Well, the predicted rain did start last night, and it’s still raining now.
Sort of.
It’s a very light, barely there sort of rain. I’m just hoping it keeps up long enough to actually water the garden. It’s actually pretty much stopped right now, but it’s supposed to start up again this afternoon – quite different from the prediction of rain all morning that I was looking at last night.
This time, I actually picked sugar snap peas. The plants are well past their prime, and usually I just find a few to snack on in the morning, but today there was enough to actually bring some in – after I’d already eaten a few. 😉 There was a single green Seychelle bean ready to pick, plus a few Carminat, and one Purple Beauty pepper was ripe.
I was also happy to see the first blooming Magda squash blossom, though at this stage, it’s just male flowers. The Black Cherry tomatoes are starting to get too tall for the lilac they’ve grown into to hold them, so I’m going to have to find a way to support the vines while still keeping them in reach for harvesting. Not a problem I ever expected to have! We’ve never had tomatoes that grew this tall before!
I get the Farmer’s Almanac daily newsletter and caught a bit of their long term forecast for the fall and winter. They’re predicting a warmer than usual fall for some areas – a range that includes where we are. I hope they’re right. Even now, as I look at the local long range forecast into September, the predictions for the overnight lows has changed towards warmer temperatures. We shall see. With how far behind so many things are – and certainly not just for us! – I’ll take very frost free night we can get!
It’s sort of pins and needles time for gardeners – and a lot of farmers, too – at this time of year.
The Re-Farmer
(addendum: I’ve been using WP AI assistant to “generate feedback” pretty regularly, just for a lark. It tends to make the same suggestions, over and over. Clearly, it can’t tell that I’ve got Instagram images embedded in my posts, because it’s constantly recommending I use images or video. 😄😄)
After I did as much as I could on the cat isolation shelter build, I finally got around to harvesting some of our garlic. In particular, I wanted to get the garlic that was sharing a bed with tomatoes. The tomatoes are getting so huge and bushy, the garlic was barely visible!
The challenge was to find them and dig them out without breaking any tomato plants!
Not all of the garlic planted there in the fall emerged, but I think I found all the ones that did. The soil was surprisingly compacted, and the head buried much deeper than I expected. I could actually hear the wood on the handle of my digging tool making cracking noises if I went to deep, trying to loosen the soil.
Unfortunately, when I got them all out, I discovered they were just crawling with black ants!
After trimming the stems, most of them got strung up and are now hanging in the garage. Normally, I would have hung them under the market tent, but that broke over the winter. Right now, the garage is the only place that’s out of the elements, but still has air circulation. Since I’m using it as a workshop right now, I can at least be sure they won’t be forgotten about!
Before I headed in for the evening, I finally went out and took progress photos of the winter squash, melons, pumpkins and gourds. It’s been quite a while. The last time I normally would have done it, I did our garden tour video, instead.
If you want to see how they looked earlier, you can visit these links.
It’s now the 14th, so there is quite a lot of difference since I last posted photos. We lost a few things, and some look like they will also be losses, but I also found more melons, including a couple I found just this evening, while taking the photos!
With that in mind, I will start with the melon beds. First, the east bed. There were so many, I had to divide the photos between two Instagram slideshows.
This Summer of Melons mix is really prolific – though with where we are in the growing season, it’s likely we’ll only be able to harvest the earliest varieties, whatever they are. The mid and late varieties are unlikely to have enough time left to fully mature.
Then there is the west bed of melons, which also had to be split up between two slideshows.
In the above slideshow, you can see the only two Cream of Saskatchewan watermelons we’ve got right now, and the older one is dying off. The plant has more female flower buds and is blooming like crazy, but it’s probably way too late. While I was giving my sister a tour of the garden, she was telling me things are late in her garden, too. She’s not growing melons or squash this year, but she says her tomatoes are way behind. She barely even has tomatoes forming right now! That wet, wet spring we had has really affected so many people’s gardens, all over the province.
