carrots

Our 2021 garden: how things are looking

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Just a few pictures of the garden beds that I took while doing my morning rounds.

This is the newest bed in the area where the old wood pile used to be, and these beets were the first ones planted, so they are larger than the others. Well. Some of them are. We are curious about the one end there they are smaller, and not as many came up. There is no sign that deer have been eating them – the onions seem to be working! I recall that we had issues with birds digging in the garlic beds. I wonder if they were digging in here, too? I don’t know.

The onions are yellow onions we bought as sets locally, when it looked like the ones we started from seed might not make it.

Luffa, actively climbing the mesh of the squash tunnel! So far, they are the only ones long enough to reach/climb the supports.

I was thrilled to see this, nearby.

Several Halona melons are starting to bloom! So awesome! Nothing on the Pixie melons or winter squash, yet.

This bed has the two types of carrots – Kyoto Red and Napoli – that came in pelleted seeds. This allowed us to plant them further apart, so no thinning will be needed. That also meant that, even though they started coming up quite a while ago, their thin, feathery leaves were hard to capture in a photograph! :-D

These are the Norstar onions we started from seed. Size wise, they are much the same as the ones started from sets, including the red onions that share this bed with them, however none of the others are starting to bulb as much as these ones are.

Looking ahead to next year, sets are definitely easier than starting from seed, and they don’t take up the space indoors that seeds do, but I think the ones started from see seem to be doing a bit better. We shall see when harvest time comes.

Speaking of harvest, the spinach is starting to bolt. The three varieties we have are all supposed to mature at different rates, but all three are ready for harvest, now! We’ll pull the biggest plants first, and leave the smaller ones a while longer, simply because there is so much. I dug out more window screens from the shed and washed them, so we can use them to dry spinach in the sun room. Doing it in the oven worked, but the trays are smaller, and we can only fit two in the oven at a time. We have four screens in total, and we’ll be able to fit a lot more leaves on them.

We finally have a decent amount of lettuces, though some blocks don’t seem to be doing as well as others. After the spinach is cleared out, we plan to do more lettuces in those beds. Just on one side, as we will be planting more spinach for a fall harvest, later on. The lettuce seed packets were in a Ziploc bag and spilled, so most of them are now mixed up, but that’s okay.

The greens to the left of the blocks, past the plastic, are 4 varieties of beets, that my daughters planted. Not visible is the larger L shaped bed, in which we planted all the remaining beet seeds, including from last year, all mixed up.

The potatoes are doing really well! If those bags weren’t twice the height they started off at, I would think they hadn’t been “hilled” at all!

I am really happy with how the garden is looking, though we do have some failures. None of the purple kale came up at all, and it looks like the purple kohlrabi is a total loss, too. There *might* be some white kohlrabi coming up in the old kitchen garden, but I’m honestly not sure if what I’m looking at are kohlrabi seedlings, or weeds. There’s only a couple of them.

The strawberry spinach seems to be a loss, too. We thought they had started to sprout, but now it looks like there’s nothing but weeds. If they did sprout, they didn’t survive. It looks much the same with the poppy seeds, except for one little patch. We’ll see how they survive! They’re still really small. Ah, well. Whether they make it or not, I plan to get more for next year. Possibly in another variety that I’ve found, too.

It’s only June, though. I’m quite looking forwards to seeing how things grow over the next couple of months!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: morning progress, and changes in plans

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My morning rounds now includes watering all the garden beds. Though we have had rain in the forecast, so far we’ve only received the lightest of smatterings. Hopefully, over the next few days, we’ll get some real rain.

I had a lovely surprise when I came into the sun room this morning.

SO many more of the Mongolian Giant sunflowers and Montana Morado corn are germinating! The corn is just little points of green, barely visible in most of the cups.

In the pellet tray, I think I even saw a cucamelon sprout starting to break through.

It’s getting close to time to start hardening off our bigger seedlings for transplanting. :-)

I can now say, with absolute certainty, that all three spinach beds have sprouts. :-) I might even have, just possibly, maybe, seen our first pea sprout this morning, too! :-D

When done checking the trail cam files, I headed back outside until it got too hot for manual labour in the sun. My computer’s weather app says we’re at 16C/61F that feels like 15C/59F, while my phone’s app says we’re at only 9C/48F with a RealFeel of 12C/54F! There is no way we are only 16C out there, never mind 9C. I have no doubt it’s at least 20C/68F out there right now. I’m thinking of picking up another outdoor thermometer to set up at the pea trellises.

