Gardening

Our 2021 garden: transplanting tomatoes and onions

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After we got the sunflowers transplanted, the girls and I decided we would transplant the tomatoes today, too.

This is the area we prepared for the tomatoes, back in April, so that we can use the chain link fence to support them. You can read what we did to prepare it here. Though we have been wetting it down fairly regularly, there just hasn’t been enough moisture for the straw and cardboard to do much breaking down, and the soil layer was relatively thin.

Since the new garden soil is alkaline, and tomatoes like slightly acidic soil, we decided to make use of the last of our bale of peat. Before heading in for lunch and out of the heat, we took the time to mix the peat with garden soil and soak it down.

Basically, we made peat soup. :-D

The seedlings were brought over to wait in the shade, then we headed inside to let the soil and peat mixture absorb more water.

Do you see that cup with the itty bitty tomato plants in it? That is a cup with Mosaic Mix seeds in it. It took forever for one seed to germinate, so when the plants got moved to the sun room, we decided to keep it. Then, just about a week ago, the other seeds planted in the cup germinated! They’re really too tiny to transplant, but the girls wanted to, anyway. We’ll see how they do!

When we got back to it, the transplants were separated and laid out, after getting their bottom leaves and branches trimmed off. We did dig small holes for each one, but there wasn’t a lot of depth before we hit straw. Each transplant got some of the peat mixture built up around it, up to the lowest remaining leaves, so that the buried stems will grow roots and the plants will be stronger.

Then we added more garden soil in between each plant, to build up the soil depth in the bed, and to make sure the peat mixture won’t wash away when we water them.

The first things we started from seed were onions, but we lost all of our Red Baron bunching onions, due to cats. When we started using the Solo cups as pots, I decided to broadcast sow the last of the seeds we had in a couple of cups and see what happened. With one of them, nothing happened, but with another, they did actually sprout. They’ve been hardening off along with everything else, and onions are supposed to be good companion plants for tomatoes, repelling insects, so we decided to go ahead and transplant the onions, too.

Some of them are REALLY tiny, but the girls went ahead and planted them anyhow. They’ll either make it or not.

The onions got planted in where we added more soil, but you’ll notice a gap in the middle. The tomatoes in the foreground are the tiny Spoon tomatoes, while the ones at the far end are the Mosaic Mix tomatoes. In the middle are the super tiny, sprouted really late, Mosaic Mix tomato plants. They’re so small, no extra soil was added around them; they would have been buried completely! We’ll see if they survive or not.

As always, we thoroughly watered the soil before putting in the transplants, so when we did our evening watering, they only got a misting, to help settle the soil.

We did hit 29C/84F today. As I write this, it’s just past midnight, and we’re still at 20C/68F. Our expected overnight low is 17C/63F. Instead of having to watch out for a last frost hitting our transplants, we have to watch out for excessive heat! We’ll be doing a lot of careful watering over the next while.

One thing the girls and I did finally remember to do; we put our poor, bedraggled umbrella tree outside. It took three of us. One to carry the pot, one to open and close the doors, and one to keep the cats away! :-D

Tissue was watching me through the door!

Yes, the plant is on the stairs in front of a door. In this spot, it will get full sunlight in the morning, while it’s still relatively cool, but be shaded during the hottest parts of the day. We don’t use this door, so it can stay there. Right now, during the day, we open the inner door and set up a little step ladder, so that cats can sit on it and look out the window. The window is open just enough to allow a breeze through the house to help keep it cool. The outer door has a tendency to unlatch on its own, so to make sure the cats don’t accidentally end up outside, we have it secured with some cord. It has become a favorite place for the cats to see and watch all the birds outside! :-)

So the tomatoes are now transplanted. Between them and the sunflowers, I had a lot fewer plants to bring back into the sun room for the night! :-) The rest cannot be transplanted until we finish the squash tunnel for the climbers, and build beds for them, but they are all hardened off and ready for transplanting. So we need to get those done as quick as we can! Friday and Saturday as supposed to be scorchers, too. Ah, well. Better the heat for transplanting, than frost!

