After waiting for the call from my doctor until well past the clinic closed, I headed outside to finish up.
The bi-color pear gourds transplanted, I wanted to sow the short season luffa next to them. I also wanted to mark where they were and protect any seedlings, but I was out of collars, so I grabbed more 4L water jugs and cut them to make more. The packet has only 9 seeds, so I cut 5 collars to plant them all in.
Along with the luffa seeds, I brought out the two types of sunflower seeds I have.
I wasn’t sure at first which of the sunflowers I would be planting, but I prepared the bed anyhow. First up, I loosened the soil and set in the collars for the luffa, giving each collar a deep watering. Then, while waiting for the water to be absorbed by the soil, I loosened the soil along the front of the bed, from end to end, then gave that a deep watering. By the time that was done, the water in the collars was absorbed enough and I planted the 9 seeds into the 5 collars. If the germination rate is high, I will probably thin by transplanting.
All the luffa and gourds fit into 1/3 of the bed (the posts for the chain link fence makes it easy to view distances). That leaves another 2/3s of the bed where I could plant climbing things. Potentially, melons, winter squash or cucumbers, depending on how things to with the second sowing in the tray. Currently there are a total of 5 melon seedlings and 2 winter squash, but zero cucumber. The cucumber can still be direct sowed, though, if necessary. Or I could plant one of the two new varieties of peas I have available to try. Or I could plant more pole beans.
After planting the luffa and giving them another watering, I hosed down the area I’d loosened along the front of the bed from end to end.
The sunflower seed packets both have about 50 seeds in them. After thinking about it, I decided to plant the Mammoth sunflower in half the bed, on the side with nothing else in it now. I figure if we plant climbing winter squash in there, the giant stems of the Mammoth sunflower could actually hold the weight. In the other half, I planted the Black Russian. The description says the stems of those are so strong, they can be dried and used as firewood! So those would be strong enough to support the luffa and bi-color pear gourds, too.
The recommended spacing for both was 12 inches, but I didn’t plant multiple seeds per spot, so I planted them more like 10 inches apart. I was eye balling it, so it’s not exact. Once those were planted, I watered them more to settle the soil around the seeds, and then I brought the netting down and secured it.
Next, I worked on the space for the black hollyhocks.
In the first picture, I’ve yanked out the tall crab grass and flowers. The flowers in this bed are ones my mother planted many, many years ago, and they are perennials. They also grow very tall. Right now, they are still a bit shorter than the crab grass.
The stones are over a cat grave. When I found a dead cat in one of the old dog houses, I buried it there, but could not dig a deep enough hole, due to rocks and roots. To prevent it from being dug up, I put a board over the grave, then weighed it down with rocks. That was several years ago, and we could removed the rocks and board by now, but I haven’t bothered.
After pulling up the greenery, I went over the area with a hand cultivator, digging up as many roots and rhizomes as I could get. Then I opened up the roll of hollyhocks to get an idea of how many transplants there were, before using a trowel to loosen the soil deeper in for the transplants. I started by planting the largest ones, closer to the rocks, and was just getting ready to plant the rest of them slightly in front when I heard my daughter.
The doctor had called. It was almost 7pm!!
So I dropped everything, hosed the dirt off my hands and went in.
My poor doctor. It was two hours past when the clinic closed, and when I mentioned I thought the call wasn’t going to happen because of that, she told me she still had two more calls to make before she could go home!
I got a quick run down on my lab results. Nothing showed up in the pap smear (the pelvic ultrasound is next week), everything was looking good except for one thing.
My iron. It’s low.
She wants me to start taking iron supplements.
My husband had the same recommendation, just a couple of days ago. We’re all low on iron.
I am pretty sure I know why, too. It’s been ages since we’ve been able to buy enough red meat for it to be anything but an occasional treat when I can get it at a really good sale price. We’ve mostly been eating pork and chicken. Any iron from vegetables isn’t really helpful, since it’s far less bioavailable.
It didn’t even occur to me to ask what type of iron she wanted me to take. I’ll talk to the pharmacist about it, the next time I’m there.
We went through my Xrays as well. Nothing showed up in my right shoulder. As for my knee, the OA has gotten quite a bit worse since the last time it was Xrayed. Likely due to that fall I had, before Christmas last year. I mentioned to her about going to the sports injury clinic, but they didn’t have the Xrays available to see yet, so I just got the injections, in both hips this time. I mentioned having the walker now, and the doctor at the sports injury clinic gave me a prescription for it, so I could claim it on our insurance.
Which is when she brought up about me getting new knees.
???
This was something that came up, quite awhile ago, but now that I’m using a walker, and with the Xrays showing how much worse my knee got, it turns out I could get a new set of knees, if I wanted to.
!!!
They’ve actually gotten a lot better lately – I haven’t even been using the topical painkiller at all, lately. So I said no, for now. I didn’t bring it up, but if there are any joints that I would want to have replaced, it would likely be my hips, first.
With that call done, I headed back outside and finished transplanting the lost of the hollyhocks, then gave them a deep watering. I’ll have to keep a closer eye on these, as the crab grass and those flowers will want to take over again a lot faster here, I think. Eventually, though, if they take, the hollyhock should get big and bushy enough that they’ll keep those from coming back as quickly.
At this point, anything that needed to be planted is planted. Next, I need to prepare the area where I’ll be planting the short season corn.
I might start that tomorrow morning. Early. It’s going to be a scorcher, so I want to get out there as early as possible. Then we need to do a dump run and, once the grass is dry enough, I want to get the push mower and weed trimmer out, and possibly the riding mower again, to get the areas I wasn’t able to do before the rains and storms came.
Meanwhile, my brother and his wife will be out for the weekend again, working on their caravan and whatever else they have on their list.
After today, the only transplants I will have are whatever survives in the tray that got decimated by a mouse and re-sown. At this point, I have some melon seedlings, two different winter squash and that’s it.
The first thing I got transplanted was the chicory.
To the right, you can see some garlic that showed up in the bed on their own. When prepping the bed before transplanting the Florence Fennel you can see on the left, I transplanted the garlic to the side. No wonder I hadn’t found the cloves when prepping this part of the bed last fall. They were DEEP!!
I wasn’t sure how many chicory seedlings there were in the roll, so I just started sticking them in the ground in a vague grid spacing. There ended up being 20 of them.
I was going to return some of the leaf mulch in between, but the leaves kept moving around and start burying the seedlings. Instead, I cut narrow cardboard strips and secured them with ground staples.
Before I planted anything, I had to clean up the “presents” left by the cats, which meant I needed to cover this part of the bed, including the fennel, as I could see the cats have been digging in the leaf mulch there, too. I still had some rods and connectors from the first hoop kit I ordered, so I used those. For the netting, I didn’t really have anything left that was shorter. The netting covering the summer squash bed had a lot of excess tucked under one end, so I unrolled that, cut it off a couple of feet from the bed, then resecured the end. Then I untangled the piece I cut off and managed to lay it flat on the grass. It turned out to now be wider than it is long. That meant the salvage edges would be at the ends instead of the sides. I was also still able to fold it in half and not have too much slack once tightened over the hoops.
Where the bed turns, it is narrower than the end, so that area needed shorter hoops. and one end could be secured into the higher wattle weave wall on the inside of the turn. It took a while to get it all snug and secured, and I did have to push the hoop at the end, where it is wide enough I connected 4 rods together to make the hoop, deeper into the soil so it wasn’t quite as high.
That done, I stopped to change out of my grubbies and head out. I had a package to pick up at the mail, a prescription to drop off at the pharmacy, and then a couple of water bottles to refill at the grocery store. While I was at it, I got another 40 pound bag of kibbled at the general store the pharmacy is in, along with a couple of packages of smoked pork chops, then after getting the water I picked up a few more things, most on sale, and used some of my loyalty card points money to knock the cost down more. Once at home and the girls helped me unload and they put things away, I had a late lunch, set an alarm for myself, changed back into my grubbies and headed back outside.
This time, I finished the main garden area bed I was working on, yesterday.
There was just enough red beard bunching onion to fill the one side of the bed that remained to be planted into. It was convenient to be able to lift the bottom edge of the netting and use the ground staples to secure them at the top of the hoops. The hoops and netting will be removed when the beans get big enough for their trellis. For now, the bed needs to be protected from critters!
Last of all were the bi-color pear gourds, which went into the newly completed chain link fence bed.
