Frustrating, but that’s good? Maybe?

July 27, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Today was a rather long day. Thankfully, my daughter was with me to do most of the driving and help me get around.

I had started my fast last night, and we were planning to leave early for my CT scan appointment. We ended up leaving even earlier than originally planned, which turned out to be a good thing. The drive to the hospital itself is just under an hour, normally, because it’s right at the edge of the smaller, closer city.

There was construction on the highway, which delayed our arrival a bit. We still got there early. I had forgotten to bring a 1L bottle of water from home, but we had some 500ml water bottles in the truck, which was good. I borrowed my husband’s disabled parking placard when we parked at the hospital, and my daughter manhandled my walker out of the truck for me. I had been fine this morning, but during the drive in, the pain started to kick in again. By the time we got to the hospital, I was really appreciating that walker!

We made our way to the CT waiting area, where I had a form I needed to fill out first, which gave me time to chug a bottle and a half of water. Someone came by and asked me if I was the one from the ER in the town nearest us, and I confirmed. She thought I was supposed to come in with an IV port, and I said I had been told that would be done here.

I was called in soon after and they set me up in the scanner and the IV. I was forewarned about what I would be feeling with the dye that was normal – and what I should let them know about immediately if I felt them, as they were NOT normal!

The scan itself went very quickly. They ran me through a few times, with the robot voice telling me when to take a breath, hold it, then “BREATHE” again. My daughter could actually hear that last “BREATHE” from the waiting room!

Then they warned me that the dye was being released and… yeah, I was glad they warned me about the sensations in advance! I’ve had a CT scan before, but it was so long ago, things were a bit different, and I hadn’t needed a dye, so this was quite new. Once the dye had time to do its thing, they ran me through the scanner a few more times.

When it was done and they returned to help me get up and leave, the guy that inserted the IV port asked if I wanted it left in.

???

Which is when I was told that I would have to go back to the ER in town to get the results of the scan, and if I were to be getting surgery, they’d be needing to put an IV in, so did I want to leave the port?

After asking a few questions and him leaving to check something, I decided to leave it in. We had expected that I’d see the gyno for a curettage, presumably after the results were viewed, but if the results were being sent to the ER from yesterday, that obviously wasn’t going to happen there. As far as I know, the hospital I went to last night does no surgeries at all, might possibly do biopsies, but that’s it. I told him we were planning to go to the Walmart nearby after this scan, and that I’d intended to break my fast. If I were going for surgery, though, I needed to keep fasting. For the length of time it would take for the results to get to the ER in town, we did have time to hit the Walmart, first.

While my daughter was putting the walker back into the truck, I updated the family and noticed the time. It had just turned to the time of my appointment! Talking about it to my daughter, we were extra glad of that. While she was in the waiting room, she started chatting with woman that had joined us just as I was called in. She asked what time her appointment was, and she told her she was there for me, and what time my appointment was at… which was the same time as her appointment! So it seems the ER managed to squeeze me in. We were extra glad to have left so early!

I would have been okay to drive to the Walmart, but the pain was getting worse, and I now had an IV port in my elbow, protected by a “sock”. So my daughter did the driving from then on.

Usually, when shopping, I use the cart as a walker. This time, I relied on the walker and my daughter did all the lifting and loading. We had just ran out of kibble for the outside cats this morning, so we got a couple of their largest bags – we only need to last a couple of days before our first city shop – and some more canned cat food for the inside cats. Given that we now had to go back to the ER in town, we made sure to pick up some quick and easy ingredients for supper, just in case. We made sure not to get anything that was frozen; I remembered to grab some freezer bags, but there’s only so much they can do – especially in the heat of the truck box! We figured, if necessary, we could stop by a local grocery story, if we wanted.

That didn’t happen.

From there, it was back to town and the ER. I wasn’t expecting to go back, so I’d already cut off my wrist band. I got a new one while explaining why I was there, and then sent to the waiting room. Someone came by not long after to take my vitals, and then it was back to the waiting room.

By then, I was really starting to hurt, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. As time went on, it was the fasting that became more of an issue. I finally went back to the admissions person and talked to her, explaining that we didn’t know if I’d be going for surgery and still needing to fast or not, but I was starting to feel dizzy and faint from not eating. After asking a few more questions, she got on the phone and I went back to the waiting room.

Then the doctor came by, calling my name. When he saw me, he did a double take and I just had to laugh.

He recognized me. I’ve seen him several times in the past, about my mother!

By the time, my daughter had gone to the truck and brought back a bag of beef jerky from our stash. She’d gone back to get another water bottle when I was called in, so I asked for the door to be left open, so she saw us and joined us part way through.

The first frustrating thing was finding out that I was supposed to see the gyno after getting the CT scan. The staff there obviously didn’t know this when they sent me back to this ER.

The other frustrating thing was that my CT scan showed nothing. No problem at all. There is just that one ultrasound that showed a problem.

Meanwhile, I was in enough pain that I was having difficulty sitting up straight.

So, nothing was going to happen today. I could eat. I could get rid of the IV port. I could go home. I will get a phone call with an appointment, soon, for a consultation regarding our next steps.

As he left, he told me to go back to the waiting room and someone would come by to remove the IV port. Then I could leave.

I was already tearing open the package of beef jerky. It wasn’t a large package, but it was enough to keep me from feeling sick and ready to pass out!

Then we waited.

And waited.

Finally, my daughter went to the admissions person. I just needed the port removed, and we could leave – and I was ready to take the thing out myself, except I had no gause and medical tape, and the port needed to have proper disposal.

The admissions person sent my daughter to the nursing station. She soon came back to tell me someone would be coming over soon. About a minute later, someone did.

Half a minute, and it was done. I was freeeeeeeee!!!!!

From there, my daughter wanted to make sure I ate, but I also had the new prescription for tramadol to pick up. A Subway shares a parking lot with our pharmacy, so that’s where we went. Once parked, my daughter went in to drop off my prescription while I made my way to a picnic table in the shade by the Subway, skipping the walker this time. When she got back, she told me they needed half an hour to fill the prescription, which was plenty of time to eat.

One of the things I expressed my frustration over as we talked was how – once again – I’m having issues, but tests are coming back “normal”. According to most tests I have done, I’m really healthy overall. At least my osteoarthritis shows up on X rays. This has been a “problem” for years, to the point that I’ve stopped going to doctors for some things completely, like my chronic cough that I’ve had for about 25+ years now. That, thankfully, has gotten better on its own, though it’s still there. I just ignore it now.

When it came to the pain itself, what the one ultrasound shows doesn’t really explain the pain. My daughter suggested that, if the gyno starts talking curettage with me, I might want to request just having everything removed. Which is exactly what I’d been thinging myself. I don’t need those lady parts anymore. I’m done with them, and they’re trying to kill me.

That’s a conversation to have when I get a call from the gyno.

Speaking of calls…

While in the waiting room at the ER, my daughter got a call from the clinic in the city she had an appointment at this morning. She’d left a message last night, and they were following up. She explained about me going to the ER yesterday, and that she was driving me around for tests today. Usually, when people don’t show up for appointments without letting them know at least 24 hours in advance, they’ve started to charge for the time. Too many people just don’t show up for appointments, and that really messes with their scheduling (and often results in other people stuck in waiting rooms longer). When there is a legitimate reason like this, though, those charges get waived! The earliest they could reschedule her for, though, is in October!

Once my daughter and I were done eating – and I was feeling SO much better, even though I was still in pain – we went in to get my prescription. There was someone at the pick up counter, so I quickly went through the supplements as I was out of zinc. Which resulted in someone else getting served ahead of me, and she ended up taking a really long time, talking about her insurance loud enough for all to hear. I couldn’t stay standing anymore. Thankfully, they have chairs right by the pick up counter. While I was there, the pharmacist that owns the place, who knows all of us quite well by now! – saw me and told me my meds were ready. So she took care of me before the other person was even done.

I only have a week’s worth of the tramadol, if I take them 3 times a day, though they are “as needed”. Which means I should be hearing from the gyno within that time.

Here’s hoping.

Once we got what we needed, I took one as soon as we were back in the truck!

Then we could finally go home, with my daughter driving. When we got to the gate, I was banned from getting out to open it. She backed the truck up to the house so I wouldn’t have far to walk, then she and her sister took care of unloading. By this time, it was time to feed the outside cats, so they stayed out to do that, too – now that we had more kibble for them!

I stayed up long enough to get on my computer and update my brother and SIL, planning to lie down and let the tramadol kick in.

Then the phone rang.

It was my mother.

Actually, it was a very frustrated sounding nurse who had made the call for her, let me know my mother wanted to talk to me, and handed the phone over.

The last time I talked to my mother was when I visited her and walked out because she was being so nasty to me again.

After exchanging greetings, I asked how she was doing. I was pretty sure I knew what she was about to tell me.

I was write.

She immediately launched into how she was sick. She was feeling soooooo sick.

She wanted me to come visit her.

*sigh*

I had not intended to tell my mother about any of what’s been going on, because she is always really terrible about it when we mention any health issues we have, but when she told me to come visit her (told, not asked), my response was “I just got back from the hospital.”

She said she didn’t understand.

So I said again, I just got back from the hospital. Less than half an hour ago.

What was I telling her? she wanted to know.

I told her, I went to the ER yesterday. Today I went to the city for tests, then back to the ER for the results. They’re trying to figure out what’s wrong, and I’ve been home for less than an hour.

Oh, I didn’t understand at first, she tells me.

She then told me to tell my brother and sister to visit her.

She would have kept me on the phone, but I told her I would pass on her message, right now, and was able to get her to let me off the phone.

*sigh*

Shortly after I hung up, my daughter came by saying “that sounded like a Babcia call.”