Little by little, it’ll get done.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: squash tunnel, day two

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Well, I’d hoped we could actually finish the squash tunnel today, or at least get the side cross pieces at the top done, but we didn’t get quite that far.

But, progress was still made.

Most importantly, we got the supports up in the post holes.

In refilling the post holes and tamping the soil down, a few of them did need to have more soil added. A good way to reduce some of the lumps in the old garden, left from when it was last plowed before we moved here.

It’s very… rustic looking. That’s a trend now, right? :-D

And no, that middle pole isn’t actually tilted. The tree it’s made from is bent. All the pieces are wonky in shape! :-D

It’s also still very flimsy right now. Joining them at the sides with cross pieces should fix that.

It was already starting to get hot by the time this was done, so we took advantage of the morning shade to transplant the Mongolian Giant sunflowers. It wasn’t until evening that I was able to work on the next step for the squash tunnel. I cut a total of 8 of the 16 cross pieces needed at 5’6″, then trimmed matching flat pieces at each end.

I also trimmed one side of the flattened ends a bit; just enough to have a narrow flat surface on what will be the top.

The flat parts are intended to butt up against the upright and the top cross piece. It will wait until tomorrow, but the plan is to screw the cross pieces to the upright, then add one more screw through the top cross piece, down into the side piece – and hopefully not hit another screw in the process. This should give it some more stability. The other 8 cross pieces will be attached a few inches from the bottoms, which should strengthen it even more, as well as provide a place to attach mesh for the vines to climb.

There are a couple of problems we need to figure out how to get around, to finish the job. We do have a cordless drill, but both batteries no longer hold a charge, and the company doesn’t make them anymore. Until we get around to buying a new one, we have several corded drills to choose from. Getting extension cords to reach this far, though… that’s going to take a bit! We have a pair of 100′ extension cords, which won’t reach reach from the outdoor outlet on the side of the house. I remember how far I could reach while using the electric weed trimmer, and three extension cords. We’ve since gotten more cords, so I think we’ll have enough to reach around the structure.

The next challenge is, we’re short. Well, except my husband, and he’s broken. ;-) To be able to drill a pilot hole through the stop cross piece will require clambering up and down a step ladder. For our gimpy household, that is somewhat risky!

But, it’ll need to be done. With this structure, we can’t get away with tying the cross pieces on with twine, like with the pea trellises.

With 5 uprights and 4 cross pieces per side, only two cross pieces can be placed up against the overhangs at the top, so each side will have two cross pieces mounted just under the other two. Which will hopefully also contribute to the stability. If that’s not enough, we’d have to add supports on the inside of the corners, and I really don’t want to get that finicky with a temporary structure.

We may not have finished the squash tunnel, but we accomplish other things, but that is for my next post! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: it has begun!

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Today is our last frost day, and we’re in a heat wave! :-D If the long range forecasts are to be believed, we’ll “cool down” to the mid 20’s (Celsius) and stay there for the next couple of weeks.

Which means we should be safe.

We headed out early, while it was still cool, and set up the supports for the squash tunnel, which I will post about later today. That area is full sun, right from sunrise, so things warmed up fast. The corn and sunflower blocks were still in shade, so we took advantage of it.

Transplanting has begun!

I’ve really been wanting to get those Mongolian Giant sunflowers out, as they were getting so very tall and leggy.

They certainly did well with the beer cups for pots!

Each sunflower block had one free row and, since we have no Hopi Black Dye sunflowers to transplant, all the Mongolian Giants went into both. We marked spaces off at 18 inches apart to fit them all; the packet says 18-24 inches, and the seeds were planted 24 inches apart, but if we stuck to 24 inches, we would have had plants left over. Next, we put three bamboo stakes in line with the middle of each row. Once the spaces were marked, we dug holes through the added soil, and into the sod beneath, taking out any roots and rocks we found in the process. Each hole then got a watering before the seedlings were transplanted.

