At about 5:30 am, I was awakened, first by a flash of light, then about a half second later, a massive peal of thunder! That I even saw the flash of light at all, through my mostly sheltered, small, west facing window, tells me more than anything just how bright it was, never mind being awakened by it.
Almost immediately after, we got hit with a sudden downpour, along with a light show and more thunder. It was gone as suddenly as it started, moving quickly across the region. Looking at the weather radar, the system was a wide, narrow band of severe weather sweeping to the southeast. Later in the day, I was hearing reports from various other towns and cities that experienced much the same thing. Mostly clear skies with just a few clouds, a quick deluge as the system hit, then clear and sunny again!
My plan had been to head to the city early in the day to do our second stock-up shop, so as to avoid the storms predicted for the afternoon. Instead, we got the storms early, and I headed out later!
While doing my morning rounds, I found there was very little damage. A couple of downed branches, and this…
This dead spruce was actually on the ditch side of the fence line. I remember looking at it, earlier this summer, and thinking we could probably take that down before it falls…
I’m not sure how we’re going to clean this up now. It’s not really accessible. The lilac hedge envelops the base, and I don’t want to create a gap in the hedge. It’ll just give the deer another place to jump through.
We’ll figure it out. Assuming the lilacs holding it up don’t just give out and it falls the rest of the way down on its own.
As for the rest of the day, it has been hot and muggy. According to the weather app on my computer, we’re at 28C/82F, but it feels like 30C/86F. We’re supposed to hit 30C/86F tomorrow, then again a couple of days after, before things start to cool down slightly, again. I check different apps, and some say we’ll get more thunderstorms, while other don’t even say rain.
I’d like at least a couple of days of no rain and lower humidity, though, so I can get some painting done outside. Or cooler days without rain, so I can take down more dead trees.
The heat, however looks like it will be hanging around for a while, though!
My daughter and I had our trip to the city today. Feeling very thankful for air conditioning! The city is even hotter than we are right now. Here at home, we reached 34C/93F, and while the city hit 37C/99F. It’s also incredibly muggy. Like walking through soup. My daughters have a friend in Texas, who is apparently having the same conditions we are right now!
One of the things my daughter had on her list of things to pick up was a new set of wheels. Of all the bikes we have around the farm, including the mountain bike I got at a garage sale for $10, it would cost more to fix them up than to buy a new bike. At least the sort of bike that meets my daughter’s needs. We still plan to fix up the garage sale bike; basically, the only thing good on it is the frame and the seat. !! My husband says it looks like someone had scavenged it for parts. A new bike like it, however, would be very expensive so, for my husband, it would be worth fixing. He’s also the only one tall enough to ride it!
We went to Walmart, and this is the bike my daughter chose.
Image belongs to Walmart.ca
It’s a Huffy “Beach Cruiser”. It’s single speed, with a rear coaster brake. You pedal backwards to stop. Since we have no hills out here, a single speed bike is adequate. It has a very comfortable seat, according to my daughter. The pack on the handle bars is an insulated bag that has a weather proof cell phone holder on the top of the lid. Apparently, the clear plastic is touch screen enabled. Plus it has mesh pockets on the sides. The bike was also on sale, making it under $200, so that made it easy on her budget.
She got herself a helmet, too. There are bike helmets here, but they’ve been sitting in the barn and we have no idea how old they are – or how many spiders have made their home in them!
After we finished the rest of our shopping, we discovered a problem.
Getting it into the car.
The handle bars kept getting in the way. We finally figured we’d have to remove the handle bars, but didn’t have the tools for it. So while my daughter finished bagging up our other shopping, I dashed back into the store to find a tool. They had a single bike multi-tool in stop, so I snagged it. When I got back to the car, though, I discovered my daughter had managed to get it in! It took some twisting and turning, but she was able to work around those handlebars and get it in with room to spare.
It’s amazing what we can fit in the back of my mother’s little car!
My husband had picked up some bike tool kits so that he can work on cobbling together the garage sale bike, so now my daughter has her own bicycle multi-tool she can keep in one of those pockets on the insulated bag.
