Right now, there’s basically nothing in the garden. The herb bed, amazingly, is still chugging along, but everything else is done for the year. So, when I do my rounds, I don’t check the garden beds like I do throughout the growing season.
Which is why I had such a surprise today.
When the septic guy showed up to empty our tank, I stayed around on kitten duty, to keep them away from the open tank. A couple of cats wanted to hang out.
I had to pick up and carry Sir Robin most of the time, because he was so curious. When I put him down to look at things, he stayed close and even posed quite nicely for me.
Fancypants, here, is more feral, but still very curious, so I was keeping a close eye on him.
His going into the area fenced off from the deer, to protect the tulips and apple tree, is why I was there to spot my surprise.
First, it was seeing fresh green leaves poking up where the saffron was planted, two autumns ago. I’d seen some sprouting in the spring, but then they disappeared and I thought they died off. Their first growing season was much the same. It’s really hard to keep this area clear of the creeping bellflower that threatens to choke out the tulips. The crocuses are much more delicate. Plus, these are zone 4 corms, and we’re in zone 3, so I really wasn’t expecting much. Just hoping.
Today, I found fresh new saffron crocus leaves coming up! In November!!! These are supposed to bloom in August, never mind start coming up.
When I first started taking pictures, I actually missed it.
Yes. That is a spent saffron crocus flower laying on the leave litter!
The plant just to the right of it in the picture has what looks like a flower bud ready to open soon.
!!!
I opened up the makeshift gate in the fence wire to get better pictures, which you can see in the rest of the photos of the slide show above.
Yes, I picked the flower.
We have our very first saffron threads from our first blooming saffron crocus!
We’ll keep an eye on the flower bud over the next few days, to see if it opens or not. If it does, we’ll pick that, too, for a grand total of 6 saffron threads. 😁
The clusters of crocus leaves are looking strong and healthy, now that their competition is died off for the winter. They also look like they are spreading, even though they’ve barely survived their first two seasons.
I’m just blown away. I honestly thought they’d died off. I knew, when I bought these, that their chances of survival would be low, so this is just really awesome.
We’ve got a few more warmer days, but before the ground freezes, I want to put a nice, thick mulch of leaves over it. I don’t want to put it on too early, as that would smother them. If the long range forecasts are at all accurate, we could possibly wait as long as another week and a half, but I don’t want to wait too long, either! I think I might need to look at the overnight lows more than the day time highs when deciding when to cover them.
Today was going to be a warmer, less windy day. My plan had been to get out the chain saw and start breaking down some of the fallen trees. It’s an electric chain saw and in the end, I decided I didn’t want to be dragging an extension cord – two 100ft extension cords, most likely – across the yard to do the job, when getting more garden beds cleaned up would be more productive.
I didn’t head out until after lunch, though, waiting for things to warm up a bit. This morning, though, I got a call from my mother. It was about a minute or two after 9am. When I answered, the first thing she did was ask me if I’d just phoned. Someone had called her but hung up before she could get to the phone to pick it up, and they didn’t wait for the answering machine. My mother’s phone does have caller ID, but she doesn’t know how to use it.
I had not called, of course. If I did, I would have left a message. I’ve told her that a few times, but she still does this.
Which turned out to be a good thing because she then told me that home care didn’t show up (at 9am), so she took her pills herself.
Now, I know she has the correct time on her clocks because my brother had changed all her battery operated clocks for daylight savings while he was there. She also has a “dementia clock” he got for her, which shows the date, day, time, and has images to show if it’s day time or night time. That one changes itself for daylight savings.
I really like that clock and am considering picking one up for myself!
My mother had mentioned hiding a bubble pack away, just in case, a few weeks back. I had been going through her lock box to see if she was in need of refills, and it has several weeks worth of bubble packs, so I wasn’t sure how she could have a spare to set aside. I told her I was checking to see if it was time to pick up her refills soon, and she got mad at me because she had lots, so why was I wanting to pick up refills? This is a regular thing. She refuses to consider getting refills before she runs out, but leaves it until she’s on her last day or two.
Anyhow, when I said, don’t do that, give them time to get there, she immediately said, ok, I won’t do that anymore. Which, knowing her, meant she’ll do it but just not tell me anymore. Again, she has done this before.
Meanwhile, I looked up to confirm her schedule that I got emailed to me from home care. I had called and talked to her about her new schedule and times yesterday. Her first visit of the day was scheduled for 9:15, and they had 20 minutes scheduled to help her out. I had repeated the times to her several times and explained that she would be getting a lunch visit now, too.
So she had taken her secret pills before calling me which, considering what time she called me, after just missing another call, meant she had actually taken them at least 5 minutes before 9, when she claimed she was expecting them to come AT 9am. So even if they had been scheduled for 9, she had already decided they weren’t going to show up and took her meds from her secret stash.
My mom didn’t talk for long, which is out of character for her, but as soon as the call was done, I updated my siblings, sent an email to the home care coordinator about it, since the first scheduled visit on the day was still to come, then called my mother’s pharmacy.
I confirmed that they had delivered her refills to her on the 17th, which explains why there were so many bubble packs in her lock box when I checked. I was supposed to pick them up for her, specifically so I could put them in the lock box right away. Since they were delivered, that meant she had access to them until the next home care worker arrived and could put them in the lock box.
I explained what happened and they now have instructions to not deliver refills to my mother anymore. Instead, when the refills are ready, they will call me, and I will pick them up and get them into her lock box right away.
By the time that call was done and I updated my siblings about it, I had a response from the coordinator about it. She was worried that this might have been older pills that my mother had stashed away, so I was able to confirm that these were part of her most recent refills. The home care workers can’t look for her hidden stash, but the last time this happened, she showed the worker the stash herself and the worker was able to put them into the lock box. If they are in the open, or my mother brings them out herself, only then can they take them and put them in the lock box. My siblings and I can, of course, actually search for them, if necessary.
My mother’s first visit of the day was done by the time the home care coordinator got back to me – as soon as she got my email, she would have called the scheduled aide to let her know my mother had already taken the pills for the morning – and was able to update me. My mother had allowed the worker to make her breakfast, but was not willing to let her help her with washing herself. We’re trying to be delicate with this; we can understand my mother not being willing to allow someone to assist with such intimate care. The problem is, she needs the help. She sponge bathes herself, because she’s afraid of falling in the shower, even though her shower is an adapted one and has a built in seat. Sponge bathing only accomplishes so much, since it’s hard to reach in areas, and extra hard for someone of my mother’s size and with mobility issues. So we’re all going to have to encourage her to accept that help. We haven’t been saying anything to her directly but, the truth is, sometimes we can tell that my mother hasn’t been able to clean herself properly – and I have a terrible sense of smell.
For someone who is self aware enough to actually WANT to be in a nursing home and is upset that, after all this time (we started this more than a year ago), she still can’t get in, you’d think she would actually be willing to accept the sort of help she would be getting while living in a nursing home, while still in the comfort of her own home.
The home care coordinator has already submitted her panel report, after her most recent interview with my mother. Hopefully, between that and my mother actually accepting the help she is scheduled for, she will finally be accepted for a bed in a nursing home.
Now, if my mother would just stop self sabotaging herself!
Anyhow.
After a frustrating morning, I did have a productive afternoon.
The first area I decided to work on was the newly re-finished bed in the old kitchen garden.
Along with the weeding, there were plenty of “presents” from the cats to get rid of. I thought it would need more soil added but, once it was weeded and no longer compacted, the soil level was even with the top of the retaining wall blocks!
Once it was all cleaned up, I raked up leaves to mulch it for the winter, mostly to keep the cats from using it as a litter box.
I know I stopped to take a picture of the bed after it was finished, but I must have failed to do it somehow, because there was no “after” picture on my phone!
The bed itself did have tree roots in it as well – mostly from the crab apple trees, but I’m pretty sure some of them were from the pink rose bush and the double lilac bush, too. It wasn’t all that bed, though.
That done, I turned my attention to the short side of the L shaped wattle weave bed. It had already been cleaned up, but the cats had been digging in it. I got that all cleaned up, then gave it a leaf mulch, too.
Collecting the leaves was actually more difficult than cleaning up either bed. It was still pretty windy today, and every time I tried to rake leaves into piles, then get them into the wheelbarrow, the wind would blow a substantial portion away!
