For a while now, I’ve been talking about our issues with the new portable greenhouse. It gets nice and warm during the day, which would be ideal for our seedling trays, but the temperatures drop right down during the night. Yesterday, for example, the outside temperature reached 17C/63F, and the thermometer in the greenhouse, which “only” goes to 50C/155F, was off the scale. Likely warmer than 60C/140F (my thermometer that is marked up to 60C is currently being used to monitor the covered bed in the old kitchen garden).
Last night, we dropped to 0C/32F. While I was doing my morning rounds, it was about 1C/34F. By the time I got to tending the greenhouse, that’s what thermometer was reading in there. The basement may be cold, but it doesn’t drop below 10C/50F during the night. It doesn’t go above 12C/54F unless we have the heater going, but at least things are not at risk of freezing.
Today, I rummaged around and dug out a black garbage can that was being used to store some odds and sots. I set it up in the greenhouse, got a garden hose hooked up and one of my daughters was kind enough to turn on the shut off valve in the basement for me, so I could fill the garbage can.
Thankfully, the garbage can doesn’t seem to have any cracks or leaks anywhere. It’s been outdoors for many years, even before we moved out here.
There is no lid, so I had to figure out what to use to cover it, just in case a critter got into the greenhouse. At first, I was going to make do with an indoor/outdoor floor mat, but then I spotted a piece of rigid insulation that looked large enough. That worked out much better.
While there is no wind in there to blow it off, I still put a weight on it, just in case. Granted, if a critter does get in and jumps up there, it would probably still knock it off, but it is more likely to be scared away, than fall in.
The water in the black plastic bin will heat up during the day, creating a heat sink that will slowly release that heat during the night. Once we do finally have trays in there, it will serve a dual purpose. There will be warm water that can be used to water the plants.
Going in and out of the greenhouse and standing there while monitoring the water level was enough to increase the temperature by almost 2 degrees before I was done. If that’s all it takes to start warming things up, the heat sink should work quite well.
It should be interesting to see what the thermometer says in the morning. Our overnight low is supposed to be 0C/32F again, but we’re supposed to get a mix of rain and snow in the wee hours. Tomorrow night we’re supposed to drop to -2C/28F, then have lows above freezing until Friday, when we’re supposed to drop to -4C/25F overnight.
Today’s high is supposed to be only 6C/43F with overcast skies. We definitely won’t be hitting 50C/122F or higher in there, today! However, we should still get temperatures of at least 20C/68, which should start getting that water warmed up nicely.
We had such a gorgeous day today! I finally got to the winter sown beds to remove the mulch, and even got to work on some beds that were not pre sown. I got enough done that I went ahead and recorded some video, instead. I hope you like it!
Temperatures are going to drop over the next few days before getting back into the double digits (Celsius, of course), but only for a short time. We’re supposed to be fluctuating quite a bit over the next couple of weeks. We’re still supposed to stay above freezing for the highs, at least, but a few nights are dipping below freezing. I’ll continue to monitor the temperatures in the portable greenhouse. It might still be a while before we can safely put trays in there and leave them overnight. Once we bring the trays out of the basement, they’re not going back!
I was really happy with the covered bed in the old kitchen garden. I had to be SO careful removing that mulch. There were a lot of seedlings visible. It’s too early to tell what they were. I’m hoping they survived the disturbance! The cover should protect them enough, now that the mulch is off. Especially considering there were still patches of frozen soil in there! I was especially happy when I uncovered the garlic bed. There were so many garlic tips visible! All blanched because of the mulch, but they will soon turn properly green, now that they’re exposed to sunlight. I’ll be watching all the winter sown beds closely for the next while, as a light mulch will need to be added, once the seedlings are large enough.
If felt so good to finally do some real work in the garden!
The first (rather crappy) image above is of our very first sweet pepper seedling! I was starting to wonder if they were going to make it or not.
The pre-germinated Spoon tomatoes (in the next image), however, are growing like gangbusters! Almost every cell has at least one seedling emerging. Of the four varieties, these ones have been growing the fastest, and I’m quite impressed with them.
While I was out today, I picked up a new dial type thermometer for the portable greenhouse. With the old one showing temperatures like 50C/122F, and I thought for sure there was something wrong with it, since it didn’t feel anywhere near that got while I was in the greenhouse.
