I hadn’t planned on harvesting anything while doing my evening rounds.
My garden had other plans!
I ended up using the bottom of my shirt to carry everything, because I didn’t have my usual giant colander that I use for harvesting and washing the produce.
My shirt got very loaded down!
Before I got to that point, I spotted these seed heads.
While shifting and preparing the low raised beds, I spotted a small plant I recognized as a flower that shows up in our main garden area. Rather than tossing it with the weeds, I decided to transplant it into the log framed bed, with the onions I’d been finding. I had no idea if it would survive a transplant.
Well, not only has it survived, it has thrived! It has become quite large and, while the flowers are not particularly large, the seed heads are amazing! Each one of those puffs in the photo are bigger than the palm of my hand.
I don’t want it to seed itself in the raised bed, so whenever the seed heads open like this, I gather the seeds and let them loose in an area just north of the beds. I figure at least some of them will manage to germinate, in the spring.
While checking on this bed, I also spotted one of the larger melons starting to look a bit yellow. I went to pick it up and it fell off its vine, so I included it in my harvest.
Since this from the Summer of Melons mix, I have no idea if this is a variety that turns yellow like this at maturity. I suspect not, to be honest. Still, we’ll crack it open and see what it’s like inside. So I’m not sure if this is a “first” for the melons or not.
You may notice something else different in the photo.
A bright red Cheyenne hot pepper! Red from stem to tip! There was another, next to it, that is about half red. We grew these previously, in grow bags, but they stayed green. When we had frost predictions, we tried to protect them, but were late covering them up one nice. The next morning, I harvested all the green peppers that weren’t frost damaged, and we set them up in the living room. They did turn red as as they dried, eventually, but they didn’t look very palatable. So I’m very happy to have some ripening while still on their plants!
I think I could have harvested several Dragonfly peppers. Some are quite large and so dark a purple, they look black. I will wait a bit, though. I think we’d end up with too many to use quickly, so I want to be prepared to dehydrate some of them, before I bring them in.
As for the cherry tomatoes, they got all mixed up while I was carrying them in my shirt. I honestly can’t tell the difference between the Chocolate cherry and the Black cherry! I’ll have to ask the family if they can tell the difference by taste.
I’m really quite happy with the harvests we’ve been getting. I had been so sure that we’d have almost nothing to harvest regularly this summer, except maybe tomatoes, since we have four varieties. Granted, this is the sort of harvesting we should have been getting in July and early August, not in September, but I’m just so happy to have anything at all!
If the temperatures stay mild enough, though, we should have a pretty awesome harvest of winter squash and melons! I’m quite looking forward to it!
I woke this morning to way too much pain and stiffness, so I asked my daughters to do both the outside and inside cat feeding, so I could take some painkillers and sleep in a bit.
Then I saw my younger daughter come in to do the food bowls in my room, and she’s still using a cane! Damn. We’re quite the household of gimps!
I’ll cover the garden stuff I got done today in a different post, but besides that…
First on the to-do list was a trip into town. Our expected prescription delivered on Wednesday is going to be delayed, as their driver isn’t available on the usual day. With most of my husband’s medications, he has ample supply, but not his new painkillers. So that got ordered, and was ready for pick up today. That gave me a chance to pick up some antihistamines for myself as well. I don’t know what I’m allergic to outside – likely a tree pollen – and it’s very annoying.
Since I was going to be in town anyhow, I grabbed our two empty 18.9L (5 gallon) water jugs to refill at the grocery store.
I forgot.
This is Canada Day weekend.
Town was so incredibly busy and crowded! We definitely need to avoid it until after Canada Day.
There were, at least, some really good sales on at the grocery store. I only took advantage of two; one brand of salad kits were almost half off, so I ended up getting 12 bags; 4 of three different mixes. Then I saw nacho chips were on sale, so I grabbed some of those. We already have cheese and olives, so my husband could have some nachos for a treat.
Once back at home and after I had lunch, it was outside to get some work done, while the weather was good. In the process, I got to see a whole bunch of kittens, of course.