The beds old kitchen garden are now finished for the winter.
That done, there was still enough light in the day to get one more bed done. This time, I went to the main garden area.
I decided to work on the bed that had the garlic and summer squash in it.
The part that had garlic in it has been empty for some time, so a fair number of weeds had taken over. Mostly, it was tree roots I was expecting to have issues with, and I did, right from the end furthest from the elm trees. So I loosened the soil around the entire before before I settled into actually digging in to weed and remove rocks. That way, any roots I did find would be easier to pull out.
In the end, most of the roots I found were running across the bed instead of running the length of it, which also made them easier to remove. I did find one large root running through, but it was large enough and deep enough that I decided not to fight with it and just left it.
I hope I don’t regret that.
In the second picture, you can see the bed after it was all cleaned up. You can also see the pile of roots and weeds I pulled out at one end, plus some of the rocks I’d been pulling out, tossed onto the fabric covering the ground nearby. While it was in reach, I was tossing them into the kiddie poll, so what is visible in the picture is nowhere near all of what I pulled out.
In the last picture, you can see the bed, covered with plastic for the winter. Again, this is more to keep the cats out than anything else!
In this area, there is one more 18′ bed that needs to be cleaned up, plus the 4′ square bed, off to the side, that I transplanted the surviving Albion Everbearing strawberries out of. If I do get to that small bed before the hard frosts hit, it will be winter sown with bread seed poppies.
Outside of this area, there is one more 9’x3′ raised bed, plus the 4′ square bed, in the East yard to clear up. Those should not take long at all.
Depending on the weather, and if I have time to gather and process materials, the only bed that will be left to work on is the one along the chain link fence. Considering how long it took me to do the bed in the old kitchen garden, I might get this one started this year, but will probably be finishing it next year! Maybe. With the one in the old kitchen garden, I was experimenting more before finally figuring out things weren’t working as I wanted and coming up with an alternative. That alternative is what I plant to do in the chain link fence bed, so there is no “figuring out” time to factor in. Just a “gathering materials” time. Looking at the long range forecast, there is a possibility we’ll have decent weather for such work, after the other beds are cleared up. Those beds have priority. If the weather doesn’t hold, that’s okay. These can be done in the spring.
By the time I was done, things were getting dark and chilly, and it was definitely time to get inside!
Ghosty had been sleeping across Cheddar when I stopped to take the picture, and disturbed her nap in the process.
She does not look impressed by the interruption!
I just looked over to see is they were still there and yes, they are – but have traded places! Ghosty is now curled up in the cat bed, and Cheddar has been squeezed off to the side, half on top of Ghosty, busily grooming Ghosty’s face.
That’s Tin Whistle on the bottom, mid yawn. Nuzzled into her is Toni. I think that’s Shadow using Toni as a pillow. Or it might be Clarence. Clarence is there as I write this, but without seeing distinctive face features, I can’t tell Shadow, Clarence and Mitsy apart.
Toni is not a cat that seeks out attention from humans, in general, so I’m glad to see that she gets along with the other cats as well as she does.
Anyhow, that’s been my day for today.
Tomorrow, I take the truck in for an oil change and for them to check out the work done in the city to make sure everything it all right. I have to remember to ask them to take care of a burnt out headlight for me, too. I already got the bulb, but it’s a pain in the butt to access the light to switch the bulb.
I got an email from the company we did our insurance and registration with, letting me know that it’s time to renew. The vehicle registration and insurance doesn’t need me to do anything, since they’ll just continue taking monthly payments, as usual, but it’s also time to renew my driver’s license. Normally, I would get something in the mail with all the information, including any changes in how much things will cost, and I could take care of it online. However, with the Canada Post strike disruptions, I haven’t gotten the letter. So after I drop off the truck, I’ll walk over and take care of it in person. I also need to take cash out so we can get the septic tank emptied for the winter. After that tank is emptied, we will winterize it as usual, but I also want to set up the emergency diverter, just in case. This way, if the ejector freezes again, all we would need to do is open the shut off valve to the emergency diverter, and not have to be digging around in the snow to set up the pipe and hose outside.
So I will be out for most of tomorrow and, if all goes well, I’ll be finally doing our Costco stop up trip the day after. These are pretty much our last two “warm” days before temperatures drop a fair bit. If the long range forecast is at all accurate, we’ll then get about a week of relatively warmer weather to potentially get more done outside. We shall see what actually happens! This time of year, it’s always touch and go.
I’m just glad I got more beds done. It means less that needs to be done next year, and there is no hurry on getting those fallen trees broken down and cleaned up.
I definitely want to start with the good news, before getting into the gardening stuff.
As I was putting things away in the sun room, I saw a cat in the cat cage jump out and meow a greeting. Nothing unusual about that, except that this cat had something around its neck that was flapping.
We had put collars on the cats that got fixed, to make them faster to identify, but I also made sure they were reflective collars, so they would be less likely to get hit by a car or something. Most of the cats lost their collars long ago. Judgement had lost one or two already, but he still had a ratty yellow collar still on him.
I took it off and threw it away!
Now I’m hoping to see Syndol back, too! It’s not unusual for cats to disappear for the summer, then come back for the winters, but sometimes they don’t come back at all. So this was a nice surprise for the day.
My priority for today was to finish what I started in the old kitchen garden. The rectangular bed in particular needed a bit more work. I was able to pull more weeds and roots I could no longer see when I stopped last night. I also found the gap under one log was quite a bit larger than the hole the cats had made, so I found more sticks to push in front of it. The gap extended all the way to the corner, though, so I used the scrap board I’d been using when hammering stakes into the ground to lay across the opening on the inside, then added a few more sticks to hold it in place.
Then I could use the rake to level all the soil again.
The section of the wattle weave bed I’d prepped yesterday needed some clean up again. I kept having to chase cats out of the garden beds because they kept wanting to use the nice, soft, fluffy soil as a litter box!
After levelling the soil in the rectangular bed, I marked out four rows with stakes and twine. This required repeated removal of kittens. In the second picture, you can see what I planted and transplanted. In the row north of centre, I planted the mixed beets, so they wouldn’t overshadow the Hedou Tiny bok choi I sowed on in the row south of centre. The bok choi can get quite tall, after it has bolted and gone to seed, but for harvesting, they should only be about 2 or 3 inches tall. I do plan to leave one or two to go to seed to collect at the end of the season.
In the outside rows, I transplanted a whole bunch of the onions I’d been finding. On one side, I transplanted the ones that were clearly bulb onions. On the other, I transplanted the ones that look like they might be white bunching onions, except I’ve never tried to grow white bunching onions before.
In the next picture, you can see where I planted one packet of dwarf peas. I got two packets, but this is a very short row, so I only needed the one. The peas went in the back of the bed (north side). I’d already transplanted some onions at the end and at the front near the corner before. Today, I took the two garlic bulbs I’d found, broke up the cloves, and planted them in line with the onions. They filled the entire remaining front space.
Once everything was in, it all got mulched with leaves. Then I mulched around the herbs in the tiny bed as well. I didn’t cover them, as we’re still using them as needed. Before the hard freeze hits, I’ll cover them completely with a leaf mulch, and we’ll see how they survive the winter!
I also moved the raised bed cover over the rectangular bed for the winter.
I didn’t take final pictures, though, as I decided to take garden tour video, instead. I’ll be going through them and putting together a garden tour video. If I’m satisfied with what I took. Otherwise, I might take new recordings tomorrow, before I head into the city for the Costco shop. We’ll see.
At this point, the only bed I was considering winter sowing into is the small bed off to the side where the Albion Everbearing strawberries had been last year. It still needs to be cleaned up, and I plan to sow bread seed poppies there. That can wait until spring, though, if necessary.
As it stands now, other than mulching the transplanted strawberries and little things like that, the garden can be done for the year. The winter sowing is in, and anything left can wait until spring if I can’t get to it in the next while. We’re getting a bit of rain right now, and the next couple of days are supposed to be dry and cooler, but Sunday and Monday are supposed to get warm again, with plenty of sun, so there’s still the possibility of getting ahead of things for next year.
