and abuse would not be accept – oh, and they were very polite. Be polite.

I would have taken the second part better if they hadn’t started with the first part, which is the epitome of racist and bigoted ideology, but I digress.

After a minute or two of a robot voice lecturing me, I finally got sent to…

… an AI support voice.

It took a couple of times go get it to understand that no, I did not have a business tracking number, but I did have a tracking number, and let me read it out. Then it basically told me exactly what the website did, and told, hey, did you know you could get all this from the website? You should really use the website.

When it ended by asking if there was anything else, I said no, I’d like to speak to a person.

“It sounds like you would like to speak to an agent!”

It then repeated the same thing it had before, ending with, is there anything else?

It took me three times asking to talk to a person before it finally transferred me to a person.

Who, much to my surprise, answered almost right away.

I explained the situation – after he got the tracking number and repeated to me exactly what the website and AI support voice already told me, assuring me that the package absolutely would be delivered on Monday. I told him that what I was asking was, where is the package now, and if we could pick it up ourselves, rather than wait until Monday.

Once he understood what I was after, he told me that the last time it was scanned was on the 22nd, when it got processed and shipped.

Three days ago.

Since it had not been scanned at any point since then, even though it was apparently in transit to my brother’s place, yesterday, they had no idea where it actually was.

…

So, there was nothing we could do. He couldn’t even tell me if it was in our province, never mind if it was in the city.

Well, so much for that idea.

I passed that on to my brother, and we left it for then, and I was finally able to crash for about an hour.

I had just woken up when I got a message from my brother.

With a picture of a package left next to their lock box. He just happened to catch the delivery as it happened!

Well, that changed our plans entirely!

My brother had to finish things up by 3pm, as he’s heading out of the province for the weekend for one of their grandson’s birthday. I updated my daughter and we were able to be on the road within the hour! Which is good, because it takes about an hour to get to his place, and by then it was just past lunch time.

We didn’t stay for long, as we knew he had lots going on. Much thanks and hugs were given!

Neither my daughter nor I had eaten yet, though, so on the way home, we swung by the Walmart we were at yesterday, and we had a quick lunch. While we were there, I picked up a big bag of kibble that I forgot to get yesterday. The outside cat’s kibble bin was going down fast, and I knew it wouldn’t last until our first city stock up trip.

By the time everything was done, we got home shortly after 3pm. Which is close to when I would normally do the evening cat feeding.

That didn’t happen quite yet, though. I noticed we had a message.

It was from home care.

They didn’t have anyone for my mother’s evening med assists tonight, nor for Sunday evening.

*sigh*

In the middle of all this, I started getting messages from the large animal rescue. They’ve had guided tours and a petting zoo open, as part of their fundraising and educational efforts. Poirot’s kittens are a big hit, and people are interested in adopting.

Of course, they all want a fixed and fully vetted cat, but not pay for it.

They do have adoption fees, but a spay is $300.

I made sure to tell them about the clinic we’ve been going to through the Cat Lady’s rescue, which is $175 for a spay.

We’ve been trying to adopt out cats for a long time now, and I’m starting to get really frustrated with people. Everyone wants a “free” cat, or at least very low adoption fees, but they also want the cat to have hundreds of dollars in vet care spent on them first.

Which is almost like saying they want to be paid to take the rescue.

Just one of the many reasons the Cat Lady is dropping out of rescue.

I had time to send in some of the information the local rescue lady was asking for. Mostly. I’m sure she’ll have more questions. Then I quickly did the evening feeding of outside cats before heading to my mother’s.

Of course, since I was there anyhow, my mother had stuff for me to do. 😄 Things the home care aides don’t do, like floor sweeping, or refilling her water bottles. The aides in the city will do light stuff like that, but not out here in the more rural communities.

My mother then wanted me to leave her morning pills out for her.

