I wasn’t expecting to do another post today – and certainly not another garden post – but I just had to! I’ve had two awesome things happen since my last post.
One is that I got an email confirming our back ordered seeds from Veseys has just been shipped! It’s only two packets of seeds; the cherry and grape tomato medley, and the third variety of bush beans we had ordered. Now, the only things left outstanding are the items that will be shipped in time for planting in our zone. I’m really glad I ordered all these back in December. Quite a few of the varieties we ordered have since gone out of stock.
Then there is the other exciting bit.
Have I mentioned I have an awesome brother?
Have I also mentioned he has an equally awesome wife?
I got a call from her this evening, asking me to check my email. She had sent me this photo.
You see, I had asked them to keep an eye out for a pressure canner for me and this evening, while on their way to a romantic dinner out, they stopped at a Canadian Tire. Because who can turn down a quick run into Canadian Tire?
They found a pressure canner (yes, I know; it says cooker, but it’s the same tool) in stock!
It’s even one that was on some of the “top 10” lists I’d been looking at. Plus, it’s on sale!
Did I want her to pick it up for me?
Yes. Yes, I did!
Then, just moments after we hung up the phone, she called back. Since she was there, in the canning supplies section anyhow, was there anything else I wanted?
She found a couple of boxes of wide mouth snap lids to pick up for me as well.
We are now all set for both hot water bath and pressure canning, this fall.
My sister in law is awesome!
The Re-Farmer
Update: So… about that pressure canner…
As Carolee pointed out in the comments, this is a pressure cooker. I have read about them being used as canners, found instructions for them, etc. It was in the canning section, being sold as a pressure canner. It should be good. At least for small jars, like we would be using. At that size, I knew we’d never fit quart jars in there, but we aren’t planning on pressure canning anything in that size.
However, I asked my sister in law to go through the instructions to see, and apparently there is NOTHING about using this model as a canner in the instructions. Which is a bit irritating, since that’s what it was being sold as.
In the end, we’re going to keep it, rather than ask them to return it. That was a really good sale price, and we will make use of it in other ways.
We’ve been looking online for pressure canners around the province. I found one in the city, selling for $450. Well beyond our budget. I found another in a closer hardware store that was smaller and more affordable, but it’s not in stock. I am trying to avoid using Amazon, so I tried looking at more direct sources and manufacturers. They’re all in the US which means that, with the dollar difference, shipping costs and hidden expenses, I just assume it will cost double what the listed price is. Some are still affordable, but… out of stock, of course.
We will keep looking, but if how things are now is anything to go by, it looks like we will be freezing, dehydrating and pickling vegetables, rather than canning them! I do want to can things like meat, chili, soups and stews, too, and for that, we will need a pressure canner. We’ve canned chili before, but that was to keep them in the fridge for quick meals. Which was really handy. I’ve also canned soup stock but, again, it had to be refrigerated and used fairly quickly. In the long term, I want to have shelf-stable produce, and there is no getting around needing a pressure canner to ensure the food stays safe. Ultimately, we can do without. We have alternatives.
I made it to the post office while running errands today, and had a small package waiting. I just sort of assumed it was for my daughters or my husband, but nope! It turned out to be my last minute order from Baker Creek. I am totally shocked that it arrived already! When I placed the order, they had a notice saying that, for orders outside the US, it could take as long as 3 months to arrive. It has only been two weeks since I got the shipping notice! This may well be the fastest any of our seed orders have come in!
Which means that right now, not counting the items that will be shipped in the spring in time for planting, we have only a couple of back ordered seeds that we’re waiting for. One is our third variety of beans, and the other is a medley of cherry and grape tomatoes. The tomatoes are the only ones I’m concerned about, since they need to be started indoors, but not until April or May, so we still have time.
Here is what we got today. (All links will open in new tabs, so don’t worry about losing your place! :-) )
While talking about and planning for the varieties of seeds we already had, the girls noticed we unintentionally have been leaning towards a rather purple theme. These are now intentionally on that theme! We had only one variety of peas, so that was my excuse to get the King Tut Purple peas.
The Chinese Pink celery was chosen not just for the colour, but because it’s supposed to be easier to grow in our climate than the usual European varieties. We’re really excited to see how these turn out!
Our three varieties of lettuces have turned in to four! Thanks to the free packet of Buttercrunch lettuce, we have one green type to go with our deep reds and purples. Merlot, Lunix and Lollo Rossa.
As lettuces are cool weather crops, these will likely be planted in the shadier old kitchen garden, though with so many varieties, and other things we intend to plant there… well, it’s not that big of a garden!
That’s okay. We’ll figure it out.
The Spoon Tomato is another new one for Baker Creek (I can’t remember why I ordered two packets…) and these were ordered for my older daughter; the one person in our household that really likes tomatoes! My husband does, too, but not as much. These are so tiny and adorable, I might even try tasting them, even though fresh tomatoes normally make me gag.