Once we got home and unloaded, my daughter rode it around the house a few times. It’s been years since any of us have ridden a bike. Testing out the garage sale bike doesn’t count. She and I both tried it out and basically fell over immediately. 😆
For now, we’ve set aside the makeshift table we used for the transplants to make room to store it in the sun room. Eventually, it’ll get stored in the garage. She wants to be able to take the bike into town and explore; something that’s more convenient to do with a bike than a car.
Hmm… According to the weather app, we’re raining right now. Except, we’re not. I’m seeing blue skies and a lot of wind out my window. Interestingly, the updated weather app that came with my computer now has a “Seeing different weather?” link on the mini-map. I was able to actually submit what we’re seeing here, rather than what their weather stations are reading. None of those weather stations are near us.
A large part of our province is currently under a severe thunderstorm watch, though much larger areas to the north and east of us are under extreme thunderstorm watches. It’d be nice if this system went further north of us, first, with rain to help quell the forest fires up there, but it’ll move out of our province well below where most of them are.
Meanwhile, we’ve got fans going all over the place, including in some of the windows, blowing air out of the house, rather than pulling hot, muggy air into the house! Even at night, the girls are really struggling upstairs with the muggy heat. We’ve got to find some way to get an air conditioner set up for them up there! It would have to be a portable one. The problem is, figuring out how to set one up with the types of windows we have. The other problem is, those things are frikkin’ expensive! Especially one powerful enough to cool down the entire upstairs. Maybe, at the end of the summer, we’ll be able to pick one up on clearance or something. Just in time for when the upstairs turns into a freezer for the winter. 😕
Ah, well. We’ll get it worked out, one of these days.
Early this morning, we were already at 20C/68F, and I don’t think we got any cooler overnight. We did have a series of thunderstorms pass us by during the night. Plenty of lightning visible. Here, we got some rain, thankfully! Enough to noticeably change the level of water in the rain barrel, at least.
By the time I headed outside, it was already 25C/77F. With the heat yesterday, and today expected to be even hotter, I mowed the inner yard last night, starting quite late. By the time I was done, there was barely any light left. This morning, I could see the parts I missed in the dark! 😄 No matter. At least the main areas got done. Around the main garden area and the rest of the outer yard still need to be done.
I am so appreciating the loan of that riding mower!!!
No mowing today, though. We’re supposed to reach 33 or 34C/91 – 93F today. More storms are supposed to come through, so hopefully we’ll get more rain. My younger daughter and I will be going to the city today, and they are supposed to reach 36C/97F today. Thankfully, the AC in my mother’s car works!
I just got interrupted by some alarmed squeaking.
From these guys.
We put the cat cave into the cat cage, but the kittens don’t want to be in there. They can crawl out, but can’t get back in, anyhow. Last night, I heard alarmed squeaking, and when I checked, Decimus had moved two of them into the cat cave, so I quickly put the other two with her.
Just now, I checked the cage and saw three squeakers, but heard another squeak from somewhere else.
My closet.
I have boxes at the bottom of one end to protect the floor, because Nosencrantz kept pooping there. Decimus discovered she could get into one of them and had moved a kitten into it! This is not a good place for them, so I took it out and put it back in the cat cage. Decimus was in the cave again, with one of her kittens, so I put the remaining three in with her.
One cat has not moved her kittens, though.
So far, Caramel is keeping her babies under the cat house.
I have no idea what Adam is trying to do to her in the photo, but it’s funny looking, and I’m glad I caught the moment!
There are at least three kittens under there. Looks like an orange and white, a tortie or muted calico, and a grey tabby. There’s a leg on the orange and white’s head that I can’t figure out, so there is probably a fourth kitten in there, somewhere.
They are so close to the opening, I’m seriously considering pulling them out and putting them in the cat carrier. Caramel would likely go in with them – I’ve actually been able to pet her when she’s on the cat house roof! – but then what would we do with them? We can’t put them in baby jail with Decimus. There’s not enough room. We have no other space for them. The Cat Lady isn’t able to take in more cats or kittens, either.
So, they stay where they are, for now. At least they’re still close to the house, nice and dry, and protected from the heat.
Well, we’re not going to hit our predicted high of 30C/86F, but got close enough to not matter!
