While heading over to put some kibble out for the junk pile kittens this morning, I found this.
Just last night, I was looking closely at this lilac, to see why one of the branches had died, and found it broken at the main stem. Now think I know what broke it. My guess is a racoon was using the lilac to get at the bird feeder, and it broke under the weight.
Which is what I think happened to this bird feeder.
When we cleaned up and painted this bird feeder, we found only two bent screws were holding it to the metal piece that fits over the pole. We replaced those and added more.
I could only find two.
What I’ll likely do is attach a new piece of wood to the base of the bird feeder, then attach the metal fitting to the new wood. Hopefully, that will prevent this from happening again.
Now that I had good light, I got a picture of the unrolled potato bags. I think this will do well to protect them from further critter damage. I’m just glad that what damage there was, was minor.
I saw no new damage in the old kitchen garden. This edge of the beet bed had been left alone until after the soap shavings were added. This end has hot pepper flakes on it.
Also, those flowers blooming in the foreground are incredibly resilient. When we ended up digging out a whole bunch of soil to make the path along the house, all the flowers and whatnot that were growing there were disturbed. I took out as many roots as I could, and the excess soil got moved over to the rose bushes and honeysuckle. The entire area was disrupted, and this far from the house, everything was buried in the dug up soil, then torn up as the soil was moved again. Yet these guys managed to push their way through the hard packed soil and mulch, and are now merrily blooming!
This morning, I worked on getting rid of the woodchuck den I found under the stairs at our dining room door. In the process, I noticed a splash of colour.
This one little cherry tree has developing cherries. There are two others, here, and they barely even bloomed this year.
I’m glad there will be at least a few cherries this year.
While doing the evening watering, I had found an unpleasant surprise.
The larger of our Crespo squash vines got a substantial portion nibbled off!
Unlike the summer squash, these don’t have spines on them that would dissuade being eaten. I am guessing this was done by a deer, but I really have no way to know.
It was just part of the one plant that was eaten; the other is untouched. The nearby Montana Morado corn was also untouched, and I saw no damage in any of the garden beds on this side of the house.
When the watering was done, my daughter and I rigged up the last three hula hoops to make a “fence” around the mound. The ground is so hard, we couldn’t push anything into it, so we had to use the pointed metal bar we found, to make holes, like I did to drive in stakes for the summer squash. After setting up the open hula hoops around the mound, we threaded some aluminum tart pans onto twine and tied them between the hoops.
While watering the haskap bushes, near the tomato plants on the south side of the house, I noticed something else. The bed we planted the haskaps in have a lot of flowers that grow quite tall before producing bright yellow flowers. We’ve pulled them up around the haskaps, but at this stage, they are taller than the bushes.
Except for some of them.
A whole bunch of them at one end of the flower bed have lost their heads! Given the height, this had to have been doing by deer. Looking more closely, I saw or were missing their tops on the south side of the flower bed. Which means deer have used the path between the flower bed and the new tomato bed.
No tomatoes were damaged, though.
My daughter had watered the old kitchen garden, so before I went inside, I decided to check it as well. I found more nibbled beets in the bed along the retaining wall. These area has different beets planted in sections, unlike the big bed where they are all mixed up. At one end is a type of beet that has lighter, all green leaves, without the red stalk and veins that the other types have. Only that one was nibbled on. There wasn’t a lot of damage, and I am wondering if maybe it was a skunk? It definitely wasn’t a deer, given the location and the netting nearby, and I would have expected the woodchuck to have done far more damage. There’s no way to tell.
At least the Epsom salt treated carrots nearby have no new damage to them.
The loan beet bed by the garlic was a concern for me. It’s recovering quite well from being thoroughly nibbled on by a deer. I trimmed the onion greens that surround the beets, so today I loosely laid the remaining piece of mosquito netting over it, like a row cover, with the short ends weighted down with some scrap boards. Hopefully, that will keep the deer out of it and the beets can continue to recover.
Thankfully, what damage we found this evening was relatively minor.
I’d much rather there was no damage at all, of course!
I love how, every day, there seems to be something new or different in the garden!
While doing my rounds, one of the first things I do after putting food and water out for the cats (or like today, just water, as my husband was feeling good enough to go outside and do their food), is check the nearby potatoes.
They are so huge and lush, you can barely see the grow bags! Of everything we planted this year, nothing is doing as well as the potatoes.
Hopefully, that means we’ll have lots of potatoes, and not just lots of greenery!
Potato flowers are such pretty little things!
While checking the tomatoes, I tried looking for the baby tomatoes we’ve been seeing and had a hard time finding them. Then I found this “huge” spray of tomatoes I’ve somehow missed seeing all this time!