We can now confirm that the white and grey mama has brought her four white and grey/black kittens back to the sun room! I spotted her on the critter cam, nursing some of them, while others – white and and greys from Adam’s litter – played nearby. I counted six kittens with her at the time. That makes 12 kittens in 3 litters now using the sun room.
I do wish Broccli would bring hers over. They are starting to get big! I’m going to stop leaving food by the old garden shed, so they have reason to come to the house for kibble, instead.
Towards the end of the day outside, I just had to pause and get a picture of the mock orange under the clothes line.
The sugar snap peas are starting to bud and bloom. I’m a bit surprised, because the plants are not very big, but there it is!
I also spotted the first summer squash show up; a green zucchini. I was planning to sow more after I finished with the low raised beds in the main garden area. We shall see if any others germinated over the next while. I may not need to re-sow all of them, after all.
The mock orange at the laundry platform now has a few flowers blooming. There are so many buds, it’s going to be a mass of white flowers soon, but for now, it’s just a few scattered around. It’s a shame this was planted where it was. It’s gotten big enough that it gets in the way when we want to use the clothes line. That and the platform needs maintenance and a paint job. We need to transplant it, and I want to find a nice sunny location that will really showcase it, because it’s so gorgeous once it starts blooming.
I like that there always seems to be something starting to bloom, right around when other things are finishing their blooming season.
One of the things I wanted to get back to today, was to work on the garden beds again. It’s getting a bit drier out there, though mowing the lawn is still out of the question, but I want to get at least something done.
There were plenty of kitties coming out for breakfast, though I counted “only” twenty. Shop Towel came around, and his face is looking so beat up!! I did manage to let me get a big wood tick off the side of his head, and a few more around a wound on his side that looks like some fur was pulled out in a fight. No major injuries. His presence does make a few of the other cats very nervous, though.
I did get to visit Broccoli’s babies, straighten out their bedding, and leave food for her. They are getting much more active, which is a bit of a concern. There is a lot of stuff in there they can get into, and they’re getting mobile enough to climb out of their bedding. I’d like to set up some sort of box or bin for them to nest in, but I’m afraid if I do that, she’ll move them away completely.
The cherry tree near the house is in peak bloom now. It looks so pretty, nestled in between the lilacs and their purple flower buds.
Once the morning rounds were done, I came inside for breakfast, and was planning to head outside. Part of the problem is, I’m just not feeling well. I wasn’t able to get to sleep until past 3am – I can only partially blame cats for that! Butterscotch has finally stopped spending her days hiding under the chair, and is back to sleeping on the bed, though any time she sees Susan or Fenrir, she starts snarling. Mostly, though, she has decided that I am her bed! Which is fine, until she starts wriggling and squirming.
Meanwhile, the high humidity we’re having lately has been brutal on my osteo-arthritis. Usually, that’s not been an issue since we moved back to the prairies. When we were living on the West Coats, I could barely walk. Now, it’s all acting up again. The worst is an old elbow injury. Back in… 2010? 2011? I developed the equivalent of tennis elbow. I actually quit my job as a banquet server at the time, because I was afraid I might drop a plate of food or a pot of hot coffee on someone. It got so bad, I couldn’t even turn a door knob, and had to stop crocheting for a year. With physiotherapy, it did improve, but it’s never healed completely, and flares up every now and then, and has developed into OA. It’s my left elbow, and I’m left handed in a lot of things – like turning door knobs! It’s been flaring up a lot since we’ve had the rains, making some of the simplest actions, painful and difficult. At least it doesn’t really stop me from doing big things; it’s the small motions that are affected the most, but I should still be able to handle a garden fork.
But then I started getting messages and had to make phone calls, and then there were other unexpected tasks to get done. To top it off, my younger daughter is feeling even worse than I am right now. For other reasons, but she’s pretty much out of commission for most things.
We are quite the household of gimps!
I’m really fighting the urge to take more painkillers and take a nap right now.
Well. I can at least take the painkillers!
