Our 2022 garden: tending the squash patch

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Today is working out to be slightly cooler than yesterday; it’s coming up on 6pm as I start this, and we’ve been at 28C/82F for some hours. We’re not expected to start cooling down for at least another hour. Longer, if today is at all like yesterday.

It was getting pretty late last night before I finally headed outside, fogging myself in mosquito repellant, and started on the squash patch.

I did remember to take a before picture. Every pair of sticks shows where there is a summer or winter squash, a pumpkin or a gourd. The straw mulch we laid down may help keep the soil cool and moist, but it isn’t thick enough to choke out the weeds. It also makes weeding – or even using the weed trimmer – impossible.

One of the apple gourds is relatively robust. The hulless pumpkins, Baby Pam pumpkins and Crespo squash plants are also doing comparatively well. The green zucchini, Teddy, Georgia Candy Roaster and Winter Sweet winter squash, however, are all very tiny. They should all be much, much larger for this time of year.

I am hoping that using the cardboard to smother the crab grass and weeds around the squash plants will help. I did things a bit differently this time. Previously, when preparing an area with cardboard to be covered with a straw mulch, I laid down flattened boxes in overlapping layers, making everything at least 2 layers thick. The overlaps were 4 layers thick or even 6 layers, depending on how they ended up overlapping.

Obviously, I couldn’t do that, here.

Most of the boxes were roughly the same dimensions; there were a lot of banana boxes in the pile! When flattened, they made long rectangles. I cut each in half, so that I could lay each piece down as a single layer, positioning 4 such pieces at right angles around each plant. That meant two boxes for each plant – mostly. I barely had enough cardboard to finish the job, but some of the boxes were large enough that I could cut them down further, and use just one box around a plant. I got them all done, with no cardboard to spare at all.

It was a brutal job.

For all that I used mosquito repellant, I was still being swarmed. Any spot that didn’t get sprayed was attacked. It’s one thing to find myself being bitten in the butt because my shirt shifted as I bent over. It’s quite another when they would fly under the lenses of my glasses and go for my eye lids. Yes, I actually got mosquito bights on my eye lids! On top of that, because of the heat, it wasn’t long before I sweated off the repellant. At which point, I was just a mosquito buffet! By the time I was putting down the last pieces of cardboard, I was spending more time flapping my arms and doing the mosquito dance than anything else!

By the time I was done, it was quite dark, so an after photo had to wait until the morning. We did have a small thunderstorm during the night. As usual, the bulk of the system blew right by us.

None of the cardboard blew away, however! That was my big concern. Interlocking the pieces of cardboard seemed to have done the trick.

As we get more cardboard, I do want to fill in the spaces in between, but the squash and corn patch needs to be done, first. For now, this should help. I’ve picked up a slow release, granular fertilizer that will be applied soon. I just don’t want to be feeding the crab grass as well as the squash!

Hopefully, I’ll be able to get another van load of cardboard, soon. I did manage to get a few boxes today, when I stopped at the post office/general store. Possibly enough to do one row in the squash and corn patch. We shall see.

Another thunderstorm is being predicted for tonight. I do hope it actually happens, and gets swept northward. Not only to help cool things down here, but there are some major fires to the north of us. At least one of the reserves had to be evacuated yesterday. Rain would certainly help get those under control. For all the flooding we had this year, most of it affected the south of our province. The further north you go, the less affected it was, which means those areas will still be prone to fires.

Just out of curiosity, I checked our 30 year temperature records for today. We’re still at 28C/82F as I write this. Our average for today is 26C/79F. The record high was 33C/91F, set in 2011, while our record low was only 6C/43F, set in 2000. So we’re pretty normal for this time of year. If our spring hadn’t been so awful, this would have been a very productive gardening year.

