Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon

Our 2025 Garden: setting up a trellis, and transplanting melons

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Once the frame for the low raised bed was finally assembled, it was time to set up a trellis, then do some transplanting.

This time, I got to use actual new, never before used by anyone else, metal posts to hold the wire! I had picked up four of these posts at Dollarama, and they seem like a really good product.

Rather than set the posts right at the freshly attached end logs, I set the end posts about a foot in from the ends, which turned out to be roughly 15′ apart in the 18′ bed, so the other two were set about 5′ apart. And by “feet”, I mean literally my booted feet. 😁

At the end closer to those trees we need to get rid of, I had to actually dig around with the garden fork to pull up the rocks I kept hitting, trying to push the post in!

Then I went to the old squash tunnel and snagged the last 2″ square wire mesh. There’s still one section with chicken wire on it. I find the 6 sided shapes bend and stretch out of shape too much for my liking, so I’m not sure what I’ll use that for.

The square wire mesh was about 18′ ong, so there was excess to work with.

One of the things about these posts is that they have hooks on them to hold stuff like this, which you can see in the second image of the slideshow above. There’s four hooks like that, with the opening facing up, along the top 2/3 or so, then two in the bottom third, facing the other way.

Very convenient, except it was remarkably difficult to get all of them hooked up at the same time!

It was still much easier to get the wire mesh up evenly than on the salvaged T posts I used for the pea trellis.

Once the trellis was done, it was time to finally do some transplanting!

Once again, the trellis posts dividing the bed into 3 sections came in handy, as I had three types of melon to transplant. There were four each of the honeydew and Sarah’s Choice (cantaloupe type) melons. Then there were the Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon. There are two larger plants, plus one really tiny one I probably shouldn’t have bothered with, but I can’t just toss the poor thing!

I decided to transplant all of them melons on the East side of the trellis, so they will get the morning sun, and the three watermelons would be on the south end of the bed.

As with the winter squash, I set up collars made from 4L water bottles that my husband uses for his CPAP humidifier. Those are turning out to be very handy!

Once I spaced out each collar and set them into the soil, just enough to keep them from blowing away, I added a handful of manure into each. That got well mixed into the very, very dry soil, the collars reset in place, and then I made low trenches in the soil around them, to drain water down towards the roots.

Then everything got a thorough soaking. Which got sucked up like a sponge, so I did it again.

Even with filling the collars with water, as well as the trenches around them, when I dug down to plant the melons, I was still reaching super dry soil!

Everything got another thorough watering, once the transplants were in.

Then I grabbed the wagon and headed to the outer yard to rake up grass clippings to use as mulch. Thankfully, that area is far enough away that it’s not filled with Chinese elm seeds! The inner yard is practically drifted with them.

Once the melons were surrounded by mulch, it got yet another thorough watering. I wanted to make sure the mulch was wet all the way through, not just on top.

As these get bigger, I plan to train them up the trellis as best I can. Last year, we had a 4″ plastic trellis net, and it really sagged under the weight of the vines, so I’m hoping this set up will work better. I will probably still have to add cross pieces at the tops. The wire extends about 4″ above the top hook on the posts, so I should be able to weave supports through the mesh fairly easily. The posts also have holes in them so, if necessary, I can use twine or something to stake them out at the ends, so the weight of melons doesn’t pull them towards the middle.

That took care of one half of the bed.

I have decided that I will plant our Spoon tomatoes in the other half.

Several of them are staring to bloom now! These are indeterminants that can grow quite tall, so they will have their own individual supports, plus the trellis, to hold them up. I’ve got nine Spoon tomato transplants, so there will be room to plant something else with them, if I wanted to. Some bush beans, perhaps.

I’m hoping to be able to get them in tomorrow morning, since the bed is pretty much ready, and there’s even extra mulch waiting in the wagon for them. My daughter has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, and we’re planning on leaving early. Chances are, we’ll need to go to the pharmacy after her appointment, and I will likely take advantage of the driving around to do some of the shopping we weren’t able to do during our stock up shops, so it might be a long day of driving around! Which means the morning will be pretty much the only time I’ll have available to get any more transplants in.