Hmmm. I just took another look at the write up on the website, to try and remember why I ordered two packets. Probably because I noticed that the packets have a minimum seed count of 15. Since we’d be starting seeds in groups and thinning them, that would be why I ordered two. However I noticed in a review, a person commented that these will self-seed, because it’s basically impossible to harvest them all. We will have to keep that in mind when we transplant them outdoors!
The Luffa gourds are something I ordered just for me. I don’t know that we’ll even be able to plant any this year, but with how quickly seeds have been running out again this year, I figured I’d better get them. As it is, I’m planning to try growing just a couple of each variety, rather than planting entire seed packets, so I’ll likely try starting some of these indoors, too. They are edible when young, but I’m interested in them for the sponges.
It will be a real challenge to grow any of the gourds in our climate. I think I’m up for it!
Now I’m even more excited about getting those loads of soil. Thanks to TurboTax fixing that bug I discovered, I was able to file my husband’s tax return this morning. I’d tried before going to bed last night, but our internet was down again. My return should come in faster because of the glitch. As soon as it does, I’m ordering the soil!
Then I’m going to go shopping for a chain saw. :-D
I’m about ready to start throwing cats outside! :-(
This is what I discovered, this morning.
The long piece of insulation across the top is what had been blocking the opening on the back of the tank lid. You can even see the claw marks in it!
Some nasty little beast managed to pull one of the trays up!
The peat stayed in most of the cells, though a few at the very back were empty when I straightened it out. I found the plugs and put them back as best I could, and gently took loose peat off the cells it had fallen on and put it in the emptier cells. I will give it a day or two, then plant new seeds in the cells that didn’t survive.
Eventually, the seedlings will reach a height were I can take out the box that is keeping them closer to the light, and the cats won’t be able to reach the trays anymore, but for now they trays need to be this high. They should probably be a bit higher, but that would just make it easier for a cat to reach. The opening in the back is where I’m going to set up the tiny fan we have, to blow over the seedlings and help them get stronger, but for now, I’ve basically put a sheet of foam core over the tank’s lid and weighed it down. It should still have a bit of air circulation, but we’ll have to keep a close eye on it.
Today was a day of moving forward on a few things, and even accomplishing some! :-D
First, the most important thing.
Potato Beetle status.
No, this is not Potato Beetle. Nostrildamus was posing so sweetly for me, I just had to take a photo.
Also, his eyes are quite clear. He’s just got them comfortably half shut as he enjoys the relative warmth of the cat house roof under his paws!
The Potato was not up to letting me take his picture, but he was very much up to showing up for warm water, following me as I did my rounds, and letting me carry him back to the house! :-)
I tucked him into the sun room with food and water, which I put on a scrap of rigid insulation, so he wouldn’t have to be on cold concrete while eating and drinking. He had quite the appetite!
Once back inside, I called the vet. I mentioned the photos I sent, and she went looking for them. Someone else had checked the email yesterday, so she didn’t know where it was at first. The only opening they had was for Friday, at which point, should we even bother bringing him in at all? It’s not like he’s going to get any stitches with the wound having had this long to heal on its own. She said she would get a doctor to look at the photos and would call me back.
When she did, she told me the doctor thinks it looks pretty good, from what he could see (which, admittedly, isn’t much!), but since this is an outdoor cat… well, they get pretty dirty, and that increases the risks of infection. We decided to book Potato Beetle for Friday, early afternoon, for a check up. They will likely not have to do anything, though I would not be averse to some slow release antibiotics, like they gave Butterscotch. One thing they will be able to do is examine Potato for other wounds. While carrying him, I tried to feel around as I pet him. I think I was feeling scabs through his fur in a few places.
So, that appointment is made. Since he would not be going in until Friday, I went into the sun room and opened the doors to let him out.
He had no interest in leaving, and just started eating some more.
I noticed the water bowl was starting to ice over, so I warmed up some water in the kettle and brought it over. He was still eating when I came in, but as soon as I added the warm water, he switched right over. Because the water in our hot water tank develops a smell after a while, we don’t use warm tap water for the cats. I had tried that, and they didn’t seem to like it, but they LOVE the water that’s been warmed in the kettle! When I come out with the container and set it on the ground so I can knock the ice out of the metal bowls and clean out the heated bowl, Ginger used to be the one I’d find drinking out of the container. He’d stop as I came over to take it and fill the water bowls. Now, it’s Potato Beetle that goes straight for the container, and he even keeps trying to drink while I pick it up to fill the bowls! He seemed to really, really like having food and water bowls all to himself.
Seeing how quickly ice formed on the water bowl – and that Potato wasn’t interested in going outside – I grabbed a box and made a little house for him, with an old pillow for a bed. We already have an old pillow on the floor under the swing bench that he has claimed, but the box would get warmer, just from his body heat. I set it up right next to the food and water bowls, so he could go from being on a pillow to walking on the piece of rigid insulation, and never have to walk on cold concrete, if he didn’t want to.
