Our 2022 garden: harvesting squash and corn

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Well, the last of the stuff that needed to come in before tonight is done – at least as much as possible. The girls and I put bottles with warm water under the eggplants in the grow bag (the only ones fruiting) and, since they were right there, with the sweet potatoes, too. The eggplant and one grow bag with sweet potato got covered, but the sheet wasn’t big enough to cover the other two grow bags. The apple gourd also got bottles of warm water placed beside them, but we could only cover two of the three plants, so we covered the two biggest ones. As I write this, we are down to 9C/48F, and it’s supposed to keep dropping until we reach 1C/34F at about 7am. Between 6 – 8 am tends to consistently be the coldest time of day.

While I was harvesting earlier, I went ahead and grabbed a bunch of the Latte sweet corn, too. I don’t think they are quite at their peak, but I think they’re about as good as we’re going to get. There are still cobs on the stalks that were pretty small, so I left them be.

With the summer squash, I grabbed all the little – but not too little – patty pans, and the last of the zucchini.

In the above photo, the six pumpkins across the top are the Baby Pam pumpkins. The others are all hulless seed pumpkins. On the far left are four Styrian, in the middle are six Lady Godiva, and on the right are two Kakai. Tucked in with the patty pans are two Boston Marrow. There are so many little Boston Marrow squash forming, but they are just too small and have no chance of ripening after being picked. I’m not even sure Boston Marrow does continue to ripen after being picked!

The pumpkins are now all set up in the sun room. We cleared a shelf in the window, and all but one of them fit in there. The last one joined the onions on the screen. I think it should still get enough light there.

The hulless seed pumpkins are grown just for their seed, not their flesh. The flesh is probably edible, but there would be less of it than for an eating pumpkin. I will give them time before we crack any open to see what the seeds are like. At least we do have the one tiny, fully ripe kakai pumpkin harvested earlier that we could try any time we feel like it.

We planted so many different winter squash, and it was such a horrible year, I’m thankful we have as much as we do. Hopefully, next year, we will have better growing conditions. I made the mistake of calling my mother before I started this post, and talking about our garden. I mentioned that our beets did not do well this year. She started lecturing me on how to grow beets, and how they need to have the soil loosened around them, etc. I told her I knew how to grow beets (this is not our first year growing them!); they just didn’t do well this year. We didn’t even get greens worth eating. My mother then launched into how she always had such big beets, and always had such a wonderful garden (this after she’d mentioned to be before, that some years things just didn’t work) and how she only grew the “basics” and everything was just so wonderful – and the reason my beets failed was because I don’t garden like she did, and that I shouldn’t be gardening “from a book”. Whatever that means. I reminded her that I tested the soil and it is depleted. We don’t have good soil here anymore. She got sarcastic about that, and basically made it like my not having a perfect garden like she did was because I’m not doing things her way. As she got increasingly cruel about it, I called her out on it. I told her that just because she can’t understand something like soil science – which she doesn’t need to – that didn’t make it okay for her to be cruel to me over something she knows nothing about. Nor would I put up with being treated like that. I even asked her, why couldn’t she try being kind for a change? Maybe say something like “I’m sorry to hear you’re having problems”, instead of basically saying “I’m better than you.” She went dead silent, so I changed the subject, and the rest of the conversation went okay. Then she cut the call short because she saw the time, and her program on TV was started, so she had to go.

My mother is pretty open on what her priorities are. 😕

Ah, well. It is what it is. I’m just so thankful she is no longer our “landlord”, and that my brother now owns the property. There was a point, before the title was transferred, that we briefly but seriously considered moving out because of her.

Funny how something as ordinary as gardening can bring out the worst in her, though.

The weird thing is, when I spoke to my brother after he’d visited her to talk about the roofing estimates, apparently my mother had lots of positive things to say about how well we’re taking care of things here.

I guess that doesn’t include the garden! 😄

Well, I guess I should go see what I can do about that corn! 😊

The Re-Farmer

Our 2022 garden: harvesting dry beans, onions and tomatoes

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Well, we decided to start bringing things in. Tonight and tomorrow night, we are supposed to reach lows of 1C/34F

While our one eggplant that is producing is small enough to give protective cover, that’s pretty much it. The rest is just too much or too large to be able to cover adequately.

The shelling beans were simply ready to be harvested, so I worked on those first.

These are the blue grey speckled tepary beans, and the are so tiny! I haven’t tried to open any pods yet. It was almost but not quite raining as I picked these, so once I got them inside, they went onto a screen and are laid out to dry thoroughly indoors before I start shelling them.

Then it was time to pull the Tropeana Lunga onions.

