After the almost constant rain yesterday, it was too wet to be working on the trellis bed. So today, I got the remaining tomato beds cleaned up. Or, at least the trellis set ups removed and the tomato plants pulled. Both beds still have other things in them.
In the foreground is the bed that had the Black Beauty tomatoes in it. It still has the Uzbek Golden carrots in it, and those don’t need to be harvested for quite some time. The volunteer sunflower was headless this morning, so I pulled that. The volunteer lettuce among the carrots had been going to seed, but that got eaten, too!
The next bed had the Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes. Now, there are still the Gold Ball turnips, and the sad little beets that never really started to grow.
Both beds still had a few yellow onions in them, so those got picked and are set on the bed cover over the radishes in the background. It still has netting on top of it, so they are secure on there for now.
Both beds also had sprinkler hoses in them, so those got taken out, too.
While pulling things out, I saw SO many slugs! They have even started eating onion greens, and very few things will eat onions!
The mostly empty high raised bed is a convenient place to set things aside! Here, you can see the three T-posts and boards that were used to trellis the Indigo Blues, and the bundles of bamboo were used to support the Black Beauties. I made sure to keep all the garden twist ties, clips, etc. Some of the twist ties were long enough to use on the bamboo bundles. This all got put away into, or leaned against, the old garden shed, along with the soaker and sprinkler hoses.
We’ve been wanting to build a larger garden shed as a cordwood practise building. This old shed has a leaky and rotting roof, and there’s a rotted out hole in the back corner that the cats get in and out of.
Taking a closer look, though, the frame is still pretty solid. Some pieces on the roof may need replacing, but that’s about it. We could take off the roof and walls, and repair it.
After moving it. It may have been in a good spot when it was first put there, but the trees it was squeezed in between have gotten much bigger, and the whole thing is tilting.
Something else we could salvage and reuse, instead of get rid of completely! We’ll still be building a larger shed, but you really can’t have too many sheds!
I was dozing off when something warm and fuzzy suddenly slid onto my face. I could reach my phone and was able to try and get some pictures in the dark. Which basically involved putting the phone on self mode, holding where I hoped was facing the right way, closing my eyes so as not to get blinded, and using voice activation to take a picture.
I was at least able to get one good shot!
At the time, I actually had all 5 of the older kittens on various parts of my body. Which was fine, until they got playful. They have very sharp little needle claws!!
Also, there is something amazing when all five of them are loudly purring at the same time. Suddenly, I don’t mind all the little pin pricks all that much.
But sleep would have been nice, too!
I had quite a crowd of kitties outside, too, though I could only count about 23, I think, before I gave up trying.
Would you look at the cheeky b******d!! That grey and white cat on the right? That’s Sad Face. The girls call him Shop Towel, but you can see why I call him Sad Face. He’s getting bold, to come up on the roof like that!
As long as he’s not attacking the other cats, I don’t mind.
I also had a Nozencrantz sighting. She slithered over to the bowl under the shrine, the slunk away when she saw me moving by the house. Later, I saw her watching me through the stack of wood near the shrine that the kittens like to play in so much.
As much as I wish I could get close to her, it’s been fascinating to see her moving around. Once again, no DNA test needed to know who her father was! We used to have a tom we called Nicky the Nose visit regularly, until Sad Face drove him away for good (it looks like The Distinguished Guest is driven off for good, too). We called him Nicky the Nose because of the distinctive patch of colour on his face that made his nose look much broader than it was. Nosencrantz has that patch, but she also has his mannerisms! That quite way she slinks around, with her body hugging the ground. It’s so much like Nicky the Nose that it’s almost disorienting.
And now we have another Nosey. One of this year’s kittens has a patch on her nose, very much like Nosencrantz. I’m not sure where that gene came from this year, but I’m sure Nicky had other progeny in his territory!
After I finished my rounds and headed in side for breakfast, I had a chance to chat with my younger daughter. Having lived in my brother’s house, alone, for almost a month, she got used to a level of cleanliness we just haven’t managed to maintain in this household. I’ll be honest. It’s a disaster. My focus is on the work outside, so there’s only so much I can do inside. My older daughter is shifting from working nights to working days, so there’s only so much she can do without keeping everyone awake. My husband can barely make it to the kitchen to put dishes in the sink, never mind pick up after himself or anyone else. That leaves my younger daughter. She’s been trying, but with so many cats making a mess of things, it’s really hard to keep up. Add to that things like the worn out condition of the linoleum floors, or the stickiness of the paint used on the kitchen cupboards, and cat hair EVERYWHERE, it get overwhelming, fast. Not to mention depressing as hell. But she’s been trying.