As added support, two lengths of twine were strung across with the bamboo stakes as support. The twine was crossed around each of the stems, as if we were supporting tomatoes, to help hold them up until they settle in and start growing again. As the seedlings get bigger, there is plenty of space for them to grow, so we could leave the twine if we wanted to. With the holes being thoroughly watered before the seedlings were transplanted, we did not water them again. Instead, we will give them a misting when we do the evening watering.

Yellow rope was also strung across the bamboo stakes. We are hoping the rope and the twine will act as deer deterrents. I’m going to have to look around to find something to tie to the rope or the bamboo states that will flutter or sparkle or make noise, as well.

While the girls strung the twine and rope, I washed out the beer cups, and they are ready to be used again, next year.

We then moved to the south yard, and started to prepare for more transplanting later today, plus we will need to continue working on the squash tunnel. More on that later.

We are so excited to finally be able to start transplanting!!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: squash tunnel build, day one

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Not that long ago, we were dealing with freezing temperatures. Now we’ve got a heat wave!

Today’s high was predicted to be 24C/77F. Instead, we reached 28C/82F. Tomorrow’s high is supposed to be 28C… does that mean we’ll be going to break 30C/86F? :-(

Hot as it was, we needed to get started on the squash tunnel. Thankfully, we could at least work in mostly shade.

The first thing to do was go through our pile of poplar we’ve cleared out of the spruce grove, and pick the strongest, straightest ones. Straight for the first 7 feet, at least!

The upright supports were cut to 7 feet, but there was still enough from each of them to cut cross pieces at 5 1/2 feet. Of those, the strongest ones were selected, and at least 3 inches was trimmed from each end to have a narrower, flattish part to attach to the uprights.

While preparing to screw the pieces together, I found our first wood tick of the season! We ended up finding a couple more, later on.

Time to dig out the bug spray to go with the sun screen… :-(

The uprights need to be 5 feet apart, and the cross pieces were to be attached to their tops. I measured out and shoved some sticks into the ground as guides. The bottoms of the uprights would be centered at the pegs at their based, while the tops would be placed with the two sticks at the top on the outsides, to have them lying parallel at 5 feet. The cross piece could then be laid out and the flat sides lined up to the tops. Pilot holes were then drilled and they were screwed in place.

Which sounds a lot easier than it actually was. A few cross pieces needed extra trimming to rest against tops of the uprights. Sometimes, the uprights needed to be turned until they all fit together as flush as possible. Still, it got done.

There they are! Five sets up upright supports for the squash tunnel! They just needed to be dragged out to where the squash tunnel will be set up.

At this point, they are very rickety. Unfortunately, with some of the screws pulled right out of the wood, so we had to redo them with longer screws. Which, thankfully, we had!

By this point, we’d reached that 28C/82F, so once we finished with these, we packed everything away and went indoors to get out of the heat for a few hours. The next stage was to dig the post holes, and there wasn’t any shade to be had, so we waited.

When I finally did head out, I first took the time to water the garden beds and blocks from the rain barrel by the peas. I was able to use the watering can to water everything but the Dorinny corn before the barrel was too low for me to refill the watering can anymore.

While I was watering, I found a friend.

Such a cute little frog!!

Then it was time to start the post holes. Each spot was marked with a flag, so I started by using the space to stab out a circle around each flag, then moving it so I could remove the sod. Once the sod was out, I went in with a hand trowel to take out the bigger rocks, then used a lopper to take out the many roots I found.

I had company.

I love how Rolando Moon will just hang out while we’re working outside. She doesn’t want us to pay attention to her. She just wants to be close by. She even settled down for a nap!

Finally, I brought over the post hole digger and got to work. It’s pretty much a one person job, so the girls took care of the evening watering, refilled the rain barrel by the peas, and watered the last corn block. Once the barrel was full, I decided to set up the sprinkler over the corn and sunflower blocks, to make sure the seeds got the moisture they need to germinate. Going over them with the watering can may or may not have been enough, so I wanted to make sure they got a thorough soaking while I continued digging post holes.

All done! Ten post holes, all 5 feet apart.

That was it for today!!