Then I headed out to do our shopping, along with my younger daughter. While we were gone, Potato’s water bowl got topped up with warm water a few times, and he still had zero interest in leaving the sun room!
Since we were using my mother’s car for our shopping, I didn’t get as much of the heavy stuff as we normally would, but I did get some kibble to top of the bin in the sun room. I added some of the new kibble to Potato’s food bowl, just to give him something different. He ate with gusto!
And wouldn’t leave the sun room.
So… he’s still there.
I wasn’t planning on keeping him locked up until his appointment, but he’s very content where he is now. We can look out the bathroom window and see him sitting on the swing bench, napping. Or looking back at us!
This wasn’t exactly the plan, but we’ll take it, I guess!
I also called up the garage about or van. Sure enough, he’d tried to return my call while I was with the tech service call for so long, trying to figure out what was going on with the software I’d just bought.
The van will be dropped off on Monday morning for him to check out. The only thing he suggested was topping up the power steering fluid. He seemed pleased when I told him it was full. At least we know there’s no leak! Once the van has been checked over and any repairs get done, I’ll finally be able to do a real monthly stock up trip. We haven’t been able to do one since the end of November!
As for the shopping, we only went to the Walmart in the nearer small city. My daughters had made their own shopping list, too. Aside from the stuff we usually get, I was able to pick up some Jiffy Pellet refills for our second tray, which is one of those self-watering pellet trays with a domed lid. I also picked up a plain tray, that will work well for when I use the repurposed K-cups to start seeds. They will all have drainage holes, and the tray will allow them to be watered from below.
I also picked up a case of 750ml, wide mouth canning jars. We currently have 250ml and 500ml jars with regular size mouths, plus more 500ml wide mouth jars. Little by little, as we are able, we will add to our stock of jars, plus get more snap lids. There was a water bath canner in stock, but I ended up just getting the metal rack for holding jars that will allow me to use one of our stock pots. It’s designed so that, if we were canning small, short jars, a second one can be placed on top of the jars and we could can two layers of small jars. I don’t expect to do that, but it’s an option. My daughters got me a set of canning tools for Christmas, so with the purchase of this rack, I now have all the tools needed to do water bath canning.
So, another area of progress!
I was unable to find a pressure canner, though. They didn’t seem to have any in stock anywhere. We have time to find one, though.
I have no idea what kind of harvest we will end up with at the end of the season, but I hope to be fully prepared to can plenty! We also intend to freeze some things, and dehydrate others, so we will have a variety of options, even if we don’t get a pressure canner. I did find myself ogling a dehydrator, but decided against it. For the amount I expect to be dehydrating this year, we can use our oven well enough. It’s not worth spending the money on, at this point, and we don’t have the space to store it right now. That is a purchase that has no urgency to it.
After we got home, I had one more thing that we can finally move forward on, though it’s far less pleasant to think about. I called the court office.
We finally have a court date for the restraining order we filed against our vandal.
It’s just a general session date, and there is a lot of backlog. Chances are, it’ll probably end up booked for a future hearing, but… I don’t know. This is for a restraining order, not a civil suit. Will the court just fly through the docket, like they did for the teleconference call for his vexatious litigation against me, that he clearly filed in retaliation for my applying for a restraining order? After all, my application is a criminal matter, not a civil matter.
Our vandal would have to call the court office to see if court dates were started up again or not. If he had called yesterday, that may have been the triggering event for him calling my mother three times, yesterday. One of his “usual” things that he rants about now is that my mother is trying to put him in jail. She has nothing to do with my application for a restraining order, though, so he’s just lashing out at her because he can’t lash out at me. I’ve had no direct communication from him for something like 2 years. He can’t intimidate me, but he can try and intimidate my mother. Thankfully, he doesn’t call her anywhere near as often as he used to. My siblings and I have been working to put a stop to that, which includes helping my mother understand some of her self-sabotaging behaviour. This is someone who was so very close to us, and she still feels she needs to treat him like family. She owes him nothing. He owes her (and my late father) everything.
Anyhow. The court date is in March, so that’s another step forward.
And now it’s time to check on Potato Beetle and make sure he’s settled in for the night. Something far more pleasant to think about than court dates!
Don’t they look so sweet and innocent, snuggled together?
Don’t believe them. They lie!
They are devious, destructive beasts! :-D
Okay, okay. I don’t think Cabbages and her “grandma” are the guilty parties responsible for this.
The tank’s lid has an opening at the back for the filter, cords, etc. I’d blocked it off, but some cats – and I think at least two are guilty! – still managed to get a leg through a gap to reach the trays below. Juuuuust enough to scratch up the cardboard edge and dig up some of the peat. I finally put a piece of the rigid insulation under the lid, cut wide enough to cover the opening in the back, but narrow enough to not reach the light fixture attached to the underside of the lid.
Can you guess what the clever little monsters did next?
