Gardening

Trellis bed progress, and the last potatoes are in

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Okay, so I did finally make it outside yesterday to do some work. I may have been mentally drained with all the BS going on with our vandal, but not going out was actually making me feel worse. It was later than I normally would have gone out, but the weather was still good, and there was still enough light.

For a while, anyhow.

My first task was to fill the wheelbarrow with material to add to the bed. The compostable bag of kitchen scraps went in, along with the Spoon tomato and pepper plants from the old kitchen garden, and all the squash and pepper plants from the main garden bed. I also pulled up the potato plants from the grow bags, which meant the Purple Peruvian fingerling potatoes would need to be harvested.

All that material went on top of the straw layer, followed by a layer of leaves and finally a sprinkling of grass clippings.

The grass clippings were more to keep the leaves down for when I tromped all over it, after this picture was taken. Then the whole thing got a thorough soaking. After that, I emptied my last half bag of manure over the grass clippings.

My plan had been to empty the soil out of the kiddie pool the melons were growing in, then use it to collect the soil from the potato bags while harvesting those. I got one load in the wheelbarrow, but the soil in there was very damp, sticky and heavy, and I was starting to lose the light. So I just emptied the one load into the bed, then shifted gears.

One thing about spreading even that small amount of soil onto one end of the bed: those layers REALLY start to sink under the weight! The bed looks over full in the photo, but those layers will probably settle to only half the bed, by the time the soil is added.

The feed bags used to grow the potatoes in are good for only one year’s use. They were all starting to tear apart as I tipped them over and dumped them out. The straw from the top and bottom of each bag could be easily set aside, leaving just the soil to sift through and pile up before moving on to the next bag. I got a decent amount of potatoes out of it. More than either of the other two varieties, and they were decently large for a fingerling potato, too. It was so dark by then, it was getting hard to find the dark purple potatoes in black soil in fading light! I will not be at all surprised if I find ones that got missed, when the soil is transferred over to the new bed. I did try to get a picture of the harvest, but it was a sucky flash picture, so I won’t inflict that on you. 😄

Today has turned out to be a less pleasant day, weather wise, so I’m extra glad I got as much done yesterday as I did. This morning, as I was finishing my rounds, I harvested some Uzbek Golden carrots to go with a roast I was wanting to do today. A nice big hunk of beef roasted with all three types of potatoes that we have, a whole bunch of our smaller yellow onions, and the golden carrots. Those were so big and juicy that, as I was cutting off the tops and tails, several of them would suddenly make a popping noise, and split from end to end!

I checked on the roast before I started this, and it was done – and the house smells delicious!

The Re-Farmer

October garden tour, and a surprise

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Last month I did a garden tour video on Sept. 10, which is our average first frost date. At the time, forecasts still had us looking at frost free nights well into October.

We got light frost over the next two nights after I recorded the video.

So when we got a harder frost exactly a month later, I figured it would be good to do another garden tour video. I managed to get it put together last night, started uploading it to YouTube, then went to bed. I got up a few times (drinking a liter of tea before bed was probably not a good idea) and checked on the progress, removed a kitten from the keyboard and repaired her editing of the description box, before finally falling asleep for the rest of the night.

When I checked my computer in the morning, I found it had been restarted.

Thankfully, whatever caused it to restart happened after the video finished uploading, so I didn’t have to start all over again. I just had to finish going through the settings and hit publish.

Here it is! I hope you enjoy it. 😊

In other things, once I was done my morning rounds, I grabbed our water jugs and headed into town to refill them and get a few groceries. The post office and the store it’s in closes at noon today, so I made sure to stop for the mail on the way out. I knew my husband had a package waiting, but I had one, too – and a lovely surprise it was!

My absolutely awesome friend sent me a new thermometer! I just love those nice, big, easy to read numbers! The hygrometer is going to be handy, too. Especially when it comes time to start seeds indoors again.

The reading on here is straight out of the box, after being in the car for a while, so it doesn’t reflect the ambient temperature and humidity of the house in the photo.