Getting those supports in will be a three person job. Particularly since they are still so wonky. Two people will be needed to place the supports into the holes, while the third person will back fill the holes. They will still be rather fragile until the cross pieces are added to the sides. We weren’t able to pick up a cordless drill on this month’s budget, so we’re going to have to string together a whole bunch of extension cords to drill the pilot holes! The cross pieces at the top should have enough extra length that we can put a screw through them, into the side cross pieces, too. We’re all short, though, so we’ll need a step ladder to do that!

I want to add cross pieces near the bottoms of each side, too. We’ll need a total of 16 pieces to do tops and bottoms of both sides, and then we can put either wire mesh or netting for the vines to climb up and over the tunnel. Then, we can start making the beds themselves, to transplant the winter squash, gourds and melons into. These will be on the outside of the tunnel supports only, keeping the tunnel nice and wide on the inside. If all grows well, it should create a nice shaded space that we can put chairs in, to rest and enjoy while tending the garden. :-)

Next on the list are the beds for the summer squash, and the block for the Montana Morado corn. They’re getting quite big in their cups, and hardening off nicely. I hope they handle being transplanted okay! I do with the toilet paper tubes had worked out. That would have been much better and less disruptive to the roots. Well, we’ll know for next time: pre-soak the growing medium before putting it into the tubes!

The next week or so is going to be very, very busy!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: filling the gaps

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Today was nowhere near as productive as I intended it to be. Ah, well.

I headed out early in the day to the nearer small city, to pick up a few things we couldn’t get during our big city trips. The first stop was Canadian Tire, where I was able to get more of the stove pellets we’re using for cat litter now; we now have enough to last the month or more. A day or so after the frost we got, we could see that it did damage the new Heritage raspberries I’d bought as a gift for my daughter. They will recover, but they won’t do will this year. So I went looking to see if I could got more, but they were completely out of stock for raspberries. I resisted the temptation to buy blueberries, instead. Blueberries need acidic soil, and ours is very alkaline. We do plan to have blueberries, and once we decide on where we will plant them, we will have our work cut out for us to amend the soil to something they can do well in.

I hoped to get more chicken wire, but they only had 2′ wide rolls in stock. I ended up getting a 4′ x 50′ (1.2m x 15.2m) roll of 4 inch square wire mesh fencing. I even remembered to pick up a new hose nozzle to replace our broken one. Paid a lot more than I usually do; I usually get the Walmart cheapies, but I figured it was worth paying for quality for a change.

Then it was across the way to the Walmart to get more cat food and a few more little things, including a garden hose for the front of the house. It’s only 50′ but it’ll be enough to water the old kitchen garden, and as far as the grapes. Which, I am happy to say, are actually showing leaf buds! I thought for sure they had been killed off this winter, but they survived! Yay!

The down side of making the trip is that it basically wiped me out. I’ve been pushing myself too much of late and, while it feels good to do it, this broken old body doesn’t recover like it used to. :-( Once the girls unloaded the van and put everything away, I ended up crashing for a couple of hours. By the time I was mobile again (to find lunch waiting for me! <3 ), I still wasn’t up to doing much. Particularly since we were getting into the hottest part of the day. So we waited a couple more hours before heading outside.

I am really happy we got the new hose and nozzle!

While my daughter watered the old kitchen garden and anything else she could reach on that side (and planted that mystery bulb I found among the tulips), I started watering the north east garden beds until my daughter could join me. It was very handy to have her using the hose on some beds, while I used the watering can on others. Though we hadn’t needed to water this morning, by this time of the day, everything was thirsty again. Especially the newly planted corn and sunflower blocks.

While watering the Dalvay peas, I decided it was time to fill the gaps.

I figured that whatever was going to germinate, already has, and what hasn’t by now, isn’t going to. With these peas, we had a lot of seeds left over, so I went around with a bamboo stake and poked holes in the gaps between the seedlings, sowed new seeds, then covered the holes with fresh soil. Then the beds got thoroughly watered again.

That’s one thing about this area. It’s almost impossible to over water out here.

The King Tut purple peas also have gaps where seeds did not germinate, but there were no extra seeds left over from that packet, so whatever has come up is all we’re going to have for this year. We’ll still have a decent number of plants, and they are supposed to be rather prolific, so I’m hoping they work out.