One of the areas we needed to work on is the block for the Dorinney corn. I was loath to just start adding soil on the chopped straw. It would end up in the paths in between and we’d end up walking on it, and I just don’t want to waste that precious dirt! :-D

Then I remembered all that mulch I put around the sunflowers last year. A thick layer of grass clippings I kept adding to throughout the summer. I figured that would work well to put on the paths as a mulch to walk on, while it would also serve to hold the soil in the rows.

Once I started gathering up the grass clippings and laying them down, I realized this partially broken down mulch would work much better under the soil, than the straw.

So this bed will now be reversed. The grass clippings will have the soil added on top, while the chopped straw will serve to hold the soil in place, and keep the grass/weeds down in between, as well as helping keep any moisture. We lost a row in the process, but I wasn’t sure we have enough of these seeds to fill the entire block, anyhow. If we have more, we can just add another row to one side. Before we add soil, though, the area will get another thorough soaking. We can just reach this area with the hose. I should see if I can set up the sprinkler. I don’t think we’ve got enough hose to set that up where it can water the whole block, though.

In the background, you can see the row of sunflower stumps, where I took the mulch from. I didn’t even get as far as where the rows of sunflowers overlapped in the middle, and after finishing laying down mulch in the corn block, I still had enough mulch in the little wheelbarrow to add it elsewhere.

The girls saw carrot sprouts and took off the plastic covering this bed, so I added a light layer to the surface to protect it. Especially if we do end up getting that predicted rain.

I also put a light layer over the Strawberry Spinach bed.

In preparation for planting the asparagus crowns, I soaked the trench, put the cardboard back to discourage any of those roots we didn’t clip or dig out from growing, then soaked it again. Later today, we’ll put the crowns to soak while we start adding soil and preparing it for planting.

We’ve reached that point in the season, where we are switching from going out in the afternoon, when it was finally warm enough to work in the garden, to splitting our days between the cooler mornings and evenings, while avoiding the hottest parts of the afternoon. The problem with that is, the hottest part of the day tends to be around 5pm, so we’re easily losing at least 6 hours of daylight productivity. Long range forecast says we’ll be hitting 30C/86F in four days – and we’re still in May! At least it’s expected to cool down gradually after that, but we’re still going to be in the high to mid 20’s for another week. We’re also supposed to get rain. I’d say “more rain”, but what’s been predicted so far has been missing us, as usual. :-/ We shall see how it goes.

The hard part is going to be waiting until after the last frost date before planting/transplanting. I think direct sowing a bit earlier would be safe, but after losing so many transplants last year, I don’t want to take that chance again, this year!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: more beets and carrots

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So my darling daughters did some planting, while I fell asleep in a bed full of cats. :-D

The plastic covered bed in the foreground is two types of carrots, plus the kohlrabi seeds from last year.

The plastic covered bed in the background is the beets, including seeds from last year, so there are 4 types of beets in there, all planted in short rows. They also planted the purple kohlrabi in between the yellow onions and shallots. I’m quite excited about those!

While the girls finished up watering the seeds and covering them, I filled the paths with the old flax straw and, when that ran out, the wheat straw we still hadn’t moved off the septic tank, right around the corner or the old kitchen. I tried to pile it more against the sides of the beds than the middles, for erosion control. I think it’ll do the job for this year.

The L shaped bed has nothing in it!

There are still beet seeds from last year. I think maybe I’ll mix them up and scatter them, and we’ll have beet surprise! My daughter didn’t want to plant beets in there because she’s thinking the deer will get at them. We can protect the ones by the retaining wall more easily, but I’m sure I can come up with something to help protect them from hungry deer. Especially right in the middle of the garden like that. We still have pelleted carrot seeds left. The deer don’t like carrots, so interplanting the two might help as well.

Hhmm. We even still have some Merlin beet seeds left over from planting by the garlic beds. I could mix those in, too. I know the girls really like beets, so having lots will not be a problem. :-)

Speaking of the Merlin beets.

The plastic was blowing loose from the hoops over the Merlin beets, so we fixed those up a bit.

We cut about 1/3rd of the hoops off, then put them back on their sticks. The excess plastic on the sides were then wrapped around a couple of boards from the junk pile, to keep them from blowing around. Much better than the small rocks I was using before. It meant not needing the lengths of hose on the centre hoop, so those got added to secure the ends more.

