I headed out nice and early this morning, while things were still nice and cool, to do some transplanting. I actually have some time to write this before I need to go to my mother’s, too!
The first priority was to get as many of the winter squash as I could fit into the bed that was prepared last night.
I brought all the transplants over, so I could pick and choose among them. The largest plants, and the ones in pots that were starting to fall apart, were the priority. I set a couple of markers to help me keep track while making the centre line.
The lower the bed, the further the reach, though. I had to use another plant stake to reach the middle and mark a line in the centre. Then I took the two biggest plants and set them at the ends, about a foot or more away from the short logs, then another bigger one in the middle. Once those were in place, it was easy to eyeball how far apart to set the others. I was able to set out 9 pots, roughly 1 1/2 feet apart.
Once I knew where they were going to go, I dug holes large enough for the pots, then filled each one with water. The one thing I did NOT do was amend the soil with sulfur granules. If I’d remembered, a good time to do it would have been last night, when I was using the garden fork and the rake. I was working by hand this morning, and just didn’t have the reach to work anything into the top 6 inches in the middle.
These winter squash are all in the biodegradable pots, which don’t really degrade very well unless they get – and stay – really wet. So when I planted the squash, I broke off the bottom of the pots, then worked a split up a side, before putting them into the ground. Once in the ground, I set them a bit lower, then made a sort of dam around them. This way, when they are being watered, the water will pool in the lower area and get absorbed into the ground there, rather than run off to the side somewhere.
Later, a mulch will be added around each transplant. I’m still planning to put beans and peas on the sides, and more mulch will be added after that. All while still making sure to stay clear of the sides, since the logs will be adjusted as they are permanently set in place and attached to each other.
That done, it was time to move to the high raised bed.
It had a light grass clipping mulch on it, and some weeds that needed to be cleared away. I am SO loving that cheap little hand cultivator I got at Walmart. It really makes loosening the soil and getting those weeds out much easier. I can even use it with my wonky left arm. Not for long, mind you, but enough to give my right arm a bit of a break.
What a difference with a high raised bed, though! I worked around both sides but, if I wanted to, I could actually reach all the way across the bed, without too much difficulty!
Once the soil was loosened and weeded, I used the back of the thatching rake (which I think is actually called a landscape rake, these days), to level and move the soil. For this bed, I built some of the soil up against the edges and packed it down a bit. Again, this is to control the flow of water. I want the water to flow towards the middle of the bed, not down the side walls. That done, I loosened the soil in the middle some more. This time, I did work sulfur granules into the soil.
Then I rigged the hose up to spray over the bed and give it a super deep watering while I put the remaining winter squash transplants back with the others (there’s 7 left, plus one that doesn’t look like it’ll make it) and go through the peppers.
I brought over a tray with the three early varieties of peppers that we have. There turned out to be three of two varieties, and four of another. I set them out in groups apart from each other, but there was so much room in between them, I decided to get the other bin of peppers. There were only pots with Purple Beauty in them. One had two seedlings, and I pulled the weaker one. The other three pots had Sweet Chocolate peppers in them. Two had pairs of seedlings and, again, I pulled the weaker ones.
So the high raised bed now has all peppers in them. Later on, I plan to plant onion transplanted around them. For now, however, they are protected by one of the raised bed covers. It won’t stop the cats from getting in, but it will deter the deer!
Then, because I can’t just toss away seedlings, even if they were thinned out, I found space in the wattle weave garden to transplant the two Sweet Chocolate and one Purple Beauty seedlings.
So that is done for now!
Hopefully, we’ll get more in this evening, when I’m back from my mother’s, and after things cool down again. It’s 17C/63F as I write this, with the humidex putting it at 21C/70F. Our high of the day is supposed to be 21C/70F
At the very least, I want to get mulch around the new transplants. We’re supposed to get rain starting around 10-11pm until 7am, so I’d like to protect them as much as possible, since we don’t have the protective plastic rings around these ones.
Well, I was able to get the frame of the low raised bed in place – it’s as done as it’s going to be, at this point. Tomorrow, transplanting needs to happen in there.
I got that second 18′ log debarked, but that got done after I found a way to move the first one into place.
The smaller logs that will be used as vertical trellis supports came in very handy! I used them as rollers, to drag the log across. The 4′ log at one end also made it easier to drag the side log into place, though it kept wanting to roll up the hill of soil!
These beds will be 4′ wide on the outside, so I had to make sure the log was positioned on the inside of the markers. The side I lay this log down on used to be part of the path, so it was still pretty compacted.
After debarking the second 18′ log, it was easier to drag into place, since I just needed to get it in the path next to the high raised bed, then roll it into place. This side is where part of the newly widened path was garden bed. Not only was the soil under there softer, but I hadn’t shifted the weeded soil over quite far enough. I had to spend some time pulling soil away from that side until I could finally roll the log into place, and have it inside the markers.
The 4′ end logs were butted up against the side logs, and that’s as far as they’re going to be done at this point.
Eventually, notches will be cut into the ends of the 4′ logs that the 18′ logs will fit into. Then I’ll use an auger bit to drill through the notched ends and drive a metal rod through, to hold them together.
But first, more work needs to be done.
The soil under the logs needs to be leveled out a bit, and there are gaps in places that need to be filled in. I’m also hoping to get a hold of more cardboard. Lots more. Landscape cloth would be better, but I can get cardboard for free. I want to cover the paths with cardboard, then layer wood chips on top, and I’d like part of the carboard to be under the logs. That will require rolling the logs aside, or lifting them, to get the cardboard under. So final assembly will have to wait.
Meanwhile, I weeded, loosened and leveled the soil hill inside the bed, making sure to NOT pull the soil all the way to the logs. There’s just enough space to work in.
I’m shooting to get up earlier in the morning and start transplanting squash, while it’s still cooler. We’re supposed to reach a high of 20C/68F tomorrow. As the forecast reads right now, we will start getting rain at 11pm tomorrow, and it will continue to rain until 7am on Tuesday. So I should be able to get more progress in transplanting during the day on Tuesday. Wednesday is now supposed to be rain free, with a couple of hours of possible showers late Thursday afternoon. Hopefully, that will give lots of time to get more progress.
As for the stuff that has already been transplanted, everything is looking just fine. Hopefully, that means little to no transplant shock!
I’m really feeling time flying through my fingers right now, so I just made a point of seeing where we were at in the garden, at this time last year.
We also had brought Decimus in with her babies at this time. Which means that Clarence, Shadow in the Dark, Mitsy and Tin Whistle are officially a year old now. Ghosty is a touch older.
Wow. We were sure hoping to have found forever homes for them all, long ago! 😢
Ah, well.
