I love how, every day, there seems to be something new or different in the garden!
While doing my rounds, one of the first things I do after putting food and water out for the cats (or like today, just water, as my husband was feeling good enough to go outside and do their food), is check the nearby potatoes.
They are so huge and lush, you can barely see the grow bags! Of everything we planted this year, nothing is doing as well as the potatoes.
Hopefully, that means we’ll have lots of potatoes, and not just lots of greenery!
Potato flowers are such pretty little things!
While checking the tomatoes, I tried looking for the baby tomatoes we’ve been seeing and had a hard time finding them. Then I found this “huge” spray of tomatoes I’ve somehow missed seeing all this time!
“Huge” being a relative terms, for the world’s smallest tomatoes! :-D
While heading back down the driveway after switching out the trail cam memory card, I had to pause to get this photo.
There are less of these flowers than last year, and they are blooming later. Like so many other things, they had been damaged by that one cold night in May, and it’s taken this long for them to recover. We don’t water down here at all, and we’ve had no rain, so it’s amazing to see them at all. Such resilient flowers!
I was weeding the big carrot bed this morning, which is rather difficult right now. I sometimes wonder why I bother, considering how much they’ve been eaten. I accidentally caught a remaining carrot frond while pulling up a weed, and pulled a carrot up with it.
I’m… kinda glad I did.
If they have this much root after all they’ve been through, there is still a chance for them! We won’t get any big carrots, and my hopes of having enough to can are certainly dashed, but we might still have something worth harvesting.
As for this little guy, I washed it off with the hose and ate it, and as small as it was, it was tasty.
So that’s encouraging.
I had another surprise waiting for me in the old compost pile nearby.
Amazingly, there are more mystery squash coming up, next to the stems of the chewed up ones!
Of course, nothing will come of them after sprouting this late in the season, but we might at least see them get big enough to determine what they are.
I find these two Hopi Black Dye sunflowers in the old kitchen garden very interesting. The bigger one was the first of the seeds we started indoors to germinate. That was after the ones we’d direct sown outside had already germinated. The smaller one, which has the label next to it, germinated some time later. Right now, both of these are bigger than the ones that germinated first, in the large beds. The difference, of course, is the soil. The other ones are planted in an area that has not been amended or planted in before, while these are in a garden we’d been working on for 3 summers already
As for the tall plant behind the smaller sunflower, we still don’t know what it is. :-D
I was happy to see that many of the poppies have seen quite a growth spurt, and the ones that were under rhubarb leaves are getting stronger.
Then there is this plant, nearby.
When we were preparing the bed next to the retaining wall, there was a compact plant growing in it. Unsure of what it was, other than “some kind of flower”, we dug it up and transplanted it between the rhubarb and the chives. It quickly grew from a compact, bushy plant to the tall, leggy thing you can see in the photo.
I also now recognize it, though I still don’t know the name.
Do you see those sprays at the ends? With the small round things hanging down?
When it starts blooming, this plant has lovely, delicate little flowers.
Which then become some of the most annoying little burs, ever. It isn’t possible to go near one of these without ending up with masses of tiny burs stuck in your clothes, that are harder to get out than burdock! I’ve had some get so thoroughly stuck in my clothes, not only was I not able to get them completely out, but they managed to stay stuck after several washings!
After I took this photo, I pulled it up. Even though it is in the flower bud stage, it still tried to stick to my clothes!
It did not go into the compost, but into the fire pit for eventual burning.
If we ever get to light the fire pit this year. I suspect not.
While things have finally cooled down today – in fact, it actually got chilly last night! – and we are no longer getting heat warnings on our weather apps, we are now getting air quality alerts. There are a number of fires burning in our province right at the moment. I’d actually been smelling wood smoke for a while before we started getting the alerts, and with our heat and dryness, I was very concerned. None of the fires are near us, thankfully, but we’re still getting some of the smoke.
Today will be our coolest day for the next while, with a high of only 18C/64F so I will be taking advantage of it and getting things seeds sown in those empty spinach beds! :-)
One of my goals for today was to modify one of the wire mesh covers for the main garden beds. I will be planting in this bed soon, and have set up the soaker hose in it for now.
I had one board left of what we used to make the long sides, and used it to make end pieces just over 3 feet long, so it will fit in the narrowest part of this bed. The lengths of hula hoops are woven through the wire and their ends are screwed in place. It’s still kinda floppy, but it won’t collapse completely.
We might still add chicken wire to the ends of the cover, to keep small critters out. Of course, it won’t stop the woodchuck, since it can just dig under it, but I hope to at least reduce the chances. I did see it briefly this evening, dashing under the garden shed when I came around the house. I have not seen any new nibbled on plants today, thankfully.
I have to go digging around to see if I can find more of this wood, so I can do the other wire cover as well. It’d be good if I can find enough to make a third cover, but I doubt it. We’ve picked over the area we found those boards in pretty thoroughly.
The board on the ground is something I found in the barn. This bed is a bit wider than the others, so I plan to lay the board down the middle, so that we’ll have something to step on, to make it easier to tend the bed.
Now that this has the end pieces, it will be easier for one person to move it aside to do weeding, then put it back again. It was the “put it back again” part that was the most awkward, without a second person to help.
If all goes well, we will have some radishes and chard planted in here tomorrow. :-)
The girls did the evening watering while I was doing this, and called my attention to something that I did not see this morning.
Our beans are showing flower buds!
So awesome! It looks like we’ll have more of the purple beans than the green or the yellow.
While flower buds are forming here, we have flowers blooming somewhere else.
This is part of the area at the edge of the spruce grove that I cleaned out this spring, partly to get materials needed to build the squash tunnel. With all the little trees and dead branches cleared away, they finally have enough light to be able to bloom. I expect this to happen more, as we continue to clean up the spruce grove.