It’s hitting the girls in their upstairs “apartment” the worst. My younger daughter just cut all her hair off, to help keep cooler. Their switching to sleeping during the day and being active during the night hasn’t been working that well this year; the nights are simply not cooling down much. As a surprise for them, I made a trip to a Canadian Tire this morning, and got one of those Arctic Air cooling fans. I’d much rather have picked up a portable AC unit for them, but not only are they ridiculously expensive, there aren’t any in stock in most places right now. The window AC units are much more affordable, but there is only one window it could possibly be installed in, and it won’t fit with the way that window opens. In fact, that’s true of all our windows. Best bet would be to actually have one installed through a wall, not in a window. Since we don’t actually own the house, that’s not something we’re going to start doing!

Ah, well. It is what is it. We’ll manage!

The Re-Farmer

Kitten fix!

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Kitties, kitties and more kitties!

Actually, I’m not seeing very many of them, but there are a few braver ones that come out more often. Like this long haired beauty.

Of the ones I see the most often, he’s one of the shier ones, and runs off very quickly.

This little guy is the one that hangs out around the house the most. This morning, I found him trying to catch the mosquitoes that congregate under the roof of the kibble house.

So. Many. Mosquitoes.

That mama looks so very … tired. 😄

Of the slightly older kittens, the calico seems to prefer spending her time with the younger kittens, though she will make her way to the kibble house every now and then.

The little kitten beside her is one that tends to run off before I can get a good look at it. Shy, but not as shy as three of the six that I pretty much just catch flashes of, as they run away!

I’m not sure about the oldest litter. I think they are in the pump shack, but it might be more of a place they explore than where their “nest” is. Particularly since a skunk seems to be using it, too. This morning, I saw the black and white kitten, watching me through the tall grass as I brought kibble to put in front of the pump shack door, and the table beside it, before running off. I’ve seen only two of that litter, lately.

Those are just the litters we have seen. For sure, Broccoli has had a litter that must be getting quite big, and yet none have followed her to the kibble house. We probably won’t have any idea of just how many kittens there are this year until fall, when I expect they would be large enough to come for the kibble, with or without their mamas.

On a semi-related note, I’ve recently heard from the cat lady. We’re talking about the next cats to have spayed or neutered. Unfortunately, she’s been in and out of the hospital quite a lot, lately. So we are in no hurry. Her health take priority! Cabbages, meanwhile, is doing great, though dealing with a mosquito bitten nose! She prefers to be outside in the catio with the mosquitoes, than in the house! :-D

At some point, I’d love to build a catio, too, but I’m not quite sure where would be a good place to put one. No hurry on that, either. Other projects are much higher on the priority list!

The Re-Farmer

Still together, and weather alerts

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I am happy to say that all the kittens that were in the branch pile, are now in the board pile (formerly a junk pile) near the house. I managed to get this photo this morning.

One older kitty and one bitty kitty. :-) I could movement in the undergrowth from others, and another of the itty bitties came up for a snack.

I brought over another tray for water, including a frozen bottle of water to help keep things cool.

Most of the older kittens are still coming to the kibble house, and I got this picture of bliss, yesterday evening.

I just love the face on the kitten snoozing on the bench!

In other things, we are still getting heat warnings, and some areas are getting severe thunderstorm warnings. As I write this, we are at 32C/90F, with the humidex at 34C/93F Mind you, the same app that’s telling me that is also telling me we’re having light rain right now, when we’ve actually got a cloudless sky.

I did some weeding and pruning of tomatoes this morning, but the ground was still moist, so I didn’t need to water. We’ll see if that’s still true by this evening. I was able to get another load of cardboard today. Originally, I was going to use it to fill in the spaces around the silver buffalo berry, but other areas need it more. The squash patch in particular. Yes, we put straw down as a mulch, but that’s pretty much it. With most of the squash struggling so much, but weeding is almost impossible in that area. Laying down some cardboard will help. While I was out, I was also able to stop at the hardware store and pick up some slow release, granular tomato and vegetable fertilizer. Last year, we used water soluble fertilizer, but they only had versions suitable for flowers or shrubs, not vegetables or tomatoes.

While I was at it, I picked up 150 ft of clothes line, so we can finally get ours fixed. This time, they had in stock a much stronger version, but at more than double the price. Hopefully, what I got will last. With a line as long as ours, that’s a lot of potential weight it will need to hold. The spacers I got will help with that, though.