Anyhow…
So it looks like we’re at almost the exact same stage in the garden as we were last year! We used a lot of grow bags last year, but they are currently being used as beds by Broccoli’s kittens!
There’s one very good thing about rain we’ve been having.
Last year at this time, the air was full of smoke from wildfires burning all over. There are currently 5 fires burning in our province right now, all way up north, and all listed as under control.
A most welcome bonus with all that rain!
Okay, time for me to start getting ready for an early bed time, and an early rise tomorrow!
Before I get into how things went, I want to share some adorable news. While checking in the old garden shed while Broccoli was eating at the other side of the hose, I found both kittens, curled up together on a grow bag next to their cat bed. I was able to pick both of them up and cuddle them! The black and white male hissed at me a bit. The calico mostly just started at me. Neither tried to run away. The calico’s eyes are changing colour! The black and white still has very blue eyes.
I straightened out the cat bed and set them in it, before leaving some kibble for Broccoli just inside the door. I’d already left some in a sheltered spot outside the shed, and when I closed the door, I found her there, munching away. Happily, she is tolerating my visits to her babies, and not hiding them.
One of my goals for the day was to plant some summer squash in the pots we’ve got outside the main doors into the house. I got some seeds scarified and presoaking while I did my morning rounds, then planted them after I had breakfast. While checking the garden beds, I noticed the one available chimney block planter at the chain link fence and decided to plant in there, too.
In the pots, I decided on white patty pans (a new one for us), green Endeavor zucchini, and yes, I found a package of Magda seeds! I’d ordered a variety pack of summer squash years ago, and accidentally ordered three instead of one – and those extra seeds are coming in handy! The chimney block planter got Goldy zucchini. Hopefully, we’ll have space to plant out more summer squash in other places, but for now, we at least have these in. I had to add sticks around where the seeds were planted, to make sure no cats lay on them!
Then I found cats lying on my onions that were transplanted! I remembered I had a packages of disposable plastic utensils in the old kitchen, so I stuck those in among the onions. I don’t know that they’ll all survive being squashed flat by cat butts, but at least now they have a chance!
One of my other goals for today was to start transplanting into one of the shifted beds in the main garden area, with or without a frame. My daughter, however, figured we should be able to drag that second log out of the spruce grove today. So that’s what we started on.
Since she debranched it and cut it to length, all the space she cleared around it has grown back! The mosquitoes in there were brutal, too.
Dragging it out was a pain. We used a rope to heave it forward a few feet, then I’d go to the other and and swing it around a foot or so, we’d drag it forward some more, then back to swinging the other end around, until we finally cleared some trees and had a straight line out of the spruce grove. Even then, we had to make our way between a narrow space between trees at the edge of the grove. It was a bit easier to drag once we were clear of the spruce grove, but an 18′ log is pretty heavy!
Oh, wow. I just used a log weight calculator. I don’t know the exact dimensions for the calculator, but at the lowest estimate, it would be 210 pounds/95kg. At the largest estimate, 337 pounds/152kg. I would guess it’s actually closer to about 250 pounds/113kg.
I don’t feel so bad, now.
Earlier in the morning, I’d taken out the weed trimmer and trimmed where I would be working around the beds, as close to the ground as I could. I also trimmed around the logs that were already by the raised beds – the grass and dandelions were so tall, you could barely see them!
After the log was dragged out, my daughter wanted to start mowing part of the lawn. It’s still damp, but it really needs to be done! She started on a section in front of the house that did not get mowed at all this year, around where the kibble and cat shelters are. It’s one of the densest sections of lawn we’ve got. She started off with the mower set high, then tried to go over the densest spot with it set lower, but the grass is so wet, the lawnmower kept clogging! She was collecting the grass clippings, which means she was stopping and starting often, to empty the bag. After a while, the lawnmower just wouldn’t start anymore. She switched to using the weed trimmer around the edges for a while, as we left the mower in the shade. After maybe half an hour, it started again. When it happened again, my daughter just stopped for the day. She was so hot and tired by then, she couldn’t even grip the pull cord anymore!
While she did that, I worked on the logs.
One of the first things to do was go over all of them with the baby chainsaw (cordless pruner) to cut away all the sticky-outy bits. Stubs of branches, lumps in the wood, etc. I did the 18′ lengths first, then the 4′ lengths. Being able to set the 4′ lengths across the long logs made it a lot easier! Once the bits were trimmed off, I broke out the draw knife and debarked the 4′ lengths. When we built our first high raised bed out of logs, I didn’t bother debarking them, as it was an experiment. What I’ve since found is that ants just LOVE to build nests in the logs, between the bark and the wood! Insects, in general, like to get in there, and of course, moisture collects between the layers, too. These logs have been out in the elements long enough that things were already getting in between the layers. After everything is set up, I’ll be making sure to use the jet setting on the hose to pressure wash the logs!
Once the bark was clear, it was back to removing sticky-outy bits again, that had been hidden in the bark.
Once the 4′ end pieces were done, I moved the marking posts with the twine on them over, then brought the short logs close to where they will be assembled. Then I worked on one of the 18′ logs. That was made easier by setting the ends on other logs, including a pile of them still mostly buried in the grass. These smaller logs will be the upright supports for the trellises, once the trellis beds are assembled. For now, though, they provide a surface I can use to roll a big log around, while debarking it!
By the time I got the first 18′ length debarked, I was totally hooped. We were at 17C/63F, with a humidex of 20/68F, and I was working in full sun. It felt a lot hotter than that, to me! It was time to stop for sustenance and hydration. I think I might still make it out this evening, but I’m not sure, yet, if I’ll get back to the logs. I might do some other transplanting, first. For now, though, even if we just get the 18′ lengths in position, the soil inside can be spread out, and some of the winter squash can be transplanted. The 4′ ends can be permanently attached, later. So finishing the second 18′ log is a priority, but I’ll see how I feel physically, first. I don’t need to go to my mother’s tomorrow until the afternoon, so I can hopefully do some transplanting in the morning, but I definitely won’t be working with the logs in the morning, when I have to leave for my mother’s!
I did get a bit of an update about her. I haven’t talked to her since she hung up on me yesterday, when she was trying to convince me her pills are all wrong. My brother spoke to her, and he mentioned he’d heard she hung up on me. She started going on about how her pills are all mixed up, and he basically repeated the same things I did, adding that the pharmacist knows which is which, and makes sure they are in the right places in her bubble packs. She ended up changing the subject. She told him she hadn’t gone to church today, because she wasn’t feeling good (no idea why) then asked if he went to church today. He reminded her, they go to their church on Saturdays (she’s said to me a few times that she doesn’t think they go to church anymore. I remind her that they go on Saturdays, but she doesn’t believe me!). Then he mentioned this Saturday was particularly special, as they attended the funeral of a dear friend’s mother. My SIL sang during the service, while my brother played the guitar.
