Today was a day of running around, starting in the afternoon. We had a dump run to do, and I had to wait until they opened. From there, it was a stop at the post office, then off to my mother’s to drop some Christmas stuff off, before I headed to the pharmacy to get more mineral oil. The girls cleaned the cats’ ears while I was out, using the last of our mineral oil to do it, and we have another 4 or 5 days of daily cleaning. Hopefully, that will take care of the ear mites!
I made sure to let my mother know I could pick stuff up for her since I was there anyhow, so she had a short list for me. I took care of that after I went to the pharmacy. Before leaving town, I messaged the family to see if we needed anything and ended up going back to the grocery store. By then, I was pretty famished, and there’s this excellent Chinese restaurant, right next door! So we had Chinese take out as a treat for supper.
The down side of all this running around is that it was already dark by the time I headed home. I hate driving at night. Yes, I have the deer screamers on the truck, but with the lights from oncoming traffic, it’s impossible to see if there are any deer on or near the road.
Once home. I was happy to go through the mail, as our Heritage Harvest seed order was in. It included a lovely surprise
I didn’t expect to get free seeds for such a small order! Of course, I had to look them up. This image is from the Heritage Harvest website.
This wonderful heirloom originates from Quebec. Forme de Coeur really impressed me this summer and it is now one of my new favorites! The red heart shape fruit are medium size and produced in abundance. The fruit have great taste and are quite meaty. A great all purpose tomato that is early as well. Determinate, regular leaf foliage. (65 days from transplant)
25 seeds per packet.
We were planning to plant only 2 varieties of tomatoes next year, but we might just have to try these! Especially since they have such a short growing season.
The main thing, though, is that the Red Wethersfield onion seeds are in. We now have all our onion and shallot seeds, which will be started indoors next month. 😊
Today, we placed our second seed order for next year’s garden. This time, from Heritage Harvest Seed. (All images belong to Heritage Harvest) They specialize in rare and endangered seeds and, more importantly for us, grow their own seeds and are in a zone 3 location that’s even further North than we are, so we can be quite confident that anything we get from them can grow in our short season.
Unless something else causes problems!
Which is why we are re-ordering two items that failed last year.
We grew these a couple of years ago and they were among the few things in that terrible growing year that did rather well, though they never had a chance to reach their full potential. Last year, we tried growing them in the block planters by the chain line fence, and the transplants just didn’t grow. Next year, we will have to be more selective on where we transplant them. We also had issues with starting them indoors that we did not have the year before, so we need to take that into consideration as well.
We tried these last year and, while the seeds germinated very well and we had plenty to transplant around our Roma VF tomatoes, they just… disappeared. The tomatoes also got blight, so I believe it was a soil problem in that bed. I really like the shape of these onions, and that they are supposed to be a good storage onion, so I want to try them again. As with the eggplant, we will need to give more consideration as to where to transplant them.
We are still looking for a preferred paste tomato. I keep reading how the San Marzano is supposed to be the best for sauces and canning. Honestly, all the excessive praise I have been seeing about them is one of the biggest reasons I hesitated to get them. However, I am willing to give them a try, and see if they live up to the hype.
When it comes to summer squash, we seem to have the best results with patty pans (aka: scallop squash). This is “An ancient summer squash that was a traditional food crop of the northeastern tribes for centuries.” I’ve actually been eyeballing this variety for a few years, and have decided to pick up some seeds for this coming year.
Not a large order at all, but we don’t need a lot of seeds this time around.
Must… resist… getting… more! 😂
There is one more Canadian company we will be ordering seeds from – and seed potatoes. I was just talking with one of my daughters, and there were several winter squash varieties in their catalog that caught her attention.
I have my suspicions as to why so few of the different winter squash, pumpkin and melon seeds we started indoors for 2023 germinated. I hope to be able to fix that this time around. Which means that for 2024, we’ll be once again shooting for a few plants of many varieties (I’ll be skipping the pumpkins this time, though) to see what works and which ones we like the best.
The main thing, though, was to get the last of our onion seeds ordered, since they need to be started indoors so much earlier than anything else! That goal is now accomplished.
Well, I’m quite happy with how our Thanksgiving dinner turned out yesterday. The main reason is, just about everything on our plate was from our garden!
Starting from the top, going clockwise:
Uzbek Golden and Naval carrots, steamed, then tossed with butter, salt and pepper, and a touch of brown sugar.
Red Thumb fingerling potatoes – these are most definitely a mashing potato! – with butter, cream cheese, mayo mashed in, seasons with dill, salt and pepper.