And that’s about my limit for today. Other than bringing our transplants that are hardening off back into the sun room for the night, my body is letting me know that I am done like dinner!

I think maybe getting to bed before midnight would be a good goal to shoot for, this evening… ;-)

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: direct sown corn and sunflowers, done!

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The crab apple trees near the old garden area are starting to bloom. Not all of them yet, but this one was looking gorgeous, today. :-)

This morning, after all the garden beds were watered, my older daughter and I got to work on the corn and sunflower blocks. She started by making furrows for the seeds and watering them, then I followed behind to plant.

We managed to get 2 corn blocks done, with radishes planted in between, when we stopped for lunch. It started raining, and for a while I thought we wouldn’t have a chance to finish, but it did get done! Mind you, I was getting rained on while planting the last seeds, but not enough for it to be an issue. :-)

These are the three types of corn that got planted today. At the far end in the photo, is the Sweetness, then Early Eh, and finally the Montauk, in the foreground.

Because the soil is hardest packed the further north we go, we planted the April Cross Chinese Radish, a Daikon type radish, in the northernmost corn block. The packet had much fewer seeds than I expected, so we were able to include them in only 3 of the 5 rows. There was enough Red Meat Watermelon Radish to interplant with the remaining two blocks of corn. Hopefully, both varieties will help with breaking up the hard soil and, once harvested, will give the corn’s roots more room to grow into. This is really late for radishes to be planted; they can be planted as soon as the soil can be worked, however with their short growing season, it should still work out.

The blocks of 3 rows were for the sunflowers. The Mongolian Giant got planted in the block to the north; with how big they are supposed to get, I figured that would work out better. There aren’t a lot of seeds in the packets, but at 2 ft apart, I did end up filling two rows. There will still be the transplants to include, about a week from now. The 3 row block that’s to the south got the Hopi Black Dye sunflowers. The flags mark the block with the Hopi Black Dye and, not being a giant variety, they were planted 18 inches apart. That filled 2 rows as well. Not a single one of the packet we started indoors has germinated, so there is nothing to transplant. We will have more Mongolian Giant transplants than will fill in the one row left in that block, so we might end up splitting them between the two blocks. I didn’t think ahead, and planted seeds on the northern rows. Any Mongolian Giant transplants could end up shading the Hopi Black Dye – though with zero germination from the first packet, I wouldn’t be surprised if none of these germinated, either. I am at a loss as to why the ones we started indoors completely failed to germinate.

Now that these beds are done, we have some time before we can start transplanting, which should be enough time to get the squash tunnel built, and create more beds for them and the other transplants that need them.

Two weeks from now, if all goes well, all the planting (not counting successive sowing) should be done!

The Re-Farmer

Morning Mysteries

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While doing my morning rounds, I made sure to check the tulips. Nothing has been showing up on the tulip cam, trying to get at them again. There are files of cats passing in front of the camera, and one of a skunk running along the lilac hedge, as if something had startled it, but that’s it. Nothing has been going after the tulips.

And yet, I found this.

It was on the ground, next to one of the tulips that got its flower bud chomped off, but not the leaves. The only signs of digging in the area were the old ones from before, which was likely a skunk digging for grubs in the leaf mulch. With how deep the girls had buried the bulbs, there should have been a fairly large hole if it had been freshly dug up. The bulb doesn’t even have dirt on it, or in its roots.

As far as I know, it wasn’t there before, though it’s possible it was covered in leaf mulch that got blown off, but… I don’t think so. When I’d seen that something was digging in the leaf mulch, I checked to see if the tulips were damaged, so I’d looked right in that spot. I expect I would have seen it then, if it had been somehow dug up then.

So I brought it inside, and it will be planted, once we’re sure of where we want to put it. The girls and I were thinking to put it in one of the blocks in the retaining wall that has nothing in it right now. That area is going to be draped in mosquito netting to protect it, once the netting comes in, so if it’s planted there, it will get protection from being eaten or dug up.

Still, I have no idea where this came from!

I’ve also been finding another mystery in the mornings.

