Our 2024 Garden: transplanting tomatoes, luffa, onions, thyme and mulberry, plus some updates

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Yesterday, I had my eye appointment, which included pupil dilation, so I had my daughter there to drive me home. I’ll have another field of vision test in 6 months, though probably not the dilation. This will be my third field of vision test, which will give a solid baseline to compare with in the future. For now, the miniscule hemorrhages she can see in my eyes have not really changed, and we’re still in the monitoring stage. As for my regular eye test, my left eye has changed, but not enough to be worth getting new glasses.

All that went well, and I took a break from stuff to give my eyes time to recover. So I can’t blame that for my rough night. I was just getting pains in different places at different times, making it impossible to get comfortable, nor stay asleep for very long. So my daughters did the morning cat feeding and kitten cuddling for me while I tried to sleep in.

Tried to.

This time, it was cats that kept me awake! Butterscotch, after months of hiding under a chair, now likes to sleep with me. Or on me. She still won’t leave my room, but this is progress! She gets along with most of the cats, but some of them have decided to be aggressive towards her, so every time she sees them, even if they’re just walking by, she starts snarling and growling. Then there’s Ghosty, who likes to lick my nose, and Shadow, who tries to eat my buttons. Or Cheddar and Clarence, who get aggressively cuddly!

It’s better than being kept awake by pain, at least!

In the end, my having a late start turned out to be a good thing. I was inside for the call from Home Care about my mother and her wanting to move to a nursing home. We’ve dealt with this guy before, and he has assessed my mother in the past, which didn’t help her any. They can’t provide the help she needs. He was somewhat confused about getting the fax from her doctor to do a panel on my mother. It turns out, this is basically the opposite of how it usually works. Typically, someone has a fall or some other incident that puts them into the hospital. That’s when Home Care does their panel, the doctors do the other tests, and the person usually doesn’t go home from the hospital, but straight to long term care.

Which is not what we were told. When my brother called the nursing home my mother wants to move to (which is where her sister and my father, as well as many of their friends, spent their final months and years), he was told we needed to get a doctor’s recommendation. Which we now have. We didn’t know Home Care would be involved until that appointment. Home Care and a brain MRI are the last things that need to be done.

As he was explaining it to me, he felt that, since my mother hasn’t actually put herself in the hospital or had any falls, he doesn’t expect his assessment to amount to much. We already know this is basically putting her on a waiting list, but when I mentioned this, his response was that “waiting list” is basically too generous a term. More like an “indefinite list”.

She’s coming up on 93. I really don’t think that’s going to be an issue.

At one point, I called out the absurdity of the situation. Basically, because my mother is being so careful about things like NOT falling down and hurting herself, she’s being penalized for it? He sort of walked that back but, really, that’s what it comes down to.

Anyhow. The appointment was made for Monday, which is nice and fast. I will be there for this one. The assessment should take 1 1/2-2 hours.

Once I got off the phone with him, I called my mother to give her the appointment time and explain some of the things he told me. I suggested she write down the things that concern her the most, just so nothing is forgotten. It’s not just about her physical difficulties, but we also talked about how she’s noticed problems with her memory, too, and that needs to be taken into account.

Then I sent an email to the family to keep them in the loop. It would be ideal if my brother could be there, too, since he’s got a longer history of helping my mother out, plus he has Power of Attorney, but there’s no way he can get off work for it.

Well, part of the deal for us living here is that I am now able to take on this stuff for my mother. My schedule is the most flexible, and we live the closest to her.

I was eventually able to get outside and get some things done. We had scattered showers, but that’s it. The yard still has water pooling all over, so mowing the lawn is still out of the question. We were also getting high winds, which were blowing the plastic on the box frame over the eggplant and hot peppers loose. I kept putting the weights back on the bottoms, but in the end, just before I came back in for the day, I ended up tying twine all the way around, on two levels, to keep the plastic in place. If the sheets had been long enough to overlap, it would not have been an issue, but it is what it is. I also finally anchored the T posts holding the netting for the snap peas to climb. Some of them are getting long enough to actually start climbing, and the weight of them would eventually pull the posts inwards. Now, they are secure.

But that was at the end of things.

I decided the place to start today was in the wattle weave bed.

I’ve already transplanted the Forme de Couer tomatoes in the rectangular bed. There were only six Black Cherry tomatoes, so I decided those could go in the old kitchen garden, too. They got their protective plastic rings, as well, each with a pair of bamboo stakes to hold the rings in place and, eventually act as supports for the tomatoes.

I had two pots of luffa, but they each had three plants in them. I considered just planting them in groups of three, but decided to split them, so we now have six luffa plants. I put them in the same area as last year, right around the turn of the L shape. They also got the protective plastic rings, but just one bamboo stake. These were positioned closer to the wall, so that the luffa can be trained up them, until they can reach the lilac above.

Then, because there was still space, I transplanted the last of the Red Wethersfield onions, and the German Winter Thyme. There is self seeded chamomile coming up in between some of the strawberries, with room for the thyme beside it. More chamomile is coming up in the path, too!

There is still a small space that can have something planted into it, closer to where the garlic is in this bed, but I have not decided what to put in there. Most of the transplants we have are things that will get rather large, so they would not be appropriate for that spot. I should look through my seeds for direct sowing for something to go there.