North Georgia Candy Roaster squash. The squash was quartered and the cavity was coated with a mixture of ghee, brown sugar, cinnamon, cloves and a touch of salt, and roasted with the spatchcocked turkey. If we’d done the turkey without spatchcocking it, we wouldn’t have had room for both! 😄
Finally, at the top left, is the quick pickle of both types of carrots, turnip, radish and garlic, spiced with whole cloves and whole cardamom seeds.
I look forward to a time when the meat is also from our own animals.
Unfortunately, I completely forgot to cover the peppers and eggplant yesterday evening. By the time I remembered, it was past midnight and we already reached freezing temperatures, though of course, none of my weather apps agreed. When my daughter and I went out with the covers, there was already frost just starting to glitter on the ground. It was chilly, but the stars were incredible! So many, and so very bright!
Heading out this morning, the frost was still heavy on the ground. At the last minute, I decided to take video for another garden tour. It will probably be the last one for the year. I’ll start putting that together in a bit, as I wait for things to warm up a bit more before going back outside. The forecasts for a milder October have all changed, though we’re still expected to get a few days at 10C/50F and above – though again, that depends on which app I’m looking at. It’s still nothing to complain about. After all, we could be having snow right now!
I phoned the vet clinic today and asked about the kitten we brought over last week because of it’s messed up eye, that promptly got adopted. He is doing fine! His eye was removed just a couple of days ago. While talking to the receptionist, she told me her daughter was playing with, as we were speaking.
That was really wonderful to hear!
I wonder if he will end up becoming a clinic cat? They had one before they moved to the new location, but I haven’t seen it since the move.
Next the concerning news.
I phoned the vet clinic today.
For the past while, we’ve been having issues with cats spraying around the house, but lately there have been massive problems with finding huge puddles of pee all over the place. Some regular spots included in front of the fridge, in front of the washing machine, in front of the main door, in front of the toilet, and under my older daughter’s bed.
It turns out to be Leyendecker. He’s not just spraying anymore. He seems to be losing bladder control, and he’s not happy about it!
We have an appointment for him on Saturday.
The last time he was there, it was because he was blocked and couldn’t pee at all. Now, he can’t stop peeing!
Poor bugger.
On a completely different note…
While going through the gardens beds this morning, I was thinking it’s time to pull the peas.
They’re about done their season, but mostly it’s because their tops are gone, and so are most of the developing pods. They never got very tall, but are now even shorter. My guess is a deer has simply been walking along the chain link fence, munching away. On both sides! There are still some pods developing, but I’ve been harvesting maybe 3 of 4 pods, at most, in the mornings and just snacking on them while I do my rounds.
When it comes to pulling the plants, though, they won’t actually be pulled, but cut. Peas are nitrogen fixers, but to take advantage of that while planting something else, it turns out the roots should be left in the ground.
One more reason I’m happy to have discovered the Gardening in Canada channel! I did not know that until recently.
Once those are clear, however, that leaves a long bed with room for something else.
In the second half of July.
We only have about 50 days before first frost.
Maybe. For the past couple of years, we didn’t get a first frost until much, much later. Based on those years, we may actually have another 4-4 1/2 months of growing season left.
Or we can get frost in July or August. It happens. That’s the problem when working with averages. The real world doesn’t know what those are! 😄
There are actually quite a few options available.
Among the usual recommendations are some we just won’t bother with. Arugula, for example, is something we just don’t eat, so we don’t even have the seeds. Radishes are another one, and we do have seeds, but they are something I want to grow for the pods to try, so they need a full season. None of us are actually keen on eating radish bulbs.
Among the greens we could plant, and have seeds for, spinach is something we enjoy. We haven’t done well with lettuces, as I found they got bitter even before they bolted. We also still have Swiss Chard seeds if we want a different green.
Bok Choy is a recommended crop, but the only seeds I had were the tiny ones that got smothered by the Chinese elm seeds. The few surviving ones are going to seed and pods are developing, so I’m hoping to save seed and try them again next year. Somewhere else!
Some varieties of carrots can be started now, as they handle frost well and can be left in the soil in the winter, if covered well enough. We already have 2 types of carrots, and I don’t want to start more now.
Summer squash is supposed to be something that can still be sown now, since they get harvested while small. I’ve already reseeded summer squash three times with poor success, so that’s out. They would be too big for the space, anyhow.
It’s the same issue with planting bush beans. We could use more beans, but we’ve got the onions planted where the Czech lettuce and tiny bok choy were choked out. Bush beans would cover them completely.
We could try more turnips and/or beets. The beets we planted earlier are really struggling. Perhaps they would do better in this bed. The Gold Ball turnips are growing, but I do have some leftover seed from varieties we tried last year, too.
We could actually plant the Dalvay peas again. We certainly have enough seeds, but I’m not interested in feeding the deer even more, as much as I would love to have a real pea crop to harvest!