While in town, I popped over to the garage briefly, since it’s just across the street from the grocery store. I wanted to let our mechanic know how much we now have available as a down payment. Probably still not enough for that truck, but there were a few SUVs I looked at along the way. One, I didn’t bother checking out as it was too small for our needs, but there were two others that caught my attention. One turned out to be sold already, and the other was a new acquisition that he hadn’t even gone over yet, so he had no price for it, yet. From what I could see, though, it’s probably outside of our budget, anyhow. Ah, well.

Getting a vehicle in October seems very unlikely but, in November, we’ll be able to contribute more towards a down payment, so that might finally get us to monthly payments in budget. My daughter does plan to contribute towards the monthly payments but, with her income being mostly commissions, I’m not going to count it in my numbers.

It’s a cooler day today, and it’s been trying to rain all morning, so I will be focusing on indoor stuff today. The next few days are supposed to be warmer, sunnier – and drier! – so I hope to catch up on things outside, then.

Today looks like a good day to make a pot of tea, pop on some videos and catch up on my crochet!

The Re-Farmer

We have hot water again!

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Yay!!!

I was so excited when the phone rang, and I saw the plumber’s name on the call display.

Then confused, when there was nothing but dead air.

It took several calls like this, until I finally made sure my cell phone was on Wi-Fi calling (it keeps turning that off of me!) and got through to him that way. He’d tried calling another number in our area, with the same prefix, and had trouble there, so it seems like it’s a regional problem.

The important thing is, he was able to come over shortly after calling, and get the new tank installed.

Here, you can see his handy little pump draining the tank. We had turned off the breaker but never drained it or shut the water off, so that if we happened to turn on the hot water tap out of habit, it would still work. We just wouldn’t have hot water.

Looking inside, he thought that maybe the bottom element had burned out and said it could possibly be fixed, but I saw no point in that. This tank has already lasted two years longer than expected!

The weird thing was this.

This is where the electrical wires are tucked in, after the tank is hooked up. The plumber could not understand how water got in here!

After switching the tanks and starting to fill the new one, we talked about our well pump. It turned on while the tank was being filled, of course, but was having a hard time filling the pressure tank fast enough, so it started to make that grinding noise that worries me so much. I told him, we have a new pump ready and waiting, but with the possibility of the foot valve breaking, no plumber has been willing to change switching it out, because we’d end up with no water. He agreed with that assessment! I asked if he happened to know of any companies that serviced hand pumps, but he couldn’t say for sure. It’s entirely possible, we can change out the well pump and not have any problem at all, but when I said I didn’t want to risk it until we got the hand pump checked out and working again (if all it needs it new leathers), he thought that was a good idea. If we find ourselves with a worse case scenario, we at least can haul water to the house! Part of the problem is that the pipes in our well are a size that isn’t used anymore, so if the foot valve goes, we’d have to either find the old size somewhere or, if there are none to be had, get a new well drilled.

While the tank was filling, he was careful about using the valve to slow down the flow of water, giving the well pump a chance to catch up.

It takes quite a while to fill a 40 gallon tank!

Once it was full, he got me to turn on a hot water tap – which we have right in the basement, where the laundry used to be – to get the air out of the pipes and the water flowing. Once that was done, we could turn the breaker back on.

It takes a while for 40 gallons of water to heat up!

But heat up it did, and we now have hot water again! He recommended to check it a few times to make sure nothing is leaking, which I’ve done. Hopefully, this tank will last longer but, just in case, I’m hoping that we can pick up a “spare” tank, because we won’t be able to replace a warranty tank with a warranty tank again!

The whole thing ended up costing just under $235, after taxes. Thankfully, my daughter had already provided funds for most of that. Otherwise, I would have had to go into funds set aside for a down payment towards a new vehicle! We’re good, though, and I am very grateful!

It turned out to be a gorgeous day today – we reached 12C/54F this afternoon, which was several degrees warmer than forecast. I took advantage of it – and of having the cardboard from the box the new hot water tank was in – and started filling the trellis bed.