Well, today, she’s decided she’s going to work at it more, starting with the bathroom. While I went outside, she cleared the bathroom out and started cleaning and scrubbing. Which is fantastic. The downside is, we’ve only got the one bathroom.
My main frustration was when I finally made it back to my room and discovered things trashed by the kittens again. Ghosty has decided she WILL get to the top of the wall shelf, no matter how many things there are to block her way. A few things got knocked down (not the antique lamp, thankfully!!!), but there was something my brother had left up there before we moved in. The container is like a small margarine container, and it has a moisture and odor absorbing compound in it. That ended up dumped on my bed. It’s been up there for 6 years, so it was mostly granules. Something I did NOT want the kittens getting into! Plus, it landed on my pillow, too.
So there was a lot to clean up, including changing the bedding and getting the sheets that got covered with this stuff, first.
At least the tiny kittens are behaving. Mostly. The only issue with them is that they still pee on the puppy pad, right next to the litter box under my desk. *sigh* I’m glad they are no longer peeing on my bed, at least – that was mostly Toni, but since she’s been out of the isolation ward, she has only been using the litter boxes! I’ve actually run out of puppy pads but, thankfully, the care package my friend gave me included some bed pads used as packing material along with the first aid supplies! So I’ve been using those. Thanks again, M!!! Anyhow, it’s mostly Tiny that uses the puppy pad, even though I’ve seen her use the litter boxes, too. I’ve caught Pom Pom doing it, too. Frustrating!
The lack of sleep is starting to catch up with me. I’ll just do another post, and then I might just try closing my eyes for a bit.
It’s been a wet and dreary day today. It started raining off and on last night, and has continued throughout the day. I was just getting the kibble ready for the outside cats when it started raining again! No surprise that many of the cats preferred to eat in the sun room. 😁
The squash we harvested was still on the table outside, so I brought it all in. I laid the winter squash out on the freezer in the old kitchen, but there wasn’t room for most of the squash from the compost pile. Those, at least, I could find room for in the sun room.
I left fairly early to get my daughter, since I wanted to make a couple of stops along the way, including a gas station, where I made sure to pick up an air freshener for the car! Having the garbage in the car from Thursday evening to Saturday morning was not a good thing. We can’t even leave windows open to air it out, since either critters or insects would get inside. The last thing we need is for a racoon to decide to get in and tear the inside apart, searching for the source of the smell.
I also wanted to stop at a Walmart long the way to pick up one more bag of kibble, as our supply was not going to make it to our first big shopping trip.
We have not been feeding the cats more than usual with the outside cats, and with the inside cats, we’ve been controlling their feeding a bit more. Instead of having dry cat food available throughout the day, and giving them wet cat food in the evenings, they are getting two feeding times with dry kibble, with a small feeding in between. At least we’re not running out of wet cat food, as I’d been buying extra for the kittens.
This is the first month I’ve really tried to keep track of how much kibble we’re buying. Usually, we’d buy 8 bags during the big shops, then just buy more near the end of the month a few times. This month, however, I got twelve 9kg bags of kibble from Costco. We thought that would be enough. This is, however, the second 10kg bag I’ve had to get.
That’s 14 bags, totalling 128kg of kibble for the month. Which is 282lbs.
With the Costco and Walmart prices, plus tax, that’s about $300 on just dry kibble, this month alone. Then there’s the canned cat food, plus the litter pellets. The litter pellets are cheap and the 40lb bags last a long time, so I’d say about $20 a month, on average. The canned cat food, between the large case we get at Costco, and the slightly smaller cases we get at Walmart, is about another $90
So we’re looking at $410 (US$304.18 at today’s exchange rate) we’re spending on the cats this month. On those months where we had to buy kibble in the middle of the month, wherever we could, it would probably be more expensive.
That would make one heck of a car payment.
Now, part of that can be blamed on inflation. The price of kibble has increased by almost 6% in the past couple of years. And that’s just going by Costco and Walmart prices. Other stores have seen steeper increases. Especially outside of the city.
It’s ridiculous, but the alternative would basically be to start putting cats down. With the outside cats, someone from the municipality would send someone over to shoot them.