I took this screen shot after my daughter and I got back from the city. Last night, my older daughter asked when I had time to go in, and since today was going to be basically heat stroke weather, I figured a trip to the city in an air conditioned car would not be a bad thing! Since my younger daughter had their shopping list, in preparation for joint Father’s Day and birthday celebrating, I went ahead and got a few things, too.
While today’s heat is not conducive to debranching and dragging out dead trees, I did manage to get some tiny steps done yesterday evening.
I marked out where the first pair of mid-height raised beds, with a permanent trellis tunnel, will be. I’m rather impressed with how close it matched the Ruth Stout potato and melon bed. That was determined by the size of the black tarp we lay down to start killing of the grass, first. The posts at the far end are just a few inches longer than the straw bed.
The posts across the ends are all 4 ft apart. There will be a path down the middle, and the logs for the walls of the beds will be placed inside the markers, so that they will be 4 ft wide on the outside. Yes, we will loose some growing space; especially once the vertical posts for the trellis tunnel are put in, but the width is for reach and accessibility, not growing space.
The beds will be 18 ft long – twice the length of the high raised bed beside it. I used the high raised bed to first mark out the south end and the middle of the first bed, then I could use those markers to help make a straight line to 18 ft at the north end.
My tape measure only goes to 16 ft. 😄 Not a problem, but it was funny! Once I had the corners of the first bed marked out, I used them to mark out the second bed.
I must say, trying to place those old conduit pipes I was using to mark the corners, really illustrated how much we need to make raised bed. I was able to use a piece of board to hammer most of them in, just enough that they could hold themselves up, but with some of them, they simply would not go into the ground. I ended up using a hoe to loose the top couple of inches, only for it to still not go into the ground. So I’d use the hoe again, until I could finally get the post to stay up. It wasn’t just that I was hitting rocks, but the ground in places were just as hard as the rocks! The only exception was when I pushed a post to mark in the middle, lined up with the north end of the high raised bed. That one post was in the middle of the amended garden space, and I was able to push it easily into the soil. The other posts were just along the edges of the amended soil.
The next step will be to remove the straw mulch from where the beds will be, and make a shallow trench were the long logs will rest on the ground, so they don’t roll away. For these beds, we’ll use salvaged shorter logs – we still have lots of 4 ft lengths from getting the chipping done available to use – and screw them into the ends of the long logs to hold them in place.
Once the vertical supports for the trellis are installed and the walls and ends secured, we’ll do some layering of organic material – the straw we took out, wood chips and whatever else we have available – before topping the space with garden soil.
Then I can finally transplant those melons we have waiting, and maybe even have space to do some direct sowing. At this point, anything we direct sow has to have a growing season of under 90 days, including the time needed to germinate. Under 80 days would be better.
If we can manage to get two beds with trellises done this spring, I will be very happy. We’ll be dropping quite a few things that I hoped to plant this year, simply because it’s taking so long for us to get these beds ready. Still, we did manage to get quite a few things in, among the various garden beds we have spread out around the inner yard.
Over time, we still plan to have garden beds built in the outer yard. With those, we can focus on having things that get harvested all at once in the fall in the outer yard, while things that get harvested throughout the summer will be planted closer to the house.
We’ll see how the timeline works out! I do see that we’re going to need at least another truck load of garden soil before then. That probably won’t be purchased until next year, though, at the earliest.
In the time it took me to write this, we are now past 4pm, and we’re still at 29C/84F, so we’re not going to be heading out to work on the garden beds tonight. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get out early in the morning, before things start getting too hot.
Meanwhile, my younger daughter and I got a big job, done in tiny snips, done this afternoon.
We decided to work on Decimus’ matted fur.
What we ended up doing was laying a towel on my bed, then putting all her kittens on it, then getting her out of the cat cage – a space she clearly considered her safety zone! – and putting her with her kittens. While one of us comforted her by stroking her head and neck, and holding her in place, the other worked on snip snip snipping away. We got a burr buried in fur off of one of her legs, and another off her back, before focusing on the big mat covering her back.
It was even bigger than we thought.
It was easily as big as my daughter’s hand.