To which my mother lamented that my SIL cares more about taking care of her friends, than taking care of my mother…
My poor brother. He told me, he was absolutely speechless when she said that. He couldn’t think of what to say at all, so he told her he had to get back to working on their sump pump, and said goodbye.
When he told me about this, I remembered telling my mother about this upcoming funeral, and that my SIL was asked to sing, and her response then was the same. My SIL takes better care of her friends that of my mother.
Oh, I think I know why. My mother has been obsessed about her own funeral, and giving us instructions on what she wants us to do. She had brought up my SIL singing at her funeral. My SIL almost never talks to my mother anymore, and doesn’t come out when my brother does. Too many years of being told she wasn’t “real” family, just my brother’s wife, and my mother being horribly cruel to her, when my SIL has never been anything but kind to my mother.
My brother and his wife are such amazing people. They deserve so much better than how my mother treats them!
Ah, well.
Tomorrow, she has her home care panel. One more step in the process for her to go into long term care. I’m just really thankful that this is something she actually wants, and not something we have to figure out how to do around her!
After I finished my post earlier today, my daughter and I headed out for a dump run, then errands. We ended up going to the smaller city for her shopping, so that I could pick up some cat food at a better price at Walmart. By the time we got home, it was well past 3 and, I’m happy to say, starting to get a bit cooler!
After having a late lunch, I headed outside to finish at the new low raised bed.
Before I got started, I prepared a 4L size water bottle by removing the top and punching holes in the bottom, then brought over protective rings and support posts. The support posts were long enough to reach from corner to corner on the bed, so I used them to find the centre. That is where I partially buried the water bottle. This way, we can add water into it, and it will drain out the bottom and water the roots of the plants nearby. We’ve done similar in the past, including the first time we tried to grow Crespo squash, and it has worked well.
The pot with the single Crespo squash was the one where the stem had broken when the cats knocked the bin holding the pots off the table. I had it supported with a pair of bamboo skewers. Unfortunately, as soon as the skewers were removed, it immediately bent over at the break, almost snapping off. I had intended to plant it deep enough to cover the break, as the squash will develop adventitious roots, but I had to be so careful not to break it completely! I planted it in a protective ring and ended up filling the ring to the top with soil to support the stem. It still ended up lying on the soil. I just made sure it was running towards the side I wanted to train it towards, as it gets bigger – if it survives!
The other pot had two squash in it. I was planning to separate them, but the roots were too entwined, so they were planted together. They, too, ended up with their protective ring filled almost to the top with soil. They both got well watered, and I added water to the reservoir in the middle – which drained much faster than I expected! I ended up filling it again, a couple of times. before I was done.
With how the light hits this area, I decided to plant a row of beans along the east and west sides of the bed. I chose Seychelles pole bean seeds left over from a couple of years ago, that did so well for us when so many other things did not! These are a very straight green bean, and they were quite prolific.
Once the beans were planted and well watered, I set up supports to create an A frame, then added 4″ square netting. This will be enough to keep the deer from getting at the squash, while still being open enough to reach through to weed or pick beans. The beans themselves are planted about 8 or 10 inches from the side, so they will also be protected by the netting until they get tall enough to start climbing it. Hopefully, we’ll have a decent germination rate. The germination rate was excellent when we grew them before, but after a couple of years, I would expect it to be far less.
Though it was starting to get late, the days are so long right now, I decided to do more transplanting. The San Marzano tomatoes needed to be transplanted, and I decided to see if the retaining wall blocks could be used for that.
Aside from the chives in the corner, I planted mint in alternating blocks. Unfortunately, there’s some sort of plant in this garden that is more invasive that even crab grass or creeping Charlie! The mint is struggling to come back this year, and this plant is choking them out! I pulled as much as I could around the mint, but they’re so mixed together, there really isn’t much I can do.
In the other blocks, there was a lot of this plant to clean out as well. A couple of blocks still had some onions growing in them. There had been more, but they were choked out by this invasive plant.
I was able to clean up 10 blocks for the tomatoes, including two of blocks with a pair of onions in them that still had room for a transplant. I used my pH meter and was surprised the soil was just as alkaline as everything else. These blocks have been amended with peat in the past, and the cement itself can increase the acidity of soil. That meter’s needle was a hard 8. So I worked some sulfur granules into the prepared blocks, too. I wonder, at times, what the reading would be if I had a meter that went higher than 8! Even the solution in my soil test kit maxed out at 7.5. Ah, well.
In the tray that had the biggest, healthiest tomatoes, there should have been 9, but there were only 7 surviving. One of them was even starting to bloom! The last three blocks were planted with the smaller tomatoes that almost didn’t survive being moved to the sun room. This was the tray that had tipped and spilled after I’d topped up the soil in the cells, so they’ve had just a rough time, over all! After transplanting the three strongest looking ones, there’s maybe 5 or 6 left. There’s one, I’m not sure is going to last much longer. I don’t know where I’d transplant these right now, but being as small as they are, they can stay in the tray longer.
Each of the transplants got a bamboo stake that will be used to support them as they grow. They will likely need more as they get bigger, but that can be added later. Last of all, they got a very thorough watering. Hopefully, they will do okay here. The ornamental apple trees cast quite a bit of shade, even with the pruning we’ve done over the years, but we’ve grown tomatoes in these blocks before, and they did okay.
Once everything was put away, I did one last prep. There are three pots on the landing outside the main doors. Last year we grew herbs in them. I have decided to grow summer squash in them this year. This way, even if we don’t end up having the space to direct sow in the main garden beds, we’ll at least have some summer squash in the pots to enjoy!
One of the pots had spearmint in it, but it did not survive the winter. Another had a mix of thyme and oregano. The one oregano that survived to be transplanted had bloomed and gone to seed, and I was going to see if any of the self-sown seeds germinated, but decided having summer squash was a priority. The biggest pot had lemon grass in it and, wow, were those roots every hard to clean out!
One of the new seeds we got for this year were are a white patty pan, so I’ll plant some of those, for sure. We have both green and yellow zucchini, and I haven’t decided which of those I will plant, yet. If we still have some Magda seeds left, I want to plant some of those. We really like them, but they are the ones that have been the hardest to grow! With some of the seeds being a few years old, I’ll plant at least three per pot, and see how many germinate.
The pots are prepped, but the planting will be done tomorrow.
With so many winter squash that need to be transplanted, they are a priority for the low raised beds that are already shifted, with or without frames. Tomorrow, my daughter and I will finally drag the second 18′ log out of the spruce grove – between the rain and the high winds, we haven’t gone into the spruce grove since she got this last one cut to size! We have enough logs to frame one bed, so that will make things a bit easier.
