I have what have become the usual beans – all three kinds – G Star patty pans and Forme de Couer tomatoes, but today I picked the largest of the purple Dragonfly peppers. There are quite a few more, but I’m giving them more time to ripen.
Of course, I also fed the outside cats and, as I was going around the sun room door, I found a little green friend.
This little guy was not much bigger than the top of my thumb! He was above the rain barrel, where I have a board for the diverter to rest on, this rock, and a brick on the other side, to hold it in place.
In yesterday’s sudden, severe storm yesterday morning, the brick actually got knocked right off, and the diverter almost did, too!
Gosh, I love these little tree frogs! I like all the frogs, but these ones are just too adorable!
That was about all that was usual about today, but the update will need its own post, next!
I was in a world of hurt this morning, after all the stuff done yesterday. The girls took care of feeding the outside cats. We gave eye baby her medication and a modified bottle feed last night, but then she went back outside. She’s getting too active to keep her in a cat carrier all night. Since we can’t wash her eye anymore – it’s not leaking, but is still insanely swollen – and no longer have eye drops, we didn’t take her in this morning. She seems to prefer kibble, anyhow. We’ll bring her in for her antibiotics in the evening, then let her back out again.
I tried to get more sleep, but got messages from my brother and couldn’t fall asleep after that. I’ll get to that part, later.
It was late morning before I got outside to check on the garden and see what could be harvested. We were supposed to get storms last night, but only got a brief rain. We were now being told to expect thunderstorms in the late morning, but very briefly. While I was in the garden, I could hear thunder in the distance.
That big G Star patty pan squash grew so much, just overnight! Yesterday, it wasn’t much bigger than the other one!
I finally picked our first yellow zucchini.
Those are all Forme de Couer tomatoes; no others were ready to pick. The beans are mostly the Royal Burgundy bush beans, which I did not pick at all, yesterday, with maybe a half dozen Carminat pole beans.
I do have to share about the enameled tub the harvest is in. It has been hanging on the wall behind the warming shelf of the wood cookstove for I don’t know now many decades. I brought it out and washed it, thinking we might need to use it for sponge baths, if we couldn’t get the septic going again.
I actually remember my mother bathing me in that, when I was a wee one. She had it on the table in the kitchen, close to the stove, with its reservoir of warm water handy. It was probably used for my late brother, too. Which would make it older than I am!
I hadn’t brought a container with me while going through the garden, and just used the bottom of my shirt to carry the produce. As I was transferring them to the tub, I could hear the thunder and figured I would top of the cat kibble outside, but just in the kibble house and sun room, so the cats would be sheltered next to food. I was in the process of putting the kibble out when the storm hit.
Hard.
We went from basically hot and muggy with no wind, to driving rain and winds strong enough for things started to get blown around, and I was half expecting branches to start breaking off! I got completely soaked in seconds!
Once back in the sun room, I made sure to tie off the outer door and partially close the inner door – normally, during the day, both are kept wide open. Cats where running all over the place, trying to find shelter. A number of kittens that normally run away from me ran into the sun room, saw me there, and panicked – but didn’t run back outside into that driving rain!
The storm has already passed, though. The system is continuing to the north east, and it looks like we got it pretty mild, compared to other places.
I’ll still be waiting a while before going back outside!
I need to go check out the expeller for the septic, out by the barn. I remembered that the septic guy had suggested that, if we still had problems, to take the cap and inner pipe of the expeller out completely, and leave it off for about a month. The grey water would build up in the outer pipe and overflow it, eventually, clearing out any collected gunk from inside the pipes that might be clogging the pipe. I was thinking of taking it out and seeing if there was any outflow.
My brother had had the same thought, and messaged me this morning about it. I’d told him about the septic guy suggesting leaving it out for a month, but my brother wasn’t too keen on that idea; that cap is there for a reason. But it might we worthwhile to do it for a few days, at least.
I was going to do that after topping up the cat kibble, thinking I had time before the storm hit.
I was wrong.
😂😂
So I will have to go out there later today, and see what there is to see!
We’ve got Forme de Couer tomatoes – and from the looks of the plants, we will soon be inundated with ripe tomatoes! There’s just two San Marzano tomatoes, and I wasn’t seeing any others that looked like they were starting to ripe. There were just a few Seychelle and Carminate beans to gather this morning, but we got plenty yesterday, so that’s not surprising. I gathered more corn than I expected to. Especially considering I’d picked some yesterday, too.
