With company coming tonight, I headed out this morning to do a couple of errands.
I’m glad I was able to do at least a bit of mowing around the driveway yesterday, so our guests will have someplace to park. Even if the grass had not gone to hay, I couldn’t have mowed all of it, as there is still open water along one side of the driveway.
Definitely a place to dig a drainage ditch.
As it was, just mowing along the edges took quite a bit of going back and forth, even though I had the mower set higher than I usually do. The rest will have to be done with the scythe.
Since all the dandelions have seeded and died back, we could actually keep the hay we scythe for mulch in the garden, now. As long as we cut it before the seeds are fully developed. Otherwise, we’d just be planting lots of grass in our garden!
My errand of the morning was to head to our little hamlet’s general store/post office/gas station/liquor store to pick up some booze for our guests. We’re all out of our home made hard cider (looking forward to making more!).
They have a small seed display from Lindenberg Seeds Ltd, and I ended up picking up a couple of packets.
The spinach we planted in the high raised bed is doing well. The spinach we planted in the low raised beds, not so well. In fact, they’re barely there. I can’t tell if they’ve been eaten by insects, or if it was just too wet for them. I know they haven’t been eaten by critters, because the beds have onions planted around them, and if anything had gone through, the onions would be flattened in places. They care completely undisturbed.
We do have seeds from one variety of spinach left, if I remember correctly, but I decided to pick up two more. Bloomsdale and Hybrid Olympia. It’s getting too for spinach now, though. These will be planted at the end of July/early August for a fall harvest. Hopefully, we will have generous quantities like we had last year, that we can dehydrate for later use. It was very handy to be able to add a spoonful of dry spinach to dishes every now and then. We’ve been out for a while, though, and I miss it!
Spinach is definitely one of our favourite greens, for all of us.
Ever since I found that one giant pumpkin plant with a broken stem, I come out in my morning rounds, expecting it to be yellow and withering away.
Which is most certainly NOT happening! Even with an ant hill almost right up against it, that pumpkin is still green and growing!
How remarkably resilient!
This morning, I decided to fill in gaps by the sweet corn. There is no sign at all of the green bush beans that were planted along one side.
These are the beans I picked up to replace them; Stringless Green Pod. Odd to have a description instead of a variety name, but this brand does that a lot. At only 50-55 days to maturity, there is no issue at all with direct sowing this late. With the other beans we’ve planted, we’re still in the window of successive sowing for our area. There were also enough seeds to plant them on both sides of the sweet corn rows, which is what I’d intended with the seeds from last year we’d planted. There just wasn’t enough of them left to do both sides.
With all the water that got into this area, I’m actually a bit surprised we got as much corn sprouting as we did, but both the Latte and the Tom Thumb corn have plenty of seedlings. While planting the new beans, however, I could see the soil was crusting at the top.
Time for mulch.
I used roughly half of a 40 pound bag of stove pellets. The Tom Thumb corn got a slightly thicker layer of pellets, since there is nothing else planted with them. After the beans start coming up, we’ll see if more needs to be added there or not. The beans themselves are intended to act as a mulch for the corn, so it may not be needed.
Normally, after soaking down a layer of pellets, I’d use the back of a fan rake to spread the sawdust evenly. Not an option when added around seedlings like this. I gave them a good soak, then came back later and used different pressures of water to break up the pellet shapes and spread the sawdust out more. This should both help keep the soil from drying out and crusting on the surface, but also absorb and hold water if we get another deluge.
My next goal of the day is to do some mowing in parts of the outer yard. The area I did with the scythe can now be done with the push mower, and I want to at least clear along the sides of the driveway and in front of the chain link fence. My BIL and his family are coming out tomorrow evening, and it would be nice for them to have somewhere to park. :-D
I get to break in my new boots in the process. Not that they seem to need breaking in! My steel toed shoes have been falling apart for a while, but I have the hardest time finding footwear that fit my wide, messed up feet. I usually get a men’s size 9, triple wide, just to be able to get my feet in, but a lot of styles rub or pinch in the wrong places, because they’re made for the average man’s foot. My feet are shorter and wider than average. Just like the rest of me. ;-) The end result is that even if I find a pair that fits, the shoes bend with my feet in places they were not designed to bend. With the stress in the wrong parts of the shoe, they always end up cracking and splitting in the same places.