The frustrating thing is, if we don’t get things done today, it won’t get done tomorrow; tomorrow is our first stock up shopping trip in the city. The day after, we’re supposed to get more rain. Then we’re back in the city again, to meet up with a friend that’s back in Canada. Then another trip to the city to do the second stock up shopping trip… on the weekend? After the weekend? Somewhere in there, we’ll be getting contacted about the flat tire I dropped off at the garage, and if all goes well, we’ll be getting that put back on, and the spare stored again. By the time all that is done, we’ll probably be past our last frost date and need to start planting things!
So those beds have got to get done!
At least we do have some spaces ready to plant in.
The cherries at the edge of the spruce grove are blooming like crazy right now. We might actually have berries from them this year. The one by the house – the one we plan to keep – is just starting to bloom. Usually, it blooms before the ones in the bushes.
The different types of lilacs are showing flower buds, but only the double lilac in the old kitchen garden is starting to show a few open blossoms. Most of the crab apple trees have buds, but the one big one that has tasty apples just sort of exploded in flowers this morning.
The grape hyacinths have their flower cones up. Little spots of purple, all over the area they’re in. Unfortunately, they are almost completely hidden by the purple bellflower that has taken over every open space among the trees. The area is too large to weed by hand, but I don’t want to use tools or the weed trimmer, and risk accidentally taking out the grape hyacinths.
I’m really looking forward to when the lilacs start opening. We’ve got five different kinds that my mother planted, and they all bloom at different types. Everything smells amazing for weeks!
I also made sure to check our little strawberry patch. Something – likely the cats – keeps digging into the mulch, but not the strawberries. I just need to put the mulch back in the morning, and everything else is okay.
It looks like 8 out of 9 are doing quite well right now. The 9th one does have leaf buds on it, so it will hopefully recover soon. Considering we ordered a package of 8, that one’s a bonus, anyhow!
Hopefully, these will do quite well where they are – as long as the bed doesn’t get invaded by those Chinese elm roots again!
The Saskatoons growing nearer the house are blooming now. As soon as we’re able, I want to get into that area and cut away the chokecherry, false spirea and other things that are crowding them.
The tiny plums we’ve got left in the yard are in full bloom right now. There’s two trees left and I’m hoping we can manage to keep at least one of them. We’ve had to cut away others that were spreading or dying. We plan to buy plum trees in the future, and some varieties need a wild plum nearby for cross pollination, so if we get one of those, it would be planted near these ones.
Our very first tulip has bloomed. There are quite a few other buds. I’m happy to say that the fence wire we’ve put around the tulip patch has been sufficient to keep the deer out! They really seem to love tulip flower buds.
In other areas, the garlic is coming up nicely. The strawberries we started from seed that are in the wattle weave bed are getting nice and big – bigger than the ones in the asparagus bed. Those ones, however, have started to show flower buds! No sign of the purple asparagus, though. I suspect we’ve lost those.
In the bed with the peas, carrots and spinach, I’ve now spotted a whole three pea shoots from the first planting of sugar snap peas.
The newly planted strawberries are mostly looking good. Seven of the nice transplants are showing definite growth. The other two either didn’t make it, or are further behind.
I did have a sad find this morning. When feeding the outside cats and seeing Broccoli out front, I went to the garden shed to check on her babies and leave some food for her while she was away.
I knew something was wrong as soon as I saw two of the babies had squirmed off the side of the self warming mat nest. It was a bit bunched up on one side, but where the fluffy top was exposed, I found the third kitten, dead. It was the smaller of the calicos. There was no sign of what caused its death.
As soon as I removed it, the black and white kitten squirmed its way back onto the fluffy part of the mat. I straightened it out a bit, so there was more of the top available for them, and left some kibble for their mother nearby.
Then I buried the little one in front of the stone cross on the edge of the spruce grove. I know this is a to be expected with semiferal cats, but it’s always sad to see. At least we don’t seem to be getting a repeat of last year. If I remember correctly, by this time, we’d already found the remains of at least two or three entire litters.
