Gardening

Our 2021 Garden: leveling down, and unrelated destruction

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Last night, while checking on the onion seedlings, I decided it was time to lower the shallot and bulb union seedlings in the big tank. The seedling tips were looking a little dried out, likely because they were getting too close to the warmth of the light fixture.

Doing that required removing the trays and the “floor” they were resting on, then shifting the boxes holding them all from standing on end, their tallest position, to standing on their narrow sides, which is their second tallest position. Later on, if it seems necessary, we can turn the boxes onto their broad sides to lower the plants even more.

So that worked out rather well. For the trays, anyhow. Unfortunately, being the suck that I am, I tried to do it without removing a kitten that was staying warm on the light fixture. Saffron is a tiny thing that gets cold easily, and she’s taken to using the light fixture to stay warm. So I just slid the whole thing to the back of the tank. It wasn’t enough to get the “floor” out, so I pushed one end a bit further. And a bit further…

The next thing I knew, the whole thing fell behind the tank as a Saffron launched herself across the living room in a panic.

And the lights went out.

At first, I feared I had broken a bulb, but no. The light in the small tank had gone out, too. As the fixture fell, it swiped the power bar’s plug into the wall.

This house does not have many power outlets. In the living room, there is an outlet behind the big tank, though only one plug in it works. We can access the outlet through the cabinet tank’s cabinet, as it is completely open in the back.

Which requires getting down on my knees and crawling half into the cabinet to reach.

My knees did not appreciate this at all.

After straightening out the prong on the plug that got bent when the fixture landed on it, I managed to get it back in and everything was working fine. Nothing broken.

Phew!

Then I put everything back in place.

Almost.

I had been keeping a small plant pot in the tank with the trays. We’ve had to put various types of barriers on, over or around all our house plants that can’t be hung from the ceiling, to keep cats from digging in the dirt. One small succulent was completely covered with a clear plastic dome, like a mini greenhouse, but the cats kept managing to knock the cover off. The last time that happened, I found the poor little succulent on the carpet, along with a pile of soil that had been dug out of the pot. I replanted it and stuck the pot in the aquarium, so it could get the light and the protection the seedlings were getting and, hopefully, recover.

When I lowered the trays, I forgot to put the plant pot back.

This morning, I discovered my error.

I also discovered a half empty pot, and a pile of soil on the shelf and scattered all over the carpet.

What I didn’t find was the plant. There is no sign of it. It’s likely under another shelf, but it could just as easily have been dragged down to the basement.

I had to do my outside rounds, though, so I rescued as much of the soil as I could – it’s a soil mix specifically for succulents – then moved the pot to the dining table. The table is covered in stuff. Partly because all flat surfaces just seem to invite things to be piled onto them, partly on purpose, to keep the cats off when we’re not around. I tucked the pot against some other stuff, then dashed outside to do my rounds.

I came back to another pile of soil on the dining table, and on the floor.

*sigh*

So, that’s another plant lost to the cats. I am pretty sure the culprit is Cabbages, as she’ has been caught many times, trying to get into other plants, but others have been caught, too, so I can’t say for sure.

I really hope the temperatures warm up overnight and stay warm, soon. When we start having to get larger numbers of seeds started, they’re not all going to fit in the two tanks. We’re going to have to use the sun room as a green house. Right now, I’ve seen it reaching as warm as 20C/68F during the day, but it does go below freezing overnight. We’ll be able to fit some things in the big tank with the onion trays (like the tomatoes we will be starting very soon), but when it comes time to start the corn and squash seeds, those onion trays are going to need to be moved to the sun room. This won’t happen for probably another month, at the earliest, so we should hopefully be okay by then.

We shall see how it works out.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 Garden: back ordered Veseys seeds are in!

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My daughter’s birthday gift is not the only thing that came in the mail today!

The very last of our outstanding seed orders are in.

Yay!!!

