Today, I was finally able to continue setting up cat proof greenhouses in our unused fish tanks, to start seeds.
What I wanted to do was line the tanks with rigid insulation where they were near walls. Since there is no way to lower the lights to be closer to the seed starts, I was going to line the insides with foil for reflective light.
I may not need to do that.
Here is the big tank.
I got photo bombed by a Susan.
I had three boxes with identical dimensions, which allow me to raise the rigid insulation floor high. As the seedlings get bigger, I can change the positions of the boxes to get different heights. I’ve got 3 boxes in there, but I might try to squeeze a 4th one in, to stabilize the floor better.
Because of how the top of the tank is designed, to hold glass covers that broke long ago, I had to cut the insulation to fit the opening, rather than the space I wanted them in. That meant the floor piece has quite a gap around it. The sheet of insulation I cut to size for the long, back wall had to be cut into thirds to get it in. Plus, there is a sheet at the end. The wall in the back of the picture is one of the original log walls. The wall at the left is an exterior wall. Yes, it has more modern (almost 50 years old) insulation, but it’s still pretty cold!
The insulation on the sides helps to fill the gaps around the floor piece, which stabilizes it as well.
At these dimensions, I can only fit two seed trays in here, which means there is a fair amount of space around them to add more containers with seed starts. I just have to figure out what waterproof surface I can fit in there to put them on.
I think I can get away with not adding foil, though. What do you think?
The second tank was much easier and faster.
Once again, I had to cut pieces smaller, to be able to fit them through the top. I only needed to add insulation to the back, which is against the exterior wall, but I added more to the sides to help fill in gaps around the floor piece.
I’m going to have to find something better to raise the floor. The orange box is a bit too small.
Photo bomb, courtesy of Saffron!
As you can tell by the dusty footprints, the cats like the lid of this tank!
At this point, I should be ready to start seeds in here. According to the package instructions, I don’t need to start my onion seeds – the ones that need to be started the earliest – until the end of March, but experienced zone 3 gardeners in groups that I’m on have already started theirs, and say they should be started now. The seed trays I have are too big to fit into the smaller tank, so I will have to find something else waterproof to hold seed starts in the little tank. I want to buy more seed trays, anyhow; I’ll have to take a good look at what dimensions are available.
There is only so much I’ll be able to fit in these, even if I’ll later be able to move the onions into the sun room and make room for something else. I did find something that I might be able to use, for when I’m starting the squash and gourd seeds.
The squash and gourds need more space to grow, and they are the things that need to be started soonest, after the onions. I’ll be using these cups, with drainage holes punched into their bottoms, as pots. The storage container is designed to fit under a bed, but the hinge on the lid is broken, so it has been languishing in the basement until now. I have a second one. Once I figure out what to do with the stuff stored inside it, I’ll be using that as well.
We have so many varieties of summer and winter squash, as well as gourds, to try. Depending on how many seeds are in each package, I may not plant them all. Some are packed by weight rather than number of seeds. I figure, at most, I’ll start 10 seeds each of the summer and winter squash. Whatever the germination rate turns out to be, that’s what I’ll be planting. If I get just a 50% germination rate, we will still have lots of each variety, and with the number of varieties, we should have plenty for both fresh eating, and preserving and storage. For the gourds, I’ve decided to start 5 seeds of each, and see how they do. One of them is an eating variety, but the others are to dry and use for crafting purposes. Curing them takes about a year, so the sooner I can get some grown, the sooner I’ll have materials to work with! If space in an issue, though, I’ll drop the gourds for this year.
I still have the mini greenhouse that my daughter bought for me last year, which can hold three of the trays that are in the big tank. The cats still managed to get into the closed plastic cover, and it gets knocked over easily, so anything we start in there will be done later in the season, and in the sun room!
With the trays I have now, all I need to figure out is what to use in the small tank, and I should be able to start the onion seeds very soon!
I have to admit that, right now, I’m rather obsessed with gardening! Mostly, I’m just glad we’ve reached a point, since moving here, where we even can garden at all, even if we really aren’t all that ready for it.
One thing I want to clarify when I talk about gardening. Growing up here, my mother maintained a HUGE garden, and in my mind “gardening” means “growing food.” There was gardening, and then there was flower gardening. They were always two different things in my mind. I still remember how startled I was, the first time I was talking to someone about gardening after I’d moved off the farm. I was so confused to hear her talking about planting flowers. Not a single vegetable! I eventually clued in that, when a lot of people talk about “gardening”, they mean growing flowers, and that very few of the people I met over the years grew any kind of food at all, except maybe some herbs.
It was the strangest of revelations for me! :-D
So I just wanted to make I don’t confuse anyone reading my posts here. Gardening, to me, is generic for growing food. My brain puts flowers, and even berry bushes and fruit trees, into completely different categories! :-D
With all the crazy going on right now, a lot of people are looking to grow their own food. On the one hand, I think that’s awesome, and it’s something I have always felt more people should be doing, if they are able. On the other hand, it means a lot of seed companies are running out of stock and are having a hard time meeting the demand!
Though I have already ordered what we’ll be planting this year, that hasn’t stopped me from researching, or just enjoying going through websites and thinking further into the future.
Researching is something I do for fun, which is handy, because I’m been spending a lot of time researching cold climate gardening and looking for seed, plant and tree sources. Unfortunately, most of the sources I’m finding that talk about “cold climate” tend to be US based, which means the coldest they talk about is zone 4. Mostly, zone 5. We’re zone 3 (or 2b, according to my Veseys catalogue label!).
So I have been making a point of bookmarking anything I find that is aimed at Canadians, where I know I’ll have more choices for things that will grow in our zone.
I will be including some of the sources I’ve found, here. My focus here is on Canadian companies, with items hardy to our zone, and I’ll talk a little about each one.
I will be including sources, in alphabetical order, that I’ve found for hardy fruit and nut trees, berry bushes and grape vines, as well as vegetables and herbs. I hope that these will be useful for anyone else who is trying to grow their own food in colder, short season zones.
Blazing Star Wildflower Seed Company. This company, in Aberdeen, Saskatchewan, specializes in Canadian wildflower seeds, specifically for the prairies. They also have a small selection of heirloom vegetable seeds. Mostly tomatoes. Their wildflowers are in many categories, including those that attract bees, butterflies, birds in general, or hummingbirds specifically. They also have categories for flowers that are deer resistant, flowers that prefer different types of lighting, and even a category of plants for tea. While my own focus is on food gardening, attracting native pollinators is really important, since our local pollinators come out at different times than in other zones. For us, we have to be careful where we plant flowers, due to my husband’s allergies to bees, but as we continue to expand our cleanup, wildflowers are going to be an important part of the ecosystem we will be building. More flowers -> more pollinators -> more food!