Once everything was transplanted, I used some of the grass clipping mulch that had been removed from the other beds in the spring, and mulched around everything. Especially right up against the wattle weave walls, since a lot of stuff growing outside the bed makes its way through there.

At this point, the only tomatoes left to transplant are the San Marzano – and I have no idea where those are going to go!

What really needed to get in the ground, probably more than anything else, was the Trader mulberry. They’ve been in their pots for too long, and were not looking very healthy.

These went on the north side of the main garden area. These can get quite large, so I didn’t want them casting shade over places we want to grow vegetables. Plus, they will act as a wind break from the North winds.

For now, however, they need to be protected.

The first one went in front of a gap in the lilac hedge that the deed have been getting through. I used the loppers to clear away some lilac and little poplars. There was also a dead poplar on the fence side of the hedge. It’s been dead for a long time, so I was able to basically tear it loose from the ground. I laid it across the gap, near the fence (it’s an old barbed wire fence that’s slowly collapsing), which should also deter the deer from using this spot.

Of course, as soon as I started digging a hold for the mulberry, I started hitting rocks and gravel. I added nothing to the soil, though. The planting instructions for these specifically stated to NOT add anything to the soil when transplanting.

Normally, I would have set them slightly above grade, but this area is higher than other parts of the yard, and tend to get very dry. For this reason, I actually want water to pool a bit around the trees before it drains away. Once the sapling was in place, I emptied a 5L watering can around it, to settled in the soil and the roots. Next, thick cardboard was placed around the sapling as a first layer of mulch. At this size, they need to be protected from critters. I had some wire mesh that was used for something else last year. It was taller enough that I could cut it in half. I put bamboos stakes through the wire, then into the ground through holes in the carboard, so they would hold both in place.

Then I walked about 10 paces to the West for the second sapling. There was no gap in the lilacs there, so I cut away some of it to make a little protective hollow. This time, when digging the hole, I was hitting both rocks and roots! The loppers had to be used a few times to cut through the roots.

Once the second sapling was done, they both got their final mulch. They each got an entire wheelbarrow load. Most of it went outside the wire mesh, but I carefully added some to the inside, too, making sure there was nothing too close to the saplings themselves.

By the time this was done, the winds were picking up again. I could actually hear it roaring at times, but where I was working was well sheltered! Tucking them close to the lilacs should protect them from the worst of the elements, until they get larger. They will still get the full sun that they need, too. These will eventually grow 15-20 ft/4.5-6m tall. The berries are edible, of course, but apparently the leaves can be used for a tea that helps control blood sugars. It should take 2-3 years before they start producing fruit. We got these last spring, but they were out of the 2 year old saplings, so instead of the one we ordered, we got two, teeny tiny 1 year old saplings that I didn’t dare plant outdoors yet! I don’t know if that will make a difference in how long before they produce fruit, but I’ll just assume it’ll take 3 years.

Assuming they survive in the first place!

We shall see.

We’re supposed to be a bit more rain this evening, but none at all tomorrow. The high should also be cooler, too. That means I should be able to get back to working on shifting those last three beds to their permanent locations. What really needs to be transplanted next are the winter squash and gourds. Especially the Crespo squash. They are getting really tall, I’ve already pinched off flower buds, and more are appearing! So I might first make small raised bed, just for them, behind the compost pile. We made a small bed there last year, but the few things planted there didn’t survive. Right now, it’s very wet, so it would need to be made into a low raised bed, anyhow. I do have a 4’x4′ frame, much like the one that’s around the strawberries planted this spring, that can be repurposed for this, then we can add a few loads of garden soil from what’s left of the pile. We haven’t even uncovered that, yet. That this location is very wet right now would actually be a benefit, since the Crespo squash are supposed to get very large, and they need a lot of water to reach their full potential.

This will be the… third? year we’ve tried to grow them. I just looked at some of my old posts. The first year we grew them was in 2021. So this will be our 4th year trying! They did amazing, the first year, until they got eaten by deer and groundhogs. They recovered so well, with many fruit developing, only to run out of season. We did a large squash patch in 2022, but that was the year we flooded, so just about everything was a loss. Last year, they got their own patch out by the old squash tunnel that still needs to be dismantled. They did quite poorly. This was close to where the mulberry have been planted, and it seems that the spot actually got too much sun and heat. We did get a squash to harvest, but much smaller than it should have been. It started developing so late, it never reached full maturity. So, this year, I am taking that into account in choosing where to plant them. The spot I have in mind still gets full sun, but is shaded in the morning, and doesn’t get baked like the north east of the main garden area does.

The other winter squash will need plenty of room to grow, too, so they’ll probably take up a couple of the beds that I’m working on now, at least. I’m planning to put melons in the trellis bed that was built last year, along the side the trellis will be attached, but those are small enough that they can stay in their pots a bit longer. We might have to get creative in finding space for all of them, though. A good problem to have, I suppose!

I plant to put the peppers in the high raised bed, but they, too, are small enough that they can handle staying in their pots a bit longer, while I work on the remaining beds.

I have three pots that we planted herbs in last year. I think I’ll direct sow summer squash in those. That way, we’ll at least have some, even if we end up not having room in any of the main garden beds!

So many things to plant, and so few beds ready to plant in!

The Re-Farmer

It’s a little wet out there

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It’s just past 8:30am as I start this, and it’s already been raining for a few hours.