So, to recap, we have winter sown for next year:
Purple savoy cabbage White and Purple Vienna Kohlrabi Daikon Radish White Egg turnip Rainbow Mix carrots Spring Blush peas American spinach Yellow Swiss Chard Garlic Hedou Tiny bok choi Assorted Mix beets Tom Thumb Dwarf peas
Then transplanted miscellaneous onions and garlic that were found during bed prep. Plus seed onions.
Last year, I scattered seed mixes and they did surprisingly well. This year, I’m hoping the more orderly plantings will survive the winter and give us a nice head start in the garden next year!
I got back from the city early enough, and it was still warm enough, to get some progress done in the garden.
My first priority was to winter sow in the east yard low raised beds. Two of these beds were already prepped, but not covered in any way, so they did require some clean up. The cats have been using them as litter boxes!
Some of their “presents” were astonishingly huge.
Ew.
My original plan had been to do the kohlrabi and cabbage on the outside of the beds, then have peas down the middle of one, while leaving a gap in the middle of the other to plant pole beans in the spring.
I forgot. The kohlrabi and cabbage will need to be covered in netting to keep them from being decimated by flea beetles and cabbage moths. Having something growing on a trellis in the middle is probably not a good idea!
In the first picture below, the beds are cleaned up, leveled and rows marked out.
In the second picture, you can see the planted rows of purple and white kohlrabi. If I had gone ahead with the plan to grow pole beans down the middle, these rows would have been further apart. I decided to stick with just the two rows and moved them closer to the middle. These raised beds are more prone to freezing than the beds in the main garden area, simply because the boards are so much thinner than the logs used in the longer beds. We’ve lost almost entire beds of garlic over the winter due to excessive cold, even with a mulch. I’m hoping that, with sowing them closer to the middle, deep mulching them with leaves, plus the predicted milder winter we’re expected to have, they will survive. The plant spacing for these, according to the package, is 4-6 inches, so I tried to scatter the seeds with my little hand seeder fairly lightly. If they survive and germinate, they will still need to be thinned later on, but not by too much. Hopefully, if I have the space, the will be thinned by transplanting.
In the next picture, I have the Purple Savoy cabbage. This is the first time we’ve tried to grow cabbage. I originally planned to have two rows on the outside, then peas in the middle, but decided to do three rows of cabbage. As they need about a foot per cabbage for spacing, I tried to scatter two or three seeds every foot or so, though a few spots accidentally got quite a bit more! You can sort of see a grid in the soil, from where the seeds were covered and the soil gently pressed down, while the rest of the rows I made with a hoe remain untouched.
Grommet REALLY wanted to “help” me with the sowing!
I had made sure to rake up plenty of leaves into the wagon and the wheelbarrow before I started, and was able to give the beds a good mulching for the winter. Then I transferred one of the raised bed covers for the winter. There is another one on the third bed I could move over, but I decided against it. That cover’s wire mesh does not have hoops to support it. Cats would knock that flat and out of shape in a heartbeat. So it’s up on top of the box frame one the other bed, which I’ve found surprisingly useful. I plan to make more 3′ x 9′ covers like this over time, but we need to buy more lumber for it, first.
That done, it was time to shift over to the old kitchen garden.
The cats have been having a field day in the cleaned up wattle weave bed, so that got a clean up, first. My plan is to winter sow dwarf peas in the back of the south facing section of the wattle weave bed, and transplant any onions, etc that I found in the rectangular bed in the front.
That… might not quite work out! At least, not so much for the onions part.
The first thing was to harvest the remaining Swiss Chard. It wasn’t until I uploaded the pictures onto Instagram that I realized I forgot them outside! They should be okay overnight.
In the second picture, you can see an area on the south side of the bed, where the cats dug into the dirt. I suspect there was a mouse or something that got their attention for them to dig it out that much. There had been grass clippings chinked in the gap between the logs, but that disappeared. It’s been filled repeatedly, and the cats keep pulling it out. So one of the things I needed to do was find a way to block that gap in a cat proof way.
Once the chard and remaining kohlrabi roots were cleared out, it was time to loosen the soil, pull the weeds and set aside any little onions I found.
I found so many, I started just tossing them with the weeds after a while!
What I really wanted to find out is what was going on with what looked like a cluster of garlic coming up, and another cluster of what I thought were onions but, as they got larger, the leaves started to look like some sort of ornamental allium, instead.
In the next picture, you can see that there were two entire bulbs of garlic that somehow got missed! I planted garlic in here a couple of years ago. This year, two garlic bulbs grew among the seed mix in this bed. They grew into nice sized bulbs that got harvested.
Now I find two full bulbs of garlic that somehow got missed over two growing seasons! I will probably separate the cloves and transplant them.
Next to the garlic is the cluster of alliums growing near by that did turn out to be onions. Several of them were growing together like bunching onions, rather than bulb onions, but I’ve never grown bunching onions. They are large enough that I will probably transplant them, too.
In the next photo, you can see most of the other onions I found while cleaning the bed. There were so many tiny ones! One red onion was quite large. I will transplant the larger ones, but I don’t know if I’ll bother with the teeny ones.
While working across the bed, I was finding a surprising number of roots. Some were definitely from the rose bush at the end of the bed, but it’s possible others were from the ornamental crap apples and the double lilac. It definitely made the job take longer. As I worked my way up the bed, I took advantage of having lots of old stakes handy from the bed along the retaining wall, before the wattle weaving was added on top of the retaining wall blocks. Some of the largest, strongest ones were used to stabilize the top side logs, as their supports were getting old and starting to break.
To block the gap, I used some flat pieces of scrap wood that were in the corner, then a whole bunch of old stakes, on the inside of the wall. Once the bed is done and ready for planting, these will be mostly buried and hidden from view.
As you can tell by the last picture, and the flash needed for the pictures of the onion and garlic, I had to stop before it was all finished. It was simply getting too dark. I was working by the light of the shop lights at the sun room window by then, and those were on only because their motion sensors were being triggered.
I don’t have anywhere to be at tomorrow, so I’ll be able to finish the job then, and do more winter sowing. I should also be able to clean out that little bed off by itself in the main garden area, where I’ve decided to plant bread seed poppies. Since I didn’t winter sow a variety of peas I’d meant to plant between the cabbage, I’m considering finding somewhere else to winter sow them. Once the dwarf peas are planted, that’s two varieties of peas that are winter sown, so leaving the third variety I was planning to winter sow for the spring would be fine, too. I also have our own saved sugar snap pea seeds that can be sown in the spring.
The rectangular bed that’s being cleared now will have beets and tiny bok choi winter sown in it, probably interplanted with some of those onions and/or garlic I’ve been finding! I was thinking of planting something down the middle, but I can’t for the life of me remember what that was right now. I’ve got diagrams drawn out, but those are in the basement, along with my seed inventory.
So that’s the garden and winter sowing status, for now. We should have a nice head start into next year’s garden, if this works out.
I will also be making what will probably be my last garden tour video of the year. Last year, I ended up doing my October video using video recorded on November 1, because the video I’d taken on October 31 was done too late in the day, and everything was too dark. So I want to make sure to get it done earlier, and earlier in the day.
Thankfully, it looks like the weather will hold for a while yet, and I should be able to get other things done before the snow flies. We’ll see how that works out!
After all the rain we had, I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to work in the garden today, though today’s weather was supposed to be better. I had to head to the pharmacy, so I figured I would know when I came back.
I ended up in town a lot longer than expected!
My daughter’s prescription, that they did not have in stock yesterday, the main reason to go back to the pharmacy. My husband had ordered refills for delivery, so I figured I would get his bubble packs while I was at it. My daughter wasn’t feeling well enough to come along, unfortunately. I headed out and got to the pharmacy shortly after 11am.
That turned out to be an oops. They don’t get their inventory orders in until the afternoon. Typically around 1pm.
Also, since my husband’s refills were ordered for delivery on Thursday, and today is Tuesday, they weren’t ready yet, either. Those were left for delivery. I asked about my daughter’s meds, as I thought she got a partial refill, but no, she hadn’t gotten any of this one at all, and she needed them.
At first, I was going to head home then come back tomorrow until I remembered I was going into the city tomorrow. So I gave them my cell phone number and told them I would stay in town, and they could call me when the meds were ready.