They are SO much easier to harvest from the high raised bed, than the onions in the low raised beds. I had to dig most of those out, because the soil is so compacted. Not here! These came out easily.

Check out that chard. Not a single leaf to harvest!

I had this wire mesh door on the picnic table under the canopy tent, where I was able to cure onions before, but with the cold temperatures, I set it up in the sun room. It is supported by a couple of saw horses over the swing bench, giving the kittens plenty of space to go underneath and have their warm and cozy naps!

These onions are a very thick onion, in the stem and the greens. They are very much like the Red of Florence onions we already harvested, but with even sturdier stems.

Next, I worked on the red tomatoes. A few of the ripe ones had been partially eaten, while others had holes like this.

Some of the holes were even still occupied!

Slugs are remarkably voracious!

This is all the red tomatoes. In the bin are the Cup of Moldova, and on the side are the Sophie’s Choice. There were very few Sophie’s choice, overall.

While I was working on these, I got a surprise visitor.

Rolando Moon showed up! I haven’t seen her in weeks! She let me pet her a bit, but mostly hung around and hissed and growled at the kittens. Except for when she suddenly showed up with a big mouse in her mouth. One of the kittens became VERY interested in her at that point. Rolando Moon can be aggressive, so I did step in, which allowed the kitten to make a jump for the tiny bit of mouse that was left. He promptly inhaled it and was sniffing for more, but with Rolando being the way she is, I carried him off.

Do you know that it’s really hard to harvest tomatoes while there is a kitten perched on your shoulders, and it refuses to leave? 😄

Next, I worked on the Chocolate Cherry and the Yellow Pear tomatoes.

There were SO many yellow pear tomatoes!

I also harvested the dry King Tut Purple Pea pods, though they were green instead of purple. I’m not sure why I’m keeping the seeds, to be honest. The last Red Kuri squash was also harvested, and now sit with the onions to cure.

I have left it to the girls to work out what to do with all the tomatoes, except for the ones that I will be keeping to save seeds from. The Chocolate Cherry, for sure. I’m told those were the tastiest. Not the yellow pear, though. I’m glad we tried them, but they weren’t enjoyed enough to bother saving seeds from. Both the Cup of Moldova and Sophie’s Choice are rare varieties, so I will be keeping seeds just to help keep them going. We will decide later if we want to stick with them next year, of we want to try other varieties as well. My daughter described both of them as good, but very mild in flavour. I think she and my husband would prefer something more intensely flavoured. We’ll see.

This bed that had the paste tomatoes is now completely empty. That means I can prep it to plant the best of the hardneck garlic I’d saved from this year’s harvest. We will need to get more, though.

This bed had the yellow pear tomatoes. There are still the red onions from sets in there, but I don’t think we’ll get anything out of them. Once those are out, this bed, and the one to the right of it, can be prepped for next year.

The kulli corn in the bed to the left still has no cobs forming, at all.

This is where the chocolate cherry were. It’s the second year we grew tomatoes here, so we will do something else here next year. I’m thinking peas.

There are still carrots in this bed. I don’t know that there are any shallots or onions left. There are two shallots that went to seed, but the seed heads seems to have stalled in development. It seems the same with the lettuce I left to go to seed. I think it’s just been too chilly for them to progress properly.

That’s it for now. Later on, I’ll head out again and look over the pumpkins, and see about harvesting the biggest ones. Pumpkins can continue to ripen after picking, if we can keep them warm, dry and in sunlight. That is a difficult combination to achieve in our household, though!

I also want to put bottles with warm water in them around the eggplant that’s fruiting, and then cover it. I may as well harvest what summer squash there is, too. We won’t be able to protect them from the cold, so chances are, they will get killed off tonight. I might be able to cover the apple gourds. They are the only ones that are immature enough to make the effort. After these 2 expected cold nights, the overnight lows are expected to be much warmer, so if they can survive those two nights, they still have a chance.

Oh, the weather can be a harsh mistress!

The Re-Farmer

Got him… sorta

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I must say, it’s been flippin’ hard to get a picture of this guy!

He (she?) is from the oldest litter, and very much a feline teenager! 😁

Last night, I was able to spent some time sitting outside, playing with the kittens with the rope toy I’d made, while sitting in the water bowl house. Normally, he stays well away from me, but he couldn’t resist. He actually played right at my feet, and would sometimes dash under the water bowl house, while I was sitting in it. I tried about a dozen photos before I finally got him!

His siblings include the super fluffy cat we’re trying to socialize for a family that wants him. My daughters have been trying to spend time outside to socialize kittens, too, and my younger daughter actually got to touch him! That’s the most progress any of us have managed so far. It’s really hard to socialize kittens, when their own mothers won’t let us near them. 😕

The Re-Farmer

Kittens, kittens, kittens!