For the past several mornings, I’ve been finding the rocks at one end of the path we made along the house, scattered like this. I put them back, and the next morning, they’re scattered again. Something has been digging among them. I suspect it has something to do with this being the only section of rocks that had some soil put over them, before I changed my mind about doing that the whole way down. My guess is that it’s the skunk, but there’s really nothing to show, one way or the other, what is doing it.

On the one hand, I’m glad whatever it is, is digging here and not in the garden beds nearby! On the other hand, those rocks are there because I found the concrete pad under the sun room was as thick as I thought it was, and they’re keeping the soil under the concrete from eroding out. The last thing I want is for a critter to start digging under there! The sun room is shifting enough, as it is. :-/

I did see the skunk again, this evening. I was just putting things away before going inside, when I heard a cat get startled out of the kibble house. When I looked, the skunk was in the kibble house, munching away. I made noise to scare it away, and it did start to leave, but it must have been very hungry, because it turned around and started heading quickly towards me, then jumped back into the kibble house to eat. I suspect we have a hungry mama skunk. Kibble is not good for them, though. Ah, well. It seems to have a peaceful relationship with the cats, at least. We need to get one more, smaller, hose to keep hooked up to the tap on that side of the house. Much safer to chase it away by spraying water than walking towards it, making noise!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: beans are in, and first spinach protectors

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Once again, our temperatures have lurched from one direction to the other! From days cold enough for the furnace to turn on, and overnight lows below freezing, we’re back to the heat. It’s past 7:30pm as I write this, and our temperature is still at 24C/75F. A week from now, we’re expected to hit 31C/88F.

Well, by then we should be transplanting our squash seedlings, so that will be good for them, at least!

This morning’s job was to direct sow our bush beans. I am so glad we picked up that extra hose. The mini-beds we made for them needed to be soaked, re-soaked, then soaked again, before I even planted the seeds. I can’t believe how quickly things have dried out already, though I suppose with the winds we’ve been having, I shouldn’t be surprised. You can even see that the pea trellises have been moved around by the winds! I even found one end of a cross piece had come loose after one particularly windy days. The bags may work to startle critters, but they also act like sails.

The yellow and green bean packages had 200 seeds each. With a 20’/6m double row, we still had seeds left over. The purple beans were packed by weight, and a 50g package was just enough for its double row.

Once planted, they all got watered, and watered again! Normally, I would have pre-soaked the beads, but these were inoculated seeds, and I figure soaking them first would have washed off the inoculant!

After the beans were done, we set up the sprinkler to start soaking down the rows for the corn and sunflowers. We left it running over one side for a few hours, then moved it to cover the other end. Much to my surprise, the sprinkler can cover all but 3 rows. There isn’t a lot of pressure, this far out!

Our afternoon project was to see what we could do about protecting our spinach beds. After scrounging in a little shed near the barn, we dragged out the last of some narrow old, salvaged boards. Many of them had several 3″ deck screws in them that had to be removed, first. There were 13 boards, and we ended up using 12 of them, because they were not all the same length.

The roll of chicken wire (or 1″ hex wire) we got was 25′ (7.6m) long and 4′ (1.2m) wide. We have three spinach beds we need to cover. While the beds themselves are about 3-4′ (about a meter) wide and roughly 15′ (just over 4.5m) long, the rows of spinach were, of course, less than that. So we were able to use the roll to cover 2 spinach beds. Well, mostly.

We stole a couple of hoops from the small beet bed by the garlic beds to hold the wire up in the middle. The sides are held in place with sticks, that have a bit of mesh hooked onto their tops, so they are helping hold that up, too. Once we get more hoops, we’ll be able to stop using the sticks to hold up the mesh, which will allow us to move the covers to harvest the spinach.

The edges of the chicken wire were sandwiched between boards that were screwed together. Because of the different lengths, we had to cobble them together. A couple ended up with small gaps between the ends of boards, but they were still secure. The covers don’t really leave much room to do a second sowing, though, which we could do any time now, if we wanted. I think I will skip it, and save the seeds to sow later in the summer for a fall crop.

