Gardening

I couldn’t resist

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https://clipground.com/images/winter-vegetables-clipart-16.jpg

Well, I’ve gone and done it.

I’ve made another order from Vesey’s Seeds.

What can I say? I couldn’t resist!

Truthfully, the things I ordered today are not for me. They are for my daughters. My excuse is, they both have spring birthdays, so this is my gift to them!

Here is what I’ve ordered. (All links will open in new tabs)

Purple Passion Asparagus: This is the one that got the bug in my ear to order more! The new Vesey’s spring catalogue had come in, and my older daughter came to me, all excited about these. They are not only hardy to zone 2, but apparently are so sweet and tender, they can be eaten raw. She didn’t ask about ordering it, though, since she knew we already had so much.

So I ordered it anyway. :-D We do have some asparagus here; a few brave spears come up in the spring, but not enough to harvest. Asparagus takes 2-3 years to get going, so ordering fresh root stocks now just makes more sense. Once they’re established, they should keep producing for up to 20 years. We’ll be getting the 6 pack of these, delivered in the spring.

April Cross Chinese Radish: This is a Daikon type of radish. I actually don’t like these – or any radishes at all – but my younger daughter really likes Daikon radish, so this is for her!

Red Meat Watermelon Radish: This one is for both my daughters! A white radish with a pink interior and green “shoulders”.

Robin Beet: We got only one variety of beets this year, with a second variety my younger daughter had wanted being out of stock. It’s still out of stock. Both my daughters really liked the deep, dark, sweet beets that we grew last year, so these should be right up their alley. These are “baby” beets, maturing at only 25-30 days.

Black Form Iris: this is another one for my younger daughter. There is another black iris that she had wanted to get for our fall planting, but it was out of stock, and still is. I know she’ll like this one, too. Like the asparagus, this will be delivered in the spring.

So that’s it! Just a little order, at least compared to the last one I made at Vesey’s! :-D I think the girls will really enjoy growing these.

The Re-Farmer

Converting the fish tank to a cat proof greenhouse, part 3: covers done!

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Yes! The big tank now has its cat proof covers!

The second one was much faster to build than the first. :-D

For those who are new to this blog *waves hello* you can catch up on the project with part one and part two. Links will open in new tabs, so you don’t lose your place here. :-)

Once the second cover was done, I unpacked the light fixture, which has been sitting in its box next to the tank since the move, and tested it out. Considering what a disaster the movers were, I would not have been surprised to find the bulbs shattered or something.

It worked just fine! :-)

Of course, as soon the covers were on, cats were on it! So far, they have not tried to climb on the light fixture, but there is no doubt that they will, at some point. Hopefully, it will hold up okay.

I was concerned that the frame would create shadows in the tank, but that does not seem to be an issue at all!

Now I have to figure out how to set the time and program it to turn on and off. It’s been years since it was last done! There is time to look that up, though.

We still need to cover the sharp edges of the wire mesh, and I still want to put felt pads in the corners to protect the tank a bit, but other than that, the covers are done.

We still have the original light that came with the tank, which rested right on top of the original covers. The tanks will only hold so many seed trays. With things like the onion seeds needing to be started so much earlier than anything else, I can see us rotating trays out from the tanks and into the sun room (which should be warm enough, by the time the next groups of seeds need to be started), and using the second light there.

Now I need to figure out where to store my baskets, then line the inside of the tank with foil to reflect more light. Since this room is rather chilly, I plan to use pieces of rigid insulation on the bottom and around the sides, too. We will likely cover the insulation with foil on one side to make it easier to take it in and out, but I will see how the seed trays fit inside, first. If the insulation takes up too much space, I’ll put them on the outside of the tank.

Progress has been made! :-)

I am so looking forward to gardening this year! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Converting the fish tank to a cat proof greenhouse, part 1: starting a cover

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I have spent some time thinking about how we can convert our big fish tank into a greenhouse to start seeds in, while also making sure the cats couldn’t jump in.

The original covers the tank came with would have been ideal, but the hinges on those broke long ago.

Since a piece of the filtration system broke during the move, it’s just been sitting in a corner. To keep the cats out, we cut pieces of foam core to fit across the top, then covered the whole thing with a huge table cloth. It turned out to be a great place to store baskets in, and the top became a favorite place for the cats to hang out.

Until they broke through.

We ended up cutting some rigid insulation to fit and taping it in place, which worked much better. With their jumping from the piano onto the top of the tank, though, they’ve knocked even that right off!

What this means is that the cats are used to having access to the top of this tank. If I set it up as a greenhouse to start seeds, they’re just going to jump in, unless I find a way to cover it.

The tank has a bar across the centre and, after thinking about it for a while, I decided to make a pair of wood frames with hardware cloth, that will fit on each side of that centre bar. That way, if I need to get at the seed trays inside, I just need to lift one smaller cover at a time, rather than struggling with one large cover.

I fully expect the cats to jump on while I try to do anything in there!

Today, I got started.

The first thing was to take a tape measure to the inside of each half of the top, as well as the lip the original covers used to sit on. Each side is 16 3/4 inches by 22 3/4 inches. The ends and centre bar have a 1/2 inch lip, while the sides have a 1/4 inch lip.

I then grabbed a couple of pieces of wood I’d salvaged from a shed and started by cutting the long sides. Once I had 4 of them cut, I double checked that they fit properly.

They fit just fine, with a little bit of play that will make putting them in and taking them out easier.

While I was checking the fit, my daughter came by. As we were talking, she reminded me of one of her Christmas gifts to me.