Green Barn Farm. Green Barn is a Quebec based nursery that specializes in hardy fruit, nut and berries that can survive our extreme winters. Their selections include nut trees, apples and crabapples, apricots, peaches and nectarines (!!!), berries and wild native species, cherries, pears, plums, grapes, passion fruit and kiwi (!!!), and permaculture plants. They even have coffee trees! Their varieties are amazing.
One of the things I like about their website is how easy they make it for you to see what’s already sold out – which, as I write this, is a lot! I find their prices are unusually high, but considering what they carry, and their efforts in genetics and agroforestry, I can see the prices are warranted for what you’re getting! They also have things like grafting workshops, seminars and consultations available. They do have a section for products for the US, but it seems to be down at the time I am writing this. They also have a YouTube channel. The last video was posted 8 years ago, but the videos that are there are very topical and useful.
Hardy Fruit Tree Nursery. When I started looking for food trees that would grow in our climate, this is the first place I found, and it’s still the one that inspires me! I really look forward to when we are ready to order from here!
This is another Quebec based company, and their specialty is fruit trees that can grow in our climate, but they also include a wonderful range of nut trees. They have quite a selection of trees hardy even to zone 2! They also carry plums, cherries, berry bushes, and more. Along with food trees, they also carry forest trees to reestablish and rehabilitate different regions. Their package deals include various collections at bulk prices, including a nut orchard, which I am pining for!
Harmonic Herbs. Unfortunately, this company will not be able to supply seeds for 2021, due to a combination of weather related crop failures, deer damage and the whole Covid thing. Hopefully, they will be up and running soon. This company is in Barrhead, Alberta, and provides vegetable, flower, grain, herb and other seeds. They don’t have a large selection, compared to other sites out there, but they do have things I haven’t seen anywhere else.
2022 update: sadly, another poor seed harvest has meant this company is retiring from their current format. They are changing focus, though, so keep checking on them.
Heritage Harvest Seed. This company is based out of Fisher Branch, Manitoba and… oh, my goodness… what an amazing resource! I’ll just cut and paste this blurb from the website.
All of our heirloom seed varieties are natural, untreated, non hybrid, open pollinated, non GMO seeds. We have over 800 varieties of rare and endangered heirloom vegetable, flower, herb and ancient grain seeds. Heritage Harvest Seed is a Canadian seed company with the largest selection of heirloom seeds in Canada.
I have spent waaayyyy too much time on this website, which was recommended in one of the cold climate gardening groups I’m on, and I’ve still only looked at their vegetables! They include all sorts of interesting information about the items, including historical background and even personal experiences with them, that I absolutely love. I’ve lost count of the number of items I’ve looked at and, after reading the info, wanted to order them just to be able to save seeds and help preserve the species!
Unfortunately, like so many other seed sources, they are overwhelmed with orders right now. Many items are sold out, and they’ve had to limit orders. I am really excited about ordering from here in the future!
2022 update: I was able to order seeds from Heritage Harvest for this year’s garden, and while it’s too early to say much about the resulting crops themselves, I can say that they have an excellent response time and great customer service. They have also revamped and updated their website, and it looks great!
Incredible Seeds. This Nova Scotia based company is run by an off-grid family. A small company with a remarkable selection of vegetable, herb, flower, fruit and tree seeds. Yes, tree seeds, not saplings. Which means they are much more affordable, but will take longer to reach food production stage. Nova Scotia has a warmer climate zone than ours, but they even have items that are hardy to zone 1! All their plants are heirloom and open pollinated, and they encourage seed saving.
Lindenberg Seeds. This site is a bit different, in that you have to look at their catalog as a pdf (or you can request a print catalogue). It’s 104 pages, so there is lots to look at! You can also print off their order form and fax it in, mail it to their Brandon, Manitoba address, or place an order by email. They’ve got vegetables, flowers, ferns, roots, bulbs, tubers, and more. Their selection is massive! They also carry growing mixes and pellets, plant pots and heat mats, fertilizers, row covers, and other useful things. I do wish they had a website you could view items on and order from, but I’m just spoiled that way. :-D
McKenzie Seeds. This is a company that’s been around since 1896, and in Canada, you can find their seeds all over. Like Lindenberg Seeds, they are also based in Brandon, Manitoba, and their selections of vegetable, herb and flower seeds, bulbs, crowns and tubers are massive.
Ontario Seed Company. This company is based in Kitchener, Ontario, and bills itself as the largest wholly Canadian owned and operated company. They started in Waterloo, Ontario, in the late 1800’s, and still have a presence there! They carry vegetables, herbs, flowers, lawn seed, ground covers, legume and forage crops, trees and ornamental grasses, as well as garden accessories and supplies.
Prairie Hardy Nursery. “An Artisan Nursery of Edible and Unique Trees on the Canadian Prairie. Cold hardy grown trees suited for cold climate growing.” Prairie Hardy Nursery is based on a third generation family farm north of Edmonton, Alberta, in operation since 1942. Their selections include apple, plum, pear, nut and apricot trees, as well as grape vines. Alas, for 2021, they seem to be almost completely sold out!
Stokes Seeds. This is a company that is in both Canada (Thorold, Ontario), and the US (Buffalo, NY). They also have a research farm in St. Catharines, Ontario. They supply a wide selection of vegetables, flowers, herbs and accessories. The accessories include everything from seed starting mixes and supplies, to decorations. They also have collections available, including herbal teas, sunflowers, stir fry, butterfly gardens, and more.
Saskatoon Farm. No, this is not a farm near Saskatoon, Saskatewan, but a farm that grows Saskatoons! They are a family farm in Alberta (their website gives directions from either Calgary or Okotoks) that includes a restaurant, bakery, outdoor Christmas Market, market garden, u-pick, gift shop, etc., and hosts events like weddings, private parties, cooking classes and other events. At least they did, until Covid happened. Some things are still open to the public, though closed for the season, and they do still have a catalogue, though only the 2020 one is on the website at the time I write this.
