2024 garden

Our 2024 Garden: I got work done!

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I was able to get a few things done outside today, and I am so happy!

While waiting for the septic guy to arrive and replace the pill switch in our tank (yay! That’s done!), I took the time to remove the mulch in the old kitchen garden beds. At this point, the mulch is insulating the soil from the warmth instead of the cold, so it needs to come off.

I hope you can see the Instagram slideshow okay.

There is garlic planted in the tiny raised bed with its own cover, the long and narrow bed against the retaining wall, the short part of the L shaped wattle weave bed, and down the centre of the rectangular bed in the middle.

In front of the tiny raised bed is some walking onions. I’d planted bulbils for last year, but basically just left them be. They produced new bulbils and now both the onions from last year, and their bulbils, are starting to send out new shoots! I could plant the new bulbils somewhere, but the whole point of walking onions is that they plant themselves.

While uncovering the long section of the wattle weave bed, I found what looks like surviving thyme and strawberries! I wasn’t sure if they’d make it through the winter. It should be interesting to see if the chamomile self seeded or not.

These had a grass clipping mulch, which has just been set aside for now. We’ll use it again, after the ground is thawed an as we are able to plant things.

By the time this was done, it was coming up on 2pm, which is when the post office opens for the afternoon, so I headed out. Not only did I get the packages I was expecting, but the missing pieces from the shelf I got to make into a multilevel cat bed came in. A job for tonight will be to take care of that.

When I got home, the septic guy was here, so I stayed around the area as he went in and out from the tank to the basement, so make sure no cats got too curious about the open tank! That gave me the opportunity to move the mulch over the saffron crocuses we planted in the fall, and I got a real surprise, there!

They had already sprouted – and look how long those leaves are! This mulch should have been removed awhile ago. Hopefully, the shock of being exposed to sunlight won’t set them back too much. I’m really surprised they were already growing, considering the soil under the mulch is still quite frozen! These are supposed to be hardy only to zone 4, but our mild winter seems to have been excellent for them. So far, it looks like one corm didn’t make it, but now that it’s uncovered it might still show up.

After the septic guy was done and headed out, I was able to keep working on the bed by the chain link fence. I ended up finding another buried piece of sidewalk block! I was able to get the entire bed reworked and somewhat weeded, then replaced the brick border to make the narrower bed. I was able to pull out quite a few weed roots, but not everything, so when it was done, I covered the entire surface of the bed with clear plastic from bags we normally use for our recycling. Because the bed is now so narrow, I cut the bags along the sides to make long pieces. It took 4 of them to cover the bed, to solarize them. Something else I learned from Gardening in Canada that I want to try.

The idea is the direct contact plastic will basically cook those roots. Hopefully, this won’t take too long. Once I can remove the plastic, I want to plant some of these…

I’ve decided I will plant the Purple Caribe potatoes in this bed. I won’t be able to hill them, but if I plant them deep enough – something that can actually be done in this bed – I won’t need to.

Oh! I’m just watching that video again and she says the soil should be deep watered first. I haven’t got any hoses set up, since we still dip below freezing some nights. It’s too late in the day to do that now, so I’ll get the water turned on from the basement and set up a hose in the morning.

We’ve got a few more warm days, then in the middle of next week we are supposed to get a bit chilly with some rain and possibly some snow. By next Sunday, we should start getting highs in the double digits (Celsius) again, and stay there.

I wasn’t planning on chitting the potatoes but, after looking at the forecast, I think we can go ahead and do that, while waiting for better conditions to plant them in. That will give us time to prepare the area we want to plant the German Butterball potatoes, and even do some solarizing there, too.

Things are going to get busy!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden, and the morning so far

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First, the cuteness!

Syndol was keeping me company this morning!

I counted 33 yard cats during feeding time. !!

But Syndol was my only helper.

While doing my rounds, I was able to get a bit of work done on the bed against the chain link fence.