By about 10:30 or so, I was on my way to my mother’s. She wanted me to pick up lunch first. She was hoping that the grocery store would have their hot dinners available, but if not, she asked me to pick up some fried chicken at the gas station. It turned out they did have two dinners left – each with a piece of BBQ chicken, potato wedges and green beans. As I was getting them, I picked up a cold drink for myself. My mother always has tea, but I don’t want to use up my mother’s supplies. Normally, I’d have gotten a Monster energy drink, but I knew that would just get me lectured. So I got a coffee based energy drink. I figured that would be a safe thing to drink around her. I don’t normally drink coffee, but I do like coffee as a flavour, and that’s pretty much what these are.
When I got to my mother’s, she was very happy with the dinners, though she had made her own “salad”, brought that out and tried to make me eat it. I told her I was more than happy with the vegetables in the dinner.
Then she started complaining that the beans were undercooked. So I ate one.
They were prefectly al dente.
To my mother, they should be mushy.
I couldn’t even think that she preferred softer food because of her dentures, with the holes from missing teeth she refuses to fix, since the salad she made, and was eating instead of the beans, was made with celery and apples, and even crunchier than the beans.
Then, as we were eating, she got “that look”.
Oh, how I know that look. The nasty smirk and open condensation, just before she’s about to launch into some verbal abuse.
“You know that drinks are unhealthy, right?” she says to me.
And by “drinks”, she meant the can I was drinking from. She had no idea what I was actually drinking, but it was in a can, so it must be bad. This isn’t a new thing; shortly after we moved here, she came to visit and saw our recycling bag for aluminum. It had mostly V8 cans in it, but she started lecturing us about how we shouldn’t be drinking pop. We explained to her what V8 was, but I guess she didn’t believe us? She then brought up, for the next few years, how we drink too much pop, and that’s why I’m fat, based on her once seeing a recycling bag full of V8 cans.
At this point, I don’t think I’d been there for more than 15 minutes. So I just put my fork down and asked, is it time for me to leave? I pointed out that she didn’t even know what I was drinking (if she’d bothered to look, she would have seen that it was coffee based, and that it contained vitamins and herbs), that I was there for such a short time, and she was already attacking me.
At which point, she started crossing herself and told me, it was up to me if I wanted to go.
Uh huh.
She did, at least, stop finding things to attack me about.
Instead, she switched tactics. Since the dinners were chicken, she started talking about how my brother would come to the farm every week after work, and he would bring chicken dinners, but he doesn’t do that anymore. This would have been before she moved off the farm to where she is now, so more than 10 years ago. I told her, it’s good that now we’re at the farm, so he doesn’t have to make that long drive anymore. Oh, but he doesn’t even phone anymore! I just laughed and said, yes, he does. Just because you don’t remember it, that doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. Then I suggested that what she really meant was, he doesn’t call her every day, like she wants him to. Which seems to have hit the mark with her, because she actually seemed to think about it and dropped the subject. Meanwhile, I know my brother has even told her outright, that it hurts him to call her, because she quickly starts attacking him for whatever is on her mind at the time. Her response is to start going on about “freedom of speech” and how she just says what’s on her mind, we need to forgive each other, and generally try to make herself to be the victim, and him into the mean one.
She doesn’t try that with me very much anymore. I call her out when she gets abusive now, so she’s cut it back quite a bit.
It did make for a much quieter than usual meal, though!
My mother has been having a harder time with her mobility, so we went over her list. Her writing is a mix of English and Polish, with the English spelled… creatively, so sometimes, I need to clarify. For example, I knew from an earlier conversation that she wanted corn meal, but on her list, she wrote in polish, corn flour. I clarified, and it turns out she didn’t know that there was such a thing as corn flour that is different from corn meal. She’ll also just say things like “fruit”, and I know it means to get what looks good or is on sale, and I know what kinds of fruit she likes. As we talked, though, she specifically asked for NO blueberries.
They get caught in the holes in her dentures! 😄
Fair enough!
Once I understood what she was looking for, I headed out and did her shopping for her. There is usually at least one thing I have to change up, for various reasons, and I make sure to explain the changes as I put things away.
Oh, there was one thing I couldn’t resist for myself while at the grocery store.