I wish I’d remembered them before I took the measurements! This thing is MUCH easier for me to read than the tiny lines and numbers on my tape measure. It made marking the distance to cut the short pieces a lot easier, too.

Another reason I wish I’d remembered them before I took the measurements.

When I checked the short pieces, they were just a hair too long! The difference is so slight, I could probably sand it to size.

But I shouldn’t need to.

This is how the frame will be laid out. The hardware cloth will be sandwiched between the top and bottom pieces at the corners. I haven’t figure out what I can use to secure the hardware cloth best. Ideally, the wire mesh would be sandwiched between wood all the way around, not just at the corners, but I just don’t have the wood to do that. Nor can I think of anything we have that could be used in a similar way. Whatever I come up with will have to not just support the weight of a cat that’s decided to lie on it, but the force of a cat jumping onto it from the top of the piano. All sorts of ideas some to mind, and get discarded just as quickly. :-/

The thing I’m holding in place in the photo is one of the supports for the light fixture. The L bars insert into ports at the bottom of the light’s frame, so where they are is where the bottom of the light fixture will be.

Once I double checked how everything was going to fit together, I moved on to the next step.

Washing the pieces of wood.

They were probably sitting in the shed I found them in for more than 10 years. My mother tells me that shed was full of lumber when she moved off the farm, some 7 years ago, so what little we found in there was the junk that wasn’t worth stealing, I guess. :-/ Still better than nothing, I suppose. Anyhow. There was a whole lot of grime on them, so I gave the pieces of wood a quick scrub. They don’t need to be really clean. I just need to be able to handle them without getting filthy, and trying to scrub them after the hardware cloth is in place is just not a good idea! :-D

So they are now all laid out in the basement with a fan on them, do dry. I will continue to work on the frames tomorrow!

One of the recommendations for using grow lights to start seeds is to have the lights very close to the soil, and gradually increase the distance as the seedlings grow.

That won’t be an option with this set up.

I’m thinking of lining the inside of the tank with aluminum foil to reflect more light onto the seedlings. It doesn’t need to be from top to bottom; just at seed tray height. Which means I could probably get away with lining all 4 sides with foil in the big tank. I will probably line 3 sides of the 20 gallon tank, too.

The other thing to consider is warmth. We don’t have grow mats, and it’s unlikely we will be able to get any. We do, however, have more pieces of rigid insulation that we can put under the trays, or even along the sides closest to the walls. The LED lights won’t generate heat, but I’m sure we could find some way to warm up the tanks enough for seeds to germinate.

Progress on the set up has, at least, finally begun!

The Re-Farmer

They’re finally in! Also, we still have an income…

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The last of our seed orders FINALLY came in the mail today. They were shipped quite a while ago!

This was the first batch that was ordered.

I completely forgot that, on noticing how few seeds were in the packets compared to the giant sunflowers we ordered last year (which was by weight, not seed count), I had ordered two of each.

The Crespo squash, which is a type of pumpkin from the Andes, was a last minute addition. I couldn’t resist!

I love how they use adorable children for scale.

This was my second order.

This was another “I couldn’t resist” order. After placing the first order, I went looking around the site. Baker Creek then sent me an email to up-sell me, using some of the new things I’d added to my wish list. I ended up ordering all of them. With seeds selling out so quickly again, I figured it was worth it. The price was right, too.

I have no idea if we will be able to plant any of these this year. We shall see how much space we have for starting seeds indoors. I think, at the very least, I want to try and germinate 2 or 3 of each variety.

Then there are the freebies.

This is the second package of purple kohlrabi we’ve been sent. I really, really want to try growing kohlrabi again. Gotta protect them from the bugs somehow!

As for the kale… we’re not fans of kale, except as kale chips (leaves tossed in olive oil and salt, then dehydrated in a warm oven). They are supposed to be very cold hardy, though, so that’s always a bonus for our area. We’ll make that decision then the time comes. I’m certainly willing to try a new variety!

I was very relieved to have these finally come in the mail! We do still have some back ordered items, and others that will be shipped at planting time, from Veseys, but those haven’t been shipped yet. These were shipped about month ago.

Something else came in the mail today.

It was from my husband’s health insurance.

Every year, he has to fill out a form to confirm that yes, he is still disabled, still under the care of a doctor (well… as much as he could be, this past year) and still alive. He is able to fill out the form, take a picture of it, and email the image, rather than send it through snail mail. At this point, he doesn’t even need a doctor to sign anything anymore. Everything gets process very quickly, and he later gets a letter detailing how much he will be getting in disability payments per month (it changes by a few dollars every now and then).

A while back, he got letter reminding him to send in the form.

Which he had already sent in.

He phoned them up and, after some digging, discovered that there was a different email for these forms than the one he’s been using for the last 5 years. Once he had that, he sent the form in again.

Today, he got another letter, reminding him to send in the form.

!!!

Thankfully, it was still early enough that he could call the insurance company, the office of which is in a different time zone. After sitting on hold, then being transferred to several different people, he got to the right one. His filed was looked at and…

All is good. His form had been processed.

Yesterday.

So that was a bit of a heart attack. If something had gone wrong, we don’t just loose the income we’re living on. We lose his coverage for prescriptions. This province does have Pharmacare, but that does not cover all of the medications he’s on. The medications are actually covered by a different company. His employer switched companies after he went on disability, so while his long term disability payments stayed with the original company, prescriptions are now covered by the company they switched to. If he loses one, he loses the other.

Which means we really, really appreciate that his insurance company was willing to send not one, but two reminder letters!

One thing I can say. Even with some screw ups related to the move, the insurance companies have done very well by my husband, and even gone above and beyond.