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Last night, I discovered that the new water bowl house, which is awaiting a paint job before we start using it for its designed purpose, works well for something else entirely. The floor is high enough for me to sit on without hurting my knees to much, and have a roof to keep me out of the bit of rain we started to get!

Which meant, I got to play with kitties.

Some sisal cord tied to a stick made an excellent lure, and I was actually able to pet this brown tabby! I’ve been able to touch him before, but usually he’d run off as soon as he realized what I was doing. This time, I was able to start skritching his ears. Between the toy and the ear skritching, he was torn between obviously wanting to run away, and loving the attention! 😄

Today, I was able to confirm he is male.

This little guy much prefers to just be on a human and go for naps. He is very insistent about it, too!

While I was playing with the kitten, Caramel came by, followed by one of her babies. One with the very distinctive Beep Beep orange splotch on its forehead! You can tell who Grandma is, that’s for sure! It would come any closer, but it was good to see she is bringing her babies to the kibble house.

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen Rosencrantz’s litter today, nor did I see Junk Pile’s babies come out of the pump shack after I left food there, even though she came over to eat. I read they both moved their babies further from the house. Right when they need access to more solid food, now they are going to be getting only whatever the mamas manage to hunt for them. 😟 The further from the house the kittens are, the more in danger they are from predators, too. Wherever the mamas took them, I hope they will be okay. I do realize having fewer yard cats is actually a good thing, but I can’t help rooting for them to make it!

The Re-Farmer

Technical oddity

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After making my last post, I had to lie down. I hate doing that so late in the afternoon, as I know it will mess up my night, but I just didn’t feel well. I do feel a bit better now for it, so I guess it was a good thing.

Before getting my daughter to do the driving for our dump run and trip into town, I was able to go through the trail cam files. One of the cameras did not behave normally when I switched out the card. Basically, it didn’t “wake up” when I took the card out, nor could I turn it on. Usually, when that happens (the camera is getting older, so it has a few quirks), I can just open the battery case enough for the batteries to lose contact, then close it up again. After that, it usually “wakes up” on its own, or using the power button works. Neither happened, so I just switched the cards and made sure to check that one first.

This is what I found.

What a mess!

Judging from the large files, you’d think it was recording video as normal, but I don’t have it set to video. It’s set to stills only.

Of course, I couldn’t actually view any of the files. My computer just couldn’t open them. So I tried to format the card, but that didn’t work, either. The start button wasn’t even active. After several failed attempts, I tried renaming the card to what is usually reads (SDHC), and that worked.

It’s been a very, very long time since I’ve had a camera do this. I can’t even remember if it was this camera, or the older one – which, amazingly – is mostly working again.

I really hope the new camera with the build in direct solar power works well in the winter. There are a few minor things about it I find irritating – like the fact that it shuts itself off while in set up mode, when the card is removed, but doesn’t turn itself back on when the card is replaced – but it’s working well so far, and the batteries are still at 100%.

As for the camera that did this, if things are at all like when it happened before, I should be able to get it going again by changing the batteries. Sometimes, the camera gets triggered and, instead of just taking a photo or video, it says active until the batteries are completely drained. Usually when that happened, there’s nothing on the card at all. I don’t know why sometimes it does this, instead.

I’d better head out and do that now, while it’s still light out.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2022 garden: pumpkins picked, and what shall we do?

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When doing my rounds this morning, I brought the wagon and some pruning shears to finally pick the giant pumpkins.

Plus a few patty pan squash.

One of the pumpkins still has a bit of green, so they are sitting in a shelf by a window to cure and continue to ripen. They are big enough that the kittens shouldn’t be a problem.

I’ve been closely looking at the other squash that are developing. Especially some of the hulless pumpkins, which are the furthest along. The longer they stay on the vine to ripen, the better, but…

I don’t know if I should just pick them all and bring them in, along with the last of the tomatoes and onions.

Looking at the Accuweather forecast on my phone, we’ll have chilly nights, but not cold enough for frost until well into October. The low for tonight is expected to be 5C/41F, BUT… when I look at the hourly forecast, it says we will reach 0C/32F by 5am tomorrow. Which means frost by morning.

Going online to the Accuweather website, however, the coldest we’re supposed to get overnight is 8C/46F by 8am. Most of the night will be 9C/48F. Not a chance of frost there.

Looking at the forecast on my desktop’s app, it says we’ll hit a low 2C/36F tomorrow night. Cold, but not likely to have frost.

