I’m happy to say, that a day of rest seems to be just what the doctor ordered. In fact, I felt so good, and it looked so beautiful outside, I decided to see if there was something I could get started on today.
Because I’m an idiot like that.
The beautiful looking day lied! :-D It was still cold and windy out there! Those lilacs are looking gorgeous, though.
When I went to check the forecast, though, I found a weather alert. We’re supposed to get frost tonight.
I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t get those transplants done!
The girls and I headed out to make sure everything was covered.
The squash bed was a challenge. I didn’t have very many of the plastic containers I was keeping to use as cloches for exactly this purpose. We did, however, still have the five gallon size water bottles from when I did a complete water change of the fish tank (which, I am happy to say, shows no signs of turning cloudy or that mass of algae growing back; it was definitely our well water that was the problem!). I cut a bunch of them in half, and we got all the squashes covered!
I don’t know that the bricks balancing on the necks of bottles will do much good, but it’s worth a try, to make sure the cloches don’t get blown away.
The girls covered the new garden bed with plastic, as well.
The plastic row covers are sandwiched between pairs of boards, so the sprouts won’t get flattened too much.
We didn’t bother doing anything with the potato beds, since the straw mulch will insulate them just fine.
Based on the long range forecast, this should be the last frost of the year. We’re going to start getting hot again, tomorrow.
Meanwhile, here are some more smiles for you! :-)
The girls went to visit with the kittens for a bit, but only Big Rig stayed still long enough for a decent photo. :-D
As David does so well with the kittens, the girls let him come down, too.
I didn’t get a single kitten picture today, to share with you! I never had the chance.
I did visit the kittens, of course. One of the first things I do in the morning is head down there with fresh water for them. When I opened the basement door, Beep Beep was sitting in the window ledge above the stairs, waiting for her moment. As soon as the door opened, she launcher herself into the air and through the door!
In my hapless effort to block her, the door got left open a split second too long.
As Beep Beep raced into the dining room, five cats exploded into the basement.
The kittens, meanwhile, had come running to the stairs, as they usually do.
Fenrir has been the most dedicated at trying to get into the basement, but she does not like the kittens. As soon as she saw them, she bolted back up the stairs, then crouched in the entry, staring at the door, like a hairy gargoyle.
Keith was quite taken aback by the horde of kittens.
Keith is also a bundle of nerves and anxiety.
Next thing I know, Keith is hissing and spitting at a kitten, in total fear. The kitten – Nicco – was busily making himself look big, hissing, spitting and advancing on Keith.
Who ran away and hid under a table.
Two Face was running around, trying to snag a kitten to groom. Every now and then, one would come too close, and she would grab it, do a barrel roll as she wrestled it to the ground, before aggressively mothering it. It would take a few moments before a disheveled kitten would squirm it’s way out, and she would do it again to another one.
Cheddar doesn’t seem to know what to think of them. He kept going from kitten to kitten, sniffing and staring. Once again, it was Nicco who made himself look big, staring him down. Until Cheddar casually reached out with a paw and smacked Nicco vaguely around his head.
David, meanwhile, is totally chill with the kittens. He kept going around, sniffing and grooming and snuzzling, kitten after kitten.
Beep Beep, meanwhile, came down, then went back up, then came down and beep beep beeped at me with her distinctive meow that gave her her name.
Then her daughter, Two Face, started beeping, too.
She has a much higher voice than her mother.
I tried to cuddle Beep Beep, and she was reveling in the attention, but would soon run off upstairs again.
Eventually, I had to grab a broom to try and persuade Keith to come out from under the table. Then I tried to sweep the cats towards the stairs. I was finally able to grab them, one at a time, and toss them into the entry way, closing the door each time, so none would come back down.
Beep Beep ended up upstairs again, and I found myself alone with 5 kittens attacking my feet and trying to climb my legs.