I wreck shoes rather quickly.
My husband, darling that he is, ordered a pair of work boots for me online. He chose a men’s size 9 1/2, triple wide, lace up boots with zippers on the inside, so they can be removed without undoing the laces.
They came in yesterday.
I was really not expecting much. I figured they would be too big, but there is no consistency in sizing at the best of times. Online shopping is much, much worse.
Much to my shock, not only did they fit, but they seem to fit perfectly! It actually feels bizarre to wear them. I’m just not used to this. Not only are they wide enough for my feet, but they’re not too long; there isn’t a huge empty space in front of my toes, like there usually is. They are even bending in the right spots as I walk!
There are only a couple of issues. The first is that I can’t lace them up all the way to the top, because of my over developed calves. Which is fine. I can’t even lace up my snow boots all the way, so I’m used to that.
The second issue involves the zipper area. There is a gusset under the zipper, and the top of it rubs against the skin of my leg. More on the left leg than the right, and to the point of considerable pain. I ended up stuffing my pantlegs into the top of the boot to stop it.
The solution to that is, I have to wear them with tall socks.
I never wear tall socks.
Usually I wear ankle socks. If I wear sport socks, I fold them down to the ankles, like Bobby socks. If they don’t get folded down, they fall down, anyhow. It’s those overdeveloped calves again.
Not much choice, though. If I don’t wear them, I’ll ended up bleeding.
So far, I’ve just been wearing them for normal walking around. We’ll see how they do with the constant walking while mowing the lawn. So far, the boots seem to be keeping the socks from falling down like they usually do.
This morning, after finishing my morning rounds, I headed over to a town north of us to pick up our freezer pack of beef that we ordered from a local rancher. I had a chance to chat with her about the flooding this spring. The town had some massive road damage, and it’s still being repaired. Their farm, however, is slightly elevated from the town, so they had no flooding. The way she put it, if they ever got flooding where they are, the town would be under water.
The moisture and rains have been both a blessing and a challenge. Because of the weather, their cattle got put out to pasture later than usual, but for the first time in many years, the grass was already high. Last year at this time, there was almost no pasture at all, and everything was crispy. They grow their own feed as well, and her husband finally got out to finish seeding just today. It’s late, but if we get another long fall, that should be fine.
We also talked about our arrangements to get a quarter beef in the fall again. Ordering so early helps them plan things out. As for the monthly payments, my thing is, if I’m going to have to set the money aside anyhow, I would rather the money go to them, to help feed the cow we’re going to be eating! :-D It’s a win-win, for sure. :-)
Since we met in the grocery store parking lot, I quickly popped in to pick up a few things. We are confirmed for company in a couple of days, and I’m still hoping for a cook out. Then I took the opportunity to go to the hardware store. I’m happy to say, I was able to find the trellis net I was looking for!
I got three, just in case, and I’m glad I did.
The nets are 12 ft long, but these rows are about 20 feet long, at the centre poles. The actual planting area and the A frame uprights are a bit less than that, but not much. With the second trellis I wored on, on the right, I’d had one trellis to lay out on one side. It’s long enough to reach across 4 upright poles, with twin to lash them taught. With the first one I worked on, on the left, I hadn’t had enough poles to do the cross pieces on the bottoms at first, so I put two on each side, alternating which pair of poles they were attached to. When I put up the 2 nets we had left over from last year, so that they were attached to the bottom poles, that meant the empty gaps were at opposite ends.
For the trellis on the right, I was able to put up a new net across from the one I’d put up before, leaving the space between the last poles open. That allowed me to take a second net and wrap it around the end, where the big rock is.