I thank God constantly for the excellent health insurance plan my husband was on. Yes, Canada has a “safety net”, but I know people who rely on it, and it sucks. We would have been financially devastated within months, probably weeks, without private health insurance.

We have much to be grateful for!

The Re-Farmer

Charting our course

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Ah, January. The perfect time to be planning our gardening!

Last year, a lot of what we did was flying the the seat of our pants. Yes, we did some planning, but mostly we were just forging on ahead before things were fully ready. If we waited until we were ready before starting all the time, things would never get done! :-D Sometimes, you just have to just say “screw it” and jump in with both feet.

There will still be a lot of that this year, but we have more information and are in a better position to plan things out.

One of the things I’ve done was find some Facebook groups that are dedicated to Zone 3 (or colder!) gardening. One of them is dedicated to cold hardy fruit and nut trees! It’s been pretty awesome to be able to talk to people about the different things they’ve come up with to extend their growing seasons.

Some of them are already talking about starting their onion seeds NOW!! It turned out these are people with greenhouses. They start the seeds indoors, where it’s warm, later move their trays to their unheated greenhouses to start hardening off before finally transplanting them outdoors.

This had me wondering… I know my mother grew onions, but I had no idea how she started them. I remember we had a cold frame with cabbages in it. I know she grew tomatoes, so she had to have started those indoors, somehow, and while I remember the onions in the garden, much later in the season, I have zero memory of how she started them. Did she use seeds? Sets? I didn’t know.

When we first moved here, my mother was quite furious that we didn’t plant a garden right away. The way she did it, years ago, of course. ;-) One of the things she kept saying to me is that we should at least plant onions. They’re easy to grow, and we’d save money, so we needed to at least plant onions…

It seems to be a really big deal to her, for us to grow onions.

Now, over time, while she still tries to guilt me about not allowing her to hire someone to plow the garden area, because there was too much other stuff that we needed to focus on, first (an offer she has stopped making, now that we are more ready! LOL), I think she finally has started to understand that the land she remembers as being so perfect in every way, isn’t. At all. Of course, nothing we did do was good enough; we used mulch, which she’d never heard of being done before, therefore it was bad. We used only a small part of the old garden area. She didn’t approve of how we planted them anything, and she did not approve of our growing sunflowers at all, because when she grew them, the birds ate the seeds, And so on. She also kept asking me about her onions and if they were still growing. There were a few that started to come up, along a section of fence that used to be around the old kitchen garden, but they didn’t grow much. She seemed quite disappointed and I got the impression she thought I deliberately killed them off. :-/

Still, when I had the chance, I asked her about her onions. I told her I was going to plant 4 varieties, three of them from seed and one from sets, but that I could not remember how she started hers.

We talked a bit about the cold frame I remembered, and it turned out that cabbages and tomatoes where the only things she started in the cold frame. She did not start onions from seed, nor did she get sets.

It turns out she had a variety of onion that comes back year after year. She referred to them as Spanish onions when I last spoke to her, but I remember a previous conversation with her where she mentioned Egyptian Walking Onions. I think that’s what she actually meant.

It turns out she didn’t like the onions themselves, but just used the greens.

???

All that fussing and verbal abuse, and it turns out she didn’t even like the onions she grew? She just grew them because they were “free” and she didn’t have to buy them.

I did mention to her that, while that can be good, sometimes you get what you pay for! In this case, it was onions she didn’t like to eat!

She was absolutely indifferent to my telling her I was planting onions this year, too.

*sigh*

It’d be nice to be able to learn from her experiences, but that doesn’t seem to be much of an option. Ah, well.

With so many seeds that we ordered already in, more still stuck in the mail, and others to be shipped closer to planting time in our zone, we needed to find a way to organize them and plan things out. I’d spent some time looking at planting charts, many of which are available as free printouts, but none of them were suitable for us. It took some digging to find any for Zone three, but they also all had lists of vegetables already on them, most of which we aren’t growing. Sure, someday, we’ll probably try to grow some of them, but not yet. Meanwhile there are things we are planning to grow that weren’t included.

On top of that, these were all printer sizes. Too small!

I decided to make my own planting chart, large enough to stick on a wall or something.

Time to dig through my craft supplies!

I had a sheet of foam core that got pretty beat up during the move, but not enough to throw it away. It was just the size I wanted!

My daughter loaned me her T-square and steel yardstick. The sheet is 30 inches long, so I marked of a grid of half inch squares in pencil.

Then I broke out my collection of Sharpies and marked off a table with the weeks, with a different colour every 4th week, and so on.

Before erasing most of the pencil marks, I remembered to keep the week numbers in permanent marker.

Of course, the months don’t line up with perfect 4 weeks groups, so I counted back on the calendar on my phone and found our last frost date of June 2 falls in the middle of week 22 this year. So I highlighted that week. I figure, from year to year, it’ll still be around that week.

After the pencil marks in the grid were erased, I brought out the seed packs we have right now, sorted them in alphabetical order, then worked out the times for starting seeds indoors and transplanting or direct sowing.

There is room enough to add the other seeds that have yet to arrive.

How the months line up are not as important as the last frost date. We can now look at it and see at a glance, what time range the seeds should be stared indoors. If something needs to be started 4 weeks before last frost, for example, I marked off blocks for 3, 4 and 5 weeks. Some things recommend succession sowing directly into the soil, starting before the last frost date, so I marked off every other week for those. Things like that. We will probably mark off harvest times and the first frost date later on, too, but this will do for now.

After looking it over, one of my daughters added the Post-it Notes. We will also be starting up a shopping list of materials we will need to make the trellises, covers and deer fencing. Having all the things we’ll be planted, listed out like this, will also help us work out where some things will be planted, how many boxes, trellises, etc. we need to build, and so on. Thankfully, one thing we do have a lot of is space. It may mostly be hard as cement, but we can work with that!