There are other drum gourds on the vines, but it’s still too early to tell if they were well pollinated. There are lots of male flowers, but I haven’t been seeing the female flowers when they first bloom, so I haven’t been able to do any hand pollinating.
Next is the east winter squash bed. This one has the most squash developing on it.
It looks like we’ve got two surviving squash developing. I’m seeing at least one more female flower bud, but it’s too early to know if it’ll be a survivor. Again, we’ll see if they have enough growing season left. These are supposed to get very large.
I’m kinda regretting not watering this morning, even though the forecast is now more sure about us getting rain overnight. Looking at the weather radar, the trajectory of the weather system has changed, so it no longer looks like it’s going to go right past us. Instead, it’s heading towards us – and looks like it’s going to split in half and maybe miss us on two sides, instead of one! Still, we’re supposed to be getting right starting tonight, and continuing through to mid afternoon tomorrow. We shall see what actually happens!
Anyhow… that’s the status of things right now. I’m quite happy with things so far. In all honestly, considering how many winter squash we planted, I would have expected more – I don’t think there are any hiding under the leaves anywhere that I haven’t spotted. It does seem like some plants have more than one squash developing, while others have none at all. In the future, when we have our permanent trellises built – trellises strong enough to hold winter squash like these! – it’ll be easier to see, one way or the other. The squash in this Wild Bunch Mix really want to climb, too!
I’m quite impressed by how many melons we’ve got developing! They have a trellis to climb in one bed, but seem to prefer to sprawl on the ground, instead.
As late as things are, I’m happy with the Crespo squash, too. Last year, we had four struggling plants that ended up being baked in the sun in there location, and only one small, immature squash to harvest. It still made good pie!
They are definitely doing better in the new bed I made for them this year.
Lots to keep in mind for when we plant any of these again, in the future! Every year is a learning experience, and I don’t expect that to ever stop. That’s part of what makes gardening so fun!
This morning didn’t need as much time out in the garden. I didn’t do any watering, as the forecast was for rain, possible thunderstorms, this afternoon, with rain continuing through to tomorrow.
I should have checked again before I headed out, though. Now we have an only 30% chance of rain in the late afternoon. We might still get rain overnight. Ah, well. The high for today is expected to be 25C/77C. I think things should be okay. Right now, we’re already at 24C/75F, while humidex makes it feel like 28C/82F, and it’s not even noon yet, as I write this.
There was one G Star patty pan squash that was getting quite large – but the other one that I hoped was well pollinated hasn’t been growing any bigger at all, so I left it. It’s not turning yellow or looking like it’s going to drop off, so we’ll see. Meanwhile, there are more female flowers that should be opening soon, so we should have more patty pans to harvest soon.
I also spotted an open female winter squash blossom, while harvesting the peas and beans, that was on a vine that, as far as I can tell, has not had any female flowers yet. This vine is at one end of a bed, so it’s easier to tell it from other vines.
I made sure to hand pollinate it!
I’m spotting female flower buds on other vines, too, including the Crespo squash. Given that it’s August 14, and our first average frost date is Sept. 10, it’s unlikely they’ll have time to mature, but… you never know!
So here was have another little harvest for the day. Nothing compared to past years, but then, we have a very different garden this year!
In other things…
Last night, my older daughter went into the sunroom to check on a commotion, and the kitten with the messed up eyes came over and started squeaking at her. The poor thing’s eyelids were so swollen, it’s basically blind. We gave its eyes a wash, and ended up putting it in a carrier with some food and water for the night.
This would be a good time to have the isolation cage we’re working on right now!
It wasn’t happy being in the carrier, but eventually settled down. I get the impression it can still see something, but not much. I’m hoping to connect with the Cat Lady soon, as she said she had something she could give me to treat the eyes, when she picks up Button.
With the kitten in the carrier in my bedroom, I ended up leaving my computer on all night – I found a black screen video on YouTube with the sound of a cat purring for 10 hours, and I had that playing. It seemed to help. Not just for the kitten, who slept solidly all night, but the other cats in the room, too! While the baby was squeaking (it has the strangest meow!), they were very curious about it, that’s for sure! We also gave it some wet cat food with lysine mixed in, but I don’t think it ate any.