They figured out how to open the little flip-top door in the front of the lid, that was used to drop fish food in!
I’m pretty sure we’ve lost some sprouting onions from this.
If you look closely in the photo, you can see white specks in the peat. Those are little curled sprouts, pushing their way through the peat!
I ended up putting a weight on top of the little door, but with the back blocked off, and the little door once again closed, there’s no air circulation in the tank. The glass started to fog up! So I’ve created a small gap in the back slot that I hope the cats will not try to get through.
It takes a lot of determination for a cat to be able to reach these trays! They really, really want to dig in that “dirt”.
One thing about our internet being a problem is that we’re really learning what browsers and websites are data hogs of one type or another. Chrome is better than Firefox, and WordPress is just awful. Not just the editor, but simply trying to view other WordPress blogs. I don’t know what they’re trying to do in the background, but it’s more than our internet can handle and they are constantly timing out or only partially loading.
Today, I’m trying a new browser, and it seems to be working MUCH better. Which is weird, because I’m using Tor right now, and it’s an onion, so you would think it would be worse, not better!
Either way, here I am, able to write a blog post!
As much as possible, we keep Sunday as a day of rest. What often happens during that rest period is that it becomes a time of inspiration. Today was one such day, and I came up with a garden solution.
When I posted about our layout plans for this year’s garden, one of the things mentioned is that our potatoes aren’t anywhere on it; we are planning to grow potatoes in containers this year.
The question was, what to use as containers?
The easy solution would be to buy grow bags. That requires money, of course. Money that would be more efficiently spent elsewhere. We had a number of things around the property we could use, but each had more negatives than positives about them.
So that problem got set aside, and we got to thinking about other things. Like how to preserve our harvest. Particularly the root vegetables. I got to thinking about the bags from deer feed and bird seeds we’ve been accumulating, and how they might be usable.
Which is when the inspiration hit.
The feed bags would make excellent grow bags!
The bags are simple tubes with seams sewn on the top and bottom. The seams are basically slip stitched, so to open them, I trim one end of the thread close to the bag, then yank. The whole thread pulls out, leaving the top of the bag undamaged. Once the bags are empty, they lie flat.
So I grabbed one to experiment.
To use them as grow bags, they need a flat bottom. To create that, I folded the ends of the seam so the points met at the middle, then stitched them in place. Because of the layers of thickness from the seam, I had to do two rows of stitches on either side of the seam. I used a back stitch, as that would hold better. The thread I used was salvaged from the inside of a very long length of paracord. My younger daughter had made herself a corset, but the lacing she got was not long enough. The lacing is the same as the outside of paracord. My husband bought a 1000 yard roll of black paracord a while ago, so we had plenty to use. It took a while, but we got the inner strands out, which we then separated into individual strands to keep for other things. It’s remarkably strong, and we didn’t want to waste it! It was perfect for this job.
This is the end result. A flat bottomed bag with sides that can be rolled up or down to the height desired. The bags will allow for drainage, and are strong enough that we will be able to move them around as needed.
They’re fairly small. The bags are more long and narrow than wide, and the bird seed bags are taller than the deer feed bags. They are large enough for just a couple of potatoes, or maybe three or four fingerling type potatoes, at most. So we’ll need a lot. I don’t mind the smaller size, since that means they’ll be easier to move after being filled. We are pretty sure we know where they will go, but if that doesn’t work out, being able to easily move them is a bonus.
I brought in the rest of the bags from the sun room, which turned out to be another 12 bags, plus we’ve got two more bags of feed on the go. Over the next month or two, we will be getting more of both deer feed and bird seed, which will likely give us another 8 bags to work with. After that, we’ll just be buying bird seed, but by then, we’ll be planting, so it won’t matter. Until we actually get the seed potatoes, we won’t know how many we’ll have, since they’re sold by weight, not number of potatoes. If we don’t have enough bags, we’ll just try some of the other ideas we were thinking of.
I’ve stitched up three, altogether, to get the hang of it, and now they are set aside. Over the next few weeks, we’ll stitch up the rest so that they will be ready for our planting in late May or early June. Being in bags, we should be able to get away with planting earlier.
The cats, meanwhile, are absolutely fascinated by these bags, and all the smells that came in with them! :-D
With how bitterly cold it has been for the past while, I have been doing my morning rounds much later in the morning. It may only have been a couple of degrees warmer, but I was taking anything I could get! Usually, by the time I came out, the outside cats were hovering around the door, looking for me to come out with warm water.
This morning, I headed out at a more usual time, even though it was -31C/-24F with a wind chill of -33C/-27F
Absolutely none of the cats came out to greet me! LOL
The only cat I saw was Nosy and, other than lifting his head to look at me, he did not move! Considering that he is curled up right under where the terrarium bulb is, I’m guessing it’s still working.
My brother’s dog was visiting again. He’s loving this cold so much! :-D I didn’t have any cats joining me for my rounds, but I did have him to keep me company! You can even see him in the photo below.