The yellow beans are the last of a three colour collection we ordered, so we will have yellow, green and purple bush beans to grow.

I’m really happy to have the tomatoes in now. They need to be started much earlier than most things. Based on our frost date, we would be starting them after the first week of April, but other zone 3 gardeners I know have not only started their tomatoes, but have already repotted them!

We won’t be planting all the seeds; just a few for our first year growing tomatoes. The space we intend to plant them will fit about 8 or 10 plants. More than enough to meet our needs, since they’re basically for just one person! While other things we need to start can wait until the onions we’ve got in the tanks now are moved to the sun room, there is space enough in the big tank to fit some tomato starts. A project for this weekend, perhaps.

We’ve got a lot planned for our second year of gardening since moving here, but I think the best part is overhearing a daughter saying, “I’m so excited about gardening!”. We’ve never been in a position to garden on this scale in their lifetimes, and I’m thrilled that they are so looking forward to it, too!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 Garden: more damage control

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Awww. Aren’t they sweet?

So adorable! So sweet.

So destructive.

Well. Maybe Big Rig, in this case. I am sure David and Keith are not responsible for the latest damage.

I had issues with the small tank being used as a greenhouse for the bunching onions. With cats trying to get at the seed trays through the back, we’ve been diligent about catching them coming even close to that tank and chasing them off.

Unfortunately, with this tank having its hard lid with just a couple of openings I’ve had to block off, it’s been too moist in there. Yesterday, I spotted mold starting to grow on the egg carton trays and onto the peat; one patch on each tray, closest to the front, where there is the least air circulation.

So I took the mini fan out of the big tank and set it over the opening in the back of the small tank. The seedlings are getting big enough to need a fan on them, anyhow.

Several hours later, I came back to find the fan on the floor, the lid askew, and one of the trays half on top of the other.

*sigh*

This is what I’ve done.

I took out the box that raised the trays closer to the light. They’re now just a few inches from the bottom, on top of 18 count egg cartons. That puts them lower from the light than I would want them to be, but they are now also out of reach. I also turned the trays, so the areas with the mold were to the back instead of the front.

I had already replanted some of the plugs with more bunching onions, from the last time a cat messed them up. I still have some seeds left, so I could replant more, but some of the cells in the trays are so badly damaged, they’ll no longer hold the peat. I’ll see how it looks over the next few days, then decide if it’s worth replanting more. These poor seedlings have taken quite a beating!

Apparently, we only managed to train the cats to stay off the tank while we are not around to see them. :-/ I’m pretty sure it’s just one cat. I’m just not sure which one!

After doing as much damage control as I could, I was happy to find everything still intact by morning. One of my daughters accompanied me to the city to do the second half of our monthly shopping (though we only went to one place, so I’ll still need to get more cat litter and kibble, but I will go to the smaller city for that). When we got back, everything was still intact. Also, putting the fan on seems to be solving the mold problem. It’s barely visible now.

Oh, you might notice a single tall blade of green growing out of one of the trays. We have one growing in one of the trays in the big tank, too. They are oats! The peat bale was stored near the deer feed in the sun room, so a few seeds managed to fill into the packaging. When I used the peat, I did take out the ones I could find, but clearly missed a couple!

As an aside, the van’s check engine light is still on, but it’s behaving beautifully. While I thought the mileage was getting worse, based on watching the fuel gauge wile I was driving. Yesterday, it seemed to be dropping way faster, but during today’s drive, we burned about as much gas as I would have expected. When I checked the onboard computer, the average mileage has actually improved since before the EGR valve was replaced. Which I would expect, but it was still a bit of a surprise. If the valve were stuck, fuel efficiency would be expected to drop. So far, so good. I’ll have to talk to the garage about giving it a quick check, and manually resetting the codes.

But that will wait. We got back from the city early enough that I’ll have time to hit the post office while picking up more deer feed and bird seed.