Hhhmm. I think it will come down to either beets or spinach. Considering the length of the bed, and how the chain link fence posts conveniently divide it into three equal sections, we could do smaller rows of three different things, and still get decent potential quantities.
Whatever we decide on, we’ll be making sure to work in the early morning hours over the next week or more. We’re looking at temperatures at, or over, 30C/86F to deal with, and the hottest part of the day it typically around 4 or 5pm, and it stays hot until 8 or 9pm. As I write this, it’s almost 6:30pm, and we’ve been at our high of 27C/81F for a couple of hours already. It’s not going to drop to comfortable temperatures until almost midnight. Looking at the long range forecast, we’ll be getting temperatures just below 30C/86F for the rest of the month.
Which makes it weird to think about what cool weather/frost hardy crops we can plant right now!
They’re still on the bottom of that old and rotting barrel. As I write this, it’s raining, and I’m afraid rain is getting through the opening the mama is jumping in and out of, and they’re right under it. Where the barrel is is very sheltered, though, so not a lot of rain is reaching the barrel to begin with.
I hope!
I’ve cleared out a corner of the sun room, then used boxes and cat blankets to create a nest, with other stuff placed around it to make it even more cave-like. What I’m hoping to do is get the kittens out of the barrel and move them to the nest. Hopefully, the mama will accept the offering and leave them there. We can even put other things around it to make it more private, so she won’t be disturbed as we go in and out of the sun room.
But that is a job I can’t do without someone more spry and agile to get at the kittens. We can reach to move the boards out and then maybe tip the barrel over, very carefully. It might just fall completely apart once we start moving it.
Is it worth trying? What do you think?
Anyhow…
This morning, the girls were out before I was and took care of feeding the outside cats, then put together two more frames for the raised beds for me. The third one wasn’t done because somehow we missed drilling pilot holes at one end of the 3′ pieces, and they didn’t want to be making noise with the drill while my husband and I were trying to sleep!
I headed out early to go to my mothers, stopping for the mail, then pick up lunch. I went to the Chinese restaurant right next to her place and got myself a full meal, but just onion rings for her. Now that she’s been convinced they are using cat meat and refuses to even consider she might be wrong on that, onion rings are the only thing she’s willing to eat from there! Her loss. The food was delicious, as always.
Before we left, my mother said she had a letter to mail, but she didn’t want to mail it at the local post office. As we were going to get her new glasses, she started talking about the $45 she put in an envelope to pay, but wasn’t sure what she had paid for. I explained to her (again) that it was for her eye test, because it wasn’t completely covered by our province’s Medicare. She said something about the cost of her glasses, as she had written a check for half the cost and I said no, it was just for her eye test, not at all for her glasses. She then commented on not having any receipts, and I reminded her she got two receipts; one for the glasses, one for the eye tests. I had folded up the receipts and put them in the envelope she’d had the cash for the test in. I’d even made sure to show them to her once at home, them back, telling her to put them with her other tax receipts.
She didn’t remember that, and doesn’t know where that envelop is, anymore, but also had no interest in looking. Hhmm.
So, off we went to the town her glasses were in, which is about half way to the city from where she lives. Along with going to the post office, she talked about wanting to go to a grocery store, too. Once at the eye place, my mother got excellent care as they made sure everything was just right.
Then she started asking about the $45, and what was that for?
*sigh*
I’m not sure why my mother didn’t believe me, or what she thought that cash paid for. The lady patiently explained exactly what it was for; it turns out there is just one specific test she had that is not covered. Honestly, I’m still not sure she accepted the explanation.
She was happy with the glasses, though. After getting them to fit just right, she was told to start wearing them tomorrow, when she first gets up, rather than try and get used to a new prescription part way through the day. Since she already uses a walker, there’s a higher risk of falling if she gets dizzy or has depth perception issues.
When it was time to pay, the lady wrote the check out for my mother to sign, and my mother started talking as if they weren’t going to give her a receipt, but she would like one. She was assured they would give her a receipt. Then we made sure she saw the printout, and that it went into the bag with her glasses.
While we were chatting, my mother asked where the post office was, as she couldn’t remember. We got excellent directions. Once we were done, though, she wanted to go to the grocery store, first, since it was so close. As we parked, we saw a Canada Post sign on a pharmacy that shared the parking lot, so we tried going there first. Turns out they just had a postal box, and my mother refuses to use postal boxes anymore. The one outside the post office in her town was stolen, several years ago, so now she things if she puts mail in a post box, it will get stolen.
I didn’t mind stopping at the post office, though, because I was out of antihistamines, and I’m allergic to something out there!