Once I got home, I backed the van up near the garden then prepped the cardboard, removing any tape, staples and stickers, as I unloaded. Thank goodness I was parked in the shade! I was still roasting. I used the garden hose to dampen my hat and shirt to help keep cool. The water in the hose was scalding hot, so I had to be careful! It did work, though.

We’re supposed to get rain tonight, so I want to get the cardboard down before then. Unfortunately, we’re not expected to start cooling down for another three hours!

After parking the van, I made sure to refresh the water bowls for the cats. Several of the mamas, and one of the kittens, were sprawled in the shade of the kibble house. It’s so hot out, the cats are actually panting! Not good. For the kittens in the board pile, I grabbed a 1 gallon water bottle and pokes some strategic holes in it, then put it on the water tray, where it can slowly drain. Unfortunately, in keeping the trays on to of the pile, so the skunks won’t get at it, it means the metal trays are in the sun. I’m trying to think of what I can use to create some shade that won’t blow away in the wind. Hmm.

For now, though, I’ll be staying inside until things start to cool down, then finish up with the cardboard. I don’t think there’s enough to cover the entire squash patch, but I should be able to get it around the smallest of the plants that need the most help!

The Re-Farmer

Morning finds

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Actually, this first photo is an evening find. While doing my evening rounds, I walked past the feeding station, and found a family of skunks at the bird seed!

I left them be, since I’d rather they were eating the sunflower seeds than the kibble. On the way back, I startled a couple of little ones. This one went up against the house and just froze, watching as I went by.

Such a cute little baby!

On uploading the photo, I saw the strange dot on its head. Now that I’ve “upgraded” by trading phones with my husband, I have a camera with much better zoom quality, so I was able to get a closer look.

It’s a wood tick. A big, blood filled tick.

😥

Poor baby! Mind you, it probably doesn’t even notice it’s there.

All the kittens have most definitely been moved out of the branch pile. I found one of the mamas on the wood pile (formerly a junk pile), so I brought a tray over and put it at the top for some kibble. In the past, we’ve got kibble trays on the ground near the pile, but with the skunks eating the kibble, and a ground hog still living under the pile, I figured it would be better for the kittens at the top. Not long after, I came by and saw three kittens at the tray. Two ran off immediately, but I managed to zoom in and get a picture of the little calico.

Oh, and that shredded orange tarp on there? It used to cover the entire top of this wood pile. It has been torn to shreds by the groundhogs, who have been taking the strands back to their dens to line their nests.

I suspect we’ll start seeing baby grogs in the not so distant future!

I’ve got some heavy duty tarps I found at Costco. They’re only 8′ x 10′, but that should be enough to cover the top of this pile. The layers of wood at the top had all rotted from years of exposure, but I’ve finally reached wood that looks useable, and I want to protect it. Hopefully, the grogs will leave non-torn tarps alone! If I do that now, though, I suspect the mama will move the kittens again. :-/

The fourth kitten – the little tabby trying to get under Mom to nurse – was already at the laundry platform when I first came out with the morning kibble. The other two are the ones I saw running away from the kibble tray on the wood pile.

Unfortunately, there is no sign of the 6 bitty kitties. I don’t know where the mom took them.

This is another surprise find. The Wonderberries are starting to bloom again! The berries they had when they were transplanted have all ripened and fallen away (those that we didn’t eat), but there are new green berries forming, and new flower buds, too!

Next is a surprise find that shows just how wet the ground still is in places.

As our spring kept dragging on, we had a melt followed by a large snowfall. When our angel with the front end loader cleared our driveway for us, the snow was so deep, he couldn’t see where the driveway ended and the grass on the sides began. There was water under the snow, and when he went off the gravel with one side of the front end loader, the tires sank, leaving a trench several inches deep. I’ve yet to be able to mow that area as much as we normally would, because that side is still so much wetter. As I headed out this morning, I spotted these, growing in the sunken tire track.