Silver Creek Nursery. This nursery is in Wellesly, Ontario, and ships bare root fruit trees. Their categories include apple trees, including a separate cider apple tree category, pear, quince, peach, plum, cherry, and apricot trees. They also have berries and vines (haskap, blackberries, grapes, kiwi, etc), nut trees, native and nitrogen fixing plants, and orchard supplies. They also have a lot of information on the site for each product (the most I’ve seen anywhere), a section on how to grow fruit trees, and they offer courses, including how to choose the right fruit trees.
T&T Seeds. I have to say, I was pretty excited to find this website. I remember spending many hours flipping through their catalogue as a child! I don’t know why we were on their mailing list, since my mother refused to spend money on seeds, but I sure was glad to get it!
T&T Seeds is a Winnipeg, Manitoba based company, where they also have a retail store. They have been around since 1946, and continue to be a family business. They claim to have the most extensive refrigeration facilities in Canada, to store dormant plants. On their website, you can shop by category: vegetable, flower, perennials, bulbs, sets & potatoes, fruit plants, shrubs and trees, garden accessories, home accessories, pest control, fertilizers and health products. You can also shop by catalog pages. Some of the more unusual items they carry (at least for Canadian suppliers) are things like lingonberry, jostaberry, figs, hops, wisteria, and sand cherry.
New:Tree Time. This nursery specializes in windbreak and shelterbelt trees, with a focus on a large selection of trees, shrubs and berries with a high survival rate and affordability. This is the place to buy in bulk! For 2022, we placed our first major tree order from here, which will be shipped when ready to be planted in our zone. They came highly recommended by people on several different cold climate gardening groups I’m on.
Veseys. Of course, I have to include Veseys! This is where I’ve ordered most of our items for this year’s garden, and the only place I ordered from, last year. Veseys is based in York, Prince Edward Island, where they have a garden shop and trial gardens. Their website has both Canadian and US versions. Their categories include vegetables, flowers and bulbs, herbs, fruits and berries, tools and accessories, plus a Gardening 101 section. They used to have a fundraising program, but that is currently on hold due to Covid. I can say from personal experience that they have excellent quality products, and their customer service is also excellent. I have been very happy with my orders from them.
West Coast Seeds. This is a Vancouver, British Columbia based, 4th generation family owned company. Vancouver is temperate rainforest. I don’t expect to find a lot here that will grow in our zone! However, it is another one that was recommended on one of the cold climate growing groups I’m on. Their seed categories include vegetables, herbs, flowers, fruit, cover crops, microgreens, “lawn solutions”, ornamental grass seeds and plant stock, as well as garden supplies.
W. H. Perron. This company was founded in Quebec, in 1928, and “is the most important horticultural company in North America…” Their categories include garden accessories, annuals and indoor plants, herbs, fruits, sprouts and micro greens, vegetables, potatoes and bulbs, native seeds, perennials and biennials, organic or untreated and heirloom seeds. They also have sections for collections (patio collection, basil collection, cut flower mixes, easy pick green patio collection, etc.), urban gardeners and novelties, as well as top sellers. I admit, I haven’t spent a lot of time on this website, as I find it quite hard on the eyes. :-/
Whiffletree Farm & Nursery. This is a company based in Elora, Ontario and, compared to some of the others on this list, is just a baby company, having started in 2012. It is owned and operated by a family “of the Horse and Buggy Mennonite sect”. As such, they may take a bit longer to respond to calls, while using third party services for electronic communications.
On the website, you can scroll through an electronic version of their catalog, without having to download it separately. While in the catalog, you can click on individual item code lines to add them to your cart, though a lot of what I looked at had mouse-over notes saying they are not available this season. Among the unexpected items in the catalogue are things like persimmons, medlars, varieties of haskaps I’ve never seen before, and others plants I’ve never heard of before, like Schisandra Vine, and goumi. They also have items such as bee kits (for mason and leafcutter bees – bees included!), organic fertilizers and sprays, tools, orchard supplies and tree protectors. The catalogue also has a lot of very useful information included near the end. I do hope they are able to restock as the seasons allow, because there are some really awesome and unusual items here!
Update: Wiffletree has redone their website, and they did a fantastic job of it!
Wildrose Heritage Seed Company. This is another company recommended in one of the cold climate growing groups I’m on. They are based in Lethbridge, Alberta, family owned, and they grow, harvest, clean and package everything on site. Packaging is one of the more unique things about them: they use waterproof Mylar bags that are resealable and reusable, to encourage people to save seeds and still have all the packaging information. They offer bulbs (garlic and onions), vegetable, herb and flower (dwarf and giant sunflowers) seeds. At the time of this writing, they are shipping only within Canada.
William Dam Seeds. Another family run business, based in Dundas, Ontario, starting in 1959. They have a retail outlet, currently closed due to Covid restrictions. They offer a large variety of seeds for vegetables, herbs, flowers and green crops (including the largest selection of cover crops and nitrogen fixers I’ve seen, yet!), plus tools and supplies.
Younder Hill Farm. This company is based on a homestead in Nova Scotia, family run and commercially growing seed since 2009. They have farm stays and apprenticeships available. They offer vegetables, grains, culinary and medicinal herbs, flowers, live plants, willow whips, and even “basic apocalypse prep garden packs” in starter and deluxe! Both are out of stock, at the time I’m writing this, and from what I’m reading in the list of what’s included, I can see why. They are really well thought out collections.
Zappa Seeds. This company has store locations in North York, Brampton and Waterloo Ontario. You can even apply to become an affiliate or Zappa retailer. They offer a decent variety of vegetable seeds, as well as herbs and fruit (watermelon and tomatoes), but their most interesting offerings are their packs and collections. These include a beginners vegetable garden, a garden staples back, an East Asian international blend, easy seeds for kids, garden staples, and more. I think these packs and collections are a great idea, particularly for beginning gardeners. With so many varieties available, it can get pretty overwhelming to try and figure out which ones to try!
New: Eagle Creek Seed Potatoes. This Alberta company specializes in all things potatoes! It’s January, 2022 as I write this update, and I just finished ordering three varieties. The website provides all sorts of information, from maturity rates to storage capabilities to best cooking methods! I wish I’d found this company earlier, because they even have a list of what potatoes are good for grow towers – something that would have been handy when we tried to grow in bags!
There you have it! A selection of Canadian companies that supply seeds and trees suitable for colder climate and short season growing. I hope these are useful for anyone looking to grow their own food, even if you’re not in a cold climate zone! :-)
Before I get into various things, I want to share some cute stuff with you, first!