This morning, we have it’s eyes another wash – my daughter thinks they are getting better – and then I took it with me when I fed the outside cats. I think I saw it starting to eat and drink in the sun room. By the time I came back with my little harvest, I found it curled up in one of the cat beds, sleeping soundly.
We’ll see how it does and, if it seems warranted, we’ll keep it in the carrier for the night again.
I also had a less than pleasant surprise when I left the sun room to feed the outside cats. I found another stillbirth. More like a miscarriage, I’d say. The kitten was recognizable as a kitten, but the placenta was at least twice the size of it! I made sure to look, and there was only the one. I can’t even begin to guess with cat was the mama.
I have no doubt this sort of thing has been happening with the yard cats in the past, but this is the first year it’s been happening right next to the house, for us to find. I wonder what has changed. It’s not like the females are any less feral this year.
Ah, well.
Meanwhile, I need to get back to work on the isolation shelter. I’m going to have to nap first, though. I got to thinking about the design and decided to make some changes. I ended up spending time flipping the design around in my head, working out the best ways to assemble things with the materials I have, and what pieces I’ll be needing to cut and paint, and before I knew it, it was past 5am, and I hadn’t slept a wink! The last thing I need is to be using power tools while half asleep.
We’ve got ourselves another hot day today. Our high was supposed to be 26C/79F today, but I’m pretty sure we passed that. I can’t say for sure, since I was mowing the lawn at the time.
I’m so thankful that my brother loaned us his smaller riding mower!! I actually got the driveway done!
Well… the edges of it, anyhow. We’ll need his tractor and mower attachment to get the rest.
Whatever the temperature actually turned out to be, the thermometer in the sun room was reading 32C/90F when I was done, which would have been after things started to cool down!
With the heat coming back for the next while, I made sure to give the garden a good watering this morning, then went over it to gather a bit of a harvest.
I wasn’t sure about the corn, so I harvested the ones that looked like they might be ripe – a whole three of them. 😄 After shucking them, I found two of them were still immature. Ah, well.
There were a few more Carminat beans and Dalvay peas ready to pick, and then I decided to see how the Uzbek Golden Carrots were doing. I ended up harvesting the rest of the row I’d started on earlier, except for a couple that looked really small. The other row has the carrots going to seed in it, and I’m going to let them. Carrot seeds don’t last very long, so fresh seed would be good, even though I still have lots. I ended up using some of the peas, beans and carrots in my breakfast, along with one of the cobs of corn I cooked separately and left for other family members to try. My younger daughter doesn’t like to eat corn on the cob because it gets in her teeth, so having just two left works out.
The G Star pattypan squash has squash large enough to harvest – just a couple – but I’m leaving them to get bigger. Another of the 4 plants was blooming this morning, with both male and female flowers, so I made sure to hand pollinate. I also found a new female flower on the Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon to hand pollinate. As for the winter squash, I went through them and took out the squash that were clearly starting to shrivel up. There do seem to be some new Turks Turban squash forming, though, which is neat. We seem to be getting the most of those ones – potentially. It all depends on if the weather holds, and we’re already reaching the middle of August! There’s basically just 3 weeks or so left in our growing season, based on our average last frost date. Not a lot of time for winter squash to grow!
Ah, well. We do what we can, right?
For now, I’m just happy with the little harvests we are managing to get this year.
We have our first beans of the year! The purple Carminat and the green Seychelle pole beans. The one San Marzano tomato I’ve been keeping an eye on was looking ripe, and when I touched it, it fell off the vine on its own. I was even able to grab a small handful of Dalvay shelling peas.
I honestly didn’t think we’d get beans this year, with how much they’ve struggled.
I’m skipping the progress shots for the squash and melons, since I’ve got a video to show, instead! I hope you enjoy it.
Let me know if you have any issues watching it – and do feel free to watch it over on YouTube and hit that “like” button – but only if you really like it!
The first female flowers have shown up on the green and yellow zucchini plants.