Oh, that reminds me. Potato Beetle came over while I was doing the cat stuff this morning. When I first saw him, I was rather alarmed by how dirty the wound area was; just plastered with plant matter and …

… then I realized it wasn’t the wound area. Just near it. Potato got himself into a patch of burrs! He wouldn’t let me pull them out, but I did get to check the wound, which is looking noticeably better. And so is he!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: one last surprise! (updated)

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I wasn’t expecting to do another post today – and certainly not another garden post – but I just had to! I’ve had two awesome things happen since my last post.

One is that I got an email confirming our back ordered seeds from Veseys has just been shipped! It’s only two packets of seeds; the cherry and grape tomato medley, and the third variety of bush beans we had ordered. Now, the only things left outstanding are the items that will be shipped in time for planting in our zone. I’m really glad I ordered all these back in December. Quite a few of the varieties we ordered have since gone out of stock.

Then there is the other exciting bit.

Have I mentioned I have an awesome brother?

Have I also mentioned he has an equally awesome wife?

I got a call from her this evening, asking me to check my email. She had sent me this photo.

You see, I had asked them to keep an eye out for a pressure canner for me and this evening, while on their way to a romantic dinner out, they stopped at a Canadian Tire. Because who can turn down a quick run into Canadian Tire?

They found a pressure canner (yes, I know; it says cooker, but it’s the same tool) in stock!

It’s even one that was on some of the “top 10” lists I’d been looking at. Plus, it’s on sale!

Did I want her to pick it up for me?

Yes. Yes, I did!

Then, just moments after we hung up the phone, she called back. Since she was there, in the canning supplies section anyhow, was there anything else I wanted?

She found a couple of boxes of wide mouth snap lids to pick up for me as well.

We are now all set for both hot water bath and pressure canning, this fall.

My sister in law is awesome!

The Re-Farmer

Update: So… about that pressure canner…

As Carolee pointed out in the comments, this is a pressure cooker. I have read about them being used as canners, found instructions for them, etc. It was in the canning section, being sold as a pressure canner. It should be good. At least for small jars, like we would be using. At that size, I knew we’d never fit quart jars in there, but we aren’t planning on pressure canning anything in that size.

However, I asked my sister in law to go through the instructions to see, and apparently there is NOTHING about using this model as a canner in the instructions. Which is a bit irritating, since that’s what it was being sold as.

In the end, we’re going to keep it, rather than ask them to return it. That was a really good sale price, and we will make use of it in other ways.

We’ve been looking online for pressure canners around the province. I found one in the city, selling for $450. Well beyond our budget. I found another in a closer hardware store that was smaller and more affordable, but it’s not in stock. I am trying to avoid using Amazon, so I tried looking at more direct sources and manufacturers. They’re all in the US which means that, with the dollar difference, shipping costs and hidden expenses, I just assume it will cost double what the listed price is. Some are still affordable, but… out of stock, of course.

We will keep looking, but if how things are now is anything to go by, it looks like we will be freezing, dehydrating and pickling vegetables, rather than canning them! I do want to can things like meat, chili, soups and stews, too, and for that, we will need a pressure canner. We’ve canned chili before, but that was to keep them in the fridge for quick meals. Which was really handy. I’ve also canned soup stock but, again, it had to be refrigerated and used fairly quickly. In the long term, I want to have shelf-stable produce, and there is no getting around needing a pressure canner to ensure the food stays safe. Ultimately, we can do without. We have alternatives.

Our 2021 garden: Baker Creek order arrived!

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I made it to the post office while running errands today, and had a small package waiting. I just sort of assumed it was for my daughters or my husband, but nope! It turned out to be my last minute order from Baker Creek. I am totally shocked that it arrived already! When I placed the order, they had a notice saying that, for orders outside the US, it could take as long as 3 months to arrive. It has only been two weeks since I got the shipping notice! This may well be the fastest any of our seed orders have come in!

