Little Nosencrantz turned her nose up at the freshly filled food bowl near their home in the big junk pile, in favour of clambering into the kibble house to join Mom and Uncle Creamsicle.
Do you get the impression Rosencrantz is trying to warn me off from her baby? ;-)
The Re-Farmer
One of the frustrating things about the heat we’ve been having is that it’s preventing us from doing a lot of outside work. The sort of work that involves a level of manual labour that becomes dangerous to do, simply because of the heat.
The work still needs to be done, however.
So tonight, when it was a bit cooler and there was still some light out, I decided it was time to take down one of the dead spruce trees.
No, not one of the big ones in the spruce grove. This little one.
Because it was nearing 10pm, I didn’t want to use the electric chain saw. It’s just big enough to do a tree of this size. Instead, I used a buck saw. In this photo, you can see I’d already cut out a wedge on one side.
Once it started to fall, it got hung up on some maple branches! In the end, I had to use a narrow fence pole from the pile you can see in the first picture, to push the dead tree free of the branches.
It was remarkable, how much brighter this spot become, once the tree was down!
After felling the tree, I used a hand saw to cut off branches until it became to dark to continue.
There had been a second dead tree near this one. Our first summer here, as I was cleaning up in the area, I pulled off a giant triffid of a vine from the two of them (you can read about and see photos, here). There were still pieces of it in this tree! It is likely the vine that killed both trees.
I was just about to head in for the supper the girls were making when I saw the motion sensor light on the squash tunnel get triggered. I headed over with my phone as a flashlight, but never found what triggered it.
Anyhow.
I will continue breaking down this tree tomorrow morning, before things heat up again. Unless, miracle of miracles, we get the showers that are being predicted. The trunk has a crack in it, but otherwise, it’s solid. No sign of rot. Which means we can use the wood. If we can take down more of the dead trees and they are solid like this, they will be used to make our permanent raised beds.
While I was working on the tree, it had supposedly cooled down to 17C/63F. Which would have been a gorgeous temperature to do this kind of work in, but I suspect the actual temperature here was quite a few degrees warmer! We’re supposed to be at 30C/86F, or close to it, over the next few days. For the next week, the humidex is supposed to be about 33C/81F. Which means we’ll only have small windows of time in the morning and evening when we can work on this sort of thing. But it has to be done. It’s already been delayed for far too long!
Now that this dead tree is down, I have two tall stumps that are relatively near each other. Once things are cleared away, I’ll be cutting them to matching heights, and they will become the supports for a much needed bench. :-)
The Re-Farmer
Like for so many others this year, it has been a real challenge to keep things alive and growing in the garden. With our furthest beds, even having enough hoses to be able to reach the furthest beds, the corn and sunflower blocks were the hardest to keep watered, until we started using the sprinkler.
The corn is nowhere near as tall as they would have been, if we weren’t in drought conditions, but they have really grown a lot in a very short time, and are starting to develop their tassels. Because of how long the area of corn and sunflowers is, the sprinkler we have can’t cover it all. To be able to water it all, we set it up in the middle of one of the sunflower blocks, set it to “full”, and it can water most of the blocks. After a while, we move it to the end and set it to spray just on one side, and we get the rest of it. The corn block in the middle tends to get water from both settings, and it really shows. The corn in the photo in that middle block.
The sunflowers are also not anywhere near as tall or robust as they would be. Especially the Mongolian Giant sunflowers. They and the Hopi Black Dye sunflowers, pictured above, are basically the same size. Only the ones that got started indoors and transplanted are slightly taller. All of them have very thin stems, still. As you can see in the photo, however, they are starting to grow their flowers! I don’t expect them to reach full size, but I do hope we at least get some of the Black Dye sunflowers reach maturity.
We planted sunflowers, and chose the location for them, for a number of reasons. One of those reasons, for both the corn and the sunflowers, was to have a privacy screen. Unfortunately, this year’s drought has prevented that particular goal from happening.
If all goes to plan, however, we will be planting shrubs that will do that particular job, on a permanent basis!
The Re-Farmer
With hot, dry days returning, my morning rounds once again includes covering the fall crop beds with shade cloth and doing a morning watering.