When we first moved here, we worked out a plan: the first two years, we would focus on cleaning up the house and inner yard. In the third year, we would start on the outer yard, and then in the following years, we would start working on things beyond the outer yard, as warranted. In the first year of working the inner yard, we would clean up the maple grove, which we did. The second year of working the inner yard, we were to clean up the spruce grove. Then things happened, and we only got parts of it done. As time goes by, however, we’re realizing just how much bigger of a job the spruce grove is. This is now an area we’re going to have to chip away at, little by little, as we can. We need to work on the outer yard more, in the process. Particularly since we plant to build permanent raised bed gardens in the outer yard.
We still have a multi-year plan to get this stuff done. It’s just been adjusted quite a bit! Plus, with our starting to garden ahead of “schedule”, the time and resources we have available has had to shift, too. As much and things need to be cleaned up, and we have to get the junk hauled away, doing things that will actually feed us has become more of the priority. It was always the goal. It just went from a mid term goal, so a short term goal!
I am so thankful that things cooled down overnight. The garden beds were watered thoroughly last night, and didn’t need to be done again this morning. It was all I could do to drag myself outside this morning. The past week or two has started to catch up to me, and the pain levels are getting pretty high.
While doing my rounds, I noticed one of the Ozark Nest egg gourds has reached a new stage of growth! :-)
Flower buds and tendrils have appeared. :-) The others aren’t quite there, yet. :-)
While the Spoon tomatoes had started to show fruit for a while, we now have tomatoes developing on the Mosaic Medley tomatoes. It should be interesting to see what kinds of cherry and grapes were included in the mix. :-)
This morning, I decided to go ahead and pick the biggest of the summer squash that we have right now.
Our first squashes of the summer! Two green zucchini and a Magda squash.
And a Nutmeg photo bomb. :-D
The littler bugger would NOT let me get a picture without him!
I noticed something interesting on one of the Crespo squash this morning.
All along the vine of the bigger one, these white shoots have appeared. Some are almost an inch long. There is nothing like this on any of the other squashes and gourds. I have no idea what they are.
If anyone knows what these are, I’d love to hear it!! My best guess is that, if these were on soil instead of over straw, they would root the vine to the ground.
Before heading indoors after finishing my rounds, I grabbed the twine and worked on filling in the gaps between the wire mesh of the squash tunnel.
I didn’t add twine all the way to the top. I figured, if we need to, we can add more later. Once done, a moved a few plants over to where they now have support to climb.
Quite a few plants are already starting to support themselves as they climb higher. Even some of the winter squash. A few of them did need to have a bit of twine looped around to lead them towards the trellis, rather than the path.
It should be interested to see how well the squash tunnel holds out, once things start climbing higher. This is not the strongest or most stable of structures, but I think it should hold.
Now that it’s no longer dangerously hot outside, I have quite a lot to catch up on. I’ll be seeing what I can scavenge out of the barn, too. That will still wait a little while, though. I have my court date this Friday for the restraining order against our vandal, but our province it still locked down. There was a slight easing of restrictions, so there’s a possibility the court rooms will be open, but while the rest of the world has moved on, our provincial dictators just don’t want to let go, no matter how many lives and businesses are destroyed for an illusion of safety.
Our vandal has been laying low, but we did happen to cross paths recently, as I was coming home from errands in town. I had to drive around him, walking on the road to our driveway, while turning off the main road. I never saw him on the trail cam files when I checked the next morning, so at least I know he didn’t try going into our driveway again. I did call my mother to remind her to check the call display before answering her phone. He was with someone else, and I’d smiled at her as I drove past, to show appreciation for them moving aside for me, and I was still smiling when I passed our vandal. He just stared at me, which is a change from his usual response of turning his back to me as I drive by. I think, because I was driving my mother’s car at the time, he didn’t realize who I was until then. Anyhow, from some of the messages he’s left on my mother’s answering machine in the past, if I smile while driving by, it’s because I’m laughing at him because I got the farm (I still don’t know why he thinks my mother gave me the property). Seeing me sometimes triggers him, and if he got drunk again, there was a good possibility that he would start calling my mother again, so I wanted to warn her.
Well, I think I’ve taken up enough time while writing this, and will try calling the court office again. I’d called earlier and left a message, but that last time I did that, they didn’t call back until the next day, so I’ll try again.
I am really tired of this whole mess. It should have been done with, one way or the other, more than 6 months ago.
Before heading out to do the watering, I went through our remaining seed packets to do a bit of planning.
First, there’s what’s left of things we planted in the spring.
To the right, we have the two types of carrots in pelleted seeds. I keep reading that we can still plant carrots this late in the season, and I had debated with myself about replanting the carrots decimated by the woodchuck, but really… what’s the point? It seems to have a special love for carrot greens, and until we get rid of the woodchuck, there will be no new plantings of carrots!
To figure out what we can plant for a fall harvest, I looked up our first frost date, which is Sept. 10, and worked out how much of a growing season we have left. Then I checked out the germination and days to maturity to see what we can plant now, and what will wait until later. We could plant the remaining Merlin beets, but we have so many beets planted, there is no need. The two types of beans could also be planted, but again, there is no need. Not in the photo are the remaining green peas, which apparently can also be planted this late in the season, but we won’t. If we wanted to, we could plant any of the summer squash, too, if we wanted to. All the seeds we will not be using this year got set aside for next year.
We had received the purple kale and purple kohlrabi as free seeds with each of our orders from Baker Creek. We ended up with two packs of kohlrabi seeds, but still have seeds in the one we did open. There are still kale seeds, too. These are both cool weather crops, and the kale can hand frost. While I plan to try kohlrabi again next year by starting them indoors, I’d forgotten we still had seeds. I’ve decided I will go ahead and plant the rest of the open packets of seeds, in hopefully better conditions, and actually get some growing!
