Gardening

Morning company, and that might be an issue!

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It’s been a while since I had a whole crowd of cats and kittens following me around in the mornings, but now that Potato Beetle is back, he does tend to join me.

After breakfast, of course.

I was quite tickled to go into the sun room this morning and discover not only the adult cats waiting for me, but Broccoli and Chadicous, too! Even Junk Pile’s kittens were hanging around, though they kept running off anytime I came near.

Potato has a habit of trying to climb me when he wants attention. I managed to dodge him while opening up the trail cam to switch the card, so he climbed the post, instead.

The photo was taken the moment before he leapt onto my shoulders.

He did it again from the saw horse next to the summer squash, and the garden cam!

I have no idea where he’s been for the past few months, but he does seem happy to be back!

While checking the remains of the purple corn, something odd on one of the deer chomped cobs caught my eye, so I took a closer look.

A corn fungus had set in. I’ve seen a few people posting photos on gardening groups of this, asking what it is. Others got very excited about it. Apparently, this stuff is edible and very tasty.

I have no intention of finding out. :-D

Then there is something I checked on that I actually discovered yesterday.

The old kitchen was tacked onto the log cabin portion of the house at a later date. It has it’s own foundation with a crawl space under it, and it the only part of the house that is not on a basement.

That foundation has cracks in it. One of them is on the North side, near the septic tank.

Yesterday, I spotted wasps all over the area and realized they were going in and out of the crack.

Of course, getting picture of the actual wasps didn’t work out too well. LOL There is one in the shot, crawling through, where the arrow is pointing.

Last year, we had issues with wasps in the corner nearby, under the eaves where the old kitchen and the rest of the roof joined. It was bad enough to pick up wasp killer to get rid of them. So far, this nest hasn’t been a problem, but we will probably have to get rid of it before we get the septic tank emptied for the winter.

What this does tell me, though, is that the crack is open all the way through to the crawl space.

Which also tells me the old kitchen is sinking.

We did sort of know that already. We have seen that the sun room is shifting quite a bit, too – enough to affect the angles of the door, and crack windows.

Which reminds me. We’re having to use the old kitchen to go in and out of the house again. The fix I did on the main doors has given out. You can read about that here, here and here.

There is so much major work that needs to be done on this house, it’s pretty discouraging. What should be done it to get it all fixed before things get worse and end up costing more, but we’re still looking at repairs and renovations probably costing more than the house is worth. Even if my entire family pooled our resources to fix up the home we grew up in, we couldn’t come up with enough.

We’ll just take care of what we can as we go along. I must say, though, a lottery win would sure come in handy right now! :-D

The Re-Farmer

All tucked in

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There was a break in the rain, giving me a chance to test out my squash hammocks.

This is a melon, not a squash, but “melon hammock” doesn’t roll off the tongue as well. :-D

I’ve made three of these so far. I think I got the size right. None of the melons or winter squash will get much bigger than this. The ties need to be a bit longer, though.

For those who want to know, it’s basically just a filet crochet square, with chain stitch ties woven through the openings on opposite sides that act as drawstrings, to keep the fruit snug. I used medium weight cotton yarn and a 6mm – J/10 hook.

I think I’ll make a few more to have handy, if needed.

The Re-Farmer

One of “those” nights

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Last night turned out to be one of those odd nights. I’d stayed up late to finish of part of a crochet project, then work the set up on the next part of it, before going to bed.

I didn’t sleep a wink.

This wasn’t even a sleepy night of tossing and turning or interruptions, but just plain, “hmm. I’m awake.”

The problem with such sleepless nights is that I end up feeling hungry. So by 4am, I finally gave up and got something to eat, then watched some Midsomer Murders on Tubi. By 6am, I figuring I could actually fall asleep, but it was getting light out, so I did my morning rounds, first.

As early as it was, Rosencrantz was already waiting for breakfast! :-D

While checking on the garden beds after switching out the memory card on the garden cam, I was very happy to see these.

