Today, for the first time since we had produce we could harvest from the garden this summer, I collected nothing at all this morning.
Normally, I would have at least collected a few sunburst squash. With the cooler temperatures, though, the many little squashes out there are growing a lot more slowly. I like to pick them, and the zucchini, while they are still quite small, but not that small!
Amazingly, even though we dipped to almost freezing last night, one of the bottleneck gourds has started to bloom! This is one of the last ones that got transplanted. Of the tray of seed starts, a few germinated well after the others had already been transplanted, so I planted them, even though it was so late in the season.
I suppose I could have harvested some carrots and beets this morning, but they do better in the ground until we’re ready to use them. The potatoes are ready to be dug up, but it’s going to warm up a bit over the next few days, so I might wait a day or two.
I’m really hoping this little cool down is an aberration, and we’ll have a long, mild fall. If the pattern of that last couple of years continues, though, we should have a blizzard right around Thanksgiving in October! :-D
More and more of the sunflowers are opening up, and today I spotted one that’s different.
Most look like this.
Bright, sunny, mostly yellow with light oranges and greens around the developing seeds.
Then there was this one.
The camera actually lightened it up a bit. Compared to the others, this one looks almost black in the middle! Very dramatic.
This may be the first of the slightly shorter variety of giant sunflowers we first planted, so start opening its seed head. If so, I expect to see more. :-)
That first seed head that opened is getting pretty big! Quite a few more are starting to show yellow petals.
It’s nice to see more reaching this stage.
I have no convenient way to measure, but I’d guess the tallest ones are reaching the 8 foot range.
The heights are all over the place. Of the original seeds planted, they are among the tallest, of course, but some of them are still only in the 5-6 foot range – and then there are the ones that were shortened by deer! Among the variety that got planted later to fill in the gaps, some are just a couple of feet tall, while others are around 3-4 feet. That variety is supposed to reach about 6 ft, if I remember correctly. Hopefully, we’ve got enough of a growing season left for them to produce harvestable seed heads, but even if they don’t, they are good for the other reasons we planted them; as a privacy screen and a bit of a wind break.
Today was our day to head into the city for our monthly shop. We will be making another smaller trip, later in the month, but the big stuff is done. We normally would have done it a few days ago, but doing Costco on a weekend just didn’t appeal to us! :-D
So that took up the bulk of our day. Which made it one of those days were some plenty of stuff got accomplished, but it doesn’t feel like it, since much of the day was spent driving. :-D
While doing my rounds this evening, I was able to play with Butterscotch’s babies again. :-)
The orange babies were quite eager to play, while the calico and the orange and white kitten (which was sitting in the broken barrel planter at the time this picture was taken) looked like they were falling asleep where they sat!
Later, I headed over to check on the sunflowers. There are still only 2 seed heads that are opening, but there’s at least one that looks like it may start opening tomorrow.
Then I noticed something… different… about one of the sunflowers.
Very different.
It is covered with developing seed heads.
I started counting them. I got to 21, and I’m sure I missed some. Along with the several at the very top, every single leaf on the stalk has a seed head developing in the “elbow”. Some of them were absolutely minuscule, but they were there!
I looked at every other sunflower in the rows, and there are no others like this. All the other plants (that aren’t too deer damaged) are developing just one seed head. Which, for these giant varieties, is to be expected. This one plant is among the many that tower above my head now, so it is definitely one of the giants, and not an ornamental type that found its way into a seed packet.
It looks amazing! I really look forward to seeing how it progresses!
Speaking of progress, I made sure to check the pumpkins, too.
The first pumpkin to develop is growing nicely, but it was the the next plant that had me smiling.
The pumpkin plant in the middle mound has finally developed a pumpkin! I made sure to put something under it, so it won’t develop rot from the damp ground.
The third pumpkin mound had a surprise for me, too.
There’s a new baby pumpkin developing!
Our squash beds had one last surprise for me tonight, too.
That, my friends, is the tiniest of birdhouse gourds! :-D
There’s just one that has started developing. I can see no sign of gourds on the others, but they are all so small, I honestly wasn’t expecting any to develop at all.
It should be interesting to see if this one gourd will survive. Especially as we start to get some actually chilly overnight temperatures.
Before it got too dark, the girls helped me with one last thing outside. We moved my daughter’s tent, then moved the picnic table under it.
September is a month filled with birthdays and anniversaries, so we have decided to celebrate them all at once. On the long weekend – weather willing – we will set up by the fire pit and have…
Chinese food.
And birthday/anniversary cake.
And maybe roast some hot dogs over a fire, too. :-D
The tent has one solid wall that we will add to the far side to act as a bit of a wind break, since that is the direction the wind usually comes from. We also have screen walls, in case bugs are a problem.
If the weather isn’t co-operative, we now have the sun room and old kitchen cleaned out and organized, so we can move into there. The old kitchen is downright pleasant to sit in now, plus it’s close to the bathroom. More importantly, there are no stairs, so my mom can get in and out more easily than into the new part of the house. Plus, there is also a door we can keep closed, and keep the cats out! :-D
This is planned for almost 2 weeks from now, so we have plenty of time to make sure everything is clear and accessible for my mother.