With the other one, I had to got the last net in half to cover the gaps at opposite ends. I’d much rather have not had to do that, but the alternative would have been to undo and move one of the trellis nets that were already up.
They are VERY thoroughly lashed in place.
I wasn’t going to do that. :-D
The trellises are now ready for the pole beans, peas and gourds to start climbing!
One of the things I did while in town was pick up a package of green bush beans. The ones we planted with the sweet corn are not coming up at all, so I decided we can replant them. With bush beans, we can get away with planting this late. That’s something I’ll be doing later today.
My other project outside was to see if I could get my daughter’s old market tent frame useable again. A couple of summers ago, we had it set up near the fire pit in preparation for a cookout when we suddenly got high winds. A couple of pieces that were joined in the middles at a pivot point, snapped. It’s a really good tent, so even though it was broken, we kept all the pieces.
We used the frame to support the surface used to harden off our seedlings. I’d made an insert to join the snapped ends and keep them from bending too far, then duct taped the ends together. Today, I took a couple of very short metal pieces from the canopy tent I dismantled once things thawed out enough to remove the tree that fell on it, and taped them to the broken bars to support them even more. Then I dug out the tent roof and set it up near the fire pit. Once the roof was on, the tent fully set up and I confirmed the patch was holding, I folded it all closed again. It was too windy to leave out. However, it is now ready for us to use near the fire pit. I want to set the picnic table up inside it, and have at least two of the walls hung, so we can set up some citronella candles to help keep the mosquitoes at bay!
The big problem with that plan is, the picnic table is on it’s last legs. Every time I’ve moved it, some other part either bends, or pops off it’s screws. Which is to be expected. We cleaned it up and painted it, but it was still very rotten, and we knew it wasn’t going to last much longer. We can still use it, as long as we’re gentle with it.
Which means no more moving it around with just one person!
It took until just past 2am for my video to upload – only for YouTube to end processing, because it was longer than 15 minutes. I’m sure I’ve uploaded videos longer than that in the past. Worse, to fix the problem, I had to give them a phone number to verify my account – then delete the upload and start all over again.
Five hours later, the upload is done, but YouTube is still doing their checks, including HD processing. I’ve never had any troubles like this before!
But, it’s up! And here it is. I hope you like it, because it was a real pain to get it available! If there are any troubles viewing it, please let me know.
My morning rounds are taking longer, as I am able to do more in the various garden beds as I go along.
I harvested the largest of the chive blossoms, before they go to seed. While I continued with my morning rounds, one of my daughters washed and de-bugged them, then laid them out on a cooling rack in a baking tray to dry. They are in the oven, with no heat at all, to protect them from the cats. Once the wash water is dried off, we’ll stick as much of them in a jar as we can, with olive oil. Any extras will go in the freezer. Or maybe I should split them into two jars and use them all. There are more chive blossoms to harvest later on, so we’ll have plenty to infuse in vinegar, too.
Speaking of drying things, during the night that cats did manage to get at the stacked screens of drying mint leaves. We’ve lost about 2 screen’s worth of mint leaves to the floor. :-(
When I moved on from the old kitchen garden to check on the squash patch, I noticed one of the giant pumpkins was no longer upright. I thought it might be because it had grown large enough to start leaning over, but I was wrong.
The stem is broken, right at ground level. Possibly from the high winds we’ve been having. Or…
Possibly weakened by the ant hill that has formed on that side of the pumpkin mound!
I built soil up around to support the stem again, in the off chance that it will survive, but with a break that large, I don’t expect it to. We are likely down to just one giant pumpkin plant.
Everything else in the squash patch seems to be surviving so far, and I’m seeing new growth in most. The squash that were started at 4 weeks are so very small, though. I kinda feel like maybe we should have started them at 6 weeks.
I had a very pleasant surprise in the tomato patch nearby, though!
Of course, the camera on my phone didn’t focus where I wanted it to. :-D
We have our first tomatoes forming!
