I’d planted three groups of three seeds of Black Zucchini and White Scallop squash. The zucchini almost all came up – one spot had only two come up – but the white scallop squash saw only two germinate, in one spot.
That left me with two empty spots – and those were being filled with tiny elm seedlings taking over!
So the first thing I had to do, after taking the protecting netting off, was move the mulch aside and get in with the hand cultivator to weed as much as possible.
That took a while.
I really, really hate those elm seeds.
With the white scallop squash, I simply moved the smaller plant into the empty spot beside it. I did the same with the zucchini that had only two plants growing. Then I very carefully removed the extras from the other two spots that had all three zucchini seeds germinate.
I turned out to be wrong. I must have dropped a seed or something, because one of them had four!
I found spaces for them in other beds. Two went into gaps between the three types of winter squash, which are still recovering from getting hit with that one cold night. One went into the end of the bed with the Spoon tomatoes in it. Those all got protective plastic collars. The last one went into an open space in the high raised bed, left from harvesting some radishes and turnips.
Thanks to my SIL using their big zero turn mower on the outer yard, I had a whole lot of grass clippings available. I needed more mulch around the original summer squash bed, plus the one in the high raised bed got a grass clipping mulch, with a final watering to soak the mulch.
Hopefully, the transplants will survive alright. Squash don’t like their roots disturbed, but there was no way I could take them out without using a lot of water and washing the roots off completely. Those ridiculous elm seedlings were wrapping their tap roots around everything!
It’s mid afternoon as I start to write this, and time to take a break from the heat.
Depending on which weather app I look at, our expected high today is supposed to be 22C/72F or 24C/75F. As I write this, one app tells me we are at 23C/73F, while another tells me we are at 21F/70F, with the humidex putting us at 25C/77F.
All our outdoor thermometers are in full sun, so they’d be reading high, but given how I felt while outside, I’d say at least the humidex making it feel like 25C/77F is accurate!
My morning rounds finished off with watering all the garden beds, trees and bushes. For the vegetable beds, I set up the fertilizer sprayer, because of this.
These are the Arikara squash, but all the winter squash and melons in the main garden area are also getting yellow and droopy like this. So are all the tomatoes. They’re still blooming and stuff, but looking very sickly. These seems like more than transplant shock.
The peppers, eggplant and herbs show no sign of this.
I looked up possible reasons for why this could be happening, and there are many possibilities. Most could not apply for various reasons. One very possible cause is lack of nitrogen; for all our amending, our soil is still nutrient deficient, being low on nitrogen in particular, though it is starting to improve.
The fertilizer I got was and 18-18-21; a tomato, fruit and vegetable ratio. With the hose attachment applicator, I went through most of the container by the time all the beds were done. It’s recommended to apply every 7-14 days. I’ll need to get another container before then, because there isn’t enough to do a complete watering with what’s left in the cannister right now!
When I got to watering the walnuts and Korean pine, I had a couple of surprises.
The first photo is the year old sapling, and it’s doing very well. The second photo, though, is what I found after removing the mulch that somehow ended up on top of the plastic collar, completely covering where the seed was planted.
Something was digging in there!
My first thought was that a squirrel or something stole the walnut seed. Still, I started digging, just to confirm it was gone.
I found it.
Whatever was digging had stopped a couple of inches above the walnut seed! So I just replaced the dug out soil and gave it a thorough watering.
I was encouraged to find that the soil was still moist at the level of the seed. Just barely, but at least it wasn’t dried out!
Then I found what looks like our first sprouted sapling. At least I hope that’s what it is. Until the leave unfurl, it’s hard to tell. While I tried to remove any roots I found while digging the hole for it, it’s still possible something else is sending up shoots.
Speaking of sending up shoots, I saw our first zucchini sprouts today!
Just in 2 out of 3 spots planted, so far. No sign of the white scallop squash, but I remember those took a lot longer to germinate compared to other summer squash we planted last year. We are seeing a remarkable number of frogs this year – more than we’ve ever seen since moving out here – which gives me hope that the squash sprouts will survive. I haven’t seen a single slug this year, yet, and I’d say we have all those frogs to thank for that!
My daughter, meanwhile, headed out this morning to start mowing the lawn with the riding mower, after I came inside for lunch.