We have deer paths all through the garden area and the East yard, but none are as well worn as these, here. We used to have a trail cam facing where they would cross the road from my brother’s place and jump our fence. One of these days, I’d like to set one up again. I miss seeing how many deer used to cross here!
What I found this morning, however, is that the top barbed wire is loose from one post, and it was twisted around the middle wire. It had been torn loose when a deer didn’t quite clear the fence! I’m going to have to find some U nails and head out with a hammer to fix it.
Long term, we’re going to have to find a way to stop the deer from entering our yard around here at all. As much as I like them, I don’t want them eating the garden! Privacy is also a goal, and not just from our vandal creeping about. Even with the lilac hedge and other trees along the fence like, people driving by like to slow down and peer into the property. Particularly if there are deer at the house. The fence posts around the garden area all need to be replaced, and I want to get away from barbed wire completely, so building a privacy fence around the garden area that the deer can’t jump over is right in line with our goals. When we can do that is another question entirely! :-D
Speaking of gardens…
This morning, I noticed that the label for the bunching onions in the small tank had been knocked over. Though I had blocked the opening in the lid, a cat had still managed to reach in and bat at things. When I lifted the lid to fix it, though, I could feel it was noticeably colder than the room!
Clearly, lining the inside of the tank with insulation was not enough. The above picture is from when the trays were first put into the tank. Not only did a cat knock over the label, but I found one of the peaks of cardboard in a corner had been torn off!
The light on this tank is LED. It provides no warmth. The light on the big tank is fluorescent (I had thought it was LED, too, but was remembering incorrectly), so it does help keep the seedlings warm. The little tank was way too cold for the seeds!
After thinking about how we could warm up the inside of the tank, I remembered something. Years ago, I’d bought a small, recessed bulb, light fixture to provide spot lighting while I was working on crafts, etc. I stopped using it because it had a tendency to get very hot, even with an LED bulb. The bulb would be cool, but the fixture would get hot. I kept it and we even brought it along when we moved here. So this morning, I dug it out, then went through a bag of bulbs we have. We replaced almost all of the light bulbs here with LED bulbs, plus we still had some that the movers accidentally included when packing our stuff. Lo and behold, I found a full spectrum incandescent light bulb in the mix.
Perfect!
So I set the light fixture up on the edge of the tank, with the lid propped on it to hold it in place. I also dug around our aquarium supplies and found the little tank thermometer. The suction cup doesn’t work anymore, but I could still set it up inside the tank so that we could monitor the temperature.
It worked. In only a few minutes, I could feel a significant difference! (The thermometer will need more time to read accurately, since it was in the old kitchen, where it’s below freezing temperatures.)
We can only have this light going while someone is there to supervise, since it could literally melt the plastic of the lid. Since the tank is lined with insulation, once it warms up inside, it will stay warm for quite a while, so a few minutes here and there will be adequate.
On the down side, the cats still try to jump on the lid, even when it’s propped up over the light fixture.
I did not expect the small tank to be less cat proof than the big one!
Okay, so my last post actually uploaded, so here’s hoping this one works, too!
I mentioned previously that the girls and I have been going over the layout of the grounds we have to work on, trying to figure out where we will be planting things. Today, I worked up a new diagram on the computer, this time keeping the satellite image in the background.
This is what we’ve got to work with; what I call the inner yard.
The long blue lines at the bottom (which is South) are fences. Black lines are around the house, storage house and garage. The one yellow line extending from the house is an important one for us to remember, when it comes time to making our permanent garden beds in the outer yard. There are pipes buried under there; water from the well next to the house, leading to the barn and to water fountains that were used when my parents still had cattle, and the septic pipe that diverts to the septic field, well away from house and barn. Since we plan to build accessible raised beds, and hopefully a polytunnel and/or greenhouse, we need to make sure to keep that area clear, in case we ever need to excavate it for repairs to the pipes.
The masses of green are treed areas. The spruce grove is on the right. The little yellow dot in there is where we will be planting the mulberry tree that will be arriving in the spring. We need to clear away dead spruces and underbrush, but there will be enough mature trees around it to protect it from the elements. Necessary, since it is a zone 4 tree and will need extra protection.
The blue rectangles are existing beds. The two little ones along the spruce grove are where the hard neck garlic is planted. I’ve marked where I will be making a third bed in that area. This is the only place we have soft soil, exposed when I cleaned up where the wood pile used to be. While clearing away the dead trees and underbrush around there, we will also be clearing the space where we are planning to build a cordwood shed to be used as an outdoor bathroom with composting toilet. No pit! The existing outhouse is between those beds and the garage to the south.
The blue next to the house is the old kitchen garden area, with its retaining wall of chimney blocks that we planted cucamelons in, last year. This is a bit of a problem area, overshadowed by two ornamental apple trees. There is also a double lilac, a honeysuckle and some roses in there that we will have to work around.
