chicory

Our 2026 Garden: deer damage? and infrastructure progress

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This morning, I made sure to give the garden beds a through watering before things got too hot.

I found this.

On the one hand, I was happy to see another poppy blooming.

On the other, I was sad to see one of the flower buds got chomped!

I have a suspicion that it didn’t taste very good, or the rest would have been eaten, too.

So… we’re down to just 3 Giganthemum poppies instead of 4!

The nasturtiums are kicking into high gear with blooms right now.

The transplanted Crackerjack marigold and white dwarf cosmos that were supposed to be red cosmos are still blooming, too. The bush beans in the high raised bed have flower buds, and I spotted a flower on one of the Caspar eggplant. There are also more flowers showing up on various types of tomatoes. The musk melon and watermelon transplants I bought have also been flowering, but I’m picking those off. The plants are still way too tiny, but they finally seem to be growing.

Once the morning watering was done, we all just stayed indoors and out of the heat. I even crashed for a couple of hours of much needed sleep.

In the afternoon, after the cats were fed, it was back into the garden. I had a lot of stuff I wanted to get done.

First, I wanted to work on the corn patch.

In the first image of the slide show above, you can see the corn leaves are starting to press up against the netting. This is not a tall variety, but it does get taller than this. I considered finding a way to make the hoops higher, but decided to just remove the netting completely.

Once the netting was off, the corn got a thorough weeding, and then mulched with grass clippings. Parts of where I mowed yesterday do not have Creeping Charlie, so the clippings were safe to use. You can see it all done in the second image. I have left the hoops. Corn gets knocked over by wind very easily, and the hoops will provide at least some support. I’m considering other ways of adding more support as well.

I’ve got the motion sensor deer scarer set to go off at night, though I’ve set one off when it was still dusk, so “night” is a very brought frame. Hopefully, it will be enough to keep them away – and the raccoons! I might have to switch it to be active both day and night, though that would mean I would be setting it off while tending the garden. Which I might be willing to put up with!

Once the corn was weeded, it got a thorough watering, then the mulch was added, then it got watered again. From there, I kept watering the beds until I got to the next one I wanted to work on.

It was hard to see through the turnip leaves, but it did seem the red noodle beans were getting bitter. So, I harvested most of the turnips, partly to let the beans have more light, then added the trellis supports for them to climb. They look like they’re just starting to throw out tendrils.

This bed also got grass clippings added to mulch between the remaining turnips, and between the turnip row and the beans. The daikon radish is looking good – the one survivor from the winter sowing is not only still blooming but starting to develop seed pods. We will have seeds to collect for next year. The onions along the radish side of the bed are looking good, but not to much the ones on the turnip side. Those might start doing better, now that most of the turnips were pulled and they’re no longer shaded out by large leaves.

There was one more bed to water in this area before I moved to the next beds I wanted to work on.

The first section was around the dwarf peas. I wanted to remove the netting, partly because it was a pain to get under it to collect ripe pea pods.

I left the hoops, but added the wire decorative fencing to keep the cats from lying on the peas. After weeding and watering, grass clippings were added. This bed already had some leaf mulch on it, but that was breaking down quite a bit.

I found a surprising number of self seeded tomato plants while weeding! I removed the protective plastic collar that had been around the mystery flowers I’d found and transplanted here. They’re large enough now that I don’t think they need it. Very few of the onions I’d found and transplanted here in the fall made it, but the garlic I’d ground and planted are doing rather well.

Next, I worked on the rest of the wattle weave bed.

The Florence Fennel was pushing up against the netting already, so I took it off completely. I’ll probably remove these hoops later, but left them for now. The fennel, chicory and strawberries, with the two surviving summer squash I’d transplanted from thinning the other bed, are now well mulched with grass clippings and well watered again.

There was one last bed I wanted to work on.

The summer squash.

After removing the netting, each surviving summer squash got its own stake for vertical growing. It looks like four spots, from three different types of squash, didn’t make it. Once the stakes were in place, I went to use garden wire to start securing the larger vines to the stakes, but I think I may have accidentally killed one of them. I moved the stem to put it up against the stake and heard a noise that sounded like it was pulled right out of the ground! It wasn’t, but it may have been pulled up and the roots damaged. I’ll probably know by tomorrow morning if I killed it.

With four plants not making it, I found myself with four extra bamboo stakes, so I wove them across the vertical stakes on the inside, just a bit higher than the hoops. If I can find more bamboo stakes long enough, I’ll do the same on the outside row, too, just to help keep them stable and better able to hold weight.

Hopefully, the garden will survive the heat we’re going to have over the next few days. We’re expected to go above 30C/86F for the next three days, then the highs are supposed to be in the mid 20’sC (around 77F) for the rest of the month.

Definitely “water twice a day” weather.

It’s going to be brutal at the market tomorrow. Thankfully, we do have the canopy tent for shade, at least!!!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: last seed snail transplants are almost done

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After today, the only transplants I will have are whatever survives in the tray that got decimated by a mouse and re-sown. At this point, I have some melon seedlings, two different winter squash and that’s it.

The first thing I got transplanted was the chicory.

To the right, you can see some garlic that showed up in the bed on their own. When prepping the bed before transplanting the Florence Fennel you can see on the left, I transplanted the garlic to the side. No wonder I hadn’t found the cloves when prepping this part of the bed last fall. They were DEEP!!

I wasn’t sure how many chicory seedlings there were in the roll, so I just started sticking them in the ground in a vague grid spacing. There ended up being 20 of them.

I was going to return some of the leaf mulch in between, but the leaves kept moving around and start burying the seedlings. Instead, I cut narrow cardboard strips and secured them with ground staples.