Which means that right now, not counting the items that will be shipped in the spring in time for planting, we have only a couple of back ordered seeds that we’re waiting for. One is our third variety of beans, and the other is a medley of cherry and grape tomatoes. The tomatoes are the only ones I’m concerned about, since they need to be started indoors, but not until April or May, so we still have time.

Here is what we got today. (All links will open in new tabs, so don’t worry about losing your place! :-) )

While talking about and planning for the varieties of seeds we already had, the girls noticed we unintentionally have been leaning towards a rather purple theme. These are now intentionally on that theme! We had only one variety of peas, so that was my excuse to get the King Tut Purple peas.

The Chinese Pink celery was chosen not just for the colour, but because it’s supposed to be easier to grow in our climate than the usual European varieties. We’re really excited to see how these turn out!

Our three varieties of lettuces have turned in to four! Thanks to the free packet of Buttercrunch lettuce, we have one green type to go with our deep reds and purples. Merlot, Lunix and Lollo Rossa.

As lettuces are cool weather crops, these will likely be planted in the shadier old kitchen garden, though with so many varieties, and other things we intend to plant there… well, it’s not that big of a garden!

That’s okay. We’ll figure it out.

The Spoon Tomato is another new one for Baker Creek (I can’t remember why I ordered two packets…) and these were ordered for my older daughter; the one person in our household that really likes tomatoes! My husband does, too, but not as much. These are so tiny and adorable, I might even try tasting them, even though fresh tomatoes normally make me gag.

Hmmm. I just took another look at the write up on the website, to try and remember why I ordered two packets. Probably because I noticed that the packets have a minimum seed count of 15. Since we’d be starting seeds in groups and thinning them, that would be why I ordered two. However I noticed in a review, a person commented that these will self-seed, because it’s basically impossible to harvest them all. We will have to keep that in mind when we transplant them outdoors!

The Luffa gourds are something I ordered just for me. I don’t know that we’ll even be able to plant any this year, but with how quickly seeds have been running out again this year, I figured I’d better get them. As it is, I’m planning to try growing just a couple of each variety, rather than planting entire seed packets, so I’ll likely try starting some of these indoors, too. They are edible when young, but I’m interested in them for the sponges.

It will be a real challenge to grow any of the gourds in our climate. I think I’m up for it!

Now I’m even more excited about getting those loads of soil. Thanks to TurboTax fixing that bug I discovered, I was able to file my husband’s tax return this morning. I’d tried before going to bed last night, but our internet was down again. My return should come in faster because of the glitch. As soon as it does, I’m ordering the soil!

Then I’m going to go shopping for a chain saw. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: damage control

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I’m about ready to start throwing cats outside! :-(

This is what I discovered, this morning.

The long piece of insulation across the top is what had been blocking the opening on the back of the tank lid. You can even see the claw marks in it!

Some nasty little beast managed to pull one of the trays up!

The peat stayed in most of the cells, though a few at the very back were empty when I straightened it out. I found the plugs and put them back as best I could, and gently took loose peat off the cells it had fallen on and put it in the emptier cells. I will give it a day or two, then plant new seeds in the cells that didn’t survive.

Eventually, the seedlings will reach a height were I can take out the box that is keeping them closer to the light, and the cats won’t be able to reach the trays anymore, but for now they trays need to be this high. They should probably be a bit higher, but that would just make it easier for a cat to reach. The opening in the back is where I’m going to set up the tiny fan we have, to blow over the seedlings and help them get stronger, but for now, I’ve basically put a sheet of foam core over the tank’s lid and weighed it down. It should still have a bit of air circulation, but we’ll have to keep a close eye on it.

I am not pleased with the kitties! :-(

The Re-Farmer

Moving forward on all sorts of things!

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Today was a day of moving forward on a few things, and even accomplishing some! :-D

First, the most important thing.

Potato Beetle status.

No, this is not Potato Beetle. Nostrildamus was posing so sweetly for me, I just had to take a photo.