Then there is my mother’s old garden area!
The existing beds marked in blue are where we grew our squash and potatoes. The two little beds to the right are where the potatoes where. Summer squash were in the larger, North-South oriented beds. The long skinny bed on the north side had birdhouse gourds in it, but those got killed off by frost. The three East-West oriented beds had started out as pumpkin mounds, but when I cleaned it up for the winter, I turned them into larger beds.
The green rectangles are potential new plots. The slightly darker green ones are pretty much decided on, while the lighter green ones are in areas that are probably not worth putting beds in, but we could if we needed to. There is a row of self sown trees to the North of the existing beds that we really should take out; they should never have been allowed to grow there. They split my mother’s old garden area in a way that made a substantial part of the garden unusable. There’s also a chokecherry tree growing, all by itself, in the gap between two light green squares.
There is also a green garden area marked along the fence line to the south of the house. There should actually be two of them, on either side of the person gate, which is near that yellow line. On one side is where we will be planting cucamelons, using the chain link fence as a trellis. The other side will have tomatoes. Hopefully. The seeds have not arrived yet, so that will depend on whether they get here in time to be started indoors.
The bed I will be making next to the hard neck garlic will probably be for our 2 varieties of beets. Either that or carrots, given how soft the soil is there. We have 4 varieties of carrots to plant, so we’ll see.
The garden by the old kitchen will likely have our poppies, lettuces, and possibly the pink celery that will hopefully arrive in time.
The three beds that used to be pumpkin hills are where we will plant our three varieties of spinach. The longer beds on either side will have the bulb onions, likely interplanted with the purple Kohlrabi (onions repel insects that go after plants in the cabbage family). The former potato beds will have the shallots and bunching onions, and will likely have something interplanted with them, too. Possibly kale. We got purple kale as free seeds from Baker Creek, and we seem to be going with a pink and purple theme this year, so … we’ll see.
Speaking of purple, to the left of the existing beds is where we are planning to plant the purple corn. There are areas that can fit potential beds to the north and south. This whole area has to be carefully planned. Where the current beds are now will be permanent garden areas; I’m not so sure that where the corn will be planted will be included. With the horrible plow job that was done before we moved here, the area we’ll be putting the corn is the roughest (another reason we need that load of soil!), but where I’ve blocked off space for the corn is the best part. To the south, there’s too much shade from trees, so if we do make beds there, only shade friendly vegetables can be planted there. To the north, it’s basically lawn, and was never part of the original garden. I’ll touch on those areas, later.
Let’s leap over to the massive area on the right (east). There will be alternating blocks of corn and sunflowers there. We have 3 varieties of peaches and cream corn, and 2 varieties of giant sunflowers. We may interplant our 2 varieties of peas with the sunflowers, which can provide very strong supports for the peas to climb, while the peas fix nitrogen into the soil.
Legumes are supposed to be good to plant near corn, as corn depletes soil of nitrogen very quickly. We have 3 varieties of bush beans and, while I am considering staking them (which is supposed to help prevent fungal disease, rot and insect infestations), they are not climbers, so we won’t be interplanting them with the corn. They will go where I have two long strips near the big block. They are not as long as the block for corn and sunflowers, because of shade from the row of crab apple trees.
The other blocks will be used to plant summer squash, which I want to try staking this year, plus winter squash, gourds and melons on trellises and/or arches. Possibly peas, if we end up not interplanting them with the sunflowers. We have one more variety of corn that will be among those blocks, too.
We have two types of radishes, which will be interplanted with other things. Likely corn. Even though we will be able to buy soil that will enable us to do all this (barring some sort of emergency that takes up the funds), much of this area will later have fruit and nut trees planted in it. Anything we do to break up the soil will make it easier for us to dig holes to plant trees into.
It is with that in mind that we are breaking ground in areas that were never part of my mother’s garden. The area where we will be planting the corn and sunflowers is all grass, as is the strip along the north side. That row of self-sown trees is in the old garden area (my mother had a raspberry patch there, and when she transplanted the raspberries, she left the saplings). The old garden area extended a small plow’s width past them – and they are probably why the plow job on that side is as rough as it is (though it could also be that the person who did the plowing may have been drunk at the time). Planting on that north strip is another area we need to be wary of, as there are telephone lines buried somewhere in there.
There are a few other things we will be planting that are not on the layout. There are no potatoes on there. We are going to try using grow bags, or something similar, for our 4 varieties of potatoes this year. They will likely be set up in the south yard, near the storage house (the building marked off to the west of the house in the middle).
We also have to consider where we want to plant the purple asparagus. It has to be somewhere where they can stay for their 20 years of productive life! We also need to think about where to plant the strawberry spinach, which I’ve learn will self seed! So for those, we need to think about more permanent locations.