The cardboard almost completely covered the bottom of the bed, leaving gaps small enough that I’m not too concerned about it. After laying out, stamping down and hosing down the cardboard, I added the bark shavings from the poplar poles that will make up the trellis supports, followed by a wheel barrow load of wood chips. That got tromped down and soaked before the next layer was added – tomato, bean and melon plans pulled up from the garden. Finally, I added straw that had been laid out on this area when it was a Ruth Stout style garden bed. Another tromping and a soak, and I stopped for a while. These layers are just enough to cover the bottom logs, but they will settle down once the soil is added. I started adding scraps of wood into gaps as chinking, from the inside, so the straw could be used to hold it in place. There are more gaps that need to be chinked before more layers are added. It will get kitchen compost added, as well as leaves and grass clippings, before soil is finally added to the top. I’ll be using the soil from the melon bed and the grow bags, but those still need to be cleared.

With that in mind, I harvested the last of the onions in this area. There were just a few yellow onions left in the high raised bed, plus the Red of Florence onions sharing grow bags with the peppers. Last night’s frost was too much for the peppers, but some of the larger unripe ones were salvageable. I harvested the last of the peppers in the wattle weave bed, too, along with the two little eggplant that could be picked. We’re at 8C/46F right now, and supposed to drop to 6C/43F overnight, but there’s really nothing left to cover and try to protect anymore.

I’m happy with the progress on the trellis bed. Hopefully, I’ll be able to get that bed filled and set for the winter, and still be able to harvest more logs for the second bed. I’ll worry about the trellis supports later. That part can wait until next year, if need be.

It’s been a good and productive day today!

The Re-Farmer

It feels good!

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Well, I’m quite happy with how our Thanksgiving dinner turned out yesterday. The main reason is, just about everything on our plate was from our garden!

Starting from the top, going clockwise:

Uzbek Golden and Naval carrots, steamed, then tossed with butter, salt and pepper, and a touch of brown sugar.

Red Thumb fingerling potatoes – these are most definitely a mashing potato! – with butter, cream cheese, mayo mashed in, seasons with dill, salt and pepper.

North Georgia Candy Roaster squash. The squash was quartered and the cavity was coated with a mixture of ghee, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves and a touch of salt, and roasted with the spatchcocked turkey. If we’d done the turkey without spatchcocking it, we wouldn’t have had room for both! 😄

Finally, at the top left, is the quick pickle of both types of carrots, turnip, radish and garlic, spiced with whole cloves and whole cardamom seeds.

I look forward to a time when the meat is also from our own animals.

Unfortunately, I completely forgot to cover the peppers and eggplant yesterday evening. By the time I remembered, it was past midnight and we already reached freezing temperatures, though of course, none of my weather apps agreed. When my daughter and I went out with the covers, there was already frost just starting to glitter on the ground. It was chilly, but the stars were incredible! So many, and so very bright!

Heading out this morning, the frost was still heavy on the ground. At the last minute, I decided to take video for another garden tour. It will probably be the last one for the year. I’ll start putting that together in a bit, as I wait for things to warm up a bit more before going back outside. The forecasts for a milder October have all changed, though we’re still expected to get a few days at 10C/50F and above – though again, that depends on which app I’m looking at. It’s still nothing to complain about. After all, we could be having snow right now!

The Re-Farmer

Progress so far

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Taking a break for some food. Here are just a couple of pictures of what I managed to get done so far, today.

The first trellis bed is done. Had to mess around to get the ends of the sides the same height as the three end cap logs. Finally, just in case, I sprayed the holes each rod and rebar with clear sealant I got for the eavestroughs. The hollow rods in the middle end cap log I put in today had to be inserted at an angle, which would allow rain to drain right into the holes in the logs. The sealant isn’t made for something like this, but it’s what I had, and I think it should help. The bed is now ready to be filled.

I finally got the stump chair near the chain link fence built. Then, after adding another coat of paint to the sun room door, I painted the seat as well. Both will need one more coat.

While the day is still nice and the light holds, I’m going to tackle the felled trees in the spruce grove next.