While Decimus did try to get away or squirm around a few times, I think she could feel improvement, and became much more patient. As we took turns snipping away, depending on who could get the best angle at the time, I could see that her skin was pulled up and even twisted in places. You could see folds of skin dropping down, bit by bit, as we snipped the fur away. There was a lot of cat dandruff stuck in there, too, and we even found a smothered bug! No signs of any other insects or lice, thankfully. It easily took at least 10 minutes to get that one mat off.
Once we finally got the piece free, we let her go. She had been so patient! Her back is pretty much completely shorn now. There is another large mat on her back end, but we will give her a break before working on that one. Then there are all the little ones, all over.
As soon as we let her go, she ran straight back into the cat cage and lay down on the baby nest! Her little grublings, meanwhile, had been squirming all around while she was getting trimmed, trying to find some nip. They were very happy to be back in the cage with Mom!
I think Mom is a lot happier now, too.
As for me… I think I need to go wash my bedding and certain towel, now!
I ended up not being able to get to doing outside work today.
It was actually cooler, but things are still too wet. I just got back from outside. It has cooled down to 23C/73F, and with the breeze, it’s gorgeous out there, but too dark to start anything.
I did, however, get to see a hole bunch of kitten out by the spirea and grape vines. So when I went out to feed the cats, I moved one of the kibble bowls over for them to discover. I’m guessing they must have already been hiding in the spirea, because just minutes later, I saw all six of them at the bowl, enthusiastically eating!
I did get some productivity in, and finally finished putting together video I took on June 1. Here is a tour of our garden, taking one day before our average last frost date.
Of course, a whole bunch has been done since then. I’ll aim to do another garden tour video on July 1 or so, to compare.
Well, the cat videos I took earlier were much shorter and quick to upload to YouTube, so here they are!
First, the kittens.
Gooby, meanwhile, decided he really loved my boot.
It’s past 6 as I write this, and we’re still at 31C/88F, with a humidex of 38C/100F. We’ve got all sorts of heat warnings going on. The hottest temperatures start at about 3pm, so I tried to do as much as I could outside, before we reached that point.
Today was a weed whacking day.
I was able to use the trimmer around all the raised beds. I could get in between them with the push mower, but that left a lot of tall crab grass and dandelions along the edges. The weed trimmer line can get under the logs a fair bit, so it makes quite a difference.
I also got the tall grass and weeds in the squash patch, then kept on going. Much of the area in the back is too rough for a mower, though my SIL did make a few passes across the area. I did the squash hill, and the corner on the left that’s in shadow.
I was really appreciating the shadows!
I did take a pause after the paths around the beds were done, to go to the post office.
My glasses were in!
The ones with the smaller lenses are what I wore as I continued working, as they were closer in size to my old glasses. They needed less getting used to. I didn’t want to be dealing with depth perception issues or head rushes while using the weed trimmer. I got use to the new prescription very quickly, though.
I’m wearing the larger lensed glasses now. Those are a lot like the glasses I used to wear through most of junior and senior high. I like the larger lenses, and I have better peripheral vision, but they do take a bit more getting used to seeing with.
After I finished the weed trimming and headed inside, I decided to try watching a movie on my desktop. I watched the entire movie, in one sitting, with zero eye strain! Not only that, but I can also tap or read messages on my phone, without having to take my glasses off!
I am quite happy with them, so far. I do feel nervous taking them on and off, though. The designs on both are a lot more delicate compared to my old glasses, so they feel very fragile. They aren’t, but it’ll take some getting used to!
After I had a chance to cool down and get used to my new glasses, I headed back outside to do a few things. One of those was to water all the garden beds. In this heat, even the stuff that is mulched is needing it.
Once again, I found so many frogs coming out from under the boards covering the Uzbek Golden carrots! I checked and saw that carrots were sprouted, so removed the boards. I set them along the edge of the bed, on top of the mulch, making sure to dampen the mulch first, so the frogs will still have somewhere moist and cool to rest under.
When watering the Spoon tomatoes I transplanted last night, I found on looking like it has slumped over in the heat. It turned out to be snapped above the lowest branch. I broke the top off the rest of the way, but the remaining stem may actually do okay.