Things may change, but I’m thinking of planting the winter squash in the middle of the bed, in a long row, then planting more pole beans on either side. We won’t be able to do an A frame support structure, like over the Crespo squash, but we should still be able to rig up a quick trellis for them, later on.
With how many winter squash we have, and how far apart they need to be planted, the two shifted beds might not be enough for them all. The drum gourds and the pumpkins will probably need their own hills. I’ll figure that out, later. We’ll be transplanting melons into the first of the trellis beds, all along one side, where the trellis supports will be added, later, but again, we probably won’t be able to fit them all in. Since they will have a trellis to climb, they can be planted closer together, but I don’t expect to fit them all in that bed. Something else we’ll need to figure out!
Still, today was a productive day, and it feels rather good to have fewer trays to return to the sun room for the night!
I’m taking a hydration break, then we’ll be doing a dump run and an errand run into town, so I figured I should make a progress post before we head out.
Yesterday’s fast passing thunderstorm didn’t give us enough rain to saturate the cardboard on the bed I worked on, yesterday. I used a hose on the cardboard, but I’m not too concerned about getting it really saturated before adding the soil. That spot doesn’t have standing water right now, but it is very wet. Once the weight of the soil is on the cardboard, and it is compressed against the wet soil below, it will get saturated quite quickly on its own.
The first thing I needed to do was push my way through the jungle to get to the pile of garden soil. This is the first time it’s been uncovered this year. It’s amazing how much can grow under that … landscape cloth? I salvaged from around the old wood pile, years ago.
The soil was so full of crab grass rhizomes, I actually had to sort of pre-sift the soil with my hands and pull out as many roots as I could, just so I could shovel it onto the sifter over the wheelbarrow! I didn’t fill the wheelbarrow as much as I normally would, as I wanted room to mix in the sulfur granules. I broke open the second package for the first time, so we’ll be able to compare with the other beds, if there’s any difference in how well they help acidify our alkaline soil.
With the smaller loads, it meant more trips. I think was five or six loads? I lost track I made the bed deeper in the middle than the sides, since it’s going to have large squash plants in it.
Then I stopped for a cool down and hydration break. According to my weather app, it’s 17C/63F out there, with a “feels like” of 16C/61F
It felt way hotter than that, to me!
Before I get back to it, my daughter and I will be doing a dump run, then a trip into town. She and her sister have some of their own shopping to do.
Once I get back at it. I’ll be transplanting the three Crespo squash into the new bed. I’ve decided that, since I have to put something around them to protect them from deer, I will take advantage of that. I will plant pole or climbing seed beans along two sides and the barrier will be their trellis. The deer do eat bean plants as well, but if I put the netting on right, that won’t happen until the plants are much larger and better able to survive such an onslaught.
In theory, I could do a “three sisters” type thing, but the idea of planting just a few corn in the middle of the squash seems useless to me. If we’re going to plant corn, it’s going to be a much larger amount!
Anyhow, I’ll take a look at the bean seeds I have and decide if I want to do pole beans for fresh eating, or seed beans that will be left alone until fall to harvest. I’m leaning more towards fresh eating, since we’ve got so little of that started right now!
The first week of June is already done, and I’ve done none of the “after last frost date” direct sowing, yet! Okay, okay. It’s only 6 days since our last frost date, and we’ve been known to have frost even later, but it just feels like time is slipping through my fingers, with all the delays and interruptions.
Ah, well. We’ll get in what we can, and make do with what we have!
Then, just to make things even more frustrating, I got a phone call from my mother while I was writing this. When I asked how she was doing, she started going on about her pills, and my first thought was that she was going to ask me to take her to the hospital for some reason. As she kept talking in circles, I had to stop her and tell her to get to her point (I was just too hot and too tired to follow her when she gets like this). She didn’t aske me to take her to the hospital. Instead, she started talking about how she took all her pills – it sounded like she was saying she took all her pills at once! – and then about the one she was not supposed to take anymore…
I eventually was able to get her to explain to me that she had been going through her pills yesterday evening, and comparing them to her old, leftover pills that she never throws away, and comparing them to each other, and she has decided that white round pills in the morning (her water pills) and the round white pills in the evening (blood thinners, if I remember correctly) were the same pills, because they also both have the number 20 on them. I explained to her that the number is for the pharmacist to know what the dose is, not what kind of pill it is. She said, they’re mixed up. I said no, that’s why they’re in the bubble packs. So they don’t get mixed up. Don’t take them out of the bubble packs, so they don’t get mixed up!
She hung up on me.
So my mother has decided her pills are “wrong”. The one I identified for her as the water pills are not really her water pills.
She is absolutely determined to mess herself up, and convinced that others are deliberately giving her the wrong medications or telling her the wrong things, because they are hiding things from her.
This is not the first time we’ve had these issues. It’s just getting worse, as she gets older.
I ended up sending an email to my siblings to update her. Then I called the guy at home care and left a message about what’s going on, and what she’s doing to herself, because there’s no way we’d be able to talk about this during his meeting with her. That would really set her paranoia off!
Hopefully, between my siblings and I, we’ll be able to convince her to take her medications as directed.
Now that I think about it, my mother probably took her pills out of their bubble packs so she can see them more closely, and now can’t tell the white round pills apart. If she only did that for one day, that wouldn’t be too bad, but who knows, at this point.
*sigh*
I wish I could say this is a new thing showing up with her cognitive decline but, to be honest, she’s always done this. It’s just getting worse as she gets older.
I admit, I was shorter with her than usual. I was hot and tired and just didn’t have the ability to follow her along when she starts talking in circles like that. I really think a big part of it is, she wants us to be paying attention to her, and to jump when she says jump. There is very much a control element involved. Again, not a new thing, but at this stage, it’s far more disruptive, and far more potentially harmful to herself.
I’m glad that she actually wants to go into a nursing home, and asked for the process to be started. Her reasons why may be about her physical limitations, but I really think it’s her cognitive issues that are the more urgent safety concerns right now.
Well, we’ll see how things go when the home care panel is done on Monday. Hopefully, she’ll get in for that required brain MRI soon – or that it is not something that would delay any decisions to get her into long term care.
He got me a cordless drill and driver set! I am so thrilled with it!!
One of my goals for today was to disassemble, reconfigure and reassemble a 4′ x 4′ wooden frame I had. It will be used to create a new little squash bed, just big enough for the Crespo squash.