All of the squash and melons need to be started at basically the same time. That’s the period we’re going to have the biggest challenge with, as far as space for seed starts. There are just so many varieties we will be planting!

And yes, I plan to start corn indoors. From what I’ve been reading, I’m going to try planting them in toilet rolls for pots, so that we can later transplant them without disturbing the roots. Some of the people in the Zone 3 gardening group use the red plastic beer cups. My mother had always direct sown corn, but I’m remembering this from the very warm decade of the 80’s, when it was hot enough in May and June for kids in school to be passing out in the hallways. Most of the people in the gardening groups are saying they have never been able to successfully grow corn without starting them indoors first; things had cooled down quite a bit over the 90’s, and the 2000’s haven’t been any better, really. Any hot summers we’ve had did not make up for late, cold springs. I really, really want that purple corn to succeed, so I want to give it every boost I can!

I even have the Kohlrabi on there. I want to find a way to grow those, without them being decimated by deer, caterpillars and beetles!

I think this will work out rather well, and if it does, we can potentially reuse the chart, year after year.

The first thing we need to do is get those aquariums ready to use a cat proof greenhouses!

The Re-Farmer

Happy Three King’s Day, and digging out the fire pit

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Happy Three King’s Day! Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, which is our last day of Christmas. After today, we start taking down our decorations. :-)

It was another mild day today, so when I finished my rounds this morning, I decided to go ahead and dig out the fire pit.

I considered breaking out Spewie, our little electric snow blower, but for the amount of snow we have, I figured it would be easier to just shovel it!

I shoved the snow off what I’m using for a cover, but didn’t bother moving it, yet.

On our warm days, the snow melted enough to create a layer of ice on the surface of the picnic table. We’ll be staying at these mild temperatures for a while, so now that it’s uncovered it should melt away on its own.

I cleared a path to the organized wood pile. That cover did not need to have snow removed from it. I didn’t bother shoveling to the big pile of branches. The little pile has kindling and should be enough for our needs. We may not use the fire pit at all, but at least now we have the option! :-)

I made sure to dig the path to the fire pit wide enough for my husband’s walker, should he feel well enough to join us if we do a cookout.

I was being watched the whole time!

You can see the cats’ favorite way to get under the storage house. The path that goes around the back branches off to a partially broken window they also like to use, as well as through the trees to the path they’ve made to the storage building outside the yard. Well worn little footy paths in the snow! :-)

I also had to dig a wider path around the kibble house. There is a lot of overhang on the roof that is working quite well for the cats, but not so well for a human with a walker! :-D

While clearing around the cat shelter and kibble house, I found this.

It’s a frozen little cat treat! :-D Next to the slab of ice that slid off the “porch” roof of the cat shelter.

Rolando Moon looks like she’s thinking of that delicious frozen treat! :-D

So we will now be able to easily get at the fire pit if we feel like having a cook out, or just a nice fire. I still like the idea of using a fire to thaw the ground out, so we can set up the fire pit grill my brother and his wife got for us!

We do have the BBQ they have us, and the propane tanks does have fuel in it, but I am much more interested in the fire pit, instead! :-D

In other things, I was able to get through to the clinic to make an appointment with my doctor about my breathing issues. After hearing the messages about restrictions before it ever got to a human, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make an appointment at all. The messages say nothing about medical exemptions to mask wearing, of course. Which sucks, since not being able to breathe properly is why I need to see a doctor in the first place. I was able to make a telephone appointment for Friday afternoon, and then it will be up to my doctor to decide if I should come in or not. I made an appointment for my daughter for right after mine, so when he’s done with me, I can just hand the phone over to her. This is the first doctor’s appointment either of our daughters have had since we moved. After seeing how difficult it has been for my husband and I to get good medical care, they have developed a strong distrust of doctors. I can’t say I blame them, either.

But that is done. We shall see what the doctor has to say when the time comes. I am not expecting much of anything, to be honest. No one is getting real health care right now, and our premier has just put us under another 30 days of house arrest, even has many of our politicians have been caught ignoring those restrictions and have gone traveling to tropical places, visiting with their friends and family, and then pretending to be sorry after getting caught.

Thankfully, we are out here in the boonies, and I get to focus on more pleasant things. Right now, I’m working on a project to help me be organized about our gardening, including keeping track of what seeds to start indoors and when.

More to come on that, later! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: More seeds in! and… oops. :-D

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Hmmm. Our internet is cutting in and out like crazy today, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to post this right away!

Today, our first batch of seeds from Veseys came in. Yay! There are more that will be shipped later, but even so, that little box was just jam packed! You can read about all that we ordered, and why we chose what we did, here (link will open in new tab).

This is what we got in today.

First, the wildflower mixes. These are both for planting in the fall, so we will have the summer to prepare the locations we intend to plant them in. The Western mix is intended for outside the yard, between the fence and the road, to attract pollinators. We have not yet decided exactly where the Alertnative Lawn mix will go, other than well away from the house. My husband is allergic to bee stings, so anything like these needs to be planted away from any doors, the path towards the garage, and the firepit.

Spinach is among the items we will have to ensure are protected from deer. In talking about it, the girls and I are leaning towards building simple box frames with wire mesh that will fit over the beds.

Here are 2 of the 3 varieties of beans we orders; a yellow variety will be shipped later, plus the peas. The collection I’d intended to order for peas suddenly went out of stock, so I ordered these as an alternative, and I’m still seriously considering ordering another variety or two. I like peas more than I like beans! :-D

The girls and I are looking into various trellis designs for these. Yes, I know, bush beans aren’t supposed to need them, but we are looking to grow as many things vertically as we can.