That left me with quite a bit of time to find something to do, so I ended up doing a lot of walking!
Most places were closed for the season, but I did remember there’s a second hand store, so I went to check that out. I ended up spending a whole dollar when I left…
I already a similar drinking jar at home, but it’s colorless. They had a couple like that, but only one in this green tinted glass, so I got it.
I did enough wandering around that my left hip was starting to talk to me. Not pain – it hasn’t hurt like it used to since I got that injection at the sports injury clinic – but it started feeling like it was about to give out. By then, it was past 1:30, so I went to the pharmacy. I was just going to sit and wait, since they hadn’t called me yet, but they are so on top of their customer service, I had someone asking if I needed help before I had a chance to! It turned out they were working on my daughter’s prescription right then, so I didn’t have long to wait.
From there, I headed home, where my daughters had a late lunch waiting for me. The weather was good and things were relatively warms, so as soon as I finished eating, I decided to go for it, and headed to the garden.
My focus for today was to get winter sowing done, and I decided to do the sowing planned in the main garden area, first. The first thing I needed to do was a lot of raking of leaves! Once I had both the wagon and the wheelbarrow filled, I started at the trellis bed.
This bed already has seed onions planted along the non-trellis side. I chose the Spring Blush peas for the trellis side, and the rainbow mix of carrots in the middle.
The rows I planted in remain marked with stakes and twine. There is room between the carrots and the onions to plant something else. Fresh bulb onion transplants, perhaps, or more carrots.
In the second photo above, you can see the row of peas is shorter! There were only 25 peas in a packet. I should have bought two! I planted a pea every 6 inches or so, but it would have been good to plant the full row and have them more densely planted, in case some don’t germinate. As it is now, in the spring, I can plant something else in the remaining space that can use the trellis.
Once that was done, I covered the whole thing with a deep mulch of leaves. I actually ran out and had to get more.
Then I decided to finally use that pile of cardboard that I’ve had set aside for the entire season! I used it to cover where the next trellis bed will be built, as well as the path, to kill off the grass below. If I’d had enough, I would have put cardboard on the other paths, before I put wood chips on them as a mulch. The dandelions in particular had no problem growing through the mulch, and you can barely even tell the wood chips are there anymore. *sigh*
There was still enough time and light to work on the next bed.
The only problem was, that bed had turned into a pool!
I removed everything that was holding the plastic down and just started rolling it up. The piece of wood I used to roll up the excess is long enough to rest on both sides of the bed, so there was space below. Rolling it up meant pushing the water further and further to the end before it could finally overflow the plastic. Which meant that only the very end of the bed got an extra watering.
I left that to drain while I went to rake up more leaves.
In the next photo, you can see where I planted the Daikon radish and White Egg turnip. Those went on the outsides of the bed, leaving the middle for a spring sowing of probably pole beans. I’m planning to plant bush beans in the high raised bed.
In the last photo, the bed is mulched with leaves. Once again, the stakes and twine were left to mark where things were planted.
By this time, it was getting quite dark and it was time to stop for the day. The beds that I have winter sowing planned for in the main garden area are now done. In this area, there are still two beds that need to be cleaned up but, if necessary, that can wait until spring.
I did move my supplies over to the east garden beds. Two of those beds will get winter sowing, hopefully tomorrow afternoon, after I get back from the city. That will be the warmest part of the day. Those beds will get kohlrabi and cabbage sown into them, as those beds will be easier to cover with insect netting to protect from flea beetles and cabbage moths.
After that, I have one bed in the old kitchen garden that still needs to be harvested of alliums and Swiss Chard, and then I will be doing winter sowing in there and the wattle weave bed. The only other area that needs to be cleaned for winter sowing is the square bed off to the side of the main garden area that I’d grown the Albion Everbearing strawberries in, last year. The survivors got transplanted along the new asparagus bed, and I’ve decided the space may as well be used as a permanent poppy bed, since I expect those to self seed readily, and it can be treated as a perennial bed. However, if I run out of time to winter sow those, they can still be done very early in the spring.
So there we have it! Four more things winter sown for next year.
From the predictions I’m seeing, it’s supposed to be a mild winter, but other sources say a harsh winter. We shall see! Hopefully, the winter sowing will survive and we’ll have a head start to next year’s garden!
With how short our growing season is (I’m not counting on the newly revised averages yet), every little bit will help.
One of these years, I hope to get enough to actually can or freeze again! The last two years have been pretty brutal. If we depended on the garden for food at this point, we’d starve! :-D
Little by little, it’s getting done, and I’m feeling pretty good about it so far!
We had a slightly warmer day today, but I decided to leave working on the garden beds for the next few days, as it gets even warmer. Today, I focused on getting the cat shelters ready for winter.
I did, however, remember to take pictures of the finished garden bed in the old kitchen garden.
It doesn’t look all the different, really. The new stakes were pounded down with a sledge hammer, so they don’t need to be trimmed shorter. There’s enough height left that, should I want to in the future, more deadwood could be added for a taller wall. Towards the middle of the wall in the first picture, you can see some of the fly-away twine ends, where I had to fix where they snapped while I was pounding the stakes down.
I’m quite happy with the result. It’s not as pretty as wattle weaving, but it’ll hold the soil in place, and the taller stakes will be available to use to hold supports, should the bed need to be covered.
That done, it was time to winterize the isolation shelter and catio.
The vinyl (from dollar store table protectors) that had been wrapped around the bottom of the isolation shelter last winter was so torn up, it had to be thrown away. The vinyl around the catio had tears in it, but could still be salvaged. Especially since it ended up getting wrapped a second time part way through the winter. That gave me two layers to work with.
The bottom of the isolation shelter needed only 2′ in height. That meant I could take the vinyl from the catio and fold it in half, length wise. It took two dining table covers to wrap around the catio. With the second layer that was added, that gave me the equivalent of four covers, that were taped where they overlapped. I was able to separate the second layer easily into the original two length. There were larger tears near the bottoms, as well as small tears all along the edges, where they’d torn loose from the tacks that were holding them in place. Once folded in half, though, I was able to get a solid piece.
In the first picture, you can see that I duct taped the short ends to old the halves together, then added more to the corners to strengthen them more.
Thankfully, we didn’t have much wind and, with the folding table not put away for the winter yet, folding and taping the lengths wasn’t as much of a hassle as I’d feared. The only real problem I had was Grommet, constantly getting in front of me while I worked!
Next, I brought out my remaining pieces of wood lath and cut some to fit the shorter sides of the shelter, plus some for the section in the front. I had some short screws left from another project and used those to secure the vinyl at the top and bottom. Leftover lengths of wood lath were added to the ends of the vinyl as well, so the wind wouldn’t catch on them.
I secured one sheet to the ramp door side, first, then wrapped it around the back. The other end just reached around the opposite corner of the back, which I tacked in place with a push pin temporarily. Then I secured the other sheet to the front section of the shelter before securing the side, making sure to catch the edge of the first sheet with the screws.
For the back, I used a full length of wood lath to secure the vinyl at the top – the second sheet reached as far as the middle of the back.
At which point, I was out of the little screws I was using. I don’t want to use longer ones, as this is something that will be removed in the spring. The back will be against a well, though, so I just used a push pin half way down the centre support and let it be.
Next, I added some handles, to make it easier to move the shelter.
For the back, I had larger handles held in place with four screws. I replaced the ones the handles came with, which weren’t long enough to even go through the layer of insulation back there, with 2 1/2″ screws.
In the next picture, you can see the smaller handles I added to the front. Those had to fit in the space between the window and the edge, so there was room for a handle with only one screw to secure it. I didn’t need screws as long as for the back, but I still replaced the package screws with 1″ screws. They also had to be mounted lower down, so as not to be in the way when the roof is open.
At this point, the shelter could finally be moved to its winter home.
I was not able to use the handles.
The problem is the wheels. Even on the folded pieces of cardboard I put under the wheels, they sank into the soil. This thing is HEAVY!! It took a lot of manhandling to get it across the grass. It had to go across the sidewalk to the house, and one of wheels promptly sank so deep in the soil as soon as it was no longer on a concrete block, I had to actually lift the corner and pull the whole thing over.
Then there are the patio blocks.