As you can see by the dark green lines around the inner yard, we are surrounded by trees. The spruce grove will need a lot of cleaning up, as it has so many dead and dying trees. There are a lot of poplars that are taking it over the south side of the spruce grow, and along the fence to the road, where my parents had planted elms and more apple trees. The apple trees there are too shaded to be able to produce. As I clean up all the little poplars, they will be used to build trellises and arches. As we can, we will plant more spruces in the spruce grove again! :-D Eventually, I want to take out the fence leading to the road – it’s barbed wire, and many of the posts are already rotted and falling over. For now, though, it is needed in case the renter’s cows get through the fence around the outer yard again. :-D
The area on the far right, past the fence line and trees, is a flat area next to the ditch by the road. The north side of that area is going to be prepared for planting a mix of wildflower seeds in the fall. I want to make sure this area doesn’t get taken over by trees, as has happened on the other side of our driveway, which causes a number of problems, so we’ve been mowing it. Which is hard on the mower! Introducing native wildflowers will help solve that problem, while also encouraging native pollinators. That will be good for our future fruit and nut trees.
One of the problems with figuring out where to put things is that it’s really hard to maintain a perspective of just how much space there is, versus how much space we’ll actually need for what we’ll be planting! Things might change quite a bit, even based on how many of what we start indoors germinates. Everything is flexible, but this does give us a general idea of what we have to work with.
Oh, and somehow, we need to keep the deer out of all this!
That will probably be the biggest challenge of all.
It’s easy to get excited about things today. As I write this, we are at a balmy -18C !!
Okay, the wind chill is at -27C, but that’s okay. We’re at -18C! And our predicted high is -15C! It’s feeling like spring out there!
For my friends in the US, -18C is 0.4F, -27C is -16.6F, and -15C is 5F.
Last night, we did hit temperatures of -33C/-24F with a wind chill of -37C/-35F, so this is a huge increase in the space of about 14 hours. Not only that, but by the 22nd, just 5 days from now, we’re supposed to reach 2C/36F
I don’t know how we’re going to handle all that heat. LOL
Even the deer are happy. I took these shots, after I’d done the morning rounds.
I had seen two deer at the feeding station, but by the time I came back with my phone to take pictures, there were three!
Cabbages was watching them – and didn’t run away when I came close to take pictures!
When I headed out this morning, there wasn’t a yard cat in sight, which concerned me a bit. With the increased temperatures, I expected to see them all over. Then I saw the fluffy white flag in the outer yard! :-D My brother’s dog had come to visit the kitties, and they were all in hiding. They did eventually come to the kibble house, and indulge in some warm water, though.
I’m starting to think that the terrarium heat bulb inside the cat’s house has stopped working. I can see by the red light on the timer that it is still getting power when the light sensor is triggered. However, that spot on the roof where the snow would melt is not clear, even after I shoveled off most of the snow and things have warmed up in general. We have no thermometer inside (something we intend to add, later in the year), so the only way to tell would be by lifting the roof and manually checking the ceramic bulb.
Which is not going to happen, any time soon! Unless the heated water bowl gets unplugged again, we are not lifting that roof. :-D
I ran our van while I was switching out the memory cards on the trail cams. The coolant levels are where they are supposed to be, which is good. It’s still making a whining noise, but I no longer think it’s the cold serpentine belt. I think it’s the power steering, right next to it. Something else to get checked. *sigh*
Trading the locations of the trail cams seems to have worked. When I switched the memory card in the new camera, the display screen inside activated without my having to warm it up with my hands, first! We had a busy day at our gate, yesterday. The older camera, which is set to take only short videos, had 44 files for me to check. The new camera, which is set to take 3 stills, then a short video, had 233 files waiting for me! It did have a hard time with night shots, but it was taking stills with an internal temperature of -25C/-13F before stopping completely. The other camera was still recording, and I finally saw what has been close enough to trigger the motion sensors, but too far for the infrared flash to light up. I could just barely see the shadow of a deer walking though the far end of the driveway, by the road.
So the camera set up is working better now, which is the important thing.
And now for the thing that I’m really excited about!
As the girls and I were pouring over the diagram of the property, our need to buy soil – and a lot of it – is something we just can’t get away from. It’s not even that we don’t have the years it would take to build up the soil, as we originally planned, but that we don’t have the organic material to do it. We just don’t produce enough compost, don’t have enough yard waste, and don’t have access to the amounts of manure and other amendments we need, in the quantities we’ll need.
I’ve tried to find out how much it would cost to get a dump truck load of garden soil through various sites, but I don’t know how much a dump truck would hold in the first place. We don’t plan to have a load spread onto the garden area. We just want a pile that we will spread ourselves, where we need it, as we need it. Most of where we are planting this year is going to be temporary, anyhow, so we will be very selective on where we put purchased soil.
Then there are all the different mixes you can get. Some sites I found offered a basic 3 part mix of soil, compost and manure, while others offered up 4 and 5 part mixes, with additional amendments. Of course, the more in the mix, the higher the cost, but without knowing how many square yards I’m even after, there was no way to figure out how much it would cost. The only thing I really had to go by was how much my older brother paid for loads of soil, but he wasn’t buying garden soil. He was buying things like fill and gravel. Still, it gave me the closest thing to a ball park figure I was able to find.