Like everything else we’re doing this year, this is a temporary thing, so we don’t need to get too fancy. When we build our permanent, high raised beds, we will make protective covers that fit properly, and be properly framed and supported. Right now, neither one completely covers the rows of spinach, so the ends might still get nibbled at, but it should be fine. If we want, we can tie on brightly colored or metallic ribbons to flap in the wind and discourage critters.

I’ll have to make a trip to the local dollar store again and see if they’ve restocked on things like pinwheels. I’ll pick up more hula hoops, too. I figure a couple more rolls of the chicken wire would not be a bad idea. I think we still have enough of that wood in the basement that we can make one more cover for the third spinach bed. For the small beet bed, I’m hoping the mosquito netting we ordered will come in soon, but if not, we can use chicken wire.

While in the city, I also picked up 200’/60.9m of yellow rope to string around where the corn and sunflowers will be planted. If what I read about deer not having good depth perception, so having two shorter fences a few feet apart works as well as a high fence, is accurate, we should be able to string just one “fence” of the yellow rope around half the garden, since it’s already so close to the barbed wire perimeter fence. Since most of the other half will be edged with squash, which deer don’t like, we might not need to do much more than that. We shall see!

Now that the blocks for the corn and sunflowers have been soaked down, tomorrow’s job is to plant the corn, with radishes in between to help break up the hard soil, and direct sow the rest of the sunflowers. The transplants are not done hardening off yet, and all our transplanting will wait until after June 2, regardless of what the weather forecasts are right now! The forecasts change so often, I don’t really trust them beyond a couple of days, and, even then, they are frequently wrong for our area.

Once the seeds are sown, we can finally get back to working on the squash tunnel!

The Re-Farmer

This, that and the other thing

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Today was one of those days that went all over the place! So this is probably going to be a very disjointed post! :-D

One of the first things I wanted to get done this morning was to call the RCMP, as advised by my lawyer, about the gunshots from our vandal’s property. For non-emergency calls like this, it first goes to a receptionist who then, if it seems warranted, starts a file (or adds notes to an existing file), then passes it on to a constable, who calls back later.

The challenge was to bring up my concerns about hearing the shots, while also making it clear that there was no crime that took place. The interesting thing is that, as I described a bit of about why it was a concern in this particular case, the receptionist asked, “is this about…” and gave the name of our vandal.

I had not mentioned his name, nor did I mention my own. Yet, she knew who I was talking about!

She might have looked up my phone number in their system while we were talking, but she later had to ask me what my name was, so… that’s probably not it. She did remember talking to me about our situation previously, which would have been at least 8 months ago.

After we talked for a while, she put me on hold to talk to someone else, then came back to me with a new file number, telling me that an officer would call me back later. Since we were going to the city later, I gave my cell phone, just in case.

I shouldn’t do that. Whenever there is a cell phone number available, that’s the first number that gets called!

Once I was done on the phone, I went to quickly do my morning rounds, only to have my pocket start ringing. The officer was calling me back already! I do have my phone set to use WiFi, and at first he could hear me just fine, but then my signal started breaking up. We managed to arrange for him to call the land line, and I got back into the house just as the phone started ringing! Thankfully, I made sure my husband had the phone before I headed outside, so he got it before it went to machine.

In the end, the call was pretty much what I expected. There is no cause for them to go over. They did check and our vandal’s firearms license is up to date, and there are no restrictions in our area in regards to firing a weapon on your own property. He did tell me that, if something like this happens again, to go ahead and call 911, even if I didn’t feel it was an emergency. They would pass me on to dispatch and it would go from there. He also assured me that, even though there clearly was no crime (and I made sure to say, normally I would have no issues hearing gunshots out here), it was a good idea to call, given our particular situation. If nothing else, there is now a file on record.

Now that I think about it, though, while I’ve certainly heard gunshots a few times since moving out here, I have never heard gunshots from our vandal’s property before, or even that direction.

So that’s taken care of, as much as possible right now.