Normally, when I head out to feed the outside cats, there will be a crowd of them on the cat house roof, waiting to be fed up there, even in the rain.

Not today!

As I was coming back from leaving food for Broccoli near her kittens (I did not stop to pet them, as she was still somewhere in back of the shed), I found the kibble house jammed full of cats. Several ran off before I could get a picture. The kibble I did put on the cat house roof was being ignored. Cats like to shelter in the back of the water bowl house, so when I put kibble on the tray under it, I emptied one of the water bowls and put some kibble in there, too. They have plenty of places to eat and stay out of the rain!

Needless to say, the transplant trays weren’t taken outside for hardening off this morning!

I checked on the beds I transplanted into, of course. So far, they all look as strong and upright as when they were put into the ground, yesterday. They are handling the rain just fine.

Some of my onions, though, are having a different problem. I found a cat sitting at the end of the bed where some Red Wethersfield onions were. *sigh*

At least he was just sitting, and not digging!

On a completely different note, I’m a bit at my wits end with some of our inside cats. The two male tuxedos, in particular. Even though they are both fixed, they both spray. Not just spraying, but urinating, too. We keep finding new and different places they’re leaving puddles. Last night, my daughters caught Leyendecker peeing on my old steel toed shoes. I hadn’t thrown them out as, even broken, they could be used as a back up pair. So much for that idea.

In my bedroom, I use a vintage mirrored dresser and a night stand that my late father used (my husband uses the matching wardrobe). I discovered part of the dresser was being sprayed, and I had to set up a stool with its legs around that part of the dresser, and puppy pads, to protect it.

For the longest time, I was trying to figure out how puddles were forming *under* the floor mat I had under my office chair to protect the carpet. It was one of those rubberized mats suitable for outdoors. It recently had to be thrown out and got replaced with one of the large outdoor mats from the sun room. Even with a puppy pad on the area, puddles were still forming under that mat. I’ve been laying puppy pads down on the floor, with part of the pad up against the storage bins I have against the wall, there, but would still discover puddles under the mat in that spot.

It turns out the storage bins themselves were being sprayed, above the puppy pad, so it was flowing under the pad, instead of being absorbed by it. I now have to hang puppy pads on the side of the storage bins. Considering how tight this corner is, with the office chair in the way, it’s a very determined cat that’s doing this – and I’m not even sure which one it is!

This morning was the most disheartening, though. I was sitting on the side of my bed, when I noticed my lamp had shifted. No surprise; some of the younger cats have decided they want to get to the top of the wall shelf, even though where they try to climb is blocked by a huge box. They’ve been knocking the box right off, along with other stuff that’s stored up there, some of which is there specifically to protect them from the cats.

Well, I moved the lamp aside, and discovered the remains of a puddle under it. It had been there long enough that the veneer had absorbed most of the liquid and was badly warped and cracking.

After wiping it down, I put layers of paper towel on the spot, weighed down with a stack of books and my rotary dial phone, which is about as heavy as all the books together. I’ll have to check on it, later to replace the padding and see if the weights are helping to reduce the warping.

I’m not even sure how a cat could have done this. With both a lamp and the big rotary dial phone, there’s just barely enough room on the top of the nightstand for a cat to walk over it to get to my craft table. And how did the cat manage to spray under the lamp, with no evidence on the lamp itself, or anywhere else on the night stand? I go into that nightstand every day, morning and evening, since it’s where I store my supplements and meds, and never saw anything until the lamp itself got shifted.

Right now, I am fighting the urge to start tossing cats outside, though that would just trade one set of problems for another. It’s getting to the point that I’m thinking we may actually have to have the two male tuxedo’s put down, and we sure don’t want to do that. One of them moved out with us. The other has already had thousands of dollars in vet bills spent on him. But they are causing so much damage. Not to mention the stress of so many cats in the house.

June is Adopt a Cat month. It’s hard enough to adopt out an adult cat. Adopting out a “problem” cat (even though the problem is being around too many other cats) is almost impossible. The Cat Lady currently has 31 cats in total, and a lot of her permanent ones are there because most people want cats that don’t actually require much out of them.

On the plus side, we might be able to get an arrangement with Broccoli and her kittens. The large animal rescue that is not far from us is currently working hard to make it a family destination of sorts. They’re putting in playgrounds and a petting zoo. I was asked if we had a cat with kittens. Their cats are all fixes, so no kittens. They’d like to have a mama and kittens to socialize and rehome, as part of the things they want to show visiting families. This would be part of their rescue fundraising activities, and helping to spay and neuter colonies like ours is one of their goals. The only challenge will be catching Broccoli. She’s been letting me pet her during feeding time, lately, but that’s very different from getting her into a carrier.

Well, we can’t really complain, I supposed. Taking care of the cats is something we chose to do. The alternative would have been to simply get rid of them, which has been repeatedly recommended. I’m not quite ready to call the municipality to send someone out with a rifle. Not that we have a municipal council right now, but the province should have someone assigned to run things until they set up a new election. I hear that’s not going to happen until July, at the earliest!

It is what it is. We do the best we can.

But I’m really, really starting to lose patience with the spray boys.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: eggplant and pepper experiment

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Okay, I am totally beat! It’s so hot and muggy out there, I had sweat dripping onto the lenses of my glasses while I worked. We’re at 21C/70F, with the humidex putting us at 26C/79F, and we haven’t even reached our high of the day, yet!