It’s finally thawed out enough to dig into. I just loosened things up this morning. There are many roots and rhizomes that need to be removed, some of which are now drying in the sun until I can get back to it later.

Syndol would follow me along as I worked my way down the bed, reaching out every now and then to bat at the garden fork, or the roots I was pulling up!

He’s such a cutie!

On another note, my younger daughter now has a nice new pair or steel toed shoes.

I confirmed that the pain in my left foot was from my outer toes hitting the edge of the steel toe cap. The problem is not so much the shoe, as my deformed feet. *sigh* This is not something that is going to get better, so I got my daughter to try them on and walk around in them for a while. She can feel the edge of the toe cap, but it’s not a problem for her.

So it’s back to my old ones or my rubber boots, until I can get another pair of steel toes. I’m really glad my daughter can use these new ones!

Before working on the bed by the chain link fence, I uncovered the carrot bed and removed more of the mulch over the carrots. Unfortunately, there are still frozen chunks that just won’t move. The three beds in this location do get quite a bit of light throughout the day, but no morning light, and that seems to be making the difference.

Which means the carrots frozen in the bed are likely not salvageable. Lesson learned!

Oh! I got a call while I was writing the above. The Cat Lady updated us on Wolfman. He did get those fancy drops and his first treatment, and his eye is already looking almost completely healed! The vet says that for sure the injury was blunt force trauma of some kind. There may even be a tiny fracture in the bone. We’re at a complete loss as to how this happened! He’s going back to the vet on Monday, and they’ll get a look at the back of his eye to see if there’s any other damage to be concerned about, but so far, he’s healing up really well.

Such good news!

Now… where was I?

Ah. Garden stuff!

Before heading outside, I turn on the lights for the seedlings and check on them. Check these out!

They are just exploding in size! Even the comparatively small luffa are growing so quickly! I’m quite thrilled.

I will have to decide, though; will I thin them by removing, or transplanting? I’m very tempted to try transplanting the extras. The more potential transplants, the more likely we’ll have at least one survive outside.

I still have time to decide.

Among my goals for the day is to finish up that bed at the chain link fence, but I will start on that after I’ve gone to the post office when it reopens for the afternoon. According to the tracking information, our potatoes are ready for pick up at the post office, and the owner of the store has signed for our Fed Ex delivery, so that’s ready for pick up, too.

I hadn’t decided on what will be planted in the bed by the chain link fence. Once that’s done, it should be suitable for the 1kg of Caribe potatoes. Then we’ll just have to prepare space for the 2kg of Butterball potatoes.

We shall see how it works out!

Lots that can finally be worked on outside!

I’m loving every minute of it. 😁😁

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: exuberant growth, and seeds are in

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Check out these seedlings!!

The first seedling to break soil surface was a drum gourd – one of the two in the middle pot – but then a Crespo Squash, on the right, burst through and exploded out of the soil. It seems like every time I look at the pots, there’s more visible growth.

What I’m really happy about is that not one of the seedlings emerged with the outer shell of the seed stuck on the leaves. Last year, there was more than a few times that I had to very carefully remove the shell, because the seed leaves were being killed off. As careful as I was, sometimes pieces of the leaves would break off, because the shells were so tightly encasing them.

I really like this pre-germinating technique!

The heat mat will need to be unplugged very soon. I won’t move them off right away, as I need to arrange space. I won’t need it until I start more seeds.

This weekend will be 7 weeks before our last average frost date. I will go through some of my seeds to see what I want to start first. The seeds we have left are pretty much all supposed to be started 3-4 weeks before last frost, but if I started all the ones I want to, I’ll run out of space in no time at all – and I will have way too many things that need to be transplanted, all at once. So I plan to stagger them.

I might even start some of these.

Baked Potato Squash
Mashed Potato squash

I had to go to town today and finally picked up the mail. There were probably in and waiting for a while. Since we have so many varieties of winter squash seeds, we will probably start just a couple of seeds of each. At this point, we’re still after trying out different types to see what we like the most, and will then probably drop it down to one or two varieties.