Also, his eyes are quite clear. He’s just got them comfortably half shut as he enjoys the relative warmth of the cat house roof under his paws!

The Potato was not up to letting me take his picture, but he was very much up to showing up for warm water, following me as I did my rounds, and letting me carry him back to the house! :-)

I tucked him into the sun room with food and water, which I put on a scrap of rigid insulation, so he wouldn’t have to be on cold concrete while eating and drinking. He had quite the appetite!

Once back inside, I called the vet. I mentioned the photos I sent, and she went looking for them. Someone else had checked the email yesterday, so she didn’t know where it was at first. The only opening they had was for Friday, at which point, should we even bother bringing him in at all? It’s not like he’s going to get any stitches with the wound having had this long to heal on its own. She said she would get a doctor to look at the photos and would call me back.

When she did, she told me the doctor thinks it looks pretty good, from what he could see (which, admittedly, isn’t much!), but since this is an outdoor cat… well, they get pretty dirty, and that increases the risks of infection. We decided to book Potato Beetle for Friday, early afternoon, for a check up. They will likely not have to do anything, though I would not be averse to some slow release antibiotics, like they gave Butterscotch. One thing they will be able to do is examine Potato for other wounds. While carrying him, I tried to feel around as I pet him. I think I was feeling scabs through his fur in a few places.

So, that appointment is made. Since he would not be going in until Friday, I went into the sun room and opened the doors to let him out.

He had no interest in leaving, and just started eating some more.

I noticed the water bowl was starting to ice over, so I warmed up some water in the kettle and brought it over. He was still eating when I came in, but as soon as I added the warm water, he switched right over. Because the water in our hot water tank develops a smell after a while, we don’t use warm tap water for the cats. I had tried that, and they didn’t seem to like it, but they LOVE the water that’s been warmed in the kettle! When I come out with the container and set it on the ground so I can knock the ice out of the metal bowls and clean out the heated bowl, Ginger used to be the one I’d find drinking out of the container. He’d stop as I came over to take it and fill the water bowls. Now, it’s Potato Beetle that goes straight for the container, and he even keeps trying to drink while I pick it up to fill the bowls! He seemed to really, really like having food and water bowls all to himself.

Seeing how quickly ice formed on the water bowl – and that Potato wasn’t interested in going outside – I grabbed a box and made a little house for him, with an old pillow for a bed. We already have an old pillow on the floor under the swing bench that he has claimed, but the box would get warmer, just from his body heat. I set it up right next to the food and water bowls, so he could go from being on a pillow to walking on the piece of rigid insulation, and never have to walk on cold concrete, if he didn’t want to.

Then I headed out to do our shopping, along with my younger daughter. While we were gone, Potato’s water bowl got topped up with warm water a few times, and he still had zero interest in leaving the sun room!

Since we were using my mother’s car for our shopping, I didn’t get as much of the heavy stuff as we normally would, but I did get some kibble to top of the bin in the sun room. I added some of the new kibble to Potato’s food bowl, just to give him something different. He ate with gusto!

And wouldn’t leave the sun room.

So… he’s still there.

I wasn’t planning on keeping him locked up until his appointment, but he’s very content where he is now. We can look out the bathroom window and see him sitting on the swing bench, napping. Or looking back at us!

This wasn’t exactly the plan, but we’ll take it, I guess!

I also called up the garage about or van. Sure enough, he’d tried to return my call while I was with the tech service call for so long, trying to figure out what was going on with the software I’d just bought.

The van will be dropped off on Monday morning for him to check out. The only thing he suggested was topping up the power steering fluid. He seemed pleased when I told him it was full. At least we know there’s no leak! Once the van has been checked over and any repairs get done, I’ll finally be able to do a real monthly stock up trip. We haven’t been able to do one since the end of November!