There were way too many elm seeds that got through the netting. There’s going to be a LOT more very shortly. The seeds on the elms are starting to turn brown, which means they’ll be dropping in their millions, soon. The netting keeps some of ti out, but not wall.
The first thing to do was lift the netting up and secure it most of the way up the hoops. Then I got out the weed trimmer and cleared the grass in the path, and the other side of the chain link fence.
I think I’ve figure out where to plant the holly hocks, but didn’t get to them yet.
After the weed trimming was done, all I could do about the elm seeds was brush as much as I could off to one side. There was no way to get rid of them.
As for the gourds, there were only 5 of them, and they got transplanted into protective collars. I had to cut one new one.
By the time that was done, my alarm was going off and I needed to head inside. For now, I’m writing this while waiting for my telephone doctor’s appointment. Which is already more than half an hour “late”. It’s booked for the end of my doctor’s day of scheduled patients, but I was warned the call might be later, if things come up and appointments run late.
After the call, I’m hoping to get back outside. I have decided the holly hocks can go into the flower bed across from the chain link fence bed, where the original honeyberry bushes are. At the end near the vehicle gate is an old grave for a yard cat stranger I found, several years ago. Things have grown up very tall around it. I will clear the area around it of as much crab grass and the flowers my mother planted in this bed many years ago, and that’s where the holly hocks will go. I will also be direct sowing luffa and sunflowers in the bed with the bi-colour pear gourds, and then I can put the netting back down. Hopefully, while I’m waiting for the call from my doctor, no cats will go into there and start digging!!
First, I just have to share an update, so you can laugh at me.
I’m certainly laughing at me. I am so silly.
I mentioned yesterday that I got a parking ticket, while waiting for my daughters at the hospital clinic. I’d been diligent about buying more time on the machine, as things dragged on WAY longer than we expected them to. I had some confusion between two receipts with times close to each other, but figured I was so tired, I somehow paid again, even though a session hadn’t expired yet. When I got the parking ticket and checked the times on my receipts, it showed I had paid and it had not expired at the time the ticket was written out.
This morning, when the parking company opened at Pacific Standard Time, I got onto a chat with an agent, which was the only way to contest a ticket. It wasn’t in their system yet, and they clearly were not in our province. The agent asked for some details on the ticket, and I gave the reference number on the receipt. In the end, I was given local contact information and a reference number to use for that.
One of the methods of contact was an email address. So I took a picture of the parking ticket and the receipt, next to each other, and emailed it in. I didn’t say much other than basically, “I got this ticket, here’s the receipt showing I was paid and time wasn’t expired yet”. I didn’t ask for anything. Just gave the information.
I got a response while I was working in the garden.
The first thing pointed out in the response…
The ticket and the receipt had two different dates on it.
I tucked the receipts into a pocket in my phone case, forgetting that I had a receipt from the last time I parked there, when we picked my daughter up from her hospital stay. The old receipt got mixed up with the new ones, and I never noticed.
The agent that responded had looked up my license plate and listed all the times I had paid for more parking, adding that it was obvious I had made the effort to keep paying for the parking.
My ticket was cancelled. Just this once, I was told.
Having made a very silly mistake, I would have been more than willing to pay the ticket once I realized it! How absolutely embarrassing. I was so focused on the time stamp for the expiration, I completely missed the equally large date right underneath.
I made sure to write back to own up to my mistake and thank them for cancelling the ticket. That was very kind of them!
Because of the time zone differences while waiting to be able to chat with an agent, I didn’t get out to the garden until quite late in the morning. Thankfully, today was not expected to get as hot, nor were we expecting more rain or storms. We’re not expecting more rain for almost a week, but in a couple of days, the heat is going to be back.
The first thing I wanted to do was get the last of the tomatoes into the ground. The one bed I’ve been working on is going to have quite a variety if things in it!!
These are the Chocolate Stripe tomatoes, and there were only 7 surviving transplants. I planted them in a block, protected by collars, like with the peppers and eggplant. These got support stake added instead of wire cages, which you can see in the second photo of the slide show above. After the picture was taken, I put a straw mulch around all the protective collars.
Then I got a seed snail of onions, choosing the roll with the smallest number of onions in it.
These turned out to be from our own saved seed. I moved aside the straw mulch on either side of the celery block and there was just enough to fit them in. After tucking the straw back, closer to the onions, they are barely visible! You can just see them in the second photo of the above slide show.
At this point, I had just a few feet at the north end of the bed to fill. I wasn’t sure how much I could fit in there, so I grabbed the snail rolls for more onions – Red Long of Tropea – the White Vienne kohlrabi I started indoors, the caraway and the French marigolds.
I took a picture of all the rolls together. Honestly, I did try to! Apparently, the touchscreen on my phone didn’t register my touch, because there’s no photo of them in my phone. This is not the first time this had happened!
I really don’t like touch screens. They don’t like to read my fingers.
In the first picture above, you can just see the snail rolls in the bin at the top corner.
I spaced out some lines to plant in, using a garden stake, then used the jet setting on the hose in each on to smooth is out and make sure the seedlings had plenty of water below them. In spite of all the rain we’ve had, and the soil being moist on top, it’s remarkably dry after the first couple of inches.
There were barely any surviving kohlrabi seedings, and they were pretty small. I ended up with six that I planted in two short rows closer to the tomatoes, alternating them with onions. Then I planted the caraway – those seedlings were very fine and delicate! – in between onions, managing to split them into nine rows of three caraway each. The last row got just the French double marigold. There were only 5 surviving seedlings in that row.
There were still onions left in the roll to transplant elsewhere.
In the second picture, you can basically see the onions, and not much else! I couldn’t put the straw mulch in between them, but I made sure to add it on the sides and end of the bed, where all the crab grass and creeping Charlie try to invade. Not to mention all the dandelions.
That bed is now done. Hopefully, things will survive! This bed now has two types of onions, celery, two types of peppers, eggplant, tomatoes, kohlrabi, caraway and marigolds in it.
Next, I wanted to sow the pole beans, which were to go in the bed with the white egg turnip and daikon radish.
I got the weed trimmer out and cleared the dandelions going to seed in the paths before I started!
In the first picture, I’ve unfastened the netting along the sides and pushed it up to the top of the hoops. After that, I removed the remaining leaf mulch between the rows – I filled the wheel barrow twice – then did the weeding and loosening of soil.
Which is when I discovered we had only one daikon radish.
The netting keeps the cats out, but not the bugs. I know there were quite a few seedlings popping up when I removed the greenhouse poly and put the netting on, and they’re all gone. Something ate them! The turnips show signs of insect damage, but there are still quite a few left.
In the second picture, the bed has been weeding and the soil loosened, including where the daikon radish had been planted. That dark line running the length of the bed is the shadow of the netting on the hoops.
While I was working on that, I set the red noodle beans to soak, which you can see in the next picture, and got my packet of daikon radish seeds to resow. This is the one thing my younger daughter requested, so I wanted to try again. They are only 55 days to maturity, so replanting should be fine.
I prepped rows with the plant stake and the hose again, as in the other bed. For the pole beans, though, I had a bit of a problem. This is a low raised bed, which means reaching into the middle, even though it’s just a couple of feet, is harder with my short little arms, and quite painful on the back.
So I cheated.
In the next picture, you can see the bean planting in progress. I have a length of Pex pipe that never got used as a hoop support, so it is still straight. I set the end where I wanted the seed to go and dropped a bean in from the top. Since they were wet from being soaked, they sometimes stuck to the inside of the pipe, but that was easily fixed with a short puff of air.
Once the bean seeds were in place, I used the plant stake I’d made the rows with to push the beans into the soil to the right depth, buried them slightly, then used the hose again, this time on the shower setting, to settle the soil over the beans.
I still had Red Long of Tropea onions left. Just enough to transplant all along the side with the white egg turnips. I have one roll of red beard bunching onions to transplant, and that should fit along the other side, but not today. It was coming up on 3pm by the this time, we were into the hottest part of the day, and I forgot to have lunch. So I put the netting back – the ground staples hold a lot better with the leaf mulch moved out! – and will transplant the last onions in there tomorrow.
What I have left for transplants are the holly hock, bunching onions, chicory, and bi-colour pear gourds. Plus there are seedlings popping up in the winter squash and melon tray I had to replant, though not very many yet.
I still haven’t decided on where to plant the holly hock. Those can get very large.