Which should have been a lot easier, but there’s that tree in front of the old kitchen window. It’s roots have lifted and shifted the concrete blocks. Once again, I had to actually lift corners to get them over the edges of the patio blocks.
I did get it into position, though. Finally!
Once there, I did some cleaning, starting with washing the front windows, inside and out. I had taken out the sliding windows and gave those a wash before putting them back.
I had a couple more boards like I’d used to attach the roof panels that I added and screwed into place. It’s a low slope roof, and the plastic roof panels sagged just enough for water to sometimes collect on it. I gave the roof a washing, then left the roof open for the water to drain off. That was a good time to move the heated water bowl to the other side, and secure the heat lamp, which you can see in the second picture of the slide show above.
I found a piece of scrap wood that I added as a cross piece, which runs through the hanger part of the clamp lamp, for extra security. The clamp is secured with a couple of zip ties. The new cross piece is held in place by friction, but I zip tied it to the permanent cross piece the clamp is attached to, as well.
I did make sure to test the heat lamp before I started all this!
Once everything was set where I wanted to – make sure that I could reach the on/off switch for the heat lamp from the sliding windows – they were plugged into the extension cord, which got set up on its hooks on the outside.
Before that was plugged in, though, I got the ramp door shelter box ready to bring over (it was a handy table for while I was working on the shelter!) and started getting the catio ready to move to its winter location.
Around this time, I got a message from my SIL. They needed to go into storage and were on their way, and letting me know what their rental car looked like, while their car is in the garage for repairs.
They weren’t going to be long, so I went and opened the gate for them, then went back to working on things in the yard.
I heard a vehicle coming and looked through the trees to see if it was them, only to see our vandal driving by.
On seeing the gate was open, he started slowing down.
I couldn’t see him through the trees anymore, but I could hear him stop on the road, then start backing up.
I wasn’t about to give him a chance to drive in, so I walked out towards the driveway, so he could see that I was there.
He stopped at the end of the driveway, and just stayed there, watching me.
So, I got my phone out and started recording him.
I ended up getting more than four minutes of recording him as he got out of his vehicle and started gesturing at me (turns out he was “blowing kisses”). Then he opened his shirt, took off the belly strap and waved his colostomy bag at me. Then he started yelling at me, demanding to know why I was recording him, yelling that I wanted to put him in prison, that he was dying anyway, etc. He was yelling at me for so long, I ended up walking over to one of my brother’s pieces of farm equipment nearby, so I could brace my arms while he yelled. At one point, he started demanding that I go over and talk to him – like I would do that!!! – while gesturing to the road and saying he was legal there, and I should come and talk to him. As if! Oh, and I don’t own the property. I don’t own anything.
So… why has he been yelling at my mother about how she “gave” the farm to me?
Oh, my goodness.
I just got a message from my brother. Somehow, our vandal managed to leave a voice mail with my brother (his number is blocked). He was ranting about how he (my brother) is going against “the code”. The code of “Jesus and God.” Also, my brother and I are why he’s dying of cancer. The stress from us. He mentioned me recording him and said he “asked” me to come talk to him.
Also, I’m fat and my daughters and I never have to work again, and we’re apparently enjoying steak, caviar and champagne. And the pope is going to be reading a magazine about Christianity, and my brother’s not a real Christian.
He also brought up that he helped us, years ago, by living rent free for a year in a house he owned when my husband “lost his job”. Except, it was after my husband left the military, not “lost his job”, and it was only a few months before we got things worked out (we had zero income for 4 months because someone in the DnD forgot about the paperwork). We paid him rent until he put the house up for sale.
Yes, there was a time when we were close, and he did help us out. But now it seems he’s inventing things to make it sound like he helped us more than he did.
There was a lot more in the message, but it was all just insane. He is absolutely obsessed with us!
Ugh.
So… where was I?
Ah, yes.
After yelling at me from the road some more, our vandal got into his vehicle again and just sat there. By this time, my daughters had come out to see what was going on, and make sure I was okay. So I stopped recording and walked over. Once I was past the garage and couldn’t see him anymore, we heard him yelling at me some more before he finally drove off. We could hear his vehicle all the way, even to the sound of him tearing into his own driveway.
No, he doesn’t live THAT close to us!
My daughters stayed out with me for a while. I had move the catio to its winter location, so they helped me set it on pieces of bricks by lifting the ends so I could slide them under. As before, I set the pieces under the front corners on their edges, while the ones under the back were flat, so that water would drain off the flat roof towards the back.
My older daughter is going to be up all night as she works (she’s been trying to be up during more daytime hours lately, to be available to help with things).
This is how the catio was, after they helped set it up on bricks, so the wood won’t have direct contact with what will eventually be very wet ground.
I took out the cat bed that Pinky and her babies had been using. That went into the bottom of the isolation shelter, and the box nests got put in here. They are on top of scrap pieces of insulation.
After this picture was taken, I swept the leaves off the roof. I have an old snow brush/ice scraper where the ice scraper broke. It has been incredibly handy for maintaining the cat shelters!
Then I made sure to add the weights back onto the roof, so it won’t get blown over again.
Tomorrow, I need to go into town and pay the balance for the door replacement at the hardware and lumber store. While I’m there, I hope to pick up more of the tiny screws and anything else I might need. I would need more wood lath, if I’m going to use that to attach the vinyl on the catio, too, but I will get that somewhere else at a better price. The catio frame is 2×2 lumber, and I might want to find something narrower to secure the vinyl.
This winter, I’ll make sure to have the vinyl covering the door as a separate piece. Last winter, I had tried to secure it near the hinge but it kept coming loose and start flapping in the wind.
Meanwhile, my brother and SIL arrived. My brother did his thing while I was able to give my SIL a tour of the things I’ve been doing. She even helped me adjust the isolation shelter, when I realize that one of the wheels was hanging in the air, thanks to the uneven patio blocks.
The light above our main door had started flashing instead of working properly, so my brother wanted to take a look at it. He is the one who got and installed it originally – because while my late father was still living here, our vandal (who was “helping” my dad) would show up at all hours, and the motion sensor light would let my dad at least know he was in the yard. After fussing with a switch at the top that I didn’t even know was there (can’t see it without a ladder), he got it working again, but he doesn’t think it’ll last long.
Then I helped him move the old storm door that was still leaning against the house to the barn for storage. It’s still a good door.
It was really good to see them, as always.
After they were gone, I had a few more things to finish up. Now that the isolation shelter is no longer under the canopy tent, I move the folding table under there. I’ll be leaving that out for a while longer, as there’s still plenty that needs going around the yard before the snow flies.
For now, I’m just happy the isolation shelter is winterized.
I’m just looking at the temperature right now. I think I’ll go turn the heat lamp on for the night!
Thankfully, there was no rain today. The installers were able to get our new door in!
I headed out quite early to feed the outside cats, then make sure the gate was open for the installers. We have had the folding table I made out of folding legs and a piece of plywood I found in the basement set up under the kitchen window for some time. The hand rail to the door runs past it, and the isolation shelter needs to be set up there for the winter, so I moved the table out and cleared the patio space under it. Then, since it was clear anyhow, I set up the pieces of insulation that go against the basement wall for the winter. The table itself, I set up next to the elm tree outside the kitchen window, keeping it handy for the installers, if they needed an extra surface. It will be folded up and put away for the winter, later.
They did end up using it, along with one they’d brough themselves that was almost identical in dimensions!
Once inside, the makeshift barricade to keep the cats out of the entry while they worked was set up. Then I made myself some breakfast.
I was settling down to eat when I heard their truck and trailer backing up to the house. I headed out to greet them and touch base, then went back in. After I finished eating, I found I had a decent amount of time before I needed to go to my mother’s, since we worked out that I would do her grocery shopping after the meeting with the home care coordinator in the afternoon.
I took advantage of it and started working on what was originally supposed to be a wattle weave wall in the old kitchen garden.
The first photo was before I started working on the bed and had brought the stakes over.
Hard to believe that those black looking stakes are also maple, and were as bright as the new stakes, originally! They turned black after the first major rainfall.
You can see my initial attempt at wattle weaving in that first picture, too. Removing those was my first order of business. Once they were clear, I raked away any leaf litter that had blown into the area I would be working on, and clear out a few weeds.