This plastic is really, really thin – not at all the kind of plastic one would normally use as row covers – but it seems to be holding out okay. We’re even reusing pieces from last year, plus we still have quite a bit on the two rolls we found while cleaning up, if we need more.

After this, we prep a block for the corn that gets planted early, then I should be able to take a day or two off from hauling loads of soil. :-D

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: getting things planted, and trying things out

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This morning, I wanted to get that half-bed planted with carrots. I was happy to discover that the Kyoto Red carrots I’d ordered were pelleted seeds (I’m sure I knew that when I’d ordered them, but completely forgot!), so they could go in right away. Before I did, though, I cooked up some cornstarch gel, and set the other two varieties of carrot seeds to soak. Last year, we used the technique described in the video below to plant carrot seeds, and it worked very well, so I wanted to do it again.

Those will wait until tomorrow, though. For now, the carrot bed in the old garden area is fully planted, and I covered them with plastic after watering them.

They’ll be checked often, and as soon as green can be seen, the plastic comes off.

The next job was the new garden bed beside the garlic.

Before topping it with fresh garden soil, I found what I could to shore up the sides, so things wouldn’t erode. This is a pretty small bed, so it only took two loads of soil to cover it.

Then began my experiment.

After planting the middle with Merlin beets, then surrounding it with the last of the yellow onion sets, I cut small lengths of poplar that were fairly thin. I’d opened up the three dollar store hula hoops I’d bought and removed the bits of what looks like decorative rocks that were inside, to make a rattling noise. The sticks were of a size to fit snugly into the openings of the plastic. I also cut lengths of old garden hose and split them lengthwise and grabbed some plastic that was used to cover one of the garlic beds over the winter.

I suppose I could have cut the plastic tubes from the hula hoops shorter, but I really didn’t want to fuss with it. I was able to fit the ends over the sticks and push them down quite far, even though some of the sticks were nubbly from twigs I’d cut off.

I used the pieces of hose to hold the plastic sheet to the hula hoops. Then I used packing tape to gather up the loose pieces at the end and pull things taught. I ended up getting a couple more piece of hose and used them to attach the plastic to the sides of the center hoops as well.

This thing is going to blow away in our next stiff wind! :-D It is by no means durable! This is more about keeping the deer away than anything else.

One of the wind socks we got to help deter critters ended up being spun so much in the wind, the twine I used to tie it to a tree broke. It’s in the shape of a spiral, so I hooked it to the top of a bamboo stake, then wrapped the spiral around the bamboo. It won’t get blown around as violently anymore, but still moves around the stake, so it should still help startle critters away.

So that bed is now done and planted!

In between watering the new bed, I made sure to water the strawberry spinach bed, and covered that with plastic, too. Though we’ve been diligent about watering, these are almost surface sown, and the surface dries out very quickly. I’m hoping it’s not too late to put the plastic over them. :-/ We shall see!

So that worked out rather well. Tomorrow morning, I’ll see if the hoop cover is still there, of it it blew away during the night. :-D

The next job was much larger! But that will in in my next post.

The Re-Farmer

Harvested: what I expected, and what I got

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Today, I finally got to harvesting the garden beds we planted where the old wood pile used to be.

This is what we started with, in the spring.

You can read about how the garden plots were doing by August, here, so I won’t repeat myself in this post.

One of the things I’ve been thinking of, while working in the rocky soil of the old garden area, is that we need a soil/compost sifter. That would make clearing the rocks and debris out much easier.

While looking up different design ideas to build one, I suddenly realized…

We already did build one.

The screen “door” we made for the old basement doorway is basically the same idea as the steel mesh sifter my dad had made for gravel, decades ago. It just uses 1 inch mesh instead, and has a support bar across the middle. I’ll just need to reinforce the mesh before using it for something bigger or heavier, since it’s basically just stapled on in between where the wood holds it in place.

Last night, I realized it would also be great to use to lay out the carrots and beets after I harvest them.

It turned out to be perfect for the job.

Here is how I set up to start.

The saw horses were too narrow to support the screen, so I laid out a couple of 8 ft boards we didn’t use when building the goat catcher this past summer, to support the frame. I set up near the new compost pile, as I figured there would probably be a lot going into there!

It turned out to be less than I expected.