Who am I kidding. We’ll probably be constantly trying new ones! Just maybe not quite so many different types, all at the same time.

That’s one thing about having the luxury of space like we do. We can spare some to try growing new things we don’t even know if we’ll like, yet.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: it’s a start, and surprise onions!

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Today is turning out to be such a gorgeous day! The outside cats are very happy and spending more time outside, rather than in the sun room.

Unfortunately, the skunks are out, too. I went into the sun room from outside and found one in there, eating the cat kibble. At least the skunk doesn’t bother the cats any, and the cats generally stay in the sun room while the skunks are there. The racoons, on the other hand, usually come in groups and tear the place apart, digging for stray bits of kibble, and they’re easily twice the size of any of the cats. Expect maybe Shop Towel.

As I write this, it’s coming up on 4pm, and we’re at 13C/55F, with a “feels like” of 15C/59F. I couldn’t resist! I had to get out there and get some work done!

So I decided to work on the low raised bed that runs along the chain link fence between the people gate and the vehicle gate. It needs to be narrowed for better reach, but we didn’t get a chance to work on it before the ground froze.

I’ve been making sure to take photos and videos that will be put together in a video later on, but there was one thing I found I just had to share now.

After removing the mulch to get started, I found onions!

Last year, after transplanting onion seedlings in various places, I still had lots of teeny, tiny onions left over. I also found onion bulbs in various places, from the year before, that had survived the winter. Most of the seedlings got transplanted just inside the bricks framing the bed – and most did not survive. The bulbs I found from the previous year’s onions – Oneida onions, if I remember correctly – all got transplanted at one end of this bed, plus there was a single surviving shallot that survived the previous year’s flooding that I just left to grow. It tried to go to seed, but didn’t quite make it. I didn’t harvest any onions out of here in the fall, because there was nothing to harvest.

Well, those previous year onions actually survived the winter, and I uncovered a bunch of them! Even the shallot at the opposite end was starting to show green!

Where they were growing was part of the bed I had to move to make it narrower, so these had to go.

The largest bulbs in here are the yellow onions that I think are Oneida. The shallots had two bulbs growing against each other, plus there were a few little onions that I think may have been survivors last year’s transplants. There is a pair of bulbs that look like yellow onions that I think might be a different variety of shallots, but I’m not sure.

These got transplanted in the raised bed we will have peas planted all down the middle. I haven’t quite decided what I will plant on either side of the peas but, at one end, it now has these onions. If they survive, they should go to seed, which would be awesome. Onion seeds are viable for only a year, but once the plants go to seed in their second (or, in this case, third) year, I believe they go to seed every year. We could potentially have our own annual onion seeds to collect.

We shall see!

After the onions were transplanted, I went to work on the end of the bed next to the people gate. That’s where I’d found there were broken pieces of sidewalk blocks and bricks, buried under the soil. You can read about that here.

Unfortunately, the ground it still too frozen. I got one broken piece loose that can be left in place, as it will not be under the bed. I was able to remove another broken piece, but found the edge of yet another chunk. I tried pouring water over it do make it more visible, and possibly thaw the soil a bit, too, but eventually had to stop. Depending on where it extends under the soil, I might be able to leave it for now.

When I realized I was just chipping through soil that was frozen rock solid, I set that job aside and started working on pulling up weeds along the edge of the bed, and moving the soil away from the path and closer to the chain link fence. In some places, it worked out okay, but for the most part, the ground is just too frozen.

With the mulch removed and the black soil now exposed to sunlight, it should start thawing out faster. Hopefully, we’ll have that bed reworked and ready for planting, soon. It’s one of the areas thawing out fast enough that we will be able to direct sow things that can be planted before last frost.

Gosh, it felt good to be working out in such a beautiful day!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: pre-germinating seeds (videos)

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Talk about making a difference!