The 3 types of spinach adn 4 types of lettuces will be planted, but not until the end of July.
Then there are these.
I’d picked up the radish seeds when I was last helping my mother with her grocery shopping. I intend to plant those as soon as possible; just a few of each. From what I’ve read, I should not expect to get bulbs developing in the heat of summer, and will be growing them for their pods.
The chard was something I picked up a few days ago. While waiting in line at the grocery store, I found myself next to a couple of boxes of seed packets, all jumbled together, instead of in their display cases. I rifled through them and found the two types of chard, which will be planted right away, too. I’ve read that they are tolerant of summer heat.
While going through the seed packets, I also picked these up.
Little by little, we intend to have an herb garden, likely in the old kitchen garden, so these are seeds for next year. Unless we want to try growing them in pots indoors, but I don’t imagine they’d survive the cats.
So we now have our first herb seeds, and more seeds to join the Yellow Pear tomatoes I picked up earlier.
The 5 day forecast has us back to around average temperatures for July, which means we should be able to catch up on things we’ve set aside because of the heat. But then, the forecasts have been so off for the past couple of weeks, I wouldn’t be surprised if the forecasts were completely off! Still, those empty beds need to have something planted in them, and it needs to be done soon!
I went out to do the evening watering this evening, after trying to wait until things cooled down. When we were still above 30C/86F by 7:30pm, I headed out anyway, so I could be done before dark.
I started in the old kitchen garden, and this should have been my first warning.
When I had gone out earlier to apply the spray repellent, I made a point of spraying the edges of the beds and into the paths, where it would not be washed away by watering as quickly.
Nutmeg is sprawled right on top of where I’d sprayed. Clearly, he is not the least bit bothered by the repellent!
If you look to the bed on the right, you can see the stems of our nibbled on carrots. They were like that this morning, before I did the spraying. In fact, they were why I made a point os going out to apply the repellent when we were nearly at the hotted part of the day!
Meanwhile…
As I was finishing up in the old kitchen garden, I picked our first rhubarb of the season.
We could have picked rhubarb long ago, but we were thinking to do a crumple or a crisp with them, and no one wants to bake in this heat. However, I had other reasons to pick them.
We planted poppies in the new bed next to one of the rhubarb bunches. The only seeds that germinated are all near the rhubarb. While I was trying to weed them, I discovered there was more than we thought.
The rhubarb leaves were covering them, and preventing them from getting any sunlight.
So I uncovered them by picking rhubarb. :-D We’ll see if they recover, now that they are getting light.
After I was done watering the more southerly beds, I headed over to the main garden beds and started watering. When I had been there earlier, spraying around the carrot bed, I was noticing that they looked to be recovering quite well, with lots of new fronds. I made sure to spray a wide swath all around them, on them, and even on the wire mesh cover.
As you can probably imagine, I was must unhappy when I came back to this.
The entire bed is once again decimated. All of it, from end to end. Apparently, when I sprayed the repellent, all I did was season the fronds for the woodchuck!
I am so frustrated!!
I’ll be taking the wire mesh cover off. All it’s really doing is preventing me from weeding. Though I suppose there’s no point in weeding it anymore. I will, anyhow, but the chances of the carrots recovering just dropped substantially. We knew it couldn’t stop a woodchuck, but I thought it might not want to be under something, and potentially trapped, and at least the carrots in the middle would be ignored. Nope. Apparently, this furry beast had no problem being under a wire net for so long!
This was not our only loss.
The greedy guts even eat the mystery squash seedlings in the old compost heap!
Obviously, I hadn’t sprayed the compost heap, but still… they weren’t exactly easy access in there, and were surrounded by all sorts of things the woodchuck never tries to eat, like the self-seeded raspberries that are also growing out of the pile.
I was really hoping to find out if they were from last year’s pumpkins.
Thankfully, nothing else was nibbled on, but this is damage enough!!
Apparently, we got rain while I would outside, watering the garden, too.
That would have been nice, but all we had was hot, muggy, thick air.
*sigh*
One of the awesome things about gardening is how fast things can grow. We’ve got a whole bunch more summer squash blossoms, more squash growing (still no yellow zucchini, though), and the squash that started earlier could probably be picked right now. I’m going to wait until they’re a bit bigger, though.
I was very excited to see our very first WINTER squash blossom! Those are starting to get quite big. As we are able, we’re moving them to train them up the trellis, and some are sending out tendrils and looking almost ready to be climbing on their own, as are more of the melons. We’re going to have to go back with some twine to string between the sections of mesh and fill in the gaps a bit for the few plants that are under them. I had remembered to look for twine when I was last in the city, and found a huge roll of it. It should last us until next year! :-D
I am absolutely thrilled by the Montana Morado corn. This is the stalk that we are seeing silk on already. Pretty soon, it will have pollen, too! A few of the others are starting to show the little red bits, but they do not yet show corn silk.
We’re going to have to go in between these and “hill” the corn. With having to water so often, and not having a mulch, the water is eroding the soil at the base of the corn a bit. A couple were starting to fall over, so last night I worked the soil around their bases and secured them upright with it, but I want to do that with all of them. The ground here is so soft, though, we don’t walk in here at all unless we absolutely have to. I’d hoped to be able to add grass clippings for mulch, but with the heat and lack of rain, the grass hasn’t been growing.
There are just a few potato blossoms that are fully open right now, but I am seeing many, many buds!