But, I got the third raised bed in the east yard planted, and I’m done!

I also took a chance on an experiment that has the potential to be a complete disaster.

Before I could even start, though, I had to deal with the water. There’s so much of it flooding the east yard, the the boards forming the path next to the bed I needed to work on, were floating. The year we put those in was a drought year, and we had no idea it would collect so much water! The path on the other side of the centre bed is gravel, though there isn’t enough of it. We were planning to eventually get more gravel from the pit, but I have no idea when we’ll be able to head out there to get a load with the truck. We do, however, have plenty of wood chips.

There’s too much water to use the weed trimmer around the beds, so I pulled them by hand. Then I filled our wheelbarrow as much as I could without spillages, three times. That path needed a really thick layer to weigh down those boards and get above the water. With the last load, I could add some to one end, and a bit around the other side. Eventually, more will be added, but for today, I just needed to be able to access the bed without trying to walk on slippery, floating boards!

Then I began the first part of our experiment. I needed to secure the box frame so that it wouldn’t blow away. I’ll explain why that can be good, or really bad, later! For that, I drove some posts salvaged from the Walmart market tent we had, until a piece of tree fell on it, into the soil inside each corner. Then I secured them to the box frame with twine. The box frame is tall enough that I can still tend the bed without needing to move it.

I also used the stirrup hoe and weeded the bed a bit, then started on the eggplant and hot peppers. west end of the bed, I planted the smaller Little Finger eggplants; of the 7 in the tray, two were too small and wizened to transplant. At the opposite end, I planted the Classic eggplant; there were only 5 of those. The last two in the tray died off a while ago. The Cheyenne peppers, however, had all 7 in the tray, though there was quite a difference in size from one end of the row to the other! I planted the peppers in between the eggplant, and the shorter ones on the south side of the bed.

Then, because I had material from the boxes I picked up at the grocery store, yesterday, I mulched the bed with paper. Mostly paper. Each of the boxes had a paper liner, and those are almost enough to cover the entire bed, with some overlap. I cut openings in the paper to go around the transplants. At the very end, after I ran out of paper, I broke down one of the boxes. Those had air circulation holes in them, but I was able to use the flaps to cover those. I ended up using one entire box, plus a couple of extra flaps cut from another one.

Then I got my daughter to come out to help me with the rest of it.

I did remember to bring out some of the supports I have for the peppers and put them in before the next steps. Though the soil was quite wet and didn’t need a watering, we did water the paper and cardboard, so it would settle against the soil more and not blow away while we were working on the box frame.

We took the plastic sheets off the arched covers, then secured them around the top of the box frame. We just used staples for that. The two sheets weren’t quite long enough to go all the way around, so there is a bit of a gap at one corner. We then took one of the arched frames and put it on top of the box frame, and the other over the bed with the German Butterball potatoes (which are coming up now!), mostly for storage. They were just sitting in the wet grass, so this protects them from moisture damage. One had been stored on the box frame, but with the plastic over it, the wind blow it off. That won’t happen again, now that it’s just wire mesh. Once the plastic was tacked into place along the top, the bottoms were weighed down with bricks and boards that we have around those beds, just for that sort of thing. This way, I can still access the bed by lifting the plastic from the bottom.

Adding the plastic around the bed is an idea I got from Maritime Gardening.

Last year we had one surviving Classic Eggplant that did surprisingly well, in the shelter of the wattle weave bed. The Little Finger eggplant were among the things that failed to thrive in the chimney block planters at the chain link fence, that we now know is because of the elm roots getting up into them.

This bed is much more exposed, so I figured they would need extra protection from both the wind, and temperature variations, but of the air and the soil. These plastic walls should help with both. The top is open to still allow rain in.

If we get high winds, though, the plastic around the box frame could potentially become a sail. Hopefully, the frame is secured well enough to the stakes, but it’s entirely possible the wind could pull the stakes out of the ground and the whole thing could go flying.

It’s a risk, but I think it’s worth a try, at least.

So this has been a productive day in the garden. Two types of tomatoes (out of four) are transplanted. Shallots and red onions were interplanted with one type of tomatoes – I don’t plan to have beds of just onions and shallots, but will interplant them as other things go in. Two types of eggplant and the hot peppers are now also planted.

We have one 18′ bed, the high raised bed, plus some space in the wattle weave bed, that’s ready for planting. We can potentially plant in the two shifted beds before they get their log frames. We just have to plant in the middle. Still, this is not going to be enough for all our transplants, never mind our direct sowing. There are three more low raised beds that need to be shifted over to their permanent positions, then they too can be planted in before they get their log frames. Then more beds need to be built, almost from scratch, for the trellis tunnels.

At this point, I honestly don’t know how much of a garden we’ll be able to get in this year. It all depends on how much progress we can get on those beds, in time!

Well, there’s only so much we can do, and there’s no sense fretting about things if we can’t get them done in time for planting this year. Things will continue to expand, year after year, so it will get better.

My eye appointment tomorrow is in the afternoon, and we don’t need to leave until 1pm. I was thinking I’d have time to get more done early, but it’s supposed to start raining in the morning, and keep raining off and on, all day. We are supposed to get almost 2 weeks with no rain after that, though, and even get some cooler temperatures, so that should be time to get things done in the garden. If we can get everything done by the middle of June, that should be enough time for our growing season.