Yes. Yes it was.

I’d just finished messaging my brother and SIL about getting home and updating things easier on a keyboard rather than tapping on a phone, so I updated them about my mother’s call, too. Then texted my sister, who doesn’t use Messenger anymore. I hadn’t planned to tell her about what was going on, either, as she tends to tell things to my mother without our consent, sometimes. Not out of malice or gossip. It just doesn’t occur to her not to do it. Since I’d had to tell my mother about it anyhow, it didn’t matter anymore. She tends to turn off her phone when she’s at home, though, so who know when she’ll get the message.

Once that was all done, I finally was able to lie down for a while.

Thankfully, the tramadol did kick in after a while, and I felt well enough to go outside for a walkabout, using my walker.

I ended up watering the garden for the evening, even though I’d asked my daughters to do it later, when things cooled down a bit more.

I just couldn’t help myself.

Things are going to get hotter over the next few days, so the garden is going to need watering in the morning and evening to help cope with the heat. It won’t get as extreme as it got not long about, but still hot enough to be an issue.

My problem is, I keep thinking of all the things that I should be doing, while there is no rain in the forecast. Work to do in the yard and garden. Physical labour I probably shouldn’t be doing at all.

Which is driving me bonkers.

Ah, well. It is what it is, and I do what I can, and my daughters try to help as much as they are able.

We are such a gimpy family right now. All four of us!

*sigh*

The Re-Farmer

An actual productive day!

July 24, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

This morning, my daughter and I headed out for errands. Too early, it turned out. I had a package waiting at the post office, but while the general store it’s in opens at 9, the post office itself turns out to open at 9:30. I could have sworn they opened earlier! My daughter had dashed in and did get the mail, but left the parcel card for on the way home.

When we got to town, my daughter was a sweetheart and took me out for breakfast (lunch, for her) before we hit the grocery store. This time, we were actually able to refill a couple of water bottles – last time we barely managed to fill one, as both dispensers had no pressure. We picked up a few things, including some things for my husband to make sure he’d have easy food available while my younger daughter and I are away all day tomorrow. My older daughter will be home to make sure he doesn’t have a repeat of last week and almost die on me again!!!

After that, we made a stop at the gas station that ended up taking an unexpectedly long time. On the way home, we just made it to the post office before they closed for a couple of hours over the lunch period, and my daughter was able to get my parcel.

Unfortunately, by the time we finished in town, my pain levels were kicking in again. By the time we got home, I was able to help bring things inside, but had to pain killer up and used some diclofenac cream, then lay down for a while. After a couple of hours, there was no relief in pain. It was long enough that I could take more T3s, and that eventually did it. I’m really hoping that new prescription does the job and this pain goes away, but I’d only had one dose so far. It’ll take at least a little while before I can tell if it’s working.

By the time I was able to get up again, I was eager to test out the contents of my parcel.

My eavestrogh pressure washer was finally in!

I was pleased to see it had a quick connect, but when I tried to attach it to the hose, I realized it had two male couplings. I had to remove the quick connect nozzle and attach the piece with the on-off switch (not visible in the photo) directly to the hose. Very odd.

I then spent the next hour or so, trying to clean a couple of the shortest eavestroughs.

I did not succeed.

I knew it would be difficult. The eavestroughs all have tiny forests of elm seeds growing in them. The debris was dense enough to break the brush head on the other cleaning tool I’d picked up – it came with two brush heads, and the first one broke the first time I tried to use it!

I was able to get some debris cleared out, but found myself with a different problem. The downspouts were getting clogged. After fighting it it for quite some time, I gave up and tried to clear the eavestrough on the other side of the old kitchen/sunroom. It was even worse. Finally, I have one last try at a corner of the living room, just trying to clear the opening to the downspout. Water could barely leak through at all!

I had to stop. There was no point in continuing. The eavestroughs were just too badly clogged.

I’d been updating my brother and SIL about all this, knowing they’d be coming out some time tonight. After failing to clear the eavestroughs, I got out the chain saw and a 100 foot extension cord, instead.

I FINALLY got that big piece of fallen maple branch cleared! It had broken up a bit when it hit the ground and I’d been able to drag off the narrow part of the branch, but the remaining piece was just too large and heavy to move – and it was taking up a significant portion of the lawn.

Not any more!

It took two wagon loads to clear away the logs and the scattered pieces of bark. Anything big enough to be a problem for the law mower. In the second image of the slide show above, you can see most of the logs (a couple of pieces are hidden behind the pile) set up and ready for the fire pit. Maple will make some good cooking fires, and this wood has been dead and dry for some time, so it can be used right away.

It was while I was finishing up putting the logs away and cleaning up as much bark out of the grass as I could, that I heard my brother and SIL arrive.

Since I had the chainsaw out anyhow, I moved on to the sections of maple I’d dragged under the hawthorn “fence”. This includes the pieces that had broken off another maple some time ago that I hadn’t got to, yet.

With these, I stacked the logs in between trees in the living “fence”. There are still some branches to do, but they were too thin to bother using a chain saw. I’ll come back with a hand saw.

I had considered cleaning up more fallen trees in the maple grove, right near the old branch pile and the fire pit logs. I decided against it. I was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes, and the chainsaw needs sharpening.

Part way through the cutting, I had to refill the oil in the chainsaw, so I went to the garage to get the jug. My brother was in lean to side where their mower is stored, looking for something. When he came out and saw me, chugging a water bottle I’d got from the truck, he told me he was going to go up on the roof to check where the leak is coming from. While he did that, I remembered to grab a broken old hose reel he’d dug out of the junk pile for me. I’d found it in the barn some time ago and we tried to use it for an actual hose, but it didn’t work and the hose ended up splitting and cracking. He had the idea that it could still be used to store the longer extension cords, and I was finally able to give it a try when it was time to put things away.

It worked beautifully.

By the time I was putting things away, my brother had done checking the roof over the second floor, and was clearing the eavestrough over the “new part” of the house. He mentioned he might need a hose, so I passed that up to him and he was able to grab it with the tool he was using the clear the eavestroughs. He was up there for quite a long time. The eavestroughs were horribly clogged. Thankfully, he was also able to clear the downspouts.

As for the roof that was leaking, he said the eavestrough over the 2nd floor windows were also clogged. Which is odd, because the girls told me that it never gets clogged. He concluded that this was why there was a leak at one of the windows.

I’ve since passed that on to my daughter and they disagree. This area was a problem before we moved out here. They’d patched the damaged wall, only for it to become damaged again in our first winter. It had stopped after the roof was replaced, until this past winter. They don’t see a connection between the state of the eavestroughs and the leaking.

Well, we’re supposed to get more storms in the next while, so I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

While trying to clear the eavestrough from the sun room, I almost refilled the rain barrel, so while my brother was using the hose to pressure wash the eavestroughs he had cleared of debris, I use the rain barrel to do some watering, even though we had rain this morning.

I was quite happy to see this.

I’m really hoping these were successfully pollinated. I’d hate for these lovely zucchini to whizzen away!

I was also really happy to confirm something that I wasn’t sure I was seeing right, over the past few days.

This is a luffa seedling! I direct sowed them because this variety needs only 55 days to maturity, which means it still has a chance to make it, and we might actually have luffa. I still have not been able to find my package with the remaining seeds, so it would be really awesome if it survives long enough that we can collect seeds.

After my brother was done on the roof, he brought over some tools and a reciprocating saw, with a blade that can cut metal, to work on the tire around the elm tree stump. He was able to cut through it in three places, then we used a pry bar and my chisel tip bar to try and work things loose.

There was progress, but my brother was so tired by then, we left it for the night.

After he left, I brought the hose over to rinse the dirt off my tools when I decided to use the highest pressure setting to try and wash away some of the soil inside the cut up tire.

That ball of dirt is so filled with swirling tree roots, almost no soil got washed away at all. !!!

Still, we’ll probably have it off by the end of the weekend, which means the tree guys will not have to figure out how to deal with it when they come back with their stump grinder. That tire has been sitting there for so long, the rubber is starting to disintegrate in places. It was still hard to cut through, though!

So that’s where we’re at now.

Tomorrow is going to be a very long day at the market, but I’m looking forward to it.

Now, to try and get some actual sleep, so I’m not drifting off at my table tomrorow!

The Re-Farmer

Chicken coop build, day two – modifications

April 28, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Normally, I would have gone into the city today for our first stock up shop. I’d forgotten what day it was when I arranged for someone from the hospital the TCU my mother is in to call me.

No one called.

*sigh*

I headed out to work on the chicken coop in the early afternoon. I had decided last night on how I would modify the coop to include roosts in front of the nesting boxes, if I could find the materials for it.

I did.

After taking some measurements (it was very awkward to reach where I needed to measure!), I dug around the scrap but useable lumber bits in the garage my brother gave me and found a 2×4 that was long enough. I cut it to the length I needed for the roosts with my miter saw, but was stuck trying to figure out how to cut it in half length wise. A hand saw would just take too long, and the old table saw we have stored in the sun room would have been too much of a pain to get out and use for just one cut. In the end, I got my jig saw out of winter storage and used that.

The down side is that I got a wonky cut out of it. When it came near the end, I flipped the board and restarted at the uncut end. Of course, it went wonky and I ended up with a jaggy bit where the cuts met. I ended up taking the pieces to the vice in the other side of the garage and smoothed the roughest parts with my draw knife. Then they got a sanding, just with some course sand paper, so the pieces were smooth on all sides, and the edges were slightly rounded. Should be much nicer on chicken feet!

