Gardening

So many! Plus an evening in the garden

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

While catching up on a few garden things in the cool of the evening, I happened to walk near the covered board pile outside the living room window, where Not-Junk Pile has her litter. I’ve been seeing 3 kittens running around and playing on the tarp, and the tire and tire rim we have on top to keep it weighed down.

I could see Not-Junk Pile lying in the grass, nursing her littles. They noticed me, and three kittens ran off into the brush around the board pile.

Leaving three others behind! They and their mother watched me closely as I walked by, but did not run away.

Six.

She has SIX babies!!!!

I saw them again later, and it was quite hilarious. I had to zoom in from a distance, and this is the clearest photo I could get.

That’s just a whole bowl full of babies in there with her! 😹😹

As I was in and out of the sun room, I spotted the kitten with the messed up eye. It’s looking really swollen – even more than before – around and behind the eye socket. I let the girls know, so they could try and get it and tend to it as best they could, but it ran under the counter shelf, and none of us have spotted it since. I did manage to snag a black and white kitten with a gummed up eye, and one of my daughters was able to wash it clear. There’s a white and grey kitten with an eye stuck closed, too, but I haven’t been able to catch it.

As I was finishing up, I spotted a teeny little tuxedo running around outside the sun room door. I’m not sure that I recognise it.

Speaking of recognizing cats, after I put the kibble out and cats were coming around, I realized I was seeing both Junk Pile and Not-Junk Pile. I tried to move closer to Junk Pile, but honestly, the only way I can tell them apart unless they are literally right next to each other, is from the wounds Not-Junk Pile has behind her ears, from scratching herself. We still haven’t been able to catch her to give her that ear might medication, which is really getting to be a problem. The wounds behind her ears had been healing up, but today they are red and raw again. I did manage to come close enough that she sniffed my fingers, but that’s as close as she’ll let me get to her.

We reached at least 24C/75F today, though the thermometer in the sun room was hitting 30C/86F. For all the severe thunderstorm warnings we were getting, we didn’t even get rain. So I made a point of watering as much of the garden as I could, while doing other stuff.

It’s too early for the water soluble fertilizer I used to make much visible difference, but that bed with the Roma tomatoes is bothering me. They are just not thriving, for all that they are producing tomatoes. That bed has a mulch of shredded paper, because that’s all we had left at the time. It does the job, but isn’t as good as a grass mulch, and we have a nice big pile of grass clippings available right now, so I went ahead and topped up the bed with a few inches of grass clippings around the tomatoes, between the onions, and especially the edge, where the crab grass comes up from under the logs framing the bed – and right on top of the soaker hose that winds its way around the bed, leaving only the connector sticking out. Then I went around and pruned the bottom branches off the tomato plants. I’m hoping the fresh mulch and the pruning will help the tomatoes get healthier.

After that was done, I hooked up the garden hose, then went to look at the new soaker hose I set up and tested in the purple corn bed. I got the soaker hose because it was affordable, but I guess you get what you paid for. It works just fine, except for the connector. Inside the connector was a flat green disc with a small hole in the middle. I figured it was to control the flow of water into the soaker hose, but when I hooked up the water hose, it sprayed from between the threads. With the disc there, there’s just too much water pressure, forcing the water out through the connector. So I tried taking out the disc and tried again, but there is no rubber washer, so it still leaked. A lot. I have extra rubber washers, but when I put one in, I discovered that the connector isn’t as deep as others. With the washer in place, there wasn’t enough thread to screw on the garden hose! The washer is just too thick. It’s fine on every other hose. Just not this one. I did eventually use it without the rubber washer, but not for long. There was just too much water leaking.

I did, however, have an extra female coupling, so while giving the other soaker hose time to give the tomatoes and onions a good watering, I cut off the connector on the new hose and replaced it. The original coupling was at the end of a plastic tube on the outside of the soaker hose. The new coupling has a metal tube that needs to be inserted into the hose, then a worm clamp is tightened to keep it in place and from leaking. Getting that into the soaker hose took awhile, though! It was designed for a half inch hose – which is smaller than the hoses we have, but the clamp makes up for that. The soaker hose opening is narrower than half an inch! Thankfully, the material it’s made of does stretch, and I was able to get it in properly, then clamp it down.

Once the tomato bed was watered, I tested out the new hose with its now connector, and it worked perfectly!

Oh, slight interruption!

My daughter read that tonight was supposed to be a good night to see the Northern lights, and she invited me to go outside and see if they were visible, or if it was too cloudy. It turned out to be too cloudy, but we heard the barking sound of racoons, so we went to check.