It looks like I was wrong!
In the next photo, you can see old and new thermometers, next to each other. The new one is on the right, and had been in there for maybe 10 or 15 minutes.
This time, however, it did actually feel very hot in there. Not sure why it didn’t, last time!
The last image is of our chitting potatoes. When I’ve done this in the past, I’ve laid them out on cardboard egg trays, cut side down to dry off. Recently, I watched and MI Gardener video on chitting potatoes, and he was laying them down on wood shavings to absorb the moisture. With I think would work better than the egg cartons. So this time, I used some older drain trays from seed starting kits – they have cracks in them and can’t hold water anymore, so they won’t be used for seed starting anymore. I put a layer of the stove pellets we use for litter on the bottom. As they absorb moisture, the pellets will swell up and start breaking apart into sawdust. I am thinking that will do a very good job of absorbing moisture so the cut surfaces will try off and “heal” better.
In the past, I set the trays of chitting potatoes up on our chest freezer in the old kitchen, which gets in the way of actually using the freezer. They are supposed to be set in warmth and light, so I moved things around and set them under the light next to the seedling tray with the warming mat. I had to lay them crosswise to fit, so half the potatoes weren’t getting as much light. That was solved by shifting the winter squash tray on the shelf above, so now the shop like that shine through the openings in the shelf. That should work fine, and the trays can be rotated, if necessary.
I checked on the pre-germinating seeds while I was at it. Still no sign of radicals.
As for the potatoes, I honestly don’t know where I’ll be planting them this year. They can be planted before the last frost date, though. I am expecting to plant these in one of the main garden area beds, and it will just depend on which one I can get ready yet. We hit 15C/59F today, and tomorrow we’re supposed to reach 17C/63F. I’m rather hoping that the snow covering the beds in the main garden area will finally melt away! Maybe then, I can lay some plastic down over some beds to help them thaw out faster.
I’m itching to get started on a lot of clean up out there, but some areas are just too muddy, while others are still covered in snow! At the very least, though, I should be able to start removing mulch from the winter sown beds that no longer have snow on them. Somewhere along the lines, I’ll figure out where the potatoes will go!
I couldn’t see any fresh growth on the sea buckthorn, mulberry or Liberty apple tree, but they all seem to have survived the winter. There’s still too much snow covering the ground to know if the snow crocuses or grape hyacinth are starting to come up. The saffron crocuses seem to be okay – something was digging around them and in the mulch around the Liberty apply tree, and some of the saffron crocuses got buried. Whatever did the digging – likely a skunk – clearly wasn’t after the bulbs, but probably found some insects or grubs to snack on. I haven’t seen any sign of tulips, yet. This section is now free of snow, so we should be seeing them pop through the mulch soon enough.
There were plenty of hungry kitties when I did the morning feeding, and some of them were still hanging around, looking for pets, as I was heading back to the house.
She really likes to lick my hands. The poor thing’s fur is so badly matted, and there are even burrs now stuck in her tail. At least she is socialized enough that, once things are warm enough, we should be able to use the new clippers to cut them off. Some of the other puffy cats, like Patience, are friendly, but getting any burrs or mats cut out might be too much for them.
Oh, dear. It just occurred to me.
I didn’t see Adam this morning. At all.
Which means she probably found some hiding place in the outer yard to have her litter. It would have been good if she’d used the sun room, but she doesn’t really go in there often at all. Even the cat house would have been good but, while there are cat beds at the windows in there, we had to take out the remains of boxes that had been in there, so there are no longer any more enclosed “nests” in that mamas have used in the past. Any time a cat has had a litter in there, though, they tended to disappear within days. I think it’s just too busy and active with other cats and they are quick to move their babies elsewhere.
If all goes well, I might be meeting up with the Cat Lady tomorrow. She has a whole bunch of wet cat food donations for us, and she said something about having more cat beds as well. We shall see. Tomorrow is looking to be a really nice day, too. Today’s high is supposed to be 8C/46F, but we’re supposed to reach highs of 16C/61F over the next two days! Even the overnight lows are supposed to stay above freezing for those two nights. We might be able to start removing the mulch from some of the winter sown beds, so the soil beneath can thaw out faster. If the long range forecast is to be trusted, we might even be able to sow cold tolerant things early. I’ll have to go through my bin of seeds for direct sowing and go through the most cold tolerant varieties to decide while ones can be planted first. At the very least, the peas will be able to go in, and we have two varieties of sugar snaps, and one variety of shelling peas we can plant as soon as the soil is workable. Those would be going into the main garden beds, though, and those are still covered in snow.