Once that was cleared, you can see in the second picture that I wrapped twine along all the uprights. In the third picture, I’d laid out the first stakes that would be pounded in. These would be placed in the middle of each of the ones already in place, using the twine to keep them in line with the other stakes.
In the first photo above, the next set of stakes were laid out, with my spare on the side. These would go between each of the stakes already pounded in, in a slightly offset row, which you can see in the next two photos.
You can also see the hammer and board I used to pound them into the soil. The board was set at the top of each stake, and I used the flat side of the hammer on the board to pound them in. That pretty much assured I’d never miss, and wouldn’t be damaging the tops if I did.
With all the stakes in place, I started putting the pieces I’d tried to wattle weave, back, running them in between the offset rows. Some of them were rather bent from being woven around the stakes for so long but, for the most part, they went in fairly well. Some pieces were pretty wonky, though, leaving gaps. Once they were all in place, I went to my pile of smaller willow switches and use them to fill in gabs, making for a thicker and more solid wall. You can see how that looked in the first two photos.
Then I grabbed the loppers and headed into the spruce grove. In our first years here, I’d cleared up and cleared out the poplar growing in a few spaces along the edge of the grove. Poplar being poplar, they’ve been growing back. I found the straightest ones in the size range I needed, cut them down and trimmed away their branches. I also gathered some much smaller, narrower pieces to weave into the ends of the garden bed.
In the last picture of the slide show above, you can see the wall with the new lengths added. The pieces woven into the sides helped lock in the larger pieces in the deadwood fence at the ends.
Then, I forgot to take pictures of the rest. I’ll do that in daylight, tomorrow!
As the deadwood was laid between the rows and pushed down to the bottom, the stakes started to get pushed outwards slightly. I decided to secure them with twine, basically joining the stakes together in a zig zag pattern, making sure they were snug against the tops of the deadwood as I packed them down as much as I could.
I should have waited on the twine.
My original thought was to cut the stakes to just above the height of the deadwood, so they weren’t sticking up too high above it. I decided to see if I could get them pounded deeper into the soil, and more secure. For that, I headed to the garage for a sledge hammer.
Which did a mighty fine job of getting the stakes deep enough that I didn’t have to trim any of them! I was even able to pound in some of the original stakes a bit, too. Those ones I am keeping taller, though. They have matching height stakes on the opposite side of the bed, and will be used to hold hoops or whatever gets used to add protective covering to things growing in it, if needed.
Unfortunately, in the process of using the sledge hammer to drive the stakes deeper, I ended up snapping the twine in two places, and I had to take care of that before I could call it done.
Building the walls on this bed is now FINALLY finished! Now all it needs is another weeding, and it’s ready for next year’s garden.
By the time I was done and putting things away, I had time to change and get ready to head to my mother’s.
The installers were also finishing up! By then, they were putting the hand rail against the wall back. I couldn’t believe how well it worked out (there was minimal water staining visible when they took the old frame out, and everything else was still sound), and how quickly they got it done.
We finally have a proper front door again!
What they were NOT able to do was put the storm door back. It’s too tall for the new frame. It was handy for when we run the drainage hose from the washing machine out the window, but is no longer actually needed. The new steel door itself is built for Canadian winters. We won’t be getting any more frost at the bottom, or at the hinges!
The door now swings from the opposite side of the original door, by my request. That meant the arm bar had to be moved to the other side, too, since it needs to be opposite the hinges. It had to be mounted slightly higher because of where the handle and deadbolt are located, compared to the original door. The screen on the door can be removed, so we can still run the hose out the window when we do laundry, and the cats can’t get at the opening anymore.
I am very happy.
Then, it was off to my mother’s.
*sigh*
Short form. Honest.
I showed her a picture of the new door, thinking she would be happy. Instead, she was at first confused about which door it was (even though we’ve talked about it several times), then she didn’t seem to like the look of it (??), then she got really angry when I told her they couldn’t put the storm door back on because it wouldn’t fit. I got a lecture about how, if they’re not willing to do it, I should go find real professionals who would do it for me.
My mother makes a big deal about planting garlic, so I tried showing her pictures of the finished garlic bed with planting of spinach and Swiss Chard between the rows of garlic before covering the bed for the winter.
She became thoroughly disgusted when I mentioned buying seeds. I should be saving seeds (and planting spaghetti squash; that’s essential, suddenly). Which I have been, but apparently, seeds for things I’ve never grown before should magically appear or something, and spending money on seeds is stupid. Also, I need to plant spaghetti squash. Basically, she was really happy about insulting me for not gardening like she would. Practically chortling with glee in the process.
I tried showing her other pictures of the garden beds I’ve been preparing for winter, but gave up. She started ragging on me about how I keep talking about all the work I do in the garden, but never the benefits. I told her, the work is the benefit! I enjoy the work.
Turns out, that wasn’t what she meant.
Apparently, I get nothing from the garden. Ever. Not any of the stuff I’ve brought for her, even though we had so little produce this year. Things like drought and heat waves and a summer of endless smoke from wildfires means nothing. I should magically have a successful garden, every year, and it should be just like she used to have (or, at least, how she now imagines she used to have).
…
We tried talking about the upcoming meeting about her home care need and, in the process, I found out our vandal had visited again. He had shown up at the same time as her supper med assist, so he went into the common room. Even from her apartment down the hall, with the door closed, she could hear him loudly talking to people there, though not what he was saying. Knowing him, he was slandering me and my mother about this property. After the home care worker left, he came to her apartment and started ranting at her about the usual; that she “gave” the property to me (which she hasn’t), and so on. He wouldn’t let her respond to anything, of course, and didn’t leave until she started crossing herself repeatedly.
I asked when this happened, and she really struggled to remember. She did remember that it was after their exercises (which is why there were people in the common room), which meant Tuesday. Which was yesterday. But she couldn’t remember that it was yesterday.
We talked more about my mother accepting more med assists, like meal preparation, dress assists, bathing assists – basically, all that they’re allowed to do for her. She really does need the help, but her refusal to accept it is part of what’s keeping her from being approved for a nursing home, like she wants. She started getting angry at me, saying “I’m not used to having servants”. I told her, they’re not servants. They are helpers. Let them help!
That sent her off on a racist rant about the male home care workers, all of whom are apparently from India. I cut that off and told her, she can’t be saying stuff like that to the workers.
We also got her shopping list worked out in between all that.
Then the home care coordinator arrived, right on time.
The poor woman. She’s trying so hard to help my mother.
In the end, we were able to get her to accept allowing them to do meal assists on those days when she’s not feeling well, and we talked about the sorts of things they can do – quick cooking, reheats, etc. She said she would accept a shower assist once a week (she sponge bathes only), and she actually requested help with getting things set up so she can soak her feet once a week. She would accept dress assists, if needed, too. She might not need all of this every day, but we stressed, the more help she accepts, the better. We don’t want her to fall and hurt herself.
The coordinator also had to explain to her that she can say things like “I don’t want a man touching me”, in refusing their assistance with certain types of care, but she should NOT be going on about their race or country of origin. My mother tried to say, “I’m not going to lie.” I told her, you don’t have to lie. Just don’t say anything! The coordinator concurred.
It was a long and difficult meeting, but we did get progress.
There were a couple of forms that need to be signed every year, so when the coordinator was done, I followed her to the home care office, where I signed on my mother’s behalf. One of the forms was a list of what the clients needed to do for the home care workers, ranging from making sure driveways and sidewalks were clear, to ensuring the clients had no access to guns or knives. No using illicit drugs, no smoking within an hour before they are scheduled to arrive, no verbal or physical abuse…
Much of it didn’t apply to my mother, but a few lines where highlighted in regards to how the workers are to be treated!
She also gave me an emergency responders kit to replace the one on my mother’s fridge. My mother’s was incomplete for some reason. So when I got back to my mother’s, I went through her copy of one form, then filled in the information for the first responders sit. If she needed to be taken to the hospital by ambulance, they would grab this package and have all the info they need, from her meds list to my contact information, and signed permission for me to be her advocate, doing all the things I’m already doing on her behalf now.
That took quite a while to finish off! But it’s done. Finally!
Hopefully, my mother will behave.