Some time later, I heard a knocking at my window.
My daughter needed help. She had tried to mow closer to the crab apple trees. She got caught on a branch that flung off her hat…
… and her glasses!
Crabapple branches are horrible for that sort of thing. It’s like they reach out and grab at you, like something out of a cartoon scare scene!
She had been looking for them but, without her glasses, she couldn’t see very well. So I went out to help her look, but had no better success. Her biggest fear was that she’d run over them with the mower, so of course that was the first place she looked, but when it came to the grass, who knows how far a springy branch could and flung them!
After a while I suggested she go inside to get her prescription sunglasses while I kept searching. Then she would at least be able to see while looking!
While she was gone, I remembered her worry about having run over them, so I decided to look at the mower, too. She had stopped it well away from where the tree branch had caught her.
When I found them, I just had to take a picture, or no one would believe me.
There they were, sitting like someone had very carefully folded them closed and put them in the safest spot possible. They couldn’t even be accidentally stepped on in that spot. While needing a lens cleaning, they were completely undamaged.
An absolute miracle! I brought them to the house just as she reached the door to go back out with her prescription sunglasses. She was so incredibly relieved!
Then she was happily back to mowing.
When I headed back to work in the garden, I didn’t get much done. It was getting way too hot by then, and I was in the full sun. I went through the soil in the kiddie pool we tried using to grow zucca melon before, only to have them eaten by slugs. The soil was full of crab grass but, being contained as they were, it was easy to clear them away. I then used about half of it to top up the row of asparagus, against the log border. I wasn’t able to dig down to the proper depth when they were planted, as it gets too rocky, so I was glad to have the soil available to top them up.
If there is anything alive to help out. I strongly suspect that it took too long for use to plant the asparagus and strawberries. I don’t expect to see the asparagus quickly, but the strawberries should have appeared by now. I’ll keep watering the new bed, just in case, but it might be a total loss.
One thing I’ll have to do later today, and hopefully snag a daughter to assist, is set netting around the trellis bed. This is where the red noodle beans and Hopi Black Dye sunflowers were planted, along with the free pumpkin seeds and the baby onion sprouts I found while cleaning up the bed Aside from overwintered onions and the collars where the pumpkins are planted, this bed is pretty open.
The cats have been digging in it.
So far, they don’t seem to have actually dug up any seeds, but they did dig up at least one or two tiny onions. I’ve set the rest of my tall metal plant stakes, plus some bamboo stakes, around the bed to hold the netting. I’ll wrap the entire bed in netting, like I did with the corn and beans bed. That should be enough to keep them out.
In the process I found my first red noodle bean sprout! There was just a bit of stem visible, elbowing its way through the soil surface, so I didn’t bother taking a picture, but I’m very happy to see it! There should be others, soon!
I’ve set things up so that, after the netting is in place, it won’t block access to where the remaining three vertical support posts for the permanent trellis need to be installed. Keeping the cats out of the bed is the priority right now!
That will wait until things start to cool down a bit, though. I just don’t have any tolerance for heat anymore!
On a completely different note, I have some cuteness to share with you.
We still don’t have a name for this mama. For a mostly feral cat, she is thankfully quite comfortable hanging around the house. Very unlike the other more feral mamas! She takes very good care of her kittens – and any others that happen to be around!
There is a gorgeous long haired tabby that I decided to start calling Rabi, because I thought it might be Kohl’s brother, but I think I’m wrong. While we can’t see to know for sure, I think he might be a she.
I saw her trying to carry off Hastings, yesterday.
She’s acting like a mother cat trying to carry her own kittens away, but these aren’t her kittens, and they don’t want to be carried off by her!
It has me wondering if perhaps she lost her own litter, and some maternal instinct has her wanting to carry off other kittens to mother. I’ve noticed she (I’m going to just assume “she” at this point) has been following me around the yard, but never quite allowing me to get close or reach out to her. I can’t say she ever looked pregnant – another reason we thought she might have been male. I don’t quite know what to make of it!
We’ll have to keep an eye on her. Hopefully, we can get her friendly enough to get her into a cat carrier end get her spayed!
I had nine transplants, so that worked out with using the trellis posts as spacing guides.