As for the shopping, we only went to the Walmart in the nearer small city. My daughters had made their own shopping list, too. Aside from the stuff we usually get, I was able to pick up some Jiffy Pellet refills for our second tray, which is one of those self-watering pellet trays with a domed lid. I also picked up a plain tray, that will work well for when I use the repurposed K-cups to start seeds. They will all have drainage holes, and the tray will allow them to be watered from below.

I also picked up a case of 750ml, wide mouth canning jars. We currently have 250ml and 500ml jars with regular size mouths, plus more 500ml wide mouth jars. Little by little, as we are able, we will add to our stock of jars, plus get more snap lids. There was a water bath canner in stock, but I ended up just getting the metal rack for holding jars that will allow me to use one of our stock pots. It’s designed so that, if we were canning small, short jars, a second one can be placed on top of the jars and we could can two layers of small jars. I don’t expect to do that, but it’s an option. My daughters got me a set of canning tools for Christmas, so with the purchase of this rack, I now have all the tools needed to do water bath canning.

So, another area of progress!

I was unable to find a pressure canner, though. They didn’t seem to have any in stock anywhere. We have time to find one, though.

I have no idea what kind of harvest we will end up with at the end of the season, but I hope to be fully prepared to can plenty! We also intend to freeze some things, and dehydrate others, so we will have a variety of options, even if we don’t get a pressure canner. I did find myself ogling a dehydrator, but decided against it. For the amount I expect to be dehydrating this year, we can use our oven well enough. It’s not worth spending the money on, at this point, and we don’t have the space to store it right now. That is a purchase that has no urgency to it.

After we got home, I had one more thing that we can finally move forward on, though it’s far less pleasant to think about. I called the court office.

We finally have a court date for the restraining order we filed against our vandal.

It’s just a general session date, and there is a lot of backlog. Chances are, it’ll probably end up booked for a future hearing, but… I don’t know. This is for a restraining order, not a civil suit. Will the court just fly through the docket, like they did for the teleconference call for his vexatious litigation against me, that he clearly filed in retaliation for my applying for a restraining order? After all, my application is a criminal matter, not a civil matter.

Our vandal would have to call the court office to see if court dates were started up again or not. If he had called yesterday, that may have been the triggering event for him calling my mother three times, yesterday. One of his “usual” things that he rants about now is that my mother is trying to put him in jail. She has nothing to do with my application for a restraining order, though, so he’s just lashing out at her because he can’t lash out at me. I’ve had no direct communication from him for something like 2 years. He can’t intimidate me, but he can try and intimidate my mother. Thankfully, he doesn’t call her anywhere near as often as he used to. My siblings and I have been working to put a stop to that, which includes helping my mother understand some of her self-sabotaging behaviour. This is someone who was so very close to us, and she still feels she needs to treat him like family. She owes him nothing. He owes her (and my late father) everything.

Anyhow. The court date is in March, so that’s another step forward.

And now it’s time to check on Potato Beetle and make sure he’s settled in for the night. Something far more pleasant to think about than court dates!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: not quite cat proof

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Aren’t they adorable?

Don’t they look so sweet and innocent, snuggled together?

Don’t believe them. They lie!

They are devious, destructive beasts! :-D

Okay, okay. I don’t think Cabbages and her “grandma” are the guilty parties responsible for this.

The tank’s lid has an opening at the back for the filter, cords, etc. I’d blocked it off, but some cats – and I think at least two are guilty! – still managed to get a leg through a gap to reach the trays below. Juuuuust enough to scratch up the cardboard edge and dig up some of the peat. I finally put a piece of the rigid insulation under the lid, cut wide enough to cover the opening in the back, but narrow enough to not reach the light fixture attached to the underside of the lid.

Can you guess what the clever little monsters did next?

They figured out how to open the little flip-top door in the front of the lid, that was used to drop fish food in!

I’m pretty sure we’ve lost some sprouting onions from this.

If you look closely in the photo, you can see white specks in the peat. Those are little curled sprouts, pushing their way through the peat!