Do you see those sprays of broad, flat leaves coming out of a central point in the mud? They are coming up along the entire length of the muddy tire track. Nowhere else along the driveway.

Those are bullrushes. AKA cattails. These normally grow in ponds. I’ve never seen bullrushes growing here before. The nearest bullrushes in the area are in a series of small ponds in the ditch along the road, a couple hundred yards away. Even the low area in the old hay yard, which actually became a bit of a pond this spring, does not have bullrushes in it.

I’m going to leave these be. Bullrushes are something I want to encourage, even if it is in an odd place. We’re not in a position to make use of them now, but we have plans to in the future. The more of them that starts growing now, the more they will spread and increase. That way, by the time we are ready to use them, there should be enough to harvest, without over harvesting. When we finally get to turning that low spot in the old hay yard into a pond that should hold water all year, I want to make sure bullrushes start growing in there, too.

Every year since we’ve moved here has been very dry. With this year actually having adequate amounts of rain, it’s been interesting to see what things are now growing where we didn’t expect.

The Re-Farmer

Grandma cuddles

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Butterscotch was very cuddly with me this morning.

She looks so kittenish!

She comes over to cuddle when I sit at the side of my bed to take my supplements. As soon as she hears those bottles rattling, she comes right over. She still doesn’t like to be picked up and held though – and I’ve got the scratches on my arm to prove it! She slid herself right off, taking her pound of flesh along with her, then got all adorable on the bed beside me. Like she knows she’s just too cute to be mad at! :-D

The Re-Farmer

Our 2022 garden, staying out of the heat, and a garden surprise

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We’ve got some heat for the next few days – today reached 28C/82F, and we’re expected to keep getting hotter for a few more days before starting to drop a few degrees, with possible thunderstorms in the forecast. Temperatures are still pretty close to average, though, so nothing like the heat waves we got last year.

Still, it does mean that some garden beds need to get watered, which I try to do in the morning, though some need an extra watering by evening, too, depending on how exposed to the sun the beds are. Yesterday evening, while checking the beds, I found a nice little surprise but didn’t get pictures until this morning.

The bed where we planted 10 bare root white strawberries has been largely ignored, since none of the strawberries had come up. Last night, however, I decided to give it a bit of a weeding, anyway, and lo and behold, I found a single strawberry plant had emerged!

No sign of any others, unfortunately, and I certainly don’t expect we’ll get anything out of the one this year, but hopefully we’ll be able to keep it alive and protect it over the winter, and it’ll do better next year.

While weeding the rest of the bed, I found a volunteer!

The soil in this bed is from the bags we used to grow potatoes last year. It looks like we missed one! We grew 4 varieties, so we won’t know which it is until there’s something to harvest, but from the looks of it, and the colour of the stems, I’d say it’s one of the two purple varieties we grew. Awesome!

After carefully weeding as much around them as I dared, I gave them a watering. They were so wimpy from the heat, they just flattened. The potato was perked up by morning, but the strawberry was still having a hard time holding itself up. Hopefully, with some of the weeds pulled away, it’ll grow stronger. If I could be sure none of the other strawberries will come up, I’d cover the bed with a mulch to help them out. I might still at least give them a light mulch.

A lovely surprise this morning is that the Giant Rattle poppies are starting to bloom! There were three flowers this morning, and this is the largest of them. These are from seeds we collected last year. With the heat waves and drought, they didn’t do well last year, and produced pods much smaller than they normally would have. This year, they seem to be doing better, though I’m still expecting smaller pods. We did get seeds for another variety of bread seed poppies that we meant to plant somewhere else, but with the weather conditions we had this spring, that just didn’t happen. If all goes well, we’ll collect more seeds from these in the fall for planting (and maybe have enough for eating, too!), and next year, we’ll be able to plant both varieties.

As I wrote this, things are finally starting to cool down a bit. The heat lingers late into the day, and it gets hot surprisingly quickly in the morning – when I started my rounds, it was already 24C/75F. The last of the spinach in the high raised bed has been pulled, and I am planning to plant some chard in there this evening. The two varieties we have from last year are Fordhook Giant and Bright Lites. I’ll probably mix them up a bit. There were 2 rows of spinach in the high raised bed, so I’ll likely just plant one tonight, and do the other in a week or two.