Okay, so working on that pipe is not going to happen today. Pain levels are on the upswing and I know if I try to work on it now, I’ll mess myself up for days.
So, instead, I worked on garden stuff!
The tomato seeds were all showing radicals, with some even starting to show seed leaves. It was time to get them into the seed starting mix.
The first image has the Black Beauty on the left, Spoon tomatoes on the right. Those Spoon tomatoes were really doing well! It’s hard to see, but all the Black Beauty seeds had radicals showing.
The next image has the Sub Arctic Plenty on the right. As a short season variety, it’s no surprise that they germinated so quickly. On the left are the Chocolate Cherry. I was a bit surprised that these were the slowest to germinate. I would have expected the Black Beauty to take the longest, considering they have the longest growing season needed.
I had to moisten more seed starter mix for this job, and I made sure to use hot water for that. By the time the cells were filled and the seeds were being transferred out of their trays, the damp mix was still warm. Warmer than the damp paper towels the seeds were on. Now they’re in the tray along with the Turkish Orange eggplant (there’s 6 visible seedlings there), the luffa (all three have finally emerged) and sweet bell pepper mix (no sign of any of those, yet). The bottom of the tray got warm water, too – I wanted to make sure those square peat pots had plenty of moisture to absorb, so they don’t try out the seed starting mix.
That done, I went through my next batch of seeds and decided to go for it with the melons. The White Scallop seeds were set aside for now, as they can wait until May to be done. I got the containers all prepped and labeled ahead of time, and even got some markers labeled for when it’s time to put them into seed starting mix.
For the watermelon, I used my older Cream of Saskatchewan and Kaho seeds. The Sarah’s Choice melon seeds are also older, but the Green Flesh Honeydew packet is new seeds.
Then there are the Zucca melons. Which are the giants. These seeds, which I made a point of scarifying by scraping their edges with a utility knife, are also older seeds, so I made a point of choosing the plumpest, most solid feeling seeds. Which could have been any of them, really. They were in quite good shape. I started 4 seeds. These are the ones that started out so well last year, only to be decimated by slugs, so any transplants we get out of these are going to require extra protection.
Four seeds each was what I was shooting for; we over did it with melons last year, and I want to cut back. With the Cream of Saskatchewan, there were only 5 seeds left in the pack, so I set them all out. With the Kaho watermelon, there were only 3 seeds left in the pack, so I guess that balances things out!
They all got covered with dampened paper towel, and are now set up on top of the aquarium light fixture. At this stage, they don’t really need light, but they do need warmth. I didn’t want to set up the other heat mat yet, and the light fixture is ever so slightly warm. Not as warm as a heat mat, but warm enough. Once they germinate and get transferred into trays, they’ll get a heat mat. It should be interesting to see how many germinate. Especially with the older seeds.
After this, the next things we might start indoors are some herbs and a few back-up White Scallop squash. Those can be started towards the end of April or beginning of May. I’m hoping we’ll be able to start using the portable greenhouse at around the same time. It really depends on those overnight temperatures inside the greenhouse, as we have no way to heat it. We won’t have the option to use the sun room this year, as the space is pretty much all set up for the cats now!
Ah, well. We’ll figure it out.
It felt good to be able to do some garden related stuff on such a dreary day.
No one was available to go my mother’s med assist this morning.
Hmmm…
I was already planning to go to town today, but not for a few more hours. Instead, I arranged with the girls to take are of feeding and watering the cats outside, while I quickly took my meds, got dressed, grabbed our empty water jugs (the main reason I was going to town today) and headed out to my mothers. Since I had three water jugs to take along, my older daughter came down to help me with the doors before feeding the outside cats. She wasn’t impressed that I got another call to cover a no-show (nothing was said about why, this time, and I didn’t ask). She asked if the med assists were being done by volunteers, or if my mother was paying for the service. I told her, it’s covered by our health care system, so they are being paid. My mother has a list of names for all the home care aids she can expect to see. there are ten names on that list. It does seem odd that, with so many aids just for the scheduled route my mother is on (there would be many others), there isn’t someone who can cover when one can’t do the scheduled rounds.