I finally got their water changed, then took advantage of the situation and gave them a little packet of wet cat food. That distracted them enough that I could escape and find Beep Beep. As I suspected, she was looking around the food bowls upstairs. She was looking for wet cat food.
So I snagged her and managed to get her downstairs, where the treat was waiting for her.
By the time it was done, the whole thing left me feeling like I’d been spun in circles! :-D
So…
No pictures of kittens this time.
*sadness*
Today did turn out to be a nicely productive day. I made a trip into town to check out a place I’d seen ads for, saying they did lawnmower maintenance. If I could find a place I could take the mowers to, instead of having to go three quarters of the way to the city, to the place my brother bought our riding mower, that would be great. I never expected having trouble finding a small engine shop locally! There are probably quite a few, but no one that advertises. This place is connected to one of the hardware stores, and carries a lot of the big stuff, and even has a chipper that can be rented. For the amount of wood we need to get chipped, we’re going to go ahead and hire the company that did our trees for us, instead. This place also carries the garden soil, manure and peat that the hardware store itself just doesn’t have the room for.
Walking into the place is like heaven. Everywhere I turned, there were riding mowers, push mowers, weed wackers, all sorts of tools and…
Was that a chain saw display in the back?
Why yes! Yes it was!
I had had zero luck in finding a new chain for the electric chainsaw that we had checked out, last year. We never got to use it, nor the gas powered one, at all last year.
The first thing I asked about, was the lawn mower maintenance. When I told him I wanted to get some work done on our riding mower, his first question was, is it still working? I explained that yes, it’s running fine, but I just want to get some basic maintenance done and the blades sharpened. He told me that I could just drop it off – no appointment needed – but they are really busy with lawnmower maintenance right now. He said that, since it’s still running (not in need of any repairs), to just keep on using it and give them about 2 weeks before I drop it off.
I’ll just leave it for next month.
I then asked him about chain saw chains. He said he would need to see the chain saw to know if they carried the right chain, but they do have sharpening services, too. So I will bring it over one of these days for him to take a look at, and he’ll be able to determine if I just need to get it sharpened, or if I need a new chain.
I then bought a bale of peat and some bag of soil mix. He came out with me to help load it into the van, which was kind of funny, since the lift gate is still broken, and I keep a pole in the back to prop it open. I joked about it being something else I need to get fixed, as he deftly maneuvered around the pole to load the bags into the van.
That done, I decided a stop at the garage would be a good idea.
I asked about my mom’s car. He told me he was going into the city tomorrow, and going to a wreckers. Among the things he’s looking for is the part for my mother’s car. He’d hoped to head out this afternoon, but had too many cars to work on, already. I then asked him if he serviced AC systems. Our air conditioning was working last year, if not particularly well, but this year, nothing. The cost was very reasonable, so we went to book that on his calendar. Then I remembered to ask about the lift gate. Since we’re going to be hauling a lawn mower in the back of the van, using the nice new ramps my brother bought for us, it would be good to not have a pole in the way. ;-) These aren’t very expensive and don’t take long to install, so that’s going to get done, too.
I also remembered to ask him about the driver’s side door hinge. When we bought the van, the original door would drop when opened, and we would have to lift it to close it. Eventually, the latch on the door snapped. It was actually cheaper to replace the door, and the garage we went to at the time tried to find a second hand one for us, but never did. We spent most of the first year we owned the van with a Bungee cord keeping the door shut. Including the drive across provinces, during the move.
My brother had been able to find a door, but because the driver’s side door has the only key lock, he had to take both of them apart and cobble the two together. The original hinge pins broke in the process, but he’d snagged the ones from the vehicle he had salvaged the door from, so that worked out. The door does, however, still drop ever so slightly, and we don’t want to go through all that again. If we can get it fixed now, before it becomes a problem, that would be good.
The problem is, he would have to take it apart and see, in order to give me an estimate. But there are only two possibilities. One, we need new bushings. Two, they would need to take it apart, precision drill a new opening, and weld things back together.
If it’s one, that’s not a problem.