I’m also not seeing any frost warnings for our area, yet.

The problem is, there are no weather stations being used for these forecasts. The closest one is also closer to the lake, so that can change conditions dramatically. Others are to the north and south of us, and far enough away that both can have quite different conditions that we do at any given time. We just don’t get accurate forecasts for our specific area, which makes it hard to plan what to harvest, or allow to ripen more!

Do I take a chance and let things be? As I write this, we are at 16C/61F, and are expected to reach a high of 19C/66F. It’s quite lovely. But those overnight temperatures… those are the potential killers.

Just to throw a wringer into the thought process, I am not feeling well today. I had a much disturbed night, partly from having to spend way too much time in the bathroom (which I now know is a side effect of the new medication my doctor is trying me on), and partly cat disturbances. We did a dump run and a trip into town today, and I had to get my daughter to drive, mostly because I was afraid I might fall asleep at the wheel. As if that isn’t enough, the weather changes are wrecking havoc on my arthritis, and I just plain hurt. Not that it matters. What needs to be done, needs to get done. It’s just a matter of figuring out what needs to be done now, or later!

The Re-Farmer

Hello, Mom!

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Three of the four bebbies in the pump shack, running out to greet Mom.

This would be Junk Pile’s second litter. The oldest cattens in the yard are hers, and she pays no attention to them at all anymore!

Unfortunately, while I was watching them this morning, she looked like she was trying to lead them away from the pump shack. I really hope she doesn’t move them somewhere further away.

On that note, I did see two of Rosencrantz’s kittens on the junk pile this morning. I don’t know of they are back, or if they were just there waiting their turn for the kibble bowl. There is an older grey and white catten that shows up every now and then. It seems to be on its own, and I don’t know which mama it belongs to. For all I can tell, it showed up from someplace else entirely and discovered reliable food.

Last night, I also saw two dark kittens playing in the old kitchen garden. I believe they are Caramel’s babies. As far as I can figure out, those should be the last of them, but when it comes to yard cats, who knows?

The Re-Farmer

Our 2022 garden: a sad little potato harvest

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This afternoon, my daughter and I got working on the remaining potato beds.

The first bed I worked on was the mid season Bridget potatoes. They have been ready to harvest for a while, now.

Based on how things went after harvesting the early season Caribe potatoes, my expectations were very low, but it needed to be done.

I started off by pulling away the straw mulch. Most of the plants I dug up had nothing under them, but every now and then…

…I would pull back the straw, and there would be these lovely little potatoes, just sitting on top of the cardboard layer!

We had company while we were working.

This little bugger kept trying to climb my daughter while she was using the garden fork!

This one was content to just be held, but we had to put him down so we could work. It was so cute to seem him starting to fall asleep among the summer squash!

The soil was greatly improved since we first made these “instant garden” beds with the cardboard and straw. Granted, two days of almost constant, gentle rain did help soften the ground a lot, but it was much easier to dig into the soil with the garden fork. There were lots of worms and while I saw slugs, there wasn’t as much as I’d seen with that first bed I’d harvested.

The late season All Blue potatoes had more of a return.

This is it. We had 10 pounds of each type of potato. I doubt we got the same amount back. Certainly now with the Bridget potatoes.

One of the reasons I chose these varieties is because they are good for storage, but with so few of them, that’s not going to happen. Normally, we’d cure them, then bring them inside, but these got a wash down and we’ll be eating them right away.

Though we got more of the All Blue, we might actually have less. Unlike the Bridget, quite a few had insect damage. They also had scab on quite a few of them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen scab on potatoes grown here before, even when I was a kid.

The straw got loosely returned to the bed. There may not have been a lot of potatoes, but there was an insane amount of crab grass rhizomes. We tried to pull out as much as we could as we worked, but that is something that requires a lot to get rid off. For now, the straw is back to try and keep them from getting worse.

I am thinking that these beds are a good place to build some permanent squash tunnels. At the very least, we can use the path between the beds as the path inside a tunnel. Though this has been a terrible year for the squash, we got enough growth that I could see which ones are the most enthusiastic climbers. I look forward to trying them again. For the permanent squash tunnels, I plant to make low raised beds on the outside. Since we wouldn’t be able to access the beds from the inside of the tunnel, they would only be two feet wide, with a four foot wide path inside the tunnel. I think I would like to build at least three tunnels, though we might not be able to get them all done this fall. They are going to be a lot stronger than the ones we slapped together to start with, though even those lasted longer than we expected them to.

Now that the potatoes are harvested, and since the melons in these beds are a loss, we can actually go ahead and start building something in this area as soon as we can.

The Re-Farmer