The Re-Farmer

Almost ready

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Yesterday was damp and chilly, so some outside stuff had to be postponed again. One of the things I did get to, inside, was de-kerneling the popcorn cobs. I’ve had them drying in a cardboard box until now. So I popped on the Roku and found a show on food history to watch. Sadly, there was a fair bit of modern projection inserted that made some claims patently false. It frustrates me when people reframe the past to suit their ideological stance.

Anyhow.

I got through 3 episodes, so that is about 1 1/2 hours to get the corn done. Doing all those tiny cobs started to get rough on the fingertips, but it did allow me to keep just the good kernels.

I got more than I expected, to be honest! Almost exactly 6 cups.

Yes, I did test pop some, but almost none popped. They need to dry more. I currently have them in a container with a desiccant, since the oven still has peppers dehydrating in it. Those are ready to put away. We just haven’t gotten to it, yet.

In other things, we still have no hot water. It’s Thanksgiving weekend, so unless I call an emergency service number, we aren’t going to get a plumber for a while. No hot water may be inconvenient, but it is far from an emergency.

Today and the next few days are supposed to be a bit warmer and, more importantly, dry. A good time to catch up on things outside.

Last night, the forecast was for just above freezing, but I covered some things, anyhow. I’m glad I did. Before one of my apps updated, I saw we had actually dipped below freezing. The peppers and eggplant I covered seem okay. With the volunteer tomatoes, any parts that had grown above their plastic rings had frozen, but the parts below look fine. How long those survive is just a curiosity, since they will not have time to mature.

I have no complaints, though. Our first Thanksgiving here got a blizzard. It’s not at all unusual to get snow in October, so I am appreciating even the rain that delays some jobs.

Time to get to work!

The Re-Farmer

Prepare and repair

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Yesterday evening, I was able to work on one of the three raised beds in the south east yard, where we grew popcorn this year. Aside from weeding and preparing the soil for next year, I wanted to see if I could do something about the bowed out sides.

In the first picture of the slide show above, you can see I had a line across, already. That was enough to keep it from bowing out more, but not to pull it in. For that, I needed to move the soil more than I had, when I put the line in, in the spring.

The first thing to do was dig through the entire bed, removing all the weed roots I could. Once that was done, I shovelled soil away from the side walls, then redid the line. The original line actually broke while I was working with it, so I brought the roll of mason’s line and did it again. This time, instead of just doubling the line, I took used enough to fold it three times, making for 8 strands. After opening up the metal thing I can’t remember the name of, I put the lines on and pulled the sides in. One side was worse than the other (on the left, in the photos), so I focused on that one more.

Slight problem, though.

This is built out of scrap wood I found in the barn. One of the corners was already deteriorating more and, when I pulled the side in, I think I snapped the screws in the top board!

The corner is still holding, though. I’ll add more screws later.

Once the line was secured, I also tightened the metal thing (why can’t I remember what it’s called?? 😂), using a nail for leverage. That pulled the sides in a little more, too. I didn’t want to pull it in too much, though, because things would start breaking.

The next step was to level the soil again. By that time, I was losing light, too. To get a good idea of how well the sides had been straightened, I took the cover off the carrot bed, which isn’t needed there, and popped it over the prepared bed.

I had to come back today to get a picture, though, because the one I took last night did not turn out in the low light!

All these beds, and all the covers, are 9′ x 3′ (technically, 9′ 1″, counting the width of the end pieces). Which means the covers should fit exactly over the bed frames.

Well… it almost does!

The side walls now match the sides of the cover, but the corners, not so much! The corners on the bed have shifted. The one that broke is actually lower than the others, too! No surprise, considering there was so much flooding in the paths last year. However, it’s all close enough that it doesn’t matter much.

So this bed is now ready for next year’s garden!

Now, if we can just get to the others, and finish the trellis beds, before things start to freeze. Today is supposed to be the last rainy day for a while, so I should be able to break out the power tools and extension cords again. Current forecast also calls for lows of 1C/34F, 2C/36F, 1C/34F, then -1C/30F, over the next few days. Which means that, tomorrow, we need to either bring in the last of the stuff outside that isn’t frost hardy, or cover them for the night. Tonight, at least, is only supposed to go down to 6C/43F. We’re also supposed to get more heavy rains. Right now, it’s a damp and chill 12C/54F.