“Huge” being a relative terms, for the world’s smallest tomatoes! :-D
While heading back down the driveway after switching out the trail cam memory card, I had to pause to get this photo.
There are less of these flowers than last year, and they are blooming later. Like so many other things, they had been damaged by that one cold night in May, and it’s taken this long for them to recover. We don’t water down here at all, and we’ve had no rain, so it’s amazing to see them at all. Such resilient flowers!
I was weeding the big carrot bed this morning, which is rather difficult right now. I sometimes wonder why I bother, considering how much they’ve been eaten. I accidentally caught a remaining carrot frond while pulling up a weed, and pulled a carrot up with it.
I’m… kinda glad I did.
If they have this much root after all they’ve been through, there is still a chance for them! We won’t get any big carrots, and my hopes of having enough to can are certainly dashed, but we might still have something worth harvesting.
As for this little guy, I washed it off with the hose and ate it, and as small as it was, it was tasty.
So that’s encouraging.
I had another surprise waiting for me in the old compost pile nearby.
Amazingly, there are more mystery squash coming up, next to the stems of the chewed up ones!
Of course, nothing will come of them after sprouting this late in the season, but we might at least see them get big enough to determine what they are.
I find these two Hopi Black Dye sunflowers in the old kitchen garden very interesting. The bigger one was the first of the seeds we started indoors to germinate. That was after the ones we’d direct sown outside had already germinated. The smaller one, which has the label next to it, germinated some time later. Right now, both of these are bigger than the ones that germinated first, in the large beds. The difference, of course, is the soil. The other ones are planted in an area that has not been amended or planted in before, while these are in a garden we’d been working on for 3 summers already
As for the tall plant behind the smaller sunflower, we still don’t know what it is. :-D
I was happy to see that many of the poppies have seen quite a growth spurt, and the ones that were under rhubarb leaves are getting stronger.
Then there is this plant, nearby.
When we were preparing the bed next to the retaining wall, there was a compact plant growing in it. Unsure of what it was, other than “some kind of flower”, we dug it up and transplanted it between the rhubarb and the chives. It quickly grew from a compact, bushy plant to the tall, leggy thing you can see in the photo.
I also now recognize it, though I still don’t know the name.
Do you see those sprays at the ends? With the small round things hanging down?
When it starts blooming, this plant has lovely, delicate little flowers.
Which then become some of the most annoying little burs, ever. It isn’t possible to go near one of these without ending up with masses of tiny burs stuck in your clothes, that are harder to get out than burdock! I’ve had some get so thoroughly stuck in my clothes, not only was I not able to get them completely out, but they managed to stay stuck after several washings!
After I took this photo, I pulled it up. Even though it is in the flower bud stage, it still tried to stick to my clothes!
It did not go into the compost, but into the fire pit for eventual burning.
If we ever get to light the fire pit this year. I suspect not.
While things have finally cooled down today – in fact, it actually got chilly last night! – and we are no longer getting heat warnings on our weather apps, we are now getting air quality alerts. There are a number of fires burning in our province right at the moment. I’d actually been smelling wood smoke for a while before we started getting the alerts, and with our heat and dryness, I was very concerned. None of the fires are near us, thankfully, but we’re still getting some of the smoke.
Today will be our coolest day for the next while, with a high of only 18C/64F so I will be taking advantage of it and getting things seeds sown in those empty spinach beds! :-)
One of my goals for today was to modify one of the wire mesh covers for the main garden beds. I will be planting in this bed soon, and have set up the soaker hose in it for now.
I had one board left of what we used to make the long sides, and used it to make end pieces just over 3 feet long, so it will fit in the narrowest part of this bed. The lengths of hula hoops are woven through the wire and their ends are screwed in place. It’s still kinda floppy, but it won’t collapse completely.
We might still add chicken wire to the ends of the cover, to keep small critters out. Of course, it won’t stop the woodchuck, since it can just dig under it, but I hope to at least reduce the chances. I did see it briefly this evening, dashing under the garden shed when I came around the house. I have not seen any new nibbled on plants today, thankfully.
I have to go digging around to see if I can find more of this wood, so I can do the other wire cover as well. It’d be good if I can find enough to make a third cover, but I doubt it. We’ve picked over the area we found those boards in pretty thoroughly.
The board on the ground is something I found in the barn. This bed is a bit wider than the others, so I plan to lay the board down the middle, so that we’ll have something to step on, to make it easier to tend the bed.
Now that this has the end pieces, it will be easier for one person to move it aside to do weeding, then put it back again. It was the “put it back again” part that was the most awkward, without a second person to help.