We found two young racoons on the cat hour roof. When they saw us, they flattened themselves down as much as possible, and froze! We ended up using the hose to chase them off, but… gosh darn it, they are so flippin’ cute!

Anyhow… where was I?

Ah, yes.

With the new soaker hose working, I decided to set up a sprinkler over the squash patch, so the whole patch can be watered at once. We have oscillating sprinklers we found after moving here – three of them. They work, in that they spray water, but the oscillating part doesn’t work at all on two of them.

Of course, the one that worked was the last one I tested!

Turns out that if it’s set right, it not only waters the entire squash patch, but also the small patch with the drum gourds and zucca melon – and the corn bed! So it got a real good watering this evening!

By the time I used the soaker hoses and sprinkler for a half our each, it was getting too dark to do much more, so it was time to go in, and away from the mosquitoes! We’re still getting predictions for rain tonight, but I’m not expecting it to reach us, so I might be watering some more, in the morning!

I so enjoy being able to work outside. I’d say outside all day if I could! Heck, with the temperatures we’ve been having overnight, I’d happily sleep outside, too. One of these days, we’ll have a mosquito proof gazebo, and I’ll be able to do just that!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: NOOOoooo!!!!!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, crud. Look what I found this morning!

Almost the entire bean bed has been eaten!

From what I’ve been able to see on the trail cams, we’ve only got one deer still coming into the yard, since we got rid of the bird feeders and stopped putting deer feed out all winter. A few nibbles here and there were found in the beds by the vehicle gate into the inner yard. I was working on plans on how to protect the corn, carrots and turnips. I didn’t think of the beans as a priority, since the deer have never really gone for them all that much, before.

This high raised bed, however, must have made for a nice buffet table for a deer!

We planted so few beans this year, too. This bed is basically it. I have no idea how the pole beans planted with the purple cord will do, since they were planted so much later.

There were still flowers, and I think the plants might recover. We shall see.

Then there was this.

Something keeps flattening the potatoes in this bed! Usually, they stand back up again on their own by the end of the day, but this is the flattest I’ve seen them yet. I don’t know of it’s cats fighting on the bed, or skunks or racoons, but something is mashing them during the night.

I ended up going out today, which I will write about later. When I got back, I repaired another leaking hose and, then set up the spray thing for the water soluble fertilizer I picked up and gave the entire garden a watering with it. I hope it helps the Roma tomatoes in particular. They’re having the hardest time, but more on one end of the bed than the other. We’ve had issues with that end of the bed in previous years, so there is something going on with the soil there.

After the watering was done, I decided on how to protect the beans from further damage. After several failed attempts, I was able to finish this.

I’d hope to be able to fix the supports for the hoops on the outside of the logs, but that just didn’t work out. It now has netting that will still allow pollinators in.

I didn’t think to take photos, but before I did this, I worked on the Indigo Blue and Black Beauty tomato supports, too.

Oh, dear. There has been scrambling noises behind me as I wrote that. A kitten has managed to get out of baby jail. This is the second one that has managed it, so far!

My daughters are now on kitten duty! 😄

Where was I?

Ah, yes. Tomato supports.

The Indigo Blue has a twine support, but the weight of them was making the vertical twines sag in the middle. The boards that were used to cover the Uzbek Golden carrots were long enough, so I lashed them to the tops of the posts, then added more twine to pull up the sagging vertical twine supports, which pulled the horizontal twines and their tomato plants up and straight quite nicely!

The Black Beauty tomatoes each have their own bamboo pole to support them, but the one at the end that broke in the storm was still tippy – and is a lot shorter now! I ended up lashing horizontal bamboo poles across the bed, just high enough to support the shorter pole. Now, each vertical pole has more stability. The tomato plant on the pole that broke also needed more support. They didn’t get pruned in time, and now they have big, extra branches that are starting to grow tomatoes. I attached the horizontal support at that end with an overhang that I could use to hold the twine I used to support the branches, with more twine added along the row to catch a few other branches that needed extra support.

It’s not pretty, but it does the job!

I was still thinking about ways to deter the deer from the rest of the garden. I want to avoid the posts and netting we did last year. They not only kept the deer out, but us, too!

For now, we’re using distractions. I went around and hammered some of the posts we used to support netting last year in strategic places, while my daughter went around and used electric tape to attach pinwheels to them. Then more pinwheels were added to things like trellis supports. My daughter added posts and the last of the pinwheels to the low raised beds with carrots and popcorn in them.

All we need now is some wind. After having high winds so often, now that we have pinwheels up all over, suddenly there isn’t even a slight breeze!

All of this took much longer than I thought it would, and were not the jobs I had planned for the day, but they needed to be done.