I’ve decided I will transplant the bi-colour pear gourds into the bed I just finished redoing at the chain link fence, along with direct sowing the short season luffa. I had thought to put winter squash in that bed, too, but I don’t know that we’ll have many of those. So I will plant my sunflowers in there. The netting over that bed is keeping some of the elm seeds out, but some are still getting through, so I will have to find something else to add to it before the elm seeds dry up and really start dropping. The potatoes are coming up, so I’ll soon be able to remove their protective cover of mosquito netting, which is big enough to cover the chain link fence bed. It was used there before but, in high winds, it acted like a sail and kept getting pulled loose from the ground staples. I don’t think the clips that came with the hoops I’m using to hold the current netting would be strong enough to hold the mosquito netting when high winds hit. Like the ground staples we’d tried to use before, the clips would just go flying! More thought is needed.
The chicory will go into the old kitchen garden, where there is still room in the wattle weave bed.
I have a bed in the main garden area that I planned to put winter squash and/or melons. I also expected to be able to interplant winter squash with the short season corn I plan to direct sow, after I move the black landscape cloth or whatever it is, and loosen the soil for planting them there.
I had meant to transplant the cucumbers in an available space in the trellis bed, but there is no sign of the second sowing starting to germinate. I might direct sow one variety of cucumbers in the chain link fence bed. There should be room after the gourds and luffa are planted. The other variety can be direct sown in the trellis bed, as originally planned.
That mouse that ate all the seeds and seedlings in that tray really set things back!
There is still much to be done, but at least the more time dependent things got done. I’m even already seeing little bush bean sprouts starting to elbow their way out of the soil in the high raised bed. I need to add trellis netting to the trellis bed supports pretty soon, too – the peas in that bed are growing fast! I think I’m even seeing carrot sprouts, though it’s really hard to say for sure.
So that is progress for today.
I am battling with myself.
I keep feeling like I should get back out there and do more – if not in the garden, then with the weed trimmer or push mower, or move things so I can use the riding mower… the list goes on – while the temperatures are decent. I’m also trying to heed the warning signs my body is giving me, to avoid overdoing it. My pain levels have been pretty low for the past while, and I’d like to keep it that way! Mostly, though, I’m battling fatigue. There’s been just too much going on, too much stress, both positive and negative, too often and too close together. In the past, with similar stress levels, I would push myself anyhow until one time I reached the point of literally collapsing from exhaustion. That was long ago and I was also sick with a cold at the same time but, with the old bod giving out on me more and more, I just can’t do that to myself anymore. I wasn’t even up to going into town in the afternoon, like I’d hoped to do.
So the work will continue tomorrow, as will the trip into town and to get the mail. I just have to time it so that I’m home for my telephone doctor’s appointment, to go over my lab results.
Dangit. I keep forgetting to call the sports injury clinic. They would have had my Xrays available weeks ago, by now, and I’d really like to see if there’s anything they can do about the joint damage in my right shoulder, elbow and knee.
Ah, well. Lately they’ve been improving. It’s my left shoulder that’s still giving me grief, and that one didn’t get Xrayed.
The rhubarb is doing fantastic, and there’s even a flower coming up in southwest corner patch.
I didn’t get anything else done in the garden. I didn’t even do the watering, counting on the rain we are supposed to get today.
My first task of the day was to call up our tax preparer to see if they could figure out why our return was shortchanged by about $2500. The person I talked to before was still on holidays, but the person I spoke to was able to look at my husband’s account at the CRA – something my husband still can’t do – and saw the numbers. She couldn’t see why we didn’t get the full amount. Basically, we were shorted my entire Disability Tax Credit, and then some. The person who did our taxes will be back next week, so she will make sure what happened gets passed on to her and hopefully she can figure it out.
So at least a week before we find out what happened.
Meanwhile…
I decided not to go to Costco for our stock up shop (I’ll cover that in my next post). Instead, I headed into town to visit my mother, then continued on to the nearer city to stock up at Walmart.
The truck behaved normally on the way to town. As I started to do my shopping, the battery gauge had dropped again, still within the normal range and returning to where it usually is after driving for a while.
It’s hell on my nerves.
Knowing I would have refrigerator and frozen stuff after shopping, I made a slight detour first to pick up gas, did my shopping at Walmart, then headed home.
Once everything was unloaded and the truck parked, I quickly changed into my grubbies and fired up my brother’s little riding lawn more. I’d intended to use the push mower to do the edges first, but that would have taken too long. I was already heading thunder in the distance and just needed to get the jungle under control.
I definitely put that mower through its paces! It’s been so humid that the tall grass and dandelions don’t really dry out from the morning dew. It was all quite wet on top of being thick and overgrown.
While I was mowing, I got our first alert blaring on my cell phone. A tornado warning for our region. “Our region” clearly didn’t include where we are, though, as the system hadn’t reached us yet, and I kept mowing.
Still, I managed to get the east, south and west lawns done before I started getting slightly rained on. I did a few checks around the yard before going in, during which we got a second alert blaring on my phone, and just had to grab some rhubarb. I have no idea what it’ll be used for. If my daughter’s don’t use it, I’ll just make a quick compote.
As I write this, we are finally getting an actual rainfall. According to the weather map, there is a thunderstorm right on top of us. As I look out my window, I see no wind waving the branches of the big maple. In fact, from this part of the house, I couldn’t even tell it was raining. My daughters have their window open and told me they could hear it, but it’s definitely not a major storm. Checking the alert map, the “severe weather alert” area is to the south of us, and well into the middle of that is a single patch of “extreme weather alert”.
The rain is supposed to continue all night until about 8am tomorrow. Which is good timing, since we need to be on the road by 8:30am to get my older daughter to her follow up appointment at the Women’s hospital. She did get a call already and given the biopsy results – she does NOT have cancer – but she will probably need surgery.
The rain is supposed to start up again by 7pm tomorrow and continue through the night, with a bit of rain the Thursday after. I might be able to get more transplants in then, or on Friday. I have my medical appointment on Friday afternoon, but it’s a telephone appointment and not until 3:30. Thursday and Friday as going to be downright cool in comparison, then it’s supposed to heat up again, so I’m really hoping to get the rest done by the end of Friday. Well, the stuff that’s ready, anyhow. It really sucks that my melon and winter squash seeds and seedlings got eaten! Right now, I’ve got some surviving melons, and a couple of winter squash very quickly germinated, but I’m not seeing anything else coming up yet.
Ah, well. We’ll work with whatever survives. I’m rather happy with the non-stormy rainfall we’re getting so far. It means the transplants have a better chance of surviving!
Hopefully, it won’t be much longer before we have something besides rhubarb to harvest.
Here is what I have been able to manage before the temperatures reached the point of risking heat stroke. I’ve been getting up at about 5am, when the ski was getting light, and outside by about 6 am. Of course, the yard cats got taken care of before I started on the garden. Aside from stopping for lunch and hydration, I was able to stay out until about 1pm before the heat and sun drove me inside. We’ve been hitting “only” about 30C/86F instead of the 34C/93F we’d been hitting before. Tomorrow evening, thunderstorms are supposed to start rolling in and stay day day after, through to the next morning. I want to get as much planted and protected as possible before that hits.
There are barely visible leaves hidden by millions of seeds. This is just one of seven Chinese elm around the front yard. The green seeds are already dropping a bit but, once they turn brown, they will drop in drifts. I’ve covered the newly finished bed along the chain link fence with netting, but seeds are still getting through. Before they start dropping for real, I’m going to have to find something else to cover them. Something finer than the current netting, but not as fine as the mosquito netting we’d used before, that would turn into a sail in the wind. Enough to cover the strawberries on the other side of the people gate.
I’m not sure what’s available out there. I’ve been looking at netting at various stores, but the dollar store seems to be the only place that has anything that might work.
For now, though, I need to get things in the ground.
First, what I was able to get done yesterday.
This first bed I worked on was the smallest; the tiny raised bed with herbs in it. Click through to see the slide show.
I transplanted the summer savory and Russian tarragon into here. I’m actually surprised they survived. They were doing so poorly before I “up potted” them to the snail rolls. The Russian tarragon seems okay, but the summer savory is still insanely leggy. I would not be surprised if they don’t make it.