There is more weed trimming to do, but I’m done for the day. In fact, I’m seriously considering going to bed once I’m done this post!
That is, if the cats on my bed would give me any space.
Not a lot of progress outside, today, and only partly because I went out this afternoon.
It’s past 5:30pm as I write this and, according the the weather apps, we’ve cooled down to around 27C/ 81F or 29C/84F, though we most certainly reached higher than 30C/86F today. The high predicted for today was “only” 27C/81F
When I got home, just a little while ago, I saw this reading.
Since we are no longer bringing the transplants indoors overnight, I’ve been leaving the sun room doors wide open, to keep it cooler. There’s a ceiling fan helping things out, too. The thermometer is reading 38C/100F, and it really did feel cooler in the sun room than outside!
We’ve been feeding the outside cats earlier in the evenings, so they can get the food before the racoons clean everything out at night (though a skunk or two will show up any time of day), so I did that after unloading the car by the house, then parking it in the garage.
I tried to get a picture of Adam, but he was camera shy, so I caught him as he was jumping off the cat shelter roof. (It may be hotter up there, but the skunks can’t climb to it.) I haven’t seen Driver in Ages, but Adam has been hanging around, and I’ve been trying to pet him. I’ve managed to touch him, but he really doesn’t like it and goes away to eat somewhere else.
The problem is, I’m starting to think Adam is female. With the long fur, it’s hard to be certain without being able to cop a feel, which none of us has been able to do, but I would expect to at least be able to tell if there are some boy parts under that fur.
*sigh*
Which means that two of the white and greys we were unsure about turned out to be female, and now the two remaining black and white’s that we thought were male are female (I was able to confirm with Decimous, but she has not allowed me to touch her, since that one day I was able to scritch her neck and ears). One of the grey tabbies we couldn’t get close to also turned out to be female.
We may be getting a lot of humidity with our heat, but still no rain. The predicted storms either never materialize in our area (my mother’s town got quite the deluge, though!), or the predictions get pushed back another day or two. It never really cools down during the night, either. I’m glad I got a deep watering done this morning, including the Korean pine planted in the outer yard. We’re getting no rain at all.
This afternoon I went to town to meet up with a friend from high school who is in the area for a few days. We ended up having lunch in the shade by the beach. It was so much more pleasant with that breeze coming off the lake! There were even a few sail boats out, and one brave soul in the water, which would still be quite cold this time of year. We had a fantastic visit – and I got to update her, in person, about what happened with my stolen Facebook account. My thief has recently changed my profile name, so at least people won’t be getting confused about that anymore. My profile picture also got changed; apparently, I’ve lost 30 years, about 150 pounds and now dress like a skank.
I’m still bashing my head on the wall with Facebook’s recovery process, which is just broken. oftne, literally. Of all the ways to try and recover my account, there is one that should actually accomplish it effectively. The steps are to first find my old account while logged out of any other accounts I might be using. Then, since I can’t log in using the thief’s email address, I select “try another way”. Then there’s a screen where I can say I cannot access the thief’s email address that is now associated with my original account. It then goes to a screen that explains they will ask for an email they can reach me at, send me a code to that email, then get me to submit proof of ID, which would be checked by a human, to recover my account.
The first time I went through this process, I got the code, but when it was time to confirm my ID, it went to a broken page. I’ve gone through processes that took me to that page many times, and it is usually broken.
Only once did I get to input my email, though. Now, when I get to that instructions page and hit next, it takes me straight to the “submit ID” part – which should be the last step, not the first. I’ve submitted my ID before, and the next page says to expect an email from them… but what email would they be using? I’m logged out of any account. I’ve told them I cannot access the email that shows up with the login for my original account. Would they still be contacting the thief’s account, anyway? I have no idea, because none of this seems to go through a human (even though this part is supposed to be done by both a program, and a real human).
So I continue to report my old account every day. I can’t report it as “imitating me” anymore, but I can report it as a fake account. And I know people still on my original friends list continue to report the scam posts the thief is making from my account. It’s rediculous.