We already have 2 varieties of corn from Baker Creek Rare Seeds, so we might not actually plant these at all this year. It all depends on how well we are able to prepare growing spaces. The Rare Seeds varieties are priority, and we have to keep in mind that we don’t want them to cross pollinate.

The pelleted seeds will be much easier to plant!

We now have 4 varieties of carrots, and I will happily plant them all. Carrots are a favorite vegetable in our household. The challenge will be creating the soft, deep soil they need. We have space to create one more bed in the soft soil where the wood pile used to be, and that’s it. Our topsoil is shallow, and we have a lot of rocks. My mother always successfully grew carrots in the old garden bed area, but I don’t think the soil has been amended since my parents sold off the cows and retired from farming. Raised beds would be the solution. At this point, the girls and I are thinking we’re going to have to order in a dump truck load of garden soil. We have not yet decided where we will build permanent raised beds, so any beds we do build this year will likely be temporary.

At least we don’t have to worry about the deer going after the carrots.

Three of the 4 varieties of onions are in; the 4th variety are sets that will be shipped at planting time in the spring. I’m hoping to plant these in the old kitchen garden, near the house.

The beets are intended for the additional bed we’ll be preparing next to where the garlic is currently planted, where the old wood pile used to be. My daughters had wanted to get another variety as well, but they were sold out. These might be enough. Like the spinach, we are thinking of protecting these from the deer with a wire mesh box.

We got extra cucamelons, just in case the tubers I dug up and currently have stored in the old kitchen, where it’s not quite as cold as outside, don’t make it. We intend to plant these along the chain link fence bordering the south yard. The melons will be trellised, elsewhere. Possibly near…

…the squashes we will be trellising. :-) I am hoping to build squash arches for those.

The summer squash will, hopefully, be trained up stakes. We could get away with letting them spread on the ground, like we did last year, but it’s supposed to be healthier for the plants to train them up, while pruning off the lower leaves.

Speaking of summer squash…

Last summer we ordered a summer squash mix, with extra sunburst squash. We enjoyed them enough to order the same thing again for next year. I was a bit confused as I unpacked them from the box, however…

Somehow, I accidentally ordered three collections!

Totally my goof on that one.

I’ve offered the extras to my siblings. I don’t even know if they like squash. If they don’t want them, we’ll just keep them for next year! :-)

In the spring, along with the onion sets, cherry tomato mix, yellow beans and mulberry tree, we will be getting 4 varieties of potatoes. While using the Ruth Stout, no-till, heavy mulch method did work last summer, we are thinking of using grow bags or something similar, next year. Those would give us more flexibility and, hopefully, higher yields.

The more I think about the condition of our soil, and the spaces we will be working with, the more I think getting a truckload of garden soil is going to be the best thing we can do at this point. I would much rather build up the soil over time, but I simply did not expect the soil condition to have deteriorated as much as it did, over the years. Plus, given how much my planned timeline for cleaning up the yards has been pushed back, anything that we can to do make up for that will be good.

We just have to find a local source and see how much it costs. I think it’ll be worth it, in the long term.

The Re-Farmer

First seeds in! Plus an early Christmas present.

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I was very happy to see our first order from Rare Seeds (Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds) come in. With so many delays in deliveries, I was more hoping than expecting.

Also, I’m a suck.

More on that later. :-D

Here is what came in: (click on the images to see them better)

We’ve got 2 varieties of carrots in. We’ll have 2 more varieties in our Vesey’s order, too. I would love to plant all of them, but that will depend on what we will be able to prepare for garden plots. There is basically just one place where we have soft, deeper soil, and that’s where the hard neck garlic is currently planted. I have room to make one more bed over there.

One thing I really liked was how much information is on the backs of that packages.

Which Tissue decided she needed to investigate.

In fact, ALL the cats came over to investigate!

The Kyoto red is supposed to be a “winter” carrot, but that does not apply to our climate. For our Zone 3, this is a summer carrot! Customer comments on the website included someone who very successfully grew it in another province, but also Zone 3. It was really that review that convinced me to try it.

Unfortunately, the Montana Morado corn’s package has no growing information on it. It is a black corn that is also a good flour corn. I am really glad I ordered it when I did, because it is now out of stock! These are both varieties we will be saving seeds from. We’ll have more corn coming in with our Vesey’s order, but whether or not we plant those ones as well will be decided by how much garden space we can prepare. Particularly since they have to be planted well away from each other, to avoid cross pollination.

I am so excited to have these poppies! I have no idea where we will plant them, but we will find a place! Saving seed with those will also be a priority. The strawberry spinach should be interesting. I’ve tried them before in a balcony garden, with limited success.

I had to laugh when I saw the free seeds they included.

We had decided not to try and grow Kohlrabi again, until we could figure out how to protect them from cabbage beetles and deer. Who knows. We might be able to figure something out by spring. I would really love to grow some! For me, these are a “treat” vegetable. :-)

My husband also got a package and, along with round sharpening stones for serrated knives, he had my Christmas present.

He didn’t bother waiting for Christmas. :-D

Yup. My darling, wonderful, thoughtful husband got me SPORES!!!! Oh, I am so excited!!! My husband is the best!

Both of these are native to the area. I haven’t seen morels since I was a child, and that was on the other quarter section, which is rented out. I’ve never seen them on the home quarter. As for puff balls, I actually saw some growing along the side of our driveway last summer! Not this giant variety, to be sure, but it was good to see them. Large ones like these can be sliced and grilled or fried like steak. Big steaks! They can also be battered and fried.