Ah, well. It is what it is. At least the weather is better!
I did remember to phone my mother, first, to let her know I was on the way!
When I got there, my mother was not at all impressed. She’s angry that I have to drive aaaaall that way (it’s about 20-25 minutes of driving time, so not that bad) to do her meds. At least she didn’t start yelling about how we need to get rid of the lock box because she can do her meds herself.
She did, however, get upset over how I was taking the meds out of the bubble pack, and where the lock box was sitting, and where I put the note pad…
She began telling me how the home care aids would pop the pills out of the bubble packs “in the air” (meaning, not over the table, but right into their hands), and pills would go flying all over. Which may have happened a couple of times but, as far as I know, this was before she went to the hospital. It’s why I brought over the tiny dish so the meds could be put into it and double checked.
There was a different reason I was having issues with the bubble pack, though. I was opening the last bubble in this particular pack – and discovered it had been taped shut. I mentioned the tape and my mother said one of the aids did it because she had opened up the wrong day’s bubble.
I got the pills into the little bowl, then checked on the printout inside the cover of the bubble pack to count how many there supposed to be for her morning medications.
One was missing.
A few days ago, while digging for the lab work requisition form, I found a loose pill on the bottom of the lock box.
Now we know where it came from.
When the next aid came to do the med assist saw the pill and my note, she got a tiny envelope for it, labelled it and put it back in the lock box, so I was able to open that up and include it with the rest of the pills Mom was to take this morning.
I then made out a detailed note about when my mother got her medications, what I found and what I did, including putting a new bubble pack into the lock box.
My mother also has an inhaler to take morning and night and I asked her about it, but she said she hasn’t really been taking it. It was a test to see if it would help any with her breathing issues, and it made no difference that she could tell. So we skipped that.
Since I was there anyhow, I did some other stuff for her. The aids are supposed to have extra time booked to help my mother with things like a meal assist (she usually has food ready before they arrive). Some they ask if she needs anything done. Some of them never do. For her morning visit, this includes emptying the bucket in her commode, but they’re also supposed to be available to help her get dressed if she needs it.
I stayed with her to visit for a bit longer, basically waiting until the pharmacy in town opened at 9am, so I could phone them. When my mother started to complain again about my coming out – she is convinced the aids are cancelling simply because they don’t want to do their jobs – I told her that my being able to come out, and having a reliable vehicle to do it, is a blessing. That seemed to take her aback a bit, and I think she liked the idea of thinking of it that way.
After saying my goodbyes to my mother, I spent some time in the truck to update my family and my siblings before calling the pharmacy. With the meds my husband takes, I wasn’t sure they’d even be ready so quickly; he’d called in his refills just yesterday. As we were talking, she asked my time frame, so I told her where I was (which gave her an idea of how long it would take) and why. We deal with this particular pharmacist often enough that she remembers our names and most of my husband’s medications. When I mentioned that there was no one to do my mother’s med assist this morning, she completely understood. They had been in the same situation with her own mother – they even had a lock box. She said they often had home care cancelling visits for them, too. Being in another town, they had their own home care office and staff, but the issue was exactly the same. Last minute cancellations that the family had to cover, frequently. It seems to be a pretty universal problem, and not just in our province.
As for my husband’s refills, they wouldn’t be able to have them ready today, so that’s still scheduled for delivery in a couple of days. Which is fine. I still needed to make the drive to town. I just wasn’t going to go to the pharmacy as well.
Once in town, I got the water jugs refilled. I have a “frequent buyer” list where, after getting 10 refills, I get one free, so one of my refills was free today.
While there, I picked up a couple of things for home, as well as things for our Easter basket. I think we have everything we want to put in it, this year, except for a small ham, which we might simply skip this year.
That done, it was just a quick stop for fuel before heading home. After unloading the truck to my daughter in the house, I left her to put things away while I parked the truck and closed up the gate. I had noticed the plastic on the cover over the raised bed in the old kitchen garden had some gabs fluttering in the wind, so I got the clear duct tape to secure it more.
Before finishing up and heading inside, I spotted Brussel with her babies and decided to give her a squeeze treat. She was really nervous today, though.
I found myself wondering if other cats had been bothering her and her babies – or maybe a skunk or a raccoon! In the two videos above, you can see how agitated she was.