Our collection of baskets that had been stored in the big fish tank ended up on top of the piano for now. The cats love to go up there, so I fully expected them to take advantage of the situation.
It wasn’t long before I found Tissue and Leyendecker among them!
Tissue is in three baskets at once! :-D
The largest baskets, with decorations on them, are the ones we use for our family Easter basket. There are some smaller ones in the collection that we found while cleaning up the house, including a basket that used to be my very own basket to take to church for blessing on Holy Saturday, along with the family basket, when I was a child!
Here is some more cuteness for you to enjoy…
This piece of foam is what was inside the new washing machine when we bought it. Our old mama cat, who moved out here with us, immediately adopted it as her favourite bed, and now Cabbages loves to join “grandma” for cuddles!
The cats also like to bite off pieces along the edges and spit them out.
Our living room carpet is continually covered in cat fur, foam from this thing, cardboard from their scratch pad, and the dirt they’re still managing to dig out of some of our plant pots! The cats leave trails of detritus, everywhere they go. :-D
Our old mama cat has been quick to adopt any new cats introduced to the house, and is STILL allowing several of the kittens – now almost adults – to try and nurse on her, including Cabbages. Cabbages has been taking a long time to socialize but, thankfully, she is getting along quite well with the other cats. Grandma and Keith are her favourites!
Cabbages and Keith will spend hours like this, all snuggled together and napping on my bed.
Cabbages has finally reached a point where we can pet her regularly, and she doesn’t immediately run off. She seems torn between not wanting those big, clumsy humans clomping about near her, and wanting those scritches and pets. She will even tolerate being picked up and held, if only briefly. That is significant progress!
In other things, we warmed up enough today that I finally switched out the memory cards on the trail cams. That micro SD card I put in the new camera this morning, which had been used only once and did not require formatting in the camera when I put it in the first time, needed to be formatted this morning. *sigh* Why would it work fine the first time, after I’d formatted it in the computer, but need to be formatted in the camera, the next time it was used? The other micro SD cards I’d bought at the same time had done the same thing. I had assumed it was because they were not as high end, but that doesn’t seem to be the problem, after all.
Ah, well. I’ll figure it out.
With the bitter cold we’ve had for the past few days, I was not expecting to find much on the cards. Especially from the new camera, which has been just dying with the colder temperatures.
I was surprised.
The older camera was shut down when I switched out the memory card. When it gets cold and the batteries can’t handle it anymore, it shuts itself off. When I turned it back on, the batteries were still at half power, so it was just from the cold. There were still a few files on the card, though, all from one day.
The new camera had files recorded on each day of the deep freeze! This camera displays the temperature, and it actually kept on recording with an internal temperature of -25C/-13F !! Previously, this camera would die before reaching -20C/-4F! It did shut itself down during the nights; the only night files we did get, had a warning displayed in large red letters, saying it was low power. This camera will actually turn itself back on again when the temperatures warm up. I am totally shocked – in a happy way – that it kept working through the deep freeze. I have no idea why it would stop working before, but is working now, at these temperatures. I’m not complaining, that’s for sure! I did still have to warm up the camera with my hands, so I could see the screen, but that would only be a real problem if I had to do it during the deep freeze, because of the frost bite risk. Since I don’t even bother switching out the cards in temperatures like that, it’s a moot point.
This afternoon, we warmed up to -14C/7F, which made me a lot more comfortable about heading out to help my mother with her grocery shopping. She didn’t need much, but took advantage of having access to her car and stocked up on other things. I gave her some of my extra Mingle Masks, hoping she would use one instead of struggling with the surgical mask she normally uses, but she wasn’t up to it. Still, she has them, and saw on me how to use them, so I hope she gives them a try. She will actually be able to breathe in those. She still would have to use the type she struggles with at the pharmacy, though, so she might not bother. Frustrating.
After helping my mother with her shopping, I went back to the grocery store to pick up a few things to tide us over until we can do our big shop, whenever that will be. I had to pick up some bigger stuff, like cat litter and cat food, so there wasn’t enough room in her car for her shopping, her walker, and my shopping, all at once. Which is fine by me. The final bill was a shocker, though. I didn’t get very much, but it cost almost $270. Considerably more than if I’d been able to go to the city to buy the same things.
Bird tracks in the snow, found when I came home. This is nowhere near the bird feeders, but those are sunflower seed shells on the snow. Which shows just how windy things go!
There’s a reason we try to do monthly shops in the city. We save at least several hundred dollars every month by doing that, which means we have more budget left over to buy fresh foods locally. The more we’re forced to make smaller, local shopping trips, the more gets eaten out of our budget, and the less we can get overall, either locally, or in the city.
I did splurge on one thing, though.
I bought a 240 count bag of those red plastic beer cups.
I’m on several cold climate gardening groups, which are all busily talking about starting seeds indoors right now. I’ve seen people recommend using these as pots to start seeds in. They just need to have drainage holes punched into their bottoms. While I will be starting some seeds (like onions) in Jiffy pellets, and others (like corn) in toilet paper tubes, I learned from last year, that I need something bigger to start squash in. I did transplants outdoors too soon because they had gotten too big in their starter trays, only to lose most of them to one last late frost. By starting them in something bigger, even if the weather is not cooperative and they get in the ground later, they will have enough room to keep growing in their pots.
Ideally, I would be using biodegradable pots that can be put straight into the ground, with no disruption of the roots. That’s what I will be doing with the toilet paper tubes and corn. I’ve been looking at pots like that. The Jiffy peat pots are relatively inexpensive, and come in larger count packages. I would have ordered some last night, along with the seeds and plants I got for my daughters, but they were sold out. The alternatives were “cow pots” – the same idea, but made with cow manure instead of peat. They are way too expensive, though.
So when I saw the beer cups in the store, I went for it. They are the size I need, and can be reused. With 240 of them, I have more than enough to plant everything we have that need to be started indoors, and need the extra space.
Now I just have to figure out what to put under the the drainage holes. I can think of all sorts of possibilities, but they all require buying something, and that’s just not an option right now. Even if I could find them, they are “non essential” and stores still wouldn’t be able to sell them. (Like with clothes.) Maybe I’ll find something later in the month that I’ll be allowed to buy. The first seeds need to be started the second half of March, so I have a bit of time to find, or even build, something.
One more little step of progress towards our gardening. :-)
Tomorrow, we take the van in to the garage and hopefully find out why it’s been stalling. What we find out then will determine what we do and when, in regards to getting the monthly shopping done, and picking up the new hot water tank on warranty.