Growing these outdoors will be touch and go, but I am really looking forward to trying it. The morels package mentions elm as a tree to plant them under (the other trees mentioned don’t grow here), and we have plenty of elms around the yard.

Meanwhile, I’ve gone and placed another order with Rare Seeds!

Because I’m a suck.

I got a promotional email from them saying something along the lines of “hey, we noticed you looking at these, so we took the liberty of adding them to your list” and it included a link.

It wasn’t my wish list they added it to. It was my shopping cart.

Normally, I would have just blown it off, but…

I just couldn’t resist. It was affordable, and I really, really want to try these, even if we can’t plant them this spring. Plus, they are still in stock.

They are all gourds.

There is the Birdhouse gourd (I definitely want to try those again), the lovely Ozark nest egg gourd, the absolutely adorable and prolific Tennessee Dancing of Spinning gourd (in the customer comments, someone said they got about 250 off a single plant!), and finally, the Thai Bottle gourd, which is actually an edible gourd, unlike the others, which I plan to use for crafting purposes.

Plus there’s another package of free seeds. :-)

I do not expect to plant these next spring. The Birdhouse gourds take so long to germinate, they would have to be started much earlier than we did last time. And in bigger starter pots, because of how late our last frost date is.

Mind you, nothing says we have to plant entire packages. We could try growing just a few seeds and see what comes up.

Oh, this is going to be an interesting growing year! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Garden plans for 2021: orders in, and probably way too much!

/ Re-Farmer / 19 Comments

I posted previously about seeds we ordered from Rare Seeds. Since then, I’ve placed another small order from them, which I will talk about below. (all links should open in new tabs, so you won’t lose your place. :-) )

The problem is, our first order hasn’t arrived yet. It has been shipped and, as far as my account on the website states, it’s complete. It should have arrived by now.

Could it be stuck at the border? I don’t know. I’ve emailed them and asked. Hopefully, they will be able to find out at their end.

A lot of the stuff on my wish list there is out of stock, so when I had the chance, I did place another order while what I wanted was available. This is what I will be getting (along with a free packet of mystery flowers).

Hopi Black Dye Sunflower. I’m really excited about this. Not only is it supposed to be a good eating sunflower, but it can be used to make a purple dye. After what happened when we planted sunflowers last year, we ordered 2 packages of these.

Mongolian Giant Sunflower. I love how they use small children to demonstrate just how MASSIVE some of their products are. This one is a monster of a sunflower! Heads can reach up to 18 inches across, and the stalks can reach 14 feet. This will make a substantial wind break and privacy screen. Yes, we ordered two packages of these, as well.

Crespo Squash. This is a type of big, warty green pumpkin. Why did I order it? Because it’s big, green and warty. Also, it’s supposed to be very delicious.

In deciding what to get, we are looking at both summer fresh eating, and winter storage. The sunflowers we planted last year did not get a chance to mature, but if we can get these planted earlier, hopefully, that will not be an issue again. We will also be looking at finding ways to keep the deer away from them. From the looks of the stalks we left in the garden, they are still trying to eat them which, for this time of year, is part of why we have them there. Hopefully, the birds are able to eat the developing seeds in the seed heads, even if they’re not fully formed and ripe. Last I checked, some did appear to be eaten, but not much. With bird feeders right by the house, they don’t really have much incentive to eat underdeveloped seeds.

We got our Vesey’s catalog in the mail recently, which was quite exciting. :-D The girls and I have been talking about what we want to do while going through it. Today, I ended up placing a much larger order than before. I had been thinking of waiting until January, but with things already disappearing from my cart because they were suddenly out of stock, I figured I’d better order things while I could. Even so, much of what I would have liked to have ordered was out of stock. Some of them, I ordered different varieties instead. Others, we will wait and will probably order in January or February.

This is what we’ve got ordered, as of right now.

Vesey’s Mosaic Mix Tomato. We are not big tomato eaters. I actually detest tomatoes, though I can eat tomato paste or crushed tomato as an ingredient in dishes. One of my daughters, however, really likes little tomatoes. This package is a mix of cherry and grape tomatoes in a range of colours that will produce over a long period of time. This is for her! :-D

Merlin Beet. Of the beets we tried to grow last year, this is the one the girls liked the most. We’ll just have to protect them from the deer!

There is another variety we plan to get, but it’s out of stock, so we’ll order that later. When we’re ready to plant, we should have 2 varieties of beets.

Spinach collection. Three varieties of spinach that mature at different types. We all love fresh spinach, but store bought spinach goes bad so quickly, we rarely buy it. Something else we have to protect from the deer, though!

Summer Squash Mix
Sunburst Summer Squash These are the same as what we ordered last year. The mix does include sunburst squash in it, but having more of them went over very well last year. This time, we have better information for starting them indoors, and protecting them from late frost, so hopefully, we will have even more. They will be for fresh eating, and for pickling and freezing.

Baby Pam Pumpkin. The pumpkins we planted last year were planted way too late, and we didn’t even know what variety they were. This time, we chose a variety noted for its eating quality, and faster maturity.

Red Kuri (Little Gem) squash. These little winter squashes should mature even faster than the pumpkins! This variety was also chosen for its winter storage qualities.

Teddy Organic Winter Squash. We picked these for their combination of small size (serving size!) and high production, as well as it’s faster maturity.

Pixie Melon
Halona Melon

I was unsure about trying to grow melons again, as the transplants I bought last year did not work out. I had a variety recommended to me, but it was not available. These cantaloupe type melons were picked for their quicker maturity. We enjoy melons, but it’s another of those things we rarely buy, so it’s worth giving it another go.