Once I started giving her the squeeze treat, she was right in there – still agitated and somewhat aggressive, but very quick to start eating the treat! When I had to move my hand out so I could use my other hand to squeeze out what was left in the tube, she actually snarled at me and attacked my hand, trying to pull it back! I ended up squeezing the remaining paste onto my fingers (it didn’t start out on purpose!) and let her lick the treat off. She was okay with that, even as she continued to snarl at me.
It should be interesting to see if she has calmed down any, when I do the evening feeding.
I’m glad I was able to go into town for errands today, though. As I write this, we’ve reached our expected high of 6C/43F We’re actually supposed to stay above freezing overnight, but in the wee hours, we’re supposed to start getting a combination of rain and snow, which is supposed to continue through tomorrow. Tomorrow’s high is supposed to be only 2C/36F, but if the long range forecast is at all accurate, that’s going to be the coldest high we have from now on. We’re even expected to reach 15C/59F in a few days! Things are supposed to cool down again, and we’re even supposed to get more mixed rain and snow later in the month, but daytime highs are no longer expected to dip below freezing.
Not including wind chill. That’s a whole other animal!
I will continue to monitor the temperatures inside the greenhouse. While it gets colder overnight, it still maintains at least some warmth. I might decide to try starting seeds inside there, rather than in the basement, when it’s time to start the next batch.
As it is now, I am expecting to start potting up the pre-germinated tomato seeds tomorrow. I could do some tonight, but I want to be able to do all of them at once. Maybe not all 4 varieties, but at least all the seeds in a couple of varieties, just because of space issues.
With how chilly it is in the basement, they should handle the cooler night time temperatures in the greenhouse fairly well! My younger daughter has made a point of working on things while in the basement, so that the heater can be left running. She’d been down there for a couple of hours when I joined her for a bit, and the thermometer was still at 12C/54F. Meanwhile, the thermometer in the greenhouse was reading 19C/66F!
With the combination of rain and snow we’re getting tomorrow, I’m not going to uncover the raised bed but, by the day after, it should be thawed enough that we can take the mulch off the winter sown seeds.
I’m really looking forward to seeing what manages to germinate.
In the first image of the slideshow above, you can see a very distinct bend in the packaging!
Thankfully, in the next two images, you can see that the bulbs were well protected. The angled packaging the bulbs were taped into is very solid. In fact, I will be keeping it, as it will probably come in handy for something!
In the next photo, you can see the bulbs next to the fixture laying upside down on the table.
Not that there is a cover over the bulbs.
That was my first problem.
When we got the fixture, years ago, and assembled it, we were never able to get that cover completely on, so about a quarter inch of it was sticking past the end of the fixture, which you can see in the next photo.
Not a lot to grab on to, but it shouldn’t have needed any at all.
After removing the legs at that end, I fought with that thing for at least half an hour. I ran a utility knife blade between the cover and the tracks. I used WD40. I even found an angled tool that I used to try and lever it from the far end. Nothing worked.
I figured if I had some pliers or something to grip the bit sticking out, that might help. After looking around the basement, I found our old pair of vice grips.
Perfect!
I just needed to close the jaws more and…
…
…close the jaws…
…
…turn the adjustment screw to close the jaws…
(apply WD40 liberally)
Just turn that adjustment screw…
Nothing. It would not move.
Well, I’ve got a handy vice at the table. I’ll just get the vice to hold the adjustment screw and I should be able to spin the vice grips to tighten and loosen the jaws.
Yes. I put vice grips into a vice.
I made that vice as tight as I could. Tight enough that it was actually starting to damage the grip texture on the adjustment screw. I still ended up spinning the screw in the vice instead of the screw itself moving.
Okay, that wasn’t going to happen.
Well, if I found something thick enough, I could put that with the bit of cover sticking out and grip both. It just needed to be at least thick enough for the vice grips to close onto it. Maybe some wadded up paper towel.
Nope.
I tried a piece of leftover wood that almost worked. It was thick enough, but too wide for the vice grips to reach the bit of cover I was trying to grab.
More searching around the basement.
I ended up finding a small scrap of wood in the garbage can I have just for wood, sawdust and other burnables. It was uneven on one side, but that didn’t matter as much. I was finally able to grip the edge of the cover and pull on it.