Since I was going to plant bush beans along the edge of the bed, I did things a bit differently from the other half. With the melons, I set out the collars, added a handful of manure into each one and worked that in, in situ, then made narrow trenches around each collar. For this half, I started out by making a shallow, flat trench along the length of the bed I’d be planting into, pushing soil up against the log wall, and towards the trellis line. I added manure into the trench and worked that into the soil before giving it a thorough watering. Then I added the collars, closer to the centre/trellis line, than the melons are. Then I watered it again, filling each collar with water, as well as the trench.
To transplant the tomatoes, I scooped out a hole in each collar, deep enough for the entire root balls, then added it back in after the tomatoes we in place. Even with filling each collar and letting it absorb water before hand, I was still pulling up dry soil! Once the tomatoes were in, I filled the collars with water again.
Each tomato got a pair of bamboo stakes set on either side, placed right against their collars. Later one, once I have the time and the ties, I will be adding cross pieces to make them sturdier, and also secure them to the wire trellis. Growing these before, I’ve been able to just wind their stems around a single bamboo stake but, after a while, it starts to get tippy, so I’ll better secure them this time.
Once done with the tomatoes, I made another long, narrow trench to plant the beans into. That got watered using the jet setting to drill the water deeper into the trench, which also helped level it out and even break up some of the clumps I missed. I didn’t have a full packet of the Royal Burgundy purple beans, but I had just enough to evenly space the seeds from end to end. I don’t expect a 100% germination rate, so we might end up with a few gaps, but these are new seeds, so it shouldn’t be too bad.
Once I spaced the beans out evenly, I pushed them into the soil in their little trench and covered them, then went over the trench with a more gentle flat spray of water to fill it and level out the soil again.
That done, I used the last of the grass clippings left in the wagon to mulch around the tomato collars, and the edge of the bed along the bean’s little trench. I ran out of grass clippings with just one corner left to cover, but I still had some leaves and grass clippings mulch set aside from the winter sown beds I could use.
Then it all got watered again, making sure to soak through the mulch.
With how dry that bed was, it’s really not possible to over water it.
Since this bed had been covered in plastic while we had our recent rainfall, I fully expected it to be so very dry. After working on the next bed, however, it turns out that it really didn’t make much of a difference. It still would have been that dry!
The next bed I worked on was the end of the garlic bed, where I’d winter sown some of the same seed mix of root vegetables that is in the high raised bed. Nothing survived in this bed, though.
I didn’t have time to break out the weed trimmer to clear around the bed, so I used a rake to knock the weeds and dandelion seed heads down and way from the bed. This little section still has netting over it, though the cats have still been lying on top of it! So before I started, I had to pull the netting away, starting at the garlic end, leaving it still tacked down at the other end. The bed then got a weeding, and finally some manure was worked into the soil.
Next, I used some of the small plant support stakes I was no longer needing at another bed, to add more supports for the very loose twine, including adding one in the very middle of the bed, where the twin crossed.
Once the soil was ready and watered, I made three round, shallow “bowls”, which got watered again. Each “bowl” got three squash seeds planted in them. On one side, I planted the White Scallop squash. On the other, Black Zucchini.
Then the “bowls” got watered again.
This garden bed was fully exposed to the rain we got, and yet it was every bit as dry as the bed I’d just worked on, that had been covered in plastic while it was raining! You’d never know we had any rain at all.
This bed had been mulched for the winter with a mixture of leaves and grass clippings, that had been pulled to one side of the bed in the spring. I was able to use that to mulch around the “bowls” the seeds were planted in, with a light scattering of mulch in the bowls, too. Once that was in place, the netting was put back in place. Then it got watered again.
Hopefully, the new supports will help keep the cats off!
By the time the squash is large enough that the netting will need to be removed, they won’t need the extra protection anymore. We shall see how many of the seeds actually germinate. If I end up with extras, I will thin by transplanting. Hopefully, this year, we will actually have a decent amount of summer squash!
So that is now done. In the main garden area, the only bed left is the trellis bed. I won’t work on that again until everything is planted, though.
From the looks of the weather forecast, I should be able to get lots done tomorrow.
Gosh, I’m so enjoying all the progress in the garden! I might be in a lot of pain when I’m done, but it feels so good otherwise, it’s totally worth it.
The Re-Farmer 