It turned out she thought I would be coming for all her visits for the entire weekend. I told her that she was covered for tomorrow and for Sunday morning, but I would be back on Sunday evening.

I did set out her bed time pills, and her inhaler, so that I wouldn’t have to come back for… pretty much the time I’m writing this, right this moment. As I was filling out the booklet where I record when I do these visits, my mother almost took her inhaler, which is supposed to be just before bed. Simply because it was there.

My mother is still convinced she can do her own meds, and doesn’t even really realize that, if I weren’t still there to stop her, she would have taken it at the wrong time. In this case, it would not have harmed her, but that’s why she has a lock box! Well. One reason why.

Once I was back home from my mother’s, I did the evening rounds I normally would have done after doing the evening cat feeding. I spotted this adorable sight and had to get a picture.

After getting the picture (I couldn’t see the second kitten anywhere), I went over and Pinky let me pet her. She even started purring and rolling around in that old barrel.

The kitten, however, disappeared behind the sheet of metal roofing and stayed hidden.

I had considered watering the garden for the evening, but we were getting severe thunderstorm warnings. The wind was picking up, and I could hear thunder in the distance.

Looking at the weather radar, it appears that particular storm passed to the north of us, but it’s still really windy, and I think more little storms are blowing towards our area. I even had some broken branches to pick up as I checked around the yard.

I did manage a tiny little harvest in the garden this evening.

A little handful of Spoon tomatoes!

I gave them to my husband as a little treat. He got a laugh out of them. They are so adorable!

Good grief…

As I sit at my computer, I can see out my window facing part of the maple grove. I’m watching these giant maple branches being violently blown about in the wind. I’m half expecting a chunk of that tree to break off! It has an overhanging branch that is so old and so thick, it’s basically another tree trunk.

Anyhow…

That has been my day today! Not at all as planned or expected.

Tomorrow, I’m expecting to be able to stay home for a change.

We’ll see if that actually works out!

Meanwhile, I think I’ll go visit my daughter and see how the new computer is. 😁

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties, plum recovery, and we have rain!

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My plan had been to take some recordings for my July garden tour video. It was raining a little bit while I was feeding the yard cats and doing my rounds, so that got postponed. I’m happy to say that the rain became heavier, and it’s still raining, several hours later. It’s supposed to continue to rain for at least two, maybe three, more hours.

This is such a good thing!

So my recordings will wait until later today – as will my trip to the post office to pick up my package of seeds from MI Gardener. I’m really looking forward to seeing those!

For now, here are some adorable kitties.

Sprout is there with three of the four feral kittens. I did see the tortie, but it was hiding when I took the images.

The white and black cat nearby is Ink. I can tell she’s nursing, and it seems that she is keeping her babies in the unoccupied farm across the road from us. I do wish they wouldn’t go there. Crossing that road can be quite dangerous for adult cats, like the late Poirot, never mind for kittens!

The next picture is of Pinky and her two, in the garage. I had to zoom in from well outside the garage to be able to get that shot. If I come any closer, the kittens run off.

As I was finishing up and about to head back inside, I spotted the adorable trio in the last photo, all snuggled together. That cat bed is supposed to be a cat cave, but it always collapses. I finally just rolled down the side, and the sides still collapsed! The kittens seem to like it, though, so that’s good.

Havarti was hanging out in the sun room doorway, and I wasn’t able to get a picture of him. When the weather is good, I have the outer door secured open, so it doesn’t blow around in the wind. With the rain, I secured it mostly closed (there’s a brick to make sure it can’t close all the way) to keep the weather out, but the cats and kittens can still get in and out as will.