Ah, well.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: an actual little harvest!

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

While doing my morning rounds for the past while, I’ve been able to snack on the occasional early pea pod. This morning, there were enough of them that I went and got a container to harvest them!

Not a large harvest, by any means. Basically, enough for one person – but it’s the real harvest, so I’m happy!

I’m glad I broke out the riding mower and mowed as much as I did yesterday. I got most of the area round the main garden beds. The rest out there is so rough, I’ll be using the push mower or weed trimmer. I also got the East yards done. The West yards have some things than need to be moved or trimmed first, that I left for today. Which might not happen, as the grass it now too wet. Last night, it rained off and on. Not enough to fill the rain barrel, but enough to give the garden a good watering.

But was it enough to do this?

One of the Black Beauty tomatoes got knocked to the ground. The stem is quite dry at the end, so it could have even happened yesterday. I suspect it wasn’t the rain that knocked it down, but a cat.

I picked it and now it’s sitting in the living room, in hopes it will continue to ripen.

The first African Drum gourd, in the main garden area, has started to bloom!

I don’t know that we’ll have enough growing season left for these. I tried starting them early enough indoors compensate for that, but these are among the ones that were sown a second time. The first ones that survived are at the chain link fence and, while they have been blooming for a while, there are still no female flower. Even the Crespo squash, which have also been blooming for a while, are almost all male flower. There were two female flower buds that started to form, but the first one wizened and fell off rather quickly, and now the second one looks like it’s doing the same.

Some of the winter squash are starting to show flower buds, though, which is encouraging. What’s discouraging is that the very few summer squash that are just germinating now seem to still get eaten by the slugs. They definitely prefer those freshly emerged leaves! Yes, I scattered out more cornmeal, but the rain washed that away.

I also quickly transplanted the one lemon cucumber that germinated. I ended up planting it in the mulched bed behind the compost heap, where we had ground cherries last year. I’d planted the three Ozark Nest Egg gourds along one side of that bed, but it looks like there’s only one left. For some reason, the cats really like to use the grass clipping mulch as a litter – but only where there is an open area around a seedling or transplant!

Anyhow.

The lemon cucumber is now right in the middle of the bed, with plenty of room to grow. If it survives, I’ll add something for it to climb.

We shall see!

The Re-Farmer

A lovely morning!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

We had another cold night last night, for this time of the year. Temperatures dropped to 6C/43F. It’s coming up on noon as I write this, and we’ve warmed up to 21C/70F, with an expected high of 23C/73F. I made sure to get outside to do my morning rounds a bit earlier, as we got word that my brother and his wife were coming out with the repaired riding mower, and it was just beautiful out.

Of course, I was checking all the garden beds, and saw so many of these…

A lot of the purple corn seem to have exploded with tassels emerging, overnight! I had expected them to get much taller, first. I may have made a mistake in choosing pole beans to plant with them, instead of bush beans! 😄

I also was able to pick a handful of the wild-ish raspberries growing around the old compost pile. Until this year, I would usually find enough to nibble on a few while doing my rounds, but not usually enough to be worth picking. They’re just starting to ripen now, and I’m already finding more than before – and that’s just in this patch. There are still the raspberries growing wild in other areas that we can pick from.

I even found a couple of fully ripe pea pods to nibble on, and some Saskatoons. The peas will have more ready to pick soon. So will the Saskatoons, if we can stay ahead of the birds! Even the sour cherry tree by the house is starting to ripen.

When I later put the washed raspberries on the kitchen counter, I had a good laugh. My daughters can be so silly at times! Last night, my younger daughter made mint syrup for the first time, and set it aside on the counter to cool, with a Post It note to let everyone know what was in the bowl.

Her sister added to the note…

Too funny!

My brother and his wife came out in their truck; the riding mower fits quite well in there. Once it was out, he showed me the things he replaced and repaired, and some of the things he found. There was one wire connector, for example, that he found was completely off. Which means the mower blade could not be lowered. Even if the chain he replaced was working, we couldn’t have use the mower! I have no idea when or how that happened, because the last time I tried to use it was right after it had had the chain put back on. The chain immediately fell of, so I never got to a point where I’d have tried to engage the mower.

He replaced the seat. I didn’t even think it needed replacing, but he explained it to me. It seems there was some video of me he’d watch, riding around on the mower, and the bottom of my sweater was on the top of the mower – a part that spins! This seat has a back on it, so that won’t happen anymore.