We’re definitely into crunch time!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: transplanting tomatoes, onions and shallots

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It is really wet out there, but we’re not supposed to get more rain today. I was torn between continuing on shifting the beds or starting transplanting. We have quite a few things that are more than ready to get set out.

After looking at the weather forecast, and the state of our transplants, transplanting won. In particular, tomatoes. It’s either that or pot them up, and that would be a silly thing to do at this, when they would do much better out in the garden.

The first thing I did was go through my trays and see how many I had of each type. When I saw I had 8 chocolate cherry, I decided they should go into the 8 chimney block planters at the chain link fence.

I then cut some of our many distilled water bottles to create rings for the transplants. With my husband needing distilled water for his CPAP humidifier, we have LOTS of these gallon/4L jugs. I had a few rings left over from last year, but a lot of them seem to have disappeared over the winter.

Anyhow.

I had some of the tomato transplants in individual pots, and some in a large celled tray. There were three rows of four Chocolate Cherry, Black Cherry and Forme de Couer, and the remaining cells got San Marzano. Those ones are the strongest and healthiest San Marzano. The deep celled tray with just San Marzano ended up in the sun room too early – we needed the space – and has only a few sad tomatoes left.

The tomatoes in the tray were so big and bushy, it wasn’t until I was taking the Chocolate Cherry out (they were in the middle row, of course) that I saw one had died off. I completely forgot we’d lost one in that tray. So, we have 7 Chocolate Cherry tomatoes at the chain link fence, and an open space for something else.

Once transplanted, they each got a ring around them. This is to protect them from the wind for the first while, and from the cats that like to go under the netting. The netting was draped back over the blocks and will remain until the elm trees are done dropping their seeds. As the tomatoes grow, the chain link fence will be their trellis support.

There were 10 Forme de Coure tomatoes, so I decided they should go into the rectangular raised be in the old kitchen garden. This bed already has a soaker hose set up. There is garlic growing down the middle, though not very many. This bed got the last garlic cloves, so some of them were pretty small and did not survive the winter. The garlic will be ready to harvest before the tomatoes are fully mature, so they should be okay together.

These tomatoes got their protective rings around them, which are being held in place by pairs of bamboo stakes – the rings blow away if they’re not anchored – which will become their trellis supports as they the tomatoes grow.

Once those were in, I saw there was space enough to transplant some onions. Because I’ve got those started in repurposed mixed vegetable trays, it was quite easy to pop out onion starts in just one section and bring them over. I started with Red Wethersfield, because they were the largest, and I have the fewest in the trays. They were planted at each end of the bed and in between the tomatoes, with a few extras tucked in among the garlic. I think I got half the Red Wethersfield onions done.

There was room enough along the south side of the bed to add a row of the smaller shallots – planting a larger bulb onion might have been a bit too crowded. I didn’t try to plant some on the north side of the bed, as there wasn’t quite as much space, plus I figured they would end up getting shaded out by the tomatoes.

All that took about 3 hours or so. I decided to take a break, and will get back at it, later. The next bed I want to work on is the empty bed in the East yard, next to the peas, spinach and carrots. I will be putting the eggplant in there, and want to try something different to protect these heat loving plants. I will probably be planting the hot peppers with them.

After that, I have some space in the wattle weave bed. I think I’ll put the luffa next to the double lilac again; they did well there last year. Peppers did well there, too, but I might put the Black Cherry tomatoes there, instead. Some of the peppers can go into the high raised bed. The first of the trellis beds, however, is being saved for the melons, and I think the winter squash will be going into the two beds we are shifting, with our without their walls in place. The Crespo squash in particular really needs to be transplanted, but it needs a LOT of space. I might just make a whole new squash hill, just for them. Then there are the mulberry, which are way overdue for transplanting.

Much to do, that’s for sure! Tomorrow is going to be a write off for me, as I’m getting my field of vision test done, which includes pupil dilation. My vision is going to be messed up for quite a while, so I want to get back out there and get as much done today as possible.

But first, hydration and sustenance!

The Re-Farmer

Progress before the rain

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Well, I got a bit done on the beds in the main garden area.

I ended up taking some progress video, and I’ll put something together when they’re done. For today, I started by marking out the north ends of the remaining 3 beds that need to be shifted, at the 18′ line. Then I removed the logs around the beds. Some of them were quite difficult to get loose from the ground. The worst were actually a couple of pretty small logs, but they were completely enrobed in Creeping Charlie and their roots.

One of the beds still had boards over it that I used to step on when tending it, and a stack of bricks that held netting down, from last year. All of those, plus things like sticks that were used to support plants, got moved aside.

One thing I was happy to see while doing all that were lots and lots of frogs!

Hopefully, they are doing a good job of gobbling up slugs and other critters that might cause us trouble once things are planted.

The whole area is so overgrown, I ended up getting the weed trimmer out, along with a couple hundred feet of extension cord. 🫤 It took a while, but I trimmed things down to almost bare earth – and found more logs that had been hidden in the grass while I was at it! The whole thing looked a lot less overwhelming after that was done.