While getting the jigsaw out of storage in the basement, I looked through the scrap we had there and found a leftover piece of wood that was the right width to use as uprights to support the roosts. I measured off and cut two 12″ pieces, then took everything to the coop to see how they fit. I found I needed to trim a bit on the cross pieces, then remembered that I needed two more upright supports. The remaining piece of wood was just shy of 2′ long, so I ended up cutting it in half and getting two pieces just barely over 11 inches long.

I also had a package of right angle brackets and used those to attach the uprights to the cross piece, though I did have to trim just a touch off the cross pieces for them to fit. Unfortunately, the angle brackets I had are dollar store cheepies, and the screws just did not want to bite! It almost took longer to screw on the angle brackets than it did to cut the wood to size!

I got them done, though, and have set them up inside the coop, in front of the nesting boxes.

I had to use a little household step ladder to be able to reach in and set one end in place, from above. Ideally, these should have been installed when before the end walls were attached, but I hadn’t figured out how to add the roosts inside, yet.

You can see the new roosts in the second and third photos of the slideshow above. At this point, I had to stop. The uprights need to be secured to the walls. Otherwise, they’ll just fall loose while the coop is being worked on and moved around. I’ll have to screw them in place from the outside.

After going through my collection of screws, I realized I didn’t have anything the right size. I will be going into the city tomorrow for the stock up trip I normally would have done today, and one of my stops is Canadian Tire for litter pellets, so I can pick up the right screws while I am there.

Which means there will be no progress at all on the coop tomorrow, nor probably the day after, as that is when I would be going into the city again for the Costco shopping. My daughter will probably be coming with me, so she won’t be working on it for me, either.

Thankfully, we don’t actually need it for quite some time, and by the time we can get back at it, the weather should be warming up again.

As I was putting everything away, I spotted these adorable ones.

They really love that pile of straw mulch I’d moved under the mock orange bush!

When doing the evening cat feed, I saw Slick. She didn’t show up this morning, so I was glad to see her. As I put food on the cat house roof, her favourite place to eat, she actually came over, purring, and wanting pets! Which I stopped to do, and made a point of trying to feel under her belly. I was hoping to feel and active nips she had, to get an idea of how many kittens she has.

I felt none at all.

Which is very strange. I’m sure I would have felt something if she were nursing kittens. Either she just has one and the active nip was somewhere I wasn’t able to touch her, or … did she lose her litter? It’s really hard to know at this point. After she ate, she suddenly got strange on me again and moved away as I came close, even if it was to pet a different cat. As she moved around, I tried to see her belly fur, and still, nothing.

I don’t know what to make of it.

As I continued my evening rounds, I checked on the fruit and berry bushes. It’s too early to see if they all survived the winter at this stage. One exception is the silver buffaloberry.

The branches are absolutely covered with these tiny little leaf buds!

I may have made a mistake in not covering the trellis bed, with the peas and carrots. Peas are cold tolerant, but newly uncovered sprouts may not have been strong enough to handle the overnight temperatures we’re having right now. Some of the other beds, the rows got re-covered in leaves by the wind, which I’ve left, as it may be protecting any seedlings from the overnight cold. It’s too early to tell, even with the beds that are under plastic.

The colder temperatures are good for the poppy seeds I sowed, though. This is nature doing the cold stratification for me.

Hopefully, the winter sown beds will make it. If not, I’ll have a lot of free space to plant into, when things finally warm up!

I might just pick up more packages of certain new seed varieties I was trying, just in case…

😁

The Re-Farmer

An offering

April 19, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

What a lovely day today had turned out to be! At one point, checking one of my weather apps, it told me it was still -2C/28F out there, but the “real feel” was 6C/43F!

The outside cats were quite enjoying the sunshine.

One of the things I’d done, once the snow cleared away enough, was move the broken office chairs to the junk pile instead of several feet away, setting them upright again. As expected, the cats are taking advantage of them!

I had to zoom in quite a bit to get these pictures.

The cat in the first picture is one of the more feral ones. It comes to the house regularly, but we cannot approach it. The second picture shows Stinky keeping (her? him?) company on the other chair.

In the afternoon, I headed out with a project in mind, then got these pictures.

The first picture is Sprig. She’s mostly feral, but I was able to stand just a few feet away from her to take the picture. She’s got burrs stuck in her tail, but as soon as I stepped towards her, she ran off. No chance of getting them off for her.

In the second picture, you can see Bug and Fluffy enjoying the exposed straw mulch in the old kitchen garden! That bed is the one sown with beets and tiny bok choi, with transplanted onions that I found while cleaning it out in the fall. You can just see a stick behind Fluffy’s head. That marks the end of a row of beets, so she’s right on top of where they are planted.

I’m going to have to work on keeping that cats off that bed! I’ll be removing the mulch, hopefully tomorrow, and then setting up the vinyl cover sized for this specific raised bed cover. That will keep the cats off for the most part. Once the “greenhouse” is no longer needed, I’ll have to replace the vinyl with netting. I’ll have to find a way to protect the part of the L shaped wattle weave bed that is winter sown, once that mulch is removed, too.

As for my project…

We haven’t seen Slick much at all, and I just can’t figure out how we can possibly trap just her, given how skittish she has become. So I have made an offering to her, in the catio.

I cleared everything out and added fresh straw to the bottom of the catio, as well as some on the remaining hammock. Then I put the big donated cat carrier, with a cat bed in it that I was able to get out of the cat house without lifting the roof, set inside. The carrier is so big, I had to turn it sideways to get it through the door! Then I put the self warming shelter back, on top of some scrap pieces of rigid insulation, along with the food and water bowls. I took the two box nests out completely, along with the blanket that had been in one of them. The blanket went back inside, while the boxes went onto the feeding station under the shrine nearby. Now that enough snow has melted away, we can start leaving food there again, and I put the two bowls inside the boxes for now.

Once the inside was set up again, I used clear repair tape to fix some tears in the vinyl around the catio, caused by the wind. I couldn’t get all of them on the north side, as the bench there is still frozen to the ground and blocking access, but I got the ones on the south side thoroughly covered and reinforced. The tears I couldn’t reach shouldn’t be much of a problem, as they are “sheltered” by the pile of snow at the bench, so there would be very little wind or weather getting through those.

My hope was that Slick would either have her kittens in this shelter within a shelter I have made for her – or bring them there, if she had already had them! I just came back from doing the second feeding of the day and she did show up – still looking pregnant – but wouldn’t even go up onto the cat house roof to eat while I was around. I wish I knew what happened to make her suddenly so nervous.

The catio is one of the places she regularly goes into for food and water, and just hanging out. I’ve seen her using the self warming shelter as well, but the cats jump on top of it, crushing it flat, so she’s not going to have her babies in there. Now that the cat carrier is there, with a soft bed inside, on top of fresh straw, I really hope she will accept it as a safe place to for her babies. That will hopefully give us a better chance of catching her for the rescue, or at least socializing her babies. The only problem I foresee is that, any time she’s been in there and I’ve started to come over with food, she immediately runs away.

I was thinking about how, if she did have her babies in there, we could potentially close the door on the carrier while she’s in it, and then get her to the rescue. Since the carrier could only fit through the door by being turned sideways, we wouldn’t be able to move it if she and her kittens are inside. What we can do, however, is simply pick up the catio and move that, instead, but only if enough snow around it melts away that we have the space to access it and set it down nearby.

As I was still working on taping up the tears on the catio, I saw several cats go in to investigate the new set up. In the second picture of the slideshow above, I was able to get a picture of a cat enjoying the fresh straw on the hammock. I thought it was Pinky at first but, looking at the photo more closely, it might be the cat my daughters have named Bobert.

Staring tomorrow, we’re supposed to alternate in highs of 14C/57F and 12C/54F for the next four days. Thursday, we’re supposed to get rain as the temperature drop, leading to snow on Friday and Saturday, and the highs are supposed to hover at or just above freezing for the rest of April. Even in the first full week of May, we’re supposed to get several days rain during the day, with highs above 10C/50F, and snow overnight! After that, we’re supposed to start getting consistent highs above 20C/68F, and overnight lows staying above freezing.

Winter just does not want to let go, this year!

Well, we’ll see what actually happens when the time comes.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: “potting” up, and weather whiplash

April 15, 2026 / Re-Farmer / 2 Comments

I have been seriously procrastinating with the seedlings in our basement set up. Today, however, my daughter was available to assist, and we got it done!

My daughter took on the job of sifting the rest of the bag of potting soil. She had to start a second bucket for all the sticks she sifted out, as the one I’d been using before was already 3/4 full. While she did that, I worked on making a whole bunch of strips for snail rolls, with a few extra strips, just in case.

Once the soil was sifted, my daughter thoroughly moistened the potting soil with hot water while I cleared all the trays of seedlings, the heat mats and the full spectrum lights. Everything was going to go on the shelf under the shop light. A shelf that sags in the middle. I did try to elevate the trays in the middle, but when I watered the bottoms, it would still all pool towards the middle, so anything on the outsides of the trays would end up with less water available. After some poking around in the old basement, I found a board to set across the top. It’s too short to be able to use heat mats under it, but I decided not to set those up again. Hopefully, they will be okay without them in our basement, where the ambient temperature is at least 5C colder than it should be for seedlings.

Once everything was cleared out and set up, the first things I wanted to “pot up” were the peppers and eggplant. They have been really struggling. Some new seedlings from a second sowing did start to germinate, but even some of those have already withered away.

I bottom watered the tray and had vermiculate on top, but there still ended up some algae growing on the surface. That’s not harmful to the plants, but it does suggest a moisture imbalance.

When it came time to transfer them, my daughter used a large spoon to scoop the seedlings out of the cells while I set them onto one of the strips, flattening out the seed starting mix they were in, then adding the moistened, warm potting soil to fill in gaps.