Aside from the 2 varieties of spinach I picked up to plant at the end of the month, we do still have seeds of one variety from last year. The spinach in the low raised beds are a complete fail. I was weeding the beds this morning and there are some seedlings, but they’re barely there and look like they’re already bolting, even though they’re less than 2 inches tall! A couple of varieties of turnip are also complete fails, though I think they got eaten by insects. There is one variety that is growing, but they are struggling, and the leaves are riddled with tiny holes. I never see the insects causing the damage, though. We’ll see how they manage. Sadly, one of the losses was the Gold Ball turnips. They simply disappeared. Not one left, though they were among the first to sprout. There were very few seeds in the packet, so there is nothing left to reseed. These were among the free seeds we got, and I was looking forward to trying them. It reminds me of the first radishes we got last year; a daikon type, and watermelon radishes. They sprouted quickly, and were just as quickly gone. Something to keep in mind for when we plant them again in the future.

In other things, I have been very slowly working on scything the hay in the outer yard. I have to be careful not to over do it, even if I feel like I can do more. I know that if I over do it, I can end up out of commission for days. If I do a couple of swaths an evening, it’ll slowly get done. The fun part yesterday was that, when taking breaks, I was able to play with a couple of kittens. Two of them are okay with being picked up, now, though they don’t really like getting caught. The mama is not happy, though. I saw no signs of them this morning, so I’m afraid she might have moved them. I still put food and water out, as they may simply have been staying in the cool of the branch pile while mama was eating at the kibble house.

Oh, wow. As I was writing this, my weather app suddenly starting showing this.

For those in the US: 35C = 95F, 16C = 61F and 40C = 104F.

None of this matches the forecast for our area, though. The daytime highs aren’t expected to go above 30C/86F, and that just for one day. The overnight lows, however, are not expected to go below 20C/68F. Definitely some mixed messages, here!

Also, the current temperature has gone back up to 27C/81F instead of continuing to cool down!

At least there is some rain in the forecast, though with our weird climate bubble over our area, that will likely to right around us! 😄 Early morning watering will continue!

Hopefully, this will be good for the heat loving peppers, eggplant, squash and melons, and they will have a nice little growth spurt.

I find myself once again thinking of what my brother and his wife said about their years of gardening. If they had to live off what they grew in the garden, they’d starve to death! Between the weather, the insects and the critters, you just never know what’s going to make it.

Still hoping for a long, mild fall to make up for the long, cold spring!

The Re-Farmer

Morning kitties, new tech, tech repairs and estimates

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A few months ago, my husband got me a new OBDII reader for the van. The one I had worked, but didn’t give a lot of information. This one was supposed to be much more detailed in its reports. The problem was, I was never able to get it working. I had the app on my phone, but the Bluetooth connection just didn’t exist, as far as my phone was concerned. My husband tested it out, and it worked fine on his phone, and his tablet. After a bit of research, it turned out the problem was with my particular phone model. It was notorious for Bluetooth problems.

In the end, my husband offered to trade phones. His is a newer version of mine and does not have the issues mine was known for. Last night, he did the necessary back up, switched SIM cards and external memory cards, then did a data switch for the rest. We both then spent much of yesterday evening, getting our “new” phones working again, switching accounts and logging in to various apps.

It’s going to take some getting used to. Aside from the various difference in basic functions, what is now my phone is physically larger than the other one. Which resulting in an unexpected problem.

Lady pockets.

It is large enough that it can’t fit all the way in my pants pocket, and a corner of it sticks out. I’m going to have to be careful mucking about outside, or the darn thing is going to fall right out!

One huge benefit to the newer phone is improved camera quality.

My first test picture, taken while starting my morning rounds.