The one Red Kuri (Little Gem) squash is changing colour so nicely! One of my crochet projects has been to make mesh hammocks for the squash and melons. We have all smaller varieties, so the vines can hold the weight. The hammocks are more to ensure that, if they do drop off their vines, the ones that are higher up won’t hit the ground.

After all this time, we FINALLY have another winter squash developing. Possibly more, but this is the biggest, and shows no sign of dying off like so many others have done. Which is, on the one hand, quite exciting to see. On the other, it’s a bit frustrating. Our first frost date is September 10, and it’s already August 24. Hopefully, we won’t actually get frost that early, but that chances of this, and any others, reaching full maturity before first frost is low. These varieties were chosen specifically for their shorter growing season, but even with our watering and fertilizing, the drought has set so many things back. Now, after all that heat, it’s our cooler days and almost cold overnight temperatures that are slowing things down again.

Ah, well. We shall see what the fall brings us.

Meanwhile, I did manage a few hours of sleep. It’s drizzling outside, so I think I’ll continue on the crochet projects I’m working on.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: morning after the rain

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The gardens seem to be really enjoying all the rain we’ve been having!

The Ozark Nest Egg gourds are having a growth spurt, and more flowers are blooming.

They are the first ones I’ve seen with only three petals on them.

So far, I’m only seeing male flowers, but I might be missing some. I’m not about to lift the chicken wire protection just to look.

On the leaf above the blossom, you can see that the cayenne pepper is still there! I’m rather amazed it didn’t get washed away.

The newest Mongolian Giant sunflower that opened is looking very nice. What surprised me, though, was…

…finding that it is growing stalk babies, too, now!

I don’t know if I’m supposed to prune them or something, but I’m leaving them be.

I even picked some teeny tomatoes and cucamelons this morning. :-)

It’s been interesting on some of the zone 3 gardening groups I’m on. Quite a few have been sharing photos of all their green tomatoes that they rushed to bring in, before the rain, so that they wouldn’t split. If you like at the tomatoes in my photo, you’ll actually see a couple of Spoon tomatoes that have done exactly that! I’m not concerned about that, with these little guys. What caught my attention more, though, were all the people talking about getting overnight frost. !! They are all at much higher elevations than we are, so while they are zone 3 like we are, us being so close to sea level makes a difference.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: morning in the garden

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While checking on the sunflowers this morning, I found one of the Mongolian Giant seed heads finally starting to open.

I had actually expected this one to open up first. Look how dark the middle is!

Hard to believe this is the same type of sunflower as this…

They look completely different!

One of the smaller seed heads sprouting out the side is starting to open, too.

With our fall planting, only a few of the rainbow chard has survived the grasshoppers and the heat. Enough that, when they are large enough, we can find out if we actually like chard! :-D

The lettuces protected by the window screen covered frame are coming up quite nicely! It’ll still be a while before they are large enough to start picking baby greens for salads, but being under the adapted cover, they should be protected from both groundhogs and insects, so I expect to actually have some this time. Unlike our first planting in the spring, that got eaten before we’d had more than a handful ourselves! Even the weather is supposed to be cooler and potentially rainier, over the next while, so we won’t have to use the shade clothes, either.

As rough of a gardening year it has been, we’re still getting some produce, and I’m happy with that!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: evening harvest

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While doing my evening rounds, I was able to gather quite a substantial harvest from the garden!

The yellow beans are, as could be expected, winding down right now, but there was still quite a lot of them. There were plenty of green beans, too, but it was the purple beans that stole the show! There were so many ready to pick this time!

I picked a few sweet corn that seems like they might be ready, just to see how they were. Though their silks are drying, they are still quite immature. My expectations are on the low side for these, given how nitrogen poor the soil is, but we shall see as time goes by.

I was really happy to have so many sunburst squash and zucchini! I also had to straighten up a lot of the support poles, as the wind had blown them over somewhat. However, I can definitely say it was much easier to find and harvest the summer squash grown vertically! Last year, I was picking sunburst squash and zucchini pretty much daily, but this is the first time we’ve had a substantial amount to pick. They did not get eaten before we could get to them! The cayenne pepper is definitely working!