Of course, I’m always second guessing myself about deciding not to “hill” the potatoes more. As determinate type potatoes, it won’t result in more potatoes, but the plants have gotten so tall, it feels like they should be hilled! :-D
When I got to the old kitchen garden, I found the end of the L shaped beet bed was nibbled on.
I did see the woodchuck run under the garden shed this morning, but I’m not sure it is responsible for this. I think the carrots in this garden were nibbled on more, but I’m not sure. The motion sensor light would cover that carrot bed and the section of this beet bed next to it, and should be startling off any critters, but the section in the photo has a lilac bush between it and the light, so it wouldn’t be triggered by anything nibbling on the beets here.
I did see a deer going by the garden cam when I checked the files this morning. They seem to be just walking through, and not even going very close to the garden, now that I’ve put up the stakes and twine around the corn, and rope along the back of the Dorinny corn and the pea beds. I find myself wondering if a deer might have nibbled on the beets, since the woodchuck doesn’t seem to like beet greens, but that would mean the deer coming right up to the house, and pushing its way through the asparagus ferns and rhubarb, and I just don’t see that.
The beet beds in the old kitchen garden did get the Critter Ridder granules, but I was finishing off the container in the area in the photo, so there wasn’t as much there. It obviously doesn’t work to stop cats, since yesterday evening, we saw Junkpile and her kittens in the beets by the retaining wall. :-D
I still have to use the new spray we got, but it’s supposed to be applied on dry surfaces, so I’ll have to wait until later in the day.
Or until tomorrow, if we actually get the predicted storm!
With today’s expected heat, I was out in the garden by 6am, and ended up staying out there for almost 3 hours, watering and weeding. The watering was started after replacing the connectors on three hoses.
I’m a goof, but it did work.
When I bought the connector repair sets, I got what was left on the display, and didn’t even think to look at the sizes. They are for 1/2 inch hoses.
We have 3/4 in hoses.
No matter. The clamps they came with could tighten enough to properly seal them. They will do while I am on the lookout for the right size connectors.
The little flexible piece I got for the tap, to prevent kinking, leaks. In several places! I guess I got a cheap one, though there wasn’t much choice. It still leaks less than it did before. One of the leaks is at the tap itself. Every single hose we’ve ever hooked up to that tap, leaks there. I plan to replace the tap itself, eventually. Meanwhile, there is some very luscious growth happening around the blocks we have under the tap. :-D
When I headed out again this evening, I got to break in the new action hoe.
What a fantastic tool!
I first tried it in one of the onion beds. It did well, but the onions are planted in a three row grid, and it just didn’t fit in between them, so there wasn’t a lot I could do with it, there. Mostly, I used it in the space in the middle, where the purple kohlrabi failed to grow.
It was at the Mongolian Giant sunflowers that it really did the job!
The soil here has always been rock hard, and baked bone dry. Right now, the only soft soil is the layer we put down for each row, and that was just a few inches deep. That anything we’ve planted here is growing at all is pretty remarkable. This thing worked like a dream!
Now, don’t get me wrong: it was still really hard to work around the sunflowers.The soil in between the rows is even harder now, as we walk between the rows to water things. It wasn’t just the hard soil, but also the very fibrous roots from the plants that were already growing here, and now enjoying regular watering for a change. This hoe was able to cut through those roots, and the rock hard soil at the edges of the paths. I was then able to pull out the cut weeds and their roots, before hilling the loose soil around the sunflowers a bit.
I am very impressed with this thing! The tool I was using around the corn before worked well; better than a regular hoe, but not as good as the action hoe. It was one of the unusual tools we’ve found around the place. The head of it is shaped almost like a mattock, except… not. LOL The “hoe” part of it is longer and narrower than a regular hoe, and it has a two pronged spike on the other side that I believe is a weeding tool. I’ve never tried to use that end, yet. It works really well at cutting into the hard soil. Better than a regular hoe, as least. Unfortunately, it’s quite old, and the head sometimes pops off the shaft.
I was doing one last row with the action hoe in the next corn bed, when my daughters came out to do the evening watering. My older daughter had finished watering the beds closer to the house with the hose, and when she came to continue watering where I was working, she told me about something awesome she found in the Montana Morado corn.
Silk!
Our very first corn to start showing silk!
If these are going to be maturing so unevenly, we may need to hand pollinate the silk, just to make sure they do get thoroughly pollinated. It would be pretty hit and miss to rely on the wind to pollinate the corn, when there might be only one or two corn plants ready to be pollinated at a time.
I am so happy that this corn seems to be working out so well!!
Today is supposed to be the last day of our heat wave. After this, we are dropping to more average temperatures. The expected high had been 38C/100C for a while, then it went down a few times. By morning, we were forecasted to hit 34C/93F, which we did hit. I don’t know what the humidex was. The forecasts for thundershowers tomorrow have shown up, disappeared, then showed up again, several times today! As I write this, it’s past 11pm, and we’re still at 28C/82F. The overnight low is expected to be not much cooler, but we are also supposed to get some rain, too.
I’ll believe that when I see it. From the looks of the weather radar, any rain or storms sweeping through are going to go right past us, and hit the city. But if we get even a little bit of rain, I will be happy. Even with all the watering we’ve been doing, twice a day, things are still really dry. I could really see that while weeding. Even at the start of the day, which the ground still looked damp from the previous evening’s watering. While hand weeding among the beets in the old kitchen garden, I had the hose set to mist, so the water would make it easier to pull the weeds out by the roots. I’d already watered the bed before I started weeding, yet when I pulled up the weeds, I could see how dry the soil still was.
When we build our permanent beds, having some sort of watering system would be very useful. We do have sprinklers we can use, but I’d rather have something less wasteful, like a drip system.
