cold climate gardening

Our 2024 Garden: squash, melons and pumpkin progress – and my little follower! Also, eye baby update

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After my last post, I intended to grab something to eat, then head outside and see what I could get done while the light was still good.

As an aside, after I published my last post, I hit the AI “generate feedback”. It had the usual, break up your paragraphs, include photos, etc. – then at the very end, it included an encouraging statement about making sure I ate regularly! Too funny!

So, for the AI, should I do that again: this post is going to have Instagram slideshows of photos. Lots of them.

I didn’t get outside as quickly as I intended, however. I had started to make a meal for myself when my daughter came down and asked if I wanted to do charcuterie and Columbo with her.

Heck yes!

My husband doesn’t like charcuterie, and his back can’t handle sitting in the living room for long, so the food I had started to cook because his supper, instead. 😄

My older daughter wasn’t able to join us either; she’s been up all night and all day, busting her butt, trying to get several commissions finished before her end of the month deadline. She did come down and grab a plate to take upstairs, though.

My younger daughter and I quite enjoyed the Columbo episode. It was a season 4 episode, and they were hour long movies at this point of the series.

By the time we were done, there was still light out, so I did my evening rounds, then remembered to take progress photos of all the squash, pumpkins, gourds and melons, with my hand in most of the shots, for perspective.

For some reason, though, Instagram turned my most of the photos upside down when they were shared. They were not upside down when I uploaded them! I also make extra sure when I’m taking the photos, that the camera on my phone hadn’t flipped orientation. It does that way too often.

With that caveat, let’s start with the Crespo squash bed.

There are more of them now, even after losing some! The darkest green one that’s bumpy is the oldest one. They are supposed to get really huge, though, but I’ll take a little one, too!

The second last photo in the slideshow (which is upside down) is in a cherry tree. The last one, also upside down, is one I couldn’t reach to have my hand in the shot. This one is in the A frame pole bean trellis.

Next are the Summer of Melons blend melons in the east bed. I had to split these up into three slideshows to fit them all, even with having multiple melons in some photos.

Still none of them are ready for harvest!

Next are the pumpkins, plus the drum gourds.

Why, Instagram? Why are these upside down?

The only drum gourd we’ve got that was getting bigger seems to be wilting away. There are other small ones on the vines, but none seem to be getting bigger.

It would have been really nice to have at least one drum gourd of a decent size! Ah, well.

Next up, more upside down images of the East winter squash bed.

The fourth photo in – the pale yellowish one – is one I was sure was dying off, but it seems that colour is what it’s actually supposed to be – and it’s starting to develop a textured surface. I hope it matures enough that we can identify the variety.

Here is the West bed of winter squash.

Once again, all upside down!

I’m fascinated by the weird lumpy shape of the squash in the second last photo!

The West melon bed was split up into two slideshows.

Also, upside down.

The first photo is all Summer of Melons blend, as is the second photo. There are actually two melons in that photo; the second one is hard to see, in the back. After that, it’s Sarah’s Choice and Pixie melons.

This set is all Sarah’s Choice and Pixie melons, with our one remaining Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon. The others that started to grow all died off. The one survivor is getting big – and looks more like a squash than a watermelon!

This image from the Heritage Harvest website is what they’re supposed to look like, when fully mature. The one I’ve got not only looks much lighter in colour, with no dark stripes, but seems to be developing ribs.

Considering I pre-germinated the melons after I’d started the winter squash, it’s not possible that I got the seeds and seedlings mixed up. No other seeds I started look like watermelon seeds, either.

Very curious!

While I was fighting my way around leaves and stems – and fighting off mosquitoes! – I had a little entourage following me around. It was all adult cats, except for this little cutie.

I don’t know why this one kitten has decided to follow me around the garden, but it does make me happy when I see it! I was even able to pick it up and carry it for a little while.

By the time I was done my evening rounds, and getting the photos, it was getting time to give eye baby her medication. We got everything ready, including the modified bottle with cat soup in it. When I came inside, I couldn’t see eye baby anywhere, but when I went out again to look for her, I quickly found her.