Recently, I was going to start some new seeds in pots, but at the last moment, changed my mind. We had such trouble with these last year, and these seeds were anywhere from 2 to 4 years old. I decided to try pre-germinating them, and if some of the seeds turned out to be dead, I’d know right away. Plus, I could avoid our situation last year, where so many seeds didn’t germinate, or died soon after.

Here is a video from Maritime Gardening about the planting process.

Typically, pre-germinating seeds is done in slide lock baggies, but he does it in reusable plastic containers, and I liked that idea better. The take-out container I used was big enough to hold all the seeds I wanted to start, and they are all so different there was no concern about getting them mixed up.

Today – after only 4 days, with only a couple of those on the heat mat (I had the container elevated, so the wouldn’t get too hot) – they germinated! When I turned the lights on this morning and checked them, I saw a few little roots poking out. By the time I was ready to put them in pots this afternoon, every seed either had a root emerging, or just visible.

Before I got to that, though, I saw this new video from Gardening in Canada. Excellent timing.

Almost all plastic containers have that triple arrow reduce-reuse-recycle symbol, with a number in it. She goes through all of them, from 1 through 6. All the plastic containers she looked at are considered food safe, but some are better than others, though the green tray sets with the LED lights, which I now have, too, have no number on them at all.

When it was time to plant, I made sure to check the bottoms of the pots I’d bought for these, and was happy to see a number 5. Discovering that the Red Solo cups (which have a 6 on them) are made of a plastic that is among the worse for shedding was a bit of a surprise. I still have a lot of those!

Honestly, though, I’m not too worried about it. If I worried about all it all, I’d never do anything. Still, if I am in a position to choose one over the other, I now have the information to made an educated decision.

Thanks, Ashley!

So here is my little video of today’s progress!

The seeds had already been soaking for a while when I decided to take clippers to them and scarify the outer shells. Normally, I’d have used sandpaper. All the emerging radicles found their way through the clipped openings. It likely would have taken several more days for them to break through, otherwise, and even longer if they’d gone straight into pots.

I’m quite impressed that every single seed sprouted. The luffa are the oldest seeds of them all, so I was really expecting to have at least a couple of duds.

So now they are on the heat mat, and I expect to see them emerge from the soil in a few days. Theoretically, I should have given each seed its own pot, but we’ll see how they do, first.

Before I was able to get started on this, though, I had to finish cleaning up after my near disaster with the San Marzano tomato tray, yesterday. The remaining soil spilled onto the floor had finally dried enough to vacuum, though I was actually able to salvage some of it, first. As everything was put back in front of the window, I made sure to top up the soil on the onion tray that got knocked over. Mostly, it was filling in around the edges, since the roots held the soil together in the middle.

I’m really at a loss as to how I’m going to set up more seed trays as they get moved out of the big aquarium greenhouse. We won’t be able to do the same set up as we did last year. Hopefully, things will stay mild enough that I can start using the sun room, early. The outside cats won’t be happy, though. They’ll be losing their lounging spaces! We’ll probably have to start closing the sun room door completely. At least for the night.

If the door can close all the way. Things are still shifting, and I recall having trouble getting the outer door to fully close because of it.

The sun room certainly gets warm enough during the day – today, I saw the thermometer at about 25C/77F – but it loses pretty much all that heat, overnight, and that would be cold enough to kill seedlings. It’ll be a few weeks before we’re going to need the space, though, so it might be warm enough overnight, by then. We shall see.

For now, I’m really happy with how pre-germinating these seeds worked out. When it comes time to start things like the melons and winter squash indoors, I think it would be worthwhile to do it again!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2023/24 Garden: no carrots this time!

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It’s been a while since we could get to the bed with the carrots in it. Previously, we had no issues harvesting them, and the bed did have a nice thick layer of mulch.

Not thick enough!

Here are the progress shots for these three beds.

Rolando Moon lost her favourite sun spot hangout!