It also makes it so hard to reconnect with people. They have every reason to ignore my friend requests (if I can even find them, or am able to send a request when I do) and the messages I try to send, explaining why they are getting a friend request from me. The friend I met with today told me she had been talking to other mutual friends about the strange posts coming from my account, and these are people I’d sent friend requests to. Requests that must have been declined, because when I find their pages again, I no longer have the option to send a friend request. Hopefully, now that my friend and I have been able to talk in person, she’ll be able to pass on to our mutual friends, which account is really me now. I was also able to explain to her exactly what happened that lead to my account being stolen, rather than hacked, because I did something stupid while distracted, and thinking I was helping a friend.
Facebook’s tech support is such a disaster.
I think scammers count on FB being so useless at recovering accounts, and users giving up because of it, rather quickly. From what I’ve hear from others who have lost their accounts, they basically just started new accounts and moved on after a very short time. I’m thinking that, at some point, I’m going to wear the system down and get some action taken – even if it’s to delete my old account, which would be preferable to having my thief using it to scam people! If it weren’t for that, I would have moved on from trying to recover my account, but… well… it’s not like I have a name that is shared by a lot, or even a few, other people. My married name is one of a kind. I’ve done curiosity searches on my name, and the only things that come up are directly related to me. So someone out there doing scams under my name is causing more direct harm to me than if I had a more common name.
What a pain.
Bah. Enough of that!
Time to go back to coping with this sticky, humid heat we’ve been under!
I meant to get up earlier to get things watered before it got too warm, but it was feeling too warm, right from the start. We’re getting heat warnings now, as we’re supposed to get even hotter on the weekend, with predicted highs of 30C/86F+, and a humidex of 38C/100F
My daughter and I got the transplants out, and I was on the road soon after. I went to the nearest Canadian Tire, where I could get the air filter I need for their brand of lawn mower that we have, as well as a spare roll of weed trimmer line. I couldn’t believe how much more expensive those are now! The air filter wasn’t cheap, either. I will not be getting more fire bricks this month. I can’t justify it in the budget. I’d brought a couple of our water jugs along to refill in town on the way home, but realized I could fill them at Canadian Tire for half the price, so I did that, too. Which meant I didn’t have room in the cart for the stove pellets that I also had on my list, so when I was asked if I needed help with getting to the car (they are stored in the exit vestibule, so they need to be paid for first, then picked up), I said yes. When a strapping young man arrived to help out and I told him I paid for 2 bags, but they wouldn’t fit in the cart with the jugs of water, he grabbed one 40 pound bag first and followed me to the car. With heavy stuff like that, I try to make sure the weight is evenly distributed above the axle, so I took the bag from him and tossed it where I wanted it to go myself.
He gave me a rather strange, surprised look when I did that!
While he went back for the second bag, I made sure the water jugs were in the middle before I took the second bag from him and fit it on the other side of the jugs.
I got another strange look.
Yes. Short, fat, middle aged women can have muscle, too! 😂
Once everything was put away, I drove across the street to the Walmart and picked up a couple of things I hadn’t been able to get during my Costco run. By that time, our pharmacy was open, so I messaged my husband, asking him to phone in my refills for pick up. The drive to town was more than long enough for them to be able to get that ready.
My husband had let me know that there were several packages read for pick up at the post office, but they were closed for lunch by the time I got to town, so a gassed up and headed home. The driving today burned about half a tank of gas! My mother’s car is not very good on gas, but with a heavy load and the A/C going, it sure does burn through more!
Once at home and unloaded, I left the car in the yard, and my daughter later loaded it with garbage and recycling. I didn’t think to check until we were already heading out, and my daughter was closing the gate behind us. It was just 2pm. We have a card to show the attendant that includes the summer and winter hours for the three dumps in our municipality.
The dump opens at 2pm in the winter. We’re in summer hours now. It wasn’t going to open for another 2 hours!
Neither of us liked the idea of leaving the car to bake in the sun while full of garbage, so we headed out, anyhow. We picked up the parcels, then kept going back to town, with plans to check out the lake. My daughter mentioned she hadn’t eaten yet today, because of the heat, so I got her fed, first. The drive and the meal used up an hour for us! Then we went walking on the beach.