I applied more over everything after I finished picking things. The rains would have washed it all off by now. We might get more rain today, then off an on over the next week, but I don’t expect to get much here, so I wanted to make sure the garden beds had their spicy protection.

There was enough picked that we could blanch and freeze some more, but this time I’m keeping them for having with our meals. In fact, I’m enjoying some of those beans with my lunch as I write this, sauteed with our Purple Stripe garlic (crushed and chopped) in butter, then braised until tender, then seasoned and stir fried with rice and some of the grass fed beef we got with the package we ordered a while back. It turned out very well!!

It may almost be the end of August, but we’re finally getting to where we can probably eat from our garden every day. :-)

The Re-Farmer

After the rain

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Oh, what an amazing rainfall we have had!!!

During a break in the rain, yesterday, we were able to bring in the onions that were still on screens under the canopy. They at least were dry enough to brush off the remaining soil, before their roots were trimmed and I strung them on twine, the same way I did the garlic.

The strings of garlic are cured and now in a cardboard box, while the braid of onions are now in the kitchen, making room for these to continue curing. It’s cool enough, but unfortunately, the humidity was at 77% at the time we hung these up. Which is still better than outside! With the fan going, I hope they will cure okay. I kept the tops on, so that they could later be braided.

While doing my rounds, I found several clusters of mushrooms had sprung up in front of the cucamelons and gourds, over night. An encouraging sign of soil health improving. :-)

There were a lot of hungry kitties! Junk Pile’s kittens are showing up at the kibble house more often, but I only see them because they heard me coming out of the house and ran off. One has been running under the cat house, whiel the others dash out of the yard. Our chances of socializing these ones seems rather low, unfortunately.

We are still leaving kibble further out for Butterscotch’s and Rosencrantz’s babies. There seems to be a bit of territorial disputes happening, and this ensures everyone still gets some food.

We didn’t get the predicted thunderstorms, but we did have high winds along with the driving rain, resulting in this wind damage to some of the sweet corn. This is the middle block, which has the tallest of the sweet corn.

I think some of those cobs may actually be ready to pick!

With so much rain overnight, I decided to go and check the gravel pit dugout. This is how it looked yesterday morning.

This is how it looked about 24 hours later.

That is so amazing!!!!

For a bit of perspective, though, look at the green parts to the right of where I’m standing to take the photo, then at the top left, where there is an opening in the trees.

The green part on my right is part of the original gravel pit. While it wasn’t as deep as where the dugout is now, it would normally have been part of the pond that had developed in here. The area in the background on the left is basically mash, and would at least have been muddy. Which means, when we get an more average year of moisture, that entire pit should be full of water, with water extending into the low area on the right, and the marsh in the background. Where I am standing to take the photo would be a few feet from the water’s edge.

With so much water here, I just had to go and check the pond, too.

Yes!!! There is even water at the bottom, here!

That is just so awesome to see!

Okay, it took me a while to find, but I knew I’d posted photos of the gravel pit. Here is a photo of the old gravel pit, taken in June of 2019.

All that area of water that’s furthest away is where the new dugout was made. The area to the left is the shallower area that was left alone.

What a huge difference!

So appreciating the rain we got. For the cows and the wildlife, too!

The Re-Farmer

Perfect!

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Last night, we went ahead and had the larger of the two Halona melons that were ripe enough to come off their stems.

When we taste tested our first melons, they were too early.

You can see how green the inside of the rind is, in both the Halona (top) and Pixie (bottom) melons.

What a difference three days can make!

There is almost no green visible, and the knife just slid right through. It was also incredibly juicy! After scooping out the seeds, there was enough juice in the cavity, it could be drunk!

The flesh was smooth and soft, but not so soft as to be mushy. The flavour was very much a cantaloupe flavour, and llightly sweet. The small size makes it perfect for a late night snack, too. :-)

Since it was so nice and ripe, I’ve kept the seeds to clean and dry for planting next year. It is definitely a melon worth growing again!