I’m glad we got the septic tank done yesterday, that’s for sure!

Lots of work to do out there, and time is running out. It all comes down to the weather.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: can you believe this?!!

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So here we are. October. Thanksgiving weekend is coming up.

Our first year here, we had a blizzard on Thanksgiving weekend.

Yesterday, we rained quite a lot, all day, and we’re supposed to continue to have showers off and on today. It should be good for the septic truck to come in, though, and not sink into the ground. I’ll have to give him a call later on.

It was pretty damp while doing my morning rounds. Not as many cats made appearances when I started putting food out. Nosencrantz was there, which I’m happy about, even if she still won’t let me bring her back into the house. Oh! I had a surprise last night. I saw Driver! We haven’t seen him in months! Even his sister, Adam, isn’t around as much, now that there’s no need for a creche mother, but she was around last night and this morning, too.

Now if only Butterscotch and Marlee would make appearances!

Speaking of appearances, that poor dog is still missing. The owner still has a trail camera set up in my brother’s driveway, across from ours, but I don’t know if the dog is coming by. I’m seeing posts on our local community FB page from the owner, every now and then, and he’s mentioned having a feeding station set up, but not knowing if he’s feeding the dog, or the wildlife! Wherever that’s set up, it’s not near our place. We have never seen the dog triggering our own trail cams, but it would have to come pretty close for an animal that size to trigger the motion sensors, given how our cameras are angled.

While going through the garden beds, the rain seems to have been well enjoyed by what’s left! Looking at the melons, I think we may as well harvest some under ripe ones, since their stems appear to be drying up completely, but some of them are still on live vines! Even the peppers are still surviving, though with the cooler temperatures, they don’t seem to be ripening. Not that I can tell with the Dragonfly peppers. They are completely dark, right from the start. I could probably have harvested a yellow patty pan this morning, but decided to leave it to get bigger. Even the green zucchini and zucca melon vines are showing fresh new growth! Even the Spoon tomatoes are still producing, the the transplanted volunteer tomatoes have had a growth spurt, and most are now taller than the plastic rings protecting their bases. Not that I expect any tomatoes from them, but I’m curious to see just how far they will get before it gets too cold. Several of them are even blooming! The Sweet Chocolate peppers in the wattle weave bed have more ripe brown peppers on them, and many more green ones developing.

What amazes me are these.

Yes! We have strawberries! The strawberries we started from seed are blooming and producing berries! Very tiny berries. Not much bigger than wild strawberries. I don’t remember the kit packaging these came from has having a variety name on it. If they survive the winter, we’ll see if the fruit it produces will be any bigger, next year.

This berry was quite tasty, though!

I’m even more amazed by these Classic Eggplant. Our one surviving transplant of this variety is now the only one with eggplants growing on it! The Little Finger eggplants by the chain link fence are still stagnated, and just a fraction of the size of this one.

Well, we now know we can’t plant gourds or eggplants in the blocks that make up that bed!

We don’t expect the eggplant to reach full size, this late in the season, but they can at least be eaten at this stage.

Looking at the forecast, we’re supposed to get another rainy day tomorrow. The day after, the rain is supposed to finally end, but overnight temperatures are supposed to reach a low of 2C/36F. Which means potentially frost. I think we may actually make the effort to cover some things, like this eggplant. I think, with the peppers, it’s time to cut our losses and just pick what we can. The only ones that did well are the ones we started really early, indoors. The other 4 varieties were short season varieties that, in theory, we should have been able to direct sow. Yet some of the plants are just starting to bloom now, while the others that have started to set fruit have done so so late, they no longer have time to mature. Even the hot peppers, which were so much further ahead, are completely green. They should have started turning red quite a while ago. We might just dig one of those up, bring it indoors and treat it like a house plant. We did that once, during our attempts to garden in the city before we moved, and it worked really well.