I suppose we could just stop providing food for the outside cats, and they’d eventually go away, but considering how starved some of the cats look after they’ve disappeared for the summer, I don’t think there are a lot of options out there for them. More likely, the coyotes would get them. So… no. Not going to let that happen. Even if it means sometimes feeding skunks, racoons and blue jays in the process.
So, we keep feeding them, and looking for people willing to adopt. Thanks to the Cat Lady, we have actually managed to adopt out quite a few, though six of them are still with the Cat Lady, four of them permanently!
Ah, well. It is what it is!
Meanwhile…
When I got to my brother’s, I thought they’d be really tired and I would just be saying hello and good bye, but they were up for an actual visit. It was so wonderful to see them! We got caught up on how things went while they were gone, particularly with my mother. As we were leaving, I mentioned coming back to see their photos from the trip. My SIL told me she’s considering putting them together into a movie, like I used to do, years ago. Digital cameras were just starting to become affordable, and when we moved out of province, we started to basically document everything. Then, about once a year, I’d put them together into a DVD for my parents. Moving making software for home was also just starting to be affordable, but these were still little more than slide shows. Still, I had fun adding music and making captions, and sorting things into chapters. The idea was that these would be easy for my parents to see on the TV.
I did that for several years. Then I found out my parents never watched any of them. So I stopped.
Making DVDs, that is. I never stopped documenting things. It had become a habit by then, along with journaling. A habit that came in very handy when life suddenly got very complicated, and I found myself having to make witness statements, police reports and affidavits.
So glad to be away from all that now. Dealing with our vandal is small potatoes in comparison! It also made his attempts to intimidate me pretty comical, but that’s a whole other topic! 😂
But I digress!
I hope she does put something together. I’d love to see it!
After my daughter and I left, we made a couple of stops along the way, including to pick up the pizza order her sister made after we let her know we were leaving my brother’s. That was sweet of her to treat us!
We’ve had more take out this month than we’ve had in years!
My daughter enjoyed her time taking care of my brother’s place for them, but she was glad to be home.
Once at home, and before we settled in to eat, my older daughter and I were able to deal with the winter squash I’d left on top of the freezer. The first challenge was just to get through the old kitchen door, without any cats getting through. Then it was just getting them into the new part basement, where the root cellar is. Then it took the two of us to get them into the root cellar, but keep the cats out.
But we got it done!
The two round, green pumpkins at the top are from the compost heap squash. All the smallest winter squash fit into a carboard box. The rest are the candy roasters and Pink Banana.
The root cellar is not a very good one, to be honest. We had considered turning it into a cheese cave at one point, so I set up a thermometer and a hydrometer in there, and kept track of the temperature and humidity for a year. Both fluctuate too much to make a good cheese cave – or a good root cellar! Still, my parents used this as a root cellar for many years. It works well enough!
Not that any of these squash can be left there for long. With the frost killing off the plants before the squash could fully mature, they won’t last as long, so they’ll need to be eaten fairly quickly. We are most eager to try the big ones!
The main thing, however, will be to make sure we don’t forget about them. I avoid going into either basement – or even the upstairs – because my knees and stairs are sworn enemies. We go into the root cellar even less often. It’s where we store our Christmas decorations away from the cats! Heck, we still have a couple of cases of mead down there that we keep forgetting exists.
But it’s done, and the winter squash is put up for the season.
We’re still processing tomatoes, too. We have whole tomatoes in the freezer, plus I’ve got a couple more trays dehydrating in the oven right now, and there are still more under the old market tent, slowly ripening. We’ve just been bringing in the ripe ones every few days or so. Thankfully, those are out of the rain, and no critters seem interested in them at all!
I was just yawning and thinking how it’s so late and time to go to bed, but I’m seeing it’s not even 8:30pm yet. It’s full dark out there, and feels so much later! Especially after being such and overcast and dreary day to begin with.
I might try going to bed early for a change.
Ha! Who am I kidding? I’ll probably get started on something, then suddenly realize it’s 2am again. Because I’m silly that way!
Soot Sprite and Tiny. Pom Pom isn’t much bigger! These guys are all over 8 weeks old.
Yes, we do try to keep up on washing Tiny’s eyes. They seem clear. Just really leaky.