On a completely different note: Rosencrantz no longer looks pregnant, so there’s a new litter hidden away somewhere. The Distinguished Guest made an appearance this morning. Unfortunately, the patch of missing for on his shoulder is looking newly injured, and larger. I can’t get close enough to see more than a flash of red injured flesh as he runs away from me. :-(

I am zoomed in for this picture of Caramel and Broccoli on the cats’ house. Wow! With my old phone, this would have been a horrible blurry mess!

A definite step up in the photo department.

Yesterday, while checking out the trail cam files, I saw someone pull into our driveway, slip through the gate, then slip back again some time later and leave. This happened while I happened to be out, but clearly whoever it was did not knock at the door, because everyone else was home.

I suspected it was the tree removal company checking things out, so I called them again. Sure enough, it turned out to be the owner.

I’m glad I marked those trees with marking paint!

I had marked 22 dead treed. He commented on how we have SO many of them; he counted about 30 in there. I told him it was the ones closest to the house, and the one by the garage, that was my main concern. I also mentioned wanting to keep the wood to use to build garden beds. Normally, they’d take the trees down in chunks shorter than was I’m wanting. We brought it down to about 10 trees, including the one by the garage. He told me that, for a job like this, he would be sending a 4 man crew, at $400 an hour, and estimated it would take about 10 hours to do the trees closest to the house.

He didn’t hesitate at all when I starting talking about fewer trees! That’s a LOT of money. We brought it down to 5 trees closest to the house, plus the one by the garage. For that, I got an estimate of $2500.

Yeah…. we have a bit set aside, but not that much! It’s actually a very reasonable price. Four man crew, with their specialized equipment to get up into the trees, their massive chipper to take care of the branches, they’d stack the logs (or trunks, in this case) neatly aside and do a clean up at the end. Yes, it’s higher than when we got work done before, but the increased cost of fuel alone would kick their prices up.

So I asked about chipping the big pile in the outer yard – adding that there was no hurry on that, because there are kittens living in it right now. He said he would have to take a better look at the pile, and said he would swing by the next time he’s in the area.

For that job, at least, we’ll have more time to set funds aside. Because of little guys like this.

This branch pile kitten is one that I’ve been able to pick up, several times now. This morning, I was able to pick it up and pet it for a while, and when I put it down next to the food, it actually stayed and started eating, rather than running away. There is a second one I’ve been able to pick up more than one. It is less tolerant of being picked up and still hissed and spit at me, but not as much as the last time I was able to pick it up.

Along with the food I’m leaving near the branch pile, I’ve also brought an extra old baking tray over for water. It’s heavy enough to not get blown away, and shallow enough I don’t have to worry about a kitten falling in and drowning. I’ve seen the kittens drinking out of it several times, since. 😊

Hopefully, I’ll be able to grab and cuddle some of the other kittens, too, and get them at least a little big socialized!

We had some other crazy tech problems going on yesterday. It started with my not being able to get through to my mother on the phone. I don’t know it that problem was at all related, but we started to have issues with our land line gain. My brother had tried to phone me several times, and just got crackling noises. I was actually on the phone with the phone company to arrange having someone come out to fix it, when our prescription delivery arrived. He’d tried to call, too, and didn’t get through. On my new prescription, was a note to call the pharmacist about the dosages; she had tried to call me, but couldn’t get through.

The guy I was on the phone with was doing his computer stuff but had not put me on hold as he did it, so when my husband and I talked about the delivery driver’s call not getting through, and the pharmacist not being able to get ahold of me, he could hear it all.

This morning, while walking in the outer yard, about to head back inside, there was a shout from the gate.

The guy from the phone company was already here!

It took a while, but the problem was traced to corroded wires at the phone jack in my husband’s room. He had to replace wires and the jack itself. He ended up having to go back and forth into the basement a few times, but he got it working.