We’re set for another hot day today, and I thought I’d be watering the garden this morning. It seems we got more rain during the night, though, and it wasn’t needed.
Check it out! Our very first – and so far, only – Magda squash! I picked a couple of patty pans smaller than before, more to encourage the plants to continue blooming and producing.
I picked a few oddly small corn cobs that turned out to be ripe, but just… oddly small. There are a few green Seychelle beans, a decent amount of the Royal Burgundy bush beans, but it’s the Carminat beans that really surprise me. So few plants, and they are so productive!
There are a few chocolate cherry and Forme de Couer, and in the second photo of the slide show, you’ll see that we are FINALLY having black cherry tomatoes turning colour.
There are still some sugar snap peas being produced, and that bed where I was finally able to identify a volunteer.
A bit of greenery showed up at the very end of the bed. I thought it might be a weed, but something seemed familiar about it, so I left it. Now that it is bigger and even starting to bloom, I have been able to confirm:
It is an Aunt Molly’s ground cherry.
I am quite surprised to see it. We grew those a couple of years ago, in the spot next to the compost ring, where we now have a new framed bed with Crespo squash and Seychelle beans in it. There is another raised bed between that and the bed this ground cherry showed up in.
One of the things I was testing out with the ground cherries was whether they would easily self sow, as I’d been hearing from some people who have started to view it as a weed because it’s so hard to get rid of. The next year, though, nothing showed up. For one to now show up here is a bit of a mystery. I have no idea how it could have gotten there. It’s not like we had birds eating the ground cherries and potentially pooping the seeds out. The fruit was too thoroughly engulfed in leaves for any birds to get at. No other critters seemed interested in them, either.
I’m not going to complain, though. This is a lovely surprise, and I hope it actually gets a chance to mature and produce fruit, before our season runs out!
I’m running a little short on sleep right now. Things did not turn out as planned, and I had to cancel the truck appointment for an oil change and diagnostic.
Before I get into that, though, here is this afternoon’s harvest.
I was quite pleased to have such largish harvests, two days in a row! Those are our first Forme de Coeur tomatoes in there, along with more Chocolate Cherry tomatoes. There’s a few sugar snap peas – those plants are somehow still producing! – and all three types of beans we planted this year.
I harvested in the afternoon rather than the morning, because I was busy with something else. I got the girls to water the garden for me this morning, too. The only thing I was able to do was feed the outside cats, while the girls tended to eye baby (we are out of eye drops, so I’m extra glad we have the oral antibiotics now!) before setting her outside.
The why of it needs a bit of background explanation.
You know how, when you walk into some stores, there are people who come up to you offering applications for credit cards?
I’ve said no to these for years, but one recent trip to Canadian Tire, I figured, what the heck. I’ll apply – while fully expecting to be turned down.
Much to my shock, I was approved for a Canadian Tire Mastercard.
It took about a week or more for the physical card to arrive, and then there was the process of activating it, getting things set up and so on. This meant I also got quite a few emails from Canadian Tire, with activation notifications, approval for this, set up for that, all along with the usual emails I get from them for sales and surveys and “rate your purchase” stuff. Some of these emails didn’t need to be addressed immediately and were set aside for later.
For those who don’t know, Canadian Tire has its own currency. You used to be able to get Cdn Tire money of various denominations. You could use the bills – legal tender recognized only by Canadian Tire – on your next shopping trip, or donate them to charity in bins that were set up by the exits.
Eventually, they switched to digital versions and you could collect your reward money by using a card of key fob with a bar code on it, just like other loyalty cards out there. Over time, it became the “Triangle” rewards card, which could be used at a number of different stores, and use the collected digital currency to buy things at those stores. When it comes to the Cdn Tire Mastercard, using it allows for collecting the digital money anywhere it gets used. I already had a Triangle card, but we don’t shop at Cdn Tire all that often, and don’t shop at the other stores at all, so the reward cash doesn’t accumulate quickly.
Costco takes Mastercard only.
For the amount we spend there, it would actually be practical to use the Cdn Tire card and collect the rewards cash faster. If we save up the digital money long enough, we could use it to make major purchases.
As long as I can avoid the credit card trap, of course!
Anyhow, loyalty points and rewards is part of the whole thing, and some of the emails I got were about that.
Well, yesterday evening, I had gone through some of the older emails from Cdn Tire I had set aside and followed through with them.
I blame missing what should have been obvious on the fact that it was almost midnight.