The few kohl rabi plants went straight in. That was a disappointment. So few came up and, between the bugs and the deer, only two got big, and then they got eaten. For those, I knew there would be nothing to harvest, so there were no expectations in that regard. I do want to try growing it again, but I’m not sure we’ll try again next year. I think it would benefit from a cold frame to plant earlier, and definitely something to protect from deer. Nothing we grew got attacked by insects the way these were, so we’ll need to keep that in mind before we try growing anything in the cabbage family again.

Of the one remaining musk melon, the frosts killed that off, and it didn’t even make it to the compost pile. It just shriveled away to almost nothing! When clearing away the bricks that were supporting the cloche that doubled as a slow watering container, I found some … friends…

Slimy friends!

That left the carrots, beets and parsley.

As far as expectations, I figured we would get a decent amount of carrots. We’ve been nibbling at them all summer, so I had a good idea of what I would find. I wasn’t expecting many, though, and not very many large ones.

With the beets, I was expecting nothing. Not long ago, the girls picked the biggest ones they could find and cooked them, and with the deer continuing to eat the greens, I didn’t expect any worth keeping at all.

I was pleasantly surprised!

We actually got quite a few decent sized carrots. Not the full size the varieties had the potential to grow to, to be sure, but still more than I expected.

As for the beets, I did actually find some of each variety that were big enough to not go on the compost heap. The smaller ones, this late in the season, were pretty leathery and not salvageable. I expected that of all of them, so getting the few we did was bonus. There’s basically enough for one meal, if we combine then all together. :-D

The last thing to harvest was the parsley.

Parsley is something that I could have left alone. They would come up next year, and I do plan to do that eventually. When I do, I will choose a permanent location for the plants. We don’t actually use parsley all that much, so these will be dried.

Since these were not hidden underground, I got exactly what I expected. A whole lot of parsley! I had to do some cramming to get them in that crate!

These all got left outside while I worked on cleaning up the garden beds – which ended up being completely different than planned, so that will get its own post! At the end of the day, because it’s been getting pretty chilly at night, we brought the entire screen into the old kitchen. The beets will be cooked soon, but we have to figure out what we want to do with all the carrots. :-)

The parsley, on the other hand, will have the greens picked over and trimmed, washed, then laid out on trays to dehydrate in the oven overnight. The new oven has a “warm” setting, which should be the perfect temperature for the job.

Once everything was harvested, the beds needed to be prepped for when the fall garlic finally comes in – hopefully, not too late!!

And… I went a bit nuts on that.

You’ll be able to read about that in my next post…

:-)

The Re-Farmer

Not quite a recipe: three cheese scalloped potatoes with kielbasa and carrots

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While making scalloped potatoes yesterday, I wanted to find a way to use the carrots from our garden I had picked that morning.

If they had been larger, I would have just sliced them thin and layered them with the potatoes, but these were on the small side.

So I got creative.

Here is how I ended up making the the scalloped potatoes.

For the cheese sauce, I used 1 medium onion, sliced thin, butter, flour, seasonings, whipping cream and cheese.

We already had old cheddar and grated Parmesan in the fridge. I also picked up a cheese that has recently showed up in local stores that is just awesome. BellaVitano Reserve. We’ve tried the three different varieties we have available, and I picked up Tennessee Whiskey this time. They have an Espresso one that it really good, too. I shredded this, plus the cheddar, and mixed it all together with some grated Parmesan. I used most of it in the sauce, saving some for later.

For the seasonings, I used mushroom salt, freshly ground pepper, garlic powder and paprika. For the liquid, I like to use whipping cream, but it can be made with milk or a lighter cream, though why anyone would want to, I don’t know. ;-)

To make the sauce, the onion first gets slowly cooked in about a tablespoon of butter until soft. Then, a couple more tablespoons of butter is added. When that’s melted and bubbling, the flour (about 2 tablespoons) is added and cooked, stirring constantly with a whisk, for maybe a minute. Then 2 cups of room temperature cream is added, little by little, with pauses to whisk it smooth. For the first while, the flour thickens the cream very quickly. After all the cream is added, the sauce is simmered, while constantly stirred with a whisk, until it is slightly thickened. Then the seasonings are mixed in. Finally, the heat is turned off, then the shredded cheese mixture is stirred in until melted. After tasting to see if the seasonings need adjusting, it is set aside.

For the rest of it, I had potatoes peeled and sliced thin and the carrots were peeled and shredded. I didn’t count how many potatoes I used. They were on the small side, so it was probably around a dozen. The shredded carrots made about 3 cups, loosely packed.