As for the other herbs in the bed, the one type of oregano in the top left corner is doing really well, and spreading. The bottom right is the Greek oregano and it went through a rough patch, but is recovering. The lemon balm in the top middle has also been doing well. On either side of that, in the middle, is the sage. Those seemed to have died back when we got hit with that cold spell, but they are leafing out quite nicely now. In the top right corner, the lemon thyme seemed to have died off, but is starting to grow back again. The thyme that was in the bottom left corner died off completely, so that’s where the summer savory went. The tarragon went where the basil was last year.
That one got done nice as fast, which is why I started with it first.
Next, I started on the bed against the retaining wall that I finished reworking last year. Again, click through for the slide show.
The first thing to do was get hoops ready and find netting – I ended up not using the netting in the first photos, as it was too short. Then the leaf mulch was removed into the wheel barrow. I reworked the bed a bit to remove any weeds that started invading. The cats had been digging in it in one spot and leaving me “presents” that had to be removed, too.
Then the hoops needs to be set in place. For those, I picked up some zip ties rated to 50 pounds. Even setting the hoops as low as they could go, they were pretty high. The first piece of netting I’d found, cut for use for something else, several years ago, was a bit longer than the bed, which meant there wasn’t enough length to close off the ends. Thankfully, I had another leftover piece of netting that was more than long enough.
The hoops divided the bed quite handily into 5 sections, so I planted 5 different types of summer squash. Green Scallop Bennings, Lemon, Early Prolific Straightneck, Yellow Scallop and Gold Rush zucchini.
I planted a couple of seeds each, in groups of four, setting collars around where I planted them. Then I set 4L size water bottles with the bottoms cut off, upside down, into the ground in between each group of 4 collars, for watering. They each got stakes set inside them to 1) keep them from blowing away, 2) allow for any critters that might fall in to have a way of getting out and 3) partially block the opening so the water doesn’t flow out too quickly.
Finally, last of all, the netting was put over the hoops, which is barely visible in the last picture. I picked up some plastic clothes pegs to use as clips to hold the netting in place on the hoops and on the retaining wall side. Ground staples are holding it in place on the garden side.
Everything got a very thorough watering, first the entire bed in general, and then filling the upside down water bottles. That bed was pretty dry!
For now, that bed is done. Later on, I might transplant some onions in between, or maybe some marigolds. Or I’ll just set a straw or leaf mulch around it. I’ll thin the squash as needed and, eventually, the netting will be removed as I plan to train them to grow vertically.
That done, I moved on to the main garden area and the high raised bed.
It’s hard to see, but that soil thermometer was reading about 20C/68F!!!
I brought over the Red Wethersfield onions to transplant among the bush beans. The onions were transplanted first, with a short row at each end, and a row straight down the middle. The Tricolor beans mix were planted until I ran out of seeds, which were enough to do all of one side, and about half on the other. The rest of that row was finished off with the Gold Rush yellow beans.
The handy thing with the hoops and netting on this bed is that it’s fairly easy to lift the netting and secure it at the top of the hoops, giving plenty of space to move around in. At some point, though, the bush beans might get too big for the netting. We shall see.
That done, I moved to the flower bed at the end of the high raised bed. With that one, I could use the bamboo stake rolled up at the side to lift the whole side up and over, so there was plenty of room to work in.
Not very much room for what I transplanted, though!
First up was clearing away the invading weeds (creeping Charlie is viciously invasive!!), being careful not to disturb the nasturtiums I’d direct sown that survived.
For some reason, I got it in my head that I’d started nasturtiums indoors, but I hadn’t.
I brought over the largest flowers that desperately needed transplanting. The Crackerjack Marigold were the biggest, and they went in closer to the high raised bed. They have flower buds on them already.
The dwarf Cosmos actually had a couple of open flowers on them!
White flowers.
These are supposed to be red.
Not sure what happened there.
Oh, dear. I just got a notification on my phone. Thunderstorms possible in the next hour. So much for starting to storm tomorrow evening!
I’m going to have to pop out and get the remaining transplants in bins protected.
Be right back…
Well, that’s done. I hope the transplants in the greenhouse frame will be okay. They are too big to cover in their bins, but we set covers on the shelves above them that should provide enough protection, and secured everything so it won’t get blown away.
Looking at the weather radar on my desktop, I’m not seeing any side of potential storms, or even rain, coming up over our area. My phone’s weather app, on the other hand, has bumped up the thunderstorm timeline. It’s entirely possible the system will miss us entirely.
I really hope we just get a nice rain. Something the transplants won’t get damaged by.
So… where was I…
Still yesterday’s work…
The last bed I worked on was the short side of the L shaped wattle weave bed, where I transplanted the Florence Fennel.
The first image is after I removed the leave mulch, but before I weeded, cleaned up and loosened the soil.
The Florence fennel got really big in those snail rolls! For their size, they should have been transplanted long ago.
There turned out to be a dozen transplants, plus one tiny one that I probably shouldn’t have bothered with, but I stuck it in between a couple of others, anyhow. You never know.
Today, I carefully added some of the leaf mulch back in between the fennel, so now the still drooping stems are on mulch rather than damp soil. Hopefully, they will perk up soon!
That was it for yesterday, before I went inside to get away from the heat. I never made it back out. The girls ended up doing the evening watering for me. I went to bed early to get an early start today.
This morning, I wanted to get tomatoes in. I have four varieties, and I wasn’t sure if they would all fit in one bed, but in my garden map, I did have an idea of where I would plant any that didn’t fit.
This is the bed I recently got cleaned up and covered – though a determined cat still managed to dig into a gap in the plastic!
After moving the plastic and doing a bit of weeding and loosening of soil, I got some of the household compost my brother gave me and worked that into the soil as well.
The first variety I planted were the largest; the Manitoba tomato. There were 10 of them and, being the largest, I set them along the north side of the bed, so they wouldn’t shade out anything else as they got bigger.
I used the protective collars to help space out the plantings before digging holes. The collars actually helped by keeping the sides of the soil from falling in. The bed was pretty dry, so I made sure to deeply water each hole first. The collars helped with that, too, keeping the water where I needed it.
After transplanting the tomatoes, I added one of my heavier 6′ tall plastic coated metal stakes against each collar, than used garden twist ties to carefully secure the transplants upright.
Then it was time to move on to the next ones, which were the Blueberry tomatoes. There were only six transplants, and they all went into a block at one end of the bed.
Those got transplanted and secured to stakes as well. Each of the stakes get lined up with the previous ones, in case I want to add horizontal supports between them, later on. Beyond support for the tomatoes, the stakes will keep the protective collars from blowing away. They’re not pushed deep into the soil, so as not to entrap the tomato’s roots.
After counting out how many transplants were in the last two snail rolls, the rest of the bed got planted with the Orange Currant tomatoes.
These were a lot smaller than the others. I planted in fourteen collars, which filled the remaining space while lined up with that first row of 10, though the last collar got two tiny transplants. We’ll see which of them survives and grows! They all got the plant stakes added, but I ran out and the last ones got bamboo stakes instead.
Everything then got watered around the collars. Doing a deep watering also allowed me to use the shower setting on the nozzle to gently level off the soil around the collars.
Another bonus to using the collars. It makes it easy to mulch the bed, deeply, right away.
The first image is after the soil was watered, around the collars. Then I got a wheel barrow load of straw and set it around all the collars, with particular attention put into a thick layer around the edges, where the crab grass and other weeds tend to push their way through. Then the straw itself got watered, so it wouldn’t act as a thatch.
I just checked the time stamps on the photos. This one bed took me three hours.
Then I went inside for lunch before heading to the main garden area.
I’m not sure what happened there, but I am “missing” photos. I suspect that when I thought I was taking progress shots, my fingers may have been too damp for the touch screen to read my tapping on the screen to take the picture.
Ah, well.
I had thought that this bed might get the last of the tomatoes, the peppers and the celery.
I ended up including the Caspar eggplant as well, because I had the space.
First thing to do, though, was remove the plastic protecting the bed from cats.
The first thing that needed to be transplanted were the Golden Boy celery. These were way too big.
I had decided that things would be transplanted in short rows across the bed, since I wasn’t sure how many things I’d have room for. The celery ended up taking only three rows, even though I tried to space them out as much as I could. As usual, I watered the trenches before planting. This variety of celery is not supposed to require blanching, so I didn’t need to dig too deep, but I still ended up with new trenches in between the rows as I pushed the soil against the transplants.
I filled those with compost.
Then I laid down a straw mulch, which is one of the pictures that didn’t take. I made sure the deepest mulch was around the edges of the bed, where that blasted creeping Charlie keeps trying to creep! I made sure the soil around the celery was moist before adding the straw, then wet down the straw. I kept up that pattern with the straw for everything else.