If all goes well, we will have some radishes and chard planted in here tomorrow. :-)
The girls did the evening watering while I was doing this, and called my attention to something that I did not see this morning.
Our beans are showing flower buds!
So awesome! It looks like we’ll have more of the purple beans than the green or the yellow.
While flower buds are forming here, we have flowers blooming somewhere else.
This is part of the area at the edge of the spruce grove that I cleaned out this spring, partly to get materials needed to build the squash tunnel. With all the little trees and dead branches cleared away, they finally have enough light to be able to bloom. I expect this to happen more, as we continue to clean up the spruce grove.
When we first moved here, we worked out a plan: the first two years, we would focus on cleaning up the house and inner yard. In the third year, we would start on the outer yard, and then in the following years, we would start working on things beyond the outer yard, as warranted. In the first year of working the inner yard, we would clean up the maple grove, which we did. The second year of working the inner yard, we were to clean up the spruce grove. Then things happened, and we only got parts of it done. As time goes by, however, we’re realizing just how much bigger of a job the spruce grove is. This is now an area we’re going to have to chip away at, little by little, as we can. We need to work on the outer yard more, in the process. Particularly since we plant to build permanent raised bed gardens in the outer yard.
We still have a multi-year plan to get this stuff done. It’s just been adjusted quite a bit! Plus, with our starting to garden ahead of “schedule”, the time and resources we have available has had to shift, too. As much and things need to be cleaned up, and we have to get the junk hauled away, doing things that will actually feed us has become more of the priority. It was always the goal. It just went from a mid term goal, so a short term goal!
I had been wondering about our variety of purple peas not blooming yet, while the green peas that were planted later now have quite a lot of flowers. Earlier today, someone on one of the local gardening groups I’m on had posted a photo of her purple peas that just started to bloom, so that was reassuring.
Then, while doing the evening watering, my daughters spotted our first purple pea flower!
When we got that one really cold night in late May, most things survived (the new mulberry sapling, sadly, did not) just fine. However, anything that was budding lost their flowers. Including almost all of the lilacs.
This Korean lilac usually blooms after the common lilac, but with the warmth we’d had earlier in May, it was starting to bud, too. This morning, I found this single spray of flowers blooming on it. It does look like it may be putting out more buds, though. We won’t get the mass of tiny flowers that is usual for this lilac this year, but there will be some, at least.
Then there’s this poor mock orange, by the laundry platform. February’s deep freeze had already decimated it. More of it has died off since the May frost. Yet this thing is amazingly resilient, and it now blooming!
I want to transplant this to a more protected location, once we figure out where that is. There is another on the East side of the house that didn’t get as damaged by the May frost, however it isn’t thriving there, either. Too dry against the house, and sunlight only in the morning. It is also starting to bloom, but like its leaves, the flowers are much smaller. We can water it regularly, but there isn’t much we can do about the lack of sunlight, so I figure that one will get transplanted, too, at some point.
The little furry flowers are growing, too! (The fourth one was playing the the bushes, so I couldn’t get a photo of it.)
When I put food out in the mornings, Butterscotch is at the kibble house along with the other yard cats, but these guys are learning to come out to their own food and water in the mornings now, too.
At the squash tunnel, I found our first Pixie melon flower!
We definitively need to get more mesh soon for that last section of the tunnel. The Halona melons are getting tall enough that we’ll need to start training them up the tunnel walls, in a very short while.
These are in the carrot bed in the old kitchen garden. They are growing where the white kohlrabi was planted. I’m hoping that’s what they are, and not just some similar looking plant of my mother’s, pushing its way through! :-D This little garden always had a variety of things growing in it, but mostly flowers. Very determined flowers! When we first cleaned out this garden, then laid down cardboard and layers of straw, leaf litter and grass clippings, many still managed to push their way through. In digging out by the house to make the path, then building the beds we planted in this year, during which I removed many, many roots, you’d think that would have set them back, but no. They’re pushing their way through soil paths, the straw paths, and even the deeper soil of the new beds. It would be rather impressive, if they were not so invasive, and crowding out our vegetables!
Still, it’s nice to see all the growing things. :-)
You just have to love how quickly things change, day by day!
The first ornamental poppies started blooming this morning. They have had bulbs for a while now, and then this morning, two of them exploded into full bloom. :-)
I was looking at the garlic yesterday evening, and seeing what might, possibly, could be, itty bitty garlic scapes starting to come up. They were so tiny, I couldn’t be sure.
This morning, there was no doubt. Our first garlic scapes are starting to form! We are really looking forward to when they can be harvested and trying different things with them. :-)
I have saved the best for last – check this out!