In a buttered baking dish, I put a layer of potato slices, topped it with 1/3rd of the shredded carrots, then added 1/4th of the onion and cheese sauce. This was repeated two more times, then the top layer was just potatoes and the last of the sauce.

It then went into a 350F oven for about 40 minutes.

Shortly before the time was up, I took a ring of Polish sausage and cut it into slices. The slices were then laid on the top of the potatoes.

I hadn’t originally planned to use the sausage, but I happened to have it, so why not? :-)

I did have some concerns at this point. We’re still getting used to the new stove, and haven’t used the oven much at all in this heat. When stabbing the potatoes with a fork before adding the sausage, they were still surprisingly hard. I had forgotten to cover it with foil at first, so that might be why.

I covered with foil at this point, but it really should have been added right from the start.

With the sausage on the top, I put them in for another 10 minutes. Most recipes for scalloped potatoes that I’ve seen say to bake for 40-50 minutes, and I was shooting for 50 minutes in total. After that, I added the rest of the cheese mixture on top.

Back in the oven it went, though without the foil. I didn’t want the cheese to stick to it. I then baked it until fork tender.

It ended up taking a lot longer to cook than I expected.

Also, handy hint. Put the pan on top of a baking sheet, in case the sauce bubbles over.

We’ll be testing out the oven’s self cleaning function, next…

:-D

When it was fork tender, I took it out and topped it with chopped parsley I’d picked from our garden that morning.

This was quite an experiment from how I usually make scalloped potatoes. They are usually just the potatoes and onion-cheese sauce, these days. I was very curious as to how the carrots worked.

They pretty much disappeared!

I used some of each type of carrot we have; white satin, rainbow (orange, pale yellow, and white), and deep purple. The purple carrots left colour on the potatoes, but with them being shredded, and such a long cooking time, they all pretty much disintegrated and disappeared into the sauce. I could taste a hint of their sweetness, but that was it.

I would definitely be up to including them again.

The addition of sausage… well, you can’t go wrong with adding kielbasa!

The cheese mixture worked really well, too. That Tennessee Whiskey cheese added to the flavour, but did not overpower.

All in all, this was quite a success!

The Re-Farmer

How does the garden(s) grow?

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I realized I’ve neglected to take progress photos of some of our garden beds, so I got a few this morning.

Here are our two potato beds.

I was shooting blind, because my phone’s screen went completely black in the sunlight. Still, you can see the potatoes among the mulch, separated by a path of grass. Some have bloomed and the plants are starting to die back. We could probably harvest baby potatoes now, if we felt like digging under the layer of straw. I’ve never grown potatoes this way, so it should be interesting to see how they did.

This next photo is the second squash bed.

I just happened to catch a locust flying by in the picture!

We are currently inundated with grasshoppers and locusts right now. Hopefully, they won’t eat up too many of our vegetable plants.

This second bed is the one we planted the day after we were hit with one last frost. The sunburst squash are huge, with many flowers and many little squashes. The mixed summer squash has a couple of plants that are doing well. Interestingly, it seems that plants on the south end of the bed are struggling more than the ones at the north end, rather than any particular type of squash having a more difficult time.

Here is the first bed that got planted.

These are the ones that got frost damaged, even though we had covered them for the night. Some died completely, but a surprising number have managed to survive – with some downright thriving!

This picture is the same bed, from the other end.

The transplants had died at this end, so when some gourds in the seed tray actually germinated, I transplanted them here. Three of them are marked with bamboo poles. Much to my surprise, the one that got dug up by a skunk digging for grubs is surviving. Given how late they germinated and got transplanted, I’m not actually expecting much from them at all, but it will be interesting to see how much the manage to grow.

Then there are the pumpkins.

These were from seeds that were being given away for free at the grocery store near my mother. I had taken one (it even had a sign asking people to take only one), and then my mother gave me two more. Clearly, she didn’t read the sign, because she still had a pack she kept for herself and planted in her own little garden plot that she has this year!

The pumpkin in the above photo is the one from a pack that had 5 seeds in it (the others had 3 seeds). This is the only one of the 5 that germinated, and it came up much later than the ones that germinated in the other two mounds. One mound had 2 seeds germinate.

In spite of such late germination, this one is probably the biggest of the bunch.

It is also the Northernmost mound.

When we started planting here, I’d made a point of planting in the Northern 2/3rds of the area we had mulched. The south side of the area has a lot more shade from the spruces my parents had added to the north side of the maple grove. I didn’t even try planting at that end for that reason. The middle third of the area still gets a lot of sun, but the north third gets basically no shade at all, at any time of the day.