I’m really happy about how quickly they had someone come out. Having a working land line is really important to have out here, where cell phones and internet connections are far more likely to have issues. That and the tech guy was really nice, too. 😊

The Re-Farmer

Morning in the garden

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I just spent a bit of time going back over garden photos from last year. For all the drought and heat waves we had, the garden was well ahead of most of this year’s garden. It’s amazing how much the extended cold and excessive moisture has set things back. At this time last year, I was picking at least a few summer squash, and even beans in the morning. As much as they struggled in the heat, the peas were starting to produce pods. The melons were setting fruit and looking really prolific, and even the Mountain Morado corn was starting to develop cobs. The cherry tomato mix and spoon tomatoes had sprays of green tomatoes, with some ripening and ready to eat, soon after.

This morning, I was able to give more onions a hair cut.

These are onions from seed, taken from the high raised bed, which had the most, plus a few from one of the low raised beds. We picked so many from the onion sets last time, most of these went straight to getting dehydrated.

Kitchen shears makes the job to much faster. After a more thorough washing, then trimming off the browned tips, it was quick work to snip them into small pieces. As I write this, they are in the oven under the warm setting, at 145F (the lowest temperature our new oven can go).

Even with the onions, there’s a difference. They they are looking pretty good, last year they were developing bulbs by now.

I got to taste our first strawberry from the transplants! It was so very sweet! Not the one in the photo; that one’s not ready yet. Nor the first one that developed. That one rotted before it ripened for some reason. There are plenty more developing, and lots more flowers, though, so I hope we will have a decent amount from our 4 little plants. Hopefully, they will also develop runners that we can propagate, to have more plants next year. :-)

Still nothing from the bare root white strawberries we got, though. Looks like a total loss, there.

Some of the Carminat pole beans are getting very enthusiastic about climbing! The pole beans on the other side of the trellis aren’t quite there yet. There are a couple of self seeds (or should I say, bird-poop seeded) sunflowers that I am allowing to grow. There are some in other beds that I’m letting grow, too.

I was sure the beans I planted at the tunnel were also vining types, but I’m starting to think they are actually a bush bean. They are getting bigger, but so far, I see nothing to show that they are climbers!

While the Chocolate Cherry and Yellow Pear tomatoes are not showing fruit yet, the tomatoes that were started so much earlier indoors are really starting to fill out! Almost all the plants are starting to show fruit now. The photo above is one of the first Sophie’s Choice tomatoes to develop, and it’s getting surprisingly large, from what I can tell for the variety.

There is a distinct shape difference between the Sophie’s Choice and the Cup of Moldova tomatoes. In fact, it looks like the row that I thought was all Sophie’s Choice actually has a few Cup of Moldova in it. There are a LOT more of the CoM than the SC tomatoes.

The big surprise are the giant pumpkins. Do you see that flower above? And all the buds around it, both male and female?

That’s on the pumpkin I found with a broken stem. The one I didn’t think would survive. Turns out that pushing the broken surfaces together and burying them was enough to save it.

The rest of the squash nearby are not really doing well. Most are still very small, and even the ones that are growing more are nowhere near as big as they should be for this time of the growing season. I am starting to think we might not get any of the winter squash in this patch (the Red Kuri at the chain link fence is doing really well, at least), and we’ll be lucky to get any summer squash, too. The melons are all so small, I just don’t see them making it. Squash and melon all need lots of water, but it looks like they still got too much, this wet-wet spring, and just aren’t recovering. Unless we have a ridiculously long and mild fall. Some of the hulless pumpkins seem to be doing better, but I still don’t think they’re recovered enough to get a crop this year.

We planted SO much this year, and it seems much of it is going to be wasted effort. Hard to believe that it’s pretty much all having a much harder time this year, with so much moisture and more average temperatures, than last year with the heat waves and drought. I would have expected it to be the other way around. Looking at what is working and what isn’t, it definitely confirms that we need to go with the high raised beds. Even the low raised beds, while better than what’s at grade, are not all doing as well as one would expect. The tomato bed is the only thing I would say is doing really well. Most of the onions are doing all right, though even the shallots from sets planted near the Chocolate Cherry tomatoes are struggling at one end of the bed. Though the bet was raised about 4 inches when we framed it with bricks, the end near the vehicle gate had a lot of water around it. So much, it even looks like the shallots at the end were largely drowned out. At least there are more, further down the bed, that escaped nature’s wrath!