She started running towards the sun room from the shelters as soon as she heard me going through the old kitchen doors!

She was purring before I even picked her up!

She most definitely is enjoying these evening ministrations. Which is rather surprising, considering we wrap her up in a towel, dose her with medications, then get the fur around her eye wet, while moistening the … whatever it is… over her eye, and trying to rub the area around her eye as clean as we can first.

She also likes that modified bottle feeding, even though it gets pretty messy at times! No matter how much we mash up the cat food in the water/lysine mix, there’s always bits that manage to clog the modified nipple opening. Sometimes, it unclogs unexpectedly and she gets sprayed all over her mouth with cat soup! Even wrapped in a towel, it end up all over her neck and chest, too. It doesn’t seem to bother her one bit.

She does let us know when she’s done, though.

I still don’t know what to say about how her eye is doing. The swelling of the eyelids has gone down, but not completely. The swollen inner lids seem to be covering the eyeball, and the eye is still bulging out of its socket, though not at much. As we were tending to her, my daughter did see her attempt at blinking, and the eye does move, as if she’s trying to look from side to side.

For now, all we can do is keep up with the antibiotics the rescue provided for us, and giving her the supplemented cat soup. It doesn’t seem to be bothering her, she can obviously see out the other eye that is healed up, and she is quite active and playful.

Time will tell, I guess.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: Finally! plus some updates

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My daughters took care of the garden this morning, while I headed into town for groceries, so I didn’t get a chance to check things out until this afternoon.

I had a very lovely surprise!

The white scallop squash is finally blooming!

All male flowers, though.

Meanwhile, not counting today, we’ve got only 14 days left before average first frost. Hard to say if we’ll get anything!

I did check on the long range forecast, and it has changed back to saying we’ll have temperatures of 30C/86F for the 10th and 11th – and his 32C/90F on the 12th! In fact, most of that week is now supposed to have highs in the 30s! Even the week after is supposed to be just below 30C/86F! The last time I looked at the September forecasts, we were looking at highs below 20C/68F, and lows dropping down to 2 or 3C/36-37F

What a difference in forecasts!

Me, I’m hoping the heat stays longer. With everything behind by about a month, we need every hot day we can get!

Right now, things have been pleasantly cooler. Overnight, we reached a low of 9C/48F. It got cold enough I actually turns the fans off in my bedroom. It must have been quite a relief for the girls upstairs! They get so much hotter out there.

In other things, I have not had any calls back from the other two septic companies. I’ll be in the city tomorrow, so I’ll give them that one more day, then try calling them again after that. If I still can’t get through to them, then we’ll just have to go with the one company I did connect with. I’ll just have to get confirmation with my mother, in paying for it, and my brother. I was a bit perplexed when he started messaging me, suggesting I track down someone that had done this sort of work for my father in the past, but who may not even live in the area anymore. Heck, for all I know, he might not even be alive anymore. I recognize the name, but have probably never met him in person. I thought my brother had a problem with the companies I’d contacted, but I think maybe he just remembered this guy and started suggesting him to me.

Then he started telling me about how the emergency back up pipe will need to be installed while it’s being worked on, and how he’s got a pipe extension that will drain the effluent into the maple grove (which we may still need) … as if it was going to be done tomorrow, or something!

I’m so anxious about all this, I honestly couldn’t tell if this was his way of telling me what I should be doing, instead of what I am doing. My brother is awesome, but we don’t do things the same way at times. I hadn’t even considered going to somebody who happens to have an excavator, rather than a licensed and insured company that specializes in this kind of work. When I asked him more about it, he just came back with, it’s not a problem, going with a company is fine.

I hate to think I’m doing something he thinks is the wrong way!

So basically, there was a potential diversion, but then it went away.

I did not call the scrap company today. I will do that later, because I did contact the guy that bought scrap cars for parts last year, as I remembered they’d been looking at them. I told him that we were looking into calling the scrap dealer for the threshing machine and several vehicles, including those two, but wanted to know if he was still interested in them.