Ah, that reminds me. I asked around about how this location has been about medical mask exemptions and things like shields and Mingle Masks. It turns out they’ve gone full mask nazi, even to the point of staff following people around, harassing them and kicking them out.
That is going to be a problem. At the very least, I need to go to the customer service desk with the sticker from the hot water tank, and warranty authorization number.
I did find out another location has been safe to go to. As far as I have been told, I need to go back to where the tank was purchased, but that may mean only the franchise, not the specific store. The first tank we got was from a location in town that told me they don’t do warranties, so I had to go to this other location. The one that was recommended to me is actually a bit closer; just in a town to the north of us, that we almost never go to.
I’ll have to make some phone calls.
What a hassle even the simplest things have become.
Truthfully, the things I ordered today are not for me. They are for my daughters. My excuse is, they both have spring birthdays, so this is my gift to them!
Here is what I’ve ordered. (All links will open in new tabs)
Purple Passion Asparagus: This is the one that got the bug in my ear to order more! The new Vesey’s spring catalogue had come in, and my older daughter came to me, all excited about these. They are not only hardy to zone 2, but apparently are so sweet and tender, they can be eaten raw. She didn’t ask about ordering it, though, since she knew we already had so much.
So I ordered it anyway. :-D We do have some asparagus here; a few brave spears come up in the spring, but not enough to harvest. Asparagus takes 2-3 years to get going, so ordering fresh root stocks now just makes more sense. Once they’re established, they should keep producing for up to 20 years. We’ll be getting the 6 pack of these, delivered in the spring.
April Cross Chinese Radish: This is a Daikon type of radish. I actually don’t like these – or any radishes at all – but my younger daughter really likes Daikon radish, so this is for her!
Red Meat Watermelon Radish: This one is for both my daughters! A white radish with a pink interior and green “shoulders”.
Robin Beet: We got only one variety of beets this year, with a second variety my younger daughter had wanted being out of stock. It’s still out of stock. Both my daughters really liked the deep, dark, sweet beets that we grew last year, so these should be right up their alley. These are “baby” beets, maturing at only 25-30 days.
Black Form Iris: this is another one for my younger daughter. There is another black iris that she had wanted to get for our fall planting, but it was out of stock, and still is. I know she’ll like this one, too. Like the asparagus, this will be delivered in the spring.
So that’s it! Just a little order, at least compared to the last one I made at Vesey’s! :-D I think the girls will really enjoy growing these.
The second one was much faster to build than the first. :-D
For those who are new to this blog *waves hello* you can catch up on the project with part one and part two. Links will open in new tabs, so you don’t lose your place here. :-)
Once the second cover was done, I unpacked the light fixture, which has been sitting in its box next to the tank since the move, and tested it out. Considering what a disaster the movers were, I would not have been surprised to find the bulbs shattered or something.
It worked just fine! :-)
Of course, as soon the covers were on, cats were on it! So far, they have not tried to climb on the light fixture, but there is no doubt that they will, at some point. Hopefully, it will hold up okay.
I was concerned that the frame would create shadows in the tank, but that does not seem to be an issue at all!
Now I have to figure out how to set the time and program it to turn on and off. It’s been years since it was last done! There is time to look that up, though.
We still need to cover the sharp edges of the wire mesh, and I still want to put felt pads in the corners to protect the tank a bit, but other than that, the covers are done.
We still have the original light that came with the tank, which rested right on top of the original covers. The tanks will only hold so many seed trays. With things like the onion seeds needing to be started so much earlier than anything else, I can see us rotating trays out from the tanks and into the sun room (which should be warm enough, by the time the next groups of seeds need to be started), and using the second light there.
Now I need to figure out where to store my baskets, then line the inside of the tank with foil to reflect more light. Since this room is rather chilly, I plan to use pieces of rigid insulation on the bottom and around the sides, too. We will likely cover the insulation with foil on one side to make it easier to take it in and out, but I will see how the seed trays fit inside, first. If the insulation takes up too much space, I’ll put them on the outside of the tank.
Progress has been made! :-)
I am so looking forward to gardening this year! :-)
I have spent some time thinking about how we can convert our big fish tank into a greenhouse to start seeds in, while also making sure the cats couldn’t jump in.
The original covers the tank came with would have been ideal, but the hinges on those broke long ago.
Since a piece of the filtration system broke during the move, it’s just been sitting in a corner. To keep the cats out, we cut pieces of foam core to fit across the top, then covered the whole thing with a huge table cloth. It turned out to be a great place to store baskets in, and the top became a favorite place for the cats to hang out.
Until they broke through.
We ended up cutting some rigid insulation to fit and taping it in place, which worked much better. With their jumping from the piano onto the top of the tank, though, they’ve knocked even that right off!
What this means is that the cats are used to having access to the top of this tank. If I set it up as a greenhouse to start seeds, they’re just going to jump in, unless I find a way to cover it.
The tank has a bar across the centre and, after thinking about it for a while, I decided to make a pair of wood frames with hardware cloth, that will fit on each side of that centre bar. That way, if I need to get at the seed trays inside, I just need to lift one smaller cover at a time, rather than struggling with one large cover.
I fully expect the cats to jump on while I try to do anything in there!
Today, I got started.
The first thing was to take a tape measure to the inside of each half of the top, as well as the lip the original covers used to sit on. Each side is 16 3/4 inches by 22 3/4 inches. The ends and centre bar have a 1/2 inch lip, while the sides have a 1/4 inch lip.
I then grabbed a couple of pieces of wood I’d salvaged from a shed and started by cutting the long sides. Once I had 4 of them cut, I double checked that they fit properly.
They fit just fine, with a little bit of play that will make putting them in and taking them out easier.
While I was checking the fit, my daughter came by. As we were talking, she reminded me of one of her Christmas gifts to me.
I wish I’d remembered them before I took the measurements! This thing is MUCH easier for me to read than the tiny lines and numbers on my tape measure. It made marking the distance to cut the short pieces a lot easier, too.
Another reason I wish I’d remembered them before I took the measurements.
When I checked the short pieces, they were just a hair too long! The difference is so slight, I could probably sand it to size.
But I shouldn’t need to.