I then took a break and headed into town. We needed to get refills on a couple of our water jugs. I called the grocery store ahead and asked if they had cardboard that I could take. I got transferred to someone who works in the back, and it seems they didn’t have much, but then he accidentally hung up on me. 😄

When I got there and got the refills I needed, plus a couple of other things, since I was there anyhow, I found someone working on the floor about carboard. She went to the back and came out with some boxes for me. My timing wasn’t very good; most of what they had had already gone through the compactor. Still, a few boxes, plus what we already have, is a good start.

Once at home and unloading the truck by the house, though, I could hear thunder. It had actually started to rain a tiny bit while I was working in the garden, but it didn’t stick around. The forecast says we’re supposed to start getting rain around 4pm, but a tiny little storm hit at around 2. It’s passed us by, but a much larger system is heading towards us right now. It’s past 2:30 as I write this, and the forecast now says that heavy rain is expected in about 25 minutes.

Well, I’m glad I at least got that weed trimming done. That will help. The boxes I brought home are out in the yard, getting rained on, which is fine. It doesn’t look like we’ll get any more down on the garden beds today, though.

Today, being June 2, is our last average frost date. Starting tomorrow, it should be safe to start transplanting things and direct sowing.

Oh, gosh. I just remembered that our transplants are outside right now. I hope they did okay in the rain! I’d better bring them into the sun room before the big system hits us. Mostly, I’m concerned the pots will get knocked over and such. They need to get used to rain as much as they do the sun and wind!

I’d better go do that right now, before I forget!

The Re-Farmer

A good day!

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I like it when things actually work out!

First, the cuteness!

I was able to say hello to the babies this morning, and cuddle them for a bit. One of these mornings, though, I will need to bring a daughter along. The kittens are getting big enough and active enough to climb out of their “nest”. When I first opened the door, the calico was in between a bucket, their bed set up and some netting. If I can get someone to snuggle the kittens and keep them warm, I want to take more stuff out of the old garden shed that they might get hung up in. Ideally, we’d move them to the baby jail in the sun room, but the room is too busy, I think. Both with us going in and out, and other cats. Broccoli would probably move them out.

We’ll figure it out. For now, I’m just happy she hasn’t hidden them already.

While continuing my rounds, I had to get some photos of the lilacs on the East side of the house.

The ones by the house bloom a bit earlier than the same type of lilacs that form a hedge along the north property line. The house itself creates a bit of a microclimate for them. The rest of this type of lilac are just starting to open. I expect to have a sea of lilacs blooming out here, tomorrow morning!

My husband and I were going into the city to meet with a friend at a shopping mall. We decided to make a date of it and leave early to have lunch (well… breakfast, really) together.

No, we didn’t go to a restaurant or anything. We went to the food court!

My husband was quite content with a burger and fries, but I had something I haven’t had since we left the city.

I got a beef Bento box.

Oh, my goodness, it was so awesome!!! The only thing I didn’t care for was the edamame. I don’t like it to begin with, but these were incredibly salty, and had strings. I ate a couple, got a string caught in my teeth that took ages to get out! LOL My husband tried one and actually spit it out.

The rest, however, was blissfully delicious!

After placing my order for the Bento box, I noticed they also had tempura vegetables. We tried doing that at home during our New Year’s fondue, but we really need a proper frier do to that. So I ordered some, and they were absolutely fantastic!

When offered chopsticks, I made sure to accept them. I’m not good at eating with chopsticks, so it forced me to eat slowly. 😁 It would have been sooo tempting to finish it off too quickly, if I were using a fork!

I know there’s a lot of negative things said about food court food, but honestly, I don’t see why. Yeah, you have the usual fast food places, but there were also options for Greek, Italian, Korean, Thai, Chinese and Japanese food, plus various other specialty cuisines, all freshly made.

So we had ourselves a lovely meal together, then headed over to our pre-arranged meeting point.

It was so fantastic to catch up with our friend! Being able to keep in touch online is great, but there’s no equivalent to being able to give someone a great big hug, and spend time together! Hopefully, we will be able to get together again, before he leaves the country again.

The trip was hard on my husband, of course, and he did have to say he’d reached his limit, but he was so very happy to be able to make the trip, and wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

Right now, after being home for a while, I’m having a battle with myself. I could go outside and try to get some overgrown lawn mowed… or I could go to bed early, and get an early start on the outside stuff. I got only about 3 or 4 hours of sleep last night, so I think early to bed is going to win out!

Tomorrow is our last average frost date. After that, it should be safe to start transplanting things outside.

And we still haven’t finished shifting those beds over, or harvested more dead spruces for the raised beds, because of the weather we’ve been having!

Well, we do have places we can start transplanting or direct sowing into. Just not a lot, yet.

It’s not even just about co-operative weather, but a co-operative body!

Yeah. I definitely need to get a good night’s sleep, so I can work more effectively tomorrow.

Which means, I need to get my butt off the computer!

The Re-Farmer

Stock up Shopping: This is what a total of $444 looks like

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$444.11 to be exact. Well. Sort of.

My first stop was at Walmart, where the majority of what I needed to get was more cat food, which I paid for separately, plus a few other items.