So those are now sold. Not for as much as before, but still more than we’d likely get from the scrap dealer for them. He won’t be able to pick them up until the end of September, though, as he’d going into surgery tomorrow, and needs the time to recover. There was another vehicle, which basically just the shell of a panel van, he asked about, but my brother and I didn’t talk about any of the vehicles on that side of the outer yard fence. I would hope the scrap company can come earlier than the end of September, but if they do, I hope they can work around the two cars by the threshing machine.

Okay, I’m getting perplexed. As I’m writing this, I keep hearing the septic pump go off, but no one is using any water. It’s shutting itself off as it should, but why is the tank filling so quickly? I’m not hearing the well pump go off more often, which would happen if we had a leak of some kind that was fast enough to trigger the septic pump that often.

I wonder if it’s related to the problems at the expeller end? That’s some 300 feet away, though.

Man, I’ve been paranoid about the pumps since we’ve moved out here. Now, it’s even worse!

Relax, Re-Farmer. Breathe.

Think gardening thoughts. That should calm me down!

Meanwhile, I took advantage of the lovely cooler day and got some lawn mowing done, using the lawn tractor my brother lent us. I was going to try our riding mower, but the battery was dead again. My brother replaced that battery when he repaired it for us, so it shouldn’t be dying so quickly. I didn’t want to take the time to charge it, and just used my brother’s machine, instead. Not all the lawns needed to be done, and one area still has a piece of tree that broke in our recent storm, waiting to be broken down into firewood for the the fire pit. The grass around there doesn’t grow very fast, so it can do without being mowed for a while. I did get to do the outer yard and driveway, though, and will have plenty of clippings to collect and set aside for mulch and for composting.

Well, it’s just hit 9pm right now, and I should be going to bed. I want to start for the city quite early.

Hopefully, I’ll get some decent sleep tonight!

The Re-Farmer

[addendum: okay, this is too funny! After I hit publish, I went ahead and clicked on the AI “Generate Feedback” button. This time, I didn’t get suggestions on breaking up paragraphs or adding pictures. Nope. This time, I got suggestions for regular maintenance on equipment, better communication with my brother, and possibly getting help to deal with my anxiety over the septic issues, and ensuring good self-care. 😄😄😄]

Our 2024 Garden: first black cherries

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While checking around the yard and garden beds for storm damage, I noticed a whole lot of the black cherry tomatoes were looking dark, so I picked a few.

I honestly don’t know if how ripe they are, but these are indeterminate tomatoes, and with so many of them on the clusters looking like this, I thought some of them had to be ripe. I’ve asked my family to let me know after they’ve tried them!

This image is from the T&T Seeds website, where I bought them from, and it is supposed to be what they look like when ripe. Not quite there, I guess! I only picked the four, though. There’s almost a dozen that looked the same as the ones I picked, so we’ll see over the next day or two, if they get dark like in the company’s photo or not.

It should be interesting to see just how many we get of these! We have only 6 plants, but they have grown so incredibly tall, up into the lilac branches about. High enough that if things start ripening near the top of the vines before frost hits, I’d need a stool or something to be able to harvest them!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: today’s little harvest

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While doing the watering this morning, I could see a few things that were ready to harvest.

Oh! I just realized, as I wrote this, that I forgot to harvest the patty pan squash!

Ah, well. They’ll just be a bit bigger, tomorrow. 😁

This is what I gathered today.

We’ve got Forme de Couer tomatoes – and from the looks of the plants, we will soon be inundated with ripe tomatoes! There’s just two San Marzano tomatoes, and I wasn’t seeing any others that looked like they were starting to ripe. There were just a few Seychelle and Carminate beans to gather this morning, but we got plenty yesterday, so that’s not surprising. I gathered more corn than I expected to. Especially considering I’d picked some yesterday, too.

Not too shabby!

Seventeen days left to average first frost date.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: a lovely harvest!