I had already transferred all the tomatoes, fennel and flower rolls into one metal tray – 8 snail rolls – and had room for two more rolls on there. In the end, there were only 5 surviving Caspar eggplant, and only three Sweet Chocolate peppers. I did have a full row of California Wonder bell peppers, though, and one of the cells had a two seedlings, so that gave us a very large and full snail roll to put into the second metal tray set up under the shop light.

One thing about these thicker snail rolls is that it’s a lot harder to keep the soil in them, while they are being rolled up.

Next was the Golden Boy celery, which has already been “potted up” once. They now needed to be split up into two rolls. We were really surprised by how dry their soil was! For all the regular bottom watering I did, they were large enough that they’d needed more.

The leaves were all tangled up, so it was very careful work to unroll the celery. The soil was very full of roots. Between use, we carefully broke out half the celery and spread them out on a new strip before adding the moistened potting soil to fill the strip. It took both of us to very carefully roll them up without losing too much soil from the bottom. Once that was done, we had the space to finish unrolling the original roll, space out the seedlings and add more soil.

So we now have two snail rolls of celery, to go with four types of tomato, three types of flowers and the Florence fennel.

I considered putting the sad little herbs into a snail roll, too, but decided against it. As for the last surviving luffa, I’m not sure it’s surviving any more! It got pretty buried under the celery leaves. Well, we did get seeds for a different variety with a much, much shorter growing season – short enough we could potentially direct sow them – so if this last one doesn’t make it, we can try the new variety, instead.

Once everything was set up under the shop light, I supported the light while my daughter shortened the chain it’s hanging from, so it wouldn’t be too close to the plants. Especially the celery. The chain on that side was hung even shorter, to give them the space they need.

Which means we now no longer have anything under the grow lights. With the snail rolls, everything fit in the two trays. They got a thorough bottom watering, then a second one when we saw how quickly the water was absorbed. With how dry the celery was, I’ll probably give that tray another watering, later today.

The next batch of seeds are the 4-6 weeks before last frost ones. I don’t have a lot of those, comparatively speaking. There are a LOT that can be started in the 2-4 weeks before last frost category, but a lot of those can actually be direct sown, so I plan to be more selective about it.

Looking at the forecast, we’ve got some more weather whiplash expected. Winter still does not want to let go! Today, we are now expected to reach a high of 15C/59F (it’s 8C/46F as I write this), shortly before noon), but the overnight low is supposed to drop to -7C/19F. At midnight, we’re supposed to start getting snow. Tomorrow we’re supposed to get a mix of snow and rain all day, through to the next morning.

The weather system that’s hitting us is mostly going to pass to the north. They are looking at potentially several inches of new snow. This is actually really good. Everything is still so dry u[ there. Every bit of moisture is needed, so this year’s fire season isn’t as bad as last year. There will be fires. There always are. Between any moisture we get, and the fact that last year’s insane number of fires probably cleared out a lot of deadwood, hopeful this means very fewer fires, and only little ones, this year.

The highs for the next two days are supposed to be -3C/27F. After that, we’re supposed to get back above freezing, and soon reach double digit Celsius highs. Before the end of April, we’re even expecting to reach 20C/68F, and once we’re into May, the long range forecast has us getting as high as 24C/75F It’s the overnight lows that are the thing, though. Last year, May had all sorts of hot days, but the nights remained cold, so the soil never got warm enough for transplants until the middle of June. Even then, it might still have been too cold. Our transplants really struggled last year.

Hopefully, our winter sown beds will do well. After the next couple of days of cold, and any snow we get on the beds melts away, I should be able to remove the mulches on at least some of the beds, so the soil can thaw out faster. I can set the vinyl over the cover in the old kitchen garden to create a little greenhouse. That bed has the beets and tiny bok choy in it, along with the little onions I’d found while preparing the bed for sowing. I have more vinyl I can potentially use on one of the other covers on a 9’x3′ raised bed to create another little greenhouse. Plus, once I can access the main garden area, I have the hoops and 6mm poly I’d ordered and can use to set over one of the other pre-sown beds to speed things up a bit. Or just to warm up one of the other, empty beds, faster. We shall see how things look, once the snow has melted enough to get to them.

Little by little, it’s getting done.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: Yellow Celery – I hope this works!

March 12, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, it was time.

The yellow celery (Golden Boy celery) had outgrown their tray. They needed potting up.

The question was, how to do that without damaging their roots?

That’s the down side of scatter sowing such tiny seeds. Especially when the germination rate was so high!

I decided the best way to do it was to set them into a seed snail roll.

As with the onions, I wanted to use potting soil rather than a soilless seed starting mix. That meant, more sifting. Which had its own challenge. Wearing a dust mask again was out of the question. I just can’t wear a mask anymore, and trying to last time was really awful. Yet not having some sort of protection was also out of the question because of how much dust sifting the dry potting soil would raise up.

My solution turned out to be pretty simple. The clear plastic garbage bag I use to protect my work surface is large enough to cover the entire bucket, and have enough slack that I could grip the handles of the colander I am using as a sifter and shake it. Yes, small amounts of dust did come out from below, but this was at floor level and it wasn’t an issue.

Before I started, I emptied the old, cracked tray I was using to collect the big pieces. This is what I got.

The depth of the soil barely reached my second knuckles. Meanwhile, just look at all those pieces that got sifted out! Totally insane. This bag was purchased last year, and I’ve heard that a lot of people were having the same issue. A few sticks is pretty normal, but nothing to this extent. It wasn’t even just one brand, either. Hopefully, the companies have gotten better at making sure their raw material is properly composted before bagging it up and sending it out!

That done, it was time to prepare the seedlings.

The first picture is the “before” shot. You can see how dense they are. The tray is bottom watered, and roots are showing out the opening. Roots that would be quite entangled. How to get the seedlings out and apart, then transplanted, gently?

In the second picture, you can see what I decided to do. I had a tray (a thoroughly cleaned and repurposed meat tray that we’ve had for a few years now) that was wider and flat. I carefully moved the whole clump over into the tray, then very gently started to loosen the seed starting mix to untangle and free up the roots a bit.

Then I got some hot water and thoroughly moistened the sifted soil. The seed starting mix the seedlings was in was really quite cold. Not good! I wanted to transplant them into soil that was at least a bit on the warm side.

I had prepared a strip of packing material – this time, using a clear repair tape I happen to have, instead of painters tape, to join three sections to make one long strip. I started out by laying a thin layer of soil over about 3/4 of the strip, as I wasn’t sure just how much of it I would need to use. Then it was time to VERY carefully and gently pull apart and set out the seedlings.

I was able to get all of them in, and did add more soil to the roll to fit them all.

The remaining seed starting mix got added to the bucket of sifted soil. I added more hot water and mixed it all up before adding another layer of soil to the roll; just enough to cover the roots.

Before rolling it, I added strips of masking tape to the end, so it just needed to be lifted into place, with the tape already handy to close up the roll.

With the two layers of soil in there, the result was a pretty thick roll. I could use the plastic underneath to hold the soil in at the bottom, but there wasn’t much that could be done at the top, and soil was falling out. Once it was taped closed and the roll set upright, I found a few seedlings had fallen out with the soil. I found some gaps and carefully set them back in. I then used some of the soil that fell out to fill in the top of the roll and support some of the seedlings that seemed to need it more.

Now, it’s back in the tray under the shop light. Both trays were empty of water, so I added warm water to the trays to maintain bottom watering.

While I was doing all this, I had the heater going. It’s aimed under the shelf I have the trays on. The thermometer is kept at the far end, and the temperature was only about 13C/55F. Holding my hand under the shelf, though, I could feel it was a lot warmer just under the trays. So I set up the thermometer next to the tray with the snail roll, which is at the far end from where the heater is.

The first picture shows the “potted up” celery back in their tray. After setting up and leaving the thermometer for a while, I got a reading, which you can see in the next photo above.

It’s just barely touching 25C/77F! This is great, as cold is the big issue here. The ambient temperature really should be about 20-24C/68-75F

Since the heat is under the trays, that will warm up any water that is in them which, in turn, will warm up the soil and seed starter mixes. Not by a lot, but enough to hopefully keep the chill off the roots. Plus, it will be better for the fresh pepper and eggplant seeds I sowed to hopefully replace the ones eaten by a mouse or whatever it was.

The hygrometer reading is low, though. Ideally, it should be between 50% and 60% – even 70% for some plants. Hopefully, the bottom watering and occasional misting helps counter the ambient humidity at least a bit.

The celery seedlings now have a nice deep roll to spread their roots into, so they should be good in there for a while.

Hopefully, they will survive this! I seem to remember that I used the entire packet of seeds for this, so there’s no trying again if they don’t make it.

Well, we shall see, soon enough, I guess!

The Re-Farmer

I’m home now

February 15, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Well, it’s done. The truck has been towed to the garage.

My BIL, sweetheart that he is, skipped the lunch my sister, who was going to work later, was making so he could come out and find me before the tow truck reached me.

Thankfully, I was able to pull over next to a very large and open company driveway, making me both easy to find, and easy to get to, while on the side of a busy highway.

The tow truck actually arrived later than expected. He had a call ahead of me that only needed a winch, but ended up pulling two people out of the ditch before getting to me.

My BIL, meanwhile, had already arrived and we were sitting in the company driveway, talking, when the tow truck arrived. The tow truck was not only from our regular garage, but the driver was the owner/our mechanic’s brother! That gave me the opportunity to describe exactly what happened, knowing our mechanic would actually get the information.

The truck had been running so well. Since I’d gone to church in town first, which is right on the highway that goes to the city my mother is in, I took that route through all the little towns along the lake again. I had the radio on when I started hearing/feeling like something was rubbing on a tire. This continued for maybe a couple of minutes before it felt like something dropped. Suddenly, the tire was shuddering, like something was caught up in it.