Every year, in the spring, there is a box of free pumpkin seeds at this grocery store. Each envelope has two seeds in it, and they limit it to one packet per person. This year, they came with a little pamphlet. The town has a pumpkin fest every year, and this year is their 100th. It included information about the variety of seeds (Rocket), growing instructions (can be direct sown or started indoors, with a pH around 6), and what to expect (pumpkins from 15-20 pounds in size). Mostly, though, they were encouraging students to grow pumpkins and enter them in the pumpkin fest contest, in various categories, for prize money. These aren’t for giant pumpkins, so the prizes are very small, but if it’s enough to get kids excited about growing things, that’s just bonus!
So I grabbed a packet. Once I’m done writing this, I’ll scarify them and start pre-germinating them. I have no intention of entering any contests, but some 20 pound pumpkins would be nice!
As I was leaving the grocery store, I was immediately blasted by high winds. A storm was moving in, so as soon as my mother’s groceries were put away, I said my goodbyes. I ended up driving into the storm, but the worst of it was past by the time I got home. We’ll definitely need to check for fallen branches – or fallen trees! – tomorrow.
Our gravel roads, however, are getting worse and worse. The municipality can’t even do anything about it, since they are too wet right now.
We’re going to need a break in the rain to cut the grass, too. It’s getting way too tall. Plus, we can always use more grass clippings for mulch!
We should be getting a one day break in the rain tomorrow, but more rain again, the day after. The grass will be too wet to cut, but we have to focus on getting the garden ready, anyhow.
Oh? Is that more thunder I hear?
According to the weather radar, we’re right in line for some heavy rain in a little bit.
I’m not complaining. This is supposed to be a drought year, and with how little snow we got this past winter, any rain we get now is a good thing!
With the current conditions, and the melted snow quickly disappearing, I decided to do some wild sowing.
I’m also going to do a test, since I’m almost out of storage space for files on my WP account. It now allows images to be uploaded from Google Photos, so that’s where these are from. Please let me know if you can also see them!
A friend sent me a whole bunch of old seeds. These are all the flower seeds from the stack. Not all the packages had years on them that I could find, but one of them was dated 2020.
I dumped all the seeds into an old spice shaker with very large holes in the lid. The old prescription bottles with Icelandic Poppy seeds from 2018 form the majority of these.
This is where they went.
This low area on the North side of our driveway still has a bit of standing water and the soil is still saturated in places. It gets full sun and. It’s an area that’s too rough to mow, so it’s as good a place as any to sow some random seeds! I simply broadcast the seeds as widely as I could over the area.
The chances that such old seeds would germinate at all is low to begin with. They will also have to contend with birds finding and eating them. How many will even have enough contact with the soil to take root is another factor.
Still, who knows? We might have ourselves quite a mix of flowers growing here this year.
Now, since this way of posting photos seems to be working (at least as far as I can tell on my own computer!), here’s a bonus.
I eventually counted 29 cats this morning, though not all together at the kibble bowls.
Hypotenose really, really wanted attention this morning!
Once things started to cool down, I went out to do some weed whacking. I especially wanted to get the outside of the chain link fence cleared, because the grass was getting so tall, it was interfering with the garden beds on the inside.
While trimming the grass by the gourds, I realized I was seeing something new!
This is our very first Zucca melon flower!
When we tried to grow these last year, we had four transplants, and they all got flooded out. One did start to recover, but by the end of the season, it was still smaller than this one was when I transplanted it here. And now we have a flower!
This was not the only surprise flower I saw today. While trimmed around the outhouse and the raised box beds, I saw a tree deeper in the spruce grow in full bloom. It looks like another rather large apple tree. There is another one nearby that we had uncovered while cleaning the edges of the spruce grow that had already bloomed and is done. The nearby cherries have also bloomed and are done. It should be interesting to see what we find in there in the fall!
While moving closer to look at the flower tree, I walked through the tall grass of an area we’ve been able to clear so far. It’s quite overgrown with crab grass and some of the poplars we cleared are trying to come back.
I found flowers among the grass and weeds.