I was very, very happy to check the bean beds and FINALLY see pods developing! Other local gardeners are already harvesting large amounts of beans, while ours were still just blooming. Yesterday, I spotted the tiniest of pods developing – so tiny, I didn’t bother trying to take a photo, because I knew my phone’s camera wouldn’t be able to focus on them. This morning, I spotted these.
There are pods developing on all three types of beans.
While I had the sprinkler going over the corn and sunflowers, I worked on the summer squash bed. They have gotten big enough that I pruned the bottom leaves and staked them higher on their supports. There were a couple I had already done not long ago. Besides those, all of the squash were staked higher.
Not that you can really tell in the photo, at this point.
While I was working, as spotted a couple of plants with nibbled leaves, and even a nibbled sunburst squash. As we keep training the squash vertically, and keep pruning the bottom leaves, it should make it harder for ground critters to be able to reach to nibble on them. Which was not among the reasons we wanted to try growing squash vertically this year, but I’ll take it!
I didn’t take any photos because the sprinkler was running, but the sweet corn is starting to develop tassels! Switching to using the sprinkler to water them, and leaving it to run for anywhere from 30-60 minutes has made a visible difference.
When we build our permanent beds, we definitely need to have some sort of drip irrigation system, so we can be less wasteful with watering.
The Re-Farmer
It took moving the garden cam a few times, but I finally managed it.
I caught him in the act.
It is confirmed that the woodchuck is eating our peas plants.
The green peas are completely shot this year. Between the heat, the dryness, the poor soil and Woody here, eating them, they’re toast. I don’t even know why we still water them, but we do.
Oddly, the purple peas aren’t being eaten. They’re still struggling from the drought conditions, though.
If we are to get any peas this year, it’s now down to the ones I planted among the corn as nitrogen fixers. This morning, I think I even saw a single sprout, under one of the purple corn plants!
When the girls were watering last night, they picked some zucchini and sunburst squash. One of the zucchini had a bite taken out of the end! Like something took a taste and decided they didn’t like it. I’ve seen a few eaten leaves, too. The deer leave the summer squash alone; the spikes on the leaf stems are too much for their tender lips. The woodchucks seem to have a slightly better tolerance for it.
This really, really frustrated me. We put the wire mesh around the Crespo squash in the morning, and by evening, large amounts of it were gone. These have far fewer spines on their stems compared to the summer squash.
Looking around the barriers, I found the likely place they got through. Not that it would have been hard, anywhere around it.
When we made this squash hill, we took advantage of a hill that was already there, created by drunk plowing. There are lower furrows near it, making the ground even more uneven than in other parts of the old garden area. That left a furrow and a drop that made it really easy for a critter to slip under the wire.
I tried to use wire soil staples to peg the bottom of the chicken wire to the ground, but couldn’t. There are so many rocks under there, I couldn’t push the wire through far enough to hold it down. I tried an area about two feet long by a foot wide, and there wasn’t a single place I could push the wire through before being blocked by buried rocks. I ended up folding the bottom of the wire mesh under, then weighing it down with bricks. When I checked this morning, there was no new damage.
At this point, we’re thinking we’re not going to get an Crespo squash. The plants are using their energy to recover from critter damage. Of the flowers we’ve seen, there have still been no female flowers, and as long as stuff like this is happening, they won’t have the energy to produce fruit. If any fruit does start to develop, there is no longer enough of a growing season left for them to fully mature.
I did not invest all this time, effort and money to feed rodents instead of my family.
Those critters have got to go!!
The Re-Farmer
Every now and then, we’ll discover we have company in the bathroom.
We’ll find Keith in his favourite spot, hiding behind a hanging towel. This time, he happened to be napping. Other times, we’ll discover eyes, peering at us from the shadows. :-D
Keith has such distinct behaviours, his name has become a verb in this household!
The Re-Farmer
We are once again hitting higher temperatures, with no more rain, so this morning I started watering the garden beds again, moving the sprinkler every half hour or so. While checking the conditions of the various beds, I had to get a photo of this summer squash. It was the last one to start producing fruit, and when it finally did, it was definitely the odd one out.
And what is so odd about this lovely green pattypan squash?
We only bought yellow pattypan squash seeds.