These are on the Sophie’s Choice tomato plants. We got these seeds as a freebie with my order from Heritage Harvest, which was a very pleasant surprise. They have a much shorter growing season, and were started indoors at around 10 weeks or something (it’s a good thing I am using the blog as a gardening journal to record the details, because I’m already forgetting!). So I am not surprised that these are the first to start forming fruit.
We did get some rain last night, but it was light enough that much of the water in the garden was able to get absorbed by the soil, and the paths are just really wet, instead of big puddles of water. That meant I could finally do some much needed weeding in the summer squash bed, then pruning of tomatoes.
I took some of the strongest, healthiest looking branches that I pruned off the Sophie’s Choice tomatoes and transplanted them in the open spaces between the summer squash. I don’t know if I’m breaching any companion planting rules here (do tomatoes and squash go well together?), but whatever. If they take, great. If not, that’s okay, too. I specifically wanted to propagate more Sophie’s Choice tomatoes, as they are listed as extremely rare, so if I can save seed and help keep the variety going, that would be a good thing. Because they start producing so much faster than the other varieties we have, I’m not as concerned about cross pollination.
While I was weeding and tending different parts of the garden, I had Rolando Moon hanging out and keeping me company. Not wanting attention. Just being nearby.
I had to chase her out of one of the sweet potato bags, as she decided to start rolling in it! Then she jumped up into the high raised bed and lay down on some onions. THEN, she moved into the squash and corn patch, and sat on some corn seedlings!
That cat seems determined to be destructive!
Meanwhile…
The tomatoes are not the only things blooming. Two of the Styrian hulless pumpkins have suddenly burst into bloom, and they are all covered with buds again. Their first buds had been pruned away when they were transplanted. They look to still be all male flowers. I’m debating whether these flowers should be pruned away, too, so more energy can go to the plants establishing themselves more. It hasn’t been that long since they were transplanted, after all.
Anyone out there know if it would be helpful to prune the flowers off now or not?
The beans and peas at the trellises and bean tunnel are looking quite good. The cucumbers seem more touch and go. The first peas that were planted are getting quite large, and the snap peas are already large enough that some have latched onto the vertical trellis strings already. The snap peas are growing noticeably faster than the pod peas.
There is a single, out of place pea plant that showed up, right near the upright post at the start of the row. It seems to be a pea from last year that finally germinated! It germinated quite a bit earlier than the others, and I’m trying to train it up the support post, since it’s too far from the vertical lines to climb. Last year, we planted the King Tut purple peas here, so that’s what this one would be. It’s even almost as large as the purple peas we started indoors from saved seed, and transplanted against the chain link fence to climb. They are all tall enough that they’ve attached themselves to the fence and are making their way upwards, even though they are still looking kinda spindly.
The Wonderberries have been ripening, though the plants haven’t really gotten any bigger, and have what looks like weather damage. I’ve been able to taste them. They are lightly sweet, but don’t have any predominant flavour. This may be something we just leave for the birds. I’ll have to get the girls to try them, too, and see if they like them. I don’t mind them self seeding in this location, as I’d rather have the berry bushes that produce food, either for us or for the birds, than the invasive flowers.
In other things, my plans for the day have had to change. My sister never made it out to my mother’s yesterday, because my mother told her it was “too soon” to start packing and bagging things in preparation for her apartment being sprayed for bed bugs. She has a shift today, so that’s out. My brother, meanwhile, is out of town for a funeral that had been delayed until now by the lockdowns. So it looks like I’ll likely have to go to my mother’s to help out. I’ll phone her, first, once I’m sure she is back from church. My sister will be able to come out tomorrow morning, and I hope to come out in the early afternoon for the last of the packing and bagging, and moving of larger items. Then she’s back the next morning to bring our mother to her place for the night. I’ll head over in the early evening to check on the place and make sure it’s locked up while my mother is gone.
On Tuesday, I should be heading into the city for the first half of our monthly shopping, too. I will time it so I can check her place on my way home.