There are strawberries in there! Because they are surrounded by the crab grass, the plants are a lot taller and thinner than the ones we planted with the asparagus, but they are most definitely not the very fine wild strawberries we have growing elsewhere. I have no idea why there would be strawberries in here. There is also a path of some kind of lily that started to grow after we cleared away the area of dead trees and other detritus.
You’d think, after being here for more than 5 years, we wouldn’t still be finding surprises like this, yet there they are!
Eventually, I would like to transplant the strawberries I found to someplace where they won’t be competing with crab grass to grow!
As for weed whacking the edges of the yard and around some garden beds, I didn’t finish the job, yet. There is still lots to do, but it will have to keep. It likely won’t be tomorrow; as I plan to head into the city to do our second Costco shop. I’ll be making a couple of stops along the way, and just arranged to meet my SIL for lunch, since the Costco I go to is a fairly short drive from their place.
It’s been a long day for me, even though I did end up taking a nap (woke up to find Cheddar using my hand as a pillow!), and it’s going to be a long one tomorrow, too, though in a very different way. The girls were able to put things away, bring in the plants, and close things up for the night for me while I took a break and hydrated.
Well, I did NOT finish off the cover for shallots I started yesterday. I did, however, get quite a bit accomplished. That, however, is for another post. For now, I’d like to share this…
Our very first tulips are blooming! When my older daughter and I checked on them this morning, these were still buds, but just starting to show colour. By evening, they were like this. 😊
The grape hyacinths in the maple grove have also exploded into bloom. Every time I try to get a picture of one, though, my phone keeps focusing on anything else but the spike of flowers right in front of it! 😄 My daughter daffodils that bloomed last year are coming up in lovely bunches right now. We’ve also found the leaves of some of her irises that barely made a showing last year. She’s absolutely thrilled, as she was sure they had died. Even the raspberries we got her for her birthday a couple of years ago are showing the tiniest of leaves. I thought they finally died last year, too. We managed to protect them from the deer, but couldn’t protect them from the horrible, no good growing year. The raspberries we planted this year are leafing out nicely right now, and even the newly transplanted apple tree has leaves unfurling. The mulberry, which are still in the house, have tiny leaves on them, too. The two surviving sea buckthorn have lots of leaves on them, as so the silver buffalo berry. The highbush cranberry are also showing leaves, though the one the deer got twice is a bit behind.
Near the tulips, the plum trees that didn’t get cut away are in full bloom. I love trees that bloom before their leaves come out! They will, eventually, need to be taken down, but I would rather not do that until we have something to replace them with. Like an edible variety of plum. For now, they are one of the few things in full bloom that the pollinators can enjoy.
We are most definitely well into spring out here in the Great White North!
I was able to zoom in to get a shot of Brussel and Sprout, sharing the tray under the water shelter. When I first came out this morning, I saw only about a 14 cats, but more kept showing up, including these two. I think I counted 22 in total, with some of them skulking around in the distance, waiting for me to leave the food area.
While doing my evening rounds, I took the winter mulch, which was corn stalks, off the asparagus and sunchoke beds. There is still no sign of the sunchokes or the asparagus, but…
… the four strawberry plants that share the asparagus bed were looking great! I wasn’t sure if they’d survive the winter. Not only did they survive, but they are looking better now than they did at the end of the season, last year! I’m hoping they’ll put out more runners this year, that we’ll transplant elsewhere. Strawberries are among the plants we want to have a lot of. They’re so incredibly expensive in the grocery stores!
Of course, I had to check on the crocuses and found this little guy.
The very first yellow crocus! There are a lot of purple ones blooming this morning, and a lot of white buds showing up, but still just the one yellow buds visible.
I should make a point of checking the bed I inoculated with morel spawn more often. May is the time of year they usually fruit. It would be cool if the giant puff balls emerged, too, but if they do, it’ll be later in the season.
It’s a good thing today is Sunday, which I try to keep as a day of rest. I didn’t do a lot when reclaiming the bed to plant poppies yesterday, but it was enough to increase the pain levels. It’s turning out to be a really windy day, too. So, tomorrow will be my day to really get into the manual labour needed in the old kitchen garden. Hopefully, at the very least, the winds will die down!
The Re-Farmer 