After the Spoon tomatoes are in, that leaves the peppers and eggplant to be planted in the old kitchen garden, and the rest of the tomatoes should fit in one of the low raised beds in the East yard. The other low raised bed will have our short season corn planted in it, with more bush beans planted in between.

By the time those are in, the elm seeds should be done dropping, and I can finally do something about that bed along the chain link fence. The mesh tunnel may be all bent up, but it’s still doing its job of keeping the bed from being suffocated by seeds. I’ll be replanting the bed with my remaining packet of Hopi Black Dye sunflower seeds, and pole beans.

I might skip planting into the chimney block planters at the other section of chain link fence entirely, this year. I’ll have to see how badly the elm roots have invaded. There’s still the trellis bed that still needs work, but can be planted in before that’s done. Plus, the bed in the old kitchen garden that will be getting wattle weave walls added. It could probably be planted in before that’s done, too.

It feels like I’m way behind on getting the direct sowing done, but it’s only June 2 today – our previous average last frost date. Which means most things couldn’t actually be safely direct sown until after today, anyhow! We had so many insanely hot days, lately, everything feels off.

Having said that, it’s June, now.

Half the year is pretty much gone already.

Good grief.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: potting up and wind damage

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Well, our plans to set netting over the beds I prepared yesterday got kiboshed. It was just too windy!

We did get some other stuff done, though.

Today, my daughter was available to help pot up some more pre-germinated seeds.

We got 4 of the 5 Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon seeds potted up, as well as a couple of Honeydew. There were still 2 Honeydew seeds, and the Kaho melon seeds, that were not germinated, so we ended up combining them into one tray. I’d gotten rid of the one Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon seed that didn’t germinate, as it seemed like it was not viable, but the remaining Honeydew seeds look like they might still germinate. I’m not sure about the Kaho seeds, though. They may simply be too old.

With the pre-germinated seeds potted up, there wasn’t room in the tray for the container with the remaining seeds, plus the container with the Zucca melon seeds, so they got stacked. The large Zucca melon seeds would need longer to germinated, but it does seem like it’s taking too long. I’m not sure we’ll get any at all this year. We shall see.

My daughter and I then went through some of my herb seeds to figure out what else we could be starting inside. In the end, I decided that I will buy transplants, instead, for the ones we want. I also seem to be missing some seed packets! I’ve no idea what happened to them.

We also talked about some of the flower seeds. I’d picked up some Baby’s Breath for my daughters, as my older daughter in particular really likes them. They looked them up and, apparently, they are considered invasive in our area. Which I find strange, since we already have some in a small flower garden where my mother had planted them, ages ago. They barely survive and are certainly not spreading! It’s part of the reason I got more seeds.

Once we were done, my daughter ended up staying in the basement for a while longer to use the exercise bike, so we could keep the heater on for longer. Later, we both headed outside to feed the cats, then go through the garden beds. I wanted to make sure she was on top of the plans I had, in case they had to take over for me for some reason.

She was very happy to see that her tulips are coming up, and we even spotted a few grape hyacinths emerging. No sign of the snow crocuses, though. We pulled back the black tarp to check out where I was thinking of planting the asparagus and strawberries, and it does look like the weeds and crab grass have been killed off well enough to use the space. The only issue will be the roots from the nearby elm trees, and I’m really hoping we can finally cut those down this year. In trying to clean the area up, I found stumps that showed others have tried to clear them away in the past, and they grew back, so I’ll have to take that into account when we finally get those taken down. It still blows me away, how much their roots have been getting into the garden beds and choking things out.

We checked on the beds that I want to cover with the netting, and had to refill more holes dug by the cats. Very frustrating, that we couldn’t cover them because of the wind.