Then it was time to go to the grocery store, but suddenly my mother didn’t actually want to buy anything there, though she did look through the bakery section. Their bakery section is one of the things she looks forward to in that store, as they carry types of bread she can’t get locally. In the end, I did some of my own shopping while she rested in her walker, but as I quickly went around for things on my list, I found her checking out the meat department! 😄 So she did get one thing – just not the thing she came to the store for! I paid for it with my own stuff, so she wouldn’t have to stand in line.
Next, it was off to the post office. She remembered what the building looked like, but the post office hasn’t been in that building for many years. I don’t know what the building is now, but it’s unique enough that it frequently gets used in movies. There have been a few times I’ve come to this town in the summer, and had to drive around blocks closed off and decorated with fake snow and Christmas trees, because another Hallmark movie was being filmed. Even explaining this as we drove past the original building, when we next drove by the old town hall, with similar architecture, she was telling me that was the post office!
I’m glad we got such excellent instructions, because the real post office turned out to be hidden in a strip mall breezeway! So well hidden, after I parked the car, I walked over to see, and discovered the doors where hidden by post boxes. 😄
When I went back for the envelope my mother wanted to mail, I got very specific instructions. My mother has sent mail to Poland (months ago, though she makes it sound like yesterday) that didn’t arrive. When mailing another letter to Poland, the lady behind the counter thought it was to Ukraine, apparently. I honestly don’t see how that could be, but that’s what my mother tells me. She also writes “Polska” on the address, rather than the English “Poland”, and the lady asked what that was.
So now my mother is convinced that the lady at the local post office just throws away her letters. Or that they are being stolen. Or that no one at the post office understand that Polska means Poland.
My instructions were to make sure they knew this was going to Poland, and whether she should write Poland in English rather than Polish.
When I got to the counter, I explained my questions. The lady at the counter even double checked to make sure if having Polska on there was fine, and was assured it was. In the end, I think the questions I made on behalf of my mother made her day!
My mother didn’t even need postage. All that, because she refuses to drop a letter into a postal box!
She was happy with the responses I got, though. But now I’m wondering, what is she going to do the next time she has to mail a letter to Poland?
That was the last of her errands, though, so we made the drive home. I didn’t even get guilted about staying longer after I helped her in. The folks from the seniors centre had some sort of coffe night in the lobby, and it was still going. My mother was happy to kick me out and be able to catch the end of it. 😂
Which is was fine by me – I didn’t have any insulated bags in the car, so I needed to get my few groceries home! I did stop at the hardware store first, though. I wanted to look for the coupling I needed to repair the pipe to the garden tap.
Turns out, the smallest size they had was for a 1 1/4″ pipe. The pipe I need to repair is 1″.
*sigh*
I was really hoping to avoid ordering it online.
Ah, well. Once I got home, I did exactly that. It comes in a 2 pack, so we’ll even have a spare.
That done, I headed outside. After setting up the kitten nest in the sun room, I did a bit of garden tending, then dragged the roll of fence wire over to where the frames were.
I had thought the wire was 4″ squares, but I was wrong. Once I started unrolling it, I could see it was several sizes. All the squares are 6″ long, but there are rows of 5″, 4″ and 3″ spaces.
The roll itself is just over 3″ wide. I decided for the first frame, I would try 5′ long pieces. Three of them will fit along the inside of the frame, with a bit of overlap. Bolt cutters made cutting the wire an easy thing, and I used pliers to bend the cut ends back. Being rolled up for so long, the pieces all have a curve we can take advantage of when attaching them to the sides of the frame.
I didn’t get that far, though. It started to rain while I was working on the last section, so I just put things away to finish tomorrow. Once I see how it looks with 5′ of fence wire, I’ll decide if the next one will get longer or shorter pieces.
For these ones, I plan to cover the fence wire with the black netting we used to protect beds last year, making sure to close up the ends in the process. The cats like to go into the garden beds and just lay on top of my vegetables, so this will at least keep them out! In the future, we’ll have to make a cover sized for the bed the Irish Cobbler potatoes are in right now. I never thought those would need covering! The other potatoes are fine, but the critters seem to really like that one bed! I keep finding kittens in there, but something bigger has been flattening the potato plants. So far, they have been able to recover okay, but there’s only so much abuse they can take! It’s too late to do anything about it this year, but we’ll have to keep that in mind when using the bed next year.
Funny how every year of gardening, I spend much of my time thinking about the next year’s garden! Everything we learn this year will make for a better garden next year.
Today, after many, many delays, we finally got some progress on those raised bed covers we need to build!
My daughter and I set up the folding table we made using the legs we found when cleaning up the new basement, and a section of 3/4 plywood found in the pump shack. The hard part was finding level enough ground for it, and still be close to the outside outlet. We ended up putting it almost against the house, and that’s where we set up the miter saw. Then we moved the swing bench that’s been sitting on the sidewalk block patio under the kitchen window for the past while, so we could set up the table saw close enough to plug it in without an extension cord.