But that is something to figure out later. For now, we make do with what we have, and right now, that means watering twice a day with roughly 300 feet of garden hose and watering cans! :-D
It occurred to me that, while I’ve been posting lots of pictures of our garden, some areas get focused on more than others. As we are now in July, I figured it would be a good time to do a “tour” of all the garden, and review how things are doing so far.
This is going to be a very photo heavy post! :-D Which is probably silly of me, as our internet connection is horrible right now, so it will probably take me at least a couple of hours to get it done! :-D
Let’s get started!
Asparagus bed with onions
Our first photo shows both success and failure.
In the foreground is the asparagus bed. We planted 6 crowns of Purple Passion Asparagus. The crowns came in at the same time as our Mulberry sapling. I didn’t get a photo of that. It did not survive that one unusually cold night in late may. :-( But the asparagus did emerge, and we are very happy with them!
Along two sides of the asparagus bed are some tiny onions. These were some last minute Norstar onions we started indoors after having so many of the other onions seeds we started get destroyed, one way or another. They are incredibly tiny, and yet they are forming bulbs!
In the other bed is where we planted the Strawberry Spinach. That is a total loss. We have no idea what happened to them after they sprouted. I do want to try them again, next year, though. These are both intended to be permanent beds.
Royal Burgundy
Lewis Green
Golden Rod
Here we have our three bush bean beds, planted in a temporary garden location. The photo on the left has the Royal Burgundy beans. We are totally amazed by how vigorously they are growing! The middle photo shows the Lewis Green beans, and the final photo shows the yellow Golden Rod beans. It’s interesting to see how the colours of the leaves show differently with the different coloured beans!
I would call all of these a success, so far. Aside from the odd deer walking through them, or a cat rolling around in them, they have not had any external issues, and they seem to be growing very well. I’m really looking forward to eating fresh beans! We pretty much never buy them at the grocery store, as they never look good, so these will be a real treat. :-)
Robin beets with onions
This is the new bed in the old wood pile area, built this spring. It was seeded with Robin beets, a new variety we got along with some Merlin beets, which we tried last year. Later, when we planted onion sets, some were planted around the beets to act as a deer deterrent.
It didn’t work.
Need more onions.
The beets do seem to be recovering, though. A while back, shredded Irish Spring soap was scattered in the bed, and this morning I added the Critter Ridder granules, so hopefully, it will not be a deer buffet again!
This bed, and the two others near it, are intended to be permanent beds, and we will eventually build boxes around them, and figure something better out for the paths in between.
Beets and lettuce beds
Mixed beets bed
These are the rest of the beets, in the old kitchen garden. They have not been nibbled on by critters, thankfully.
The beets planted along the retaining wall blocks are of the Merlin seeds we got this year, plus seeds from last year, which was a collection of Merlin, Boldor and Chioggia. The girls planted them in blocks. There were still seeds left, and when we finished planting in the other beds, I went ahead and mixed all the remaining beet seeds together and planted them in the L shaped bed, so that is a beet surprise!
All of the beets here are looking to be quite a success. Mostly because the deer haven’t gone into the garden, and apparently our woodchuck doesn’t like beet greens.
We planted 4 types of lettuce in the retaining wall blocks, alternating with Lunix, Merlot, Lollo Rossa and Buttercrunch. We added the mosquito netting wall later, as a deer deterrent. The Lollo Rossa seemed to struggle, but the others were doing okay.
Right up until the woodchuck ate them all.
We will be planting more lettuce later this month, well after the current heat wave is over. The seed packets were together in a slide lock bag that got knocked about, and there was spillage, so they’re all mixed up now, so we’ll have lettuce surprise! :-D
Napoli and Kyoto Red carrots
Deep Purple and Longe Rouge Sang carrots
Here we have our carrot beds. The large bed has two types of carrots; Kyoto Red, at the far end, and Napoli. These were pelleted seeds, which made it much easier to plant them without having to thin them later. We also had plenty of seeds left over for next year.
They had been doing so well, until the woodchuck ate all the greens! The wire cover isn’t going to stop a woodchuck, but will hopefully at least slow it down or discourage it. I’m still holding out hope that they will recover, and will be spraying around them with repellent soon.
In the old kitchen garden, we have two other varieties of carrots. Deep Purple and Longe Rouge Sang. There were far fewer seeds in these packets. I’d made a cornstarch gel to make planting them easier, which we did last year successfully, even though the gel was way too thin. This year, however, I made the gel too thick. When my daughters planted them, it came out unevenly, but it still worked out. These have, unfortunately, also been nibbled on, but not decimated like the others were. At the moment, we have a motion sensor light set up that will hopefully startle critters away, and this morning, I sprinkled Critter Ridder granules around this bed, and the beet beds nearby.
The two leafy things in the triangular bed are, I hope, white kohlrabi. These were seeds left over from last year, which had failed so spectacularly. Thankfully, we have seen no flea beetles this year. Still, I’m not even sure these plants are kohlrabi at all! I would call them a definite fail, unfortunately.
Next year, I want to try kohlrabi again, but will start them indoors. They are supposed to be good to sow directly before last frost, but they just don’t seem to do well that way.
Cucamelon
Here we have our cucamelon transplants. We did these last year and, in spite of a poor location, they did really well. This is where we had intended to plant them last year, in the rest of the chimney blocks we have left over after using some for the retaining wall. I am hoping the increased sunlight in this location, plus the chain link fence to climb, will lead to an even better crop than last year. :-)
Montana Morado corn
Dorinny corn
Here we have our two experimental corn blocks!
The purple Montana Morado corn (the photo on the left) were started indoors and transplanted, and so far they seem to be a success. A few of them don’t seem to be thriving at all, but most of them look like they are doing just great.