Speaking of the wind, in the next photo of the slide show above, you can see an area in our spruce grove I was finally able to get to. I tell that we lost a few trees over the winter, and saw some that look like they came down within the past day or two. Cleaning up in there is going to be a huge job!

We checked on the netting I put over the bed at the chain link fence yesterday. Much to my surprise, one of the supports at an overlapping section had been completely pulled up and almost took a few others with it! It seems like the extra netting with the drawstring that would normally be the end of the row cover got caught somehow. Hopefully, that won’t happen again, and there was no damage.

The portable greenhouse was getting some wind damage, though.

In the last photo in the slideshow above, you can see the tear along the zipper. It has gotten bigger – big enough that cats could easily fit through, if they wanted. I’m not sure how to reattach it to the zipper. I did add some clear duct tape above the tear, in hopes it will prevent it from tearing more. We also found a tear in one corner where the tie downs are attached. The loop of fabric the cord was tied to actually tore loose from the plastic. The loop is part of a tie that is fastened to the frame itself on the inside, so it can’t go very far. The clear duct tape came in handy to cover the hole and, hopefully, prevent it from getting worse. I know the covers on these little greenhouses don’t last long, but we don’t even have any plants in it yet! High winds were why I’d hoped to set it up in a corner closer to the house, but the ground is just too uneven there.

I’ve been looking at 6mm greenhouse plastic online. What I’d really like to do is get a roll of it, but that’s well out of budget right now.

I keep looking at various notifications on my weather apps, telling me things like, light rain coming soon, or, rain will end soon. The problem is, we’ve had NO rain at all. According to the weather radar, we’ve got a system right on top of us, and we’re supposed to get rain for the next couple of hours, yet I’m not seeing a drop of rain out my window. At this rate, I’m going to have to hook up the hoses and start watering the winter sown beds! I might even have to fill the rain barrel I’ve set up with the hose, to have warmer water for the garden beds, because we sure aren’t getting any rain to fill it! Nor are we expecting any, for weeks.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a cooler day than today, though with the wind, today felt downright chilly. I’m really hoping the wind dies down, so we can get those nets set up. Given my pain levels today, it’s probably good I’ve got an enforced day of rest.

My husband, sweetheart that he is, ordered some Tai Fu lotion (not an affiliate link), that came in today. We’ve used this stuff, in balm form, in the past and it helped, but we were a lot less broken back then. I’m looking forward to trying it when I go to bed tonight. I hope it helps. Lord knows, the prescription stuff I tried a few years ago didn’t do much, and I’m hurting a lot more these days, then at that time. Between the lotion, and today’s enforced rest, I’m hoping to be able to get some work done tomorrow!

We shall see.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: tomato seeds potted up, melon seeds pre-germinating

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Okay, so working on that pipe is not going to happen today. Pain levels are on the upswing and I know if I try to work on it now, I’ll mess myself up for days.

So, instead, I worked on garden stuff!

The tomato seeds were all showing radicals, with some even starting to show seed leaves. It was time to get them into the seed starting mix.

The first image has the Black Beauty on the left, Spoon tomatoes on the right. Those Spoon tomatoes were really doing well! It’s hard to see, but all the Black Beauty seeds had radicals showing.

The next image has the Sub Arctic Plenty on the right. As a short season variety, it’s no surprise that they germinated so quickly. On the left are the Chocolate Cherry. I was a bit surprised that these were the slowest to germinate. I would have expected the Black Beauty to take the longest, considering they have the longest growing season needed.

I had to moisten more seed starter mix for this job, and I made sure to use hot water for that. By the time the cells were filled and the seeds were being transferred out of their trays, the damp mix was still warm. Warmer than the damp paper towels the seeds were on. Now they’re in the tray along with the Turkish Orange eggplant (there’s 6 visible seedlings there), the luffa (all three have finally emerged) and sweet bell pepper mix (no sign of any of those, yet). The bottom of the tray got warm water, too – I wanted to make sure those square peat pots had plenty of moisture to absorb, so they don’t try out the seed starting mix.