Which means I’ll be getting very little accomplished at home over the next few days!
Yesterday, I weeded mint out of the beet bed – one entire end was completely stunted because they were shaded out – then kept on going, harvesting mint from the path as well. The sump pump drains into here, and the growth is absolutely lush! By the time I was done, I had a huge arm full! This is all mint that was here before we moved in, so we have no idea what variety it is. I know it’s not spearmint. I don’t think it’s peppermint, either, but I really can’t say for sure.
Once inside, I took the best leaves off the stems and gave them a wash. Then I cleaned up and dragged in the old window screens we used last year for curing onions, drying spinach, etc. I covered the mesh with paper towels, then set out as many leaves as I could fit onto them to dry.
I didn’t even use half of what I’d gathered!
Yes, this is the drying mint!
I used small glasses and jars as spacers so we could stack the screens on top of each other, but the cats were incredibly interested in what was going on. So we put more little jars as spacers on the top and covered the whole thing with a cloth. We still caught them on top of the stack, but at least the cloth kept the leaves clean.
Then, some time later, my daughter got Cheddar out from under the cloth at one end. *sigh* We tucked the ends under the bottom screen as best we could.
When I lifted the cloth on one side this morning, however, I found the cats had still managed to get under it!
I salvaged what I could and set it up again on the old dishwasher that’s still waiting to be taken out to the junk pile. Since the leaves have shrunk, I was able to fit them closer together on the screens that needed to be redone. For now, we’re keeping the sheet off, so they can get more air circulation.
Drying things on screens like this can work quite well, but protecting it from the cats is a problem!
Meanwhile, I used fresh mint to make a big pot of strong mint tea this morning, and there is still lots left in the fridge. There is much more to harvest in the garden, as we want, too.
The chives are blooming right now and ready to harvest if we want to make infused chive blossom oil or vinegar again. We have the olive oil to do that now, but I won’t be picking up more of the white wine vinegar I like to use until we do our next city trip. I might just harvest the chives, anyway, and freeze the extra until we are ready to make the infusion.
I love that we can already start harvesting things and preserving them!
Our very first strawberries are forming! Yes, we’ve had wild strawberries before, but these are our first strawberries that we’ve planted ourselves.
We had more rain last night, so it was very wet while doing my morning rounds. We’ve had more rain throughout the day, and high winds – even tornado warnings earlier on. Not getting much done outside right now.
Not getting much done inside right now, either. I had a sleepless night, and while I should have been doing other things (including catching up on the blogs I follow; I’m so behind on that!), I ended up throwing a hunk of pork in the slow cooker, then taking a much needed nap. The girls and I need to be working on the basement, but there is a lot of stuff that needs to go to the burn barrel, but it’ll just get wet, so there’s no point right now. Hopefully, they’ll be able to work on it tonight.
I did make it out to my mother’s to drop off plastic bags and storage bins for her to use to prepare her apartment for getting sprayed for bed bugs. My sister had called her yesterday about coming today, and my mother told her not to – it was too early. !!! *sigh* Hopefully, at least one of my siblings will be able to come out to help her tomorrow, then I’ll be back the day after to help with the last, big stuff.
Meanwhile, we could really use a few dry, sunny days!
I am so, so glad the girls were able to get the clogged downspouts cleared yesterday! We had a thunderstorm last night, and are currently under weather alerts for more severe thunderstorms.
This is the one, draining into the north yard, that was causing the most problems. It is under this corner that the most water is leaching into the basement. This basement does have weeping tile, but they are not working as they should anymore, and are probably clogged at this end.
There is another downspout at the south end, but it had only the short piece of eavestrough at the end to divert the water away from the house. For some reason, we’ve got about a dozen or more downspouts in the garage, so I grabbed one for them, and they set it up to extend into the bed where the dwarf Korean lilac is. With how tall the grass is in the outer yard, it was actually a struggle to get through it, to reach the barn!!