I’m struggling with disappointment right now. We planted more then we “needed”, with the expectation that we’d lose some, so that we could at least still be able to preserve food for the winter. Now it’s looking like we’ll barely have fresh produce for the summer.

The Re-Farmer

Morning babies

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I got to hold one of the little babies again!

Not easy, getting a picture while securely holding a curious, squirmy baby! There are two that don’t run away as quickly as the others, and as they’re still at that slow and clumsy stage, I’m able to catch them and pick them up. Yesterday, they were hissing and spitting for a bit, before calming down. This morning, this little one didn’t make a sound.

Once again, the four older ones that come to the house were playing with the bitty babies, though I did see them at the house later on. I didn’t see the oldest kittens at the pump shack this morning, but the tiny skunk popped out to nibble on the kibble!

I should probably find a way to leave water at the pump shack, too. I’m sure I’ve got a sturdy container somewhere that can be left there.

While I was going in and out of the sun room, I opened the door and a flash of grey fur ran in. Potato Beetle is back, after disappearing for a while again.

He is so skinny, the poor thing! But he knows the sun room is where he can have food with no competition from other cats. As I write this, he’s still in there. That early in the day, the sun room is still cooler than outside, and I made sure the ceiling fan was on, and there was water available, too.

The tom that’s hanging around the most right now is Sad Face. He’s definitely the winner of the male cat hierarchy, so I am happy to have Potato safe in the sun room. I still see The Distinguished Guest, though not as often, and he’s more skittish. He still has a missing patch of fur on one shoulder. I’ve never been able to get close enough to see it well, but the colour is looking more like normal skin colour, rather than open wound or scabbing colour. I suspect it will scar over and remain a bald spot, rather than the fur growing in. All our other males have disappeared. Perhaps they’ll come back later in the season and stay for the winter, or simply disappear, as so many others have since we’ve moved here. I prefer to think they’ve found some other farm to call home.

One thing I was not happy to see what Sad Face having his way with one of the ladies. It is really late in the season for her to go into heat. If she got pregnant now, that would mean a new litter of kittens at the end of August. They won’t have a chance to get very big before the cold hits. Of course, we’ll have the heat back on in the cats’ house and that will help, but the smaller they are, the more at risk they will be from the cold.

We shall see how things work out. For now, I’m just working on getting the babies used to me, in hopes of socializing them enough to make adopting them out an option!

The Re-Farmer

So wee!

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While doing my evening rounds and tending the garden (something has started to nibbled on our carrot greens, so that bed now has a net around it), I topped up the kibble trays. Along with going to the pump shack and leaving some kibble there, I also left a bit of kibble in front of the branch pile, where the bitty kitties are.

While walking around the outer yard, I heard the distinctive crunching noises of a skunk eating kibble – coming from the pump shack.

So of course, I went to chase the skunk away from the kitten’s food.

Oh. My. Goodness!

Would you look at how TINY it is!!!! The litter of kittens in the pump shack are bigger than this guy!

No, I did not chase it away. It’s just a baby! A very hungry baby that let me come quite close. Far more interested in food.

So… we have both kittens and baby skunks in the pump shack now!

I heard a noise and took a quick peek, finding one of the big kittens skirting around the pump shack. Later on, I came back and found no food and no babies, so I went inside. I found the bike I got at the garage sale had been knocked to the floor. While picking it up again I could see, behind some junk, a tuxedo face was watching me. I heard movement in other places, so I left.

The branch pile, meanwhile, was just crawling with kittens!

The four kittens that have been coming to the house were playing with the six little kittens in the branch pile.

That kitten in the foreground?

I was able to catch it and hold it for a while. Some time later, I came over and picked it up again, only to realize it was a different little kitten. I was able to pick this one up again when I came back one last time, topping up the kibble at the branch pile, and the pump shack, again.

Hopefully, this is the start of being able to socialize at least some of the kittens!

So many bitty babies!!!

The Re-Farmer