The batteries were already charged, so all I needed to do was get the impact driver set up with the right size bit, to take the screws out of the frame. The boards are held together with 3″ deck screws, and I really didn’t want to do that manually. Especially with my left elbow the way it is. Yes, I can use my right hand, but I would be switching back and forth a lot for a job like this, and it would have taken quite a long time just to remove the screws, never mind put the frame back together again in the new configuration.
Which is when I discovered two things.
First, almost all my Robertson screwdriver tips are missing (and I just realized I’ve been calling them the wrong name for years; I’ve been calling them Robinsons). I prefer Robbies, because I find they don’t slip or strip as much.
When I finally found a tip the right size, I found it was too short for the driver’s chuck to clutch. I needed something longer, but while I found some that were standard and Phillip’s tip, I had no Robbies.
While I was going through the basement, the sun room and various tool kits, my SIL started messaging me. As we were chatting, I mentioned my frustration. After going back and forth about it, and I was finally resigning myself to having to take the screws out manually (while my husband looked up and ordered a set of impact driver bits for me!) I got a video call from my SIL. My brother was with her and trying to understand why I was having issues. So I was able to show him the chuck and the bits I had. He was the one that remembered the very first tool kit they gifted us with, which is currently our garage tool kit. He thought that kit might have an extender in it. After we were done our video call, I went to look.
He was right! Not only did it have the extension, but other sizes of tips that I knew I would need.
Which meant I was able to use the impact driver after all!
Also the extension and tips are now stored in the case, with the drill and driver. 😄
I am so incredibly happy. It took almost no time at all to remove the screws, sent the boards in their new configuration, drill pilot holes, and screw the frame back together again. Even if I were using our corded drill for this, it uses a chuck key that’s stripped (the original chuck key was lost, years ago), so it’s hard to tighten it properly. I could use it as a drill, or as a driver, but switching tips to do both is incredibly frustrating. The new drill is chuckless, and the driver has a completely different style of chuck.
By the time the new box frame was assembled, I’d been hearing thunder for a while, but still in the distance. So I headed over to where I wanted to set up the frame to try and get that part done before the storm hit. That area had mulch on it from the last time we tried to grow things there, but weeds were growing through it. Still, with the ground so wet, it wasn’t difficult to pull them by hand, and it looked a lot worse than it really was. There was also a piece of sheet metal on the ground next to it that I moved, so there were no weeds from under there to pull at all.
Later in the season, all the paths around this bed, and the three 9’x3′ beds, will be covered in wood chips.
Once I did a bit of weed clearing, I set the frame down and set it so that there was still a path between it and the compost ring, then went and got some cardboard to put under it. As I was putting that down, I could hear thunder almost constantly, and the wind was picking up, so I stopped there. A good downpour on the cardboard would be a good thing, anyhow!
Tomorrow, I will get a couple of wheelbarrow loads of garden soil from what’s left of the pile, to fill the frame. I plan to hill it a bit in the middle, rather than make it level.
Four feet square for a low raised bed is actually too wide for me to reach into very well, but once the Crespo squash is transplanted, it shouldn’t be an issue; aside from some weeding, it won’t need to have much done in it until harvest time.
The one thing I do want to make sure to do is set up a barrier of some kind around it, right from the start. We know, from the first year we tried growing it, that deer and groundhogs find the Crespo squash plant delicious, and deer do still come into the yard, and especially come to check out the compost ring! I have some chicken wire I can put around it, but that would make weeding difficult. I do still have some cardboard left, though, so if I use that around the transplants as a mulch, that should solve the weeding problem. Or I could try putting netting around it. I’ll see what works out best, tomorrow.
If the weather apps are at all correct, we should have two days without rain, to get things done. Depending on what app I look at. None of them agree! I’ve got one that says we’ll have rain all day Monday, which is when I’ll be at my mother’s again, anyhow, then likely more rain during the day on Tuesday – then thunderstorms all day Wednesday!
Which means we need to get as much done over the next two days as possible.
The rain is a good thing – our water table still hasn’t recovered from years of drought – but a break long enough to get the garden work done would be appreciated!
Still, I’m glad I was able to get as far along as I did, with getting this bed done, before the storm hit. It was just a quick downpour, which will have done a good job in getting that cardboard wet for me. 😁 I might still need to soak it more, before adding the soil. Those Crespo squash really need to be in the ground. They are the largest and fastest growing of all the winter squash we started! I’ve already pinched off buds ones, and more have grown back! There are three surviving seedlings, and that 4’x4′ bed should be a good size for them.
Good grief. It’s already well past 9pm as I write this. I should get to bed, so I can get up and get started, before the heat of the day hits!
Yesterday, I had my eye appointment, which included pupil dilation, so I had my daughter there to drive me home. I’ll have another field of vision test in 6 months, though probably not the dilation. This will be my third field of vision test, which will give a solid baseline to compare with in the future. For now, the miniscule hemorrhages she can see in my eyes have not really changed, and we’re still in the monitoring stage. As for my regular eye test, my left eye has changed, but not enough to be worth getting new glasses.
All that went well, and I took a break from stuff to give my eyes time to recover. So I can’t blame that for my rough night. I was just getting pains in different places at different times, making it impossible to get comfortable, nor stay asleep for very long. So my daughters did the morning cat feeding and kitten cuddling for me while I tried to sleep in.
Tried to.
This time, it was cats that kept me awake! Butterscotch, after months of hiding under a chair, now likes to sleep with me. Or on me. She still won’t leave my room, but this is progress! She gets along with most of the cats, but some of them have decided to be aggressive towards her, so every time she sees them, even if they’re just walking by, she starts snarling and growling. Then there’s Ghosty, who likes to lick my nose, and Shadow, who tries to eat my buttons. Or Cheddar and Clarence, who get aggressively cuddly!
It’s better than being kept awake by pain, at least!
In the end, my having a late start turned out to be a good thing. I was inside for the call from Home Care about my mother and her wanting to move to a nursing home. We’ve dealt with this guy before, and he has assessed my mother in the past, which didn’t help her any. They can’t provide the help she needs. He was somewhat confused about getting the fax from her doctor to do a panel on my mother. It turns out, this is basically the opposite of how it usually works. Typically, someone has a fall or some other incident that puts them into the hospital. That’s when Home Care does their panel, the doctors do the other tests, and the person usually doesn’t go home from the hospital, but straight to long term care.
Which is not what we were told. When my brother called the nursing home my mother wants to move to (which is where her sister and my father, as well as many of their friends, spent their final months and years), he was told we needed to get a doctor’s recommendation. Which we now have. We didn’t know Home Care would be involved until that appointment. Home Care and a brain MRI are the last things that need to be done.