Today, I go to pick up my daughter from house sitting. My brother and husband wife got home late last night. They had been up for 24 hours, so they went straight to bed! They had a fabulous trip. I can’t wait to see them!
With the popcorn harvested, I needed to find someplace to put the box cover. While removing the chicken wire, I figured out a great spot for it.
The onions had a cover simply because I had one. It made weeding impossible, but with onion tops growing through it, it couldn’t be conveniently moved aside.
Since these covers are all 9’x3′, it fits perfectly on top of the box cover. This would be an ideal set up to protect taller plants! I just used the twist ties that were holding the chicken wire to fasten the two covers together. The onion bed is basically a storage spot for them, but now I can access the onions for weeding!
And yes. Those are new squash blossoms in the compost ring in the background!
While checking the other garden beds, I had a little surprise.
The largest melon had picked itself! 😆
I even found a pattypan large enough to harvest.
That’s the size we enjoy the patty pans best.
My daughter gets back from house sitting soon. We will save tasting the melon for when she gets back. 💚
In other things…
When feeding the outside cats, I tried to do a head count. It takes a while for them to all show up. I eventually counted thirty – then three more kittens ran into the yard!
After my rounds were done, I did a dump run. The car was already loaded, because when I tried to do it 2 days ago, it was closed.
I was glad to be able to air out the car, later!
As I was returning to the house, I spotted Nosencrantz slinking away from the kibble under the shrine, and disappear behind the pump shack. She is looking big and fluffy, and is acting incredibly shy. I wish I knew why! At least we know she’s still around.
Now, if only Butterscotch and Marlee would show up!
Finally! I was able to bring over my tools and equipment, which I just keep in the utility wagon now, over to the garden and get a bit more done on the first trellis bed.
The first step was to cut the two logs set aside into 4′ long pieces. I know for sure I’ll need two per end, but these logs are thinner than the ones in the side walls, so I cut extra just in case.
Before putting one of the end pieces down, I loosened up the soil where it would be lying and tried to level it off a bit, since there was a dip near the middle of the space. Because I want these beds to be 4′ wide on the outside, after laying down the first end piece and matching it to the outer edge on one side, I shifted the other side a bit to line up with the other end.
Steel toes boots are create for kicking logs and not breaking my toes!
I started with the thickest 4′ log for the base log on this end. Using the side wall logs to mark where I needed to cut, I removed wood from the ends to fit over the side wall logs.
What a pain.
For this job, I used the mini-chain saw, a hatchet and hammer to remove the bulk of the excess wood, and even the electric chain saw to remove the excess wood.
A pain, to be sure, but much faster and easier than when I started building the high raised bed and had only hand tools!
Once I was satisfied with how the end piece fit, it was time to secure it. A couple of years ago, I’d bought some plastic coated metal rods to use as supports in the garden. The rods were hollow, and they quickly bent and broke in our rocky soil. I’ve been using the broken pieces to secure things like hoops for garden beds, but I also used some to secure the corners of the tiny raised bed in the old kitchen garden.
I decided to use them to secure the end pieces on the trellis bed, much like I already used rebar to secure the side walls. I drilled matching holes through the end pieces into the side walls, then hammered the metal rods in place.
Then I went through the other 4′ lengths to find one that fit the best on top of the first log and repeated the process. This time, though, I was having to fit them over two very different sizes of log, so that required some extra angled cuts, as well as flattening the length of both logs a bit, so they’d fit against each other better. There’s still quite a gap in between them in one place, but that can be chinked later. Last of all, they were secured with more metal rods, though the top log was thin enough that I could break one of the rods in half and use the shorter pieces.
And here it is! The first finished end cap, viewed from inside the bed.
This all took quite a while to do, so once it was done, I stopped for the day. I’ve got too many other things that need to be worked on.
I’m quite happy with how it’s working out so far.
Since the vertical posts will be added to the outsides of the bed, not down the middle as I’d planned to do originally, I will fill the bed once the other end cap is done. That way the layers of material will have at least a bit more time to break down under the top layer of soil it will get. I may even decide to get more logs to build the next bed, first. We need beds to plant in next year, more than we need the trellis part of it. The trellis posts can even be added after planting, if necessary. The priority is to have more planting space. This year’s garden is so much smaller than I had planned on, simply because I ran out of prepared spaces to plant in. I don’t want to have that situation again, next year!