The town had just recently raked the beach, so it was all smooth and clean.
I much prefer the rocky parts of the beach, though.
It’s far more interesting!
Looking at the weather app, town was 5° cooler than home! What a difference the lake makes. As hot as things are right now, no one was in the water. It would still be too cold for swimming.
It sure was nice to walk the beach with that cool breeze coming off of it! It’s been ages since we’ve gone to the beach.
After that, we headed back and got to the dump pretty much just as it opened, then back home.
I need to get outside and water some of the garden beds, but it’s still too warm. It’s 25C/77F right now, and I don’t want to risk burning plants with the hot water from the hose being in the sun all day, only to then shock them with cold well water. We’ve had smatterings of rain, but not enough to increase the water level in the rain barrel. I could fill it with a hose and let it warm up, but you can bet that once I did that, we’d finally get one of those thunderstorms they keep predicting, and I’d have to set up the diverter! 😄
For now, I’m just enjoying being home. I still need to help my mother with errands tomorrow. I keep forgetting to call the garage to arrange to bring the van in to be checked out, but we’ll need to do that soon.
I look forward to when all the running around is done for a good long while! I want to crawl into my hermit cave now. 😄
With the weather we’ve been having, I have been feeling really anxious about getting the garden in “in time”, when we physically don’t have places prepared for everything yet. I feel like I’m falling behind, and everything is being planted late.
Then I remind myself.
Today is May 29. Normally, I wouldn’t be transplanting or doing a lot of direct sowing until after June 2.
Still, with the weather forecast being what it is, the more we get in the ground now, the more time we’re adding to our short growing season.
I headed out shortly after 7am this morning, to beat the heat, and didn’t come back in until almost 11. It was already feeling too hot by 8am, but I stuck it out as long as I could. My main focus was to finish planting in the beds the tomatoes were transplanted into, and get something into the high raised bed.
I’m still bordering everything with the yellow onions. I decided to plant bush beans in the high raised bed. That will make harvesting so much easier on the back!!
There wasn’t a lot of space left in the low raised beds, though that is partly because of the boards protecting the tomatoes. Once those are removed, it will open things up.
In the bed on the far left, with the Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes, I sowed all the Gold Ball turnips in one half, and Merlin beets in the other. These were densely planted in many short rows, more Square Foot Gardening style. When we planted the Gold Ball turnips last year, something ate them pretty much as soon as they germinated. I’m hoping surrounding them with onions will help keep away whatever ate them – I never saw any hint of what it was. I had intended to put a floating row cover over the turnips to protect them, but the space is too narrow for that.
In the bed with the Black Beauty tomatoes, I planted one long row of Uzbek Golden carrots. There was only space for the one row, which I then covered with boards. I will check under the boards daily and remove them as soon as I see carrots sprouting.
Both beds got a thick mulch of grass clippings along the outside, next to the onion transplants. Aside form helping keep the soil cool and moist, and slow down the weeds that come up from under the log boarders, the grass will also help prevent soil runoff while watering. I’ve basically used the last of our grass clippings at this point. We haven’t been keeping up with the mowing, unfortunately. Not only are the dandelions now all going to see, but in a lot of places, so is the grass!
With the high raised bed, I planted the yellow Custard beans – a new variety for us – on the left in the photo, and the green Lewis beans – a variety we’ve grown before – on the right. At each end, I stuck in a few more onion transplants. By this point, only the smallest yellow onion transplants are left, and I was planting them a bit closer to each other than usual, but I was still left with may 10 little transplants left. They’re so small, I probably shouldn’t bother transplanting them, but I’m sure I’ll find someplace to shove them into the ground!
(As an aside, while working on all this, I was happy for a breeze that kept away the mosquitoes. It wasn’t enough to keep away what turned out to be horseflies! Thankfully, they didn’t seem interested in bighting me today. Just in dive bombing my head.)
The large low raised bed you can see on the right is still completely empty. I’m considering using it for the Roma tomatoes, which are growing much faster than expected – one bin in particular is has plants so big, if it weren’t for the labels, I’d have thought they were Black Beauties or Indigo Blues that were started so many weeks earlier! Why that one bin of Romas is so much larger than the others that were started at the same time is an interesting question. I was originally wanting to plant peppers in that bed, but the Roma tomatoes need transplanting more urgently. I wont’ be able to fit all of them in there, but if I can at least get the biggest ones transplanted, that would be a good thing.