Whether or not they’ll be properly pollinated and actually form zucchini, we have yet to see. In fact, one of the green zucchini flower buds already looks like it’s going to whither away, as it’s more yellow than green.
I was talking to my mother on the phone last night. After telling me about all the wonderful things about my sister’s garden, she asked me about mine. I know better than to believe she’s actually interested – she does this as an opening to find ways to make sure I know what a failure she thinks I am. Still, I told her about how we planted so many squash and melons, we didn’t have room to plant things like the lettuce my sister brings her, or cucumbers, etc. I even told her about the squash we ended up having to harvest because it broke its own stem.
As we were talking, she started say, in a disapproving tone, how she never grew “quash”, that was something she never did. Meanwhile, she’d already told me about how she used to have so much zucchini. I told her, yes, you did grow squash. Zucchini is squash. She didn’t grow winter squash (though, now that I write this, I think she did eventually grow spaghetti squash at some point), but she did grow summer squash. Then I reminded her of the year she let the zucchini get big, and we had so many giant zucchini harvested, when we stacked them against the wall in the basement, they covered the entire wall in the corner. She laughed as she remembered. As a child, I remember that year very well. We had so many giant zucchini, we eve used some to make Jack O Lanterns that Halloween!
As we talked a bit more about the garden, I mentioned that I had to find a way to support the corn because gusts of wind had blown them flat. She started saying how I’ve had sooo many problems with the garden. Which is sort of true, but I reminded her, she had problems with her garden, too. Did I? she asked, sounding shocked. I told her, she had things fail, too (in fact, some of the times I’ve mentioned a thing that didn’t grow for us, she dismissed it by saying, “oh, that happens sometimes… I’ve had that too…”), and then there were the potato beetles.
Oh, the potato beetles!
I remember, year after year, picking off potato beetles!
My parents grew a LOT of potatoes. Enough to last the winter with 7 of us, plus have enough left to plant in the spring. The potato beetles were absolutely brutal. Some years, my dad even went so far as to buy poison to dust onto the plants to save them, because there were too many for us to be able to pick them off.
Funny. When I mentioned the potato beetles, my mother just laughed – and changed the subject! 😄
Today we’re supposed to reach 24C/75F. As I write this, just past noon, we’re at 21C/70F, with the “real feel” at 25C/77F. I did end up watering the garden this morning, even though it’s not going to be exceptionally hot. Most of it, anyhow. We have so many things growing that need a lot of water. I’m not watering the garlic, though. Those are looking like we can finally start harvesting them. Maybe not today, but soon.
One thing I do want to do today is take some garden tour videos. It’s a bit early, but today is one month before our average first frost date, which is Sept. 10.
Yup. We technically have only 31 days left in our growing season.
I’m still holding out hope that we won’t get frost until later in September, but as I look at the long range forecast, I see it has changed again, and we’re looking at temperatures possibly dropping as low as 3C/37F, even before the 10th.
At the very least, we’ll need to be prepared to protect some things from frost. Most things, like the melons and squash, are just too large to cover, but we should be able to protect the high raised bed, the pepper and eggplant bed, and maybe some of the tomatoes, if it comes to that.
*sigh*
I look forward to when we have a greenhouse.
Meanwhile, I need to get back to working on the cat isolation shelter. The rescue has us booked for some September spays or neuters (depending on what cats we manage to trap), so we’re going to need it. I got nothing done yesterday. While on the call with my mother, I found myself feeling ready to fall asleep. After the call, I quickly finished the blog posts I was working on. I was falling asleep at my keyboard! Once done, I went for a nap, crashed for 3 hours, then woke up still feeling completely groggy and drained. So I made it a day of rest.
Not that I had much choice.
Today’s goal with the isolation shelter: painting and wheels. I’ve gone through our paint cans to see what we have left. Mostly, it’s the bright blue I used to paint the folding table and floating benches.
Hmmm… I should see what is left of the red paint. They are the same type of paint. Maybe I can combine what’s left. I like purple… 😄 It’ll be a while before I can buy more paint, so if I can stretch what we have, all the better. We’re not after winning any beauty contests here!