Of course, I pulled over right away, got out and checked.

I could see nothing. I even popped the hood and tried to look from above. Nothing.

I got back in the truck and started to move, but the shuddering was immediate. I stopped after less than 5 feet, I’m sure.

From there I contacted my family and even sent a quick message to my brother (he’s out of the country still) before contacting CAA. I phoned directly rather than using the app, because I’ve never quite managed to get the app set up and working, and I don’t know what’s wrong. The last time I tried, I was at home and ended up using my desktop, instead. Not an option this time!

So I phoned and started going through the automated system, which uses voice responses to questions. That worked fine as long as it was yes/no questions, or when I said I needed a tow, but then it asked what was wrong. I didn’t know what was wrong, so I said, I don’t know, something is wrong with my tire.

It decided I had a flat tire and asked if that was correct. I said no. It tried again and I tried to answer a different way. It still thought I had a flat tire. Finally, I pressed 0, hoping that it would get me to a human. It recognized that I wanted to talk to a person but then said the automated system would likely be faster and started over again in asking what was wrong with my vehicle.

*sigh*

After a while it gave up and sent me to a real human being.

… and put me on hold.

Thankfully, I was the “next caller” and didn’t have to wait too long.

It was a bit confusing in trying to say where I was. Thankfully, I was next to a company driveway that had all sorts of signs and their physical address number right next to me. What I wasn’t sure of was whether the highway had a different name while in town. I also wasn’t sure if I’d crossed the border from one town to the next, as these two towns are butted right up against each other. Still, we got it figured out.

The tow was arranged to take the truck to our regular garage, and I soon had a call from the towing company. I had to laugh when I saw the name of our garage on the call display. I had seen new signs at the garage showing that they did towing now, but I didn’t realize they did CAA calls, too. On confirming the company driveway I was next to, the drive knew exactly where I was.

After that, I just had to wait. When my BIL arrived, he pulled into the company driveway, and I didn’t even recognize his truck – he’s gone through at least two since I last saw what truck they had. I think the last one I saw was an F250. This one’s an F150.

He has a very nice truck – very new looking truck, even though it’s a 2008.

Since I was on the side of the highway, we sat in his truck to talk. I told him about what happened, and he was aware that we’ve had other issues, too. He started telling me about his truck and work he had done on it – including getting a new engine, because apparently it was easier and cheaper than the fix needed. So the engine has 30,000 km less on it than the rest of the truck does. I’m amazed he found a 2008 truck with only 30K on it! It’s got 170K on it now, which is about 100K less than our truck had when we bought it.

Oh, and he was planning to sell it in the summer.

!!!

I asked what he was looking to sell it for, and he said about $5000

…

We might actually be able to come up with that before the summer.

When the tow truck showed up, I went out to talk to the driver and explained what happened, as far as I could tell. He said it was good that I didn’t try to keep driving it, just in case. I told him, there was no way I was going to keep driving with what it was doing!

He also told me it was a good thing I had CAA. The tow would have cost $200, without it!

Today is Sunday, so the garage is closed, but tomorrow is a holiday. That means Tuesday will be the earliest anyone can look at it. I mentioned I was just there on Thursday! They didn’t see anything wrong while working on the differential. I’m at a complete loss. My BIL thinks it might be the transmission. If it’s something big like that, it might not be worth fixing. *sigh*

After that, the tow truck driver didn’t need anything more from me, so my BIL and I headed out. The tow truck was blocking my BIL’s truck, but that nice big commercial driveway had plenty of room for my BIL to move around and back out.

It was a very lovely ride, I must say. As we were talking, he told me about some other things he was planning to sell before selling the truck. I told him, if we can come up with the money, I’ll buy it!

We just need to keep this truck running for a few more months. Assuming whatever broke isn’t too expensive to repair in the first place.

After I got home, I mentioned to my brother that our BIL was planning to sell his truck in the summer, and my brother suggested that if we can buy that, we could possibly sell this truck on consignment. We still have lmoast 3 years to pay it off, but might be able to get a decent return on it to take care of that. At least partially.

I don’t think I’ll be getting that large greenhouse with my tax return, after all. 😄 That’s okay. I should still be able to something. Just not a hard sided one.

…

Had a break from writing this to talk to my daughters. My younger daughter was asking me about the chicken coop we got and I mentioned that’s one of the reasons I wanted to get a greenhouse or polytunnel – something to overwinter the chickens in, coop and all. We were looking at some of the designs I was finding on Amazon – risky to purchase from there, and a lot of them have very mixed reviews. They are far more affordable, though. Especially the polytunnels. It’s cheaper to buy a full kit than the materials we’d need to build one, if we could even find some of the materials needed in the first place. On seeing the prices, my daughter thought they were something that, between us, we could manage to afford.

In the end, though, a lot depends on what happens with the truck. I pray whatever broke on it will be a relatively cheap fix!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: which ones, when?

January 23, 2026January 23, 2026 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Nothing like the bone chilling temperatures of a polar vortex to get one thinking of warmer days in the garden!

Yesterday, I watched a couple of inspiring videos. This first one is from MI Gardener.

A bit of irony on this one, talking about how starting seeds too early can actually sabotage the effort. With our short growing season, a lot of things actually do need to be started indoors super early – at least for a growing zone like where he is – and we’ve already sowed our onions, trying out the seed snail method.

None have germinated yet. I’m a bit concerned that our living room might be too cold for germination, and we aren’t able to set up a heat mat in there. Onions handle cooler temperatures well, but they still need a certain level of warmth for germination. Hopefully, I didn’t just waste a whole lot of seeds!

One of the things he brings up is the need to pot up frequently if starting too early. There’s a couple of things I would try to do, to get around that. One is to pre-germinate certain types of seeds (not really worth it for the tinier seeds). That way, they can be planted in the second thing I’d want to try, and that is to put the pre-germinated seeds into pots or tray cells that are quite a bit larger, so that they either won’t need to be potted up at all, or need potting up less frequently.

This next video is from Gardening in Canada.

This is more relevant to us, since she is in the same zone as we are, and I’m pretty sure her growing season is shorter than ours.

Here, she talks about planning out how many seeds to plant, if the goal is to save money on groceries for a family of four.

It’s a place to start when adjusting for individual needs. For example, my family likes to eat fresh tomatoes, but I can’t, so I’d be planting enough for three people, not for. However, I can eat processed tomatoes, so if I want to grow tomatoes for cooking, making sauces, freezing, canning or dehydrating, I would actually want to grow considerably more of, say, paste tomatoes.

Since we started gardening after moving here, a lot of what we chose to grow was to determine what we actually like to eat, and which varieties, as well as what will actually grow well here. We are still doing that, to a point, but have started to narrow things down.

With that in mind, I went through my seed bin for things to start indoors, to see which ones need to be started the earliest – as in, by the end of January, or early February. This is what we’ve got.

There is one thing that should be started before the end of this month.

Luffa. Yes, I still want to try and grow luffa! So that’s something I will set up to pre-germinate probably after this coming weekend.

Other things that I would start, probably in the beginning of February are:

Peppers – we have Sweet Chocolate, which the girls said was universally liked. I also got a new variety, California Wonder Bell, specifically because it was described as having thick walls, that I want to try. We also still have Sweetie Snack Mix that I’d like to try again. This past year, we had such healthy looking plants, but they barely managed to produce anything. I think they might work better in the sunnier location I’m planning to grow peppers in, this year. I’m thinking a total of 9 plants would be enough for our needs.

Caspar Eggplant – a new variety that I plan to grow in a 4′ square bed, where I should be able to protect them from the elements. I think 4 – 6 plants would do, which would also leave space for interplanting with something like onions, or maybe some herbs.

Golden Boy Celery – I’ve never grown celery before, so this one is a total experiment. I think I would shoot for enough to fill one of my large celled trays, which means 21 plants.

Thyme – I may or may not try starting these indoors. We have two varieties of them that are heavily mulched that I hope will survive the winter. Just a couple of plants is enough, though, so I might start more and interplant them with some of the vegetables.

The next batch are things to start in March or early April.

Herbs – tarragon, summer savory, oregano and spearmint are possibilities. I think I would rather buy oregano transplants, though. We do have some in our little herb bed, along with the thyme, that might survive the winter. Spearmint is something I would be growing in a pot to prevent spreading, if we grow them this year. Tarragon and summer savory, though, are definitely things I’d want to start. Once again, only a few plants would be needed, to I’d probably be shooting for two of each.

Flowers – according to the packets, this would be the time to start Cosmos and the black hollyhock we have. Last year, I direct sowed Cosmos and they did eventually bloom, though very late. I might try starting a few indoors, then direct sowing in spring, to see how well they do.

Tomatoes – we will be growing three varieties, for sure, possibly four, all of them new. One is the Orange Currant tomato, which will be my alternative to the Spoon tomatoes we grew last year. Spoon tomatoes have been the only tomatoes I can eat fresh without gagging, and I’m curious if the tiny Orange Currant tomatoes can be added to the list. We will also be trying the Blue Berry and Chocolate Stripes varieties. These three all look to be rather prolific varieties, so we’d probably only grow three or four of each variety. I’m still debating whether I want to also do the Manitoba tomato, which is the variety my mother used to grow here, when I was a kid. If I do, I’d probably grow more than the others, for both fresh eating and making sauces.

The next batch would be started in late April, early May.

Bi-colour pear gourd – a new one, and the only other gourd of the many varieties of seeds I have, that I plan to grow this year. They should be prolific, and I’m thinking three or four plants of these should be enough. They would be among my “for fun” things to grow.