As he was explaining it to me, he felt that, since my mother hasn’t actually put herself in the hospital or had any falls, he doesn’t expect his assessment to amount to much. We already know this is basically putting her on a waiting list, but when I mentioned this, his response was that “waiting list” is basically too generous a term. More like an “indefinite list”.
She’s coming up on 93. I really don’t think that’s going to be an issue.
At one point, I called out the absurdity of the situation. Basically, because my mother is being so careful about things like NOT falling down and hurting herself, she’s being penalized for it? He sort of walked that back but, really, that’s what it comes down to.
Anyhow. The appointment was made for Monday, which is nice and fast. I will be there for this one. The assessment should take 1 1/2-2 hours.
Once I got off the phone with him, I called my mother to give her the appointment time and explain some of the things he told me. I suggested she write down the things that concern her the most, just so nothing is forgotten. It’s not just about her physical difficulties, but we also talked about how she’s noticed problems with her memory, too, and that needs to be taken into account.
Then I sent an email to the family to keep them in the loop. It would be ideal if my brother could be there, too, since he’s got a longer history of helping my mother out, plus he has Power of Attorney, but there’s no way he can get off work for it.
Well, part of the deal for us living here is that I am now able to take on this stuff for my mother. My schedule is the most flexible, and we live the closest to her.
I was eventually able to get outside and get some things done. We had scattered showers, but that’s it. The yard still has water pooling all over, so mowing the lawn is still out of the question. We were also getting high winds, which were blowing the plastic on the box frame over the eggplant and hot peppers loose. I kept putting the weights back on the bottoms, but in the end, just before I came back in for the day, I ended up tying twine all the way around, on two levels, to keep the plastic in place. If the sheets had been long enough to overlap, it would not have been an issue, but it is what it is. I also finally anchored the T posts holding the netting for the snap peas to climb. Some of them are getting long enough to actually start climbing, and the weight of them would eventually pull the posts inwards. Now, they are secure.
But that was at the end of things.
I decided the place to start today was in the wattle weave bed.
I’ve already transplanted the Forme de Couer tomatoes in the rectangular bed. There were only six Black Cherry tomatoes, so I decided those could go in the old kitchen garden, too. They got their protective plastic rings, as well, each with a pair of bamboo stakes to hold the rings in place and, eventually act as supports for the tomatoes.
I had two pots of luffa, but they each had three plants in them. I considered just planting them in groups of three, but decided to split them, so we now have six luffa plants. I put them in the same area as last year, right around the turn of the L shape. They also got the protective plastic rings, but just one bamboo stake. These were positioned closer to the wall, so that the luffa can be trained up them, until they can reach the lilac above.
Then, because there was still space, I transplanted the last of the Red Wethersfield onions, and the German Winter Thyme. There is self seeded chamomile coming up in between some of the strawberries, with room for the thyme beside it. More chamomile is coming up in the path, too!
There is still a small space that can have something planted into it, closer to where the garlic is in this bed, but I have not decided what to put in there. Most of the transplants we have are things that will get rather large, so they would not be appropriate for that spot. I should look through my seeds for direct sowing for something to go there.
Once everything was transplanted, I used some of the grass clipping mulch that had been removed from the other beds in the spring, and mulched around everything. Especially right up against the wattle weave walls, since a lot of stuff growing outside the bed makes its way through there.
At this point, the only tomatoes left to transplant are the San Marzano – and I have no idea where those are going to go!
What really needed to get in the ground, probably more than anything else, was the Trader mulberry. They’ve been in their pots for too long, and were not looking very healthy.
These went on the north side of the main garden area. These can get quite large, so I didn’t want them casting shade over places we want to grow vegetables. Plus, they will act as a wind break from the North winds.
For now, however, they need to be protected.
The first one went in front of a gap in the lilac hedge that the deed have been getting through. I used the loppers to clear away some lilac and little poplars. There was also a dead poplar on the fence side of the hedge. It’s been dead for a long time, so I was able to basically tear it loose from the ground. I laid it across the gap, near the fence (it’s an old barbed wire fence that’s slowly collapsing), which should also deter the deer from using this spot.
Of course, as soon as I started digging a hold for the mulberry, I started hitting rocks and gravel. I added nothing to the soil, though. The planting instructions for these specifically stated to NOT add anything to the soil when transplanting.
Normally, I would have set them slightly above grade, but this area is higher than other parts of the yard, and tend to get very dry. For this reason, I actually want water to pool a bit around the trees before it drains away. Once the sapling was in place, I emptied a 5L watering can around it, to settled in the soil and the roots. Next, thick cardboard was placed around the sapling as a first layer of mulch. At this size, they need to be protected from critters. I had some wire mesh that was used for something else last year. It was taller enough that I could cut it in half. I put bamboos stakes through the wire, then into the ground through holes in the carboard, so they would hold both in place.
Then I walked about 10 paces to the West for the second sapling. There was no gap in the lilacs there, so I cut away some of it to make a little protective hollow. This time, when digging the hole, I was hitting both rocks and roots! The loppers had to be used a few times to cut through the roots.
Once the second sapling was done, they both got their final mulch. They each got an entire wheelbarrow load. Most of it went outside the wire mesh, but I carefully added some to the inside, too, making sure there was nothing too close to the saplings themselves.
By the time this was done, the winds were picking up again. I could actually hear it roaring at times, but where I was working was well sheltered! Tucking them close to the lilacs should protect them from the worst of the elements, until they get larger. They will still get the full sun that they need, too. These will eventually grow 15-20 ft/4.5-6m tall. The berries are edible, of course, but apparently the leaves can be used for a tea that helps control blood sugars. It should take 2-3 years before they start producing fruit. We got these last spring, but they were out of the 2 year old saplings, so instead of the one we ordered, we got two, teeny tiny 1 year old saplings that I didn’t dare plant outdoors yet! I don’t know if that will make a difference in how long before they produce fruit, but I’ll just assume it’ll take 3 years.
Assuming they survive in the first place!
We shall see.
We’re supposed to be a bit more rain this evening, but none at all tomorrow. The high should also be cooler, too. That means I should be able to get back to working on shifting those last three beds to their permanent locations. What really needs to be transplanted next are the winter squash and gourds. Especially the Crespo squash. They are getting really tall, I’ve already pinched off flower buds, and more are appearing! So I might first make small raised bed, just for them, behind the compost pile. We made a small bed there last year, but the few things planted there didn’t survive. Right now, it’s very wet, so it would need to be made into a low raised bed, anyhow. I do have a 4’x4′ frame, much like the one that’s around the strawberries planted this spring, that can be repurposed for this, then we can add a few loads of garden soil from what’s left of the pile. We haven’t even uncovered that, yet. That this location is very wet right now would actually be a benefit, since the Crespo squash are supposed to get very large, and they need a lot of water to reach their full potential.