Once the celery was in and protected, I transplanted the California Wonder bell peppers. These were the largest of the transplants, and there were the most to plant.
Somehow, I missed getting any progress pictures at all, even though I stopped at each stage. I used collars to first space out where they would go, then did the usual loosening of soil, setting the collars, deep watering in them, then transplanting. I had six collars, though one of them got two tiny peppers in it.
For these, I used cheap tomato cages to secure the collars and protect the peppers. Because the collars were so close together, I could only fit them on the outside collars, which were still touching each other, so the middle peppers will still be supported, as they grow.
Next, I did the Caspar eggplant, which were really tiny. They really struggled to grow in our cold basement!
I got progress photos for those, at least!
There were two large seedlings and two tiny ones, so I set up three collars and planted the little ones together. Straw mulch and watering process was repeated.
Next were the Sweet Chocolate peppers. There were only three surviving peppers. There had been a fourth one but it was so small, I didn’t even try to plant it. Not even with another plant.
The last picture was taken before I added the straw mulch, and then I guess I forgot to take one last photo after that was done.
At this point, two hours had gone by and we’d reached our high of the day. I was baking in the sun, so I tucked the last transplants – a snail roll of tomatoes, and another of hollyhocks – into the shade and went in.
I’d hoped to head outside once things cooled down but, even if we don’t get the thunderstorm I got a warning notification for, it’s not going to start cooling down until about 8pm – another two hours from when I’m writing this.
With the thunderstorm warning, my daughter and I went out and the bin with the transplants is now safely secured and protected in the portable greenhouse frame.
Tomorrow, depending which app I check, we’ll either start storming at 10pm, or we’ll have scattered showered and thunderstorms starting in the afternoon.
My hope is to be able to get our Costco stock up trip finally done. I’m not looking forward to it. There are fewer and fewer things priced better there that make it worth the trip.
The weather app on my phone now says thunderstorms all day tomorrow, rain during the day on Wednesday with more thunderstorms by evening. If it’s accurate, the earliest I’ll be able to continue in the garden will be Thursday.
I might be taking my daughter into the city on Wednesday for a follow up medical appointment at the Women’s hospital, unless it becomes a telephone appointment. I don’t think she got the call today that was supposed to let her know, one way or the others.
At least my husband’s medical appointment on the same day is a telephone appointment, as is mine on Friday. Next week, however, I’m headed to the nearer city for my ultrasound.
Somewhere in there, I need to visit my mother, too.
Unfortunately, with all the troubles we’ve been having with the truck – which has earned its name of Damocles – I dread driving anywhere further out. Especially to the city. We don’t have much choice, though.
Today, I’ve been pushing to get things in the ground. Normally, I wouldn’t even try doing the transplanting until after June 2, when the risk of frost is theoretically past. Instead, we’ve got the heat and a thunderstorm coming in a few days. Soil thermometer tells me the soil is more than warm enough for direct sowing and transplanting – too warm, for some things. So I’m going for it.
I got as much as I could before it started getting too hot. It’s past 6:30 as I write this, and we’re still at 28C/82F. I’d hoped to get back out later today, but we’ll see. Aside from getting things planted in the garden, the lawn seriously needs to be mowed. It can’t be done in the cool of the morning, as the grass is too wet, and I needed to focus on the planting.
My brother and his wife had stayed the night in their caravan, though, and he was an absolute sweetheart. He checked on the push mower and the riding mower they have available for us to use and tested them out, saving me the time of having to do the maintenance checks myself. I can just start them up and get going.
I got a lot done, which I will write about later. Today, when forced inside by the heat, I finally got the video I took on the 20th put together into a garden tour video. It’s was hard to go through the clips and not what to start over – so much has changed in 10 days! We went from cold, rain and even snow, to brutal heat waves.
Technically, today is a touch cooler – we hit a high of 31C/88F this afternoon, and it’s just starting to slowly drop for the evening.
It didn’t feel cooler, even though I was done well before we reached the high of the day. I started off around 6am and it was already getting hot. I have no idea what the humidex was, but I was definitely courting with heat stroke by the end of it.
The Manchurian walnut wasn’t even visible until the packaging was unwrapped!
The package came with planting instructions, which included making sure NOT to leave any of the sawdust around the roots, and to let the roots soak for about an hour before planting.
While those were soaking, I got my supplies together to do the Manchurian walnut first. I got a wheelbarrow load of wood chips that I hoped would be enough for all the trees (that old pile of wood chips is decomposing nicely) and the wagon was loaded with watering cans, the tree bucket and a piece of thick cardboard as part of the mulch.
For the Manchurian Walnut, I chose to plant it where we have a row of Black walnut. Last year, one of them simply disappeared. Not just the leaves nibbled at. The entire stem, gone.
Since that area had already been worked and marked, I figure it would be at least a bit easier to prepare the hole, too.
There were the usual small rocks, but I also had to cut away a substantial root the wasn’t there when I planted the Black Walnut seed! The protective collar turned out to be absolutely jammed with roots, and it took quite some time to clear it. With that in mind, when I replaced the collar later, I set it just into the ground, not as deep as it had been when I planted the black walnut seed. But that was much later.
When I’d dug the hole before, I’d found some rocks that got used to form a ring around the planting area before mulching with grass clippings that were so long, they were basically hay. I set those aside along with more that the frost/freeze cycle had heaved up. The top soil is not very deep and I was soon hitting the gravel/sand/clay layer and loosened that up as much as I could before returning enough soil to make a planting mound, as per the instructions. I also used the protective collar as a template to cut an opening in the cardboard that would be laid down under the wood chips.
Once planted, it got a watering can full (2 gallons) of water. Then the cardboard and protective collar was put in place. Then a thick mulch of wood chips and more watering (another 2 gallons).
Last of all, I set the rocks around the inside of the mulch ring in such a way that I hope they will help direct water flow towards the middle. Since I still had the grass clipping mulch handy, I set that around the outer edge of the wood chips.
In this location, the Manchurian walnut will need at least weekly deep watering, unless we get a decent amount of rain. The surviving Black walnut are showing leaf buds and I should be watering them, too.
But not quite yet.
Next job, planting the Blue Basket Willow.
These were going to go much further from the house, beyond the outer yard. There is a low area that forms a shallow pond in wet years, and towards which our septic ejector drains. The renter’s cows are rotated into this quarter for pasture, so I needed to make sure they wouldn’t stomp all over the new trees! Not that I can 100% protect them from cows, but I can at least make it less likely.
Before heading out, I cut five sections of the heavy cardboard and five metal T posts to bring along. The area I was going to work in was so round, once I got the wagon through the outer yard fence line, I had to carry the watering cans and soaking bucket over, so as not to lose all the water to sloshing.
The first two pictures are where I decided to plant. This low area had been fenced off at some point, and the remains of fencing are still there. I wanted it to be further away from the existing willows that are way too close to our ejector system (the roots are likely why we had to replace it, a couple of falls ago, and the new ejector is further from the trees).
The bit of fence still there will protect the trees from the cows on one side, and the T posts should somewhat protect from the other. It will be some time before the cows are rotated to this quarter, and the willow should have time for their roots to be established before it becomes a concern.
I normally would have planted trees a minimum of 6′ feet apart, but these are meant for coppicing. I used the 5′ long T posts to mark a row in the grass roughly 5′ apart, plus a few inches.
This area has standing water in places, barely visible in the tall grass. Where I planted, it is slightly more elevated, but still very wet. Once I marked out the distances, I cleared the tall grass within a circle with my gloved hands and used that as a guide for where to shovel out a circle of sod, before digging deeper.
The first couple of holes weren’t too bad, but when I got to the third one, I hit so many rocks, so close to the surface, I thought I would have to dig somewhere else. In another hole, there were so many larger rocks, I wasn’t sure if I’d have enough soil left to return to the hole!
I got it done, though, and set the rocks along the old fence, out of the way.
Then I returned the sod in chunks, upside down, to create a planting mound. This area is so wet, water was starting to accumulate in the bottom of the holes.
The holes prepared, I planted all five of the willow and gave them a surface watering. Just one watering can’s worth, more to settle the soil around them.
Next, I cut holes in the middle of the cardboard, with a slice to the edge so I could slide the cardboard around the stems, adding the T posts beside each one in the process. They now each have the fallen fence protecting them on one side, and the T posts on the other.