One of the first things I did was detach the arched cover from the box cover in the centre, and switch it to the bed on the left. This way, we could put the cover on the carrot bed onto the box frame, making it much easier to attach the plastic.

The painter’s cover sheets I got are 12’x8′. My daughter and I folded them in half to make them 12’x4′. Once we had the plastic over the arched cover, she went to start removing the mulch for me while I attached the plastic to the frame. This is temporary, so I just stapled it down. The staples didn’t want to go in all the way, though, so I had to go around and hammer them in.

I can see wind is going to be a problem with the plastic.

As for the carrots, I had a bin all ready to collect the last of them, but it was not to be. Not only was the soil frozen solid, so was a lot of the mulch! My daughter got off as much as she could, then we put the cover, now with plastic over it, back on the bed.

We then took the other arched cover and set it back on the box cover. The mesh on this one is temporary. The chicken wire I used is too bendy and easily misshapen, so it will be replaced with stronger welded wire or something, later on. For now, though, it’s enough to hold some plastic. It went faster this time, as I went around stapling the plastic down, and my daughter followed with a hammer, tacking the staples down so the were actually holding the plastic in place. Very frustrating.

The second arched cover’s wire is a bit smaller than the first one we did, so there was more excess plastic to tuck under at the ends, and a bit more on the sides. This one went onto the bed next to the compost ring, which still has quite a bit of snow on it. It also did not get weeded or reworked as thoroughly as the one in the middle, before things got too cold.

So now we have two beds with plastic “greenhouse” covers on them. We’ll need to check on the carrot bed regularly over the next few days. As the ice in the mulch thaws, we’ll remove more of it, until the soil itself can finally start thawing out – and we can finally harvest those carrots!

Note for future reference. If we use this method to store carrots again, we need to either use a lot more mulch, or have it covered in plastic like this – or both!

It’s 10C/50F right now, making for a gorgeous day to work outside.

This is what it was like, a year ago today!

We were having to dig ourselves out and were still expecting a blizzard.

It’s not at all unusual to have at least one last blizzard in April. We aren’t expecting anything but warm days and mostly sunny skies for the rest of April, this year. In fact, if the long range forecast is at all accurate (ha!), May will be chillier than April.

Gosh is feels good to be able to work outside right now! Yes, I know, we need more snow, and we’re expected to have drought again this summer, but I will enjoy what I can, when I can!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: Noooo!!!!

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Okay, it could have been worse, but I had a bit of a disaster this morning.

While trending the seedlings and doing a tray rotation, I topped up the larger cell tray of San Marzano tomatoes with more soil. I’d deliberately half filled the cells to start, and now I’m “potting up” the seedlings this way.

After carefully putting the soil around the seedlings, tamping it down gently, then gently top watering to settle the soil around the stems more and avoid air gaps, I went to put the tray back into the mini greenhouse frame at the window. I had to rotate the peppers and eggplant tray back to the top, as they’re getting too tall to be anywhere else, so the tomatoes needed to go one shelf down. I’ve got the LED lights set up above the lower shelves, but I did move the cables around to get them out of the way.

Well, not enough.

Between getting caught on a cable and the uneven bottom of the tray catching on one of the wire squares on the shelf itself, the entire tray ended up sliding off the far side. There is a gap between the shelf and the wall, because of a baseboard heater (these are never used and the breakers are off. I don’t remember them ever being used when this part of the house was built!). The tray, however, landed against the window sill, rather than sliding all the way down to the floor.

In the process of falling, it knocked one of the onion trays on the shelf below, off in the other direction.

What. A. Mess.

I was able to retrieve the tray, but a lot of the soil – and water! – was all over the window sill, down the wall, and on the carpet below.

The shag carpet.

*sigh*

I think they’ll survive, though.

Once the tomato tray was cleared away, I had to pick up the onions before I could reach anything else. They are in four sections of a vegetable tray, and the roots actually held everything together pretty well, but some soil was lost. The bundles could be popped back into the tray. I think they’ll survive, too.

