It’s a good thing we started so many squashes, and ended up transplanting them as such different times. The ones that sprouted later and got transplanted later got missed by that last frost of the season, and have been quite prolific. A couple of frost damaged ones in the first bed, both zucchini, recovered enough that they got quite large and are producing green and yellow zucchini for us.
Others…
They’re still working in it.
Some have started bravely blooming, putting out flowers bigger than their leaves!
With the tiniest of yellow zucchini!
I finally remembered to get a picture of the back row. The plants with the bamboo poles marking them are all ones I have been able to confirm as the birdhouse gourds. I put bricks or rocks under some of them, to support the weight of where the leaves are growing out, as the stems are a bit long and gangly.
You can see a pumpkin mound to the right of centre in the background, and way at the far end are the squashes from the second planting that have done so well.
While there were very few squash to collect this morning, there are so many new flowers right now, and lots of pollinators, so I am expecting a second wave of squash to harvest, soon.
I am looking forward to having enough to make more of the quick pickles!
Last spring, we picked up a bug hotel, to encourage the local pollinators. The top has slots for butterflies, the sides have bamboo tubes, and the middle has pieces of wood cut in such a way that, stacked together, they create holes. These were for native bees, such as mason bees, which do not build nests.
It did not get used at all that summer, so when winter came, I just left it hanging on the tree I’d put it on.
This year, it’s being used!
I can’t tell if the openings at the top are being used by butterflies, but the bamboo on both sides have quite a few tubes used. The middle section doesn’t look like it’s been used by anything at all.
So this fall, when the insects are done with it, we’ll clean it out and take it inside for the winter, as the instructions that came with the packages said to do.
Mostly, it needs to be cleared of spider webs. The roof is just covered with them!
I’m glad to see it being used, and we’ll likely pick up more of them, over time. The native pollinators come out at times more in tune with the local plant life, and that will be important as we plant more food trees and berry bushes over the next few years.
It was on the same plant as the other mutant squash that I’m leaving to get big.
Such an adorable little mutant. :-D
There have not been as many squashes to pick lately, but there has been a surge of male flowers blooming right now – and the pollinators are just loving it. So I am expecting another burst of new squash before the season ends. :-)
Last night, a massive storm system passed over us. In parts of the province, there were tornado warnings.
Here, we had rain.
Finally.
It started to rain somewhere around 2am, and didn’t stop until about 7am, and we might still get more, later.
For all the watering of the gardens we’ve been trying to keep up on, it couldn’t match last night’s deep soak, and it really showed!
We now have several of the self-sown, tiny sunflowers under the platform bird feeder with seed heads opening up.
The pumpkins had been starting to bloom for a while, but I was only seeing the odd male blossom here and there. This morning, there was an explosion of flowers and new buds, and…
Our very first baby pumpkin.
This is on one of the first pumpkin plants that sprouted. I found a second one, on the mound that took so long to sprout one of the 5 seeds planted in it, that I had begun to think none would come up there.
We’ll keep an eye on them to see how many more begin to develop, then select one or two on each plant to keep growing. It’s still highly unlikely they will have a chance to fully ripen, but who knows; we might have a long and mild fall this year.
The big sunflowers have been pretty remarkable.
More and more seed heads are developing, which I would expect with these ones that are well above my head.
There are others that are quite a surprise.
This is one of the deer damaged sunflowers. You can see the dark spot in the middle, where the original top of the plant had been eaten off. Two branches have now developed into stems, and have their own tiny seed heads starting to develop among the new leaves.
Which is impressive, but this next one shows resilience at a whole new level!
You can see, lower down, where the original top had been eaten off. Of the two new stems that developed has also lost it’s top, and basically all the leaves have been eaten off – and yet there it is! A seed head, developing among the tiny cluster of new leaves.
I headed out to water things this evening, but got distracted.
Junk Pile and two of her babies were out!
I ended up lying right on the ground, in hopes that would make them less intimidated by the tall(ish) human.
Creamsicle took full advantage of the situation.