I think that might actually be why I’m seeing differences within the same beds of squash, and the pumpkin mounds.

Something to keep in mind for any future planting in here!

Then there are the beds we made where the old wood pile used to be.

This is the layout of what we planted here.

The beets we got were a collection with Merlin (a dark red), Boldor (golden yellow), and Chioggia (alternating rings of purple and white)

In the foreground, you can see the parsley bed in both photos. It is doing very well. To the left of the parsley bed are the deep purple carrots, with white satin carrots on the right. The carrots could be doing better, but overall, they’re okay.

In the midground of the photos, there is a bed of rainbow carrots above the parsley bed, and beets on either side . Another bed of beets is in the background, beyond the rainbow carrots.

I don’t know how well you can tell in the photos, but there are not a lot of beet greens. The deer have really done a number on them. :-( We should still have some to harvest, though.

Of the two muskmelon we bought to transplant, one died. This is the survivor.

We planted a lot of kohl rabi, but this is all we have that came up and survived.

The large leaves that you are seeing are from 2 plants.

Yup. Out of all that we planted, only 2 survived.

Actually, there had been four.

It turns out that deer like kohl rabi, too. You can’t even see the second one that was nearby; it, too, was reduced to a spindly stem!

In case you are wondering about the plastic containers…

Those are what I used as cloches to cover the muskmelon overnight, to protect them from colder temperatures after transplanting. The containers used to hold Cheese Balls that we got at Costco. I just cut the tops off, then drilled holes around near the bases for air circulation.

I now have them set up near the surviving muskmelon and the kohl rabi. When watering the garden beds, I fill those with water. The water slowly drains out the holes I’d made for air circulation, giving a very thorough watering to the plants. The first time I’d tried this was with the muskmelon, which was pretty small and spindly. The next morning, it had grown noticeably bigger and stronger! So I put the second one by the struggling kohl rabi, and the difference the next day was just as dramatic.

Until the deer ate the two littlest ones.

This worked so well, I’m trying to think of ways to use other cloches we have, most made from 5 gallon water jugs I’d bought for the fish tank, to set up near some of the more struggling squashes.

This morning is the first time I’ve harvested some of the parsley, along with a few carrots. What I don’t use right away will be set up to dry. Which is what will happen with most of the parsley we planted, as we tend not to use fresh parsley all that much.

And now I’m going to stop struggling with our nasty internet connection, which really doesn’t like inserting photos right now, and start on the scalloped potatoes I have planned for supper. I think I’ll find a way to layer some carrots in with the potatoes, too! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Another scorcher

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Well, the heat wave is back!

When I headed out to do my rounds this morning, it was already 26C/78F. When I grabbed the hose to use it briefly, before topping up the cats’ water bowls, the water was almost hot! So I decided to water a bunch of things, using up the warmer water so as not to shock the plants, until I could fill the cats’ bowls with cold water.

Since I have not found what I need to fix the front tap, we have all our hoses linked together at the back tap. That’s almost 300 feet of hose.

I got quite a bit of watering done before it started coming out cold! The nice thing about being on well, though, is that it does get cold. Ice cold, even. When we were on city water, on days like this, the best we could get was maybekindasorta cool.

I’m going to have to get in the habit of carrying a basket or something with me, when I do my rounds.

This are thinnings from the three different carrot beds. I would have picked more but 1) it was getting hard to hold them all in one hand – especially the ones where the greens broke off, 2) the mosquitoes were eating me alive and 3) I had a Creamsicle deciding to jump up on my back.

And roll around.

And repeatedly start to fall off before I finally got him off (with only minor scratches! LOL).

So he then decided to start rolling right over the carrots!!

*sigh*

We have lots of little sunburst squash showing up, but just the one bigger one. I didn’t want it to get too tough and seedy, so I picked it now. Later, I will choose one that I will leave to go to seed, for next year. We will probably still buy seeds, but I’d like to at least try saving seed as well.

This afternoon, I made a quick run into town. By the time I got home, we had reached our high of the day, which we are still now, now. At 32C/89F and a humidex putting us at 38C/100F, I was very glad to see my daughter meet me at the garage to help me hall the water jug refills back to the house! Yes, I did have the wagon, but getting anything through the door with kittens about is much easier with 2 people!

The sun room is definitely NOT a place to hang out right now.