Later, while getting ready for bed and in the middle of my devotions, one of those emails popped into my head.
Something didn’t seem right.
I tried finding the deleted email on my phone but couldn’t, so I went onto my desktop to go through my email. My computer is on all night these days, playing purring sounds to sooth eye baby during the night, so it was already up and running.
I found the email.
I went through it, checked some things, but couldn’t be 100% sure there was an issue. My card information, however, was now associated with it, and I was now 99% sure it was a problem.
It was past 1am by this time, and they don’t have 24 hour customer service.
After trying a few times and realizing I wouldn’t get through to anyone until 7am local time, I used the automated system to report my card as stolen. It was the only option I had.
By the time I got back to bed to finish my devotions, it was about 3am.
I didn’t sleep much, and was wide awake by 6am.
I’d already messaged the family about what happened, to be read whenever they were able to. I also sent a text to the garage to cancel the oil change and diagnostic, since I had wanted to use the card for that.
My daughters were both up, so they took care of things I normally would have.
Meanwhile, I logged onto my account and saw that the last 4 digits they make visible on the website were different. I already had a new card number assigned.
To call in, however, the first thing the automated system asks if for the 16 digit card number, then the PIN, before going into the other options. How would that work now that the number on my card was no longer valid?
I also already got an email confirming the card was reported stolen, with a number to call if I hadn’t actually done that. If the usual number didn’t work, I could resort to that one.
Well, it turns out I didn’t need to.
Once I called and gave the 16 digit number, the process was completely different, and was immediately sent to a customer service rep.
Which was exactly what I wanted!
As soon as I heard the operator’s voice, I could tell she was bracing herself. That number would have been flagged as stolen, so right away I said, I reported my card as stolen during the night.
I then explained that my card was not physically stolen, but the number probably was, then explained about the email. The other thing I wanted to do was confirm the pending purchases I’d made yesterday as being legitimate. She spent some time helping me with all that, then forwarded me to the fraud department for the rest.
The guy I spoke to confirmed, that email was not from them. He made sure to tell me I’d done the right thing by reporting the card as stolen so quickly. With these phishing scams, they tend to rack up the charges very quickly. He was able to look up the old number and confirm that no purchases had been attempted, but if I had waited until I could talk to someone directly, he is positive there would have been fraudulent charges.
He then confirmed that the process to get a new physical card for me was started. The request would get sent to where they stamp the cards should get to that location today or tomorrow, and he figures a new card will be mailed by Friday (today is Wednesday). It takes 7-10 business days for the card to arrive in the mail – and next weekend is Labour Day weekend, so it might take about 2 calendar weeks for it to arrive.
Which is fine. The main thing I wanted to confirm is being able to pay off the card at the end of the month, since it’s possible the new card won’t arrive until well after. He checked my billing cycle, and there is no concern about anything being late. Plus, I had already set the card up as a payee with my bank. If I make a payment before the new card arrives, it will automatically be diverted to the new number. Once the card arrives, I can just edit the payee information.
All of that went much more smoothly and quickly that I feared! So quickly, I had to wait until the garage opened at 8 before I could phone.
When I got through and told him I had to cancel, I mentioned I’d sent a text during the night, and our mechanic was glad I phoned, because he hadn’t had a chance to look at any of the texts that came in during the night.
By the time I was done all that, the girls were still outside, watering the garden. My younger daughter had not been able to sleep last night at all, so once they were back inside, they both soon went to bed. As for myself, I only took the time to grab some food, get some laundry started, then went to bed myself.
Funny. I slept much better this time!
By the afternoon, we already hit our predicted high of 27C/81F. I knew there would at least be tomatoes ready to pick, so went out to do the harvest and found myself picking quite a bit more than expected. Even with the morning watering, everything in the garden was all doopy from the heat and humidity!
I did have another surprise, while picking pole beans in the main garden area.
A car stopped on the road and gave a bit of a honk. Then someone came out and started calling out “hello”.
With the lilac hedge in the way, I wasn’t sure if this was someone calling to me, or thinking there was someone at the property across the road from us. No one lives there, but the owners are there frequently.
So I made my way through the overgrown area that’s too tall to mow, to try and see what was going on.
It turned out to be my husband’s prescription delivery! It was a different driver and he was unfamiliar with the area. When he saw me in the garden, he stopped on the road to see if he was in the right place!
I wasn’t expecting the delivery for several more hours!