So… we planted both green and yellow zucchini, but only have green zucchini developing. Then we planted only yellow pattypans, but have both green and yellow squash!
Too funny.
While checking the beds I’d watered last night, I was disappointed to find that more of the Crespo squash has been eaten. :-( So I snagged a daughter to help me put the last of our chicken wire around it.
We didn’t have enough to go all the way around. I checked the junk pile around the garden shed and found some 2 inch square wire mesh. It was all bent up – when I first found it while cleaning up the maple grove, it was buried in undergrowth – and a mess, but we straightened it the best we could and happily found it long enough to cover the gap left by the chicken wire. I used some other scrap wire that was tangled up in the mesh and used it to attached the pieces together near the ground, so no little critter could just slip in between them.
I’m hoping it works. It’s going to make filling the water reservoir in the middle (half buried, so water the roots) more difficult, though.
I’ll put up with it.
The Re-Farmer
Butterscotch’s babies were extremely active in the cool of the morning. :-)
It took them stopping for a nursing break before I could get pictures!
I didn’t want to disturb them, so I used the zoom on my phone’s camera, which takes the worse pictures. :-(
I still ended up disturbing them. Ah well.
Earlier, I noticed a couple of the kittens playing around under the bird feeder (the flowers under there are totally mashed!). Something seemed odd about their actions, though, so I went and checked. It turned out they were “playing” with a chipmunk. :-( It was still very much alive and the kittens were… well… being cats about it. I shooed them away and the chipmunk just sort of set itself into a defensive stance and stayed there. When I found it let me touch it, I picked it up and carried it to the pile of maple logs near the garden shed, so it had a place to rest and recover. It was bleeding, but I don’t think it was mortally wounded. Hopefully, it will be okay.
Later I found Bradicus just going nuts in this tree! :-D Chadicus is at the bottom of the tree, and Caramel is in the foreground.
Broccoli, meanwhile, was busy hunting grasshoppers in the grass. :-D
I want.
To boop.
That nose!!!!
The Re-Farmer
One of the things I’ve been trying to baby is our Montana Morado corn. I really, really want these to work out!
As these were started indoors, they are much further along than any other corn we have, and have been developing ears of corn for a while now. I’ve been a bit concerned about pollination, and have even been hand pollinating any cobs that look like they might get missed.
My concern?
Many of the silks have have dried up. This is supposed to be a sign that the cobs are ready to pick, but they shouldn’t be ready to pick until the end of August or so. The packet didn’t have a “days to maturity” on it, as the variety is just too knew, but in looking up maize morado, it says 120 days to maturity, so I figure this should be close.
As my daughter and I were looking the corn over and talking about our concerns over how many silks are dry, even on tiny little cobs, I went ahead and picked a cob from the plant that first developed one. This would be the largest, most mature, of all the cobs. The silks at the top were so dry, they came off as I started to peel off the husks.
So this tells me one thing, at least. Pollination is good. There are lots of developing kernels, and almost no gaps. It is also clearly immature, and just starting to turn to its mature colour.
I have to admit, that looks very… unfortunate… :-D
We did taste it, and while not particularly sweet (I was not expecting it to be), but it did taste… well… like corn.
So why are the silks starting to dry so early? Yes, it’s been dry, but we’ve been diligent about watering these.
Have we not been watering it enough? Has it been too hot, even for this variety that was developed in a warmer zone than us? Will the cobs continue to mature, even if the silk dries up as would normally happen when the cobs are ready to pick?
I don’t know, but I’ve posted the question on one of my local gardening groups. I’ve had some clarifying questions, but so far, no answer.
Crud.
Well, we’ll just keep watering them and hope for the best!
Meanwhile, on checking the Crespo squash nearby…
More, “oh, crud.”
One of the vines have been eaten, and it does not look like deer damage. The barriers we put around it might convince a deer to not bother, but they can’t actually stop anything. I’m guessing this is from one of the woodchucks.
Today was hot enough that everything has dried up again, so I set up the sprinkler on the purple corn for a while. As I was moving the sprinkler to the corn at the opposite end of the garden area, I spotted a woodchuck in the middle of one of the sunflower blocks!! It wasn’t eating anything, and there was no damage when I checked, so it may have been just passing through.