That done, I went through my next batch of seeds and decided to go for it with the melons. The White Scallop seeds were set aside for now, as they can wait until May to be done. I got the containers all prepped and labeled ahead of time, and even got some markers labeled for when it’s time to put them into seed starting mix.

For the watermelon, I used my older Cream of Saskatchewan and Kaho seeds. The Sarah’s Choice melon seeds are also older, but the Green Flesh Honeydew packet is new seeds.

Then there are the Zucca melons. Which are the giants. These seeds, which I made a point of scarifying by scraping their edges with a utility knife, are also older seeds, so I made a point of choosing the plumpest, most solid feeling seeds. Which could have been any of them, really. They were in quite good shape. I started 4 seeds. These are the ones that started out so well last year, only to be decimated by slugs, so any transplants we get out of these are going to require extra protection.

Four seeds each was what I was shooting for; we over did it with melons last year, and I want to cut back. With the Cream of Saskatchewan, there were only 5 seeds left in the pack, so I set them all out. With the Kaho watermelon, there were only 3 seeds left in the pack, so I guess that balances things out!

They all got covered with dampened paper towel, and are now set up on top of the aquarium light fixture. At this stage, they don’t really need light, but they do need warmth. I didn’t want to set up the other heat mat yet, and the light fixture is ever so slightly warm. Not as warm as a heat mat, but warm enough. Once they germinate and get transferred into trays, they’ll get a heat mat. It should be interesting to see how many germinate. Especially with the older seeds.

After this, the next things we might start indoors are some herbs and a few back-up White Scallop squash. Those can be started towards the end of April or beginning of May. I’m hoping we’ll be able to start using the portable greenhouse at around the same time. It really depends on those overnight temperatures inside the greenhouse, as we have no way to heat it. We won’t have the option to use the sun room this year, as the space is pretty much all set up for the cats now!

Ah, well. We’ll figure it out.

It felt good to be able to do some garden related stuff on such a dreary day.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: sleepy bees, afternoon harvest, and our mighty Crespo squash!

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Today was another one of those days where I just quickly fed the outside cats early, and left the rest of my morning routine for later. As I write this, we are at 16C/61F, with a “real feel” of 13C/55F.

I’m quite enjoying this, but it’s a bit cool for the garden.

And the critters.

Like these snoozy bumble bees!

Yes, there are three bees in that squash blossom!

Before I did what would normally be my morning rounds in the afternoon, I headed out to the town north of us to pick up more cat kibble at the livestock supply place. The inside cats’ kibble was out completely. With my mother’s upcoming eye appointment in the city on the day we would normally do our first stock up shop in the city, I decided to get two 40 pounds bags this time, for both the outside and inside cats. While I was in town, I hit the grocery store for a few items as well. Normally, I wouldn’t, as groceries are quite a bit more expensive, but not as expensive as the extra gas it would take to drive to the town nearer to home, where we usually do our smaller trips.

Once back home and everything put away, I gave both the inside and outside cats a light feeding. The outside cats were practically fighting each other to get at the bowls.

The inside cats, not so much! 😄

After feeding the outside cats, I could finally walk without having them try and trip me, meowing for food, and I was finally able to do the rest of my rounds. There was even things to harvest!

The two larger melons you can see in the photo fell off their vines as soon as I lifted them.

That little Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon is so tiny! With the stem completely shriveled up, though, there was no point in leaving it. I’m curious as to what it will look like, inside!

With the cooler weather, I wasn’t actually expecting to harvest tomatoes, but some of them looked ready enough. We have so many other tomatoes inside right now, these can stay in the bin in the cat free zone to ripe more before we use them. These are the Forme de Couer tomatoes – including one green one that broke off its vine as I was harvesting the red one next to it – and Black Cherry tomatoes. No San Marzano or Chocolate Cherries to harvest this time around.