I’m not holding my breath.
The paperwork done, I went to do her shopping. After I got back and put everything away, I had the idea of making a list of what she typically eats for her meals. This way, if she asks them to make her toast, they will know if she wants butter or jam or whatever on it.
Unfortunately, my mother just started to get angrier and angrier. She doesn’t trust people to make her food. She can do it herself. She doesn’t want to be a bother (ha!). Etc. I don’t know what she thinks they’d do to her food, but she even started saying that if this is what she has to do to get into a nursing home, maybe we can set aside getting her into a nursing home for now.
I was not impressed.
She is determined to sabotage herself. It’s so hard to help her, when she does this. Then, of course, she blames everyone else and has no understanding that her own actions are the problem. She simply can’t grasp it, and it’s getting worse as she gets older.
She and our vandal are very much alike is many things.
I finally set the list aside for later. By then, I’d been there for over 4 1/2 hours. The meeting was finally done, and I could finally go home!
Well… after a stop at the grocery store for a few fresh items we were out of.
At least coming home to our nice new door cheered me up a bit! I am so happy with it!
We need to find someplace to store the storm door, though. It’s still leaning against the house.
Things are supposed to warm up over the next few days; especially on the weekend. We are no longer getting rain in the forecast. Which means I’ll have almost a week of good weather to get more garden beds ready and do more winter sowing. We also need to winterize the bottom of the cat isolation shelter before moving it by the house, where we can plug in the heat lamp and heated water bowl. The catio needs to be moved, too. Pinky no longer uses it. I think she’s returned to the rafters in the garage, where she used to hang out last winter.
I plan to take advantage of every pleasant day we’ve got, before the end of the month stock up trips need to be done!
For now, however, I am mentally and psychologically exhausted. It doesn’t help that my eyes are still achy from the dilation drops and vision tests I had done, yesterday.
Once I was done winter sowing in between the garlic and mulching that bed, it was time to start getting the old kitchen garden beds ready.
In this garden, the plan is to have things that mature faster, or that we can harvest from regularly throughout the season, with it eventually becoming more of an herb garden. I do plan to winter sow in at least the two larger beds, so it was time to get cleaning!
I decided to start on the wattle weave bed, and to finally transplant those tiny strawberries.
Which, amazingly, are not only still very green, but still blooming and producing! At this point, though, the tiny strawberries get mushy almost as soon as they ripen.
These strawberries were grown from seed that came in a kit aimed at kids that I got on sale a few years back. There was no variety named, and it was a surprise to find they produced such tiny strawberries. I don’t know if they are a variety of wild strawberry, or an alpine strawberry or whatever. They are very productive and ridiculously hardy, but the berries are so small and tasty for about an eye blink of peak ripeness, I don’t want them taking up space in the garden bed that could be used for something more productive. However, I don’t want to just get rid of them, either. I’ve been debating with myself for some time, trying to figure out where to transplant them where they can stay.
The first photos is the first section I wanted to work in, with two clusters of strawberries, plus three more in the bend of the L shaped bed.
I decided to transplant them into the retaining wall blocks along the west end of the garden. At one end, three blocks have chives in them, with one open block right at the corner. The rest of the blocks have mint planted in alternating blocks. The other blocks have had a variety of things planted in them, but this year I hadn’t tried to grow anything in them. There were just a few onions surviving from several years ago; they start growing every year, but never get far, yet somehow survive to grow another year!
Surprisingly, the mint has not been doing very well. The original of this mint is from my late grandmother’s garden, and had been taking over a large area of the old kitchen garden. I do want to keep some and transplanted them into the blocks, so we could focus on getting rid of the ones that were invading the rest of the garden. This spring, hardly any mint grew anywhere, though the blocks turn out to be doing a poor job of controlling their spread. Still, we didn’t have enough to make it worth harvesting any.
Since I didn’t plant anything in the “spare” blocks this year, they just needed a quick prep. Right?
Ha!
They turned out to be so full of roots! There were invasive flowers and roots from the ornamental crabapples, mostly. I pulled out so much material, some of which you can see in the second picture of the slide show above, the soil level in the blocks dropped by several inches!
I also found three surviving onions to transplant later. One bed that should have had mint in it, didn’t anymore, while the bed next to it had mint that it shouldn’t have, so I transplanted those right away.
Once the blocks were cleaned out and ready, I dug out a clump of strawberries and started separating individual plants.
After failing at that for a while, I got a bucket of water from the rain barrel and started dipping and swishing the roots around until I could finally start pulling them apart.
There were so many individual plants in there, I ended up filling all nine available blocks, some with two plants in one block.
There were still four more clusters of strawberries!
You can see the blocks after transplanting in the next photo. They got a thorough watering. The blocks dry out pretty fast, plus I need to empty the rain barrel.
I decided to leave the three clusters in the bend of the bed, but what was I to do with the second cluster in the area I needed to clear?
Well…
I did have more of those blocks to plant in.
In the next picture, you can see there’s a row of eight of them along the chain link fence by the people gate. I hadn’t planted anything in them this year. I had some concerns on how they would be. The last time I tried to clean up those blocks, I ended up having to move them out completely, because they were so full of Chinese Elm roots, it was the only way they could be cleared.
The last time I tried to grow anything in them, it was tomatoes in 7 of them, and a summer squash in the eighth. The tomatoes did okay, but the squash really struggled. My expectations for today were quite low.
Much to my surprise, they actually were pretty clear! It was mostly crab grass I had to remove. I was pleasantly surprised.
That done, I dug out the other cluster of strawberries and – live and learn! – dumped them into the bucket of fresh water from the rain barrel and brought them over. The next while was spent getting the individual plants separated – these strawberries do not have runners! – and setting them out. This time, I counted.
In the end, I had 21 strawberry plants to go into 8 blocks.
Most of them got three plants each, but I saved the largest ones to be planted in pairs, which you can see in the last photo.
I have no idea if the strawberries will survive in these blocks, but they are so hardy, I figure if anything can, it’s them!
That done, I could finally start cleaning up the wattle weave bed!
Here is how it looked before I started, with the frost killed pepper and remaining three eggplant plants still there.
Those Turkish Orange Eggplant did not handle any cold well, but they had a surprise for me. When I’d harvested most of the eggplants, I’d cut the stems with pruning shears rather than pulling them out by the roots. The remaining stumps were showing new growth!
Where the eggplants had been, there’s a protective collar around a few mystery plants I’d found while cleaning up other beds in the spring. They appear to possibly be types of lily. I want to find out, so those were left alone in their protective collar. They are still green and growing, whatever they are! Perhaps next year, they will bloom and we’ll see what they are.
Near where the remaining strawberries are, there had been a few red onions growing, one of which had gone to seed. I dug those up for transplanting while cleaning up the bed.
It went quite quickly. There were basically no weeds in there, though there were some roots from the double lilac the bed wraps around. A bit of crab grass and another type of invasive flower we’ve been fighting, and that was it.
Once the bed was clean and clear, the red onions, plus the yellow onions I dug out of the retaining wall blocks, were transplanted at the end near the protective flower collar, which you can see in the second picture of the slide show above.
When I clear the rectangular bed, I expect to find more onions, and possibly garlic. Depending on how many there are, I will transplant them all along the front of the south facing section of the wattle weave bed. Aside from that, I will be planting the dwarf peas in there. These are a variety that don’t need trellising, so that should work out in this bed.
Next, it was time to work on where the peppers were grown. The dead plants were pulled – all of these were set aside for trench composting, later – and the soil cleaned up and loosened, which you can see in the next picture. Once again, there was almost nothing to clean out. It did have more of the lilac roots invading, but nothing major. I haven’t decided what to put in this section, yet. I’m thinking herbs. Possibly fennel, as both herb and vegetable, but that will not be for winter sowing.
One of the pepper plants had a tiny pepper I hadn’t bothered to harvest when I brought them in to ripen indoors. As an experiment, I broke it open and it did have seeds in it. I had loosened the soil between the strawberry plants, so I scattered the seeds between the strawberries and the back of the bed and lightly buried them. Who knows. They might survive the winter, and we’ll have pepper seedlings in the spring!
The last picture is how it looked when the bed was all cleaned up.
