Growing things

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. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: three firsts, this morning!

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. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Our 2021 garden: good news, bad news

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! :-)

The Re-Farmer

Pretty blooms

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. :-)

The Re-Farmer

Let’s think of flowers and warmth!

After the damage to our tulips, plus our dropping temperatures, I thought it would be nice to post pictures of things that are actually blooming right now!

The ornamental apples in the old kitchen garden are blooming quite nicely right now! They always tend to start blooming before any of the other crab apple trees.

The double lilacs in the old kitchen garden are also starting to open up, quite a bit earlier than the other varieties. They all seem to bloom at different times, which leaves us with months of lovely scents around the yard.

Late this afternoon, one of my daughters and I headed to town for some errands and, as we came back and paused to lock the gate, I remembered to grab one of the trail cams facing the gate. It is now set up, low on a tree across from where the tulips are planted. Hopefully, low enough that even a short critter like a skunk will trigger the motion sensor.

The girls and I later went out to check on things and talk about our options. Of course, we also checked on other areas and were very excited to see some purple in a sea of green!

The flower stalks on the grape hyacinths have started to shoot up! They are all so very tiny! :-D One of my daughters was kind enough to carefully step through the greenery to get a picture of one for me. Meanwhile, my other daughter spotted some more flowers.

The little patch of wild strawberries is starting to bloom, too!

Thankfully, everything we’ve got growing right now is quite hardy. As I write this, we are at 2C/36F, but feels like -5C/23F. Or -7C/19F. depending on which app I look at. My desktop app is showing frost advisories and possible snow tonight. My phone’s app thinks we are warmer, and is showing no frost warnings. Either way, it’s cold, wet and windy out there. Chilly enough that I just finished setting up the heater bulb in the sun room again, under the seed trays in the mini greenhouse. I’m still holding out home for the purple sunflowers and gourds.

This chill is supposed to continue through tomorrow, before things start warming up again. Current long range forecasts now show that the first couple of days of June – which is our average last frost date – are supposed to get as high as 27C/81F again! After that, it’s supposed to cool down a couple of degrees, but we’re supposed to get almost a week of rain. If the forecast stays the same, we’ll have about 4 hot days to put our transplants out. We haven’t been able to take the trays outside every day to harden them off, so I’m really hoping that leaving the inner door to the sun room open, and the ceiling fan running on high, will be enough to provide them with the conditions they need.

We shall see how things turn out!

The Re-Farmer

Clean up: spruce grove, west side

Today, we continued work cleaning up along the west side of the spruce grove, between the garlic beds and the old outhouse. We haven’t really done anything there since last year.

Here is how it looked before I started.

I could see some poplars in here that would make good upright support posts for the squash arch.

I broke out the little electric chain saw for this job, but only used it once. The rest was just too small, or had too many even smaller things growing around them, so I ended up doing most of the job with the loppers and the baby chain saw.

Here is how it looks now.

Yes, there are even spruces left in the spruce grove!

My goal was to clear enough to reach the apple tree (to the right of the spruce in the middle) and an old, rotten bench.

Yes, there is a bench in there. Can you see it? To the left of the spruce tree in the middle?

There had been cherry suckers growing on either side of the seat. I’ve left it for now, and will clean it out another time. We are finding the remains of benches and seats all over the place. As we work around the yard, we have often found ourselves wishing to have something to sit down on, and plan to put seating areas all over. It’s interesting to find that my parents had already done the same thing! Sadly, none have survived time and the elements.

The apple tree had a lot of things crowding around it – and a piece of tree stuck in its branches!

I cleared as much as I could to the apple tree. The next time I work around here, it’ll be with the chain saw, clearing away the fallen trees. At least for now, the apple tree is open and getting more light. When I dug my way to it last fall, to try it’s apples, I found it quite tasty, and we’re always happy to find a tree with apples that are actually edible! There are way too many that are not. :-/

Several trees were cleared out of this patch of flowers my mother planted, many many years ago. I’d found them while cleaning up the area behind the garden beds, but I don’t think I saw any of them bloom. Now that they have light, I look forward to seeing the flowers!

I also uncovered other flowers. Unfortunately, I had a hard time not stepping on them!

I think one of them might be tiger lilies, but I’m not sure.

I suspect we’ll have quite a few new blooms this summer, now that things are cleared up!

Much of what I took out were suckers of cherry trees, grown up around the remains of older, dead ones. Some were so old and rotted, I could pull them out with my hands.

The big branch on the top of the pile is the piece of tree I pulled out of the apple tree.

We really need to invest in a chipper.

Meanwhile…

My daughter did short work of cleaning up the poplars I set aside for building material. We not have more than enough larger, stronger ones to be our upright supports for the squash arch.