The first thing we tried to do was cut the 12ft long 1″x4″ boards in half, lengthwise. My daughter, sweetheart that she is, found where the saw blade could be adjusted up and down. My husband and I had tried everything to raise that blade and finally concluded it couldn’t be raised. Turns out, it was just badly rusted and that’s why it wasn’t moving. !! I wonder how many years it sat in that shed before I found it?
The first two boards we cut in half did not go well! My daughter was feeding the board from one side while I supported it from the other, but it just did not want to stay against the guide. We ended up with some wobbly cuts! So we cut the others shorter first, then cut them in half. We measured the beds first to confirm the dimensions. The side boards total 9′ long, but then there’s the width of the end boards; I forgot I’d attached those to the ends of the side boards, and not to the insides. That made the beds 9′ 2″ long. The end boards were 3′ 1/4″ long.
So we will be cutting 9′ and 3′ for the cover frames.
The boards were exactly 12′ and 1/4″ long, so we just measured off the 9′ and cut it. The cuts take off a fraction of an inch, so the remaining sections should be almost exactly the right length for the short ends.
It was much, much easier to cut the shorter lengths in half on the table saw!
All the pieces are now cut. The 3′ lengths are in the front, then the 9′ lengths. In the back is one of the two first 12′ boards we cut in half, with the wonky cuts. The other one was used to cut more 3′ lengths, since being a bit wonky won’t be an issue for some parts of the build.
There is also one board at the top of the photo that was set aside because it has damage on it in two places. We will still be able to use the undamaged parts at some point.
As for the plans, I sketched what I had in mind out for my daughter.
We will be building four 9’x3′ frames, but two of them will be used in one cover. The Tom Thumb corn is going to need taller protection from deer, so two frames will be joined by 3′ vertical supports. One more support will be added across the top in the middle, to keep it from bowing outwards. I also plan to add screw eyes inside the middles and tie a cord across, to keep the sides from bowing out. A cord that close to ground level will be less in the way of growing plants.
At this point, we could just put a net around it, though if we wanted this over a bed with taller plants in it, we could potentially add hoops to the top for extra height.
That box frame is the one we need to get done first, as the corn is most at risk for getting eaten. Between the deer and the racoons, it’s going to become an issue in the near future! If we want to keep racoons out, though, we’ll have to use hardware cloth and find a way to secure the cover to the frame, so they don’t just knock it off.
The other two frames will have rounded tops. We have some wire fencing with 4″ squares that I plan to use with one of them, making a slightly higher cover. The fence wire can then support things like netting, plastic or shade cloth, as needed.
With the other, I was thinking of using the hoops that are currently still over the carrot bed, but… now that I’m looking at the plans, I realized we have enough of that wire fencing to use on both frames. We could make them different heights, for different needs. A shorter one, for example, would be handy for shorter produce, or to create a mini greenhouse over newly sown beds. A taller one would be great for plants that grow higher, but not high enough to need that box cover we’ll be putting over the corn.
As we build more high raised beds, the plan is to stick to the 9’x3′ size, so that these covers can be used interchangeably on any of them. We’re doing three covers for now. One of them should be useable on the high raised bed we have now, which currently has hoops to protect the beans from the deer. The box bed with the red onions does not really need a cover, except maybe to keep the cats from lying in it, or the birds from digging in the mulch. Over time, we plan to build enough covers for all the raised beds we make.
As for cutting the pieces, I was really happy. We will definitely need to get a new table saw, as this one was having issues. It will do for now, though. What I was really excited about was the miter saw. I bought it at a garage sale, and this is the first time we’ve tried to use it. Of course, it didn’t come with an instruction manual! Which is fine. It’s easy enough to figure out.
Up until now, I’ve been using a hand saw to make cross cuts. No matter how careful I am, I always end up making crooked cuts, and there are always those little bits of wood that break before the saw can cut them that need to be sanded. So excited to get beautiful clean cuts! Plus, the speed of it was fabulous!
Once the cutting was done, I realized we would not have enough screws to assemble them all, so we decided to go into town and get more. The table and miter saws got put back into the sun room, and the cut pieces went onto the table we used for the miter saw. We were getting hints of rain, and we didn’t want to take a chance. It’s a good thing we did, because there was a downpour while we were out!
When we got to the hardware store, we drove around the block a couple of times but could find no parking, so my daughter offered to buy us lunch! By the time we were done, things were no longer so busy, and I was able to park and run in.
Before we left home, I took a pair of calipers to the water pipe leading from the house to the garden that needs to be repaired. It’s a 1 inch pipe. After finding the screws we needed at the hardware store, I went looking for a flexible PVC coupling with metal clamps. The smallest size they had was 1 3/4″. That would leave too big of a gap for the clamps to be able to seal it on a 1 inch pipe. I talked to an employee, and showed her the picture I took of the calipers on the water pipe, which also showed the crack in the pipe very clearly. She tried to find something else that would work, but there wasn’t anything they had. In the end, she recommended I talk to a plumber.