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Today, we were expected to reach a high of 28C/82F, so I wanted to make sure to give the garden a deep watering early in the morning, before things got hot. I’m glad we did, because we seem to have reached 30C/86F, with the humidex closer to 35C/95F!

I’m so glad I remembered to grab ice packs before I headed out today.

Anyhow…

After the garden was watered, I did some harvesting, and this is what I gathered.

There was a single patty pan ready to harvest. I mightily resisted picking the one Magda squash we have right now, but I decided to let it get bigger. There’s one zucchini that looks like it’s going to reach a harvestable size soon, too.

There was a nice handful of the Royal Burgundy bush beans (bottom right corner in the bin, as well as the longer Carminat pole beans. There was a single San Marzano tomato to pick, plus a whole two Chocolate Cherry tomatoes – the first of the season! I went ahead and harvested a few more Uzbek golden carrots as well. I think the next harvest will be the last of them, except for the ones gone to seed.

I always second guess myself when it comes to harvesting corn. I’ve heard it said, you can tell they’re ready when the silks are dried up, but I’ve harvested them at that stage and found immature cobs. It’s also suggested to tear through the husks to actually see the kernels, but if the cob isn’t ready, that leaves it with an opening where moisture and insects can get in.

This morning, I found one corn stalk broken at the cob, as if something tried to pull it down. Raccoons are notorious for cleaning out an entire corn patch at peak ripeness, but I don’t think a raccoon did this. I would expect more damage from a raccoon. Still, since the cob was above the broken stem, I shucked it and it was perfectly ripe.

Yes, I ate it raw, and it was deliscious.

So I went ahead and picked more that I thought might also be ripe. Happily, when I shucked them at the compost pile, I found they were all ripe. I ended up putting them in the oven to roast along with something else, and they were absolutely fantastic!

Yukon Chief is definitely a variety worth growing again!

I have a different short season variety to try next year, so we’ll be able to compare, but with how super short the Yukon Chief’s growing season is, it already has an extra point going for it. Once we decide on a variety we like that grows well here, we will start saving seeds. By then, we should have more space to dedicate to growing corn, too.

It’s nice to finally be having some decent sized harvests this year! I honestly did not thing we would be getting any bush beans at all, so to have both bush and pole beans to harvest is just icing on the cake!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: a little morning harvest

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Well, the predicted rain did start last night, and it’s still raining now.

Sort of.

It’s a very light, barely there sort of rain. I’m just hoping it keeps up long enough to actually water the garden. It’s actually pretty much stopped right now, but it’s supposed to start up again this afternoon – quite different from the prediction of rain all morning that I was looking at last night.

I did get a bit of a harvest this morning.

This time, I actually picked sugar snap peas. The plants are well past their prime, and usually I just find a few to snack on in the morning, but today there was enough to actually bring some in – after I’d already eaten a few. 😉 There was a single green Seychelle bean ready to pick, plus a few Carminat, and one Purple Beauty pepper was ripe.

I was also happy to see the first blooming Magda squash blossom, though at this stage, it’s just male flowers. The Black Cherry tomatoes are starting to get too tall for the lilac they’ve grown into to hold them, so I’m going to have to find a way to support the vines while still keeping them in reach for harvesting. Not a problem I ever expected to have! We’ve never had tomatoes that grew this tall before!

I get the Farmer’s Almanac daily newsletter and caught a bit of their long term forecast for the fall and winter. They’re predicting a warmer than usual fall for some areas – a range that includes where we are. I hope they’re right. Even now, as I look at the local long range forecast into September, the predictions for the overnight lows has changed towards warmer temperatures. We shall see. With how far behind so many things are – and certainly not just for us! – I’ll take very frost free night we can get!

It’s sort of pins and needles time for gardeners – and a lot of farmers, too – at this time of year.