If it’s two, he basically says it would take so long, it might not be worth it, because it would be really expensive, just in shop equipment fees, never mind the time.
So the bushing kit, which is not very expensive, has been ordered, and he will check it and see. I’ll be dropping the van off on Monday morning, and just hanging out in town until it’s done.
It was a rather short trip into town, but it felt like I’d accomplished quite a bit in the process!
Once at home, we were getting into the hottest part of the day, so we stuck to inside stuff until things started to cool down in the evening. I didn’t even bother unloading the van until then. That wagon we got last month is awesome. I was able to haul the bale of peat and bags of soil, all at once, over to the old garden area. Then I started mowing the old garden area with the push mower.
I am so glad my brother was able to get that thing running for us. There is no way we could do this area with the riding mower. It would break in no time!
Also, that drill attachment sharpener I got for the mower blade has made a huge difference! When I sharpened it yesterday, I found it so bashed up, it was hard to tell which side of the blade was beveled, and which was flat!
I’m also so happy we found that bag attachment for this mower. It isn’t very big, and I had to stop to empty it often, which makes for much slower going. However, I am getting so many grass clippings, I decided to keep mowing into areas I would normally use the riding mower for, just so I could get more!
And since I had all these wonderful grass clippings, I decided to use them to mulch around where we planted the sunflowers.
The areas mulched are two wagon loads of clippings. I stopped after finishing this end of the old garden area, and then had to stop. After two hours, I was pretty knackered!
Also, I really need to remember to keep a water bottle with me when I’m doing this!
Meanwhile, after the girls finished what they were working on inside, they came out to remove the logs that were used to frame the area we chose to mulch last year, and where I am planting the squash this year. They have served their purpose, and now they are starting to be in the way as we go around with wheelbarrows or wagon, hoses and soil mixes.
We will not be able to continue this tomorrow, though. Tomorrow is our day to do the monthly shop in the city.
I am really hoping it goes better than last month. Last time was pretty brutal. :-( Even on a good trip, though, we’re pretty wiped out by the time we get home, unload and put everything away.
As for me, I am done like dinner! Time for a shower and, hopefully, early to bed!
Well, when it came to the mad dash to get the lawn mowing started, it was mosquitoes 0 : rain 1 :-D The bug spray actually worked this time. :-D Thankfully, I didn’t have to charge the battery on the riding mower, and could get started on that right away. I got rained on a bit, but it wasn’t until I was using the push mower to get the edges that the rain started falling heavily enough I had to put the equipment away.
I’m also happy to say that the lawn mower bag we found in the basement and moved to the barn is for this push mower, rather than one of the many broken ones lying about. It’s a rear bag, and normally I would have closed the cover of the side opening, but that wasn’t an option. Someone built a sort of shield of wood that holds the flat up, while also preventing clippings from spraying towards whomever is pushing it, and the shield is bolted to the body of the mower. I don’t mind it being open, since most of the clippings goes into the bag anyhow. I kept the folding wagon close by to empty the bag into, and was able to fill it before I had to stop due to rain. This will make it so much easier to have grass clippings for mulching and composting! :-)
Later in the evening, before I headed outside to do my rounds, I paused to check the indoor plants. Particularly the aloe that has started to bloom.
It had a surprise for me!
Not only has one of the flower spikes reached the ceiling, it’s pressing against it, and looks like it has more growing to do!
Outside, there were more blossoms emerging. The crab apples are starting to bloom.
This is from one of the trees in the West yard.
You can really tell that these ones get more light than the ones planted North of the spruce grove.
Earlier in the month, I had spotted some fungal growth on one of the apple trees by the spruce grove. Now that the leaves are in, I can see that the entire section of that tree is dead. There are still two sections of it growing, and seem to be healthy, so far, so we’ll see how it fares after I remove the dead section. (update: after taking a closer look, the living sections aren’t going that well, after all. :-( )
Of course, I visited the kittens, and got thorough and viciously attacked by little critters!