He’d replaced the battery cables and the corroded connectors, and they are now covered with a protective grease. He also found a new battery holder. That was one of those things where I’d seen something was wrong, but didn’t know what it was. There was a vertical metal bar that was wobbling around. I knew it should be attached to something, but couldn’t figure out what. It turns out it was one of the bars that held a plastic piece that was supposed to be holding the battery in place. There was no sign of the plastic piece. It was held in place with a couple of nuts and washers. This is something that can only be seen if the seat and cover are lifted. How or when the plastic piece fell off, I don’t know, but it had to have been fairly early on, because I have zero memory of ever seeing it there in the first place.

After showing all the changes to me and my younger daughter, who’d joined us by then, he started it up and tested it out on the outer yard grass before driving it into the garage.

As for their mower, the best I could do was make sure the tank was full, have it out and ready for them to load, and clean it off. They were happy to get their mower back. It’s slightly narrower and can store in their garage – ours was too wide! It’s also too wide to fit between some of their trees, so they couldn’t use it for that, either.

I am so thankful that my brother was able to do all this for us. He’s so sweet!

Once done with the mowers, we did a “tour” of things. They checked out inside the shed with the roof that collapsed; there’s still quite a bit of stuff in there, and my brother even borrowed the wheel barrow so he could move some of it to the barn, so it wouldn’t be exposed to the weather anymore. He was able to identify some of the things in there, including some things that really had me wondering why they are there at all – they are for equipment that the farm has never had! My SIL found some ripe cherries to try out, and we all got to snack on Saskatoons. She’d never had them fresh off the tree before, and loved them. They planted a Saskatoon bush at their place, but it’s too early to be producing yet.

We talked a bit about some of the trees we need to deal with. The elm in front of the kitchen really needs to come down, but that is one for the professionals, as are the dead spruces closest to the house. The cost is prohibitive, though. My brother, being the sort of person he is, just sort of took off suddenly and went on the roof to empty the eaves toughs. While there, he checked out the elm tree, which has branches overhanging the roof. At the very least, those need to be cut back, so they don’t damage the nice new shingles!

Altogether, we had a wonderful time, wandering around the yards and chatting about what we’ve been doing, what needs to be done, and what we’d like to do.

They had another surprise for us, though that will be brought out later. They found themselves with an air conditioner they’d bought for someone else, but is no longer needed. It’s been used for only a year. They have central air and don’t need it themselves, so they will be gifting it to us. It’s not the kind that fits in a window, though. It’ll need to be installed in a wall, and near a 3 prong outlet. We have a limited number of those. My brother walked around the house, talking to my daughter about where to install it. It was decided there was no way to install it upstairs and be able to plug it in. It also can’t go into any of the log walls. Since we have cat proofed the living room, that’s where it will be installed. So we will have to do some rearranging in there… again… in preparation for that.

It won’t be the most efficient location for air conditioning, but it’ll still make a world of difference!

They are so awesome!!!

So now I’m looking forward to using the riding mower around the main garden area. I didn’t want to use their riding mower for that, because it’s so rough, I was paranoid about breaking their machine.

I think today would be a great day to finally get that done! Or at least started. 😊

The Re-Farmer

New?

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

I was feeling well enough to do my evening rounds. In fact, I feel as though I was never sick in the first place! Bizarre!

One of the first things I did was catch Ghosty’s sibling, and my daughter and I gave it a face wash.

Its eyes weren’t stuck, but there was a lot of crud around one of them, and its nose was partially blocked, so my daughter cleaned it up as much as the kitten could tolerate while I held it. This kitten is starting to get used to being handled, and doesn’t run away like the other kittens. It even comes right up to me, sometimes, and lets me pet it.

While checking the garden, I spotted this beauty.

The Black Beauty tomatoes have a lot more tomatoes forming than seems obvious, at first glance. Some of the stems are so dark, it’s hard to see the dark tomatoes against them. This one, however, is so dark, and was shining in the sun! What gorgeous tomatoes!

I tended to a few things from this morning, including reopening the gate by the fire pit, and using the bucket of water I’d left for the cows to water the Korean pine. Two of the Korean pine wire covers had been knocked off. They’re just held in place with ground staples. I’m going to have to find something better to hold them in place, so they don’t get knocked aside so easily.

I was puttering around the kibble houses before going inside, hoping to lure some playful kittens closer, when I spotted … a new kitten?

My apologies for the picture quality, but I didn’t dare come any closer, so this is zoomed right in from across the yard.

That is a rather large kitten!

Usually, then the mamas bring the kittens to the house, they are old enough to be weaned, or close to it, and able to start eating solid food. The tiny tuxedo that showed up first is the oldest; the others still have blue eyes.

This kitten looks much larger and older than any of the kittens around the house. It looks almost “teenager” size! I’ve never seen it before. It makes me wonder that the mother didn’t bring it to the kibble house earlier!