What I will most likely do is go to the hardware store in my mother’s town, which is where I first had the flexible coupling recommended as a possible fix. They are a bigger store with a larger plumbing section, and may have a smaller size coupling in stock. If worse comes to worse, we can order them online. In fact, I’ve already found some sized specifically to fit on 1″ pipe.
As you can tell, I’m really hoping to avoid having to dig up and replace the entire length of pipe!
By the time we got home, the downpour my other daughter told us about was done! I don’t know if it’ll be dry enough for us to start assembling the first cover today. We’re supposed to get more rain, too.
This is where I really wish the storage shed wasn’t full of my parents’ stuff, that my mother insists we keep and is constantly afraid someone might come in and steal. As if anyone would be interested in the bags and bags of their old clothes, boxes and boxes of household stuff, or their old furniture. My late brother had used that building as a workshop, but that was more than 10 years ago. We never had a chance to even see what all was still in there, as my brother and his wife had already started moving my parent’s things into there before we moved in, and it was being used as storage for other things even before then.
So we make do with working outside, when the weather allows!
Well, this project has been delayed repeated for about a month now. One more day won’t hurt, if it comes to that!
With last night’s storm, I was happy to see the tree my brother cut down that got hung up on other trees had fallen closer to the ground. It’s not going to drop any further, though. It’s now hung up between the trunks of a group of trees. We can, at least, reach most of it better, though, so we’ll be able to work on it eventually.
With today’s slightly cooler weather and a nice, clear day, I started working on getting those dead spruce trees my brother cut down for me, out of the bushes.
I took photos and will eventually put it all together in a video but, for now, this is what I managed to get done today.
Gosh. That doesn’t look like much, now that it’s done! 😄 It did, however, take a LOT of prep work before these logs could finally be dragged over.
The two trees that were on the ground were almost completely hidden by underbrush. I used the weed trimmer to clear a path to them first, then did a bit around the trees themselves. There were too many hidden branches, though, so I had to shift gears.
The top of the first tree extended a lot more than I thought it did. I used the little mini-chainsaw pruner to clear the branches, then remove the most crooked section of the top, before working my way down the trunk. I had the wagon nearby to put the branches in, and made a few trips to the branch pile near the fire pit, cleaning up as I went along.
Once I got it clear enough, I was able to pull the entire trunk out from under the stuck tree, then continue removing a few more branch stubs. Next, I measured 18 feet from the thick end of the trunk, and used the electric chain saw to cut it. I used a rope to drag the top part through the trees and into the garden, which was harder than it should have been. I neglected to roll it over and check it, first. There turned out to be a stub of a broken branch at the end, acting like an anchor!
Needless to say, I made sure to check the 18′ piece before I dragged that away, too!
The top of the tree is around 16-17′ long. Too short and thin to make the long walls of the beds, but it will do nicely, cut into 4′ lengths, to create the end walls.
The other tree that was flat on the ground was looking very crooked – spruces tend to be like that at their tops – and I thought it was shorter than the first one. As I cleared more dead branches and tried pulling it out from under the stuck tree trunk, I realized it was a lot longer, and thicker! In fact, when I finished clearing the branches and measured out 18′ from the end, I was still at the far side of the stuck tree! It was simply too big to pull out first, like I could with the first tree.
The top was moved first. I hadn’t bothered to measure it, since I figured it would be too short, but when I dragged it between the posts that are 18′ apart, it almost reached, end to end! The thinner top, though is still pretty crooked, so it will likely not be used as a side wall.
Then it was time to drag out the rest of it. I rolled it around to cut away any branch stubs that might cause problems, but the trunk was quite a bit larger and heavier, and getting caught on things. While I was working, I was constantly finding very old and rotting branches and pieces of tree trunks hidden in the undergrowth, that have clearly been there for many years. They made for a rough surface to drag on. I ended up tying a plastic bag around the end of the trunk, to reduce friction. It helped a lot but, by then, I was getting pretty hot and tired, so I got a daughter to pause making supper to come help me drag it out.
While working on this tree trunk, I found the fourth tree my brother had cut down. It is another big one, and he felled it in the opposite direction. It’s almost completely hidden, not just by undergrown, but other trees, and I’m honestly not sure how I’m going to get at it.
As for the tree that’s stuck, that one is even bigger. This is one that’s going to have the thickest 10′ cut off and taken to where we plan to build the shelter for the outdoor kitchen we plan to build. These trunks are far too thick to use for raised beds, as they would take up a lot of growing space. Rather than cut them in half or something, we will instead use them as vertical supports for the shelter.