This is how the frame will be laid out. The hardware cloth will be sandwiched between the top and bottom pieces at the corners. I haven’t figure out what I can use to secure the hardware cloth best. Ideally, the wire mesh would be sandwiched between wood all the way around, not just at the corners, but I just don’t have the wood to do that. Nor can I think of anything we have that could be used in a similar way. Whatever I come up with will have to not just support the weight of a cat that’s decided to lie on it, but the force of a cat jumping onto it from the top of the piano. All sorts of ideas some to mind, and get discarded just as quickly. :-/
The thing I’m holding in place in the photo is one of the supports for the light fixture. The L bars insert into ports at the bottom of the light’s frame, so where they are is where the bottom of the light fixture will be.
Once I double checked how everything was going to fit together, I moved on to the next step.
Washing the pieces of wood.
They were probably sitting in the shed I found them in for more than 10 years. My mother tells me that shed was full of lumber when she moved off the farm, some 7 years ago, so what little we found in there was the junk that wasn’t worth stealing, I guess. :-/ Still better than nothing, I suppose. Anyhow. There was a whole lot of grime on them, so I gave the pieces of wood a quick scrub. They don’t need to be really clean. I just need to be able to handle them without getting filthy, and trying to scrub them after the hardware cloth is in place is just not a good idea! :-D
So they are now all laid out in the basement with a fan on them, do dry. I will continue to work on the frames tomorrow!
One of the recommendations for using grow lights to start seeds is to have the lights very close to the soil, and gradually increase the distance as the seedlings grow.
That won’t be an option with this set up.
I’m thinking of lining the inside of the tank with aluminum foil to reflect more light onto the seedlings. It doesn’t need to be from top to bottom; just at seed tray height. Which means I could probably get away with lining all 4 sides with foil in the big tank. I will probably line 3 sides of the 20 gallon tank, too.
The other thing to consider is warmth. We don’t have grow mats, and it’s unlikely we will be able to get any. We do, however, have more pieces of rigid insulation that we can put under the trays, or even along the sides closest to the walls. The LED lights won’t generate heat, but I’m sure we could find some way to warm up the tanks enough for seeds to germinate.
Progress on the set up has, at least, finally begun!
The last of our seed orders FINALLY came in the mail today. They were shipped quite a while ago!
This was the first batch that was ordered.
I completely forgot that, on noticing how few seeds were in the packets compared to the giant sunflowers we ordered last year (which was by weight, not seed count), I had ordered two of each.
The Crespo squash, which is a type of pumpkin from the Andes, was a last minute addition. I couldn’t resist!
I love how they use adorable children for scale.
This was my second order.
This was another “I couldn’t resist” order. After placing the first order, I went looking around the site. Baker Creek then sent me an email to up-sell me, using some of the new things I’d added to my wish list. I ended up ordering all of them. With seeds selling out so quickly again, I figured it was worth it. The price was right, too.
I have no idea if we will be able to plant any of these this year. We shall see how much space we have for starting seeds indoors. I think, at the very least, I want to try and germinate 2 or 3 of each variety.
Then there are the freebies.
This is the second package of purple kohlrabi we’ve been sent. I really, really want to try growing kohlrabi again. Gotta protect them from the bugs somehow!
As for the kale… we’re not fans of kale, except as kale chips (leaves tossed in olive oil and salt, then dehydrated in a warm oven). They are supposed to be very cold hardy, though, so that’s always a bonus for our area. We’ll make that decision then the time comes. I’m certainly willing to try a new variety!
I was very relieved to have these finally come in the mail! We do still have some back ordered items, and others that will be shipped at planting time, from Veseys, but those haven’t been shipped yet. These were shipped about month ago.
Something else came in the mail today.
It was from my husband’s health insurance.
Every year, he has to fill out a form to confirm that yes, he is still disabled, still under the care of a doctor (well… as much as he could be, this past year) and still alive. He is able to fill out the form, take a picture of it, and email the image, rather than send it through snail mail. At this point, he doesn’t even need a doctor to sign anything anymore. Everything gets process very quickly, and he later gets a letter detailing how much he will be getting in disability payments per month (it changes by a few dollars every now and then).
A while back, he got letter reminding him to send in the form.
Which he had already sent in.
He phoned them up and, after some digging, discovered that there was a different email for these forms than the one he’s been using for the last 5 years. Once he had that, he sent the form in again.
Today, he got another letter, reminding him to send in the form.
!!!
Thankfully, it was still early enough that he could call the insurance company, the office of which is in a different time zone. After sitting on hold, then being transferred to several different people, he got to the right one. His filed was looked at and…
All is good. His form had been processed.
Yesterday.
So that was a bit of a heart attack. If something had gone wrong, we don’t just loose the income we’re living on. We lose his coverage for prescriptions. This province does have Pharmacare, but that does not cover all of the medications he’s on. The medications are actually covered by a different company. His employer switched companies after he went on disability, so while his long term disability payments stayed with the original company, prescriptions are now covered by the company they switched to. If he loses one, he loses the other.
Which means we really, really appreciate that his insurance company was willing to send not one, but two reminder letters!
One thing I can say. Even with some screw ups related to the move, the insurance companies have done very well by my husband, and even gone above and beyond.
I thank God constantly for the excellent health insurance plan my husband was on. Yes, Canada has a “safety net”, but I know people who rely on it, and it sucks. We would have been financially devastated within months, probably weeks, without private health insurance.
Ah, January. The perfect time to be planning our gardening!
Last year, a lot of what we did was flying the the seat of our pants. Yes, we did some planning, but mostly we were just forging on ahead before things were fully ready. If we waited until we were ready before starting all the time, things would never get done! :-D Sometimes, you just have to just say “screw it” and jump in with both feet.
There will still be a lot of that this year, but we have more information and are in a better position to plan things out.
One of the things I’ve done was find some Facebook groups that are dedicated to Zone 3 (or colder!) gardening. One of them is dedicated to cold hardy fruit and nut trees! It’s been pretty awesome to be able to talk to people about the different things they’ve come up with to extend their growing seasons.
Some of them are already talking about starting their onion seeds NOW!! It turned out these are people with greenhouses. They start the seeds indoors, where it’s warm, later move their trays to their unheated greenhouses to start hardening off before finally transplanting them outdoors.
This had me wondering… I know my mother grew onions, but I had no idea how she started them. I remember we had a cold frame with cabbages in it. I know she grew tomatoes, so she had to have started those indoors, somehow, and while I remember the onions in the garden, much later in the season, I have zero memory of how she started them. Did she use seeds? Sets? I didn’t know.