What a silly boy!
Tabby didn’t come any closer than this, but did spend some time rolling around under the grapes, in between watching me.
Little Braveheart did come a bit closer to the stick I was wiggling, but not close enough to actually touch it.
It was funny to watch Little Braveheart and her mother. They share many of the same mannerisms, and often mimicked each other’s movements.
They also have the same eyes! Even though the markings in their fur are different, they have the same facial structure and many other similarities.
The grapes, meanwhile, did eventually get watered, and are looking really good.
The more shaded ones at the back of the trellis are noticeably darker than the ones that are more exposed.
While tending the rest of the garden, I found this.
The tallest of our sunflowers is starting to open up its seed head! So far, it’s the only one at this stage.
Awesome!!! I can’t wait to see how big the seed head gets.
Meanwhile…
My husband and I had our medical appointments today. Heading out two days in a row was really hard on him. Thankfully, we got in quickly, and didn’t have long to wait.
I learned one thing today that my husband forgot to mention after yesterday’s appointment at the pain clinic. The doctor there was going to phone our doctor here to discuss recommended pain medications.
Another reason I’m unhappy I wasn’t allowed to go in with him yesterday. He forgets things more often, these days. At least he remembered this while with our doctor!
The doctor had a couple of concerns. For one, he will be referring my husband to an endocrinologist, so we’ll be getting a phone call about that. He also wants to adjust my husband’s prescriptions, but will wait until he talks to the pain clinic doctor, go through his current medications, and think about it. Once he’s done that, he will fax any new/changed prescriptions directly to the pharmacy.
As for the rest of my husband’s bloodwork, it was all fine.
Then it was my turn. My bloodwork was fine, across the board. During the physical, we did get a laugh. After testing my reflexes, he did the usual putting his hand on my knee while flexing the joint, as he started to ask if I had any issues with pain, etc. When he lifted my lower leg, he cut himself off in mid sentence with a startled “Oh!!”
To which I responded to his half-finished question, “yes. Arthritis. You felt that, did you?” :-D
Yeah, both my knees do some interesting things when they’re flexed!!
One thing with both my husband and I was, what we thought were heat rashes turned out to be fungal infections. !! So we both got prescriptions for creams to treat that. When we were done, I dropped my husband off at home, picked up a daughter, then headed into town to get the prescriptions filled before the pharmacy closed. A stop at the mail on the way out found a letter from the heart clinic, with my husband’s rescheduled appointment, early next month.
I’ll have to remind him to phone them about it right away, to arrange some sort of accommodations, like having a stretcher available for him, for an appointment they say might take up to 2 hours.
So while nothing much changed at today’s appointment, steps were taken and others are being put in place, for the near future.
While I took my husband to the city for his appointment with the pain clinic, I asked my daughters if they could maybe freeze the sunburst squash for me.
They did that.
With the squash left over after doing a quick pickle!
They did a bit of research and found a quick pickling recipe to try. These will sit in the fridge and be ready for eating in 2 days.
They filled 4 500ml wide mouth jars and still had enough to fill a few size medium freezer bags of blanched squash.
I really look forward to trying these!
If we’re happy with how they turn out, there will be plenty more squash to do it again, and maybe try some other recipes and flavours.
While doing my morning rounds and picking more squash, I always check on my favorite mutant sunburst squash.
It looks like, where it rests against a leaf or stem (which I’ve moved to take the picture), it turned yellow, while the exposed parts are green.
I find myself torn between wanting to pick it, and seeing if it’s any different on the inside and if it tastes any different, or leaving it to grow, to see how big it gets, and let it to go to seed. :-D
I think I’m leaning towards leaving it. :-)
My husband and I will be heading into the city soon, for his appointment at the pain clinic. I figure it’ll take about 1 hour, 45 minutes, to get there, so we’re leaving 2 hours early. How long the appointment will be, I have no idea. Then there’s going to be the drive back.