I’m glad we kept up leaving food so far from the house for cats that aren’t ready to come closer. We have a couple of kibble bowls further from the house, but this one has more shelter under the spirea, and is more popular with the kittens.

We are expecting to see more kittens show up at the house throughout the summer, but younger kittens, not an older one!

The Re-Farmer

Today’s progress

/ Re-Farmer / 1 Comment

Last night was another chilly one, as we went down to 9C/48F – but not chilly enough for the furnace to turn on this time! The thermostat was turned down to 10C/50F for the summer, but we never expected it to actually get lower than that!

Today we hit 26C/79F. We keep getting storm warnings, but I can’t rely in them hitting us, so I made sure to water the garden. Starting by hooking up the soaker hose and just leaving it while I made a run into town to pick up some prescription refills for myself, refill a couple of our 18.9L water jugs, and fill the tank on my mother’s car. Thankfully, the gas prices in town have not gone up with the new tax, though it has in other parts of the province, including the city. Rather backwards on that, but I’m certainly not going to complain!

I haven’t heard from the garage about our van, yet, which means he hasn’t had a chance to look at it. Thankfully, we have access to my mother’s car, so it’s no hurry.

I wasn’t going to do any heavy stuff in the heat of the day – the rest of the week is supposed to be much more reasonable! – but that just meant catching up on smaller things. While moving the hose to the different beds with sprinkler hoses, I went ahead and planted some of the Red Swan beans we have so much of, in with the purple corn. These beans are both a fresh eating and dry bean, but this late in the year, I think we can only reasonable expect to have fresh beans in what’s left of the growing season. Hopefully, they will work out with the corn to climb. I considered planting bush beans, instead, but I’d rather pick beans from higher up!

After finding the newly sprouted summer squash eaten by slugs already, I sprinkled fresh corn meal around all the squash mounds. I spotted another seedling in the next mound over, and I didn’t want that one eaten, too! I also sowed more summer squash again. If this third planting doesn’t take, that’ll be it for trying to sow them. I just came back from checking the garden beds while there was still enough light, and I did find a few slugs around a couple of squash, but that’s it. Hopefully, this new application of corn meal will be enough to keep them from returning.

Along with watering the main garden with the hose, it was time to refill the old rain barrel out by the Crespo squash and new raspberries. I’m trying to make sure the squash out there get extra water, because that corner gets so dry and sun baked. For the garden beds in the south yards, I used water from the full rain barrel by the sun room, then left the diverter off so that, if we do get more rain, it’ll get refilled.

While watering the old kitchen garden, I took the time to take the cover off the shallot bed and do a thorough weeding. The first of the poppies in there has started to open, and I can tell these are more of the Double Scarlet, not the Giant Rattle poppies we grew there before. Darn. Still, these do seem to be an eating poppy, not an ornamental one, so that’s okay.

The shallot greens were starting to get too tall for the wire cover – a problem I did not anticipate! – and were falling over too soon, so I harvested enough of the greens to take some of that weight off. Then I decided to harvest some of that mint that’s been invading our paths; it’s much taller than the ones I transplanted into the retaining wall blocks! My younger daughter might try some of the mint to flavour a panna cotta. Sounds good to me!

I also spotted our can of marking paint when I got back inside, which reminded me to head back out again and use it to mark the rocks and high roots in the southeast yard, so we can see them when mowing the lawn. We’ll have to get more of that marking paint. I finished off the can, and it has been very handy.

I made sure the kibble was topped up for the evening – I don’t want to do it too late in the day, or we’re just feeding skunks and racoons. Of course, I still saw a skunk before coming back in, just a little while ago. The kittens were also out and playing. I was able to catch and pick up another of the white and greys, and give it a cuddle. It didn’t like being picked up and put down, but it tolerated being held and snuggled just fine!

I was happy to see the tiny tuxedo enjoying the bed and stuffy the Cat Lady donated to the yard cats. There are other beds in the cat house, but these are in the water bowl shelter. Even the littlest kittens have figured out how to use the board leaning on the edge as a ramp, to drink water in there. Of course, we have water bowls at their height, but it’s good that they can get at the ones in the shelter, too.

Among the two litters that now spend so much time in the sun room, there are a couple that are white and black, very much like their mother, but one of them is most definitely a tuxedo, even tinier than the singleton! I spotted the two tuxedos playing together, and can see that it’s going to get hard to tell them apart, once they’re both adult sized!