I’m thinking of painting the cut pieces before putting the shelter together, since it will be difficult to paint it once assembled. Especially on the inside. I plan to start painting one side of the cut frame pieces first, then putting the wheels on the base while the paint dries. Once the wheels are on, I plan to paint the base. By then, it might be long enough that I’ll be able to paint another side of the cut pieces. I know we have paint rollers and pans somewhere, so I’m hoping to use that and make the job get done faster.
Time to go digging around the basement to see if I can find some paint rollers and pans!
Or the sun room…
It’s really hard to keep track of the stuff that we found while cleaning up this place. 😁
I have been aiming to get photos of the developing squash, pumpkins and melons every couple of days, with my hand in the shot for perspective. I was sure I’d last done this a couple of days ago, but once the photos were loaded onto my desktop, and I started doing the Instagram slideshows, I realized the last ones I did were three days so.
Oh, well. Not a big deal!
One thing I did not bother with, this time, was take photos of the drum gourds. There’s been basically no change in those, which suggests to me they’ll probably just dry up and fall off.
Which has happened, and is happening, to some others.
Oh! I just realized I forgot about the Crespo squash again. The bed it’s in is in the East yard, and nowhere near the others. Out of sight, out of mind! I did check it today, and it doesn’t seem to have changed much, but there’s a reason I include my hand in the shots!
We might be seeing a slowdown in the garden for a bit, anyhow. The last couple of nights have actually been cold, and it rained for much of today. As I write this, we’re at 15C/59F, and our high was only 18C/64F. It’s going to start warming up again, starting tomorrow, and get fairly hot over the next week. Nothing like the heat we were dealing with before, but hot enough that the garden should recover from the recent chilly nights! Wind gusts have been a problem, though. A lot of the corn stalks were blown over, some flat to the ground. I added twine supports around the bed, but I don’t know just how badly damaged they were. I’ll find out for sure if the stalks start turning brown and drying up! We’re so close to being able to harvest corn, too.
Anyhow…
If you want to compare with previous photos, you can check out these posts. (Links will open in new tabs, so you don’t lose your place!)
We actually lost one of the melons on this side, but I did include a new one that is getting big enough I’m pretty sure it’ll make it. There’s a few others that are getting bigger, but I’m still not sure about them, yet.
The West facing side doesn’t have as many melons growing on it… yet? I’ve been letting the vines sprawl among the onions on this side, and there may well be some I haven’t found under the leaves.
Next is the pumpkin and drum gourd bed – but no pictures of drum gourds this time.
Yes, one of those that looked like it was drying, finally broke off its stem. There’s one other that I think might be a loss, but we shall see.
The unfortunate thing was the large, round blue squash. It had a board under it, and was leaning against the log frame. When I found it, it had rolled onto its top and was sitting completely upside down. I went to flip it over, and the stem broke right off. I’m pretty sure it was already partially broken from when the squash rolled onto it.
We do seem to have another of the same variety in the other bed, though, so maybe we’ll still get one that fully matures before it’s harvested!
Not only was I pushing back leaves to try and get clear photos of the developing squash, but I also had to carefully lift the corn stalks that had been blown over, on top of them!
Last of all is the second melon bed, East side first.
On the West facing side, the single Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon hasn’t even dropped its blossom yet. I’m not seeing any other female flowers developing.
The rest seem to be doing quite fine and getting bigger.
Looking at the long range forecast, it seems that August will continue to be comfortably hot, right into the beginning of September. We might get away with no frost until the end of September. One can hope! I’ll take very frost free day we can get.
While driving around today, though, I heard on the radio that we are coming into a La Nińa winter. Which, for our area, translates into a cold and rainy fall, and a bitterly cold winter.
Like we need another one of those.
We were spoiled by last winter’s mild El Nińo winter, that’s for sure!
Well, we shall see what we get. I just really, really want the cold to hold off long enough for all these melons, pumpkins and squash to fully mature, after having such a late start this spring!
The Re-Farmer 