So, once this bed is built and filled, it’ll be time to cut logs to size from the two downs trees we have ready right now and drag them over. These trunks are so thick, the bottom 10′ will be set aside to be used as supports for the outdoor kitchen we will be building. Using such thick logs in the trellis beds would be a real waste of material.
The first day of fall is tomorrow, and time to get work done before things get too cold is running short!
While doing my morning rounds, I found some new critter damage around. Both corn beds were hit, though not too badly. A few other things were nibbled on, including the way too under ripe Boston Marrow that I had left on the vine. It had gotten about 6-7 inches long and was even looking like it was trying to ripen since the plant was hit by frost. Now, there’s just a bit at the end of the stem left.
Thankfully, the critters seem completely uninterested in the peppers, melons, carrots and onions!
So this morning, I harvested the corn, starting with the popcorn.
In the first couple of photos above, you can see the damage. The slugs were quick to take advantage of the situation!
I did gather all the fallen kernels I could find. I don’t want them reseeding themselves in this bed.
There were still a decent number of cobs to harvest. The stalks will be used in the layers filling any new beds we manage to get done this year.
I took advantage of the chicken wire on the box frame and set out the cobs to dry out in the sun and wind. I moved the pinwheels over, to keep the birds out. We’ll bring them inside at the end of the day, as we have no place to set something like corn to cure, outdoors. Things like onions and tomatoes get ignored, but the skunks, racoons and birds would have quite a good time with the corn!
Obviously, this is still not a lot of popcorn. This is a test crop. Once things are will dried out, we’ll make some popcorn from in and see if we like it. If so, we’d be wanting to plant a whole lot more than this, to provide enough popcorn for the family! If we don’t find it’s worth it, we’ll test other varieties until we find something we like enough to keep growing.
Even with having a few critter damaged cobs that were worth salvaging, the losses were a lot higher in this corn. Some of the stalks didn’t even develop cobs in the first place. The few cobs we had were also set out on the wire to dry. In the second photo, you can see spots of white in places. Those are kernels that were chewed on, revealing a snow white interior!
Again, there isn’t much there, but we’ll have enough to make some corn flower to try out. I still want to try growing the South American kulli corn and acclimate it to our area, but if this corn’s flour turns out nice, I’m certainly not going to turn my nose up to a glass gem variety that’s bred for norther climates.
When it comes to growing something like corn with the goal of self sufficiency in mind, once we have found varieties we like, we would need to grow a LOT more to have enough to preserve/store. This year, we didn’t even have the space to try any of the sweet corn seeds I got! If we are going to be growing sweet corn, flour corn and popcorn, not only would we need more space to get the quantities we would need, but they’d have to be kept well apart from each other, so avoid cross pollination. Which may not be too much of a problem, since the different types of corn would start pollinating at different times of the year, but it would still be a good idea.
The bed with the purple corn still has beans in it that survived the frost. They are just there to fix nitrogen in the soil, as corn is such a heavy nitrogen feeder. I don’t plan to harvest any more of them, and the plants and roots can be left in the soil to break down, when the bed is prepared for the winter.
On a completely different topic…
As I was about to bring the purple corn to the chicken wire, with the popcorn, when I saw Broccoli going by – with three kittens following along! This would be a second litter for her, as she was among those that had kittens really early in the season. One looked like a tortie, one looked like a tuxedo, and one seems to be a long haired black and white – more black than white. I saw that one later on, in the shelf shelter, where I’d put some kibble earlier in the morning. I was only able to get a brief video, but my hands shake quite a bit, which is greatly exaggerated when zooming in.
So… three more babies. 😑 I’ve lost complete track of how many there are this year!
My next surprise was not as adorable.
I came into my room to find a couple of small bins filled with crafting material, and the stuff that was on top of them, crashed onto the floor among other things that got dragged down as they fell. A couple of the kittens have discovered the top of the wall shelf and are very determined to get up there, no matter how much I try to block it off!
After cleaning that up, I went to my computer. I don’t know what they stepped on, on my keyboard, but all the shortcut icons in my task bar were gone. Even the start button was greyed out, like when you put the cursor over it. Except, the cursor wasn’t even near it. I tried clicking on the start button, and nothing. I did get that spinning icon that shows when the computer is busy with something, but it wouldn’t stop or go away. I ended up having to do a hard shut down and just hoped it would revert to normal when restarted. Thankfully, it did, and I was able to upload files from my phone and start this blog post!