Big Rig looks even bigger when she’s next to Saffron, who is the teeniest of the bunch.
Now that they’re bigger, and occasionally stay still long enough for me to check, it looks like we’ve got three females and two males. Big Rig, Turmeric and Saffron seem to all be female; it’s a bit surprising, since orange tabbies are usually male. Leyendecker and Nicco both appear to be male. With Leyendecker being black, it’s even harder to tell with him! :-D
If all goes well, tomorrow, I’ll be able to get either the rest of the mowing done, or the rest of the planting done. Maybe even both, weather willing.
I completely forgot about the pumpkin seeds my mother gave me. It’s quite late for direct sowing pumpkins, but I’ll give them a try. Checking the seed trays, some of the gourds are most definitely emerging! After the trays were knocked over, they’re all mixed up, but none of the gourds had sprouted at all yet, so the new ones can’t really be anything else.
I used more of the soil mix for the sunflowers than I expected, so I think I will pick up more, the next time I’m in town. We still need to get those chimney blocks outside, to use as planters for the cucamelon transplants. The plan had been to take them through the new part basement, and up the stronger stairs, but with the kittens down there now, and always under foot, we’ll have to find a way to get them up the more rickety old basement stairs.
Once again, I am thinking of how great it would be to convert the old chimney for the wood burning furnace into a dumbwaiter! :-D
Once the blocks are in place, I plan to fill the bottoms with grass clippings and straw, then top it with a soil mix. With more squash to transplant, I don’t have enough of the soil mix left for it all.
It’s all coming together rather nicely, I think. I look forward to seeing how everything does.
I spoke to my mother today, and was telling her about what we’ve planted and where. Of course, she had to start telling me what I should be planting, none of which is what I am planting. She is currently fixated on onions. I should be planting onions. Also, I should be using the chives (which are coming up nicely) in salads. Also, I need a tiller. Because digging holes for the sunflower seeds is… and she stopped herself before saying it, though I could still here the word “stupid” hanging in the air. :-D I had told her about my wanting to go with no-till methods, and the use of straw, and she told me that she’d never seen anyone do that before. Straw is only for strawberries, not for anything else. It’s rather funny, how she is so convinced that the way she did things is the ONLY way to do things! Nobody else ever did anything different. :-D As for the old garden area, I reminded her of the conversation we’d had about planting trees there, and how we were intending to plant fruit and nut trees. She started telling me I should get hazelnuts from the bush, for free. The problem with that is, I have no memory of where those hazelnuts are. I was little more than a toddler when I went with her to gather nuts. They may not even be there anymore. So many trees and bushes have died, over the years. So she reminded me of one place we know for sure there is a hazelnut bush. The cemetery my father and brother are buried in!
I’m not sure what she expects me to do about that. :-D But hey; at least we are in agreement on the planting of food trees!
All in all, I think it’s been a decently productive day! :-)
It’s not even noon yet, and my day is already completely out of whack! It’s my own fault, too. :-D
My daughter got her new work schedule, which had 1 whole extra shift on it, beyond another month of 1 shift a week.
It was today.
I diligently added it to my calendar, then completely forgot about it until my husband came to me this morning, saying, “So [our daughter] has a shift today, and it’s just after 8…”
Which meant we had to leave in less than half an hour. It took me about that long, just to shift mental gears. LOL If I’d remembered and set my alarm as I normally do when she has a shift, I would have completely finished my rounds and been at my computer, almost finished checking the trail cam files by then.
No worries. My husband had already fed the outside cats, and topped up the food for the inside cats, except Beep Beep and the babies. He can’t do stairs very well, and we’re still keeping the other cats out until the kittens get a bit bigger.
When visiting Beep Beep and the kittens last night, I noticed they weren’t using the crate under the chair that used to be part of their nest. They are really liking the set up on and under the platform bed frame. So I decided to see what would happen if I put the crate on the frame.
This happened.
I barely put it down when Beep Beep jumped right in!