After quickly finishing my morning rounds, my daughter and I then headed out to the city, with a quick stop at the post office, first. Much to my surprise, I found a letter from the Court of Queen’s Bench. I opened it before we continued on, and it turned out to be about the court date for the civil suit our vandal filed against me, in retaliation for applying for a restraining order against him. We had an in-person court date in July but, according to the letter, due to Schrodinger’s Virus, all in-person small claims matters scheduled between May 6 and September 6 were being rescheduled and being done through teleconference calls.

Court of Queen’s Bench is federal, not provincial. The dates seem rather telling.

Anyhow, our teleconference date is set for September 10 now. Since my restraining order is a provincial matter, it is not affected by this. However, from what I’m hearing right now, our provincial government has no intention of relaxing their choke hold on us. I fully expect our court date in July to get cancelled. I really hope I’m wrong.

My daughter and I then continued on to the city, with a brief stop at a gas station along the way to grab some food. Now that we have changed where we get our gas, we’ve started going to a place that not only has hot food available, but even a few tables to sit and eat at, if desired. They’ve got some of the best fried chicken and potato wedges around! :-D When we got there, I just parked and dashed in to get food. I walked in fine, but as I walked out, something went wrong and a metatarsal in one of my feet decided it didn’t like where it was and tried to escape.

That hurt. :-/

My daughter thought it was a great idea when I suggested that maybe we should keep my father’s walker in the van. Just in case. We do keep a collection of canes in the van, though, so at least I had that to fall back on.

Once in the city, we headed straight to the Costco, drove through the parking lot, saw the line up was even worse than yesterday, and kept on going. We went to the Superstore, instead. They had a line, too, but it was shorter and moving. My daughter reminded me to grab a cane, then when we were in line, she was able to get a shopping cart for me to lean on as we snaked our way through.

The down side of the change is that they don’t have flat carts. We did get most of what was on our list, but only half the amount of cat kibble we should have gotten, and a few other heavier or bulkier things got dropped. We’ll have to make another trip, later in the month. For the kibble, at least, we can go to the smaller city for some things, while other items can be gotten locally.

The price of beef has gotten insane. :-(

Even though we only went to the one place, we were both exhausted by the time we were done. My daughter dislikes shopping as much as I do! We find these trips more tiring than a day of hauling wheelbarrows full of soil. Plus, with the drive, I was having breathing issues again, and my daughter did the driving on the way home. I’m so glad she comes along, “one person per household” be damned. :-(

Still, it feels good to be stocked up again, even if some things will need to be topped up later.

Once we were at home, I had time to check the trail came files. Nothing triggered the tulip cam at all. I had plans to finally plant the beans today, and maybe start on the squash tunnel, but it was insanely windy. For all the rains we finally got, everything is all dried up again. In checking the garden beds, when I pushed my fingers into the soil, it’s dry all the way through. So this evening, wind or no, I went out to water.

I’m really happy with how great the garlic is doing!! Next year, we need to plant more. :-D

I set up the new hose we bought yesterday, and was able to reach everything that needed watering at the far end of the garden. Which was handy, because I hadn’t had a chance to refill the rain barrel we have out there, for the watering can. We want to get more of those. We’d rather use watering cans and warmer water, as the well water gets to incredibly cold.

Which reminds me. I looked up about the mulberry tree. There isn’t a lot of information out there, but I did find one site that proved useful. It turns out that mulberry trees tend to just drop their leaves when hit with frost, and grow back new ones. If our little mulberry had more time after being transplanted, it would have been better, but it may still actually survive. We shall see!

Meanwhile…

I found these tracks on one of the spinach beds. They were not there, this morning! The seedlings at the very end were nibbled on, too. There are no defined tracks in the soil, but I am inclined to think it was a deer. Partly due to the spacing of the tracks, and partly because we almost hit a deer this morning, while on the way to the post office! In this morning’s trail cam files at the gate, there was a deer making its way through the fence and hanging out in the driveway, too. We seem to have a lot of deer activity this year.

Tomorrow, we have to figure out how to set up the new chicken wire to protect our garden beds! Time to go scavenging in the barn and sheds for materials again.

I think that project just took priority over building squash arches!

The Re-Farmer