But I was not about to work on either of those logs, today.
I started to put things away, but I really wasn’t happy with having done only two trees. Especially when there were other thinner dead trees, right there.
Yup. I ended up cutting down another tree.
Gosh, that thing felt so light, after fighting with the big one! Even though I used a hinge cut, it still fell off to one side and got a bit hung up on other trees. It was easy to get loose. I just put the rope around the trunk near the stump and pulled it until it fell the rest of the way. It also fell across the stuck tree, which made it much easier to work around.
Then it was just a matter of clearing a few branches – there weren’t very many at the bottom half – measuring out and cutting 18′ and dragging it out.
The top of the tree is resting on top of undergrowth, and I left it there for now. I am not sure how much of it will be useable. It won’t be useable for the walls on the raised bed, but it might be useful in other ways.
I’m still going to have to cut down one more smaller tree for this bed. There’s one that looks like it’s similar in girth as the log with the plastic bag on the end. I’m planning to make these beds 2 logs high, but I want the bottom logs to be the bigger, thicker ones.
This time I have the draw knife, so I want to de-bark the logs and cut away any remaining branch nubs, lumps and bumps. I didn’t do that for the high raised bed, and I can see that it would be much better to do it than not.
I want to get at least one bed built, with the vertical trellis supports in place, before cutting down more trees for the second one. Ideally, I’d put in the vertical supports for both beds, along with the horizontal supports to make a trellis tunnel, right from the start, but we’re going to have to work on things piecemeal for now. Plus, we will be building at least one, probably two, more of these, so this one is the learning experience!
I’m happy with the progress, and I’m paying for it now, but I’m actually not having as much trouble as I’ve had in the past. Of course, tomorrow might prove me wrong, but it seems my body is finally starting to handle things better. Yes, I’m stiff, my left knee tried to make an escape, and a thigh tried to go into a conniption fit, but I’ve certainly had far worse pain, stiffness and joint instability after far less work.
It just feels so good to finally be able to work on this!
We’ve got high winds today, with an expected high of 29C/84F. I wanted to get the transplants out, though.
With the wind direction, I was able to use the picnic table under the old market tent by the fire pit. They won’t get full sun, but with the expected heat, that’s quite all right. They will still get some wind, which is good for them, but not enough to send them flying across the yard.
The next while is expected to continue with high temperatures, with high winds and a possible thunderstorm tomorrow, though only one of my weather apps is predicting that. Overnight temperatures are also expected to be quite warm.
I decided today was a day to do some direct sowing, while also raking up some of the grass clippings to lay down some much needed mulch. If we’re going to be getting thunderstorms, I want the soil protected as much as possible. If we don’t get the thunderstorms, I want the soil well mulched to keep it moist, and from getting too hot!
I set up the extra phone to take time lapse video, so that will be put together for another post. With the peas, I planted the free Hedou Tiny bok choy from Bakers Creek and Jebousek lettuce I got for free from Heritage Harvest. As the peas grow up the chain link fence, they will shade and shelter the lettuce and bok choy. Then I prepped and planted the Tom Thumb popcorn.
I don’t know if I’ll have the energy to get back out there again today, but I’d really like to transplant the Black Beauty and Indigo Blue Chocolate tomatoes. They are getting quite large, and I’d rather transplant them than pot them up again. That and it would mean a fewer trays to take in and out every day! As it is, there were some Spoon tomatoes that didn’t make it, and removing the pots meant I could combine 3 trays into 2, with some judicious rearranging. When I transplant the bigger tomatoes, I want to transplant some of the onions in with them, too. The Black Beauty tomatoes are determinate, but the Indigo Blue Chocolate are indeterminate, so I need to consider the different types of support they will need. I also need to resist transplanting all of them, if I start running out of space. We had very good germination rates and few losses, and it’s the paste tomatoes that I want to have a lot of. I can always give away the extras! It’s the same for the remaining peppers. We have a 100% germination rate on all but one variety, and of that one variety, there’s only one peat pellet didn’t germinate – and I only planted one seed per pellet!
With the way things are looking, we may have to start doing outside work in the morning and late evening. The hottest part of the day tends to be around 3pm, but stays hot until about 6 or 7.
In my youth, I wasn’t bothered by the heat the way I am now. Makes it harder to get things done!
Today has been a nice, cool day, but very windy, with smatterings of rain. So windy, we didn’t dare set the transplants outside. They’re hardened off by now, so they should be fine. I just don’t want to have tomatoes blown half way across the yard!
So we did what we could, and the wind actually helped by keeping us mosquito free. I even had both daughters able to come help me at the same time! My older daughter normally sleeps during the day, but she couldn’t sleep. A night working on the computer left her more than happy to do physical labour outside, no matter how tired she was!