The Re-Farmer

(addendum: I’ve been using WP AI assistant to “generate feedback” pretty regularly, just for a lark. It tends to make the same suggestions, over and over. Clearly, it can’t tell that I’ve got Instagram images embedded in my posts, because it’s constantly recommending I use images or video. 😄😄)

Our 2024 Garden: first garlic, plus winter squash, melon and pumpkin progress

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After I did as much as I could on the cat isolation shelter build, I finally got around to harvesting some of our garlic. In particular, I wanted to get the garlic that was sharing a bed with tomatoes. The tomatoes are getting so huge and bushy, the garlic was barely visible!

The challenge was to find them and dig them out without breaking any tomato plants!

Not all of the garlic planted there in the fall emerged, but I think I found all the ones that did. The soil was surprisingly compacted, and the head buried much deeper than I expected. I could actually hear the wood on the handle of my digging tool making cracking noises if I went to deep, trying to loosen the soil.

Unfortunately, when I got them all out, I discovered they were just crawling with black ants!

After trimming the stems, most of them got strung up and are now hanging in the garage. Normally, I would have hung them under the market tent, but that broke over the winter. Right now, the garage is the only place that’s out of the elements, but still has air circulation. Since I’m using it as a workshop right now, I can at least be sure they won’t be forgotten about!

Before I headed in for the evening, I finally went out and took progress photos of the winter squash, melons, pumpkins and gourds. It’s been quite a while. The last time I normally would have done it, I did our garden tour video, instead.

If you want to see how they looked earlier, you can visit these links.

July 28
July 30
August 1
August 3
August 5
August 8

It’s now the 14th, so there is quite a lot of difference since I last posted photos. We lost a few things, and some look like they will also be losses, but I also found more melons, including a couple I found just this evening, while taking the photos!

With that in mind, I will start with the melon beds. First, the east bed. There were so many, I had to divide the photos between two Instagram slideshows.

This Summer of Melons mix is really prolific – though with where we are in the growing season, it’s likely we’ll only be able to harvest the earliest varieties, whatever they are. The mid and late varieties are unlikely to have enough time left to fully mature.

Then there is the west bed of melons, which also had to be split up between two slideshows.

If you notice some blood on my finger in the last photo, I was being eaten alive by mosquitoes while trying to take these photos!

In the above slideshow, you can see the only two Cream of Saskatchewan watermelons we’ve got right now, and the older one is dying off. The plant has more female flower buds and is blooming like crazy, but it’s probably way too late. While I was giving my sister a tour of the garden, she was telling me things are late in her garden, too. She’s not growing melons or squash this year, but she says her tomatoes are way behind. She barely even has tomatoes forming right now! That wet, wet spring we had has really affected so many people’s gardens, all over the province.

Next, we have the pumpkins.

We now have one completely orange pumpkin, and two that are starting to change colour! I’m really impressed by how well the pumpkins are doing.

And look!

We even have a drum gourd that’s getting bigger!

There are other drum gourds on the vines, but it’s still too early to tell if they were well pollinated. There are lots of male flowers, but I haven’t been seeing the female flowers when they first bloom, so I haven’t been able to do any hand pollinating.

Next is the east winter squash bed. This one has the most squash developing on it.

It does look like we’ll be losing several of them, though. Those big yellow ones that are now turning orange are looking awesome!

The west bed has only a few squash left.

One of them looks like it’s going to die off, too. It’s getting more yellow instead of more green.

Last of all, I did remember to get pictures of the Crespo squash!

It looks like we’ve got two surviving squash developing. I’m seeing at least one more female flower bud, but it’s too early to know if it’ll be a survivor. Again, we’ll see if they have enough growing season left. These are supposed to get very large.

I’m kinda regretting not watering this morning, even though the forecast is now more sure about us getting rain overnight. Looking at the weather radar, the trajectory of the weather system has changed, so it no longer looks like it’s going to go right past us. Instead, it’s heading towards us – and looks like it’s going to split in half and maybe miss us on two sides, instead of one! Still, we’re supposed to be getting right starting tonight, and continuing through to mid afternoon tomorrow. We shall see what actually happens!