Then the remaining wood chips got added for mulch. It’s nowhere near enough. I’ll have to get another load and add more later.
Last of all, I used the second watering can and what was left in the soaking bucket to moisten the wood chips.
One important thing about planting these in this location. I will not need to water them weekly. If anything, they are more at risk of drowning that drying out. At least for now. If things dry up over the summer, then I might have to water them. Which would be a pain, because the water line to the barn was shut off decades ago, when my parents no longer had cows.
By this time, it was coming up on 10am and the heat was a real danger. I put everything but the spade back into the wagon and took that to the “gate” at the fence line by the barn. With the wheelbarrow, though, I took the time to grab some of the rocks I’d dug up, plus a few more loose rocks along the way. I let the spade, just in case, but never needed to use it.
I had pulled the garden hose as far into the outer yard as it could reach, in case I needed to refill watering cans. Instead, I took the wheelbarrow over and started filling hosing the rocks down to get the worst of the mud off and let them soak for a bit. Then I brought the wagon to the inner hard fence before going back, dumping water out of the wheelbarrow, and refilling it.
The above picture is after the first water was dumped off and it was getting refilled.
This also allowed me to use the water to cool myself down. Including soaking my hat before putting it back on again. The heat was really brutal and I was starting to feel the warning signs telling me I needed to get inside, fast – and we hadn’t even reached the high of the day, yet!
I left the wheelbarrow where it was for the while. The rocks will be taken to the gate area, were they will be used to make the wall of what will be a flower bed at the base of my mother’s angel statue.
Then I went inside and, as soon as possible, crashed on the couch near the AC for at least 4 hours. I hadn’t done the morning watering in the garden, so my daughters took care of that for me.
Meanwhile, my brother and SIL had come out yesterday. Just as I was setting up, they headed out with their RV that they found someone to sell for them. They got back around the same time I was getting up, and now I see my brother has their zero turn mower out and is mowing in this heat!!
The grass is getting so very long right now, but it’s just been too hot. When it’s cooler in the morning, the grass is too wet. For the inner yard, I was going to break out their push mower that they’ve set up for us to use, and mow around the edges of the yard, then use the riding mower they have for me to use, to do the rest. My brother’s weed trimmer is also available, and I just brought his case of batteries for it out of the house where they were stored for the winter.
It’s past 5pm as I write this. It’s still 28C/82F out there, with the humidex at 31C/88C.
It’s hard to believe that, just a week or so ago, we were still getting snow!
I was supposed to do a dump run today. They’re open until 6pm on Saturdays, but I’m simply not up to it. My daughter was willing to do the driving, but I’m still groggy and dizzy. It’ll have to wait.
After how bloody and swollen he was after his spay yesterday, then disappearing when the cleaned out isolation shelter was dry and ready to hold him for the night, I honestly would not have been surprised if he didn’t make it. Instead, when I came out to do the feeding this morning, there he was, mostly cleaned up, among the cats swirling under my feed, very eager for food!
I just came back from the evening feeding. He is doing very well – but it’s so hot out there, most of the food I set out this morning was still uneaten! No appetites in this heat, that’s for sure. They have plenty of water available, and plenty of shade, and we have cat puddles all over the place.
One of the things I did today was pick up the trees at the post office.
I haven’t bothered to open the box, yet. It’s in the living room, where the air conditioner is, and no cats to try to tear into it.
The house is cooler – we’ve got the AC, my husband and I have box fans in our rooms, and the girls have their AC in their upstairs apartment. They also managed to get the old basement door to open (the knob needs replacing) and the wire mesh door we made for it is set up, allowing air circulation from the cooler basement.
The old basement is damp enough that I got two blowers and an oscillating fan going. The new basement has weeping tile but, after a rain barrel was allowed to overflow the summer before we moved here, the corner where that barrel was still gets damp, so I’ve got an oscillating fan on that corner, too. I still need to set up the summer window in the old basement, which is a combination of wire mesh and window screen, so no critters can get through. The extra air circulation will help with the dampness in that basement, too.
With the sump pump going off fairly regularly, and the hose set up to drain under a bed in the old kitchen garden, it means our tiny bok choy, beets and parsnips will get watered from below, too.
The heat was still getting to me and I ended up going down for a nap in the living room, with the AC running, for an hour and a half – I set a timer this time – shortly after lunch.
Then I went into the new basement. With all the transplants now outside, I cleared the set up that was on my work table, putting the full spectrum lights away (now I suddenly can’t remember if I shut off the shop light…). This gave me room to re-organize my seed packets and think about what I can direct sow, now that the soil temperatures are more than warm enough. Normally, I wouldn’t sow these things for another week, but the soil thermometer I picked up tells me the soil is ready, and the long range forecast shows no sign of frost. With all the protective netting I’ve been setting up, though, if there was a possibility of frost, I would be able to cover the beds that need it with cloth.
After going through my seeds, I set aside a number of packets into a separate bin, as thinks I can potentially direct sow in the next few days.
No, I won’t be sowing everything in that bin! The second picture shows part of why. Granted, that’s in the sun room, but still…
Most of what’s going into the garden beds will be transplants. I don’t actually have a lot to direct sow.
In the high raised bed, I will be planting bush beans, interplanted with onion transplants. I will be planting pole beans in the middle of the bed that has the daikon radish and white turnips winter sown into it.
The flower bed at the end of the high raised bed will have cosmos and nasturtiums transplanted into it. I have marigolds to transplant among the vegetable beds, but I also plan to direct sow more. I have bachelor’s button and other flowers I’d like to direct sow, but I’m not sure where, yet.
There is a space in the trellis bed that should have room to transplant cucumbers into it – if we have any to transplant. I do have the bi-colour pear gourds, though. I might transplant those, instead. There is also enough space between where the carrots are planted (I still can’t tell if we have any, after the second sowing) to direct sow something that isn’t too large and bushy.
One of the empty beds in the main garden area is meant to have some tomatoes, plus the celery and peppers transplanted into it. Onions will be interplanted among them. There aren’t a lot of surviving peppers, though. The spacing I have will determine what I will direct sow there. These are long beds and I might have extra space for the celery. They are a short season variety I could potentially direct sow more of.
Another bed, where the garlic was planted last year, is meant for squash or melons, but after the tray of winter squash, melons and cucumbers got decimated by something in the basement, it will be a while before the new seeds even germinate, never mind be ready for transplant.
I have two varieties short season corn to direct sow, but the area they are going in still needs to be uncovered and prepared. If we have any that survived, I hope to interplant winter squash transplants, or direct sow pole beans among them.
The bed along the retaining wall in the old kitchen garden will be direct sown with summer squash. I have 5 varieties to plant, possibly 6, if I have the space. That bed still needs to have hoops to hold protective netting set up over it, though.
In the newly finished bed I have at the chain link fence, I am looking to transplant winter squash and melons – if the new seeds replacing the eaten ones germinate and survive! I might end up buying transplants at some point, but I don’t know if it’s necessary, yet.
Among the other seeds I will sow as I find space are things like fern leaf dill, which I plan to treat as a perennial, and other varieties of peas and beans, including garbanzo beans, though those might wait until next year. The Caspar eggplant transplants don’t look very robust, but they are a short season variety, so I might direct sow more along with the transplants, just so see how that will work out.
With the heat holding on for so long in the day, I expect to only get the evening watering done tonight. I will try to get up earlier tomorrow and see what I can get done before it gets too hot out there. The highs are supposed to very slowly get “cooler”; starting tomorrow, we’re expected to be below 30C/86F for the next while. One of my apps says to expect rain starting Tuesday night (today is Friday), thunderstorms on Wednesday, and rain continuing through Thursday morning.
Right now, at almost 7:30pm, we’ve finally dropped to 28C/82F, though the “real feel” is still 29C/84F.
Time to find the bug spray and do the evening watering!
I started things off a bit early, and it was still lovely and cool. My priority, after I did my morning rounds, was to water the garden beds before the heat hit.
I’m happy to say that I am seeing new sprouts in the rows of spinach, chard, turnips and radish in the main garden area. I checked under the boards in the trellis bed and saw what might be carrot sprouts, so I removed the boards. It’s hard to say for sure, as a lot of weeds were trying to come up under there, too.