This will be the… third? year we’ve tried to grow them. I just looked at some of my old posts. The first year we grew them was in 2021. So this will be our 4th year trying! They did amazing, the first year, until they got eaten by deer and groundhogs. They recovered so well, with many fruit developing, only to run out of season. We did a large squash patch in 2022, but that was the year we flooded, so just about everything was a loss. Last year, they got their own patch out by the old squash tunnel that still needs to be dismantled. They did quite poorly. This was close to where the mulberry have been planted, and it seems that the spot actually got too much sun and heat. We did get a squash to harvest, but much smaller than it should have been. It started developing so late, it never reached full maturity. So, this year, I am taking that into account in choosing where to plant them. The spot I have in mind still gets full sun, but is shaded in the morning, and doesn’t get baked like the north east of the main garden area does.
The other winter squash will need plenty of room to grow, too, so they’ll probably take up a couple of the beds that I’m working on now, at least. I’m planning to put melons in the trellis bed that was built last year, along the side the trellis will be attached, but those are small enough that they can stay in their pots a bit longer. We might have to get creative in finding space for all of them, though. A good problem to have, I suppose!
I plant to put the peppers in the high raised bed, but they, too, are small enough that they can handle staying in their pots a bit longer, while I work on the remaining beds.
I have three pots that we planted herbs in last year. I think I’ll direct sow summer squash in those. That way, we’ll at least have some, even if we end up not having room in any of the main garden beds!
So many things to plant, and so few beds ready to plant in!
Okay, I am totally beat! It’s so hot and muggy out there, I had sweat dripping onto the lenses of my glasses while I worked. We’re at 21C/70F, with the humidex putting us at 26C/79F, and we haven’t even reached our high of the day, yet!
But, I got the third raised bed in the east yard planted, and I’m done!
I also took a chance on an experiment that has the potential to be a complete disaster.
Before I could even start, though, I had to deal with the water. There’s so much of it flooding the east yard, the the boards forming the path next to the bed I needed to work on, were floating. The year we put those in was a drought year, and we had no idea it would collect so much water! The path on the other side of the centre bed is gravel, though there isn’t enough of it. We were planning to eventually get more gravel from the pit, but I have no idea when we’ll be able to head out there to get a load with the truck. We do, however, have plenty of wood chips.
There’s too much water to use the weed trimmer around the beds, so I pulled them by hand. Then I filled our wheelbarrow as much as I could without spillages, three times. That path needed a really thick layer to weigh down those boards and get above the water. With the last load, I could add some to one end, and a bit around the other side. Eventually, more will be added, but for today, I just needed to be able to access the bed without trying to walk on slippery, floating boards!
Then I began the first part of our experiment. I needed to secure the box frame so that it wouldn’t blow away. I’ll explain why that can be good, or really bad, later! For that, I drove some posts salvaged from the Walmart market tent we had, until a piece of tree fell on it, into the soil inside each corner. Then I secured them to the box frame with twine. The box frame is tall enough that I can still tend the bed without needing to move it.
I also used the stirrup hoe and weeded the bed a bit, then started on the eggplant and hot peppers. west end of the bed, I planted the smaller Little Finger eggplants; of the 7 in the tray, two were too small and wizened to transplant. At the opposite end, I planted the Classic eggplant; there were only 5 of those. The last two in the tray died off a while ago. The Cheyenne peppers, however, had all 7 in the tray, though there was quite a difference in size from one end of the row to the other! I planted the peppers in between the eggplant, and the shorter ones on the south side of the bed.
Then, because I had material from the boxes I picked up at the grocery store, yesterday, I mulched the bed with paper. Mostly paper. Each of the boxes had a paper liner, and those are almost enough to cover the entire bed, with some overlap. I cut openings in the paper to go around the transplants. At the very end, after I ran out of paper, I broke down one of the boxes. Those had air circulation holes in them, but I was able to use the flaps to cover those. I ended up using one entire box, plus a couple of extra flaps cut from another one.
Then I got my daughter to come out to help me with the rest of it.
I did remember to bring out some of the supports I have for the peppers and put them in before the next steps. Though the soil was quite wet and didn’t need a watering, we did water the paper and cardboard, so it would settle against the soil more and not blow away while we were working on the box frame.
We took the plastic sheets off the arched covers, then secured them around the top of the box frame. We just used staples for that. The two sheets weren’t quite long enough to go all the way around, so there is a bit of a gap at one corner. We then took one of the arched frames and put it on top of the box frame, and the other over the bed with the German Butterball potatoes (which are coming up now!), mostly for storage. They were just sitting in the wet grass, so this protects them from moisture damage. One had been stored on the box frame, but with the plastic over it, the wind blow it off. That won’t happen again, now that it’s just wire mesh. Once the plastic was tacked into place along the top, the bottoms were weighed down with bricks and boards that we have around those beds, just for that sort of thing. This way, I can still access the bed by lifting the plastic from the bottom.
Adding the plastic around the bed is an idea I got from Maritime Gardening.
Last year we had one surviving Classic Eggplant that did surprisingly well, in the shelter of the wattle weave bed. The Little Finger eggplant were among the things that failed to thrive in the chimney block planters at the chain link fence, that we now know is because of the elm roots getting up into them.
This bed is much more exposed, so I figured they would need extra protection from both the wind, and temperature variations, but of the air and the soil. These plastic walls should help with both. The top is open to still allow rain in.
If we get high winds, though, the plastic around the box frame could potentially become a sail. Hopefully, the frame is secured well enough to the stakes, but it’s entirely possible the wind could pull the stakes out of the ground and the whole thing could go flying.
It’s a risk, but I think it’s worth a try, at least.
So this has been a productive day in the garden. Two types of tomatoes (out of four) are transplanted. Shallots and red onions were interplanted with one type of tomatoes – I don’t plan to have beds of just onions and shallots, but will interplant them as other things go in. Two types of eggplant and the hot peppers are now also planted.
We have one 18′ bed, the high raised bed, plus some space in the wattle weave bed, that’s ready for planting. We can potentially plant in the two shifted beds before they get their log frames. We just have to plant in the middle. Still, this is not going to be enough for all our transplants, never mind our direct sowing. There are three more low raised beds that need to be shifted over to their permanent positions, then they too can be planted in before they get their log frames. Then more beds need to be built, almost from scratch, for the trellis tunnels.
At this point, I honestly don’t know how much of a garden we’ll be able to get in this year. It all depends on how much progress we can get on those beds, in time!
Well, there’s only so much we can do, and there’s no sense fretting about things if we can’t get them done in time for planting this year. Things will continue to expand, year after year, so it will get better.