By then, it was past 3:30 and I hadn’t had lunch yet, so I headed indoors for a while. My younger daughter had food ready, so I was able to get back out again, while it was still light.
I didn’t want to start on the rectangular bed, as that will involve harvesting the last of the Swish Chard, and transplanting any onions and garlic I find. There wasn’t enough daylight left to start that large of a job.
Instead, I started working on stakes. These will be for what had started out as a wattle weave wall in the bed beside the retaining wall, which wasn’t working out. I’ve decided to make a different type of wall, and need a lot more stakes to hold things.
My brother had cut away the maple sucker that were growing back behind the pump shack, so he could access things and run power to their home-away-from-home. I’d cleaned up the pile and set aside the straightest ones. Today, I moved those over and trimmed away side branches and twigs and so on. I got quite a nice pile of strong sticks to use as stakes.
The stakes will be shorter than the ones already in place, so I went looking for the shortest of the pieces I had in the pile, which was pretty much the size I wanted. I then fired up the miter saw and trimmed the ends. That became the piece I cut all the other ones to match in length, more or less. They don’t need to be exact as, once they are pounded into the ground, they’re never going to be exactly the same height, anyhow. They just need to be close, and will be trimmed later, if needed.
I double checked my count, and will need 15 stakes to add to this wall – three in the spaces between each of the stakes currently there. I cut 16, just in case. I was also left with some leftover pieces that were shorter, but close enough that they could be used, if necessary. Those are set aside, just in case.
Once I had the pieces cut to size, I got to use my favourite tools to work with! My draw knife, and the big vice in the workshop side of the garage, which you can see in the next photo.
There is something so satisfying about using a draw knife.
The next photo, all the stakes now have points on them. It was time to debark!
I set up a camp chair in the old kitchen garden, next to a spot that had been overrun by mint at one point. I’ve been putting rhubarb and kohl rabi leaves over it as a mulch to choke out the mint and crab grass, and that’s where I wanted to drop the bark. The next while was spent pulling the bark off, withthe aid of a utility knife. The wood was still very green, so it was easy going, overall. By the time I was done, it was around 7pm and starting to get quite dark! I took the pile of debarked stakes into the sun room, where there was enough light to get a picture, which is the last one in the slide show above.
It’s supposed to rain all day tomorrow, so I won’t be able to get any more progress done outside. The day after, the installers for the door should be able to finally come over to get the job done. I’ll be leaving for my eye appointment, shorter after noon, but I should have time to at least drive the stakes in where they need to go. That’s Tuesday. Wednesday, I’ll be at my mother’s to do her grocery shopping and for her appointment with home care for a re-assessment of her care needs. Which means the earliest I’ll be able to continue prepping beds and winter sowing is Thursday.
Things are supposed to start warming up on Friday and for the weekend. At this point, I have no appointments, nor planned errands other than a dump run on Saturday. If all goes well, I hope to actually be able to finish cleaning up all the remaining beds, and get the last of the winter sowing done.
If things go REALLY super-duper well, I might even be able to harvest more dead spruces and build more beds before the snow flies.
I had a wonderfully productive day in the garden today, so I am splitting things up into a couple of posts.
I decided to shift gears today. After looking at what I was wanting to winter sow and where, I decided to leave cleaning up the last two beds in the main garden area for later. Possibly until spring, depending on how things go over the next while. I needed to move on to other areas. Areas I knew would be faster to work on, since I wouldn’t be dealing with the roots and rocks situation!
The priority was going to be the old kitchen garden, but first I decided to do the winter sowing in the garlic bed. I didn’t want to have the plastic cover over the garlic for too long, as I was concerned the mini greenhouse it created might mess with the garlic.
Here is how it looked, after the plastic was removed.
I’d already raked up as many leaves as I could stuff into the wagon and the wheelbarrow for mulching.
As for the plastic, I was going to roll it up for storage, but remembered the low raised bed I had recently cleaned up. The cats have been digging in it, so I tided that up, then just shifted the sheet over.
The boards and bricks that had weighted down the sides against the hoops before are now being used to keep the plastic snug against the soil, and from blowing away. I found a short log that I could roll the excess up into. Later on, I did take all those rocks you can see at the end, and set them on the plastic, under the roll. It is slightly elevated, and the wind was moving it around quite a bit, considering how litter wind we had today. The rocks weighing down the other end weren’t enough, so I found a short board I could wrap the plastic around and weighted that down with the rocks. If it were spring, this would be a good solarization set up. For now, it’ll just keep the soil a bit warmer, and keep the cats from leaving me more “presents”. 😄
Then it was time to get back to the garlic bed, and clear away the hoops. With the twine marking the three rows of garlic, I used those as a guide while using stick to create furrows in between. I went back over them with my hands to lightly compact the bottoms for better soil contact – and remove as many little rocks as I was able to!
For the varieties, I chose American Spinach and Yellow Swiss Chard.
I didn’t mark the rows, so this picture is to help me remember what I planted and where!
I chose this variety of spinach because, after reading the back, it seemed the most appropriate for the location, as well as winter sowing. The Yellow Swiss Chard is a new variety, with an unusual colour for Chard, so I wanted to give it a go. Both packets still have seeds left, so we could potentially do another sowing in the spring, after these have germinated.
The seeds got lightly covered, and gently tamped down, again for better soil contact. I had made the furrows deep enough to form shallow trenches. The soil was damp and didn’t need watering – I don’t want them to germinate too early! – but next year, the trenches will help hold water, in case we end up with another drought year. Plus, it makes it easier to see where the seeds were sown.
You can see that in the next picture, along with the “first” mulching of grass clippings taken from other beds. Because the garlic is so close to the outside of the bed, and the bed has no log frame, I wanted to give the sides extra insulation. When the leaf mulch is removed in the spring, the grass clippings will be left as erosion and weed control.
I was originally going to remove the twine and stakes marking the garlic rows, but decided to leave them, and put the leaf mulch right on top, which you can see in the last photo. I finished off both the wheel barrow and the wagon of leaves before it was done. I got another wagon load to finish mulching the garlic bed, and had just enough left over to mulch the Albion Everbearing strawberries I’d transplanted from their original choked out bed to beside the new asparagus bed. The strawberry plants were still very green! Hopefully, they will survive the winter and we’ll have nice, big strawberries next year.
So the garlic bed is now DONE!!!
With the stakes left behind, the bed will be visible after the snow falls. This area gets very flat with snow in the winter. If we can get at the beds this winter, I would want to dig snow out from the paths and onto the winter sown beds for even more insulation – and moisture – in spring.
That done, I started moving my tools and supplies over to the old kitchen garden, where I wanted to work next, but first, I decided to gather a small harvest.
I dug up just a few Jerusalem Artichoke plants around the edges of the bed, and this is what I was able to gather from under them. I will leave the rest of the bed to overwinter. Later on, I’ll use loppers or something to cut the plants, which are still very green, and drop them on the bed as a sort of mulch.
The Jerusalem Artichokes (aka: sunchokes) did not grow very tall this year, compared to others. I did water it at times but, I’ll admit, it was largely ignored this year. As with everything else, I think the heat, the drought and the wildfire smoke set them back. I think they also got less light this year. The Chinese Elm trees beside them had been pruned, but the branches have grown back. I want to get rid of them entirely, because of the billions of seeds they drop in the spring, but for now we’ll just try to prune them again, when we can.
As for the sunchokes, I noticed a difference this year. For starters, I didn’t find any of those grubs I found so many of, when I harvested this bed completely, last time. Sometimes, I’d find them half burrowed into a tuber – both living and dead! Other times, I’d see the holes, then find a dead grub inside when cutting open the tuber. I was not impressed! This time, I saw zero grub damage. Sweet!
The tubers themselves are actually less nubby, too. A lot of the ones we harvested at the end of the season last year had so many nubs on them, they were hard to clean. This time, there are a couple of nubby ones, but most are smoother. Which I much prefer!
With leaving the rest of the bed to overwinter, I hope that we will have a much better growing season overall, and a lot more plants to harvest from. That seemed to work out when we did it before, as last year’s harvest was quite decent.
This done, I could finally move on to the old kitchen garden and start on the beds there.
Which did take longer than expected, but for a very different reason this time!
The Re-Farmer 