I’m pretty sure I saw new sprouts in the cabbage and kohlrabi beds, too. I’m pretty sure I’m seeing tiny bok choy and beet seedlings through the mosquito netting, thought it’s hard to be sure. I didn’t see any this morning, but this evening, I’m sure I could see the first dwarf pea sprouts!
After I finished outside, I came in and had breakfast, then tried to go down for a nap before I planned to visit my mother, then pick up anything we needed before doing our first stock up shop, tomorrow.
It was a failure.
For some reason, both Butterscotch and Cheddar have decided that, when I lie down, they absolutely MUST cuddle my head. Aggressively. Then curling up right at my head to nap themselves.
That doesn’t count the other cats that like to settle on my hip, against my back or on either side of my legs.
*sigh*
Next time, I’ll try napping on the couch. The living room is a cat free zone.
I eventually gave up and got ready to head into town. Before I did, I noted activity notification on my bank app and checked.
My husband’s tax return, which is supposed to include my first Disability Tax Credit, came in.
It was short by about $2500.
Unfortunately, my husband still can’t log into his CRA account to see why. I’m going to have to wait until our tax prepared is back from holidays at the end of the month and phone her, because she can log in and see his account – and maybe find out why he can’t log in, himself. anymore!
My younger daughter never got her disability tax credit, either. She did her taxes herself.
Frustrating.
Anyhow.
I headed into town and realized my mother would be just starting her lunch, so I decided to go to the grocery store, first. I actually picked up some ground beef that was on sale. I haven’t seen ground beef for under $6 a pound for a long time, even with sales.
My visit with my mother was pretty good. As I was headed to her room, I spotted her in the dining room and popped in. We then went to her room for the visit.
She is so enjoying having a room – and a bathroom – to herself! She says being in the nursing home, compared to the TCU, is like night and day.
Of course, she still had things to complain about. With her medications, as usual. Apparently someone tried to give her her breakfast meds and supper meds at the same time? Then the count for her morning meds was off. She said she asked who was in charge of the medications and was told it was the pharmacy in town. I suspect the person didn’t understand what my mother was asking, but she now believes the pharmacy decides what medications she gets, at their whim. She then started going on about how the staff all think she is stupid, and everyone living there is stupid, and that’s why they are deliberately messing with their medications.
*sigh*
She had asked my brother for a radio and he’d given me one to pass on to her. I plugged it in and tried to find the station she told me the number of. There was nothing on either AM or FM (she didn’t know which is was; she doesn’t understand anything about AM or FM). Since I couldn’t pick up her station (though I could pick up others), she decided it was a bad radio and started asking me if an old radio that belonged to my husband when we were in high school – a ghetto blaster, which tells you just how old it is! – was still around. It is, but I told her, it still won’t pick up that station. I tried to explain again about things interfering with frequencies, but she decided it meant that the radio stations were the problem, for having “weak” signals.
Then I tried to show her the sliding switch that goes from off to FM then AM. She demanded “just show me what button to push”. I told her, it’s not a button. It’s a switch that slides, and showed her again; Off – FM – AM.
She got angry that my brother would give her a high tech radio that she can’t understand.
*sigh*
It was a shorter visit, since there really wasn’t much we had to talk about. Now that she is in town, I can visit her more often, anyhow. Before I left, I spent some time at the nursing station. I explained what my mother told me about the medications, and that someone tried to give her her breakfast meds and supper meds at the same time. She was startled to hear that and said she would look into it. She got out the medication binder and looked up my mother’s file, going over everything, which is basically the same that it was while she was at the TCU. She said they tried looking at my mother’s list to compare (the hand written one she makes after she counts her pills, with little diagrams), but it was in Polish, so they were trying to translate it. My mother had been promised a list of her medications and they were going to try to get it translated into Polish for her, too. I told her, my mother knows pre-WWII Polish; she would not be familiar with modern medical terms in today’s Polish!
As we were chatting, the nurse told me how so many of the staff were startled when my mother was transferred over. Many of them had cared for Baba – “grandmother” – which is what they called my aunt. My mother looks SO much like her sister did. My aunt passed away a few years ago, so for the staff to suddenly start seeing their Baba again was a bit of a shock until they found out they were sisters.
This nurse had just started working there when my father came to live there. I’ve had it confirmed that he was there for only 5 months before he passed away; I thought it was 6 months. She remembered my father, and I told her about how, when I phoned him every Sunday, he would go on and on about how great they were treating him, how well taken care of he was, and how much he liked the staff. She was so touched to hear that!
So far, my mother has been very nice to them. I hope that lasts! She has been saving the nasty comments about the staff for when we are there. 😕
It was a good chat with the nurse, and I expect we will have many more opportunities to talk now that my mother is there!
That done, I headed home, then stayed indoors to stay out of the heat. Unfortunately, it just kept getting hotter. I finally headed out at around 6:30, which is about when we hit 27C/81F.
The predicted high was 25C/77F.
We’re supposed to keep getting hotter, with the hottest day in the forecast being Friday, which they are now saying is supposed to hit 34C/93F.
The yard cats are laying in puddles all over the yard, in whatever shade they can find.
Bobert was looking adorable in the cat bed I tucked under the isolation shelter’s door box, to keep the weather out in the winter.
With the heat, I made sure to do the watering again. This time, I did watering in the food forest area.
I’m happy to say that it looks like the apple tree survived, in spite of the damage to the stem. A single branch with new leaf buds has shown up. The plum tree also has leaf buds showing up finally, but only in branches coming up just above the graft at the base. None of last year’s growth is showing buds. Neither are the mulberry trees. They survived their first winter, but it looks like they didn’t survive their second. The poor little highbush cranberry have free leaves showing, but they are still remarkably tiny, including the one that the deer did NOT nibble one. The silver buffalo berry bushes, which I don’t bother watering because there are too many, had been covered with what I thought were leave buds. It turns out they were not leaf buds, but flower buds! The leaf buds are showing up now. The sea buckthorn also have leaf buds unfurling.
After the watering was done, I started working on the larger of the two East yard beds that had not been prepped in the fall.
I first removed the two lengths of twine that went around the sides. Those were there to keep anything wrapped around the box frame from flapping in the wind too much, but they were in the way for working in the bed. I considered taking the box frame off entirely, but decided it wasn’t necessary and worked around it.
In the second picture, you can see the cleaned up bed. Unfortunately, while I was leveling the cleared soil with the hoe, I caught the line running across that helped keep the sides from bowing outwards at the joins. The wood is rotting and the screw eye got pulled right out!
Honestly, I’m surprised these beds have lasted as long as they have. I used lumber I found in the barn that had been sitting there for probably at least a decade before I found them. They were not in particularly good shape, but they were the best I could find for the job. I expected them to last about 3 years, maybe, and they’ve lasted twice that by now.
Weeding the bed didn’t really take that much, except that I found a remarkable amount of tree roots! Given where this bed is located, they would not be from the elm tree, but from the nearby cherry bushes.
I look forward to when we can make these into high raised beds. These beds are about a foot high, but it was still really painful to be bending to work in it.
Once the bed was clear, I took some plastic that was rolled up and set aside from previous uses in these beds and covered the soil to protect it from cats, until we can plant in it. I’m looking to transplant tomatoes into this bed. We have four varieties to transplant, and couple probably fit three varieties in this bed. We don’t have a lot of each variety.
The pieces of wood frame on the left of the first photo are on the 4′ square bed that also needs to be done. By the time I finished the longer bed, I was too hot and in too much pain to do that one. Aside from weeding it – and that one has been infected by creeping Charlie – I will be adding the additional wood frame pieces to make it a bit higher, and can then add more soil into it. I’m planning to put the eggplant in here. It’s a small enough bed that I can add plastic walls around it, to protect them from high winds and create a semi-greenhouse around them.
I don’t know how much I’ll be able to get done over the next few days. I’ll be doing our city stock up trips and a vet trip in between. Shopping always drains me, so it will depend on how much energy I have left – and what my pain levels are at. At the very least, I plan to water everything in the morning, and again in the evening, because of the heat.
Once the city trips are done, I expect to be able to start the direct sowing, and then hopefully start transplanting soon after. Somewhere in there, I’ll be uncovering and reclaiming the area to plant our corn in.
Getting that raised bed at the chain link fence done has taken way too long!
I’ll get to that in a moment.
My brother and SIL have been out working on their caravan, and whatever else my brother was able to do outside as the weather allowed, this weekend and had invited me to join them for breakfast this morning. I wasn’t able to join them last time, but was happy to do be able to join them today. They took me to the single restaurant in our little hamlet. The last time I was there was two owners ago!