So we currently have four socialized kittens, six feral kittens, and several cats that I can see are nursing, but no sign of kittens. From what I can see, they have small litters. Maybe two or three active nips, though it’s really hard to tell at times. Adam will jump up on the cat house to eat kibble and will let me pet her. She might have one active nip, but I really can’t tell. I get the sense the Brussel has had a second litter, but that’s based strictly on behaviour. She doesn’t seem to have any active nips, though with her long fur, I could easily be wrong. Then there’s Slick. I am sure Slick had an early litter that she lost, then got pregnant again. She isn’t pregnant now, but I can’t see if she has any active nips. Does that mean she lost another litter? Or maybe has just one kitten, and I can’t see the active nip? She has been letting me pet her while she is eating, but only when there are other cats I can pet at the same time, so there’s lots of movement. If it’s just her, she won’t let me close enough to touch her.

While doing my rounds, I was very happy to see how quickly the Opal plum is starting to recover so many leaves being eaten by deer.

At the base of every leaf that was eaten, a new leaf is emerging. Pairs of leaves, actually.

I really need to figure out some sort of fencing around the garden. The remaining beet greens, more radish plants, and even some carrot greens, were gone this morning. I do have a cover – two, actually – that will fit this raised bed, but not with the radish plants being so big.

Not that they’re going to stay big for long, at this rate.

The peas also look like more of them have been eaten. I did add the pinwheels, but those are a deterrent only if there is a wind to move them. Same with the wind chimes. The new lights I added are working – I can see them from my bedroom window at night – but they don’t seem to be much of a deterrent either.

One of the suggestions I’ve read is to have a radio set to a talk radio station playing all night. I think we even have some old “ghetto blasters” that we could use (anyone else remember those? They were so popular in the 80’s), but I’d have to set up some sort of shelter to put one in and protect it from the elements. I don’t think I’d want to do that, though. Hearing talk radio from outside during the night would not go over well. Usually, when we hear voices in the night, it’s something to be concerned about and check on, not ignore.

With the garlic bed empty and waiting to be cleaned up, I’m considering. Should I bother trying to plant something in it? In theory, we still have enough growing season to plant something like bush beans. Perhaps a late planting for a fall harvest will actually work. The beans we planted earlier all seem to have stalled and stagnated.

We could also try planting anything that either needs about 40 days to harvest, or handles frost well. So we could try growing peas, beets, chard or spinach, too. I could even try zucchini. Anything we plant now would have to have a cover over it, though, since these are all things the deer like to eat.

With how things I direct sowed this year have been stagnating, though, is it even worth planting something? Either things will stagnate again, or it will give us at least something to harvest. We should be harvesting all sorts of things right now, and there’s just nothing.

I’ll look through my seeds again and decide. I might just leave the bed and save it for winter sowing, so we will have something next year.

What do you think?

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 garden: deer damage

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I could see that the deer have been visiting our yard for a while now. The flowers on one side of the vehicle gate into the yard have lost all their tops. The winter sown garden bed in the east yard had its lettuces eaten, and then some of the radish plants and seed pods.

In the main garden area, they’ve been walking past the pea trellises and helping themselves to the greens. I’ve still been finding posts along the trellis wire but the outsides of the plants have been pretty decimated.

What really disappointment me, however, was the plum tree. It was growing so well, and growing taller than the protective tomato supports I’d set around it.

The top of it was stripped of its leaves, this morning.

I am so unhappy with this. Thankfully, they just ate the leaves and not the stem, but still… that’s a huge set back for the tree.

The other new plantings were untouched. They also are nowhere near large enough to outgrow their protective supports.

While at the Dollarama today, I was going to get more of the same tomato supports and just add a new one on top of the old one, to make a sort of tower.

Then I went looking at their display of garden stakes, where I found much taller versions of the same things.

I got two.

It was all I could do not to pick up a whole bunch more garden stakes.

Aside from the height, the new supports are pretty much the same as the old ones. They just needed three sets of cross pieces instead of two. I put the two sets together and set them around the plum tree. Then I used the cross pieces from the smaller set and put them in alternating spaces at two levels, to discourage deer from sticking their heads through.

Last of all, I set a couple of pinwheels at the top, facing in different ways to catch the wind from different directions.