The four, 9kg bags of dry kibble cost $29.97 each, and the case of canned cat food cost $28.77, for a grand total, after taxes, of $166.49

The other items, plus a donation, came to $46.73, but the girls will be paying me back for their stuff, so the out of budget cost will be for the argan oil at $8.17 and my Vit. D3, which was $9.48 – both were on sale – plus the donation. With taxes, it would be between $20-$25 out of budget. I don’t feel like doing the math for the exact amount. 😁

I completely forgot to look for the electric tape that was on my list, though. I didn’t remember that until I checked the list while I was at Superstore. Oops.

The Superstore run was a lot longer. It’s been a long time since we’ve done a Superstore run, and I went through most of the store, then doubled back a few times, looking for things.

What you can’t make out in the photo is the sushi I got for lunch, and the package pf paper towels under the cart.

For this trip, I got coffee and non-dairy milks for the girls, and an energy drink for me, to go with my sushi lunch. I also got paper towels, ground cinnamon and ground thyme, cocoa, brown (well, yellow, according to the receipt), a big jar of olives, a case of Coke Zero, two jars of mayo, a wheel of double cream brie (30% off) and a big block of Old Cheddar cheese. Costco no longer carries blocks in that size, unfortunately. They had a better price. I did find the brand of soy sauce my husband likes, though. I normally find that at the international grocery store.

For fresh fruits and vegetables, I only got bananas and crimini mushrooms. Most of what I saw either didn’t look very good, or was too expensive. I did get their $5 bag of torpedo buns – there’s just something about those buns that I love! – plus a couple of baguettes that were only $1 each. I got a big package of hot dogs, so I got a couple of packages of buns to go with them.

For proteins, I also got a pack of frozen ground chicken (four chubs in the pack that I think are 1lb each), some breakfast sausages and some pork and vegetable pot stickers. For the girls, I got a couple of packages of frozen fish filets.

I remembered to pick up some more no-name Pepto and, last of all, I got some Gorilla brand silicone sealant. The drainage hose on our washing machine has sprung a leak. That’s what the electric tape was supposed to be for; we find it is great for waterproof patching of small holes in hoses. Superstore had all kinds of other tape, but no electric tape. I don’t know if the sealant will work, but if it doesn’t, it will still come in handy for other things!

The grand total for this was $250.89, but I had enough points on my Optimum card to get $20 off, so I actually paid $230.89

So the total for the day, minus what the girls will reimburse me for, was more like $420 plus a bit, than the $444.11 total on the receipts.

When I filled the tank, I also got a couple more jugs of summer windshield washer fluid, which cost me $49.96 in total.

Adding in the cost of the tire ($55.97), my prescription refills (only $14.54 and change, thanks to my husband’s medical insurance) and breakfast ($10.62), today cost the budget just over $550.

Ouch.

Then my husband sprung for burgers, which I picked up in town on the way home, but that didn’t come out of budget. Still, getting two burgers for each of us – nothing else – came out to $85 and change!! Granted, they were all triple burgers, but still… Ouch!

They really hit the spot, though.

So that was my very long, rather expensive day.

The sad thing is, we only have about half of the cat food we’ll need for the month. We’ll pick more up later. Then there’s the fresh stuff we’ll be picking up locally, as needed, throughout the month.

Having the truck is great, but that many bags and cases of cat food, plus our own supplies, is a bit much. We’re already needing to use a garden claw to pull the bags forward so we can unload them. I make a point of laying them across the axle, but by the time I get home, there’s usually at least one bag, or some other item, that’s made it’s way as far as the cab. We could certainly fit everything in the box with just one shopping trip. It would just mean more stops and more driving around, plus having to roll up the cover on the box and climb in to load it, which would make for a much more exhausting trip. Better to split it into two trips.

Not that I’m complaining, mind you. It’s just the things we need to work around our physical limitations. We do what we can, and don’t stress over the things we can’t.

Well. Mostly. 😄😄😄

The Re-Farmer

The start of a long day!

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Today was our second stock up shop in the city, but I had a couple of things to do in town, before then. The first was to get to the garage when it opened at 8, to get our repaired tire, have it put back on the truck, and the spare returned to its spot under the box.

Which meant being out rather earlier than usual for my morning rounds, starting with feeding the outside cats, including heading around to check on the babies in the old garden shed.

I’m happy to say that Broccoli has accepted our cat bed gift, and the babies seem quite cozy in it. I always knock on the door, so they can know the door is about to be opened. There are no windows in the shed, and the morning sun streams right in once the door is open, so the babies get a bit blinded. It was also windy again, this morning, which is probably why the calico is shivering so much.

I was quick about petting them, leaving food for their mama and closing the door again.

The girls were going to take the transplants out after I left, but the winds were still so high, I messaged them to tell them not to, while I continued my rounds.

Some of the Purple Caribe potatoes are getting much bigger – but most of the bed still has nothing showing yet. There are more Red Thumb potatoes showing than the the Purple Caribe, and those ones were mostly wizened when I planted them! I honestly would have expected those ones to not grow at all.

The second planting of peas is coming up nicely, while there are still only 3 from the first planting. The carrots are still barely visible, and I think a lot of them have failed, and the spinach seems to have stalled. Very strange.

The strawberries grown from seed last year, in the wattle weave bed, are getting really big! We did get berries last year, and they were tiny, like wild strawberries, so it’s a bit of a shame that these are the ones that are doing best. We hadn’t put anything around the asparagus and strawberry bed. I thought we were still okay, but two of the 4 strawberry plants in there have already been munched on! I do sometimes see a deer on the trail cam, so I guess it’s coming into the yard as well. So that bed will need some protection.