Last night, my older daughter made a large pot of tomato soup using fresh tomatoes that was quite delicious. After I finished what I was doing outside, I got the Crockpot set up to make more tomato sauce/base. I used some of the small onions that were harvested yesterday, as well as 8 or 10 cloves of our garlic – the strings of garlic have been brought in from the garage and can now go into the root cellar, making room for the onions that can be braided. Then I just used up what vegetables we had on hand. This time, that included a Little Finger eggplant, one Dragonfly pepper (any more than that, and I probably couldn’t eat it), the one little green zucchini we had, and all the beans that were left over. It got whatever seasonings I felt like using (basil, thyme, paprika and turmeric, this time), plus salt and pepper, along with some olive oil and apple cider vinegar. Then as many tomatoes as could be fit into the Crockpot were added. This time, I seeded them, only to reduce the amount of liquid, so it won’t take so long to cook it down to the thickness we want.

This will be left to cook on high for a few hours, while there are people up and about to tend to it, then on low into the night, for maybe 6 hours. When the time runs out, the Crockpot automatically switches to the warm setting, which is still hot enough to keep cooking it. In the morning, it will be blitzed with the immersion blender, then go back on high, with the lid propped open to release moisture, until it’s cooked down to the thickness we want.

After that, we leave it to cool down completely, generally using some of it as a pasta sauce while it’s still hot. Once cooled, it’ll go into freezer bags and into the freezer. We can then use it later as a sauce, as the base for a tomato soup, or included in any “use watcha got” soup we make.

But I’m getting ahead of myself!

When I first headed out to check on the garden beds, I just had to get some photos of the Crespo squash. Our mighty, mighty Crespo squash! It is absolutely thriving!

I actually found two new squash developing, including the first one you see in the slideshow below.

Yup. That’s in the cherry trees! That one looks like it will be a survivor. It’s even bigger than the one in the second image that I’ve been watching. I wasn’t sure if that one got well pollinated or not. It’s starting to look like it has, but the first one that started growing in the trees died off when it was bigger than this, so it’s hard to say at this point.

The next photo shows one on a vine that’s stretching into the spruce grove. I’m pretty sure that one was successfully pollinated, and has a good chance of survival.

The next photo is of another surprise find. It was buried in the tall grass, so I weeded around it and set it on a brick to keep it off the wet ground.

I didn’t try to get photos of the two larger ones growing inside the bean trellis, but I just had to get a photo of the largest one, with my foot for perspective. THAT is more like they are supposed to look like. Though this one is still small for the variety, it’s the largest we’ve ever managed to grow, and I’ve been trying to grow these for something like four years now!

This new bed and location is definitely ideal for this squash. Even the deer are leaving it alone! Which is surprising, since they go through the path right next to the squash, to get in and out of the spruce grove, and I know they were eating the sugar snap peas in the bed not far away. The first year we grew these, the deer and groundhogs got to them several times before we could get enough barriers around them.

Now, we just need the frost to hold off longer, to give them a chance to mature more!

It would be great if we had another mild winter like last year, but that was a strong El Nino year, and this year we’re getting a strong La Nina – which typically means a colder, harsher winter, in our region. Which seems to be what the Old Farmer’s Almanac is predicting, too.

We shall see.

Until then, I’m going to appreciate the upcoming warm weather that’s in the forecast for the next week.

I know the garden sure will, too!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: morning harvest, and look what I found!

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I had a really slow start to the day. For some reason, I just couldn’t fall asleep last night. By around 3am, I was hungry, so I got up to eat, then went back to be. I finally fell asleep somewhere around 4 am.

I still woke with the light, 2 or 3 hours later. I asked my daughters to take care of feeding the outside cats for me, so I could try and get more sleep.

Which sort of worked.

I finally got up around 11 and was sitting down to breakfast by about noon. That’s the one bonus of having my daughters take care of feeding the cats for me in the morning. Normally, I do my rounds and morning routine before I eat, which usually means I’m famished by the time I get inside.