It took several tries, getting it to move, little by little, before it finally came loose, and I could pull it out without the vice grips.
Once it was clear, I wiped it down along the edges, partly to get the excess WD40 off, but also to wipe off whatever was making it stick. There really wasn’t anything, so I used a utility knife in the track it slid into, to scrap what anything that might have been in there. There were two spots, one on each side, that seems to have something stuck in the track. One spot seemed to be plastic; when we got the fixture, the cover had a protective layer of plastic on it, and not all of it seems to have come off. The spot on the other side might have had some plastic in it, too, but there may also have been some mineral build up from when this was set above the big aquarium. The hinges on the glass covered broke, which is why we got a fixture with legs at each end, in the first place. The other one sat right on top of the glass covers.
So, that was finally off and the tracks cleared up.
I did not put it back on again.
Okay! The bulbs are uncovered. I just needed to rotate the bulbs to removed them.
Just… rotate those bulbs.
Rotate.
Is there a trick to this?
They simply would not rotate, and there was very little room to work with.
Looking closely at the connectors, I could see some black plastic that appeared to be some sort of lock? But how would I move those so the bulbs could be rotated?
I never did find out.
While fiddling with them at one end, I ended up breaking off one half of the black plastic.
At which point, I was able to rotate the bulb. The other end rotated fine; the black plastic rotated with the bulb. Which didn’t happen at the end I was working on.
Okay, that’s out, time to try the second one.
Once again, it would NOT rotate – until half the black plastic piece broke off!
After that, it rotated just fine.
*sigh*
No matter. I could now install the new bulbs. They fit just fine, and even rotated fairly easily into position.
*sigh*
Then I plugged it in to test it out.
I even remembered to flip the fixture onto its side, so I wouldn’t blind myself.
It worked!!! Yay!
It only took me almost an hour to do something that should only have taken a few minutes!
That finally done, I got it set up. I decided to take the other fixture out completely, and that’s now stored under the work table. The light with the new bulbs was set up, with bricks removed to make it lower. The shelve section I’d brought out earlier was set up over the whole thing. The tray with the winter squash was moved off the heat mat and is now under the shop light. That allowed me to remove one of the heat mats and center the tray with the eggplant, peppers, luffa and pre-germinating tomato seeds onto the other heat mat.
You can sort of see the new set up in the last photo. Instagram wouldn’t show the whole image, so the new light fixture looks like another surface over the seed pots.
This light fixture does put off some heat. When we were still allowing the cats in the living room while we had seeds started, we would sometimes see Fenrir, in particular, sitting on the light fixture, keeping warm. It isn’t much, but that will provide at least a bit of warmth to the winter squash tray above.
I had the heater running the entire time I was working on this, and it didn’t seem to make much difference to the room at all.
So that turned out to be a much bigger job than expected, but we now have more light for the seedlings.
If it weren’t for the temperature down there, the basement would actually be an excellent place to set up a plant room. Ah, well. We make do with what we can!
Meanwhile, I peaked at the tomato seeds, and I think I could actually see radical emerging on a couple of them! I’ll check again tonight, before I shut the lights down. If I really was seeing radicals, that would sure have been fast – they were set out to germinate only yesterday!
What I was really wanting to do what get the heater going in the basement for a while, and heaters aren’t supposed to be left unattended. I’m not one to just hand around watching videos on my phone, my hands are too messed up to do my usual things, like crochet, and my eyes are too messed up to read, so…
Tomatoes it is!
Towards the end of the video, I included pictures I took of the thermometer in the portable greenhouse today. I was really impressed!
While I was starting my morning rounds, it was about -6C/21F shortly after 8:30am outside. At that time of day, it is just starting to get out of the morning shade. The thermometer inside was about -2C/28F or so.
When I checked again before going inside, shortly before 9am, the outside temperature was much the same, but the thermometer had already warmed up 4 degrees to 2C/39F.
I came out in in the afternoon and, at roughly 1:15pm, it was about 27C/81F in there. By about 4:10pm, it had warmed up to about 38C/100F in there! At least, that’s what the thermometer read. It didn’t feel anywhere near that hot to me.
This would be a good place for a high/low thermometer!
On a completely different topic, I have potential good news.
I was able to get some photos and short video of Brussel and her babies that I sent to the cat lady, joking that if she sent them to her circle, maybe someone might be interested in adopting a kitten in 6 or 7 weeks.