He then drove around and I met him at the gate. It was my husband’s insulin, so I had to make sure that got into the fridge before going back to the garden!
So… yeah. Today was not at all as planned! But things worked out in the end, and that’s the important part.
Oh, and before I forget…
I’m happy to say that my sparkly hat that the cats got all stinky, survived going through the washer and drier! It’s not meant to be washed that way. I’m sure using the lingerie bag helped.
I’m quite pleased, as it’s my favourite hate!
Since I wasn’t going out today, I did get some more done on the cat isolation shelter, but that will be for my next post!
There were some pretty decent sized bulbs in there!
They got trimmed and strung up and are how hanging in the garage with the garlic harvested from the bed with the Forme de Coeur tomatoes.
Speaking of which, I spotted a couple of those, starting to turn red, too! Finally!
Still nothing on the black cherry tomatoes, though.
While doing my evening rounds, I spotted a few things I could probably have harvested, but I decided to leave them for tomorrow morning.
While I didn’t have to water the garden this morning, I definitely will have to do it tomorrow morning. Today, we reached our high of 27C/81F, but the humidex definitely put us above 30C/86F. Tomorrow, we’re supposed to hit 28C/84F, with not even a hint of rain in the forecast – and it’s supposed to continue like that for the next week to ten days.
What I found interesting when I did my evening rounds in the garden was that so many things were noticeably bigger – particularly the squash plants, both summer and winter – just from this morning! The Crespo and G Star squash are getting huge!
Now, if we can just keep this up through at least half of September, that would be good… 😁
Ha! I just checked the long range forecast. For a while there, around September 10 – our average first frost date – it was looking like we’d be getting pretty chilly, with lows of only 4C/39F on that day. Now it’s saying that we should be hitting 30C/86F on the 10th, with a low of 15C/59F! As it stands now, we might not get first frost until October.
Of course, I expect that forecast to change a few times over the next while, but still, there’s hope for the garden!
I headed out early this morning, while it was still relatively cool, to do the watering and make use of the grass clippings that had been collected and spread out on the black tarp.
I was getting near the end of watering in the main garden area, about to move on to the strawberry bed, when I realized…
I have to admit, I was complacent. I’d seen a deer around the garden area a few times, but it never went to any of the beds and stayed in the tall grass. We’ve got spinners and flashy things and other distractions all over. It seemed they were making a difference…
Now, this.
Obviously, it’s late in the game, but I put a net around the bed so it won’t happen again. The plants will recover, and the runners are still there and rooting themselves. The main thing with the netting is to be able to lift it, as needed, to tend the bed. It’s held down with ground staples in the corners
*sigh*
The next time I can get to a Dollarama, I will see if I can pick up more of those green, plastic coated support posts. They are very handy!
The netting was put up last of all, though. Before that, as soon as the watering was done, I started filling the wheelbarrow with grass clippings and mulching things.
First I laid a pretty thick layer around the edges of the tomato and onion bed. Then I did the onion, shallot and summer squash bed. Setting handfuls of grass clippings between every onion took a while!
These two beds took up most of the grass clippings, but there was maybe half a wheelbarrow left, so I mulched around the onions going to seed, and around some melons at the end of the bed where the bush beans are trying to recover.
After that, I just had to get some photos of the huge vines we’ve got now!
The pumpkins are blooming enthusiastically, and I even hand pollinated a couple more. There’s one pretty large pumpkin developing, plus a few smaller ones. I got a picture of just the largest one.
There are lots of drum gourd flowers, but no female flowers, yet.
The winter squash that are developing right now are getting so big, so fast! So far, the only one I can identify – I think – is what is likely a Turk’s Turban squash. It will probably be a while before we can identify the others – two of which I think are the same variety. I was able to hand pollinate a couple of winter squash, too.
I also got some photos of the Forme de Coure tomatoes.
I think having the sump pump hose draining at one end of the bed is making a difference. A lot of the water does end up flowing down one of the paths, but the bed itself is benefiting from being watered indirectly like this. The tomato plants are lush and bushy, and the tomatoes seem to be growing much faster than other varieties.
It was about 17C/63F when I headed out to water the garden beds, at about 6:30-7am. It’s now coming up on 11, and we are at 24C/75F with the humidex putting us at 27C/81F. We are expected to reach a high of 29C/84F, with highs of around 30C/86F starting tomorrow and staying at or near that range into August.
Which means I’ll be out watering the garden in the cool of the morning pretty regularly.