Before I planted anything, I had to clean up the “presents” left by the cats, which meant I needed to cover this part of the bed, including the fennel, as I could see the cats have been digging in the leaf mulch there, too. I still had some rods and connectors from the first hoop kit I ordered, so I used those. For the netting, I didn’t really have anything left that was shorter. The netting covering the summer squash bed had a lot of excess tucked under one end, so I unrolled that, cut it off a couple of feet from the bed, then resecured the end. Then I untangled the piece I cut off and managed to lay it flat on the grass. It turned out to now be wider than it is long. That meant the salvage edges would be at the ends instead of the sides. I was also still able to fold it in half and not have too much slack once tightened over the hoops.

Where the bed turns, it is narrower than the end, so that area needed shorter hoops. and one end could be secured into the higher wattle weave wall on the inside of the turn. It took a while to get it all snug and secured, and I did have to push the hoop at the end, where it is wide enough I connected 4 rods together to make the hoop, deeper into the soil so it wasn’t quite as high.

That done, I stopped to change out of my grubbies and head out. I had a package to pick up at the mail, a prescription to drop off at the pharmacy, and then a couple of water bottles to refill at the grocery store. While I was at it, I got another 40 pound bag of kibbled at the general store the pharmacy is in, along with a couple of packages of smoked pork chops, then after getting the water I picked up a few more things, most on sale, and used some of my loyalty card points money to knock the cost down more. Once at home and the girls helped me unload and they put things away, I had a late lunch, set an alarm for myself, changed back into my grubbies and headed back outside.

This time, I finished the main garden area bed I was working on, yesterday.

There was just enough red beard bunching onion to fill the one side of the bed that remained to be planted into. It was convenient to be able to lift the bottom edge of the netting and use the ground staples to secure them at the top of the hoops. The hoops and netting will be removed when the beans get big enough for their trellis. For now, the bed needs to be protected from critters!

Last of all were the bi-color pear gourds, which went into the newly completed chain link fence bed.

There were way too many elm seeds that got through the netting. There’s going to be a LOT more very shortly. The seeds on the elms are starting to turn brown, which means they’ll be dropping in their millions, soon. The netting keeps some of ti out, but not wall.

The first thing to do was lift the netting up and secure it most of the way up the hoops. Then I got out the weed trimmer and cleared the grass in the path, and the other side of the chain link fence.

I think I’ve figure out where to plant the holly hocks, but didn’t get to them yet.

After the weed trimming was done, all I could do about the elm seeds was brush as much as I could off to one side. There was no way to get rid of them.

As for the gourds, there were only 5 of them, and they got transplanted into protective collars. I had to cut one new one.

By the time that was done, my alarm was going off and I needed to head inside. For now, I’m writing this while waiting for my telephone doctor’s appointment. Which is already more than half an hour “late”. It’s booked for the end of my doctor’s day of scheduled patients, but I was warned the call might be later, if things come up and appointments run late.

After the call, I’m hoping to get back outside. I have decided the holly hocks can go into the flower bed across from the chain link fence bed, where the original honeyberry bushes are. At the end near the vehicle gate is an old grave for a yard cat stranger I found, several years ago. Things have grown up very tall around it. I will clear the area around it of as much crab grass and the flowers my mother planted in this bed many years ago, and that’s where the holly hocks will go. I will also be direct sowing luffa and sunflowers in the bed with the bi-colour pear gourds, and then I can put the netting back down. Hopefully, while I’m waiting for the call from my doctor, no cats will go into there and start digging!!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: new sprooots!

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Not the ones I expected, though.

When checking on the new seed snail rolls last night, I saw a surprising number of chicory has sprouted. Those are in the first image of the slide show above.

This morning, I spotted some French double marigold. You can see one in the second picture. The others were seeds, pushed through the vermiculite, green seed leaves not yet exposed, behind part of the packing foam holding the roll together.

I would have expected either the chamomile or the kohlrabi to have emerged first, for some reason. I’ve never grown caraway before, so I am not sure what to expect from that roll.

Over the next week, I plan to start the 3-4 week seeds. I’ll be doing a few winter and summer squash in a seed tray, rather than snail rolls, just because of their size. Large seeds would need more seed starting mix or potting soil, and the more that’s added to the snail rolls, the harder it is to roll them up and the more gets lost from both the top and the bottom.

I’ve been out for most of today. It has been cooler, and it’s tried to rain off and on all day, so I decided not to water the pre-sown beds with the hose today. Last night, I spotted some turnip seeds under the polytunnel, but it looks like all the daikon radish that had already sprouted when I took the mulch off have died off. I wish I had enough to cover all the beds with plastic, because I don’t think the kohlrabi or purple savoy cabbage survived the cold May we’ve had this year. The garlic is doing okay, but I see no signs of the chard or spinach in between. The purple blush peas in the first trellis bed also seem to be gone, and I see no sign of carrots germinating under their protective boards. I never saw any of the dwarf peas sprouted when I removed the mulch and covered that section of the bed with mesh to protect it from cats. The protection seems to be working, but still no sign of peas. Peas are the one thing that should have been able to handle the cold spells.

Well, I’ve ordered replacement seeds for some things, and have more seeds left over with others, so I can try again when the soil warms up enough.

I need to remember to bring out the new soil thermometer I got and set it in various beds to see how cold things still are.

Until then, I need to finish off the bed at the chain link fence, then move on to the few others that weren’t done in the fall.

It’s been a much colder May this year, but there’s still time to see if the winter sowing survived the spring or not.

The Re-Farmer