Much to my shock, she responded almost right away, saying someone was interested in the little calico!
I won’t be holding my breath on that, considering how many times people have backed out at the last minute, but gosh, it would be awesome if the babies could be adopted out right away! There is some progress in socializing Brussel, too – I was actually able to sneak a pet as she was walking past me and she actually stopped and let me pet her more!
In other cat news, there’s potential good news about Button. The Cat Lady and her family have adopted him permanently and, while he started growing again and is at normal size now, after being treated for worms three times (!!!), he also became both blind and deaf. His eyes were permanently dilated. Well, they’ve taken him to a cat eye specialist, and they think it might be a hereditary type of glaucoma. He’s now getting treatment for it. She sent me a photo, and his pupils are almost normal again – you can see his electric blue irises again. It would be nice if he could regain at least some of his vision!
My main goal was to get the raised bed cover in the old kitchen garden covered with plastic to create a cat proof space and greenhouse conditions over the rectangular bed. Not only we were able to get that done, but my daughter and I got the portable greenhouse I got on clearance a while back, set up too.
Of course, things didn’t go as expected, but nothing too extremely off.
With the raised bed cover, I had to bring over a couple of cinder blocks to support the small log I was using to weigh down the plastic at one end. That required chopping the end of the sump pump hose free of the ice, so it could be moved and not be under a cinder block. I’m actually glad that it needed to be done. So far, there hasn’t been enough seepage for the sump pump to be triggered, but the water level in the reservoir is slowly increasing. With the end of the hose completely encased in ice, if it did get triggered, it would not have been able to drain. The end of the hose is still filled with ice but, now that the black plastic hose it out and exposed to the sunlight, that will melt away rather quickly.
For now, the sides of the cover are weighted down with various things but eventually, I’d like to try something different to secure the plastic over the cover. I’ll have to think on that, first, and see what materials we have that I can use.
Then there was the little portable greenhouse.
The spot I wanted to set it up, as it was the most sheltered from the wind, while still getting lots of sun, had a pile of snow from clearing a path in the way. The eavestrough extension hose was also partially buried under there, which means the snow that melted off our entry roof drained under the pile of snow.
Once the snow was cleared off, my daughter and I took turns with an ax, chopping the ice away and shoveling it clear.
In the end, though, we couldn’t use the spot. Once the frame was assembled, we tried to find a good space to set it, but everything was just too uneven. The most level ground we could find was behind the kibble house, and even there, we had to set some scrap pieces of rigid insulation under one side to level it out.
Once we worked that out, we put the cover on. It gets tied to the frame on the inside, which my daughter did while I was on the outside, holding the cover in place. For the bottom ties, we had to tilt the entire thing so my daughter could reach the corners.
As careful as we were, we did end up with a couple of tears in the cover. One, I was able to use clear duct tape to secure together again. The other was right along a zipper in the doorway, so the tape isn’t going to work there. Ah, well. I don’t expect this to last more than a couple of years. The cover, I mean. I expect the frame to last longer.
Once the cover was tied down and the frame back in position, we used the ties and tent pegs that came with the package to secure it to the ground. The metal tent pegs were pretty wimpy, but three of them did the job. At the fourth corner, the frozen ground was simply too solid. After digging around in my garden supplies in the sun room, I found a single tent peg that was a lot strong, and was able to hammer that into the ground. Still not all the way, but enough to secure the line to the greenhouse.
This may have been the most level location, but it is very much in the way. Especially those tie downs! I knew the black cord would be a problem, and could just see myself tripping over them because they are both dark and very thin. So I got some bright orange paracord and wrapped that around the lines for visibility.
In the end, I decided to take some video of both projects and put it together, rather than post a whole bunch of photos on Instagram to embed here. So, here is a short little video of the set up we got done today.
I’m glad we were able to get both done today, before the temperatures drop over the next couple of days. It will make quite a difference for the winter sown bed. As for the portable greenhouse, I will be monitoring the temperature inside, but it will be a while before we have anything to put in there.
I want to get other seeds started over the next week or so. The replacement bulbs I ordered should be arriving on Monday, so I’ll have enough light for more seed starts, plus what we’ve already got going.