Most of the prairies are under heat warnings and/or air quality warnings. We’ve got an increase in wildfires up north, but really, we’re doing all right, all things considered. Alberta is being hit hard, and Jasper had to be evacuated and seems to have mostly burned down! Thank God, there don’t appear to be any injuries or loss of life. The most recent article I can find, as of this writing, is here. (link will open in a new tab)
And that is why having a “bug out bag” is a good idea! As well as having emergency supplies in your vehicle, if you have one.
So we will do what we can with our own heat, and be thankful that it’s all we have to deal with!
It is really wet out there, but we’re not supposed to get more rain today. I was torn between continuing on shifting the beds or starting transplanting. We have quite a few things that are more than ready to get set out.
After looking at the weather forecast, and the state of our transplants, transplanting won. In particular, tomatoes. It’s either that or pot them up, and that would be a silly thing to do at this, when they would do much better out in the garden.
The first thing I did was go through my trays and see how many I had of each type. When I saw I had 8 chocolate cherry, I decided they should go into the 8 chimney block planters at the chain link fence.
I then cut some of our many distilled water bottles to create rings for the transplants. With my husband needing distilled water for his CPAP humidifier, we have LOTS of these gallon/4L jugs. I had a few rings left over from last year, but a lot of them seem to have disappeared over the winter.
I had some of the tomato transplants in individual pots, and some in a large celled tray. There were three rows of four Chocolate Cherry, Black Cherry and Forme de Couer, and the remaining cells got San Marzano. Those ones are the strongest and healthiest San Marzano. The deep celled tray with just San Marzano ended up in the sun room too early – we needed the space – and has only a few sad tomatoes left.
The tomatoes in the tray were so big and bushy, it wasn’t until I was taking the Chocolate Cherry out (they were in the middle row, of course) that I saw one had died off. I completely forgot we’d lost one in that tray. So, we have 7 Chocolate Cherry tomatoes at the chain link fence, and an open space for something else.
Once transplanted, they each got a ring around them. This is to protect them from the wind for the first while, and from the cats that like to go under the netting. The netting was draped back over the blocks and will remain until the elm trees are done dropping their seeds. As the tomatoes grow, the chain link fence will be their trellis support.
There were 10 Forme de Coure tomatoes, so I decided they should go into the rectangular raised be in the old kitchen garden. This bed already has a soaker hose set up. There is garlic growing down the middle, though not very many. This bed got the last garlic cloves, so some of them were pretty small and did not survive the winter. The garlic will be ready to harvest before the tomatoes are fully mature, so they should be okay together.
These tomatoes got their protective rings around them, which are being held in place by pairs of bamboo stakes – the rings blow away if they’re not anchored – which will become their trellis supports as they the tomatoes grow.
Once those were in, I saw there was space enough to transplant some onions. Because I’ve got those started in repurposed mixed vegetable trays, it was quite easy to pop out onion starts in just one section and bring them over. I started with Red Wethersfield, because they were the largest, and I have the fewest in the trays. They were planted at each end of the bed and in between the tomatoes, with a few extras tucked in among the garlic. I think I got half the Red Wethersfield onions done.
There was room enough along the south side of the bed to add a row of the smaller shallots – planting a larger bulb onion might have been a bit too crowded. I didn’t try to plant some on the north side of the bed, as there wasn’t quite as much space, plus I figured they would end up getting shaded out by the tomatoes.
All that took about 3 hours or so. I decided to take a break, and will get back at it, later. The next bed I want to work on is the empty bed in the East yard, next to the peas, spinach and carrots. I will be putting the eggplant in there, and want to try something different to protect these heat loving plants. I will probably be planting the hot peppers with them.
After that, I have some space in the wattle weave bed. I think I’ll put the luffa next to the double lilac again; they did well there last year. Peppers did well there, too, but I might put the Black Cherry tomatoes there, instead. Some of the peppers can go into the high raised bed. The first of the trellis beds, however, is being saved for the melons, and I think the winter squash will be going into the two beds we are shifting, with our without their walls in place. The Crespo squash in particular really needs to be transplanted, but it needs a LOT of space. I might just make a whole new squash hill, just for them. Then there are the mulberry, which are way overdue for transplanting.
Much to do, that’s for sure! Tomorrow is going to be a write off for me, as I’m getting my field of vision test done, which includes pupil dilation. My vision is going to be messed up for quite a while, so I want to get back out there and get as much done today as possible.
The Re-Farmer 