I think I managed to get a decent amount of stuff done today, even if it wasn’t the big stuff that needs to be done, too, just yet.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023 garden: July Garden Tour video

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I was up way too late finishing this off, then set it to upload while I went to bed. It wasn’t until I watched it together with the girls this morning that I realized I’d inserted a video clip twice somehow. I don’t have the motivation to fix it! 😄

So there we have it: a tour of how the garden is doing, as of a couple of days ago.

I hope you like it! Feel free to watch it on YouTube and give it a like, subscribe, etc. if you wish. 😊

The Re-Farmer

Got some stuff done, and first fruits!

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

After the hours spent outside yesterday, trimming, cutting and dragging around trees, I fully expect to be in a world of hurt today. I wasn’t! Just tired. Sleepy tired, not fatigue tired.

Today was a wonderfully cool day and it would have been prefect to get back out there, but I decided not to push my luck. Instead, I went out and made recordings for a July garden tour video. My husband had some parcels come in, so in the afternoon I went to the post office to pick them up. My younger daughter got her new debit card in the mail, which needed to be activated by doing a physical purchase, so we went into town and she bought me lunch. After we ate, we went to walk on the beach. By then, I was really noticing my hips were starting to give out. No pain. Just… unstable. So I’m glad I didn’t push myself to do more work with the trees, just because I thought I was better than I really was.

I couldn’t let such a wonderful day go to waste, though, and took advantage of the riding mower my brother loaned us. I was able to do the driveway and most of the outer yard before running out of gas again. By then, the light was starting to go, and it had been trying to rain for almost an hour, so I left the rest for later.

One of the things I need to mow around in the outer yard is the pile of insulation buried in branches. It’s been there so long, there are trees growing out of it, and wild raspberry bushes.

Lots of wild raspberry bushes.

With ripe berries! The ones in the garden are almost ripe, but these had berries ready to pick now!

So after the mowing was done and the kibble topped up outside, I got the girls to grab some bowls and pick berries with me. I’m not sure what happened with my younger daughter, though. She came out using a cane! After we came back from town, she went for a bike ride and seemed fine, but something gave out on her. Her PCOS really affects her joints, and she worked hard in the basement today. None of us do stairs well at all! I didn’t get a chance to ask what happened, though.

After we picked some berries, I was going to do my evening rounds when I remembered, we have other berries, too! There are Saskatoons ready to pick. My older daughter helped pick for a while, then commented on the cherry tree by the house. It has so many cherries on it, and some of them are just starting to turn red. I told her to go take a look at the other cherry trees along the edge of the spruce grove. I have been able to just see red cherries there. She took a look and forced her way closer, to pick some.

She was able to get at a whole 4 ripe cherries!

My older daughter and I ate those. They’re really sour cherries, and she and I are the only ones willing to eat them fresh like that! 😄

Not too shabby for a first berry harvest of the year! The girls washed them and made whipped cream to go with them. They were awesome.

The weather is supposed to be quite pleasant for the next while – slightly below average for July. I’m pretty excited about that. Hopefully, that means I can finally get lots done outside!

The Re-Farmer

Trellis bed progress

/ Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Finally!

With last night’s storm, I was happy to see the tree my brother cut down that got hung up on other trees had fallen closer to the ground. It’s not going to drop any further, though. It’s now hung up between the trunks of a group of trees. We can, at least, reach most of it better, though, so we’ll be able to work on it eventually.

With today’s slightly cooler weather and a nice, clear day, I started working on getting those dead spruce trees my brother cut down for me, out of the bushes.

I took photos and will eventually put it all together in a video but, for now, this is what I managed to get done today.

Gosh. That doesn’t look like much, now that it’s done! 😄 It did, however, take a LOT of prep work before these logs could finally be dragged over.

The two trees that were on the ground were almost completely hidden by underbrush. I used the weed trimmer to clear a path to them first, then did a bit around the trees themselves. There were too many hidden branches, though, so I had to shift gears.

The top of the first tree extended a lot more than I thought it did. I used the little mini-chainsaw pruner to clear the branches, then remove the most crooked section of the top, before working my way down the trunk. I had the wagon nearby to put the branches in, and made a few trips to the branch pile near the fire pit, cleaning up as I went along.

Once I got it clear enough, I was able to pull the entire trunk out from under the stuck tree, then continue removing a few more branch stubs. Next, I measured 18 feet from the thick end of the trunk, and used the electric chain saw to cut it. I used a rope to drag the top part through the trees and into the garden, which was harder than it should have been. I neglected to roll it over and check it, first. There turned out to be a stub of a broken branch at the end, acting like an anchor!

Needless to say, I made sure to check the 18′ piece before I dragged that away, too!

The top of the tree is around 16-17′ long. Too short and thin to make the long walls of the beds, but it will do nicely, cut into 4′ lengths, to create the end walls.