Cucamelon. Yes, even though I was able to save some tubers, I’m still getting some to start from seed. Just in case!

Conservor Organic Shallot
Norstar Onion
Red Karmen Onion Sets (to be shipped in spring)
Red Baron Onion (bunching onion)

We have 3 varieties of garlic already planted. Now, we’ll also have lots of onions, too! We use onions a lot, so figured it was worth going ahead and planting lots. We chose come of these for their winter storage-ability.

Yukon Gem Potatoes (yellow flesh)
Purple Peruvian Fingerling Potatoes (purple throughout)
Norland Potatoes (red skin, white flesh)
Purple Chief Potatoes (purple skin, white flesh)

Last year, we ordered 2 boxes (3 pounds each) of the Yukon Gold. This year, we decided to double the amount (each comes in a 3 pound box), but quadruple the varieties. The Norland and Purple Chief are noted for their winter storage, so we’ll have some we will grow for eating earlier, and others to keep for later.

Napoli Carrot
Deep Purple Carrot

Deep Purple is one of the varieties we planted last year. The Napoli is not the variety I originally picked, but this one was in stock and highly rated. We have two other carrot varieties coming from Rare Seeds that should have arrived by now. If something has gone wrong with that order (for all I know, seeds aren’t being allowed across the border right now. Or maybe it’s just slow), we’ll still have 2 varieties. If we end up with 4, well, that’s just more for pickling or freezing.

Dalvay Pea I actually had a 3 variety collection in my cart, but waited too long to order, and now it’s out of stock. So I ordered this variety for now. We may order another variety, later. These were noted for their fast maturity and long pods.

Lewis Bean (green)
Golden Rod Bean (yellow)
Royal Burgandy Bean (purple, turns green when cooked)

The 3 variety collection I had on my wish list is out of stock, so I picked similar varieties that were in stock. These types of beans are another thing I rarely buy in the stores, though we like them. They tend to either look oogy, or get oogy very quickly. These will be used for pickling and freezing, too.

Peaches and Cream Corn Collection Three varieties of Peaches and Cream corn. Not the collection I originally intended to order, but the one that was in stock! We have 2 other, more unique, varieties from Rare Seeds that are held up (watch, after my saying this so often, I’ll find them in the mail tomorrow… LOL). I believe we will need to plant those varieties away from these ones. I don’t think they would be good to cross pollinate. Especially the purple variety. :-D

Illinois Everbearing Mulberry (shipped in the spring) This is it! Our first food tree! I really hemmed and hawed about ordering it, because it’s quite expensive, but it will be two years before it produces fruit, so the sooner, the better. It’s actually a zone 4 tree, so we will have to ensure that it is well protected. It can grow up to 25 feet high, which also needs to be kept in mind when we decide where to plant it, too! My mother remembers they had a mulberry tree growing behind their barn, when she was a child in Poland. She remembers bright yellow silk worm cocoons on them, too! We might be able to grow the tree here, but I don’t think we could introduce silk worms here! :-D

Western Mix Wildflowers
Alternative Lawn Mix Wildflowers

These are mixes that will be scatter sown in a couple of areas. One of them will actually be outside the property, between a fence and the road. This is an area that is currently open, and I don’t want it to be taken over by trees, like on the other side of our driveway. Plus, the garden area is on the inside of the fence, so it will attract pollinators. Reading over the planting instructions, it seems they actually do better being planted in the fall, so we might take the summer to prepare the areas (they actually recommend tilling! No, we aren’t going to go that far), then seed them.

There we have it! Our order is in.

This is probably way too much – and there are other things I’d still like to order! We certainly don’t have enough beds or grounds prepared for all of it. Especially the corn. But that’s okay. We’ll work it out!

We will need to build potentially 4 trellises for the peas and beans, plus we want to build squash tunnels and trellises. Where we planted the squash last year, there are 5 prepared beds, plus the 2 beds the potatoes were in, plus 1 long skinny bed where I planted the seed potatoes I found that hadn’t sprouted. No idea if they will grow at all next year. We also have the retaining wall and parts of the old kitchen garden available for some things. The potatoes we ordered will need to be planted in a different area from where we grew them last year, so as not to attract the Colorado Potato Beetle. We are talking about trying to grow potatoes in containers, instead, this time.

So we’ll have to prepare beds for 27 plant varieties, plus larger areas for the corn and sunflowers, just from what I’ve listed here. More, counting my first order from Rare Seeds, and anything else we might order later. Not that we actually have to plant all of everything we get this year. Some things can be inter-planted (squash, beans and corn together, for example), so that will help a bit.

We’re still looking at potentially 20 beds or more that need to be prepared! All manually, too.

Yeah.

We can do that. :-D

Did we maybe overdo it? :-D

The Re-Farmer






Garden plans for 2021

/ Re-Farmer / 12 Comments

Yes, it’s only the middle of November, but the girls and I are already planning for next year’s gardening.

We learned a lot in our first year of gardening here, and will be using that information as we expand our food growing.

We have several goals and things we keep in mind when deciding what to order. First is keeping in line with our long term goal to be as self sufficient as possible. The other is to take advantage of being able to grow our own food by growing things we either can’t normally buy in the grocery store (either due to lack of availability, or poor quality in stores), or because they tend to be more expensive, or “treat” items, that we typically can’t justify spending our limited budget on. Both of these goals also allows us to go a bit wild in what we grow! :-)

With that in mind, I’ve already placed and order with Rare Heirlooom Seeds. It’s a small order; some of the things I would have bought were out of stock while, with others, we will go through the wish list to pick and choose. Here is what I’ve got ordered right now.