I’ll put up with the extension blocking the path along the house. It’s not as bad as the north corner, but we do have water seeping into the basement a bit in the south corner, too. The wall is partly damaged by the roots from the Chinese elm my mother planted for shade in front of the kitchen window. :-(
While they worked on that, I worked on the trellises.
I decided I’m just going to have to buy more of those bamboo stakes once pay comes in. A pair of them was set up at each of the uprights for the two rows that need trellising. That left me with 4 stakes left. I lashed them to the bottoms of alternate A frames, for 2 on each side. To finish the job on both rows, I’ll need 10 more of these 6′ bamboo poles. Then I used the net from last year and set that up, lacing twine along the ends and at the bottom stakes, to snug it up. We need to get more of this type of net. The spacing is large enough that we can reach through to harvest our beans, peas or cucumbers. The other net we have is 1/4 inch mesh.
After this, I also put a simple rope fence around where we have squash, beans and corn planted. At this point, I just want to stop the deer from walking through it. They’re not after anything there – yet. You’ll see that set up in a photo below.
During the night, the skies opened and the rains poured down! I actually slept through it, awakened only by one exceptionally loud peal of thunder. While doing my rounds this morning, however, I could not believe how much water there is, everywhere! It must have been quite the deluge! I’m still holding out hope to be able to mow the west and north lawns, but that’s not going to happen today, that’s for sure! The west lawn is now mostly under water. Most of the north lawn as well. I’ve never seen that much open water in those areas before.
The squash patch is very wet – thankfully, the straw mulch is helping keep that under control. We’ve had paths between the low raised beds filled with puddles before, but not this much around where the grow bags and the small potato bed are.
I’m actually surprised the mosquito netting has held out. Their purpose is to keep the plants from being pounded by rain or hail, while still letting the water through, and it seems to be working. They’re only held in place with wooden clothes pegs!
I’m standing in water to take the above picture. There is even a large puddle next to the remains of the straw bale. The melons are likely good with the wet – they do need a lot of water, normally – but I’m concerned that some of the potatoes might get drowned.
This is the patch I “fenced” off last night. I used some old conduit pipes I found in the barn and pounded them in place as fence posts. They’ve got 2 lengths of twine running around them, far enough apart that we can just bend down and step through to get to the plants. I also dangled lengths of bells in different places, so even if a deer decided to step through, it would hopefully make a noise and distract it away. I added one of the pinwheels we have to the top of a pipe for the distraction. Little by little, we’ll set up more distractions and noise makers around the garden beds. Eventually, we will probably have to put a hardware cloth fence up, to at least protect the corn.
Assuming the corn and beans survive. As you can see, the sprouting corn is under water in places. The north end of the row with the popcorn in it is all under water. Still no beans coming up next to the sweet corn. Will they survive? I have no idea.
Even the area where the trellises are is full of water. This corner of the yard has been notorious for being incredibly dry and baked hard by the sun. Thankfully, the rows themselves are slightly elevated with the addition of garden soil and mulch, and even our digging and weeding before planting means where the plants are growing, the soil has better drainage.
The nearby sea buckthorn is high enough to not be in puddles – and they are finally unfurling their leaves! Nice to see they all took.
The silver buffalo berry is also doing surprisingly well. Moving south, the land slowly slopes downwards, so the last 10 or so silver buffalo berry are in pools of water. At least three of those have been in water for quite a while, and are still okay. They seem to be quite resilient!
The beds in the east yard are almost surrounded by water. Remarkably, the ground cherries are doing all right. I think that grass mulch is acting as a sponge, keeping them from being drowned out completely. There are pools of water right next to the mulch.
The paths between the low raised beds, and the entire lawn in front of them, is full of water. There is basically a pond in front of the outhouse. Thankfully, the raised beds are making a difference. There is increased growth visible in the Kulli corn, and the beans between them are looking very healthy. The tomatoes and onions are also looking strong – and those onions are really taking off! The 6 transplanted garlic at the far end of the third bed may not all make it, but the rest of the garlic is finally looking like they are taking off. I figure they are at least a month behind the garlic in the main garden area.