When we first moved here, my mother was quite furious that we didn’t plant a garden right away. The way she did it, years ago, of course. ;-) One of the things she kept saying to me is that we should at least plant onions. They’re easy to grow, and we’d save money, so we needed to at least plant onions…
It seems to be a really big deal to her, for us to grow onions.
Now, over time, while she still tries to guilt me about not allowing her to hire someone to plow the garden area, because there was too much other stuff that we needed to focus on, first (an offer she has stopped making, now that we are more ready! LOL), I think she finally has started to understand that the land she remembers as being so perfect in every way, isn’t. At all. Of course, nothing we did do was good enough; we used mulch, which she’d never heard of being done before, therefore it was bad. We used only a small part of the old garden area. She didn’t approve of how we planted them anything, and she did not approve of our growing sunflowers at all, because when she grew them, the birds ate the seeds, And so on. She also kept asking me about her onions and if they were still growing. There were a few that started to come up, along a section of fence that used to be around the old kitchen garden, but they didn’t grow much. She seemed quite disappointed and I got the impression she thought I deliberately killed them off. :-/
Still, when I had the chance, I asked her about her onions. I told her I was going to plant 4 varieties, three of them from seed and one from sets, but that I could not remember how she started hers.
We talked a bit about the cold frame I remembered, and it turned out that cabbages and tomatoes where the only things she started in the cold frame. She did not start onions from seed, nor did she get sets.
It turns out she had a variety of onion that comes back year after year. She referred to them as Spanish onions when I last spoke to her, but I remember a previous conversation with her where she mentioned Egyptian Walking Onions. I think that’s what she actually meant.
It turns out she didn’t like the onions themselves, but just used the greens.
???
All that fussing and verbal abuse, and it turns out she didn’t even like the onions she grew? She just grew them because they were “free” and she didn’t have to buy them.
I did mention to her that, while that can be good, sometimes you get what you pay for! In this case, it was onions she didn’t like to eat!
She was absolutely indifferent to my telling her I was planting onions this year, too.
*sigh*
It’d be nice to be able to learn from her experiences, but that doesn’t seem to be much of an option. Ah, well.
With so many seeds that we ordered already in, more still stuck in the mail, and others to be shipped closer to planting time in our zone, we needed to find a way to organize them and plan things out. I’d spent some time looking at planting charts, many of which are available as free printouts, but none of them were suitable for us. It took some digging to find any for Zone three, but they also all had lists of vegetables already on them, most of which we aren’t growing. Sure, someday, we’ll probably try to grow some of them, but not yet. Meanwhile there are things we are planning to grow that weren’t included.
On top of that, these were all printer sizes. Too small!
I decided to make my own planting chart, large enough to stick on a wall or something.
Time to dig through my craft supplies!
I had a sheet of foam core that got pretty beat up during the move, but not enough to throw it away. It was just the size I wanted!
My daughter loaned me her T-square and steel yardstick. The sheet is 30 inches long, so I marked of a grid of half inch squares in pencil.
Then I broke out my collection of Sharpies and marked off a table with the weeks, with a different colour every 4th week, and so on.
Before erasing most of the pencil marks, I remembered to keep the week numbers in permanent marker.
Of course, the months don’t line up with perfect 4 weeks groups, so I counted back on the calendar on my phone and found our last frost date of June 2 falls in the middle of week 22 this year. So I highlighted that week. I figure, from year to year, it’ll still be around that week.
After the pencil marks in the grid were erased, I brought out the seed packs we have right now, sorted them in alphabetical order, then worked out the times for starting seeds indoors and transplanting or direct sowing.
There is room enough to add the other seeds that have yet to arrive.
How the months line up are not as important as the last frost date. We can now look at it and see at a glance, what time range the seeds should be stared indoors. If something needs to be started 4 weeks before last frost, for example, I marked off blocks for 3, 4 and 5 weeks. Some things recommend succession sowing directly into the soil, starting before the last frost date, so I marked off every other week for those. Things like that. We will probably mark off harvest times and the first frost date later on, too, but this will do for now.
After looking it over, one of my daughters added the Post-it Notes. We will also be starting up a shopping list of materials we will need to make the trellises, covers and deer fencing. Having all the things we’ll be planted, listed out like this, will also help us work out where some things will be planted, how many boxes, trellises, etc. we need to build, and so on. Thankfully, one thing we do have a lot of is space. It may mostly be hard as cement, but we can work with that!
All of the squash and melons need to be started at basically the same time. That’s the period we’re going to have the biggest challenge with, as far as space for seed starts. There are just so many varieties we will be planting!
And yes, I plan to start corn indoors. From what I’ve been reading, I’m going to try planting them in toilet rolls for pots, so that we can later transplant them without disturbing the roots. Some of the people in the Zone 3 gardening group use the red plastic beer cups. My mother had always direct sown corn, but I’m remembering this from the very warm decade of the 80’s, when it was hot enough in May and June for kids in school to be passing out in the hallways. Most of the people in the gardening groups are saying they have never been able to successfully grow corn without starting them indoors first; things had cooled down quite a bit over the 90’s, and the 2000’s haven’t been any better, really. Any hot summers we’ve had did not make up for late, cold springs. I really, really want that purple corn to succeed, so I want to give it every boost I can!
I even have the Kohlrabi on there. I want to find a way to grow those, without them being decimated by deer, caterpillars and beetles!
I think this will work out rather well, and if it does, we can potentially reuse the chart, year after year.
The first thing we need to do is get those aquariums ready to use a cat proof greenhouses!
Happy Three King’s Day! Today is the Feast of the Epiphany, which is our last day of Christmas. After today, we start taking down our decorations. :-)
It was another mild day today, so when I finished my rounds this morning, I decided to go ahead and dig out the fire pit.
I considered breaking out Spewie, our little electric snow blower, but for the amount of snow we have, I figured it would be easier to just shovel it!
I shoved the snow off what I’m using for a cover, but didn’t bother moving it, yet.
On our warm days, the snow melted enough to create a layer of ice on the surface of the picnic table. We’ll be staying at these mild temperatures for a while, so now that it’s uncovered it should melt away on its own.
I cleared a path to the organized wood pile. That cover did not need to have snow removed from it. I didn’t bother shoveling to the big pile of branches. The little pile has kindling and should be enough for our needs. We may not use the fire pit at all, but at least now we have the option! :-)
I made sure to dig the path to the fire pit wide enough for my husband’s walker, should he feel well enough to join us if we do a cookout.
I was being watched the whole time!