Anyhow… that’s the status of things right now. I’m quite happy with things so far. In all honestly, considering how many winter squash we planted, I would have expected more – I don’t think there are any hiding under the leaves anywhere that I haven’t spotted. It does seem like some plants have more than one squash developing, while others have none at all. In the future, when we have our permanent trellises built – trellises strong enough to hold winter squash like these! – it’ll be easier to see, one way or the other. The squash in this Wild Bunch Mix really want to climb, too!

I’m quite impressed by how many melons we’ve got developing! They have a trellis to climb in one bed, but seem to prefer to sprawl on the ground, instead.

As late as things are, I’m happy with the Crespo squash, too. Last year, we had four struggling plants that ended up being baked in the sun in there location, and only one small, immature squash to harvest. It still made good pie!

They are definitely doing better in the new bed I made for them this year.

Lots to keep in mind for when we plant any of these again, in the future! Every year is a learning experience, and I don’t expect that to ever stop. That’s part of what makes gardening so fun!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: harvest – first beans and tomato!

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I just got back from my evening rounds, and was able to bring in a little bit of a harvest!

We have our first beans of the year! The purple Carminat and the green Seychelle pole beans. The one San Marzano tomato I’ve been keeping an eye on was looking ripe, and when I touched it, it fell off the vine on its own. I was even able to grab a small handful of Dalvay shelling peas.

I honestly didn’t think we’d get beans this year, with how much they’ve struggled.

I’m so happy!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: squash and melon progress

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I’ve got my days so mixed up right now!

I have been aiming to get photos of the developing squash, pumpkins and melons every couple of days, with my hand in the shot for perspective. I was sure I’d last done this a couple of days ago, but once the photos were loaded onto my desktop, and I started doing the Instagram slideshows, I realized the last ones I did were three days so.

Oh, well. Not a big deal!

One thing I did not bother with, this time, was take photos of the drum gourds. There’s been basically no change in those, which suggests to me they’ll probably just dry up and fall off.

Which has happened, and is happening, to some others.

Oh! I just realized I forgot about the Crespo squash again. The bed it’s in is in the East yard, and nowhere near the others. Out of sight, out of mind! I did check it today, and it doesn’t seem to have changed much, but there’s a reason I include my hand in the shots!

We might be seeing a slowdown in the garden for a bit, anyhow. The last couple of nights have actually been cold, and it rained for much of today. As I write this, we’re at 15C/59F, and our high was only 18C/64F. It’s going to start warming up again, starting tomorrow, and get fairly hot over the next week. Nothing like the heat we were dealing with before, but hot enough that the garden should recover from the recent chilly nights! Wind gusts have been a problem, though. A lot of the corn stalks were blown over, some flat to the ground. I added twine supports around the bed, but I don’t know just how badly damaged they were. I’ll find out for sure if the stalks start turning brown and drying up! We’re so close to being able to harvest corn, too.

Anyhow…

If you want to compare with previous photos, you can check out these posts. (Links will open in new tabs, so you don’t lose your place!)

July 28
July 30
August 1
August 3
August 5

Once again, we start with the Summer of Melons mix in the Easternmost bed, East facing side.

We actually lost one of the melons on this side, but I did include a new one that is getting big enough I’m pretty sure it’ll make it. There’s a few others that are getting bigger, but I’m still not sure about them, yet.

The West facing side doesn’t have as many melons growing on it… yet? I’ve been letting the vines sprawl among the onions on this side, and there may well be some I haven’t found under the leaves.

Next is the pumpkin and drum gourd bed – but no pictures of drum gourds this time.

The one pumpkin that I figured was dying off is now officially dead. I broke it off and could see it was starting to rot underneath.

I’m surprised by how quickly the oldest and largest pumpkin is turning orange!

Next is the winter squash interplanted with peas and beans.

Yes, one of those that looked like it was drying, finally broke off its stem. There’s one other that I think might be a loss, but we shall see.

The unfortunate thing was the large, round blue squash. It had a board under it, and was leaning against the log frame. When I found it, it had rolled onto its top and was sitting completely upside down. I went to flip it over, and the stem broke right off. I’m pretty sure it was already partially broken from when the squash rolled onto it.