The other beds in the south yard are all high enough to be out of water. It looks like all 10 of the sunchoke tubers planted are now sprouted; some of the tubers have multiple stalks coming up. The asparagus and strawberry bed are right next to the vehicle gate, which is full of water, but the bed is doing well. Likewise, the beds along the chain link fence, on either side of the people gate, are above water and doing well. Still no signs of white strawberries.
The old kitchen garden has a slightly different situation. We’ve deliberately built it up over the past 4 years and have the retaining wall at one end, so it’s above the water that is in the lawn surrounding it. The house itself also usually keeps parts of it from getting rained on as much, not to mention the ornamental apple trees. However, the sump pump hose drains into the sun room garden, and that pump is going off quite frequently. It drains next to the bed where we’ve got the beets planted. I shift the end every now and then, so it’s either draining straight down a mulched path between the bed and the laundry platform, or it’s draining into the mulch at the end of the bed, and partly down the path on the other side.
These are all areas that are normally drier than everywhere else. Until this year, the sump pump basically never went off, because we’d been so dry. Now, not only are we getting more rain, but there’s all that nice, clear water from the sump pump reservoir being added. There is currently so much lush growth along the house side of the old kitchen garden that the path we made using salvaged cap stones, bricks and rocks along the house is almost hidden. The high end of the beet bed is almost overgrown with mint – and I dug up and transplanted as much of the mint from there as I could, last fall. Then again in the spring, I pulled up more of it when getting the bed ready for planting! The path is also full of mint at that end, along with loads of crab grass. Moving north along the house, it’s more of those invasive wildflowers, some of which my mother planted deliberately, not knowing they were invasive, and some are the same ones we’ve got taking over all over the place. I don’t mind them in the paths too much, but they’re coming up in the L shaped bed, too, and choking out the lettuce.
We have a drainage hose for the sump pump, but it’s currently being used for the washing machine to drain outside (it sounds like whatever is causing the water to back up in the pipes is still a problem). I’d like to add an extension so that the sump pump drains further away. With the length these hoses come in, we could even move the end to different areas of the old kitchen garden that might need more water, if we wanted. The area it’s draining into right now is getting to be too much of a jungle! :-D
We had already determined that we’ll be building high raised beds for mobility reasons. For some crops, like corn, tomatoes and vining plants, we would still want to have low raised beds. High raised beds are notorious for drying out quickly and needing more water, which is why we are using modified hügelkultur methods to fill them, with all those layers of wood and organic matter acting as a sponge to hold water. This spring has shown us that even for a wet year, there are benefits to having raised beds, as they are keeping things from being drowned, too. Even a few inches of elevation or a mulch is making a difference.
When we get around to building permanent high raised beds in the outer yard, from what I’ve been seeing so far, water like this will be less of a problem. There are patches with water collecting in them, but where we are planning to build the beds seems clear. We’ll see better once we finally get that overgrown grass cut. It’s about 3 ft high, at least! I almost feel like asking one of our neighbours if they have a grazing animal we could borrow. Otherwise, it feels like such a waste to cut it all!
Yesterday, forecasts said we were supposed to have a couple of dry days. While I was out and about with my mother, I saw lots of people mowing, so when I got home, I decided to do some preparatory weed trimming. The beans and peas are coming up nicely, and some of the cucumber plants are getting pretty big, so we need to get those A frame trellises up. I picked up some 6′ bamboo stakes to use as supports. I’d hoped to use pieces of poplar, like the frames are made of, but of what we have, any pieces long enough were too thick or too crooked. If it was straight enough, or thin enough, it was too short. So, bamboo stakes it is. Unfortunately, they cost a fair bit; just under $10 for a bundle of 6. I was only able to get 4. Not enough for what I was thinking to do.
Before we could set those up, I got out the weed trimmer and a whole lot of extension cord, and trimmed the paths as close to the ground as I could.