Our very first tomato flowers!! You can see the tiny little buds behind it, too.
These are the super tiny Spoon tomatoes. In reviews, people have warned that these self-seed very easily, because they are so tiny, it’s impossible to pick them all before they ripen and fall off the vine.
We’ve got no problem with that, and chose this location with that in mind.
I’m just so happy with how things are growing. Most of these are in new beds in new locations, with limited preparation. Every single plant that has survived is, for me, a total miracle. :-D I’m hoping how things are looking now are a sign of a very busy fall, preserving the harvest. :-)
Just a quick post about what I found during my morning rounds, before I have to head out. It’s a bit of a mix!
Before I go into this morning, though, here is the progress I got last night in the new corn block.
I got about 2/3rds gone turning the sod before stopping for the night. It was past 10pm by then – the temperatures were lovely, but it was starting to get too dark! LOL I am hoping to get it done today. The corn really needs to be transplanted soon.
This is what greeted me this morning, when I came into the dining room.
Cheddar and Keith, enjoying the morning breeze while watching the birds outside. :-D The cats just LOVE this set up.
The door is secured with cord, just in case. Although it is locked, sometimes it simply pops open on its own. Which is not a problem when the inner door is closed, but would be kitty disaster otherwise!
After feeding the outside critters, I started taking the plants out of the sun room. One of our disappointments was that one tray with 3 different gourds in it had not germinated. Still, I kept them watered, and have started to take the tray outside, too. This is what I found this morning.
A single Ozark Nest Egg gourd has sprouted!
It’s way too late in the season, but when the time comes, it’ll be transplanted out and we’ll see how it does. Who knows. We might have a long summer this year.
Also, do you see all those seeds scattered about? They are EVERYWHERE!!! And this is why I’ve developed a hate-on for the Chinese Elm trees. We’re going to be fighting these in just about every single garden bed. :-(
While checking out the furthest garden beds, I had a bit of a disappointment.
Four Mongolian Giant sunflowers in one row had their heads chopped off. The one that had been eaten and pulled up before was in the other row, which originally had 13 transplants in it. This one had 11. So of the 24 we started with, we’re down to 19. At least the direct seeded ones are coming up, so we do have more. As long as they don’t get eaten, too!
My daughter and I had moved the trail cam over to this corner, but it’s not the wide angle camera, and I wasn’t sure if it caught this area at all. In fact, I was pretty sure it didn’t. So I shifted it and it now faces down the corn and sunflower blocks only.
When I checked the files, I found I was right. This row as off frame. I never saw what ate the leaves, but I did find this!
We had a raccoon pass through! Until now, the only evidence we had of raccoons here was the tip of a tail going past the camera when it was facing the tulips. It just wandered through, sniffing at some weeds.
The raccoon would not have been responsible for the sunflowers, though. I’m sure that was a deer. There was one other night time video, but whatever triggered the motion sensor was no longer in frame by the time it started recording. If a deer had jumped the fence nearby, it could have walked right past the camera and out of frame before it started recording. That’s the down side of setting it to video. It takes more time to start recording than just taking a still shot. I’m not using still because the shortest time delay between triggers is 15 seconds, regardless of whether it’s set to still or video. That’s a long gap, and much would get missed. At least with video, there’s that 15 seconds (or up to 1 minute, if I wanted to) of video to catch what’s going on.
Finding the damaged sunflowers was a disappointment, but I wanted to end this on a more positive note.
The honeysuckle bush in the old kitchen garden is looking amazing! It’s in full bloom, and absolutely dense in foliage and flowers. When we dug up along the house and laid down blocks and bricks to make a path, much of the soil that was dug up ended up around the bases of the honeysuckle and two rose bushes nearby. Between that and the extra watering they’ve been getting this year, they’re all looking better than ever. I’m very happy with how great they are doing this year! Even the little pink rose bush that got broken by something over the winter (likely a deer) is doing very well, after having the tree branch that was shading it pruned away, and a garden bed built up around it. There was just one stick of it left, but it’s now full of the biggest, healthiest leaves it’s had since we moved here!
So overall, we’ve had more increases than losses, so far! :-)
We’ve got some lovely flowers blooming in one of my mother’s flower beds.
This flower bed has lilies, roses and a current bush my mother had planted. These flowers are mixed together with another type, and are the first to start blooming. When these are done, the others will start blooming. I don’t think either were deliberately planted. :-)
I’m so loving how the grape hyacinths are looking! Tiny little clusters of purple, in a sea of green. In a few years, we’re hoping there will be a lot more purple! :-)
The Re-Farmer 