If we were still keeping the doors open for the cats, I would have had the ceiling fan on to help at least a little. Right now, I just have the replacement door open – it has a screen window that actually opens and closes, unlike the one we replaced. :-D My mother used to have lacy curtains on all the windows because of how hot it would get in here. I can understand why, but it sort of defeats the purpose of having a sun room.

Who knows. We might use this at least part of this room as a greenhouse, some day.

The girls must be just dying upstairs. I wouldn’t be surprised if my daughter has to stop working because her computer and drawing tablet are overheating again!

We’re supposed to “cool down” after today, but the only means we’re supposed to remain below 30C, over the next two weeks.

One of the things I did while doing my evening rounds was bring the rain barrel we’d found behind the storage out, closer to the garden. My thought was to fill it with water, so that I can use ambient temperature water in the garden, rather than the hose. Unfortunately, since I’d last rolled it aside, it has developed cracks where it had been lying on the ground. I’m thinking I can patch them with some silicone sealant and still use it. I think I even have some, already. Before I do that, though, I have to figure out what I can use as a cover for it. I wouldn’t want some critter to fall in.

At some point, we will dig up the hose to the tap by the garden and replace it. The set up for the tap itself is getting very wobbly, so I want to redo that, as well. Thinking of how we do want to keep at least part of the area back there as a vegetable garden, I not only want to have a tap I can hook a hose onto, but I’d like to set up a surface area of some kind, so we can wash the veggies right away, or even just wash our own hands. Maybe with a small bench to sit on while scrubbing, for old and decrepit people like myself. ;-)

We can’t even start on that until we get the branch piles cleared away, first. The line runs almost under one of them – and that’s where water was spraying through the ground when I tested the tap. :-D

I’m really looking forward to when those are gone!

The plan was to hire the company that cleared trees from the roof and power lines to bring in their massive chipper this year, but after having to replace so many expensive items just this month, it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to do it after all. Ultimately, though, we should invest in our own chipper.

All in good time.

Little by little, it’ll get done. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Two kinds of babies

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With Junk Pile’s babies starting to use the spirea to hide in, I moved a food dish near the area. This morning, while Junk Pile was by the house, waiting for me to refill the kibble, I saw her mostly white kitten, sitting on the mulch by the grapes.

It’s not the white kitten in the photo above!

Can you see the little white nose peaking out from under the grapes?

The grey baby eventually came out to eat with mom, but I didn’t see the white one again.

While checking on the garden beds and doing a bit of weeding, I pulled a few baby carrots.

Breakfast of champions! :-D

I’ve got the three varieties in here; purple, white and rainbow mix.

They were very tasty! :-D

Today, we’re going to have to really push to finish the old kitchen and sun room. The weather forecast has changed.

The heat warnings are back, with a predicted high of 30C/86F, and the humidex making it feel like 36C/96F. The thunderstorms that had been predicted for tomorrow are now expected this afternoon. Even if the storms miss us again, we’ll likely catch some rain, and among the stuff we have sitting outside are power tools.

Time to get back at it!

The Re-Farmer

Growing things

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We’ve got all sorts of things growing right now.

Of course, the kittens are growing into ferocious little ankle biters.

They also love climbing on and clawing the grandpa slippers. :-D

Once outside, I checked the new garden bed and discovered carrots!

Unfortunately, there are also plenty of other things sprouting. At least the thistles are easy to pull out.

These carrots were done using a method found on a YouTube video, where the seeds were sprouted in water first, then put into a cornstarch gel in baggies, to be piped into the ground like icing.

These, along with the parsley, were planted on May 17. It is now the 24th. It took only 1 week for the sprouted seeds to break ground. Direct sown, they could take anywhere from 14 to 21 days.

Not only was the parsley also starting to show, but I think I’m even seeing some of the beets, which were planted 2 days later. I didn’t do anything special with them, other than cover the plots with plastic. Beets can take 7 – 14 days to sprout when direct sown.

It seems things are doing quite well in this location! I was able to remove the plastic on all the little plots. Even the kohl rabi. I just looked those up and they can germinate anywhere from 3 – 10 days.

I’m quite pleased with this!

Yesterday’s downpour has really revived everything! While doing my rounds, I found more blooming trees!

Yesterday, it was plum blossoms. Today, it’s Saskatoons. :-)

Of course, the grass is also growing like mad. Time to break out the lawn mowers! :-)

The Re-Farmer