Oh, for crying out loud. I just momentarily looked at the weather app again, and the overnight low expected on Friday just changed to 1C/34F.

I understand why the weather predictions keep changing, but it does get frustrating. Especially since they tend to be off by quite a bit, in our area, since the weather stations are all so far from us.

Everything in the garden is on borrowed time right now, but it would have been nice if the warmer temperatures predicted on the long range forecasts a while back had actually been at least close.

The Re-Farmer

Morning finds

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Before heading to the city, I of course did my morning rounds. I had a few surprises this morning!

The first is, I finally got a good look at the tortie kitten, one of a litter of three that Broccoli started brining over recently.

It’s a long haired kitten! What a beauty, too.

Of course, they all are. I’m biased that way.

Nosencrantz also showed up for breakfast this morning.

She actually came up to the kibble while I was setting it out and let me pet her a bit, but she is still really stand offish. I can see, she is making sure I can’t grab her to pick her up and bring her inside.

*sigh*

There was another surprise in the squash patch.

The downpour we had yesterday seems to have triggered a burst of overnight growth on the sunburst patty pan squash! So many fresh new leaves under the frost damaged ones, and it’s almost the end of September – and still blooming, too!

Speaking of overnight growth, check this out…

This is on a dead maple tree near the fire pit, and it wasn’t there yesterday. We get these regularly, but this is easily the largest and most beautiful cluster of mushrooms I’ve seen since moving here.

We are having good weather today (Friday), and should have a lovely day tomorrow, too – then a thunderstorm on Sunday! We’ve found ourselves with a last minute conversation with family, and it looks like we’ll be doing a cook out tomorrow evening. So today, I’ll be raking the leaves away from the fire pit, so they are not a fire hazard, and setting things up. The old picnic table is so far gone, I don’t think we can safely use it anymore, and I’ll have to snag one of the girls to help me move it, and bring over the folding table we made this year. I’ll also have to empty the fire pit of ashes. It’s been a while!

I’m thinking a pot roast in the cast iron Dutch oven would go over very well!

The Re-Farmer

Garden clean up: the tomato beds

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After the almost constant rain yesterday, it was too wet to be working on the trellis bed. So today, I got the remaining tomato beds cleaned up. Or, at least the trellis set ups removed and the tomato plants pulled. Both beds still have other things in them.

In the foreground is the bed that had the Black Beauty tomatoes in it. It still has the Uzbek Golden carrots in it, and those don’t need to be harvested for quite some time. The volunteer sunflower was headless this morning, so I pulled that. The volunteer lettuce among the carrots had been going to seed, but that got eaten, too!

The next bed had the Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes. Now, there are still the Gold Ball turnips, and the sad little beets that never really started to grow.

Both beds still had a few yellow onions in them, so those got picked and are set on the bed cover over the radishes in the background. It still has netting on top of it, so they are secure on there for now.

Both beds also had sprinkler hoses in them, so those got taken out, too.

While pulling things out, I saw SO many slugs! They have even started eating onion greens, and very few things will eat onions!

The mostly empty high raised bed is a convenient place to set things aside! Here, you can see the three T-posts and boards that were used to trellis the Indigo Blues, and the bundles of bamboo were used to support the Black Beauties. I made sure to keep all the garden twist ties, clips, etc. Some of the twist ties were long enough to use on the bamboo bundles. This all got put away into, or leaned against, the old garden shed, along with the soaker and sprinkler hoses.

We’ve been wanting to build a larger garden shed as a cordwood practise building. This old shed has a leaky and rotting roof, and there’s a rotted out hole in the back corner that the cats get in and out of.

Taking a closer look, though, the frame is still pretty solid. Some pieces on the roof may need replacing, but that’s about it. We could take off the roof and walls, and repair it.

After moving it. It may have been in a good spot when it was first put there, but the trees it was squeezed in between have gotten much bigger, and the whole thing is tilting.

Something else we could salvage and reuse, instead of get rid of completely! We’ll still be building a larger shed, but you really can’t have too many sheds!

The Re-Farmer