The mini greenhouse frame had to be cleared of everything else before I could move it and reach the biggest mess. I was able to save some of the spilled soil, but most of it will have to be vacuumed up.

I fixed up the tomato seedlings as best I could, and had to add more soil to a few of them.

For now, I’ve got the trays spread out in various sun spots, though those will be gone soon. We have a fan going in the room for the seedlings all the time, so that will help dry things out faster. Once the mess can be vacuumed, we can put the frame back and return the seedling trays.

It could have been worse.

Well. I suppose it still could be. Let’s see how the seedlings survive over the next little while!

The Re-Farmer

This and that – cats and seedling stuff

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It’s been a quiet, homey sort of day today. Not much to write about.

I head-counted 31 while feeding the outside cats this morning.  Then, as I was returning from my morning rounds, I saw Broccoli and Sprout had arrived – they, at least, are very distinctive! – making 33 in total. 

I heard back from the Cat Lady about Wolfman.  She talked to the vet about his eye, but the vet would not comment either way without seeing Wolfman directly.  I was hoping to at least get a ballpark figure on what a removal might cost, if one is needed.  So she will let me know the next time she needs to be near our usual half way meeting point to pick up Wolfman and pass on some kibble donations.

As for Wolfman, if we were to go strictly by his behavior, you might miss that there is anything wrong at all.  Just a little while ago, I saw him dashing around me, and it does seem like he can still see through that eye.  Given what it looked like in the photos I managed to get, that’s surprising.  He may simply have gotten used to it.  She still sometimes squints with the one eye, but that’s about it. There is no appearance of discomfort, and he’s his usual playful self.  He’s even still play fighting with his adopted siblings, which may well be how the eye was injured in the first place!

In other things, I’ve decided to try sprouting the seeds I got soaking yesterday, before potting them.  They are now between layers of damp paper towel in a take out container.  With large seeds like this, I covered the semi-transparent lid to reduce light exposure, and I did also scarify their outer shells.  

While tending the seedlings, I noticed a strange thing with the large tray that has the eggplant and hot peppers.  Most of them are getting nice and big, but a few seem to be wilting, and are more stunted.  The stunted ones are all on one side of the tray.

I need to look up my old post about starting these.  This tray may be the one where I ran out of one brand of seed starting mix, and opened a bag from another brand.  Most of the cells in the tray would have a bit of both, but one end would have had only the second brand.

What I didn’t do was mark which side that was!

If this tray is the mixed brand one, then the San Marzano tomato tray is all the second brand. So far, they seem fine. In fact, I’ll be needing to add more mix to top up the cells around their stems soon. I’ll leave them in these cells a while longer, before I thin by transplanting.

Ah, I just went and looked up my old post. Yes, this is the tray with the two different brands of seed starter mix. Considering that I had the tray mostly full before I had to open the second bag, there would be fewer cells with the second mix, only, and the others would have had the first brand in the bottoms, and then just got topped up with the second brand before the seeds were sowed. Which means the smaller number of cells that have stunted seedlings in them would most likely be the ones with the Miracle Grow brand of seed starting mix. I believe the other brand was Jiffy, but I’m not sure.

Dangit. I should have taken better notes! Ah, well.

We have more seedlings that we need, so if some don’t do as well, that’s okay. At long as we have at least a few of each that survive transplanting, we’ll have enough for our needs.

It’s always a learning experience, isn’t it?

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: getting next seeds ready

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I had a much interrupted night last night, so the girls took care of the morning rounds for me, so I could sleep in.

Well. As much as the suddenly cuddly cats would let me! 😄

I did end up having to go to the post office to pick up some packages, and ended up going into town to run some errands while the post office was closed over the lunch hour. I finished too quickly, so I used up time by going to the local dollar store – I forget which franchise it’s actually part of.

The tomatoes and peppers on the heat mat are ready to be moved aside, so today I prepared the next batch of seeds to start.

Oops on the labels on the left and the centre!