When I visited them this morning, they were all running around so much, I couldn’t get any good pictures.
So here are some crappy ones. :-D
I’m pretty sure this is Turmeric, teething on the basket I made. When the two orange ones aren’t close to each other, it’s kinda hard to remember which is Turmeric and which is Saffron. :-D
I had not intended that basket to be for the kittens, but they really seem to like it!
There were a couple of noticeable achievements this morning. I had already seen Leyendecker, at least, eating the cat kibble. This morning…
… Nicco was figuring out how to drink water from a bowl.
The major achievement (especially after having to clean up a mess on the foam mats we laid out on the concrete for them) is this…
Yes. I took a picture of a kitten taking a dump. But it was in the litter box, not the floor, so this is a milestone! :-D
Anyhow.
I’ll be needing to head into town again a couple more times. I’ll be meeting my daughter for lunch and taking advantage of that to try and find some self-drilling screws my brother is looking for, to use on that trailer frame we now have wheels on and has been sitting in the barn all winter. Then again to pick up my daughter at the end of her shift. So getting more of the squashes transplanted will wait another day. The ones already planted have grown noticeably, as have the carrots in the new garden plot. That’s encouraging, at least. :-) There are plenty of other tasks to do that can handle interruptions.
I’ll just have to remember to use lots of insect repellent before I do anything outside. Aside from the squadrons of mosquitoes, I’ve been seeing lots of wood ticks already. :-( Ah, well. Such is life in the sticks! :-D
Today has been a lovely, cool day! Perfect to get those sunflowers done.
I had assistants.
When I started filling the holes with the soil mixture, the Potato Beetle decided to sit his butt over one of the next holes! My first thought was that he was taking a dump and I went to push him away. He just flopped onto the ground and looked at me as if to say, “Yes. Rub my belly. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”
Then he moved over to the next hole and sat over it, watching me. When I moved to fill that one, he went to the next one and lay down.
With his butt over the hole.
What a weird cat. :-D
Creamsicle was also fascinated by the holes.
I have no idea what he was seeing down there that was so interesting! :-D
The soil mixture in the little pool got quite a lot of rainwater, along with the water I’d already put into it, so it was quite saturated. I was still finding pockets of dry peat, though! Still, this was perfect, as it meant I didn’t have to drag buckets of water over the very rough ground to water the soil mix, first. I could just go straight to planting.
I decided to alternate the two varieties. The row still marked with flags starts and ends with the variety that can grow 10-12 feet high, while the other row starts and ends with the variety that can grow 6-8 feet high. The varieties ended up lining up with each other where the two rows overlap.
And that will be it for today, with it being Sunday. I just did what had to be done, before we got more rain (if we get more rain; we’ll see if the forecasts are right for a change).
Next, for this area, we will be adding a straw mulch, little by little, as well as taking the opportunity to dig up the burdock that’s starting to come up, as well as the self-sown trees that are showing up.
Tomorrow, weather willing, the priority will be to get more of the squash transplants in. Quite a few more are ready, now. And I might even be seeing some of those gourds finally emerging, too!
Putting in a garden this year is really changing what is being worked on outside. The original plan was to spend the first 2 years cleaning up the inner yard, the next year or two working on the outer yard, and moving beyond the outer yard as we could, after that. With my husband ended up in the hospital for 3 weeks last year, and many trips to the city to see specialists, things got more focused. Which worked out, since we ended up focusing on cleaning up where the old wood pile used to be, and finding that wonderful soil we have planted the carrots in. For this year, we will continue to work on cleaning up the spruce grove, but will also have to get things done in the outer yard, and now keep up on the garden beds. Oh, and build that new outhouse as a cordwood practice building, too.
First, the garden needs to be planted.
Then, we can mark out where we want to put the cordwood building and start clearing the space and removing sod. Cleaning up the spruce grove, etc., will continue in between stages of building. I’m hoping I can borrow my brother and his trailer, and visit a salvage yard for materials to use as a floor/base. I’m thinking along the lines of pavers, but who knows what else we might find! :-)
Of course, the kittens are growing into ferocious little ankle biters.