We do seem to have another of the same variety in the other bed, though, so maybe we’ll still get one that fully matures before it’s harvested!

The squash with the corn was harder to check on.

Not only was I pushing back leaves to try and get clear photos of the developing squash, but I also had to carefully lift the corn stalks that had been blown over, on top of them!

Last of all is the second melon bed, East side first.

In the second photo, you can just see the yellow end of a smaller melon that has died off behind a larger one.

On the West facing side, the single Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon hasn’t even dropped its blossom yet. I’m not seeing any other female flowers developing.

The rest seem to be doing quite fine and getting bigger.

Looking at the long range forecast, it seems that August will continue to be comfortably hot, right into the beginning of September. We might get away with no frost until the end of September. One can hope! I’ll take very frost free day we can get.

While driving around today, though, I heard on the radio that we are coming into a La Nińa winter. Which, for our area, translates into a cold and rainy fall, and a bitterly cold winter.

Like we need another one of those.

We were spoiled by last winter’s mild El Nińo winter, that’s for sure!

Well, we shall see what we get. I just really, really want the cold to hold off long enough for all these melons, pumpkins and squash to fully mature, after having such a late start this spring!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: melons, squash, pumpkins – and our first drum gourds!

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It’s time for my progress report! If you’d like to see the earlier photos to compare, you can visit the posts from July 28, July 30 and August 1. Links will open in new tabs, so you don’t lose your place. 😊

I work my way from one end to the other, and try to follow the same pattern, so once again we start with the Summer of Melons mix in the future trellis bed.

This includes the new melons I found earlier today. I put bricks under the melons touching the ground, except the new ones. I’ve been training the vines of those on the netting, but they came loose, so they ended up on the ground again. I was hoping to avoid using more jute twine in training them, but tomorrow morning, I’ll have to make a point of bringing it with me when I do my morning rounds. I’ve got the wrong kind of netting for this. This finer netting is more for keeping birds out, but it’s what I had. The wider netting I’ve got the peas and beans climbing on would work better, as I could weave the vines around the netting.

As for the melons hanging above ground, some of them look like they’re going to need hammocks to support their weight soon!

Next are the pumpkins.

There is one that’s looking more and more yellow. I suspect this is a sign that it is going to be a loss, and that it will start to shrivel or rot on the vine. We shall see.

We have some first photos this time!

These are the African Drum Gourds I’ve found so far. At this stage, it’s still possible they aren’t properly pollinated and might just dry up and fall off the vine. I hope not! If I’d spotted the female flowers earlier, I would have hand pollinated them, just to be on the safe side. Ah, well. I’m just thrilled to see any at all.

They have the softest fluff on their surface at this stage, too!

Next is the winter squash bed with the peas and beans.

There’s a couple in there that may or may not make it, and one with a flower that will probably open tomorrow – and I’ll me sure to look out for it to hand pollinate it!

Next is the winter squash bed with the corn.

These were transplanted later, so there aren’t as many squash developing. I did find another with a flower that I hope to hand pollinate tomorrow.

The second melon bed is the one I was really thrilled to go over today!

There are so many hidden melons I found among the leaves today! There is even what looks like the first female Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon about to bloom. There are no male flowers, though. Unless there is a sudden overnight burst of male flowers, this one won’t have a chance to fully develop. I don’t think it can cross pollinate with the other melons!

This being the beginning of August, I don’t think we’ll get any watermelon this year. Yes, it’s a short season variety, but just about everything is behind about a month or more. Mind you, this year has been full of surprises, so I guess anything can happen between now and first frost!

I love having things in the garden that let you see just how much growth is happening, in such a short time! Even with taking photos every second day, I can see – and sometimes feel – the difference. Then there’s finding new ones, hidden under the leaves like that. It’s like Christmas! 😄

I so look forward to being able to harvest and try these! Well, not the drum gourds, of course. 😄

This may be the strangest gardening year we’ve had so far, but in a way, I’ve found it to be the most fun, too!

The Re-Farmer