The packages across the top of the photo were my dollar store find. After watching the Gardening in Canada video about useful Dollarama garden finds, I went looking to see if they had clear plastic drop cloths. They did, so I picked up three of them; one for each of the raised bed covers we have, with the curved tops. This plastic is quit thin – about half the thickness of actual greenhouse plastic – so I don’t expect them to last more than a season but, at 12′ x 8′, they should be just the right size to cover the frames. If we can get at the frames and cover them early enough, they will made nice little greenhouses for the three low raised beds next to the spruce grove. The sooner we can warm up the soil, the sooner I can direct sow those seeds that can be planted before our last frost.

Until then, I got my gardening fix by preparing Crespo squash, drum gourd and luffa seeds, all of which have a long growing season. There were only 6 luffa seeds left in the package and they’re pretty small, so I’m using all of them. With the drum gourds, I still had some left in an open package, plus I have an unopened package. Because the seeds are so large, I chose only 4 of the drum gourds and the Crespo squash seeds. There are still more seeds left in the Crespo squash seed package, too.

Yes, I did catch on that the plant labels are under the wrong seeds! The smooth seeded Crespo squash’s bowl is on the correct seed package. The drum gourd seeds look like they have a rough texture, but have a soft surface that’s almost fluffy.

Usually, I would scarify the seeds and plant them after only a short presoak, mostly because I would forget to let them soak overnight. Last year, I had such trouble with them and had to reseed the pots several times. This time, I am making sure to do a longer pre-soak. I got them going in the mid afternoon so, by morning, they should have about twice the soaking time compared to leaving them overnight.

I plan to split the seeds between two pots per variety. Hopefully, we’ll have decent germination. If only one seed each manages to germinate and survive transplanting, I’ll be happy!

Now that I think about it, this would be a good time to try doing it the way Maritime Gardening suggests; leaving the seeds on wet paper towel until the start to germinate, the planting them. Hmmm… Yes. I think I’ll do that – after they’ve had their overnight soak. With big seeds in particular, I think that would be especially helpful.

I really look forward to seeing how these do!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: Veseys order – I went for it! (plus a Wolfman update)

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Yes, I placed another order. 😂

It’s a small order.

When my old computer died, I had an order ready in the shopping cart of another seed company. By the time I got my new computer and was able to log in again, the cart had been dumped, of course. I placed an order with what I could remember of it. There turned out to be some squash varieties my daughter had asked for that I had forgotten about.

Veseys has a “wish list” function, which comes in very handy! They also had the same varieties. So, I took advantage of the Maritime Gardening promo code and placed an order with the forgotten seed varieties. Photos belong to Veseys.

The first variety is the Mashed Potato Winter Squash. From the website:

A new take on a traditional favourite. Switch up your next holiday meal to include Mashed Potatoes acorn squash! The white exterior and interior closely resembles traditional mashed potatoes when baked and mashed. This compact plant produces 3-4 fruit approximately 1.5 lb maturing in 90-95 days. Approx. 15 seeds/pkg.

We have a 99-100 day growing season. We could direct sow these!

This variety is the Baked Potatoes squash. From the website:

Warm up the oven! Baked Potatoes is an Acorn type squash that has high yields of 6-8 fruit on a compact bush plant. They mature into beige coloured 1-1.5 lb fruit with creamy white flesh in 100-110 days. Approx. 15 seeds/pkg.

At up to 110 days to maturity, these ones would have to be started indoors.

We might not actually start either of them, this year. We have so many winter squash seeds. Having said that, the only package we have that we want to plant all the seeds is the variety pack. We don’t know what seeds are actually in there, and we got it as a way to try some of the more interesting varieties we don’t want to buy entire packages of seeds for.

Having said that, we have things like the Pink Banana and the Georgia Candy Roaster, which we really enjoyed, that we would want to grow again. Plus, there are other varieties that we tried to grow that didn’t succeed, because they got baked in the sun. So we will probably try to start other varieties, but we can’t do too many. We just won’t have the space this year, unless we manage to build a LOT of new beds early enough!