The Dorinny corn were planted before last frost, and you can see the remnants in the photo on the right. Though they are a cold hardy hybrid that would have been able to handle a normal frost, it turned out they couldn’t handle the -8C/18F night we had in late May. The seeds that had germinated before then did look like they survived, but after a few days, they were gone. Thankfully, more germinated later, and of those, they are doing quite well. As long as more don’t get eaten by the deer! The ones that did get nibbled on seem to be recovering, but I doubt we’ll get any corn on those ones.
Just yesterday, I used one of the empty rows in the Dorinny corn block to transplant some Hopi Black Dye seedlings. I’ll talk about those more, later. I also transplanted the few, spindly pink celery seedlings. I don’t expect those to survive. They should have been started indoors much, much earlier. I want to try them again, next year.
Where the Dorinny corn is planted is temporary. Where the Montana Morado corn is planted will probably become a permanent part of our garden. I was really surprised by how much better the soil was in this location, compared to other parts of the old garden area.
Porcelain Music
Purple Stripe
Racombole
Racombole
Here we have our hard neck garlic beds, which were planted last fall.
The Porcelain Music is looking amazing! Big, strong plants. They started showing scapes first. As I write this, we’ve gathered scapes from all these plants.
The Purple Stripe is looking like they will be ready to harvest soon – but they are still producing scapes! I’m not sure if this is a problem, or if this is normal for the variety!
The Racombole got split between the two beds. They came up later than the others, and the plants are smaller and slighter. They were also the last to start producing scapes. I don’t know if that’s normal or not for this variety. It’s possible, being on the East ends of the beds, they had slightly less sunlight than the others.
So far, these are looking like a fabulous success.
Now, we move on to the gourds. :-)
I honestly didn’t expect to have gourds this year. We started them indoors early, yet they didn’t germinate until much later.
These first ones are next to the cucamelons, in an area that will be a permanent bed.
Ozark Nest Egg gourd
Ozark Nest Egg gourd
These ones are the Ozark Nest Egg gourds. These had one plant germinated per pot, even though several seeds were in each. This morning, I noticed one of those seeds had germinated!
Thai Bottle Edible Gourd
Last time I posted about these, I mistakenly referred to them as the Tennessee Dancing gourd. Silly me. These are the Thai Bottle Gourds. There’s just the two of them.
Tennessee Dancing Gourd
Luffa Gourd
The Tennessee Dancing Gourd were among the first to germinate, and we got quite a few of them! If they are as prolific as I’ve read in reviews, we’ll be up to our eyeballs with them. :-D
It’s the luffa I am most eager to see how they turn out. They also germinated faster, though that’s not saying much, considering how long it took for the other gourds to germinate!
This area is temporary, even though we built a squash tunnel for them to climb. We intend to plant trees in this far-flung area, but this area, and the squash tunnel, might see another year of use. I’m pretty sure there is a telephone line buried under here, so we will probably not be planting trees exactly here.
As late as they all started, they all seem to be doing surprisingly well! They are really loving this heat wave. I’m looking forward to seeing how they climb the structure!
Here we have our grapes. There are two vines. We did not plant these. My mother did, but she does not remember what variety they are. I was talking to my mother today, and she worked out how long ago she planted them here, and figures it was about 12 years ago. !!! They had been completely engulfed by spirea when we first moved here, and we’ve been slowly working at getting them strong and healthy again. They are producing tiny clusters of grapes right now, and I look forward to seeing if they grow bigger this year, than last year. :-)
Halona Melons
Pixie Melons
I am really excited at how the melons are doing! We stared them indoors at the same time as we started with summer squash, but everything took a long time to germinate. That we ended up with so many is totally bonus. I love melons and really look forward to how these do! They are currently blooming, and starting to get big enough to train up the mesh, so I hope that means they’ll have a good summer’s growth.
Norstar and Red Karmen onions
Shallots and Stuttgarter onions
Here we have more successes and failures.
The Norstar onions were started from seed, and they are growing nice big bulbs right now! They may have been small when they were transplanted, but they easily match the Red Karmen sets they share a bed with.
What you don’t see is what should be growing in that gap in the middle. The very first seeds we planted outdoors was purple kale; seeds we got for free with one of our Baker Creek orders. If they ever germinated, we never saw them.
Because the bunching onions and shallots we tried to start from seed died a glorious, cat induced death, we ended up buying sets. Unsure if the Norstar seedlings would survive, I picked up some onions sets when they came out in the stores. When I found shallots as sets, too, I grabbed a couple of bags. They both seem to be doing well.
However, they too should have a neighbor.
In the middle, our purple kohlrabi was planted. Like the kale, if anything sprouted, we never saw them.
I do want to try the purple kohlrabi again, but will start them indoors next time.
Dalvay green peas
King Tut purple peas
Here we have our peas. We planted all of the purple peas in the one row, while there were so many of the green peas, we were able to replant in spaces where peas did not germinate, and still have some left over!
They are currently blooming and growing pods, but I am not sure if they are actually doing well. They aren’t very big! It could be because of the poor soil in this temporary location. Quite a lot of whatever was trying to grow here before is now making its way through the straw and garden soil we added, quite enjoying the watering and feeding the peas are getting!
We shall see how they do over the next few weeks.
Here we have before and after pictures of our potatoes.
The first picture was taken four days after they were “hilled”. The other was taken 10 days later.
I can’t believe how huge they are! All four varieties are just thriving in these home made grow bags.
And now for something a bit different.
Heritage raspberries
Unknown raspberry variety
Raspberry bushes.
We bought raspberries for the first time this year, as a birthday gift for my daughter. She chose the Heritage variety. They were doing great after transplanting – until they got nibbled on by deer, and then hit by that late May frost.