The other tree that was flat on the ground was looking very crooked – spruces tend to be like that at their tops – and I thought it was shorter than the first one. As I cleared more dead branches and tried pulling it out from under the stuck tree trunk, I realized it was a lot longer, and thicker! In fact, when I finished clearing the branches and measured out 18′ from the end, I was still at the far side of the stuck tree! It was simply too big to pull out first, like I could with the first tree.

The top was moved first. I hadn’t bothered to measure it, since I figured it would be too short, but when I dragged it between the posts that are 18′ apart, it almost reached, end to end! The thinner top, though is still pretty crooked, so it will likely not be used as a side wall.

Then it was time to drag out the rest of it. I rolled it around to cut away any branch stubs that might cause problems, but the trunk was quite a bit larger and heavier, and getting caught on things. While I was working, I was constantly finding very old and rotting branches and pieces of tree trunks hidden in the undergrowth, that have clearly been there for many years. They made for a rough surface to drag on. I ended up tying a plastic bag around the end of the trunk, to reduce friction. It helped a lot but, by then, I was getting pretty hot and tired, so I got a daughter to pause making supper to come help me drag it out.

While working on this tree trunk, I found the fourth tree my brother had cut down. It is another big one, and he felled it in the opposite direction. It’s almost completely hidden, not just by undergrown, but other trees, and I’m honestly not sure how I’m going to get at it.

As for the tree that’s stuck, that one is even bigger. This is one that’s going to have the thickest 10′ cut off and taken to where we plan to build the shelter for the outdoor kitchen we plan to build. These trunks are far too thick to use for raised beds, as they would take up a lot of growing space. Rather than cut them in half or something, we will instead use them as vertical supports for the shelter.

But I was not about to work on either of those logs, today.

I started to put things away, but I really wasn’t happy with having done only two trees. Especially when there were other thinner dead trees, right there.

Yup. I ended up cutting down another tree.

Gosh, that thing felt so light, after fighting with the big one! Even though I used a hinge cut, it still fell off to one side and got a bit hung up on other trees. It was easy to get loose. I just put the rope around the trunk near the stump and pulled it until it fell the rest of the way. It also fell across the stuck tree, which made it much easier to work around.

Then it was just a matter of clearing a few branches – there weren’t very many at the bottom half – measuring out and cutting 18′ and dragging it out.

The top of the tree is resting on top of undergrowth, and I left it there for now. I am not sure how much of it will be useable. It won’t be useable for the walls on the raised bed, but it might be useful in other ways.

I’m still going to have to cut down one more smaller tree for this bed. There’s one that looks like it’s similar in girth as the log with the plastic bag on the end. I’m planning to make these beds 2 logs high, but I want the bottom logs to be the bigger, thicker ones.

This time I have the draw knife, so I want to de-bark the logs and cut away any remaining branch nubs, lumps and bumps. I didn’t do that for the high raised bed, and I can see that it would be much better to do it than not.

I want to get at least one bed built, with the vertical trellis supports in place, before cutting down more trees for the second one. Ideally, I’d put in the vertical supports for both beds, along with the horizontal supports to make a trellis tunnel, right from the start, but we’re going to have to work on things piecemeal for now. Plus, we will be building at least one, probably two, more of these, so this one is the learning experience!

I’m happy with the progress, and I’m paying for it now, but I’m actually not having as much trouble as I’ve had in the past. Of course, tomorrow might prove me wrong, but it seems my body is finally starting to handle things better. Yes, I’m stiff, my left knee tried to make an escape, and a thigh tried to go into a conniption fit, but I’ve certainly had far worse pain, stiffness and joint instability after far less work.

It just feels so good to finally be able to work on this!

The Re-Farmer

Baby bed, drainage and feeling frustrated

/ Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

Would you look at this tiny worm?

I found a cardboard carton large enough for the mama to fit comfortably in and lined it with one of the blankets the Cat Lady donated to us for the kitties. Unfortunately, I really spooked the mom when I opened the door; enough that she ran out the hole in the back of the shed she’d been using to get in and out. I suppose that made it easier, since I didn’t have to worry about her reactions. I quickly put the baby in the bed box outside the shed, cleared the netting and other odds and sots where the baby had been lying, fit the bed box in, and left. The whole thing probably took less than a minute to do.

Picking up that tiny baby, though. Wow! It must have been maybe hours old, the first time I spotted them a few days ago.

The mother is Baby Beep Beep, which means she is NOT the mother of any of the sun room kittens.