Ordering these seeds with the promo code got me free shipping for the entire order, and my last item was these.

These are the Albion Everbearing Strawberries. From the website:

Fragaria. Sweet homegrown berries all summer long. Albion is a day-neutral type that produces berries all summer and into the fall. In autumns with late frost we have picked berries well into October. These plants will produce large, sweet strawberries. Great for growing in hanging planters and pots. Produces fruit in first year. Strawberries are planted 12-18” apart, in rows 4 feet apart and are hardy to zone 2 if covered. No. 1 sized root.

This is a package of 8 roots, which will be shipped while still dormant, in time for immediate planting, based on our hardiness zone. We have some strawberries now, but haven’t been getting a lot of fruit. The transplants we’ve had for a couple of years are still in recovery mode, first from being flooded out, then from being eaten by deer! The ones we grew from seed last year did start to bloom and form tiny fruit near the end of the season. The growing kit they came in did not give the name of the variety, so I don’t know of the tiny fruit was because they were not really mature plants yet, or if that’s the size the variety will always have.

Either way, we want a lot more strawberries, so these everbearing ones will be a good start. I do plan to get other varieties over the next few growing seasons, but we will also be saving new plants from the runners to increase our numbers. There are a few areas I want to plant strawberries in to create a sort of groundcover, but I’m not going to get very far with that, with only 8 plants! Depending on how things go later in the season, we might buy some transplants, too. We shall see.

On a completely different note, I contacted the Cat Lady about Wolfman, asking if she knew what it might cost, if Wolman’s damaged eye needs to be removed. She had messaged me letting me know she has some cat food to donate to us, and brought up getting Ginger. When I told her about Wolfman’s status, she ended up phoning me. She suggested that they might take Wolfman instead of Ginger, and get him to a vet, since Wolfman is also on the adoption list. She’s had cats that had to have an eye removed before, and it had cost $1800. !!!! I can’t believe the cost for that at a city vet would be higher than getting an amputation done at a small town vet! She will be seeing her regular vet tomorrow with another cat, and said she would talk to him about it. She asked for some photos that she could show him. As a rescue, she can sometimes get better pricing, plus they might be willing to do a payment plan, though she is already making payments on other bills at that clinic. She tells me that all the rescues are really struggling to cover vet care right now. The donations just aren’t coming in, when so many people are now struggling to pay their own bills and still have money to buy groceries. Which means she’s offering to cover Wolfman’s care out of pocket!

She will let me know what the vet tells her when she gets home tomorrow evening. Hopefully, it won’t be too bad. Either way, when my return comes in, I want to make a “donation” to help cover at least part of the bill! We should find out more by the end of tomorrow. Meanwhile, I’ve already received an email from Canada Revenue confirming my tax return was processed and the amount I’ll be getting automatically deposited, so hopefully, that won’t be long now.

Then I got my daughters to help me get a picture of Wolfman’s eye. It took some doing, but I managed it.

It’s the first time I’ve been able to get a good look at it, and wow. Yeah. I understand now, what the girls were trying to describe to me. It looks really bad! It may be possible to save it, but I think that’s highly unlikely. The Cat Lady, however, has dealt with this a few times, and she’s had cats that she was sure would lose a damaged eye, only to have it heal completely, while others she thought were not as bad, ended up losing it. Until a vet sees him, we won’t know, but the sooner he gets to a vet, the better.

On another note, she’s frustrated with trying to adopt out Ginger. There was the one person who was all ready to take on a three legged cat, filled out the application, etc. – then suddenly decided to get a kitten.

At least she was able to adopt out a couple other challenging cats, though, so that opens up a couple more spaces, too.

We shall see how things go with Wolfman. He’s such a handsome, fluffy boy, I can see him being adopted out rather quickly, even if he end up loosing that eye.

The Re-Farmer