Today, I decided to call a local company. They have a yard just a couple of miles away from us, and we pass it every time we go to town. I knew they did gravel, but in passing the yard, I could see they had soil, too. Was it fill? Topsoil? Garden soil? I had no idea.
So I called them up and asked if they had garden soil, and was told, yes, they did. Then he began rattling off four of the five part mix they have! He couldn’t remember the last one, but it includes both cow and sheep manure, as well as a type of sand, to make it lighter. I’m guessing the one he couldn’t remember was compost. With the companies I found online, this would be their high end premium mix, but for this company, it’s the only mix they have!
I asked about load sizes, and their truck holds 10 – 12 square yards of garden soil, and we would be charged only $25 a yard.
And because we are so close, that would include the cost of delivery!
A load of 12 square yards would cost about $300. I’m assuming there would be taxes on top of that.
That is about half of what I was expecting it to be.
My older brother happened to call not long after, and when I told him about it, he was astonished at the price. He also wondered if a single load would be enough, but at this price, we’ll be able to get two!
I’ll be calling the company back to arrange delivery around April. That gives us time to figure out where we want to have the soil dumped. If we’re getting two loads, I’m thinking maybe get one for the inner yard, and one for the outer yard, but I really can’t think of where we can place a truck load in the inner yard.
We’re already looking forward to what we’ll be able to plant this year. That we’ll be able to afford the soil is just icing on the cake! We were talking about waiting until we get our tax returns to do this, but the cost is so much lower than expected, we could even be able to do it from our normal budget, even if we’d have to split it between two months – so long as we don’t have anything break down! :-D
I just realized something.
We can get a dump truck full of premium garden soil for less than the cost of getting a cat spayed.
Finally! The last of our onion seeds have been planted!
These were the bunching onions; a variety called Red Baron, from Veseys. They have red root ends instead of the usual white.
Using the dampened blunt end of a bamboo skewer made planting the seeds really easy. I could pick up a single seed at a time (two, if I really wanted to), press it into the growing medium, then cover the seed, all with the skewer. I put two seeds in each cell (though I think I might have lost track and double planted a couple! LOL), which left me with about half a package left over.
Then the trays went into the 20 gallon fish tank. It’s a bit snug, and I’ll likely have to fight a bit to get them out again later, but there is enough room at each end to move them, to get a grip under the tray supports.
This tank has a lid with the light fixture attached under it. I had thought that would be enough, but my daughter has already caught a cat on the lid, reaching through the opening in the back for the filter and hoses. I’m going to have to find a way to block that off, while still allowing air circulation!
Meanwhile…
The first onions we planted, the Norstar bulb onion, now has sprouts large enough to see in a photo. :-D
You can also see how some of the K-cups are drier on the top. I’d already sprayed them this morning, and we’ll likely have to spray them again this evening. The peat pellets, at least, are holding their moisture quite well.
Special note: when using loose peat to start seeds, soak it with water before putting it in pots or cells!
As an aside, I am happy to say that my husband’s prescriptions got delivered today. I had asked for them to call first, so I could unlock the gate, only to get a phone call saying they were already here! So I quickly threw on some boots and a coat and dashed out to meet them.
Of course “dashing out” doesn’t mean the same thing on the farm than it did when we lived in the city! LOL
When I mentioned I had been expecting to be called in advance, so the gate could be unlocked for them, I was told they’d actually tried to call from the driveway, but couldn’t get a signal. They had to drive up the road about a quarter mile before they could get enough signal to call me.
The driver then commented that he recognized me, and he even remembered my name, as well as my parents! Unfortunately, even though we were outside and on opposite sides of the gate, he was wearing a mask, so I had no clue who he was. It turned out he was the principle when I was in school! He even remembered my husband from high school. Small world! :-) I have no idea why he and his wife were delivering prescriptions for the pharmacy, but I was happy to see them. :-)
My husband has gone over the new meds, and it turns out that the changed prescription isn’t for something he’s on right now. Another medication he used to be on years ago has been added back on, which is why I remembered the name when talking to the doctor about it. I’m losing track of them all! There are some very serious possible contraindications, mostly respiratory. With the setting on his CPAP as high as it already is, that, at least, is not as much of a concern while he’s asleep. It explains why the doctor was so hesitant to change my husband’s medications. He’s already maxed out on the doses of most of his other medications. Hopefully these changes, which will continue to be slowly adjusted over the next few months, will finally get the pain levels under control, and his quality of life will finally start to improve!
Among our goals with our permanent garden beds is for them to be accessible. High beds with wide spaces between them. It would be good for him to be able to get out with his walker, among growing things. :-)
There is more benefit to gardening than being able to grow food!
The Re-Farmer 