Herbs – in this time frame, we could start the chicory, Florence Fennel and chamomile. I would actually want to grow quite a few of each, based on their uses. I could get away with starting a lot of them and not have to worry about potting up too often, since they would be started so much closer to our last frost date.

Then there are the last ones we would start indoors, in early to mid May, based on a last frost date of June 2, though the adjusted averages now say our last frost date is in the last week of May.

Melons – Sweet Siberian Watermelon, Tigger melon, Hale’s Best Jump cantaloupe, and both orange and green flesh Honeydew melons among the varieties I want to try (all but the green honeydew are new to us). We had really poor results with melons last year, with only three varieties. I’m hoping this coming year will be better. I need to decide: do I want to have two or three each of five varieties, or pick just a couple of varieties, but more plants each? Either way, I think I would be shooting for about 15 plants in total as my goal.

Herbs – caraway. I honestly don’t know how many plants I’d need to grow for our needs. We’d be growing them for their seed, and I have no idea how many they tend to produce. Will have to research that.

Cucumbers – we have three varieties to choose from; Eureka, which is dual purpose pickling or slicing variety, Lemon and Bushy. The Bushy variety is good for pickling and has such a short season, they could easily be direct sown. Where I intend to grow them doesn’t have room for a lot of plants, though they will be trellised, which will allow for slightly denser spacing. I’m thinking of doing the Lemon cucumber for sure, then maybe the Eureka. We’ve grown those in the past and they did surprisingly well under that year’s growing conditions and their location.

This last category is of things that, in theory, I can direct sow, but I would rather start indoors, given our past garden history. These would be started in mid May.

Pumpkin – maybe. I’m still on the fence about trying the “Cinderella” pumpkin seeds I got. If so, I’d be shooting for 2-4 plants.

Herbs – borage. I might just direct sow these. Or I could try both starting indoors and direct sowing. I’ve been warned that they can self seed and spread easily, so I would want to treat them like a perennial and find a place where I can allow them to self seed.

Winter squash – along with wanting to try the rare Arikara variety again, because I want to save seeds, we have the new varieties I want to try. Golden Hubbard, Black Futsu, Butterneck and Gill’s Golden Pippin. If I start 3 or 4 of each, that makes for 15-20 plants in total. Will I even have enough space for so many, and still leave room for the direct sown crops I’m planning on? The goal with these is to have plenty for winter storage, so I would want to have quite a lot. With starting these so much closer to our last frost date, and pre-germinating them, I shouldn’t have to do any potting up at all, if I use my deep cell trays or Red Solo cups right from the start.

Summer squash – I’ll be selecting from all new varieties this year, which includes Yellow Scallop, Green Scallop Bennings, Early Prolific Straightneck and Lemon. Last year, we tried direct sowing our summer squash and got next to nothing, so I want to go back to starting them indoors. We love our summer squash, so I’d probably shoot for 8 -12 plants in total. If I want to try all four varieties, that’s only 2 or 3 plants each. Which would be enough – unless something kills them, or they just don’t thrive. The last few years, summer squash has not done well for us, so I’d rather have more, in hopes to get at least something! By the time we would be starting these, I should have a better idea of what space will have and can decide then.

So, there we have it. A plan of action, more or less, for what we’ll be starting indoors, and when.

Now, I just have to set up our basement to fit this all, with enough warmth and light. I’d hope to get the aquarium greenhouses down there, and might still bring down the small one, but we just can’t figure out how to get the big one, with its stand, around the bottom of the stairs safely. We might be able to get the stand through, but the tank itself is a completely different story.

Ah, well. We’ll figure it out!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden analysis: direct sowing

December 10, 2025December 9, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Okay, so we’ve gone over the winter sowing, then the very disappointing transplanting. How, we get into the direct sowing.

For direct sowing, we did summer squash, pumpkin, pole beans, bush beans, carrots, peas, corn, sunflowers and, to fill in space after losses, Fordhook Giant Swiss Chard. We also planted potatoes and, for a second try, flowers (which I covered a bit in my last post).

Sunflowers, Pumpkin, Corn, Beans and Chard

The pole beans we planted were the Red Noodle beans, in the same bed as the Hopi Black Dye sunflowers. This bed also had seed onions from last year, plus the oodles of tiny self seeded onions I found and transplanted in between the seed onions while preparing the bed.

The Red Noodle Beans germinated and started growing really quickly. I’d planted them along the trellis side of what will eventually be a trellis tunnel. They came up so fast, I rushed to put trellis netting up, even though the structure had only the vertical supports up.

I could have saved the effort. That initial growth spurt was it. They never got any bigger that what you can see in the above slide show. I had a few spare bean seeds left and ended up planting them in gaps between some sugar snap peas. Those stagnated just as much, in a completely different bed.

*sigh*

The Hopi Black Dye sunflowers, however, were a pleasant surprise. It took a long time, but they did finally germinate. They, too, stagnated and took a long time before they started blooming. Some had a single head, while other developed seed heads at almost every leaf junction.

Much to my surprise, they even survived some frosts and a few heads developed what I hope to be viable seeds, that I have saved.

In the same bed as the Red Noodle Beans and sunflowers, I planted the free pumpkin seeds that are given away at the grocery store in my mother’s town. This year, their packets (they limit one per person) had five seeds in it. Last year, they packets had three seeds.

There was no variety name given, but the town encourages people to grow the seeds and enter their pumpkins in their pumpkin fest, from which they later save seeds to give out for free the next year.

I planted them in protective collars, in between the self seeded onions and tomatoes I found in the bed.

The pumpkins where the last thing I direct sowed this year. All of them germinated, and the plants were all some of the healthiest squash we got. They actually came up faster than the sunflowers. When one of them started to develop a pumpkin, I trained that vine up the trellis netting – by then, it was obvious no beans would be climbing it.

They got some really huge flowers, too.

We only got one pumpkin, though. Other female flowers did start to develop little pumpkins, but they all died off.

These vines were very resilient. Even after they seemed to be completely killed off by frost, but we still had warmer days after, they started to grew new leaves and even started to try and bud!

At least we got one pumpkin out of it, with five plants. Last year, we had three plants, and got five pumpkins.

We left it on the counter for a while, where it continued to ripen, and the pattern left by the hammock supporting its weight disappeared.

For bush beans, I planted Royal Burgundy. The first year we grew these, they were fantastic, and we’ve been trying to grow them again since.

These went in along with the Spoon tomatoes.

We got three. One of them got eaten by a deer. It recovered, though.

Despite this, those three little plants actually did start producing! We got a remarkable amount of beans from then, considering how spindly they were!

That did leave me with a lot of open space, and I was out of bean seeds, so I tried planting Swiss Chard.

All I can say about those is, they germinated. Quite a few of them, actually. None of which grew beyond their seed leaves.

*sigh*

I hadn’t planned on it, but I also planted some yellow Custard beans. These were from old seeds that I had, and they went in between rows of corn and between tomatoes.

The bush beans were included in these beds partly for their nitrogen fixing qualities. Corn is a heavy nitrogen feeder.

I planted Orchard Baby corn, which is a short season variety. I got three rows of corn with two rows of beans in between them. The tomatoes got a few beans planted down the middle of the bed, plus one went into a gap between tomato varieties.

I had extra corn seeds, so those got planted around the Arikara squash, nearby.

The corn took a very long time to germinate. For a while, I thought they were going to make it.

In the main bed with the beans, that is.

Most of the beans didn’t germinate at all. Only two or three made it. I wasn’t surprised by that, as these seeds were a few years old, so I replanted them. Eventually, pretty much all of the beans did germinate, as did the corn in that bed.

The corn with the Arikara squash, however, did much better! They germinated faster, grew faster and produced cobs faster.

Not very big cobs, but there was something!

The main corn bed, however, took even longer for the tassels and cobs to form. Then, when we did…

We got corn smut on several plants!

As for the yellow Custard beans, they did eventually start to bloom and we even had beans to harvest, but the plants never grew even close to their full size or production. The ones planted among the tomatoes had a 100% germination rate, though one got dug up by a cat later on. They, too, struggled to grow, bloom and produce. We did, however, get yellow beans to harvest, later in the season.

Summer Squash and Potatoes

With the winter sown summer squash bed a complete fail, plus the small section of winter sown root vegetable mix by the garlic rolled on by cats, we had some open space to work with.

The winter sown summer squash bed became our potato bed.

While cleaned up the bed and digging a trench for the potatoes, I did find a couple of squash seeds but, overall, they seemed to have completely disappeared.

The potatoes we’d bought earlier and started chitting in the basement all failed. They started to grow shoots while in the basement, but I think it was too cold in there for them to do well. Once inside the portable greenhouse, however, they didn’t go any better – and then they got knocked over when the wind almost blew away the greenhouse, knocked over by cats and basically cooked in the heat of the greenhouse.

I got more seed potatoes. Those were chitted in the greenhouse, and did not get cooked.

With the cats seeing all freshly turned soil as an invitation, we made sure to put netting over the potatoes, right from the start. Over time, they got mulched, then mulched again.

On the one hand, they did seem to do well. They grew and got bushy and…

Then they started to die back.

Without ever blooming.

I don’t think I even found a flower bud on them.

I finally dug a few up to see, and yes, there were potatoes. In fact, we were able to slowly harvest potatoes as needed, for quite some time.

With this bed, it seems that drought, heat and smoke were not the only problems.

The bed was also filled with roots from the nearby elm trees.

My nemesi.

Still, we did end up with a decent number of potatoes to enjoy.

The summer squash – Black Zucchini and White Scallop, went in near the garlic.

They, too, got a protective covering right away.

Summer squash usually don’t take long to germinate, but these took so long, I was actually surprised when some seedlings showed up.

I had planted several seeds in each spot and, when they got bigger, I thinned by transplanting.