My eye appointment tomorrow is in the afternoon, and we don’t need to leave until 1pm. I was thinking I’d have time to get more done early, but it’s supposed to start raining in the morning, and keep raining off and on, all day. We are supposed to get almost 2 weeks with no rain after that, though, and even get some cooler temperatures, so that should be time to get things done in the garden. If we can get everything done by the middle of June, that should be enough time for our growing season.
It is really wet out there, but we’re not supposed to get more rain today. I was torn between continuing on shifting the beds or starting transplanting. We have quite a few things that are more than ready to get set out.
After looking at the weather forecast, and the state of our transplants, transplanting won. In particular, tomatoes. It’s either that or pot them up, and that would be a silly thing to do at this, when they would do much better out in the garden.
The first thing I did was go through my trays and see how many I had of each type. When I saw I had 8 chocolate cherry, I decided they should go into the 8 chimney block planters at the chain link fence.
I then cut some of our many distilled water bottles to create rings for the transplants. With my husband needing distilled water for his CPAP humidifier, we have LOTS of these gallon/4L jugs. I had a few rings left over from last year, but a lot of them seem to have disappeared over the winter.
I had some of the tomato transplants in individual pots, and some in a large celled tray. There were three rows of four Chocolate Cherry, Black Cherry and Forme de Couer, and the remaining cells got San Marzano. Those ones are the strongest and healthiest San Marzano. The deep celled tray with just San Marzano ended up in the sun room too early – we needed the space – and has only a few sad tomatoes left.
The tomatoes in the tray were so big and bushy, it wasn’t until I was taking the Chocolate Cherry out (they were in the middle row, of course) that I saw one had died off. I completely forgot we’d lost one in that tray. So, we have 7 Chocolate Cherry tomatoes at the chain link fence, and an open space for something else.
Once transplanted, they each got a ring around them. This is to protect them from the wind for the first while, and from the cats that like to go under the netting. The netting was draped back over the blocks and will remain until the elm trees are done dropping their seeds. As the tomatoes grow, the chain link fence will be their trellis support.
There were 10 Forme de Coure tomatoes, so I decided they should go into the rectangular raised be in the old kitchen garden. This bed already has a soaker hose set up. There is garlic growing down the middle, though not very many. This bed got the last garlic cloves, so some of them were pretty small and did not survive the winter. The garlic will be ready to harvest before the tomatoes are fully mature, so they should be okay together.
These tomatoes got their protective rings around them, which are being held in place by pairs of bamboo stakes – the rings blow away if they’re not anchored – which will become their trellis supports as they the tomatoes grow.
Once those were in, I saw there was space enough to transplant some onions. Because I’ve got those started in repurposed mixed vegetable trays, it was quite easy to pop out onion starts in just one section and bring them over. I started with Red Wethersfield, because they were the largest, and I have the fewest in the trays. They were planted at each end of the bed and in between the tomatoes, with a few extras tucked in among the garlic. I think I got half the Red Wethersfield onions done.
There was room enough along the south side of the bed to add a row of the smaller shallots – planting a larger bulb onion might have been a bit too crowded. I didn’t try to plant some on the north side of the bed, as there wasn’t quite as much space, plus I figured they would end up getting shaded out by the tomatoes.
All that took about 3 hours or so. I decided to take a break, and will get back at it, later. The next bed I want to work on is the empty bed in the East yard, next to the peas, spinach and carrots. I will be putting the eggplant in there, and want to try something different to protect these heat loving plants. I will probably be planting the hot peppers with them.
After that, I have some space in the wattle weave bed. I think I’ll put the luffa next to the double lilac again; they did well there last year. Peppers did well there, too, but I might put the Black Cherry tomatoes there, instead. Some of the peppers can go into the high raised bed. The first of the trellis beds, however, is being saved for the melons, and I think the winter squash will be going into the two beds we are shifting, with our without their walls in place. The Crespo squash in particular really needs to be transplanted, but it needs a LOT of space. I might just make a whole new squash hill, just for them. Then there are the mulberry, which are way overdue for transplanting.
Much to do, that’s for sure! Tomorrow is going to be a write off for me, as I’m getting my field of vision test done, which includes pupil dilation. My vision is going to be messed up for quite a while, so I want to get back out there and get as much done today as possible.
I ended up taking some progress video, and I’ll put something together when they’re done. For today, I started by marking out the north ends of the remaining 3 beds that need to be shifted, at the 18′ line. Then I removed the logs around the beds. Some of them were quite difficult to get loose from the ground. The worst were actually a couple of pretty small logs, but they were completely enrobed in Creeping Charlie and their roots.
One of the beds still had boards over it that I used to step on when tending it, and a stack of bricks that held netting down, from last year. All of those, plus things like sticks that were used to support plants, got moved aside.
One thing I was happy to see while doing all that were lots and lots of frogs!
Hopefully, they are doing a good job of gobbling up slugs and other critters that might cause us trouble once things are planted.
The whole area is so overgrown, I ended up getting the weed trimmer out, along with a couple hundred feet of extension cord. 🫤 It took a while, but I trimmed things down to almost bare earth – and found more logs that had been hidden in the grass while I was at it! The whole thing looked a lot less overwhelming after that was done.
I then took a break and headed into town. We needed to get refills on a couple of our water jugs. I called the grocery store ahead and asked if they had cardboard that I could take. I got transferred to someone who works in the back, and it seems they didn’t have much, but then he accidentally hung up on me. 😄
When I got there and got the refills I needed, plus a couple of other things, since I was there anyhow, I found someone working on the floor about carboard. She went to the back and came out with some boxes for me. My timing wasn’t very good; most of what they had had already gone through the compactor. Still, a few boxes, plus what we already have, is a good start.
Once at home and unloading the truck by the house, though, I could hear thunder. It had actually started to rain a tiny bit while I was working in the garden, but it didn’t stick around. The forecast says we’re supposed to start getting rain around 4pm, but a tiny little storm hit at around 2. It’s passed us by, but a much larger system is heading towards us right now. It’s past 2:30 as I write this, and the forecast now says that heavy rain is expected in about 25 minutes.
Well, I’m glad I at least got that weed trimming done. That will help. The boxes I brought home are out in the yard, getting rained on, which is fine. It doesn’t look like we’ll get any more down on the garden beds today, though.
Today, being June 2, is our last average frost date. Starting tomorrow, it should be safe to start transplanting things and direct sowing.
Oh, gosh. I just remembered that our transplants are outside right now. I hope they did okay in the rain! I’d better bring them into the sun room before the big system hits us. Mostly, I’m concerned the pots will get knocked over and such. They need to get used to rain as much as they do the sun and wind!
The Re-Farmer 