They also love climbing on and clawing the grandpa slippers. :-D
Once outside, I checked the new garden bed and discovered carrots!
Unfortunately, there are also plenty of other things sprouting. At least the thistles are easy to pull out.
These carrots were done using a method found on a YouTube video, where the seeds were sprouted in water first, then put into a cornstarch gel in baggies, to be piped into the ground like icing.
These, along with the parsley, were planted on May 17. It is now the 24th. It took only 1 week for the sprouted seeds to break ground. Direct sown, they could take anywhere from 14 to 21 days.
Not only was the parsley also starting to show, but I think I’m even seeing some of the beets, which were planted 2 days later. I didn’t do anything special with them, other than cover the plots with plastic. Beets can take 7 – 14 days to sprout when direct sown.
It seems things are doing quite well in this location! I was able to remove the plastic on all the little plots. Even the kohl rabi. I just looked those up and they can germinate anywhere from 3 – 10 days.
I’m quite pleased with this!
Yesterday’s downpour has really revived everything! While doing my rounds, I found more blooming trees!
Yesterday, it was plum blossoms. Today, it’s Saskatoons. :-)
Of course, the grass is also growing like mad. Time to break out the lawn mowers! :-)
I’m going to have to try getting outside to work on things much earlier in the day. It’s getting too hot, way to fast!
I’m not sure I’m up to getting out there when it’s cooler at 5 am, though. :-D
Anyhow…
Today, I dismantled the kitty pool and brought it out to be dirty pool. ;-)
This is two bags of garden soil, two bags of compost, and the remainder of our bale of peat; about 1/3. The pool was just enough for all that, plus room to mix in water.
Which Creamsicle found absolutely fascinating.
The peat takes quite a while to absorb the water, so after spending some time mixing, adding more water, mixing, adding more water and mixing again, I decided to let it sit for the peat to fully absorb as much water as it could. Considering the hottest part of the day was still to come, I figured I would continue when it got cooler in the evening.
Which didn’t happen. :-D
I went into town to meet my daughter for lunch, then took advantage of the time to stop at a hardware store to pick up a few things, including a small coping saw and a file to sharpen our other saws that saw so much use in the last couple of years. It was hot and sunny when I went into the store. When I came out a few minutes later, it was still sunny, but the ground was wet. It had just started to rain.
On the way home, I seemed to drive out of the rain, only to drive straight into a massive downpour and thunderstorm! It wasn’t too bad while I was still on the highway, but a little more than a mile away from home on the gravel road, the deluge came down. I had to slow to a crawl and could barely see past the front end of the van! The rain was hitting hard, but… was that hail, too? I couldn’t tell.
It slacked off a little bit by the time I got to our driveway. I still got soaked as I unlocked the gate. I ended up just leaving it open and, after parking in the garage, left the garage door open, too, as I ran for the house with my bags. By the time I reached the house, I was completely soaked!
The storm didn’t last long, but one thing is for sure. That peat mixture is going to be plenty saturated! :-D
Later, I saw someone in our municipality posting pictures on Facebook, showing the lawn furniture in their back yard that had been blown around, and the marble sized hail that had drifted into corners of the building. !!!
By the time I drove back into town to pick up my daughter, it was down to a light rain. Just this one downpour made a huge, visible difference! It’s like every growing thing just perked up. For all that we still had standing water in ditches and ponds, we still needed that rain!
We’re supposed to get rain tomorrow afternoon, too, but if I can get to it early enough, I should be able to get the soil mix into the holes we dug, and the sunflowers planted, first.
Meanwhile, we have been making a point of visiting the kittens and Beep Beep as often as we can throughout the day. It was my turn to do the litter tonight, so I spent some extra time with them in the process.