By the time I finally went outside to check on the garden, it was mid afternoon. We’d reached our predicted high of 24C/75F. I don’t know what the humidex was at the time, but as I write this, coming up on 7pm, we’re at 21C/70F, while the humidex puts us at 24C/75F.

I feel like that’s on the low side.

Here is what I was able to harvest while checking on the garden.

Those three melons sure take up a lot of space in my giant colandar! One of them looks like it’s a bit over ripe, but it did not want to break free from its vine.

There are actually a few San Marzano tomatoes in there, but they rolled under the melons, along with some of the Black Cherry tomatoes. Since I harvested so many Forme de Couer tomatoes yesterday, there wasn’t much that needed picking today. There was one larger G Star patty pan I decided to pick.

What I was really happy to see was that red Cheyenne pepper! I was eyeballing it yesterday, when it still had a green tip. There’s another one that’s almost ripe that I will likely be picking tomorrow. The hot Cheyenne pepper plants have a LOT of peppers on them, so we will likely have enough hot peppers to preserve and supply us for a very long time. My daughters tried having one with a meal, using an entire small ripe pepper. Small as it was, it turned out to be too much, so they know to use a much smaller quantity in the future. This one large pepper would be enough for many meals.

Everything in the garden was most definitely feeling the heat. We keep getting vague forecasts for possible rain, but I decided to go ahead and water the garden, anyhow. I’m glad I did. Looking at the weather radar, it seems the system is going to blow right past us. The weather app on my computer actually says we are getting rain right now, which we are not.

While watering, I noticed that we are finally having more bell peppers starting to blush. The purple ones get dark very quickly, and we’ve got a couple Sweet Chocolate peppers that have started to turn. Today, for the first time, I could see another colour. I couldn’t tell if the one pepper I could see will be turning orange or turning yellow, but it is definitely getting bright.

When I got to watering the west melon bed, I found a lovely little surprise among the leaves that are dying back.

It’s a Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon!

It’s absolutely tiny – about the size of a softball. I’m very happy to see it, though. After spending most of the summer assuming the big vine in the bed was the one surviving watermelon, only to finally realize it was a winter squash, I thought we wouldn’t have any watermelons at all, and that the transplant had died.

They are supposed to get quite a bit bigger, but I don’t care. By the colours of the stripes on the outside, it may even be close to ripe.

I wonder how many more surprises like this I will find, as the leaves and vines die back?

I took footage for garden tour video on the 10th – our average first frost date – but haven’t had a chance to actually make the video. Now I’m glad it got delayed, as I can include things I missed, like this watermelon, when I’m editing it.

Gosh, September is already half gone.

Where did the time go??

The Re-Farmer

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: 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: potting melons

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We had pre-germinated seeds ready to put into pots, but I was almost out of seed starting mix, so it’s a good thing I ended up doing a shop today.

Of the four Zucca melon seeds in the container, two were starting to germinate. With the Cream of Saskatchewan Watermelon, four out of five seeds germinated – and two were getting almost overdue for planting!

At first, I thought four of five Sarah’s Choice seeds had germinated, but it turned out the one of the seedlings had gotten big enough that it dropped its shell completely! So we’re five out of five on those.

As for the Pixie melons, I could see a couple of seeds starting to open up, but they are not at all ready yet. They, and the two remaining Zucca melon seeds are set aside now, to give them more time.

I was originally going to use one of the large celled trays for these but, at the last moment, I decided to use individual 4″ cardboard pots. I don’t know how long it’ll last, but I used a marker to label the pots directly, before filling them with pre-moistened seed starting mix. With some of the Sarah’s Choice seeds, the roots had grown between the layers of paper towel and spread quite a bit, so I tore the paper round them rather than risk damaging the roots by pulling them through. I now have all of the pots in a tray over the heat mat, with water on the bottom for the pots to absorb, rather than absorbing water from the premoistened growing medium.

As for the Summer of Melons blend, all the pre-germinated seeds but one have fully emerged.