I greatly encouraged that notion, and chased it through the hedge, into the ditch. It can go to the empty house across the road!
Anyhow.
As for the corn, I guess the only thing we can do is keep watering it and hope the cobs will continue to mature.
When we first bought the corn seeds, the produce description was for maize morado. The site even had a video talking about how a cowboy from Peru brought some seeds to where he was living in the US, and was able to grow extra to provide seeds for the company. I thought I was getting a Peruvian corn. Then the story changed, and it turned out to be a purple corn developed in Montana, and now it seems the name has been changed to Mountain Morado.
While trying to look up what the days to maturity might be for this corn, I found a different seed company that is selling the actual maize morado from Peru, Kulli. I think I will try buying those for next year. The packets only have 25 seeds in them, so I’ll probably get two or three. I had hoped to have seeds to save from this year’s corn, which may still happen, but if I don’t, I will also try the Mountain Morado (again?). Between the two, I hope to have something that will grow in our zone.
Until then, we’ll see how things go with what we have now.
The Re-Farmer
update: well, that was fast! Having tapped into the wealth of knowledge in the local gardening group, I have a likely answer. The drying of the silk may show that they have been successfully pollinated.
It’s either that, or the heat.
Well, we’ve passed our forecasted high of the day and have reached 30C/86F, with the humidex putting us at 35C/95F, this afternoon. We did, however, get RAIN this morning! I was awakened by the sound of thunder, so I quickly went outside to make sure the cats and birds had food before the rain hit. The storm blew past us, but it did start to rain while I was still outside. I’ll take the nice, gentle rain, thank you very much!
Unfortunately, it looks like this will be the last rain we’ll have in a while, and tomorrow the smoke is supposed to be back. What rain we did have never reached the fires up north. :-(
While doing my evening rounds yesterday, and checking the old kitchen garden (the floating row covers are doing their job; no signs of critters trying to get under them, and our carrots are recovering!), I stumbled on a pretty green friend!
It was just hanging out on the leaf of one of the flowers that made its way through the layers of mulch we put on this garden, two summers ago. We’ve seen a lot of frogs this year (likely because all the ponds and ditches have dried up), but we don’t often see the green tree frogs.
It didn’t seem to like us giants hanging around, so we let it be, though I must admit, it is very tempting to want to hold it.
I also was able to get a picture of some furry friends.
Rosencrantz and Nosencrantz were calm enough to just watch me as I went by. Toesencrantz, unfortunately, is more skittish and was hiding.
I so want to boop Nosencrantz’s nose. :-D
While the girls and I were checking the garlic beds, I showed them this odd garlic.
It looks like garlic is forming inside the stem, and this one is getting pretty big. I’d noticed another had started to show signs of this happening a few days ago. This is only in the Racombole garlic, which is split between the two garlic beds, so the girls started looking around in the other bed, and we found several more.
This one was the strangest looking one, and it may explain what’s happening.
This looks like a garlic scape! This might explain why the Racombole seemed to have fewer scapes than the other two varieties. Instead of growing out the tops, as they should have, the scapes look like they got stuck in the bottoms of the stems in quite a few of the plants. Since they didn’t get harvested, bulbils are now forming inside the stems, eventually bursting through. Only this one had the rest of the scape emerge from the stem for us to see.
It also looks like something tried to give this one a taste!
In theory, we can keep the bulbils and plant them in the fall. Hardneck garlic are bi-annual, growing seeds in their second year. Planting the cloves, rather than the bulbils, and harvesting the scapes by passes that, allowing for large bulbs with lots of cloves to form. If we planted bulbils, we sould get small bulbs that are basically one big clove. Kind of like the garlic we had to harvest early, because the plants died back so soon.
It should be interesting to see the bulbs that form under the plants that have these trapped bulbils growing in their stems. I would expect they would be smaller bulbs, though with conditions this year, I expect all of them to be smaller. I don’t expect to have any suitable for planting next year. This year, for our fall planting, we are looking to double the amount of garlic we plant. I should order them soon; they will be shipped when ready for planting in our zone, so ordering early will not be an issue. We will just have to decide where we want to plant them this fall, as we rotate things.
I am finding that half the fun of gardening is planning out next year’s garden! :-D
The Re-Farmer
The Re-Farmer 