They won’t do very well this year, but they will survive, and should be fine, next year.
The others are a combination of raspberries my mother transplanted many years ago, and other self-seeded plants we transplanted when we mulched the area that now has our main garden beds in it. They, too, were hit hard, not just by that one bitter night, but also the Polar Vortex we got hit with in February. Yet, they survived, and we will probably get raspberries from them this summer!
Crespo Squash
Crespo Squash blossom
Here we have our Crespo squash. This is another one we weren’t sure would work – and I’m still not sure we have a long enough growing season for them, even with starting them indoors. They seem to be doing very well, though, and one of them is starting to bloom quite nicely!
and now, the summer squash!
Summer Squash
Magda
Endeavor Zucchini
Sunburst pattypan squash
This morning, I finally saw some little Sunburst squash! They were our favourite, last year. We are also seeing the green Endeavor zucchini, and the lighter green Magda squash. Still no sign of the yellow Goldy zucchini.
This year, we are trying to grow them vertically, but not all of them are big enough to tie to the stakes yet. But we’ve already got squash forming on those little plants! I am so excited by these! :-D
Winter Squash
Here we have our two varieties of winter squash, Little Gem and Teddy, both chosen for their shorter growing season and smaller size. They look like they are doing very well in this heat wave, too! They’re not big enough to train up the mesh, yet, but I do see some tendrils forming on some of them.
Mystery squash
Then there are these mystery squash, growing out of the old compost pile. We think they might be from the pumpkins we tried to grow last year. Hopefully, they’ll grow well enough that we’ll find out!
Mongolian Giant sunflowers
Hopi Black Dye and Mongolian Giant sunflowers
Here we have our sunflowers, in between blocks of corn. The corn are from a collection that included, Early Eh, Montauk and Sweetness. I didn’t bother taking separate photos of them. They are doing remarkably well, considering the poor conditions in this temporary location.
The sunflowers that are supported by twine are the Mongolian Giant sunflowers we started indoors, then transplanted. None of the Hopi Black Dye we started indoors had germinated… until they finally did! Long after these were done, which is why they are now planted near the Dorinny corn. Aside from losing a few to deer, I think they are doing well. At least as well as can be, in these conditions, and surrounded by weeds! Last year, none of our giant sunflowers reached full maturity before the first frost hit. I’m hoping at least the transplanted ones will have the time they need. If not… well, they make a good privacy screen.
If all goes well, we will be planting our first nut trees in the area next year.
Mosaic Mix cherry and grape tomatoes
Spoon tomatoes
Here are our wee little tomatoes! The teeny Spoon tomatoes have fruit developing already, while the Mosaic Mix is still just blooming.
In front of the Spoon tomatoes, you can see tiny wisps of onions. Those are the Red Baron bunching onions, from a very late start with the last of the seeds, indoors. In front of the Mosaic Mix, we have little Norstar bunching onions, again a late planting of the last seeds indoors. Starting these were a bit of a Hail Mary, and I doubt much will come of them, but hwo knows? :-D
Here we have a bit of a mish mash.
The photo on the left is where we seeded the Giant Rattle poppies. They came up in patches, mostly beside the rhubarb in the background (which predates us living here!). At the tip of this triangular bed, my daughter planted an iris that was shipped for spring planting – only to get hit by that late May frost, which killed it off. Other irises were planted in a trench along the south side of the old kitchen garden. One type has come up. They are hard to see, but several are by the laundry platform in the middle photo, with a few along the edge in the left photo. The ones planted in the trench towards the rhubarb never came up at all.
However, while trying to weed the area, I noticed something. You can barely see one in the photo on the right.
Dill!
All in a row, along the edge of where the trench to plant the irises last fall was dug!
We did not plant any dill. In fact, we have not seen any dill coming up since we moved here!
My guess is that, in digging the trench to plant the bulbs last fall, any dill seeds in the ground were brought closer to the surface, and this year, they could germinate.
I’m letting them be. We were intending to plant dill eventually, anyhow! :-D
Not pictured: our spinach beds. Because they’re all harvested and the beds are empty right now. The three varieties of spinach were a huge success, even with loosing some to deer. We will be sowing more in late July, for a fall crop. :-)
Also not pictured are our little pumpkins, Baby Pam. None germinated. We have seeds left over, though, so we can try again next year.
Also, also not pictures. The radishes we interplanted with the Peaches ‘n Cream corn blocks. They germinated, then disappeared, and we have no idea what happened!
That is finally it!
And now I hope I can actually publish this. I’ve lost internet over and over while trying to write this, almost lost the entire post while the editor was stuck on “autosaving” – and now it’s stuck there again!
I might have to do some browser magic to save this post and finally get it published… more than 4 hours after I started!
If you’re reading this now, I succeeded, and didn’t give up in a fit of rage. LOL
Yesterday, a couple of our hoses sprang a leak. I still used them this morning, to do the morning watering. I took advantage of the leak whenever I could, and placed it where it would at least water something!
The water is spraying out of both hose ends. Where the hose is attached to the tap is also leaking, though nothing as bad as this, so today I headed to the nearer city to pick up what I needed to repair them. I was happy to see a flexible tap attachment that will prevent the hose connector from breaking at the tap, too.
After the watering was done, I took the canister of Critter Ridder and started spreading the granules. I did the old kitchen garden, and just barely had enough left to do the beet bed near the garlic. I figured I would need at least two more to be able to rest.
That turned out to not be an option.
They didn’t have the granules in stock; just the spray. I was going to try the spray when I noticed this.
This should be enough to spray around our beds, including the ones I should have planted in by now, and have some left over for later applications. I hope it works!
Since I was in the store anyhow, I went looking at the garden tools sections, and was very excited to find one of these.