Before heading in, I made sure to water the corn bed, too. There are corn seedlings popping up now! I’m quite happy to see them. I was afraid that, with the heat and minimal rain, they might not make it. Checking the raised box beds in the East yard, I was happy to be able to see more carrot seedlings showing their true leaves, without having to look close and wonder, are those seed leaves carrots, or a weed? It’ll still be a while before the carrots are strong enough that we can safely weed around them. Right now, weeding mostly involves removing the biggest leaves from the weeds, and pulling and dandelion flower buds, and being careful not to disturb any carrot roots.
I was thinking of doing more transplanting later today but, at this point, I think the mowing is a more urgent priority. Not just because of how overrun both the inner and outer yards are getting, but because I need the grass clippings!
I also want to get in and around the garden beds and where the squash will be planted with the weed wacker.
When I came in, my weather app said it was 23C/73F. I think it felt quite a bit warmer than that! We’re supposed to reach a high of 26C/79F, with chance of a 43% chance of thunderstorm at about 4pm. I suspect I will have no problem getting out and doing the weed whacking when it’s cooler.
For now, though, it’s time to stay inside, stay cool, and hydrate!
It’s not even 11am as I start this, but I’ve already put in several hours in the garden, trying to beat the heat. Which wasn’t easy, since it was already feeling too hot when I was doing my rounds, first. The weather app was saying 18C/64F, but it felt hotter. It would be good to set up a thermometer in the garden area again.
My focus today is to get the Indigo Blue Chocolate done, and as many of the Black Beauty as I can fit, plus an edging of yellow onions. There are only 11 Indigo Blue and, at about a foot apart, they will easily fit in one row in the bed I chose for them. This bed is somewhat narrower, so it will be able to fit one more row, plus the onions around the edge.
The problem?
There are 26 Black Beauty transplants.
I also counted the Roma tomatoes as I set them out. There are 61, though the plant that broke in the wind yesterday is looking like it probably won’t make it.
Then there are the 30 Spoon tomatoes.
Right now, we have 2 more low raised beds, which are about 15ft long, for about 14ft of growing length. Then there is the high raised bed, which is 9′ x 4′ on the outside, so about 8′ x 3′ of growing space. Aside from a small section in the wattle weave bed in the old kitchen garden, and 4 blocks between the gourds at the chain link fence, that’s all we have left for prepared beds. The squash patch needs work and, of course, we need to get those trellis beds built.
Meanwhile, the lawn is getting out of control, we still need to cut down the dead spruce trees that will be used to make the trellis beds, as well as pre-cut and drag over the trees I cut down for the trellises.
As it is, I did as much as I could this morning, then had to head in to get out of the heat. We are at 24C/75F right now – yes, to me that’s way too hot already! – and we are supposed to reach 30C/86F this afternoon.
I got the Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes in, after setting up three of the salvaged T posts to hold their vertical supports, then transplanted some of the yellow onions along the outer edge. The tomatoes were starting to wilt already, so I added a grass clipping mulch around them and along the outer edge of the low raised bed on the one side, being careful not to cover the onions before giving them a final watering.
I was planning to plant the Black Beauty tomatoes on the other half, but I think I will put them in another bed, instead, and direct sow something else with them.
Unless I fill an entire bed with just Black Beauty tomatoes, I will have room for only about half of the transplants. And I don’t want to fill an entire bed with them. A dozen plants is more than enough for fresh eating. The Romas are the only variety that I’d be willing to dedicate an entire bed to, since those are being grown specifically for preserving.
Meanwhile, we’re still getting storm warnings for tomorrow evening. We’ll see if the system reaches us or not, but be ready to protect the garden beds, just in case.
For now, I will be staying out of the heat! Maybe get a nap in, since I will likely be working outside once it starts cooling down, and staying as long as daylight holds.
Yeah. That sounds like a good plan. I didn’t get much sleep last night!
The Re-Farmer 