Before that, I was outside doing my usual morning rounds.
There are so many tulip flower buds, with one early tulip just starting to open up.
When it came close to the time we were going to meet up, I headed out to open the gate, then took advantage of the time waiting to check the fence line and see what else needs doing. I’m going to have to head through the area with loppers again, and trim away all the poplar that’s trying to grow back, among other things. Not a priority right now, though.
When I got back to the gate I saw they had parked in front of the house and were waiting for me there! 😄
I closed the gate behind their car after they drove through which, with all the rain we’ve had recently, was rather muddy. Which got us to talking about how badly that driveway needs gravel! My brother has his front end loader here, but it still won’t run, and he hasn’t figured out why, yet. Not that he’s had much opportunity to troubleshoot the beast.
We talked about the two trees threatening the house that will be coming down – when the arborists arrive will depend on the weather. It will be a while longer before the saturated ground is dry enough to hold the weight of their equipment.
It was great to catch up with them, and compare notes on things like Mom and our vandal, while enjoying a lovely breakfast. I really like what the new owners have done with the place. It’ s longer a bar with a small restaurant on one side, but a pub and family restaurant. Which is what the last owners had converted it to, but I never saw what changes they did. We did order take out from them a couple of times, but could pick our orders up without ever going all the way into the restaurant, so I never saw what they’d done with it.
After breakfast, they dropped me off at the gate, then headed out again to a hardware store. They were back before I was ready to head outside. I needed to get that raised bed at the chain link fence finished.
The walls are done, but it needed some preparation before the soil could be returned.
In the first image above, I’ve taken straw and stuffed it into all the gaps I could find in the front wall, as well as tucking some against the end walls, to prevent soil from falling in or through the walls.
In the second image, I’ve covered the bottom and sides with two layers of carboard. Then, using the fence to steady myself, I walked across the length of it, tromping the cardboard down as much as I could.
In the last image, I had started to saturate the cardboard. I went it down, tromped on it again, then repeated the process several more times while working on the next stage.
I started by using a hoe to spread the pile out – and remove as many cat turds as I could find. The pile of soil was absolutely saturated and sticky like glue! I got it spread out though, and then scattered Sulphur granules over it. I then mixed it in with a hoe, and then by lifting the tarp to turn the soil over itself, from all sides.
Did I mention it was saturated?
Not only did that make it sticky, but heavy. Shockingly heavy!
Once mixed, I shoveled the soil into the wheelbarrow and started adding it into the raised bed. The soil was so sticky, I actually had to stop and scrape it off the blade of the shovel, because it was so coated, it was hard to push it into the pile of soil, and there wasn’t much room for it to pick up more soil, either!
The first thing I did was spread out a couple of wheelbarrow loads on the carboard, pushing it up against the sides so that the soil would hold the cardboard against the walls, and no soil would fall between the cardboard and the straw filled walls. It wasn’t as much of a concern on the back wall, since that was in protected by a layer of vinyl. You can see that in the first image.
Then, FINALLY, I could dump in the rest of the soil and spread it out as evenly as I could. Which you can see in the second image.
At this point, I couldn’t really stop for a break or anything like that. Even as I was refilling the bed, I was chasing cats out that were determined to use it as a litter box. After I leveled the last of the soil, I turned to get something, turned back, and there was another cat, starting to dig in the soil!!! It was Flopsy, so not a feral. He just started at me while I tried to shoo him away and didn’t run off until I was practically on top of him!
The bed needed to be protected right away.
For this year, the supports will be temporary, and I debated whether to use robs from the hoop kits, or some of the Pex pipe hoops I have. In the end, I decided on a hoop kit, because I wanted to use the clips, and on the new one because it had more rods left.
My original plan had been to use the pairs of taller vertical supports to secure the hoops to. Which I could have done, though this bed is so much narrower, I wouldn’t have wanted to bend the rods quite that much. However, it occurred to me that, for this bed, I don’t actually want hoops. Once those elm seed start dropping, they would gather at the back of the raised bed, along the chain link fence, and would get under that way. Also, the cats will climb on top and lie on it, and I would prefer to avoid that completely.
So I only attached the rods – connecting three rods together for each length – to the front supports, using little zip ties to hold them securely. The top of the rods were curved into the chain link fence, near the top.
You can see the rods in position in the first image above.
In the past, we tried protecting this bed with mosquito netting, and I still have the netting that was used, rolled up and waiting. The mosquito netting ended up acting like a sail in the high winds, with the edge pinned to the ground blowing loose constantly, and the whole thing flapping. So I decided to use the black netting we still have on the roll. I unrolled it on the other side of the chain link fence, which you can see in the next photo, so get the length I needed before cutting it.
Then came the hard part. This netting is folded into thirds on the roll. I needed it folded in half. After cutting the length I needed, I dragged it over to an open part in the yard and spread it out flat, with rocks to hold it in place at the corners, because it was fairly windy.
Which is about when my brother and SIL drove by on their way home, so we chatted for a bit before they headed out.
Then I messaged my daughters for help, and my older daughter !!!!! came out. A testament to how much better she is feeling!
Between the two of us, we got the net folded in half length wise, then straightened it out as best we could in the wind. Then we very carefully moved it into position, with the salvage ends set to go over the chain link fence, and the folded edge to the ground. This netting catches on EVERYTHING, so it took some doing to get it in position and straightened out as smooth and tight as we could. then I draped the salvage ends over the chain link fence at my end – at this point, the “catches on everything” was a help – and slowly made my way down the fence, pulling the netting over until I got to my daughter’s end.
At that point, I could finish off the rest myself.
The first thing to do was use ground staples to secure the folded edge to the ground at the base of each longer vertical supports the hoop rods were attached to. I started from the middle and working to the ends, pulling the netting tight between each support along the way. Once the bottom was secured, I went outside the chain link fence, lifting and pulling the netting to get it as snug as I could. I wanted as little slack as possible in between the hoop rods.
Then I went back and got the clips. Once again, starting from the middle and working my way out, I pulled the netting up and snug before clipping it to the middle rods, just above the connector. Then I went on the other side of the fence to lift and tighten the netting over the fence again. I repeated the clipping process again, this time adding clips to the next higher rod, above the connector.
Once the netting was secured to the rods, I grabbed some more ground staples and went back to the outside of the fence. I lifted and tightened the netting over the fence one more time, this time using the ground staples, woven around the chain link, to secure the salvage edges in place.
Last of all, I worked on the ends, rolling and tucking the netting until it was closed off, using ground staples to secure the bottoms to the ground, and the garden wire to secure the rest to the chain link fence.
You can see the finished product in the last photo. It’s very hard to see the clips.
No cats are getting in there. No wind is going to blow it loose. With the netting folded in half, no elm seeds should get through. Plus, with the netting set up the way it is, it can stay there for most, if not all, of the growing season, depending on what gets planted there. To access the garden bed, I can lift the ground staples and, if necessary, remove the lower clips to raise the netting as high as I need.
It’s done.
It’s finally done!
Our temperatures are expected to go from one extreme to the other. The colder nights in the long range forecast into June are no longer expected to get as cold.
Which means I can start getting my transplants out.
I’m not hardening off this time. I just don’t have the cat free space to do it, without the portable greenhouse. I will be using the water bottle collars as protection for some things. For other, larger, transplants, I’ll figure something else out. The onions are the one thing that won’t need any of that, and they need to be transplanted so badly! The snail roll thing has been working a bit too well, in that respect. 😄
I need to get as much as possible done over the next two days, because after that I just won’t be home much. Wednesday is our first stop up shopping day. Thursday, I’ll be taking cats to the vet again, which means staying in the smaller city until it’s time to go home, unless I’m picking up chicks that day. I still haven’t gotten a call about those, so I’m guessing not. Then Friday is our second stock up shop. I will finally be home long enough to work in the garden more by the weekend, though somewhere in there I need to get a visit in with my mother. My brother left me with a couple of things for her that she wanted that I want to drop off, too.
Oh, and I still need to put together my May garden tour video. I took the video clips but just haven’t had a chance to sit down and put them together and edit them. I hoped to do it tonight, but it’s already coming up on 9am, and I am tired enough to go to bed pretty much as soon as I’m done writing this!
It feels so good to finally get this done!!!
It feels so good to finally have the weather we need to get outside stuff done again.
The Re-Farmer 