I ended up putting a weight on top of the little door, but with the back blocked off, and the little door once again closed, there’s no air circulation in the tank. The glass started to fog up! So I’ve created a small gap in the back slot that I hope the cats will not try to get through.

It takes a lot of determination for a cat to be able to reach these trays! They really, really want to dig in that “dirt”.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: making grow bags

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One thing about our internet being a problem is that we’re really learning what browsers and websites are data hogs of one type or another. Chrome is better than Firefox, and WordPress is just awful. Not just the editor, but simply trying to view other WordPress blogs. I don’t know what they’re trying to do in the background, but it’s more than our internet can handle and they are constantly timing out or only partially loading.

Today, I’m trying a new browser, and it seems to be working MUCH better. Which is weird, because I’m using Tor right now, and it’s an onion, so you would think it would be worse, not better!

Either way, here I am, able to write a blog post!

As much as possible, we keep Sunday as a day of rest. What often happens during that rest period is that it becomes a time of inspiration. Today was one such day, and I came up with a garden solution.

When I posted about our layout plans for this year’s garden, one of the things mentioned is that our potatoes aren’t anywhere on it; we are planning to grow potatoes in containers this year.

The question was, what to use as containers?

The easy solution would be to buy grow bags. That requires money, of course. Money that would be more efficiently spent elsewhere. We had a number of things around the property we could use, but each had more negatives than positives about them.

So that problem got set aside, and we got to thinking about other things. Like how to preserve our harvest. Particularly the root vegetables. I got to thinking about the bags from deer feed and bird seeds we’ve been accumulating, and how they might be usable.

Which is when the inspiration hit.

The feed bags would make excellent grow bags!

The bags are simple tubes with seams sewn on the top and bottom. The seams are basically slip stitched, so to open them, I trim one end of the thread close to the bag, then yank. The whole thread pulls out, leaving the top of the bag undamaged. Once the bags are empty, they lie flat.

So I grabbed one to experiment.

To use them as grow bags, they need a flat bottom. To create that, I folded the ends of the seam so the points met at the middle, then stitched them in place. Because of the layers of thickness from the seam, I had to do two rows of stitches on either side of the seam. I used a back stitch, as that would hold better. The thread I used was salvaged from the inside of a very long length of paracord. My younger daughter had made herself a corset, but the lacing she got was not long enough. The lacing is the same as the outside of paracord. My husband bought a 1000 yard roll of black paracord a while ago, so we had plenty to use. It took a while, but we got the inner strands out, which we then separated into individual strands to keep for other things. It’s remarkably strong, and we didn’t want to waste it! It was perfect for this job.

This is the end result. A flat bottomed bag with sides that can be rolled up or down to the height desired. The bags will allow for drainage, and are strong enough that we will be able to move them around as needed.

They’re fairly small. The bags are more long and narrow than wide, and the bird seed bags are taller than the deer feed bags. They are large enough for just a couple of potatoes, or maybe three or four fingerling type potatoes, at most. So we’ll need a lot. I don’t mind the smaller size, since that means they’ll be easier to move after being filled. We are pretty sure we know where they will go, but if that doesn’t work out, being able to easily move them is a bonus.

I brought in the rest of the bags from the sun room, which turned out to be another 12 bags, plus we’ve got two more bags of feed on the go. Over the next month or two, we will be getting more of both deer feed and bird seed, which will likely give us another 8 bags to work with. After that, we’ll just be buying bird seed, but by then, we’ll be planting, so it won’t matter. Until we actually get the seed potatoes, we won’t know how many we’ll have, since they’re sold by weight, not number of potatoes. If we don’t have enough bags, we’ll just try some of the other ideas we were thinking of.

I’ve stitched up three, altogether, to get the hang of it, and now they are set aside. Over the next few weeks, we’ll stitch up the rest so that they will be ready for our planting in late May or early June. Being in bags, we should be able to get away with planting earlier.