This is going to be very difficult on my husband. For medical appointments, he tends to skip his quick release painkillers (which are “take as needed”), so that his mind is clearer. What a choice to have to make: reduce the pain, but be in a brain fog, or have a clearer mind, but with increased pain.
I really hope they can help him get this pain under control. This is no way to live.
With us being gone for most of the day, I’ll have to remember to ask the girls to freeze some of the sunburst squash we’ve got so much of right now. :-)
I got to follow up on a couple of things this evening.
We hit 32C/89F today, so once things got cooler, I headed out to water the garden beds.
Yesterday evening, after letting the silicon sealant cure for more than 24 hours, I filled the rain barrel by the garden, so today was the litmus test. I’m happy to report, there were no leaks at all at the cracks in the barrel.
With the barrel set up in the shade of a tree, the water in it was actually still cool! But not cold, which I’m sure the squash pants appreciated. Some of the leaves look like they got shocked by the cold, the last time I used a hose to water them.
While watering the beets and carrot beds, I startled a little friend.
It even gave me a chance to get pretty close with my phone to take pictures, before disappearing. This is the first time I’ve seen one of the green tree frogs jumping out of these beds. Gosh, they’re pretty!
While there, I decided to check on my other green friend, in the chokecherry tree by the junk pile.
The caterpillar is still there – and noticeably bigger! If you look at the veins in the leaf to compare between the two dates, you can see he’s quite a bit longer. The colouring has smoothed out, too. I’ll have to check again over the next while; he might get as big as the ones I found when I was a kid!
I’m happy to add that I saw flashes if kittens while making my way between the garden beds. While I was checking on the caterpillar, Butterscotch even emerged from the spirea to say hello and let me pet her. :-)
I’m glad she didn’t move her kittens.
The next thing I’ll be following up on is how things go tomorrow! We’re headed to the city for my husband’s first appointment with the pain clinic. I’m glad it’s finally happening, though to be honest, I don’t have much confidence in how it’ll go. After all these years, I think I’ve gotten way too jaded, but between the 2 years it took for my husband to get a 14 page form to fill out, and what was in the form itself, I am already not impressed with this place.
Mind you, I don’t think I’ll even be able to go in with him. They said he’ll have to wear a mask to go in, without anything about medical exemptions – and he has several conditions that would apply! I already know wearing a mask triggers my chronic cough, so maybe we’ll both be able to get exemptions, but I doubt it. Another reason for my expectations to be very low.
This post is to follow up on a comment from My Home Farm about sunflowers. They’re doing some awesome things on their property and Victorian era house, so do head over to visit their website and YouTube channel!
On learning we were planting sunflowers, my mother had made a big deal about how the birds were going to eat them all. She had planted sunflowers in the garden in the past, and told me they never had a chance to get any, because of the birds.
Well, I know that isn’t quite true, since I remember as a kid, pulling sunflowers out of a head and eating them, inside the house. So we obviously managed to harvest at least one seed head! :-D
The sunflowers we have planted are intended to be used as bird feed over the winter, though we will certainly eat some of them ourselves. To do that, however, we need to be able to harvest and preserve the seed heads before the birds eat them off the plants!
In looking up how to do that a while back, I found this video.
After watching this, I am thinking that my parents may have left the seed heads out for too long, before trying to harvest them.
Any seed heads we harvest will be hung up in our basement to dry.
Right now, our giant varieties of sunflowers are still developing their seed heads. We haven’t had issues with squirrels or mice, but the deer do seem to enjoy them! Of the original planting of 2 varieties of giant sunflowers, we had about a 50% loss. Some simply didn’t germinate, but most were lost to deer. A third variety of giant sunflowers were planted to fill in the gaps, and almost all of them came up, with a few later lost to deer. It should be interesting to see if they will have enough of a growing season left to produce seed heads we’ll be able to harvest, too. We do intend to plant sunflowers again next year, including trying some other, unusual, varieties. We intend to plant more of each, with the expectation of losses, but will also try to fence things off to keep the deer away, too.
But first, we’ll see what we will be able to harvest, this year!
The Re-Farmer 