The summer squash, however, also stagnated for so very long. They did eventually get bigger and we actually got a few zucchini.

I had to hand pollinate them, as the male and female flowers bloomed out of sink.

Only one white scallop squash survived, and that was set back even more than the zucchini. In the end, we got only one scallop squash to harvest.

It was very disappointing, but at least we got something, before the frosts killed them.

Peas and Carrots

The peas were among the first things we planted, and we had two varieties. Sugar Snap peas and Super Sugar Snap peas. We also had two varieties of carrots. The Uzbek Golden carrots were also in our winter sown mixes, plus we tried Atomic Red carrots this year.

The peas were already germinating when the carrots were planted. I’d already set boards out, which protected the carrots until they germinated, and then were used to keep the soil from eroding while watering, as this bed has no walls.

The peas were probably the best we’ve ever grown, even though they did not reach their full potential with the heat, drought and smoke.

There weren’t a lot of pods to harvest, but I could at least snack on them while doing my morning rounds – until the deer got at them.

*sigh*

The carrots were both successful and not successful. There was good germination, and we eventually did a fair bit of thinning by harvesting. Few got very big, though. At the end of the season, when it was time to harvest everything and prep the bed for next year, there were quite a lot of carrots.

Little carrots.

But will, we had something! In fact, once we concluded that we like the Super Sugar Snap peas more than the Sugar Snap peas, I was able to leave pods on select plants specifically for seed saving.

Flowers

I already covered this quite a bit in my last post, but we did direct sow flowers this year. The winter sown bed got destroyed, so we started over.

In the second photo of the above photo, you can see that cats were not the only problem we had, trying to protect the winter sown flowers. The wind completely destroyed the cover we put over them.

I found more Dwarf Jewel nasturtiums to try again. I also found some mixed Cosmos seeds, and decided to plant the memorial Crego Mixed Colors aster seeds I had.

My mother used to grow Cosmos, so I knew they could grew here. We also have wild asters growing, but not domestic ones, so I wasn’t sure on those. Nasturtiums are completely new.

The bed got protective netting as soon as it was planted.

They took so very long to germinate. The asters, longest of all.

The nasturtiums bloomed and we were able to collect seeds, but they were much smaller than they should have been. The Cosmos eventually got big and bushy, but by the time the started to bloom, it was late in the season and they were killed off by frost long before they could go to seed.

The asters were what I wanted to go to see the most, as they are in memory of an old friend. Thankfully, the Cosmos protected them from frost, and I did manage to collect seed.

Final thoughts.

This was a very rough year in the garden. It made me so very glad we had the winter sown beds! Much of what we planted, however, is stuff we will continue to plant. One really bad year is not going to stop that. Locations and varieties may change, but the staples will always be there.

Beans: as disappointing as this year was, beans are a staple crop and we will be growing them again; both pole and bush beans, to extend the season. By the time bush beans are no longer producing as much, the pole beans are ready for harvesting.

At least, that’s how it normally works.

I really want to grow red noodle beans again. They are supposed to do well in our climate zone. There’s only so much I can blame on the drought and heat, or even the smoke. Maybe not next year, though. I also want to grow beans for drying, but that will depend on space.

Corn: These were also disappointing this year, but I do plan to grow more next year. I’ve got way too many varieties of corn seeds, but I have more Yukon Chief, which is a super short season variety we’ve grown before, that I will be planting next year. I’m also going to be growing a sweet corn that matures later, so they can actually be planted close together and cross pollination should not be an issue. Corn is a heavy feeder and you don’t get a lot for the space they take up, but I just really like corn!

Sunflowers: I’ve got the saved seed from this year, and I’ll be trying those, next year. Each year we do that, the variety will get more acclimated to our area. At some point, we might even have enough to use the Hopi Black Dye sunflowers as a dye! At some point, I want to try the giant varieties again (like the Mongolian Giant we winter sowed, but everything in that bed failed), but probably not next year.

Chard: I’ve already got a new variety of those winter sown with our garlic. I might try others, both old and new varieties, with direct sowing early in the spring, but I’m quite blown away by how the ones I did direct sow never got past the seed leaf stage. Not sure what to make of that.

Pumpkin: we have a new variety of pumpkin seeds to try next year, which I will probably start indoors first. It’s the seeds we get locally that do amazing when direct sown, so I’ll likely get more of those next spring, too.

Summer Squash: Once again, we have new varieties to try. I might start them indoors again, too. Direct sowing just doesn’t seem to work well. I know my mother used to direct sow zucchini when she gardened here, but that was a long time ago, and the soil and growing conditions have changed quite a bit.

Peas: we already have some dwarf peas winter sown in the kitchen garden. I’ve got another new variety waiting to be planted in the spring, plus we have our saved Super Sugar Snap peas to plant next year. I’ve just got to figure out how to protect them from the deer!

Carrots: I’ve already got a rainbow mix of carrots, winter sown. Hopefully, they will do better, size wise, than this year’s did. I still have other varieties of carrot seeds, including saved Uzbek Golden carrot, which we quite like. I’ll probably direct sow some in the spring. It will, once again, depend on space available.

Potatoes: I’m still surprised by the potatoes that never bloomed. Of course, potatoes are a staple crop, so we’ll be planting them again. In digging them up to harvest them, and to clean up the bed in the fall, I found a LOT of tree roots had grown into the bed, which may have contributed to the problem.

We’ve got to do something about those trees!

For now, the amount of potatoes we grow is nowhere near enough to last us through a winter, but we’re still looking to find varieties that both grow well here, and that we like. In the future, as we reclaim lost garden spaces and continue to expand, the goal is to plant many more potatoes to store in the root cellar.

Flowers: Of course, I’ll be planting the saved memorial aster seeds, plus some dropped seed might come up on their own. We have new Cosmos varieties, Bachelor’s button, saved nasturtiums, and other flower seeds to plant. It’s more about deciding where to plant them, as some were specifically chosen so that they can self seed and be treated as perennials. Over time, we plan on having areas filled with wild flowers all over, to both attract pollinators and deter deer.

Well, if you’ve managed to slog your way through all that, congratulations! And thank you for taking the time! If you have any thoughts or feedback, please feel free to leave a comment.

While I tried to include quite a few images with this, since I’m posting images almost exclusively on Instagram (I’ve used up almost all the storage space that comes with my WP plan), it’s a bit messed up. So, if you want to get a better look at things, here are the garden tour videos I did in June and July.

I sounded so hopeful in June.

Not so much by the end of July!

Ah, well. It is what it is!

In my next post, I’ll be analyzing our perennial and food forest stuff, and then one last post in the series with an overall analysis, and what we’re planning on for next year.

We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us, that’s for sure!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden analysis: winter sown beds

December 7, 2025December 6, 2025 / Re-Farmer / Leave a comment

Our 2025 garden started in 2024, and not just by planting garlic in the fall. Inspired by a video from Gardening in Canada, I decided to give winter sowing a try. Now winter sowing in milk jugs, etc, but actually direct sowing into garden beds in the fall.

You can see where I did these in my October 2024 garden tour video.

This was a pretty risky experiment. After going through my seeds, I decided to make mixes of seeds and broadcast them. This gave me a chance to use up old seed, but it also cleaned out all the seeds I had in some categories, both old and new.

The garlic I planted was from saved cloves. Besides that, these are the seed mixes I made and direct sowed before the ground froze.

Seed combo 1 Root vegetables	Seed combo 2 Summer squash	Seed combo 3 Kitchen garden	Seed combo 4 Tall and climbing	Flower combos
Carrots: Uzbek Golden and Napoli Beets: Bresko, Merlin, Cylindra and Albino Turnip: Purple Prince Radishes: French Breakfast, Champion, Cherry Belle and Zlata Onions: saved seed (mix of red and yellow bulb unions) Note: left over seeds from this mix were planted in a final bed with saved Jebousek lettuce seeds added in	Sunburst pattypan White Scallop pattypan Magda Green zucchini: Endeavor Yellow zucchini: Goldy	Swiss Chard: Bright Lights and Fordhook Giant Spinach: Space, Lakeside, Bloomsdale and Hybrid Olympia Kohlrabi: Early White Vienna and Early Purple Vienna Bok Choi: Hedou Tiny (saved seed) Shallots: saved seed Onions: saved seed	Sunflowers: Mongolian Giant and Hopi Black Dye Peas: Dalvay shelling peas (not saved seed) and King Tut purple peas (saved seed) Bush beans: Royal Burgundy Corn: Montana Morado (saved seed) Onions: saved seed	Main garden area: Nasturtium: Dwarf Jewel Mix Butterfly flower: Orange Shades (milkweed) Forget Me Not Maple grove: Western Wildflower Mix

In making these mixes, I had some Uzebek Golden carrot seeds left, 1 out of 2 packs of Hopi Black Dye sunflower, onion and Dalvay pea seeds left. All the rest, I used all the seeds I had. I really cleaned out my inventory in the process!

This is the video I made featuring the winter sown beds this past spring.

Let’s start with the complete failures, first. 😂

Summer Squash mix.

I was really looking forward to these. Unfortunately, not a single one germinated.

No, I can’t blame the old seeds.

I blame the cats. Mostly.

After the mulch was removed, the cats decided that this bed was a great place to roll around in. If anything survived the winter, I never had a chance to see them before they were crushed. In the end, my daughter and I completely redid the bed, digging a trench and planting potatoes. Which did much better, sort of, but I’ll cover those in my direct sowing post.

In the garlic bed, I was left with some space at one end of the bed, so I broadcast a bit of the root vegetable mix there. That, also, got completely rolled on by the cats – and I even saw things starting to sprout there! I did direct sow summer squash in that space later on, which I will also cover in the direct sowing post.