It’s an “action hoe”. My brother has one and just loves it. They are very hard to find, however, because they sell out so quickly! So I grabbed one, even though it was a stretch on the budget. It will be a huge help, and there are spots I will finally be able to reach and weed properly!
The girls are going to be starting the evening watering, soon, though it will still be in the 30C/86F range. If we wait any longer, it’ll be too dark. Plus, the overnight temperatures will be staying high tonight. We aren’t supposed to drop to 25C/77F until 7am tomorrow, and by then, I’ll be heading out to do the morning watering! I’m hoping to get the hoses repaired before then, but even if I only get a chance to do one or two, it’ll be better than nothing, and the hoses are still useable at least.
Tomorrow is supposed to be our hottest day of the heat wave, with a forecasted high of 36C/97F and a humidex of 39C/102F. After that, we will quickly drop back to average temperatures for July. They are no longer predicting thundershowers for tomorrow, unfortunately. Now it’s just a 40% chance of precipitation, which for our area, probably means none at all. I wold have been happy for a good thunderstorm! We could really use the rain! Still, it means I can apply the animal repellent and not have it washed off right away, I guess.
We managed to get a few things taken care of in the garden, once things started cooling down.
But first, kittens!
I wasn’t able to get pictures of all four of them, but these two seem to be a bit braver. :-) I also saw Rosencrantz and her two babies. It looks like they are actually living in that junk pile now.
I also saw the woodchuck again, this time diving under the garden shed. I don’t know if it was just trying to hide from me, or if that’s where it’s new den is.
One of the things that finally got done today was transplanting of the Hopi Black Dye sunflower seedlings that we’d tried starting indoors so long ago. There was a total of 8 to transplant. I also transplanted the few pink celery seedlings. I don’t expect them to grow, but I figured I’d give them a chance.
While I was refilling the watering can for the transplants, something caught my eye among the green peas.
Our first pea pods are developing!
The green pea pods are surprisingly large, for the size of the plants. There turned out to be quite a few of them we found as we watered. I didn’t see them this morning, but I may have missed them.
There was no missing these ones, though!
These pods are SO purple! I love them! :-D Among the purple peas, we only found two pods, so far.
Oh, I am so excited. :-D
Before I transplanted the sunflowers, which you can see in the row in the foreground, I hoed around the remaining Dorinny corn. Of the 7 rows we planted in this block, there are 4 rows left, and all of them have gaps. I did transplant about 5 corn plants from the other three rows into the larger gaps. They seem to have handled the disturbance well. Even the corn plants that got munched on seem to be recovering!
It’s hard to see, but after the watering was done, the girls put up the wire mesh on the last section of the squash tunnel. My younger daughter has been diligent in getting the winter squash, gourds, melons and peas trained to climb their various structures.
While they were putting up the wire mesh, I got another corn block hoed.
Even though we had already watered everything, I was finding the soil so dry, I watered all the sweet corn and sunflower beds, over again. Little by little, I’ll be hoeing all the blocks. Since these rows were just new garden soil placed directly on the ground, with no cardboard layer, nor any sort of organic matter underneath, what few plants that were growing here are working their way through. As this corner gets so baked in the sun, what little had been growing here can handle drought conditions. Their roots are incredibly tough and hard to pull. Now that the area is being watered for the first time, these plants are growing like I’ve never seen them before. I don’t want them choking out our corn and sunflowers, but my goodness, they are hard to dig up!
With these beds being so far from the house, we’re doing a lot of dragging of hoses around. Today, a pair of hoses gave out. The joined connectors both started to break, spraying water with remarkable pressure. So tomorrow, I’ll have to head into town to find both male and female connectors to replace the broken ones. Both of these hoses were purchased last year, but considering what we’re putting them through, I am not at all surprised that they would break where they did.
Oh, my daughter tells me that the potatoes are blooming now, too. When I watered them this morning, they still just had buds.
So much growth is happening right now!! :-)
On a completely different note, my husband got a notification email. Our StarLink kit is on its way. Our area should get coverage by mid to late this year – and we’re already midway through the year. I’m really hoping this new service works out, even though we would still be in Beta. Our satellite internet bill keeps going up, while the quality of our connection keeps going down. That is annoying enough in general, but I’m finding the WordPress editor seems to need higher connectivity than pretty much anything else. The editor simply won’t finish loading in any browser but Chrome and Tor. While everything loads much faster in Tor than on any other browser, the block editor does not work well if I have to go back and edit or adjust things, because blocks end up overlapping each other. Today, Chrome stopped working, too. Nothing will load except the tool bar across the top, and the question more icon in the bottom corner. The rest is blank. And sometimes, I don’t even get that much. Instead, WordPress just keeps timing out and I get error messages, instead.
So I’m using Tor right now, and am hoping that I can eventually load WordPress in one of my other browsers enough to open the draft and fix any weird formatting that might happen.
Hopefully, once we’re on StarLink, we’ll have a more stable connection. We’ll also have unlimited data, so we won’t need to have two accounts anymore. Switching could save us a couple hundred dollars a month, possibly more. Well worth the initial expense of setting up, which is pretty high, but doesn’t get billed all at once. For now, we’ll just be charged for the kit that’s being mailed out to us, which includes the dish, router, tripod and all the cables, parts and pieces needed to install it. My brother knows quite a few people already on the service, and they are really, really happy with it.
For now, though, I have to keep juggling browsers, just to be able to keep posting on this blog. I suppose I could use my phone, but I really need the big monitor and full size, ergonomic keyboard! That and the editing software I use to resize any photos I include, so they take up less storage space in WordPress.
So we’re getting a little bit of technical progress to go with our garden progress. :-)
The Re-Farmer 