The cats, meanwhile, are absolutely fascinated by these bags, and all the smells that came in with them! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Just a bit earlier, today

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

With how bitterly cold it has been for the past while, I have been doing my morning rounds much later in the morning. It may only have been a couple of degrees warmer, but I was taking anything I could get! Usually, by the time I came out, the outside cats were hovering around the door, looking for me to come out with warm water.

This morning, I headed out at a more usual time, even though it was -31C/-24F with a wind chill of -33C/-27F

Absolutely none of the cats came out to greet me! LOL

The only cat I saw was Nosy and, other than lifting his head to look at me, he did not move! Considering that he is curled up right under where the terrarium bulb is, I’m guessing it’s still working.

My brother’s dog was visiting again. He’s loving this cold so much! :-D I didn’t have any cats joining me for my rounds, but I did have him to keep me company! You can even see him in the photo below.

We have deer paths all through the garden area and the East yard, but none are as well worn as these, here. We used to have a trail cam facing where they would cross the road from my brother’s place and jump our fence. One of these days, I’d like to set one up again. I miss seeing how many deer used to cross here!

What I found this morning, however, is that the top barbed wire is loose from one post, and it was twisted around the middle wire. It had been torn loose when a deer didn’t quite clear the fence! I’m going to have to find some U nails and head out with a hammer to fix it.

Long term, we’re going to have to find a way to stop the deer from entering our yard around here at all. As much as I like them, I don’t want them eating the garden! Privacy is also a goal, and not just from our vandal creeping about. Even with the lilac hedge and other trees along the fence like, people driving by like to slow down and peer into the property. Particularly if there are deer at the house. The fence posts around the garden area all need to be replaced, and I want to get away from barbed wire completely, so building a privacy fence around the garden area that the deer can’t jump over is right in line with our goals. When we can do that is another question entirely! :-D

Speaking of gardens…

This morning, I noticed that the label for the bunching onions in the small tank had been knocked over. Though I had blocked the opening in the lid, a cat had still managed to reach in and bat at things. When I lifted the lid to fix it, though, I could feel it was noticeably colder than the room!

Clearly, lining the inside of the tank with insulation was not enough. The above picture is from when the trays were first put into the tank. Not only did a cat knock over the label, but I found one of the peaks of cardboard in a corner had been torn off!

The light on this tank is LED. It provides no warmth. The light on the big tank is fluorescent (I had thought it was LED, too, but was remembering incorrectly), so it does help keep the seedlings warm. The little tank was way too cold for the seeds!

After thinking about how we could warm up the inside of the tank, I remembered something. Years ago, I’d bought a small, recessed bulb, light fixture to provide spot lighting while I was working on crafts, etc. I stopped using it because it had a tendency to get very hot, even with an LED bulb. The bulb would be cool, but the fixture would get hot. I kept it and we even brought it along when we moved here. So this morning, I dug it out, then went through a bag of bulbs we have. We replaced almost all of the light bulbs here with LED bulbs, plus we still had some that the movers accidentally included when packing our stuff. Lo and behold, I found a full spectrum incandescent light bulb in the mix.

Perfect!

So I set the light fixture up on the edge of the tank, with the lid propped on it to hold it in place. I also dug around our aquarium supplies and found the little tank thermometer. The suction cup doesn’t work anymore, but I could still set it up inside the tank so that we could monitor the temperature.

It worked. In only a few minutes, I could feel a significant difference! (The thermometer will need more time to read accurately, since it was in the old kitchen, where it’s below freezing temperatures.)

We can only have this light going while someone is there to supervise, since it could literally melt the plastic of the lid. Since the tank is lined with insulation, once it warms up inside, it will stay warm for quite a while, so a few minutes here and there will be adequate.

On the down side, the cats still try to jump on the lid, even when it’s propped up over the light fixture.

I did not expect the small tank to be less cat proof than the big one!

The Re-Farmer