The winter sown summer squash, though, were a complete loss.

Tall and Climbing (mostly) mix

This mix went into a newly redone bed in the south yard, at the chain link fence. The fence would have provided a trellis for some things. The bush beans were there as nitrogen fixers.

I planned ahead on this. Knowing that this bed could be completely suffocated by seeds from the nearby Chinese Elm, I got mesh tunnel kits to protect this bed. These were dollar store purchases, and it took four of them to cover the entire bed from end to end.

As far as protecting from the seeds, they worked great.

They couldn’t handle kittens, though. Kittens that decided the mesh was great to play on, bending the wires under their weight, and to get under. They would use the bed as a litter box, but also just run around back and forth, playing. Or in a panic when they couldn’t find a way out again. The few things that started to germinate were completely crushed. Even the seed onions I found and transplanted along the edges were pretty much destroyed.

It was incredibly frustrating, and the bed was a total loss.

Self seeded lettuce; the only thing that survived in this bed!

The netting survived, but many of the wire supports were so badly bent out of shape, it wasn’t worth trying to straighten them out again.

The Flower combos.

There were two areas I winter sowed flower seeds. One was a purchased mix of wildflowers native to Western Canada. These are the sort of thing I would like to have growing among the trees, so it went into an area on the edge of the maple grove.

Unfortunately, yes, the cats caused damage there, too. The prepared soil was softer there, so they’d use it as a litter. The area was large enough, though, that if anything survived, there was still a chance.

I honestly don’t know if any survived. Nothing came up, but part of the issue in that area was the drought conditions and the fact that I simply didn’t water it regularly in the spring. It’s entirely possible that there are still surviving seeds in there that might germinate later on. I’d sown mixes of seeds in two other areas in the maple grove that also didn’t take, but since then, things have come up that I haven’t seen there before, so it’s entirely possible this will happen again.

For 2025, though, nothing seemed to have come up at all.

The other flower seeds went into a small bed at the end of the high raised bed, where I’d grown pumpkins last year. This one, I was able to water more regularly.

Yup. You guessed it.

Cats destroyed it. By the time I was able to cover it, it was too late. Nothing survived.

Starting over with flowers: much better!

I did replant that bed with more nasturtiums, Cosmos and some memorial asters, keeping them covered until they were too big to fit under the cover, and large enough that I didn’t think the cats would go into them anymore.

The nasturtiums did pretty well, though they were much smaller than they should have been. They bloomed and we were able to collect seeds from them. They did pretty good, but did not thrive to their full potential.

The Cosmos got really tall and looked great, but they were among the things that stagnated. It took so long before they bloomed that, even with a mild fall, they never finished blooming, and there were no seeds to collect.

The memorial asters were also much smaller than they should have been, and took a very long time to bloom. They were, however, also protected by the Cosmos, when the temperatures started to drop and frost hit. The Cosmos protected them enough that they were able to go to seed.

Some of the seed, I allowed to drop to self seed for next year, but I collected others to direct sow in other areas next year.

Now let’s look at what did work – and these really made up for the losses!

Kitchen Garden mix

This mix went into one bed in the old kitchen garden. As things started to warm up, I dragged over a cover to put over it. This allowed me to first cover it with plastic, to create a mini greenhouse, which was later replaced with mosquito netting. This cover is strong enough to withstand the weight of cats!

The first things to show up in this bed was the spinach.

Lots of spinach.

More than we could keep up with, spinach!

Some varieties bolted rather quickly, though.

What got me really excited, though, was the kohlrabi. I’ve been trying to grow it for years and, with the old seeds I had, I honestly wasn’t expecting much. For the first time, we actually had kohlrabi to harvest! That was what really won me over to winter sowing. The only other time I came close to succeeding with kohlrabi, they suddenly got completely destroyed by flea beetles.

Another reason for the mosquito netting!

Different things showed up as the season progressed and space opened up. The kohlrabi did overshadow other things, like the Swiss Chard, though we were still able to harvest some from under the kohlrabi leaves, too.

What I didn’t see until they bolted was the Hedou Tiny bok choi (which I kept misspelling as hinou instead of hedou). They were already from saved seed, and only a couple of plants seemed to survive the shade of the kohlrabi, so I left them to go to seed.

The most resilient in this bed were the chard. We harvested those as cut and come again plants, and they just kept going and going! Even when I finally had to clean the bed up and prepare it for new winter sowing, we still had harvestable leaves.

The “fail” of the bed were the onion seeds. Actually, the bulb onions and shallots seeds, both from our own saved seed, were a fail in all the beds. Those really need to be started indoors in January or February. Heck, I could be starting them now, and it’s still the first week of December as I write this. We just don’t have a long enough season for them to be direct down. I had hoped, however, that they would start to grow enough that we could harvest the greens. The kitchen garden bed was the only one that actually had onions start to grow. In fact, when it was time to redo the bed, I found so many tiny onions and possibly shallots that I kept the larger ones and replanted them with the winter sowing!

I also found a surprise. Two full head of garlic somehow got missed when the bed was being reworked. They were sprouting, so I ended up breaking the cloves apart and transplanting them into the wattle weave bed in the kitchen garden, as part of my winter sowing for next year.

I was really impressed with how this bed did, and the experiment helped me make decisions for next year.

Root Vegetable mix

This mix ended up being spread out over three areas. The high raised bed in the main garden area, and a small space at the end of the garlic bed, got the same mix. When it came time to use the last of the mix, in one of the low raised beds in the west yard, I added Jebousek lettuce seeds I’d saved from last year.

The three areas turned out quite different.

The tiny area with the garlic, as mentioned earlier, was destroyed by cats rolling in the soil.

The high raised bed had mostly beets, radishes and carrots show up, plus some turnip. Including one giant turnip I allowed to go to seed, except a deer ate it. So that got harvested.

I allowed most of the radishes to go to seed as well, as I was growing them mostly for their pods. Eventually, the deer started going for those, too!

They really liked the beet greens.

*sigh*

Still, we were able to harvest beets and carrots – including the orange Napoli carrots from old pelleted seeds! – as needed. What we really got a lot of, though, was radish pods. We tried those out in a quick pickle.

Which we all enjoyed. I don’t like radishes in general, but found myself snacking on fresh pods pretty regularly. It turns out that winter sown radish pods are milder than spring sown ones.

The third bed also did really well.

I did end up putting plastic over this bed as well. Mostly, though, I found I had to try and keep cats from getting under it.

The only “problem” we had with this bed is the Jebousek lettuce. Which we quite enjoy eating. There was just so MUCH of it! I couldn’t believe it! They actually got to be a weed. We simply couldn’t keep up with eating it all and I ended up pulling a lot of it and leaving it as a mulch. Only to discover they would re-root themselves and start growing again!

The radish pods did really well, though. Even after the deer got at them, they recovered and started blooming again.

In the end, the few beets that germinated got choked out. No onions germinated, that I could see. I didn’t think the carrots were showing up, other than the odd one, but when I started cleaning up the bed at the end of the season, I kept finding carrot fronds, so I left them to grow until it was time to clean up and prepare the bed for the next winter sowing.

This is what I ended up finding.

That was way more than I expected!

So that’s how the winter sown seeds went. There’s still one more bed to cover.

Garlic

As always, our garlic was planted in the fall. When I took the mulch off in the spring, they were already up and growing. I was really happy with how they did!

Unfortunately, yard cats were still an issue, and I ended up having to cover the bed (and the potato bed next to it) with netting until the garlic started to get too tall. By then, they were not at risk from the cats anymore.

I’m really happy with how the garlic did – and with being able to harvest scapes again.

We ended up dehydrating some of the scapes, then grinding them to a powder. It turned out to be a fantastic way to be able to include garlic in our cooking, and I definitely want to keep doing that.

This was less garlic than we tend to plant, but we still got a good harvest of what are probably the biggest garlic bulbs we’ve ever grown.

The biggest ones were saved and set aside to be planted this fall.

Conclusion

In the end, winter sowing like this has turned out to be a real game changer for us, and I fully intend to keep doing this from now on.

We did mixes this time, which I will not repeat. Instead, I’ve chosen seeds, from my new inventory, to plant in a more orderly fashion. Which is already done.

So, for next year, along with the garlic and seed onions, I have already planted spinach, chard, kohlrabi, purple savoy cabbage (first time trying to grow cabbage), beets, Hedou tiny bok choi, peas, carrots and dwarf peas. You can see where those went in our October garden tour video.

The other thing we seriously need to address is how to keep things out of the garden beds. Elm seeds, cats, deer, flea beetles, snails (we didn’t have a snail problem this year, thankfully – probably because we had so many frogs this year!!), etc.

With that in mind, I’ll be completely reworking the bed along the chain link fence, making it slightly taller and with supports to hold any sort of cover we want to add. Early on, I’d like to be able to put plastic over it to create a mini greenhouse environment. Later, I want to put netting over it to keep the seeds and cats out. Maybe frost covers later in the season. So the supports need to be something I can easily change things up on, too.

I’m just really excited about how well the winter sowing worked. Obviously, not everything can be winter sown, but as we reclaim more garden space and build more beds, I expect that winter sowing will make up a significant portion of our garden, year after year.

The Re-Farmer

The Re-Farmer

Sometimes, you need to go back, to go forward.

figuring things out

Frustrating, but that’s good? Maybe?

An actual productive day!

Chicken coop build, day two – modifications

An offering

Our 2026 Garden: “potting” up, and weather whiplash

Our 2026 Garden: Yellow Celery – I hope this works!

I’m home now

Our 2026 Garden: which ones, when?

Our 2025 Garden analysis: direct sowing

Our 2025 Garden analysis: winter sown beds

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