We really need to start letting the bigger kittens out of the “isolation ward”. I’d hoped to have at least a couple adopted out by now, but still no takers. The problem with letting them out is, they’d eventually make their way into the new part basement, where we keep a number of litter boxes. The girls will need to kitten proof it as best they can, first. There are places the kittens could get into that the adult cats can’t fit in anymore, where they could potentially come into harm or just plain get stuck.
Speaking of the girls, my house sitting daughter will be home in a few days! It will be good to have her back. I’m not sure she’ll feel the same, though. She’s been in a cat free house, with no one to clean up after but herself, for several weeks now! 😂😂
They’ve already got plans for a Hannibal marathon when she gets back, so she’s at least looking forward to that! 😁
Well, time to grab a late lunch, then get back outside. It’s a beautiful day out there, and I want to get as much done out there as I can!
While feeding the outside cats today, I spotted a large cat at the food bowl, under the shrine. I couldn’t get closer, though. It acted quite feral. But…
… could it be?
Is it she?
I couldn’t see any of the more brown fur colors Nosencrantz has, and yet… it does look like her. The patterns match, if not the colors.
I hope she comes back soon and I can get a better look.
On my way home from running errands yesterday, I was able to stop at the post office and found our garlic order had come in earlier than the tracking information has said, the last time I looked. Since I then ended up going to my mother’s to get her to a dentist, that meant the garlic went into the ground today.
Before I get into that, though…
I followed up with my mother and, sure enough, she isn’t going to fill her new prescriptions. She already takes sooooo many pills, you see.
She also feels great. My mother has an amazing constitution!
The pharmacy had called her about the prescriptions, she told them how she was feeling and what she was doing (at least she’s following the instructions about things like swishing with salt water), and he said he would hang on to her antibiotic prescription for her, just in case she needed it.
I brought up about getting her dentures done after things are healed up, to fill the empty spots, but she’s already hedging on that. When I mentioned she might have problems eating (she already was, with the top tooth breaking off), and she told me she’ll just eat soft food. *sigh*
We’ll see how that goes.
On another note, I also found a message from the financing company when I came in from planting the garlic. They’ve found a deal that fits our budget, and have already told our mechanic to look for a vehicle that fits the amount. Which is pretty much what I’d told our mechanic we could afford payments on, almost two years or so ago, when I first asked him about getting a vehicle. Whatever we get will be $10,000, maximum, after taxes. The only thing was the banking records I’d sent in to show proof of income. Since I logged in to my bank account, it only had my name on the statements, even though it was for a joint account. It looked like the income was in my name, instead of my husband’s. So we were able to get around that, and the final confirmations can now be made. After that, it’ll just be waiting for our mechanic to find a vehicle for us that’s within the price limits.
I’m really trying not to get my hopes up, but wouldn’t it be amazing if he found something in time for us to be doing our big monthly shops in the city?
So… that’s done as far as can be for now.
Meanwhile, I got some gardening for next year done!
We ordered only one type of garlic this year; three pounds of Purple Passion hard neck garlic.
Since the bed I’d intended to plant them in still has the Jebousek lettuce that I’m allowing to go to seed in it, we had to change our plans. I decided the old kitchen garden, where we’d planted the red thumb potatoes, would do.
I wasn’t sure how many cloves we’d have, so I decided to prep both the long, thin bed, and the end of the wattle weave bed. The old mulch was removed and the soil loosened. I’ve got one bag of sheep manure left. Though I kept the bag covered with a mat, it was still quite wet from the last time it got rained on, so I spread it out by the hand full. I used about half the bag on the two beds, then worked it into the soil. Once that was done, I gave the beds a deep, thorough soaking.
I then left the water to be absorbed and went inside for a while. When I came back out, I soaked it again, then moved over to the tiny raised bed. The shallots in there could have been harvested a while ago, but I was letting the self seeded poppy pods dry out, first. There were still a few tiny green pods, but I left those. Once the pods were trimmed, I could remove the cover and pull out the poppy plants, the self seeded dill, and some of the weeds, then gather the shallots. They’ve been there long enough, they’re already cured.
In the photo with the gathered shallots, you can see some seedlings above them. Those are Chinese elm. They have remarkably long and persistent tap roots. Once the shallots were gathered and removed, I made sure to carefully loosen the soil first, so I could get those out without breaking them.