Thanks to the extra help, we got all three beds done in short order!
That black plastic had been on the bed in the foreground for a week or two, but the weeds underneath were too established to be killed off in that length of time. I moved it to the first bed that was complete – only one end is uncovered, because we found a couple of onions while weeding it, and they got transplanted at the end near the grow bags.
I just realized something. I think I forgot my gloves on the high raised bed, after taking this picture. 😆
The bed in the foreground was easily the worst for weeds, but all of these beds are so much better than when we first started gardening in this area! Every year is a little bit better. Once we’ve got the high raised beds set up, we’ll be sure to set aside the soil we’ve been working so hard on, and using it to top up the high beds.
That won’t happen until the fall, though. Until then, we’ll be collecting the materials and getting them ready, so that once things are harvested, we’ll be able to get right at it.
The next priority is to build the new beds and trellis tunnel – though if we just build beds with trellises, and turn them into tunnels later, that will be a good start! These will be permanent trellises, so I don’t mind taking extra time to make sure they are solidly built, but also, we need something to plant in. We have so many transplants and seeds, but not enough prepared beds for them.
In other things, I got a response to my email to the vet about Judgement. They don’t do “walk ins”, but if we can catch him and call them, they will find a way to get an available vet to see him. So, of course, there’s no sign of Judgement, today! *sigh* With not being able to put any weight on that foot, he is very vulnerable right now.
It’s so bright out right now, I didn’t realize it’s past 9pm, and I haven’t done a blog post yet!
I’m tired.
A good tired!
I finally got the chainsaw out and cut down trees that will be used to build our trellis tunnel.
I started out doing some clean up, first. Several of the apple trees that were discovered when I first cleared this area were dead or partly dead. I cut away the dead parts, which left only a couple of spindly trees.
Then I dropped a poplar on one of them!
It wasn’t supposed to work out that way. The tree was actually falling exactly where I meant it to. Then some branches got hung up on another poplar, which just kept bending and bending until the tree I cut down rolled off, directly on top of the apple tree!
I can’t say it’s a loss, though. As far as I know, these trees have never produced fruit, because of where they are. My mother says she planted them, but they were whatever crab apple seedling she found, so it’s unlikely any fruit they produced would even be edible. My mother had no understanding of how apples need to be grafted, not grown from seed, until I explained it to her. To her, it was all about them being “free”. I know my dad grafted apple trees but most of those died, and only the suckers remain.
Anyhow.
Cleaning things up opened the space to get at the trees I was after. Some of them could only fall in one direction – onto the fence! The fence is already breaking apart, so I wasn’t too worried. It actually handled having trees drop on it several times, surprisingly well! The power line that runs from the garage to the outlet on a fence post I was using had a lot of slack, so there was no risk to it.
A couple of the trees that fell over the fence had to have their trunks cut into two shorter pieces so I could get them free of the fence. I made sure to cut them in such a way that the straightest parts of the trunk were still at a useable length for both. Altogether, I’ve now got about a dozen logs, most of which are long enough that I can get at least a couple of lengths for vertical supports out of them.
While cutting down select poplars, I was also able to finally cut up and removed a dead, rotten tree that had fallen three years ago. I needed to clear it to access the last tree I wanted to cut down. While it was too rotten to be useable for building something, it was still solid enough that the wood can be used as fire pit fuel. 🔥🌭 I was even able to remove some of the little stumps I’d left all over the place, waiting until I had the tools to cut them to ground level. I kept them high, so that they could be seen and avoided, though I still found myself almost tripping over some of the shorter ones!
It was 24C/75F when I finally had to stop – and we were still expected to get warmer! The next step for the logs will be to cut them to length for the vertical supports on the trellis tunnel, then drag them over to where the tunnel will be built. We also need to cut down some of the thinner dead spruce trees, which will be used to form mid-height raised beds at the bases of the trellis tunnel. Once we have the materials, hopefully the build will go quickly.
I gotta tell ya, by the time I was dragging that last tree over to the pile, then cleaning up, I was moving real slow! I was certainly glad I remembered to bring a water bottle out with me. Getting dehydrated in this heat would not have been good.
Tomorrow is supposed to be a cooler day, but we’re also supposed to get some rain, so we’ll see how much I’ll be able to get done while using an electric chain saw.
In other things, the transplanted squash and gourds seem to be handling their transition well. Even the Sweet Chocolate peppers are showing no signs of transplant shock at all! That’s quite encouraging. If the weather holds, I might start transplanting out the biggest, oldest tomatoes. The beds they’ll be going into still need preparation, though, so we’ll see. Ultimately, it all depends on the weather.
I think some pain killers and an early bed time are in order, now!
The Re-Farmer 