The Re-Farmer

One last post for the day – just for fun!

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How can you tell it was nice out today? I got so much done outside to post about! :-D

I just wanted to share some of my finds today. Like this adorable little guy.

The tree frogs seem to really like the sacks we’re using to grow potatoes! I keep finding them, all tucked in and napping. :-)

Though we have almost no grapes at all this year, the few we do have are managing to survive and ripen.

I am just loving how the colour is changing on this squash! Our one and only winter squash. Though there are many little ones growing, even if they don’t all die off as they have been, I don’t think there’s enough growing season left for them to fully ripen.

The melons, on the other hand…

The Halona melons turn orange as they ripen! I’m sure that was obvious on the seed packet photo, but I didn’t even think to look.

There was something I missed completely when I took this photo, though.

I saw another one that was starting to turn colour, too, and lifted it to check the weight, only to see the stem come off. So I went back to the first one and realized it was completely detached from its stem already!

Aren’t they adorable?? <3

After picking one of each melon type to taste test, and they both turned out to be under ripe, I look forward to seeing how different these ones taste.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: fixing the beet bed, and last things

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One of the things we’ve done to protect some of our garden beds from the groundhogs and deer was to use mosquito netting as row covers. The edges were weighed down with whatever was handy; rocks, bricks, pieces of wood… that sort of thing.

The beet bed near where the garlic had been planted has been recovering very well. So well that the greens were tall enough to pull the netting out from under the weights that were holding it in place, in spots.

More specifically, out from under this board and the rock that was weighing it down. A grog took advantage of the gap and had a bit of a snack.

There wasn’t a lot of damage. The netting still did its job.

I took advantage of the situation to do some weeding and pick the onions that had been planted around the beets as a deterrent.

The down side of adding the netting was that the onions were rather squished, as they were planted so close to the edges of the bed. A few ended up on the compost pile, but there were still a few good enough to harvest! These last onions joined the others that are curing under the canopy tent right now.

I picked the beets that had the most of their greens eaten, plus a few more while I was weeding, which left me with some greens to harvest as well.

They got to join the corn I’d picked earlier.

This is pretty much the last of the Dorinny corn. There are still a few little cobs out there. I figure I’ll just leave those, and when we clean up the beds in the fall, we might have some seeds to save for next year, perhaps.

I just wanted to share how the first Mongolian Giant sunflower to start blooming is progressing, too. :-D

Back to the beets!

They are looking a lot better for a bit of clean up! There are some pretty big ones forming in there, too. It should be interesting to see what we get when it’s time to harvest the entire bed.

Then the netting was returned. I made good use of the bag of tent pegs I found in the garage, and pegged the sides down snug along the length, but close in to the beets, so that there would still be slack over the bed, with room for the beets to continue to fill out. I rolled boards into the excess netting at the ends and tucked them close under the leaves as well, so there would be no gabs in the corners for critters to get through.

The beets in the big L shaped bed in the old kitchen garden are starting to lift their floating row cover as well. I spotted a small gap where the rocks weighing the edge down had rolled off, and there are a few nibbled on greens at the very edge. There are heavier weights on either side of the gap, so a critter the size of a ground hog isn’t getting any farther. Tomorrow, I plan to uncover the bed, give it a thorough weeding, pick some more beets, then peg the netting down like this one, so it is more secure.

The beets planted against the retaining wall in the old kitchen garden don’t have this problem. They have not really recovered from when they got eaten. I think it has more to do with low light levels. That area is more shaded by the ornamental apple trees than the rest of the old kitchen garden. I’ll be uncovering them to at least weed them, and get a better look at how they are doing in the process.

As for what was picked today, the corn was added to the summer squash and teeny tomatoes the girls had picked earlier, and roasted in foil with some olive oil, granulated garlic, salt and pepper. The beets got roasted in another foil, with some chive blossom oil, salt and pepper. That way, I could roast both at the same time, in the same pan, without the beets turning the other vegetables all purple! :-D It turned out very well!

The Re-Farmer