While I’m happy we got these done today, I’m afraid I may have over done it. I’ve been stiffening up and starting to hurt after just a few minutes of sitting down, and my left thigh is still feeling a mess from the cramping. Enough to make me very nervous about going to bed.
Well, while I was working on the video, it ended up being my right thigh that started to give me trouble, starting to cramp up on me! I was able to move around and stretch it out, so I’m hoping I’ve managed to avoid another bout, but now both my legs are feeling unstable. I’ve been working on staying hydrated, etc., but it just doesn’t seem to be making a difference. Even when I tried to nap this morning, I was in so much pain I finally broke down and took more painkillers – one of the ones from my previous prescription. As much as I was still hurting after taking those, it turns out it still worked better than the new ones. I think I’ll see about getting a phone appointment with my doctor to talk about that.
Tomorrow is Sunday, so that will be my day of rest. Hopefully, that will give me some recovery time. It also happens to be our anniversary – my husband and I will be celebrating 37 years of marriage. We’ll be doing a lunch date on Monday, though. We will both be going to the lab in the morning for fasting blood work, so we’ll be having a lunch date afterwards. With his mobility issues and pain levels, we certainly aren’t going to make multiple trips. Not even for an anniversary! Just going out once is going to be difficult for him.
*sigh*
It’s past 10pm now. I suppose I should try going to bed.
As I was finishing my morning rounds, I decided I had to get that cover off the high raised bed and move it to the old kitchen garden. The snow is still deep in the main garden area, but the bed in the old kitchen garden I want to set it on is already almost snow free.
Getting to the high raised bed was not going to be easy. I had to break a path in – literally! With the thaw/freeze cycles we’ve been having for the past while, the surface of the snow is hard, but not hard enough to hold much weight. I had to stomp my way through, breaking the surface layer, until just before I reached the high raised bed, where the surface was solid enough that it actually held my weight.
There was no way I could carry the raised bed cover while making my way back, though. My balance isn’t that good anymore! Thankfully, that wasn’t really an issue.
Once I was clear of the deep snow, I could carry it normally. This cover, made using fence wire that needed to be sandwiched between two boards to secure it, is probably the strongest of all the covers I made.
If you click through to the next photo, you’ll see that the cover almost perfectly fits over the bed in the old kitchen garden! Which wasn’t at all intentional. When we first planted in this area, the bed was more triangular in shape. It was too wide at one end to reach the middle easily, so when I used logs to make it into a higher raised bed, I made it rectangular, but just worked with the space I had. I don’t think I actually measured anything. The covers are all 3′ wide by 9′ long. At one end, by the rose bush, it fits perfectly between the vertical corner supports at that end. The end closer to the house is slightly wider, but not enough to be an issue.
The challenge is going to be, how to cover it with plastic. Not only does it need to keep the cats out, but it has to be secure enough that the wind won’t blow it away.
There are gaps around the sides and one end of the bed that a cat could potentially squirm through. Which means my original thought of somehow securing the plastic directly to the wood frame itself is not going to be good enough. What I might be able to do is have the plastic go on the outside of the bed and secure it into the path in some way that would allow me to lift the plastic to tend the bed, as needed. How to keep it from being blown loose by the wind is going to be the main issue. I know that simply using ground staples to pin it in place won’t be enough. The wind would tear the plastic free in no time.
We have small logs from when the branch piles were chipped, each about 4′ long, stacked beside the wattle weave bed. I may just use some of those to weigh down the edges of the plastic, all along the outside of the bed. It will take several sheets of the plastic I have, though, and those will need to be taped together with clear tape. I’m definitely going to need to get a daughter to help me out with that, because I know the wind is going to make that job quite difficult!
Before we secure it, though, I’m going to see if I can remove the mulch, then add more snow to the bed before covering it with plastic. The melting snow will help “water” the bed. The mulch might still be too frozen, though. If so, we’ll put the plastic over it for a day or so, which should thaw things out faster, then try again.
If this works out as I hope it will, that will give this bed a head start. This is the bed that has:
– spinach – four different varieties – Swiss chard – two different varieties – Shallots and onions – saved seed – Kohlrabi – both purple and green – Hedou Tiny bok choi – saved seed
There are a lot of older seeds in this mix, so it’s hard to know just how many would germinate, even if they did survive the winter.
Well, this is an experiment, so whatever happens, happens!
The Re-Farmer 