Here we have Leyendecker, sampling the cat kibble in the container he’d knocked over, while Beep Beep is eating the kitten kibble. :-D
They seem to quite like all the run around space, even if they do tend to stay close to the bed frame/platform, and their little nest underneath!
I had some interlocking foam squares, like the kind sold as yoga mats or children’s rooms, that I used for blocking crocheted projects. I decided to give them to the kittens. The girls were kind enough to set them up on the concrete in front of the bed frame.
Because I’m a suck. That’s why.
Thankfully, for all the rain we had, the fan is still keeping the floor in the corner nice and dry.
I checked on the kitties this morning, of course, as part of my a.m. routine.
Of all the possible nests they could have chosen, they went back to their original nesting box, now shoved under the platform bed frame. The frame itself has something under it, so it’s not directly on the concrete, and there are several boxes with soft, comfy things to lie on, on top of it. But noooo… They go for this crowded space, instead! Even Beep Beep squeezes her way into it!
I was pleased to find that the fan did its job. There is only a tiny bit of wet in the very corner left.
Also, we have our first trees blooming! The plum trees. This variety of plums are very small and more pit than flesh, so not particularly good to eat, but if we get a lot of them this year, we can use them to make some sort of condiment, or even a wine, if we wanted to go that route. We shall see.
It’s turning out to be a lovely day to get some work done outside, though already very hot. As I write this, 23C/73F, with a “real feel” of 25C/77F. We’re supposed to hit 27C/80F, and feeling like 30C/86F for a high this afternoon, with a potential thunderstorm this evening. The forecasts are constantly changing, though, so it’s hard to say. Either way, I’ll be heading outside as soon as I can, to continue working on the sunflower plantings before it gets too hot out there!
The winds finally died down today, and we were able to prep for the giant sunflowers we will be planting.
To recap, these are being planted for several reasons. One is to have seeds for the birds over the winter (and for ourselves, if we want). Another is to create a wind break and privacy screen at the far end of the old garden area. A potential bonus is that sunflowers are supposed to be good for improving soil, and the area can use all the improvement it can get!
Normally, like anything else grown from seed, the sunflowers would be planted closer together, then thinned out after they germinate. For these giant varieties, they would be thinned out to 2 feet apart.
We’re not going to do that.
I counted the seeds in the packets, and they each have exactly 25 seeds in them.
We will be planting one seed every two feet. If they don’t all germinate and we end up with gaps… well… we’ll just end up with gaps.
I also decided to plant them in a gradual curve rather than in straight lines. To do that, I used these.
The bundle of flags I picked up had 25 in it, so that worked out perfectly. I decided on where I wanted to have the ends and pounded a stake into the ground, with another stake to help guide the paracord, (which my husband had ordered a spool of that just happened to come in the mail today) and a tape measure to place a flag every two feet.
I attached the paracord to the two stakes in the ground, with about 3 feet of slack.
For the first flag, I eye-balled where I wanted it to be in relation to the first stake. The extra stake was used to hold the paracord taut.
I then slid the stake along the cord and used the tape measure to determine where to put the next flag. I continued to do this for each flag.
The hard part was making sure the cord wasn’t getting hung up on grass and weeds, which would mess up the arc! :-D
The end result was a long, gentle curve.
One of the things I realized as I was placing the flags was, there was no way I was going to be able to use my new soil auger. I kept hitting rocks, and even bent the wire of one of the flags!
My daughters were sweet enough to take over and dig the holes while I had to do something else. Then after supper, I got back at it. The first thing was to move the stakes in the ground over about 2 feet. For the second row, I started at the opposite end.
This will give us two overlapping rows that will stretch across the entire end of the old garden area.
Digging the wholes was certainly a challenge. Not using the soil auger was definitely the right decision.
This is an example of how many little rocks we had to deal with, at each flag, just on the surface. The holes ended up being somewhat varying in widths and depths, from having to dig out more rocks, as well as pulling out rhizomes. The riding seat we found in the basement and brought out last summer came in very handy, though the terrain was rather rough to roll around on, thanks to whomever botched the plow job however many years before we moved out here. Still better than bending and stretching!