The smaller and thinner ones will also be used in various ways, including cross pieces and supports on the squash tunnel. My daughter added quite a bit more to this pile, then everything got moved to the stacks by the side of the house, closer to the garden. A nice shady place were we will be able to pre-assemble parts of the squash tunnel.

Temperatures were reaching 27C/81F by the time I headed inside, while my daughter finished the job. The winds were high, which at least made it feel cooler. As I type this, things are getting dark and and even windier. We’ve got severe thunderstorm warnings happening right now – with the potential for hail! Looking at the weather radar, it does look like the worst of it will pass us by, but…

I think it’s time to finish this and shut down the computer. Just in case!

The Re-Farmer

A tulip explosion!

The girls headed outside this afternoon, and were excited to ask me if I’d seen the tulips.

I had, when I did my rounds this morning, but clearly, something had changed.

The tulips have exploded with flower spikes!

Most of my daughter’s tulips were planted in this spot. Over 50 bulbs in 6 varieties were planted here. We haven’t tried to count how many have come up. I think, by now, any that haven’t come up were casualties of February’s polar vortex. :-(

While just to one side, another group of very different tulips were planted. These are Bull’s Eye tulips (which Veseys apparently no longer carries). Of the 8 bulbs that were planted, it looks like only 3 survived the winter.

I can’t believe how quickly these flower spikes shot up!!

They are not the only ones.

The flower spikes in the grape hyacinths are a bit harder to see, but they are certainly there! Pretty much all of them that we can see have these tiny spikes emerging. Once they start blooming, we’ll finally be able to get a better idea of how many of the 200 we planted survived the winter! :-D

Meanwhile, the winds have only gotten stronger – I had to fight just to open the door to go outside and get these photos! – and the temperatures are still rising. I look forward to the cooler weather and, hopefully, rain to come!

The Re-Farmer

Morning flowers

My daughter’s orchids are looking beautiful this morning!

They have been doing very well since she starting using kokedama, though finding a place to hang them where the cats couldn’t get at them was more of a challenge!

Unfortunately, one of them seems to be struggling. You can see some of the dead leaves behind the flowers in the above photo. My daughter has figured out that, when we had the polar vortex hit us in February, it simply got too cold for them at the window, and one in particular is having a much harder time recovering.

Now that we have the aquariums converted to cat proof greenhouses, next winter we will be able to move them into one of those to keep them warmer.

I also saw some fluffy, furry flowers this morning. ;-)

I was able to bring them some meaty treats from the kitchen this morning, and they were very happy!

I love how Creamsicle Jr. is licking his chops! :-D

We’re supposed to have a nice, warm day today, and I’m looking forward to getting some garden preparations done outside. The cats have already discovered the soil my daughter moved to the old kitchen garden. They LOVE rolling around in dirt. We have several trees with bald patches at their bases, because the cats roll under them so much. One of them is an ornamental apple tree in the old kitchen garden, and now they have bonus dirt to roll in.

I don’t mind them rolling at the bottom of the tree. We can’t plant anything under them, anyhow – but it’s going to be a problem if they decide to roll in the new soil after we’ve planted!

We’ll work it out. ;-)

The Re-Farmer

A little hint of sunshine

We’ve got some lovely mild weather right now. It’s kind of deceiving, to look out the window during our cold snap and see bright blue skies and brilliant sunshine when it’s bitterly cold, but now that we’re warmer, it’s overcast and deary looking. Those insulating clouds, however, are part of the reason we can enjoy these milder temperature.

The outside cats like the warm spot on the roof of their shelter, above the terrarium bulb! They were quite active when I came out to do their food and water.

Note in the background, a certain Nicky the Nose, tucked under the lilac by the storage house. He shelters under the building, when he’s not sneaking into the cat shelter to visit the ladies. :-(

Inside, we have tiny little bursts of sunshine of another sort!

This is the first time we’ve seen this succulent blooming! When we got it, it was one of 3 succulents in one pot that they soon outgrew. The other two varieties are still struggling along, but this one seems to finally be thriving! We’ve had to move it a few times because, apparently, it is delicious. The cats kept trying to eat it! Even when it was hanging in the dining room window, they would manage to clamber up and reach it. We finally seem to have found a spot where they haven’t been able to reach it. At the rate it’s growing now, we’ll have to keep an eye on how low it starts to hang, or they’re try eating it again!

Meanwhile, we have these lovely little busts of sunshine in our window to help us thing of warmer, sunny days!

The next couple of days will be even warmer, which means we’ll finally be able to start working on the main door that’s falling off its hinges, and see what we can do to fix it until we can replace the door and frame. Until then, we’ve been using the door as little as possible; mostly, just when we have to unload the van or something, which we do assembly line style. That way, only the storm door gets opened and closed frequently.

It should be interesting to see how damaged the door is, once the hinge plate is moved away. That will determine what we end up doing to get it usable again.

The Re-Farmer