We now have quite a lot of squash and melon seedlings going! Hopefully, they’ll all survive transplanting, but we have enough that we can afford a few losses. What was that poem again? Four seeds, all in a row; one for the blackbird, one for the crow; one to die and one to grow! Something like that.

I’m glad I got at least one gardening job done today, without making my messed up right arm any worse. 😁

The Re-Farmer

Our 2024 Garden: making room, and starting melons

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We got some progress with our transplants today!

We now have various melon seeds set to pre-germinate above the heat mat – indirect, so they don’t get too warm.

As with the Wild Bunch Mix of winter squash, I wanted to do all the seeds in our Summer of Melons Blench, There were four more of the Wild Bunch winter squash ready for potting first, though. There were still some seeds left, but I put those in the compost bucket. Some were looking like mold was starting to grow on them, and others were looking slimy, so I figured they were done for. Which is fine. We have so many from the Wild Bunch mix that successfully germinated, we won’t be starting any other winter squash this year, as much as I’d like to. We just won’t have the prepared space for that many large plants, even with trellises.

All of the smallest and not quite emerged Wild Bunch Mix squash are now together in the one half of the aquarium greenhouse. The larger ones got moved to the mini greenhouse frame at the window. The larger ones that were already in the mini greenhouse frame in the window were tucked into a bin and, together with the bin that had peppers and herbs in it, are now in the sun room. The cats like to sit on these shelves to look out the window, but the bins should protect the transplants.

The tray with the hot peppers and eggplant is now on the shelf between two windows in the sun room, along with one of the tomato trays. There’s also space for a cat to sit by the door, as a few like to do. These trays will get plenty of light through most of the day. I’m taking a chance on putting them there, but last year the cats were good about leaving the transplants alone, for the most part. They were more interested in getting at the window, so as long as they can still do that, the transplants should be okay.

Once the space was made in the mini greenhouse frame and the aquarium greenhouse, I made some decisions as to which melons I wanted to start.

The Summer of Melons Blend was the only for-sure choice. The package had 21 seeds, and I set all of them to pre-germinate.

For the others, I decided to try the Zucca melon again. It’s been rough going for these, even though we’ve had success starting them out, so I’m hoping to actually get some this year. They are supposed to get quite massive in size. The seeds are pretty huge, so they got where the only ones to be scarified to help with germination. I decided to try only 4 seeds, with plenty left to try again next year, if it doesn’t work out this year.

The Pixie melon is one we’ve grown successfully before, during a drought year, which is what we’re supposed to be getting this year, too. They are a small “personal size” melon. I set out only 5 seeds, which left another 4 in the package. If we have the space, I might try direct sowing the last seeds, since they only need up to 75 days to maturity. The plants are very productive, though, so even if we only have a couple make it, that should still provide us with a decent amount of little melons.

The Sarah’s Choice is one we tried last year, but I think only 2 seedlings survived to be transplanted. They were planted together with some other melons and, to be honest, I’m not sure which variety was which, the vines were so interwoven. The plants did well, but they didn’t start producing both male and female flowers at the same time until quite late in the season, so we didn’t get very many that fully ripened before frost hit. So I want to try them again. This year, I’ll make sure we plant them away from other melon types, so we can tell them apart. Again, I started only 5 seeds, which was a little under half was what was in the package.

I had two types of watermelon to choose from, and I decided to go with the Cream of Saskatchewan. Both were short season, cold climate varieties, but I only had one container left. 😂 Again, I picked out 5 seeds, which was half the package.

The 7 day forecast has changed, and we’re now looking at a cooler day tomorrow, with possible rain, and only slightly warmer days after that. We won’t be back into highs in the double digits (Celsius) until next Monday, if the current forecasts are anything to go by. Which I don’t mind too much. Unless the winds are a problem, the cooler days make it more pleasant do to manual labour in, and we’ve got garden beds to prep, and new ones to build! We need to make room for all those transplants, plus the stuff we want to direct sow!

The Re-Farmer