Digging out the holes was made extra interesting by another battle.
Squadrons of mosquitoes were dive bombing me the whole time. Mosquitoes that seemed to treat bug repellent as nothing more than a condiment that was tasty and delicious!
The two rows overlapped for 10 holes, at about 2 feet apart.
Tomorrow, weather willing, we will add a very damp soil mix into each hole, and get those sunflowers planted. :-)
Since the kitty pool didn’t work out, I’m thinking of taking it outside and using it to mix the bags of soil, compost and peat together. It’s big enough to fit all the bags we’ve got, and it will be much easier to mix it all together at once, than doing it in batches in a wheelbarrow. We should have enough left over to use elsewhere, too.
I’m really hoping planting the sunflowers like this works. We’re basically breaking all the “rules” doing it like this. :-D But then, pretty much everything we’re doing for gardening this year is an experiment.
As for the kitties, they are now settled with Mom in the basement. Lots of places were set up for them to cozy up into, and the girls were diligent in making sure everything set up for them was either elevated a bit, or at least not directly touching the concrete.
This would be why.
This was the corner my older brother found full of water and starting to mold, the summer before we moved here. A rain barrel outside this corner had been allowed to overflow right against the basement wall, through most of a very wet summer. He cleaned it up and bleached it (then we bleached it again a couple of months ago), and for our past two summers here, it was so dry, we never had an issue. Now, for the first time, water is starting to seep through the concrete – and we’ve had very little rain! Which means it is as we feared; the weeping tile is probably filled with soil and no longer doing their job, thanks to the overflowing rain barrel.
*sigh*
Another thing that will be a big, expensive, fix.
As for the corner, we already made sure the things we put there were raised off the floor. The only exceptions were the pieces of light figures, and the legs for a folding table. The plastic light cover is not a problem, but the metal piece is now raised off the floor, and the metal table legs were move out completely.
This would explain why, when we did a temperature and humidity check in the root cellar yesterday, the humidity was almost up to 80%! The temperature had gone up to about 13C. With a potential cheese cave in mind, the humidity would be good, but the temperature is now a bit too warm. It should be interesting to see if it gets any higher over the summer.
Meanwhile, we’ve now got a fan on the corner to help try it out. The old part basement already has had the blower for a while, to try and keep things drier there, too. We still need to rebuild the mesh cover for the window on that side, so we can open it up for the summer and not have to worry about critters getting in.
Little by little, it’ll get done. :-)
At least we were finally able to get prepping for the sunflowers checked off the to-do list!
After giving the new squash bed a thorough watering with the sprinkler yesterday evening, I made sure to check them out this morning.
I’m happy to see that they are looking strong and healthy. A few were looking a bit haggard after transplanting and adding the straw mulch, but they have all perked up.
The not so good is that my plans to at least start on getting the sunflowers plants are still out. It’s just too flippin’ windy out there! The sunflowers are to be planted at the far end of where the old garden used to end. There, they will serve as both a wind break (one variety can potentially grow to 10 – 12 feet in height, the other 8 – 10 feet), but also as a privacy screen. Too many people slowing down to peer into our yard/garden area. Which I can understand, when there’s a herd of deer passing through, but with our past having included things like a paid union goon stalker, a crazy dude threatening us, nosy, gossipy neighbours that were diligently working to drive us away from the housing co-op we lived in, and now our vandal, we’re a little more sensitive to the creep factor of that than most!
That far from the house, though, means no shelter from these winds, and they just don’t seem to be dying down.
I really hope it calms down in the next day or two. The predicted thunderstorms have been pushed back a couple of days, and I’d really like to get the sunflowers planted before then. Plus, there are still the cucamelons and remaining squash that need to be transplanted.
Ultimately, though, I’ll be happy as long as I get them in by the start of June.
The Re-Farmer 