This bed was redone last fall and, my goodness, the soil was so nice and loose! Almost no compaction at all. It was great! Once it was all cleaned up of weeds and roots, I worked in a few hand-fulls of manure, too.
While I was working on that, my daughter was able to come out and help. She started by separating all the cloves from the bulbs while I finished with the tiny raised bed. I figured it could be a back up bed, in case there were more bulbs than could fit in the other two beds.
By the time the tiny raised bed got a good soaking, my daughter had finished separating the cloves from one bag, though she did find one bulb had started to rot. Only one clove out of that one was salvageable.
In the past, we planted two types of garlic in a pair of low raised beds. By spring, one bed was almost a complete loss, while the other had maybe half of them survive. Since the ones that survived all seemed to be closer to the middle of the bed, it seemed that they had frozen, even under the mulch. We can mulch the top, but not the sides. So for these ones, I wanted to make sure they were planted away from the sides. I used a stick that had been used as a garden marker to make holes to put the cloves in. With the long, thin bed, I made three staggered rows. It took about 1 1/2 bags to fill them. In the wattle weave bed, it is wider at the end, then narrows a bit as it goes towards the corner, so I was able to get a couple of rows with 4 cloves, then the rest with 3.
I fit the rest of the second bag in there, with room for only 4 cloves from the next bag. My daughter finished planting those, then counted the rest, while I started making planting holes in the tiny raised bed. That bed could only hold another 17 cloves, in three staggered rows, and my daughter counted about 32 or 36 – they moved around in the bag, so she wasn’t sure.
There was only one place that made sense to plant the remaining cloves, and that was the bed with the volunteer tomatoes transplanted into it.
So while she planted in the tiny raised bed, I pushed aside the mulch in the bed with the tomatoes, made more planting holes at the end by the rose bush, then down the middle, working around the soaker hose, making sure I had more than enough, then watered each individual planting hole with the jet setting on the hose. In the end, the remaining cloves fit all down the middle, between the rows of tomatoes, and we didn’t need to plant closer to the wall at the end of the bed.
If we hadn’t been down that one bulb that had gone soft, we would have had to try and find yet another spot to plant a few last cloves! As it is, we just managed to fit them all.
After all the cloves were covered, they got watered again to settle the soil around the cloves, then lightly covered with mulch. The mulch itself got a light watering, just to dampen it. When things start to get colder overnight, they’ll get a thicker mulch but, for now, it’s more to protect the soil.
I am quite happy to have so much garlic planted! The only thing is that, if we get the mild fall being predicted, they might actually grow too much before winter hits. That’s where a good, thick mulch will come in handy.
It feels so good to be already started on next year’s garden!
The Tom Thumb popcorn could probably be harvested now, but I’m going to leave the stalks for as long as I can before we do that. Just to make sure the kernels get all the time possible to fully mature and dry out on the stalks. So far, the critters seem completely uninterested in both corn beds!
Today was not as hot as yesterday, but still quite warm, hitting 21C/68F while I was working outside. Which is good for the remaining beds that will not be harvested for some time, like the Red of Florence onions next to the popcorn, which still have a lot of growing to do.
A real surprise this morning was seeing a bright yellow flower in the squash patch! The yellow patty pan squash plant is still alive, in spite of all the frost damage, and one of the female flowers actually bloomed this morning. There are several more female flower buds, too, but there are no male flowers to pollinate, so nothing will come of it. The green patty pans have squash that were big enough to survive the frost, and they are getting bigger, too. Even on the green zucchini, we found one little zucchini that had gotten bigger and could be harvested!
Later in the day, I finally cleared the tiny raised bed in the old kitchen garden, which required snipping off the dried poppy pods that had grown through the wire cover. These self seeded poppies have openings in their tops, so when I put them upside down in the container, the seeds just poured out. It really shows how these self seed so readily. The Hungarian Blue poppy pods do not have these openings, so are less likely to self seed.
Another surprise is seeing flowers on one of the volunteer tomatoes that got transplanted! They’re still so tiny, but they seem to really like where they were transplanted to.
I was going to plant garlic in the bed by the chain link fence, after it was reworked, but the garlic came in yesterday. The Jebousek lettuce is blooming now and I want to save the seeds, so the garlic had to go somewhere else.
Which is what my next post will be about!
I’m just loving that we’re past the middle of September, and there’s still gardening happening!
The Re-Farmer 