The new strawberries are doing quite nicely, which means we’ll have to put something around that bed rather quickly, to keep the deer from munching on them, too.

There is still a lot of squelching as I walk around the yard. The unfortunate thing is that one of the softest parts of the yard is where I drive in to turn and back up to the house. So far, it just seems to be a bit muddy, and not forming ruts, but this is not a good thing. There’s another, less ideal, area I can use to turn in, but it’s almost as wet, so there’s really not much advantage to that.

By the time I finished my shortened rounds, it was time to head out. I got to the garage just as it opened I had to wait while the guy got their computer system going, which was fine. I had to go to the pharmacy next, and they didn’t open until later. Once he got everything up and running, he got the truck backed into the garage and switched the tires for me. He was a new guy, and a fairly new mechanic, who had never worked with a spare tire system like we’ve got before. I got to show him all the stuff I just learned about the truck myself, while waiting for CAA to come and change my flat for me. 😄

In the end, it didn’t take long, and the final bill for the repair and installation was less than $60. Less than I had budgeted, which is always nice. It was still early, and I hadn’t had breakfast yet, so I popped across the street and got a hot breakfast sandwich before going to the pharmacy. They turned out to be already open, so I was able to get my refills right away. We actually had a prescription delivery for my husband on Wednesday, but they had to fax my doctor to update my prescription, so mine wasn’t included. I’m glad I remembered it was called in, because I was planning to head straight to the city after the tire was done.

I’ll cover the shopping in another post. I only went to two places; Walmart and Superstore. On the way home, my husband sprung for burgers, so I stopped in town again to get those, then hit the mail on the way home. I left at 7:30am, and got home some time after 2pm. Almost 7 hours of mostly driving around! There was no Costco in the area to get gas, and the gas station at the Superstore was at $1.469/L, while town was at $1.449, so I was going to get gas while in town. On the way out of the city, though, I passed a gas station and saw the price was at $1.399/L, so I filled up. Then I got to town and discovered the prices had gone down while I was in the city, and they were at $1.399/L, too!

So we have a full tank of gas for tomorrow. We’ve been in touch with our friend and worked out a time and place to meet him in the early afternoon. My husband and I will be leaving shortly before noon to get there. It’s been a very long time since my husband has done a city trip. It’s going to be painful, but it’ll be worth it to meet with our friend. With my husband’s mobility issues and living here in the boonies, it’s been harder for him to keep in contact with his friends. Rather ironic that the one he did keep in contact with wasn’t even on the same continent! I really wish he were able to get together with friends more often. He’s just around us ladies all the time. Not a lot we can do about that, but when the chance is there, I’m going to make sure we can take it!

While I was gone today, the girls took are of a few things for me, including getting some of the weed trimming done around the house. It’s still too wet to mow, but at least that can be done. Hopefully, tomorrow, they’ll be able to do the paths between the garden beds I’m trying to work on, too. Some spots would have water in them still, but not where I’m working on, next.

Today, we reached a high of 21C/70F, and they’re now saying we’ll have light showers this evening, but just for about an hour. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to hit 21C/70F again, and have sun and some cloud all day, but no rain. Then on Sunday, we’re supposed to hit 23C/73F and get rain in the evening. I’m hoping that, I’ll be able to get more progress in those last 4 garden beds! It’s getting to the point that they need to be worked on, rain or no rain. My daughter is feeling bad because she hasn’t been getting more dead trees processed, to frame the beds, but she’s not been feeling well. With the high winds and rain we’ve been having, though, she wouldn’t have been able to work on them, anyhow.

So many setbacks, but at least we do have several beds we can put transplants in, once we cross that last frost date threshold! Looking at the overnight lows we could, theoretically, put stuff out now, but why take the risk when we don’t have to? With not being able to take the transplants outside to harden off consistently, though, we will have to make sure to protect them once they’re in the ground. All those distilled water bottles for my husband’s CPAP humidifier that we’ve been saving will come in handy for that!

We’ll get there, eventually!

The Re-Farmer

What a weird time of year

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A lot of what I write about in this blog, besides cats, has been about gardening. We’ve had a lot of unexpected challenges, so I’ve been spending a lot of time doing research and watching gardening videos.

Videos like this.

A very useful video about harvesting onions.

So why is this a weird time of year?

Because this video was just published a few hours ago. It’s May 30.

It’s May 30, and he is HARVESTING his onions.

He also has garlic scapes to harvest.

Onions can take anywhere from 90 to 120 days to maturity. Which is why we start our onion seeds indoors earlier than anything else.

We haven’t even transplanted our onions yet. They can handle the cooler nights, but they will be transplanted around and in between other things, not in a bed by themselves.

While our garlic was planted in the fall and is growing quite nicely right now, we probably won’t see scapes for another month.

It’s one thing to reading blogs or watching videos of harvests from people that are living in the southern hemisphere. It’s quite another to see this happening here in the norther hemisphere, and there are SO many channels I follow that are harvesting from huge, lush gardens right now. Even in places with climates that are actually cooler than ours, or at least don’t have our extremes of bitter winters and scorching summers, but have a longer growing season.

It’s downright surreal at times!

The Re-Farmer