Which is about when I started hearing thunder.
I did get the trimming done, then 4 pairs of stakes lashed together and set up at the trellis with the cucumbers. I had planned to set up 5 pairs – one at each upright support – then have cross pieces at the bottom, to help support the netting. With only 4 pairs, I don’t think they’re long enough to join with cross pieces.
I was able to lash together 4 more pairs of stakes before I was driven inside by rain. We ended up with quite a thunderstorm with heavy rain and strong winds. We even lost internet and had power fluctuations.
Still, when I headed out this morning, I thought we might at least be able to do some mowing in the west yard, but no. There’s water all over, and even the usually drier spots are squelchy. :-/
Quite a few new flowers are blooming. The ornamental poppies have exploded along with the dwarf Korean lilac, and even some wild columbine is blooming. The yellow lilies near the fire pit that I keep intending to divide and never quite get to, are in full bloom.
I waded through the tall grass and water to check on the Korean pine. A couple of them are in puddles of water! Five of them are showing new growth, but the one that got dug up by something looks like it has not survived. A lot of the needles have turned brown.
While checking one of the pine trees, I kept an eye out for the strawberries I saw before. They are now mostly hidden by the tall grass, but I could still see them. They are still blooming.
The corn we recently direct sowed are starting to come up! The popcorn seems to be a bit slower in germinating than the sweet corn. No sign of the green bush beans, yet.
The garlic that is doing really well in the main garden area is now starting to grow scapes. The other garlic, that seemed to have been set back badly by the extended winter, are finally starting to really perk up and grow, though they are still quite small. I’m seeing carrots coming up in the various beds, but a lot of the turnips that I saw before now seem to be gone. One variety seems to be holding out, even if the tiny leaves are riddled with holes.
No sign of the bare-root white strawberries starting to grow. Those might be a total loss. The red strawberries we transplanted with the asparagus are still blooming, though.
Everything is so wet, wet, wet – and we’re supposed to get more showers tonight! In fact, now the forecasts are saying nightly showers, or thunderstorms, for the next 5 days. This is frustrating. One of the down spouts is clogged. Normally, the girls would go out onto the roof to clear it, through one of their windows. Their windows, however, are pretty much coated with mosquitoes. Which means using a ladder, but the ground is so wet and mushy, there’s no place solid to set a ladder. The eaves over the north side of the old kitchen also need to be cleared. That area is difficult enough to set up a ladder at the best of times. With how slick and muddy things are now, it’s just not an option. The ground needs to dry out at least somewhat, but that’s not going to happen. I think the girls are going to have to brave the mosquitoes to at least do the one over the living room. Too much water is seeping into the new basement.
One of these days, we need to pick up one of those small, mobile scaffolding set ups. Too bad the scaffolding that was here before we moved in grew legs and walked away. It would be so useful – and safer – with scaffolding.
The rains we’ve been having are certainly a mixed blessing. The saturated ground and open water prevents us from being able to do some things, and makes it harder to get to different parts of the year – but things are growing and blooming and, with a few drowned exceptions, fairing much better than last year! Things definitely prefer the damp, over the drought.
After yesterday’s heat, I made a point of checking the garden more closely. Some things, like the Kaho watermelon, seem to be struggling. Most things seem to be okay, though.
Some Wonderberries are starting to ripen.
The heat seems to have done a number on them, though. All three plants had wilted parts like this.
A deer walked right through the corn and beans patches. We’ll have to put something up to make them go around. They don’t seem to be trying to eat any of the plants. Just passing through.
The sunchokes are coming up! I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to tell them apart from the weeds, but they are very clearly a different plant.
A few of the newly germinated beans seemed to be having a hard time, but we planted quite a bit, so if a few don’t make it, it should be okay.
All in all, things seem to have handled the heat all right. Today, and for the next while, we are expecting more average, slightly cooler, conditions. It’s just a few degrees, but it makes a big difference.