Hopefully, it will all work out. A lot can happen in 2 weeks! :-D
It was on the same plant as the other mutant squash that I’m leaving to get big.
Such an adorable little mutant. :-D
There have not been as many squashes to pick lately, but there has been a surge of male flowers blooming right now – and the pollinators are just loving it. So I am expecting another burst of new squash before the season ends. :-)
Last night, a massive storm system passed over us. In parts of the province, there were tornado warnings.
Here, we had rain.
Finally.
It started to rain somewhere around 2am, and didn’t stop until about 7am, and we might still get more, later.
For all the watering of the gardens we’ve been trying to keep up on, it couldn’t match last night’s deep soak, and it really showed!
We now have several of the self-sown, tiny sunflowers under the platform bird feeder with seed heads opening up.
The pumpkins had been starting to bloom for a while, but I was only seeing the odd male blossom here and there. This morning, there was an explosion of flowers and new buds, and…
Our very first baby pumpkin.
This is on one of the first pumpkin plants that sprouted. I found a second one, on the mound that took so long to sprout one of the 5 seeds planted in it, that I had begun to think none would come up there.
We’ll keep an eye on them to see how many more begin to develop, then select one or two on each plant to keep growing. It’s still highly unlikely they will have a chance to fully ripen, but who knows; we might have a long and mild fall this year.
The big sunflowers have been pretty remarkable.
More and more seed heads are developing, which I would expect with these ones that are well above my head.
There are others that are quite a surprise.
This is one of the deer damaged sunflowers. You can see the dark spot in the middle, where the original top of the plant had been eaten off. Two branches have now developed into stems, and have their own tiny seed heads starting to develop among the new leaves.
Which is impressive, but this next one shows resilience at a whole new level!
You can see, lower down, where the original top had been eaten off. Of the two new stems that developed has also lost it’s top, and basically all the leaves have been eaten off – and yet there it is! A seed head, developing among the tiny cluster of new leaves.
While doing my rounds this morning, with my usual checking of the garden beds, I decided to try and harvest some of the beets.
Our poor, sad little beets.
I could tell that a deer had visited last night, as pretty much the last of the larger beet greens are gone. I had been looking at them while doing my rounds yesterday evening, thinking about how they were the only ones left, and now they’re gone, too!
Of the three varieties, the dark red Merlins have managed to survive the most, and have the biggest beets. This is the bed furthest from the spruce grove, and the one that had the last of its big leaves eaten last night.
The yellow Boldor variety seemed to be a favorite of the deer! As you can imagine, they aren’t very big. In fact, some of the ones I picked are so small, I’m not sure they’re even edible. I’m not sure, but I don’t think they have a developed flavour at that size. I’ve never tried to eat beets that small, so I really don’t know!
The Chioggia, which is supposed to have alternating rings of purple and white inside… I was able to pick only three of them.
It’s looking like most of the beets are a write-off.
But at least we’ve got lots of sunburst squash!
Yesterday, I was going to try cooking in the fire pit, and had prepared things in foil packets. It was way too windy, unfortunately, so I just baked the packets in the oven. With one of them, I’d cut sunburst squash, and all 3 kinds of zucchini, into similar sized chunks. After tossing them in olive oil and seasonings, I wrapped them in several layers of heavy duty aluminum foil, sealing them tight. After baking them for half an hour at 350F, I cut open the foil, added dollops of butter, then put them back into the oven until fork tender. They turned out very well! I think they would have turned out even better, cooked over a fire.
Among the things we’ve learned since moving here is, when we do set up a permanent outdoor cooking area, we will have to make sure there is shelter from the wind! It’s frustrating to have a wonderful day to cook outside, but not be able to do it safely because of the wind.
As for the beets, I’m not sure what to do with them. There are so few of them to work with!
It’s just towering above the others! I figure it’s getting close to 7 ft tall. :-)
There are a couple of others that are getting really tall, too. Like this one.
You can really see the huge seed head developing on this one – and it should get much, much bigger!
But… something’s wrong with another tall one. It’s head is gone?
Nope.
Just fallen over.
It looks like some sort of grub got in there.
This is actually above my head, so I am seeing it better now, in the photo, than I could while looking at the sunflower. The head is still alive, so I’m hoping it’ll survive. It’s the only one that has this.
While going through the squash and harvesting some – the sunburst squash is very prolific! – I spotted an odd looking squash and took a closer look.
This green, bulb shaped squash is a sunburst squash! It looks completely different from all the others on the plant.
I left it, and look forward to seeing how big it gets, and if the shape changes. :-)
The girls and I have been talking about what we want to plant next year, and sunburst squash is definitely staying on our list!
With yesterday’s rain, it wasn’t until today that the rain barrel set up by the squash beds was dry enough to try patching again.
The silicon sealant is white, and so is the Plasti Dip spray, so it’s hard to see! Especially after I spread the sealant into the cracks.
Hopefully, this will do the trick and there will be no more leaking. Though, to be honest, the amount that was leaking was so minor, I’m not too worried about it. It’ll just water the spruce tree it’s sitting next to! :-D
I’ll leave it to cure for at least 24 hours before refilling the barrel. Then we will see how well this worked. :-)
The Re-Farmer 