I had another pair of pinwheels and set those up at each end of the pea trellis. I had also picked up a couple of lawn decorations with solar powered lights in them that I added to one end. I’m hoping the lights will discourage the deer, too. Finally, I got a wind chime we’ve had set aside for quite a long time, and hung that off part of the red noodle bean trellis, where it could hang freely. I didn’t bother taking a picture of that. This wind chime is made of bamboo hanging from half a coconut, with a wooden clapper in the middle. I much prefer the sound of wooden wind chimes over all metal ones.

Of course, the pinwheels and wind chimes won’t do a thing, if there’s no breeze to move them. At least the new frame around the plum tree with do that job.

By the time I was done setting all that up, the heat and smoke from the wildfires was starting to get to me, and I had to get back inside. I still need to water the garden, but it’s not supposed to start cooling down for at least another hour. We aren’t exacting rain for a couple of days and even then, who knows if any of it will actually reach us, or go right past.

I am so tired. I’m falling asleep at my keyboard as I write this. I’m glad we made it in to the city to take care of things, but it just sucks the energy right out of me.

It’s just about 7pm as I finish this, and I could go to bed for the night right now!

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

Kitten fix

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Something weird has happened with my traffic stats again, today. I have no idea why this is happening to my little Canadian blog. From about 4am to 10am today, I have gotten hit with over a thousand views, with the highest number at about 8am. Most are from Lansing, Michigan, with a significant portion from Ashburn, Virginia. This has happened before, and the hits are from the same two place, artificially inflating my stats. These are obviously bots of some kind, and they do nothing good for my blog. Whoever is doing this, I wish they would go away and not come back!

With that out of the way, here is our kitten fix for the day!

It took some doing, but I managed to get a shot of the little calico.

Big brother Colby is fluffy enough that he completely hid the calico from view until he moved to the other side of the kitten soup bowl. I’m glad to see Little Sprout getting some kitten soup, though she ran away while I was taking pictures, and didn’t get much. It would be great if we could lure the babies closer and socialize them, but we seem to have very little success with the calicos. I thought we’d be able to socialize Brussel, when she had her babies in the sun room, but now she’s almost as strange as her sister, Sprout.

While working outside today, I just had to pause and snap this picture of Eyelet.

He is so, so small! Absolutely dwarfed by the rhubarb leaves.

Those incredible eyes. Wow.

Much later in the day, as we were approaching our high of the day, I was finding cats splattered all over the place, trying to find any cool spot. The kittens especially like this spot.

The like that roll of mosquito netting, too! There’s another one that they ignore. This one is smaller and lighter, and I often find it knocked off the platform.

When it’s not being used as a bed or pillow by kittens!

On a completely different note; one thing about this time of year, when tending things outside, is there are more and more little things I can pick to snack on. The radish pods are getting prolific and there are many, many more tiny pods developing. Currently, we also have some wild saskatoons to enjoy!

With how dry things have been, they are not as big and juicy as they could be, but they’re not dried out, either. One of the jobs in my list over the next while is to clear the underbrush so we can better access the saskatoon bushes – and get rid of the stuff that’s crowding them and competing for water and nutrients.

It isn’t a lot, for July, even in our short season climate, but things are progressing. Hopefully, we will have another long, mild fall for an extended growing season.

Ha! I just checked the Government of Canada average first frost date for our area. I’ve been going by September 10. According to the updated map, if I go by the town to the north of us, it’s now between Sept. 18 and Sept. 21. If I go by the town to the east of us, it’s between Sept. 21 and 24. Yet another source has it between Sept. 21 and 30.

The Farmer’s Almanac still has our last frost date at June 2, and first frost date at Sept. 10, for a 99 day growing season. Frankly, I think the Farmer’s Almanac is the most likely to be correct.

We shall plan accordingly – both for the garden, and for taking care of the kitties!

The Re-Farmer