Giant Rattle Breadseed Poppy. I was really excited to see this new item! These are very much like the poppies I remember my mother growing, when I was a kid. I used to love eating the seeds right out of the dried poppy pods. She grew enough to make the filling for poppy seed rolls, which uses a LOT of seeds! Poppy seeds are something I love, but buy very rarely. If we have our own, I would certainly be using them every chance I get!

Longue Rouge Sang Carrot. I’ll be honest. I selected these just for the colours.

Kyoto Red Carrot. This is one I ended up choosing based on comments other customers left behind. It’s described as a “winter carrot”, which obviously isn’t a thing in our climate. Several people had complained about not being able to grow it well in their warmer zones. Then someone in a zone 3 – the same as us! – said they grew it as a summer carrot and it thrived. Awesome!

Strawberry Spinach. This is something I’ve actually tried to grow before, in containers on our balcony, years ago. We had limited success, largely due to weather conditions. What little we got, I liked, so I want to try them again. Both the leaves and the berries are edible, so that’s bonus, too!

Dorinny Sweet corn. I hemmed and hawed quite a bit about growing corn yet, but I decided to just go for it. This variety is from a Canadian hybrid, so it should be quite hardy to our growing zone.

Montana Morado Corn. This one falls into the “go wild” category! I chose it partly because it is a cold hardy variety, but mostly because of the amazing colour. It is also a variety that can be milled into flour; something we have included in our mid term plans. We just have to acquire a hand mill. Once we do, we will be looking into planting grains as well as corn, specifically for milling.

Other things we plan to get from this site are giant sunflowers, plus a variety of sunflowers that can also be used to make a purple-grey dye.

We’ve also got a substantial wishlist going at Veseys, which is where we got almost everything we planted last year. Those will be ordered later in the season, as their new catalogs include promo codes for discounts. With how much we plan to order, we’re going to need a discount!

This past year, one of the things we really loved about having the garden, was being able to pick and eat our own produce, daily.

As great as it was to have fresh produce all summer, there wasn’t much left over for the winter. This time, we will focus more on things we can process (the pickled summer squash was a huge hit for our family), as well as things that can be kept in the root cellar for long periods.

So for sure, we will be re-ordering the summer squash mix, with an extra packet of sunburst squash again, to go with the carrots and cucamelons (I have cucamelon tubers from this past summer, but will likely get more seeds, too).

We plan to get a variety of winter squash, with a focus on those that store well. Winter squash is something I almost never buy in stores. This will include small eating pumpkins (rather than the more popular carving pumpkins).

This time, we know to use 3 or 4 inch pots to start our seeds indoors, and to start them earlier. Maybe even get a warming mat. Some of our seeds took forever to germinate (especially the birdhouse gourds!), while others germinated fine, but outgrew their Jiffy pellets before the weather allowed for transplanting.

With potatoes, we decided to get the same amount of Yukon Gem potatoes as before (6 pounds of seed potatoes), but also get other varieties. If all goes to plan, we’ll be planting 4 varieties, including two that are noted as being good for winter storage. For these, we’re thinking of using grow bags or pots, to try and keep out the grublins that chewed holes in our potatoes.

We might get more varieties of corn, as well. We will be getting a collection of peas in 3 varieties. Peas right out of the pod are the best! A 3 variety collection of bush beans is also on the list. I love fresh beans, but in stores, they are among those things that always look a bit iffy. Eventually, we will get beans for drying, but not quite yet.

If we can figure out how to protect them from the deer, we will be getting the same collection of beets as we did before, too. A spinach collection (three varieties, each maturing one after the other) is also on the list.

We will be getting at least one more variety of carrots. We will very likely pick up a 3 variety pack of raspberry canes, too. These produce in their second years, so they will be for 2022’s garden. We’ve also been looking and onion and shallot varieties, focusing on those best for storage.

We’re looking at starting to get more trees and bushes, too. There are blueberry varieties that are suitable for our climate. Of course, we want more haskap berries. What I thought were gooseberries here turned out to be currants, so gooseberry bushes would be good to get, too. We’re also looking at mulberry, apple, plum and pear trees. All of these take at least a couple of years before they start producing, so the sooner we start planting them, the better. We will likely get fruit and nut tress from Hardy Fruit Tree Nursery. It’s one of the few places I’ve found that has cold hardy food trees suitable for our zone.

There is an extra purpose to all this planning ahead so early. We had plans we weren’t able to follow through on for last summer’s garden, in regards to trellises and other supports. Once we know what we are going to plant, and figure out where, we can use the winter months to accumulate any materials we need to buy (like cattle panels, rebar or rebar grid, tie wire and other fasteners, etc.). Most of what we want to build, we can use materials salvaged from around the property, but there will always be a few things we’ll have to buy.

With that in mind, I now have a tighter goal for cleaning up the spruce grove – something that is already behind “schedule” of our original timeline by a couple of years! We have a lot of tall, springy poplars that I want to clear out, and they will be used to build upright trellises, A frames, arbors, and more. We’re also looking to build squash tunnels. The beds we have where we planted squash last year looks like they will be permanent gardening areas, so I would like to start building up raised beds there. The walls for these can double as supports for any arches we add. Plus, I’m going to see if I can start taking down more of the dead spruces that are further from the house and garage (the ones closer will be taken down by professionals!). The wood might be usable for various projects. However, as we clear out the dead wood and open up the ground to sunlight, this will give us space were we can plant fruit trees that require extra protection from the elements.

We’ll have a lot of work ahead of us!

I’m looking forward to it. :-)

The Re-Farmer