You can see the cats’ favorite way to get under the storage house. The path that goes around the back branches off to a partially broken window they also like to use, as well as through the trees to the path they’ve made to the storage building outside the yard. Well worn little footy paths in the snow! :-)
I also had to dig a wider path around the kibble house. There is a lot of overhang on the roof that is working quite well for the cats, but not so well for a human with a walker! :-D
While clearing around the cat shelter and kibble house, I found this.
It’s a frozen little cat treat! :-D Next to the slab of ice that slid off the “porch” roof of the cat shelter.
Rolando Moon looks like she’s thinking of that delicious frozen treat! :-D
So we will now be able to easily get at the fire pit if we feel like having a cook out, or just a nice fire. I still like the idea of using a fire to thaw the ground out, so we can set up the fire pit grill my brother and his wife got for us!
We do have the BBQ they have us, and the propane tanks does have fuel in it, but I am much more interested in the fire pit, instead! :-D
In other things, I was able to get through to the clinic to make an appointment with my doctor about my breathing issues. After hearing the messages about restrictions before it ever got to a human, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make an appointment at all. The messages say nothing about medical exemptions to mask wearing, of course. Which sucks, since not being able to breathe properly is why I need to see a doctor in the first place. I was able to make a telephone appointment for Friday afternoon, and then it will be up to my doctor to decide if I should come in or not. I made an appointment for my daughter for right after mine, so when he’s done with me, I can just hand the phone over to her. This is the first doctor’s appointment either of our daughters have had since we moved. After seeing how difficult it has been for my husband and I to get good medical care, they have developed a strong distrust of doctors. I can’t say I blame them, either.
But that is done. We shall see what the doctor has to say when the time comes. I am not expecting much of anything, to be honest. No one is getting real health care right now, and our premier has just put us under another 30 days of house arrest, even has many of our politicians have been caught ignoring those restrictions and have gone traveling to tropical places, visiting with their friends and family, and then pretending to be sorry after getting caught.
Thankfully, we are out here in the boonies, and I get to focus on more pleasant things. Right now, I’m working on a project to help me be organized about our gardening, including keeping track of what seeds to start indoors and when.
Hmmm. Our internet is cutting in and out like crazy today, so I’m hoping I’ll be able to post this right away!
Today, our first batch of seeds from Veseys came in. Yay! There are more that will be shipped later, but even so, that little box was just jam packed! You can read about all that we ordered, and why we chose what we did, here (link will open in new tab).
This is what we got in today.
First, the wildflower mixes. These are both for planting in the fall, so we will have the summer to prepare the locations we intend to plant them in. The Western mix is intended for outside the yard, between the fence and the road, to attract pollinators. We have not yet decided exactly where the Alertnative Lawn mix will go, other than well away from the house. My husband is allergic to bee stings, so anything like these needs to be planted away from any doors, the path towards the garage, and the firepit.
Spinach is among the items we will have to ensure are protected from deer. In talking about it, the girls and I are leaning towards building simple box frames with wire mesh that will fit over the beds.
Here are 2 of the 3 varieties of beans we orders; a yellow variety will be shipped later, plus the peas. The collection I’d intended to order for peas suddenly went out of stock, so I ordered these as an alternative, and I’m still seriously considering ordering another variety or two. I like peas more than I like beans! :-D
The girls and I are looking into various trellis designs for these. Yes, I know, bush beans aren’t supposed to need them, but we are looking to grow as many things vertically as we can.
We already have 2 varieties of corn from Baker Creek Rare Seeds, so we might not actually plant these at all this year. It all depends on how well we are able to prepare growing spaces. The Rare Seeds varieties are priority, and we have to keep in mind that we don’t want them to cross pollinate.
The pelleted seeds will be much easier to plant!
We now have 4 varieties of carrots, and I will happily plant them all. Carrots are a favorite vegetable in our household. The challenge will be creating the soft, deep soil they need. We have space to create one more bed in the soft soil where the wood pile used to be, and that’s it. Our topsoil is shallow, and we have a lot of rocks. My mother always successfully grew carrots in the old garden bed area, but I don’t think the soil has been amended since my parents sold off the cows and retired from farming. Raised beds would be the solution. At this point, the girls and I are thinking we’re going to have to order in a dump truck load of garden soil. We have not yet decided where we will build permanent raised beds, so any beds we do build this year will likely be temporary.
At least we don’t have to worry about the deer going after the carrots.
Three of the 4 varieties of onions are in; the 4th variety are sets that will be shipped at planting time in the spring. I’m hoping to plant these in the old kitchen garden, near the house.
The beets are intended for the additional bed we’ll be preparing next to where the garlic is currently planted, where the old wood pile used to be. My daughters had wanted to get another variety as well, but they were sold out. These might be enough. Like the spinach, we are thinking of protecting these from the deer with a wire mesh box.
We got extra cucamelons, just in case the tubers I dug up and currently have stored in the old kitchen, where it’s not quite as cold as outside, don’t make it. We intend to plant these along the chain link fence bordering the south yard. The melons will be trellised, elsewhere. Possibly near…
…the squashes we will be trellising. :-) I am hoping to build squash arches for those.
The summer squash will, hopefully, be trained up stakes. We could get away with letting them spread on the ground, like we did last year, but it’s supposed to be healthier for the plants to train them up, while pruning off the lower leaves.
Speaking of summer squash…
Last summer we ordered a summer squash mix, with extra sunburst squash. We enjoyed them enough to order the same thing again for next year. I was a bit confused as I unpacked them from the box, however…
Somehow, I accidentally ordered three collections!
Totally my goof on that one.
I’ve offered the extras to my siblings. I don’t even know if they like squash. If they don’t want them, we’ll just keep them for next year! :-)
In the spring, along with the onion sets, cherry tomato mix, yellow beans and mulberry tree, we will be getting 4 varieties of potatoes. While using the Ruth Stout, no-till, heavy mulch method did work last summer, we are thinking of using grow bags or something similar, next year. Those would give us more flexibility and, hopefully, higher yields.
The more I think about the condition of our soil, and the spaces we will be working with, the more I think getting a truckload of garden soil is going to be the best thing we can do at this point. I would much rather build up the soil over time, but I simply did not expect the soil condition to have deteriorated as much as it did, over the years. Plus, given how much my planned timeline for cleaning up the yards has been pushed back, anything that we can to do make up for that will be good.
We just have to find a local source and see how much it costs. I think it’ll be worth it, in the long term.