In other things, we got quite a lot of rain last night. I’d used the rain barrel to water the front garden beds, as it was full to the top, and got it down to maybe a quarter or a bit less. This morning, it was full to the top. Not overflowing, but close, so I put the diverter on for now. We’re expecting more little thunderstorms passing through tomorrow. This morning, I was hearing thunder around us, and even got rained on a bit.

The potted herbs on the front step seem to be doing well. The lemongrass is getting taller. The spearmint in one pot by itself, and the thyme and oregano in the other, seem to be recovering from being transplanted well. Those two post have drainage holes and are sitting on trays, but the pot the lemon grass is in does not have any drainage holes. As I was weeding, I could see it was way too wet, so I just got a hammer and a nail and made one drainage hole.

I got this picture after it had been draining for more than half a minute, and there was still lots of pressure!

The bottom and sides of the pot are lined with grass clippings, and I don’t really mind there being some water accumulated in the clippings. Having a drainage hole higher up will work well, I think. It’s not like I could tip the pot and put holes in the bottom!

The down side is that, after weeding the Chinese elms that were sprouting in that pot, my hands smell like stagnant water. Yes, I’ve washed them. Several times. The smell still lingers. Ick.

I moved the last of the Jiffy Pellet trays to the steps near these pots. There is still that one Lemon Cucumber that sprouted, nothing else. It’s probably too late in the season, but when it gets its true leaves, I’ll find somewhere to transplant it. One cucumber plant is better than none.

This has been a very frustrating gardening year. The intension had been to expand the garden again, or at least use as much as what we did last year. With the weather and the heat, we weren’t able to build those trellis beds in time, which means two large sections, where we’d planted potatoes and melons last year, aren’t being used at all. We got transplants in, but didn’t have room for all of them, which means we have far fewer paste tomatoes than I intended. That was the one type I wanted to have a lot more of, since making our own tomato paste last year went over so well. Along with the weather and heat issues, I’ve lost more than a few days that would have been good days to work outside, because I had to help my mother out, and she demands I take a “holiday” when I’m with her, and not be “in a hurry” to leave. When I point out I have work to do, she just says, “what work? You don’t have cows!”

*sigh*

We didn’t do anywhere near as much direct sowing as intended, because there weren’t enough prepared beds to sow into. As it is, we had to use the old kitchen garden differently then intended, just to get things in the ground. That’s okay. Normally, I’m quite flexible about such things, but after a while, it just gets frustrating. In the end, instead of expanding the garden this year, we’ve got a smaller garden then last year. One positive thing, at least, is that we aren’t having the no good, terrible growing year we had last year!

I was feeling good about the garden in many ways. We have tomatoes growing and starting to produce fruit. The Gold Ball turnips, which disappeared last year, are growing well. Yes, something is eating the leaves, but not enough to hinder their growth. We’ve got two types of carrots, and both are doing well. The bush beans are struggling a bit, but they’re growing. Even the tiniest of onion transplants – the ones so small, they probably shouldn’t have been transplanted at all – are picking up. I’m happy to see so many pea pods forming, even though the plants themselves seem a lot shorter than I expected them to get. I think it’s the squash patch that is most encouraging. They failed so badly last year, and now I’m seeing the winter squash getting big and strong. It even looks like we’ve won the battle against the slugs! I’ll just have to keep up with sprinkling that corn meal. We might actually have fully mature winter squash to harvest this year

The melons germinated so late, they probably won’t get a chance to produce fully mature fruit, but they are recovering from being transplanted nicely and, you never know; we might get a long, mild fall and the frosts will hold off until late in the year again.

Then I see people sharing pictures on the local and Zone 3 gardening groups I’m on, showing their huge plants and talking about the vegetables they’re already harvesting. How can they be harvesting beans already? How is their corn so tall? One person was even eating fresh tomatoes! In June!

I try to remind myself that Zone 3 is about winter temperatures, and covers a large, geographically diverse area, so a lot of these people have a last frost date in the middle of May. Even with local groups, most of the members live well south of us. With this year’s very early and warm spring, even people with later frost dates took a chance and planted earlier. We’ve also had a decent amount of rain, though some people did lose or partially lose their gardens to driving rain, winds or hail.

Still, seeing all those photos of huge, lush garden growth and harvests, suddenly my garden seems really pathetic, and way behind, without even taking into account the things we didn’t get built in time to use this year.

I know better than to compare our situation to others, because it’s so different, but when I’m already feeling so far behind, it’s easy to start feeling down about the whole thing.

Things are supposed to cool down over the next few days, and the storms are supposed to stop for a while. Which means we should finally be able to chop our way through the undergrowth and get those trees my brother cut down for me! This should have been done weeks ago.

Well, it is what it is.

Little by little, it’ll get done.

The Re-Farmer